rather, was likely to increase and become too powerful for them, unless means could be devised for satisfying the minds of their once patient votaries, or diverting them by some excitement less perilous than the comparing creeds with Scripture, or discussing questions of ecclesiastical finance. The liberality of British legislation had left but one available topic by which this diversion could be effected; but it was the topic of most power-" Repeal."

Repeal of the legislative union. holds out such promises to the Roman Catholics of Ireland, that nothing was wanting to render it the most stimulating of all topics, except a hope that the efforts to effect it might be successful. Such hopelessness, however, rested upon the thought of it, that, in the judgment of all parties, the conceit of the schoolmen of old, the "chimæra bombinans in vacuo," was long regarded as the fitting type and representative of the "repeal agitation." To imagine it successful was to imagine the power of Great Britain utterly overthrown-a consummation which it was thought impossible for the hearts of the loyal or even the disaffected to conceive. Ridicule, therefore, and the imputation of dishonest and sordid purposes to the leaders of the repeal party were commonly the arguments employed against their project. A great change, however, has taken place. The legislature and government of Great Britain strongly declaring against the schemes of the repealers, have abstained from employing against them measures of coercion. The abstinence has been interpreted, most probably misinterpreted, as a symptom of embarrassment or fear; hope has been let in upon the enterprises of the repealers; the scanty rill of agitation has swelled into a flood. "The twig at which thou layest down to rest has become, while thou hast slept, a tree." The repeal treasury has begun to count by thousands, and its hosts (but this is indeed less surprising) by hundreds of thousands.

It does not of necessity follow that the policy of ministers, although its immediate results have been thus threatening, may not ultimately prove successful. To indulge the agitators with liberty large enough for the employment of all the agencies on which they profess to rely, and to

teach them by bitter experience that all must be ineffectual, seems to be the lesson which ministers design for Mr. O'Connell or his followers. The lesson may possibly prove instructive. If men are taught to associate the project of repeal with weariness, and want, and disappointment-with idle promises, which of themselves fall to decay they may be more thoroughly dispossessed of the bad spirit, the passion for change, than they could be by processes more violent and compendious. If public meetings or processions to show the strength of repealers are prohibited by law, the prime agitators are furnished with a new topic for agitation, in the oppressive statutes which have abridged their constitutional privileges in order to defeat their prospering exertions. If the law refuse to interfere, and repeal demonstrations and repeal exactions tire out the patience of a long misguided people, the leaders are convicted of being false prophets, their scheme is proved im practicable, by having failed when tried under all imaginable advantages, the British constitution has had a new testimony to its excellence in the escaped perils through which it has indulged multitudes of disaffected men to labour for the dismemberment of the empire, and the constitutional minister, Sir Robert Peel, justly obtains the highest prize that can be won by fortitude and sagacity-a consummation, in all its parts, "devoutly to be wished for."

But may it rationally be hoped for ?

"That is the question."

The repealers express a confident assurance of success: if they are sincere, disaffection has never been excited by prospects more brilliant and stimulating than theirs. For the mass of the people there is a promise of ease and abundance; for those who cherish traditions of ancestral rank and possessions, days of triumph and splendour; for the priesthood, gorgeous visions of unbounded wealth, undivided empire, accomplishment of the schemes of ecclesiastical ambition, satisfaction of the needs of ecclesiastical hatred, England abased, the Roman Catholics of Ireland at their command, the estates of Protestants at their disposal, the persons of Protestants at their mercy-so dazzling are the prizes for the armies of repeal

when their travail has been successfully ended! Such prizes may influence aspirants to suffer long; and when they are told that success is to be won through the privations and endurances of a protracted struggle, in which the agencies of peace-toils, and submissions, and self-denial_shall be made of more worth than military virtues and pitched battles, they may be influenced to give proofs of a patience which shall disappoint the calculations of the most astute statesmen who judge of the times in which they live without the benefit of an apt precedent in any written history. One thing is certain: in that career of peaceful hardihood through which the repealers are instructed that they must march onward to success, they will be soothed and encouraged by the voices and caresses of daughters, mothers, wives: domestic affection will unite with public opinion, and with confidence in their leaders to preserve them within paths which they will be taught to think not the less honourable for being safe.

If the repeal multitudes can be influenced to abide in these paths, and, amidst their labours, and privations, and hopes deferred, not to lose confidence in their cause or their leaders, the policy of government, so far from thwarting, will promote, the purposes of the disaffected. The government appear desirous to prevent a civil war ; for the present Mr. O'Connell's desire is similar: he has exerted himself much to prevent his followers from provoking their ruin by breaking out into insurrection-the policy which has garrisoned Ireland with a strong military force, supplies to him his strongest arguments: while the law permits his threatening demonstrations, and the army compels his multitudes to keep the peace, his labours are lightened his office as peace-preserver is almost a sinecure; and he need concern himself only in keeping alive the hopes of the repealers, and in administering the rent.

Thus far, it would seem, the policy of the repealers has been successful. They proposed to advance the interests of their cause by demonstrations in the open air, at which vast multitudes of men should assist (without

committing a breach of the peace) in every part of Ireland. They are left free to hold these meetings, and are assisted in keeping the peace at them by the presence of military corps of observation. The prohibition of which Protestants complain enhances the indulgence continued to the repealers. We do not say that the case of the commemorations dear to Protestants was the same with that of the repeal meetings and processions; but there is one point in which the two cases meet, and this the point of view in which law ought to regard them,they are alike unsuited to a state of society like that of Ireland. The laws which denied to Protestants a constitutional right,* because the exercise of it was inexpedient, should have followed out the precedent into its legitimate and necessary consequences, and rendered the prohibition of public processions general, or at least have invested the chief governor of the country with a discretionary power over all assemblages likely to be productive of evil. No such power having been exercised or given, the repealers had the more triumph in their parades of force, and very great numbers of loyal men felt themselves subjected to a two-fold mortification. We do not forget that government has expressed its displeasure against justices of the peace and public stipendiaries who have openly lent their aid to the movement in favour of repeal; nor have we any doubt that it was wise to remove magistrates and officers upon whose discretion, firmness, and principle, reliance could not be safely placed. In the hour of trial, the repeal cause may suffer from a want of the clandestine protection and sup. port which friends retained in authority might, if they pleased, afford it; but for the present, so long as the laws are obeyed, it is possible that the severity of government may give increased confidence to multitudes who will be taught it matters not how untruly to discern in it an evidence of fear-fear manifested in permitting repealers to assemble without impediment, and in punishing any servants of the crown who may attend their deprecated although legal meetings.

The air of consequence thus given

to the repeal demonstrations, and the pride of being at once indulged and feared, will not constitute the only or the chief requitals which may serve to keep the "associates and volunteers" in good heart and spirits, while they toil forward to the great end of their

exertions.

A more substantial mark of favour is promised them. Honour they have had from the government, pecuniary recompense is to come from the church. Covetousness is idolatry-money is the root of all evil. It is, accordingly, well arranged, that when Roman Catholic repealers are to be remunerated for their outlays of money and time, it shall be at the orders of casuists who can judge of right and wrong, and who, at the day of judgment, will answer for their souls, namely, their bishops, that they are to "help themselves" out of their neighbours' possessions. The expenses of the repeal movement are to be defrayed, like those of Napoleon's wars, by the enemy-by the parties whom, as their final ruin is decided on, it is of little consequence to impoverish en attendant. Passive resistance to rents is to commence at the command, or, to speak more correctly, by permission of the Roman Catholic bishops. This the Right Rev. Dr. Higgins has not scrupled to announce. We give the "Pastoral," as it appeared in the Dublin Statesman of July 21 :

"Did the English nation know (asks the titular bishop) that when the Catholic bishops of Ireland joined for repeal, instead of the aristocracy asking what they would do with the people, the people were asking what they would do with the aristocracy? Instead of encouraging that notion, the Catholic bishops of Ireland turned the feelings of the people into a peaceful agitation for repeal; and if that repeal is long withheld, I am not the man to prevent an agitation against rents, which, once begun, will soon shake the empire to its centre. Gentle

men, the die is cast; we are pledged to go forward with our peaceful movements. I perceive that you are all pledged to the same determination (cheers). I conclude, therefore, with a hope that the stupidity, the cupidity, and the perverseness of England, will not drive the Irish people to the agitation to which I have adverted, and that a speedy repeal of the union will give security at home and prosperity to our native land. (His lordship resumed his seat amid great applause.")

This is an important announcement. Roman Catholic bishops are the prime movers of the agitation for repealpassive resistance to rents is to commence at the favourable moment when they shall give permission. Under the auspices of such financiers, the repeal movement need not be discontinued for lack of means: it will be chargeable only on the enemy. When it becomes the acknowledged duty of patriotism and religion to withhold rents, and retain lands and tenements as properties in fee, the rich and pious patriots will see little reason to forsake a cause which imposes on them so amiable obligations..

But it may be said that we have devoted too much space to this portion of our subject. Repeal demonstrations, it is said by some, are inconvenient, but they cannot accomplish the ruinous measure for which they are apparently designed. A repeal of the union, it is said, must be won in parliament or the field-it would be madness to suppose that rebellion, having such an object, could be successful-to think that the British legislature would assent to a dismemberment of the empire is equally chimerical and absurd!! We will not enter upon a calculation of the chances of war,but we boldly affirm, and after the deliberation which justifies us in being bold, that reliance on parliament for a maintenance of the union may be excessive or misplaced: at least it is not difficult or extravagant to imagine circumstances in which it would be very precarious.

Such circumstances have been imagined. In the course of one of the recent debates on Irish affairs, a question was put to Sir Robert Peel, whether he would insist on maintaining the legislative union if all the representatives from Ireland were advocates of repeal. We dislike such questions, and think it unreasonable that a minister should be required to answer them. When a most improbable hypothesis has been realised, the attendant circumstances will serve to show how the emergency should be provided for. Under ordinary circumstances we should consider such a state of things as the Irish member supposed, likely to realise not only all that its friends expect, but all, the worst, that its opponents apprehend or dread, from a repeal of the union. A hundred

and five Irish members embodied into a party having one fixed object to which all their energies would be directed such a party in a reformed parliament-how could it be resisted? With a party numerically no stronger, Sir Robert Peel, in the face of one of the most powerful governments ever known in England, resisted the progress of revolution for more than ten years, and finally prevailed against it. With a party much smaller in number -with, indeed, an Irish party of seventy, an Irish majority of thirtyfive-Mr. O'Connell, contrary to the will of the British peers, commons, and people, kept the Melbourne ministry six years in office. What might not be done by a party of one hundred and five? There was a time when the public virtue of England would have caused all meaner jealousies to disappear before the suspicions that would be excited by the presence of such a party, and would have united British representatives of all shades of opinions in a common cause against the common enemy. ""Tis not so now." We firmly believe that some of the wisest and best men in the British dominions, seeing what a support and rallying place was afforded to the delegates of dissent, revolution, and republicanism, in so powerful an antiAnglican faction, would become as earnest in their endeavours to effect a separation between the legislatures of Great Britain and Ireland as are at this day the most intemperate of the repealers.

Such of our readers as can remember the speeches at the Corn Exchange in the winter of 1834-35, need not be reminded how clearly and openly the tactique of the Roman Catholic party was described by its leaders.

The

power of the Conservatives had grown strong. They would have a considerable superiority at the elections in England would have a majority even on the whole throughout Great Britain-but not, if the Irish whigs, radicals, and Roman Catholics were energetic, so great as not to be over. borne by a majority opposed to them from Ireland. These predictions were verified, although the majority sent from Ireland amounted to no more than thirty-five. What might not be achieved should the majority exceed one hundred?

There, certainly, secms little reason

to apprehend that the repeal party should grow to such a strength as this; but if the tactique of passive resistance to rents be remorselessly and extensively carried into energetic action, it is difficult to anticipate the results which may be obtained from it. We have already spoken of the agencies by which Protestants are allured to engage in the movement for repeal the insidious assurances that the condition of those who inhabit rural districts would be much improved, and that the artizans and shop-keepers in towns would share in the prosperity of their friends in the country. This propagandism continues, unremittingly and adroitly, its exertions. Its arguments are plausible and persuasive-are addressed to numbers whose condition enhances the interest of any thing that promises relief from pecuniary distress, and fail to produce their full effect only because Protestants of the poorer classes have not yet learned to place implicit trust in the promises of Roman Catholics. If the discipline they are undergoing, in what they suffer and what they see and hear, have the effect of removing their distrust, the repeal party in the house of commons may become too strong to be manageable or to be endured. "The worst separation," said a man of the world, speaking of domestic life, 66 may be when necessity compels the parties to have the same roof over their heads." British statesmen may learn that this remark is politically true, and may find that the union is not less effectually dissolved, and the dismemberment of the empire not less real, should repeal seat eighty or ninety Irish members on the benches at St. Stephen's, than if they were permitted to hold their parliamentary meetings in College-green.

Rebel

It would be bootless to examine the chances of success for repeal if it were to tempt the hazards of war. lion would now but provoke overthrow. Indeed, unless Protestants take the field under its banners, repeal does not seem attainable by open insurrection. This is a truth neither unknown or doubted. The assiduous endeavours to corrupt Protestants are proof that its importance is not underrated by at least one of the parties at issue. Friends of British connection also show themselves sensible of its value. May their exertions prosper.

We have been minute in our details and proofs; but not more so, we trust, than the interests of so grave a subject demanded. Our desire and hope was to make it clear that her majesty's ministers were wise in refusing their assent to any of the rash schemes of conciliation, which they were expected to favour. Men of high reputation, accredited by the Roman Catholics of Ireland, ecclesiastical and lay, undertook, on behalf of their vast clienteJage, that the concessions granted in the year 1829 would satisfy all their wants and desires, and that so completely, that no disability or grievance would remain on which it would be possible for the ablest agitator to create any public excitement. To these declarations on their hehalf, the clients professed themselves ready to swear their assent these declarations, when their claims were granted, they did affirm with an oath. When Lord Plunket, and Lord Grenville, Mr. Canning, and Mr. Grattan (authorized plenipotentiaries they might be termed) made promises which, although their clients swore to keep them, have not protected Ireland against the movement for repeal, how could Mr. Ward expect that such promises as his, disavowed as they are, contemptuously disavowed by the body of the Roman Catholics, can have the effect of per. suading the legislature or the government ?* No. The Roman Catholic repealers in Ireland look forward to a magnificent termination of the struggle in which they are engaged. Success will establish a hierocracy more powerful and wealthier, although within a narrower compass, than that of Rome herself in her most gorgeous days; success will bestow comparative affluence on the general mass of the people. To break down the church establish

ment is to remove an obstacle in the repealers' way; to pay the priests is to subsidise them against England-it is not to conciliate their favour, or to purchase an abandonment of their projects.

Sir Robert Peel wisely refused to countenance these crude expedients, which assume that the true device for turning a man back from his ambitions is to help him to the attainment of them. Does he show equal wisdom in discontenting the friends of British connection who call for effectual protection against schemes and movements which can scarcely be thought of without alarm? It is not just to leave loyal and obedient citizens exposed to dangers, or even tried by terrors which the disaffected prepare for them and from which the state could exempt them. Fear is affliction; to live amidst influences which naturally cause fear is to live in a state of sore trial; and to live thus, because the state indulges parties, whose avowed purposes are not less pernicious than treason, with a privilege which she has withdrawn from subjects of the most determined loyalty and good faith, tests painfully the temper of true men's allegiance. To be a husband and a father, to be a wife or a daughter, in districts where the masses frequently meet to promote the cause of repeal, to feel that this assembling together is permitted, and that no interruption will be given to their proceedings, until perhaps they are to be arrested in a career of slaughter, is not to live under the effectual protection of British law. And it is a very painful and alarming consideration, that, if the friends of British connection, where they are few in number and their adversaries many, experience any cessation of alarm, it is caused

The