stoop to this mean association? Did even Charles Fox, vacillating as he was, ever thus stoop; until he found his intellect giving way with his fortunes, the club and the tavern essential to his decaying force, and, like the quack prescriptions of Dr. Graham, a mire-bath the only restorative of his worn out faculties? But what danger can be greater, than to find an empire in the hands of a party whose very feebleness urges them to subserviency; whose thirst of salary is at once so feverish and so foul, that it drives them to the first ditch; and whose incapability of scaling the heights of power by the natural means of manly and generous minds, whose want of the eagle's wings, compels them to depend on the serpent's subtlety, creep where they cannot spring, show every step of their progress by their slime, and, even at their highest point, be as much the reptile as ever? It is this singular and disastrous union of weakness and craving which makes us regard the continuance of the present Cabinet with especial anxiety. Possessing the power of the State, they feel that they have none of the legitimate rights to its possession; that they have neither talent, nor popularity, nor public respect. We believe them to be utterly without any other object than the receipt of their hire; and what is the inevitable conclusion? If they cannot do this without the papist, they will do it with him, "Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo." We see this trifling Cabinet standing between two tempters, -the grim visage and sullen strength of Jacobinism, pointing to the dagger within its cloak, and offering its alliance on condition of national uproar; and on the other side, Popery, with the leer of the Jesuit, and the malice of the Inquisitor, offering the plunder of the State on condition of the overthrow of the Church. How long is the resistance to last? or what is to resist their combination? What reliance are we to have on Whiggism, today embracing all pledges, to-morrow abjuring them ?-The frowning virtue of Lord Grey, the mock Jupiter tonans of the party, grasping the mock Prometheus, the felon of the firebrand, and fastening him down with fetter upon fetter, Police Bills, Coercion Bills, Rebellion Bills; and this operation'scarcely done, when we see the true burlesque transpire through the drama, the culprit ridiculing the judge, snapping the chains, and taking his easy way through the multitude. But, do we suppose that this impunity exists with the good-will of Ministers? Quite the contrary. We believe that they feel Irish faction, as the sailor in a hurricane feels a press of sail; that they would rejoice to see it overboard, if they had but the courage to cut it away. It is this alternation of political shapes, this magnitude of hazard and little, ness of mind, this passion for power and meagreness of means, this ambition of ruling England and yet ruling it by the crudity, insolence, and selfishness of an Irish mendicant, which render the present Cabinet one of the most curious yet most alarming of political phenomena: like Milton's demons, instinctively enlarging or compressing, according to the moment; and retaining nothing but their mischief. "The signal given, Behold a wonder! they who now but seemed But while this burlesque of statesmanship is before our eyes in England, in Ireland all is reality. It is there that the true, steady, and furious game is played. We peculiarly beg to call the attention of the British Protestant to the following proofs. About two years ago, in direct contemplation of a new parliament, a paper was published, importing to be from the Papist Committee, of which we give the chief features. The paper itself has the formality of a proclamation from acknowledged authority, a sort of code of legislation for papist Ireland. It recommends: 1. "That we call on every parish in Ireland, without any delay, to appoint two pacificators, for the purpose of forwarding the objects of the Association, and obtaining Justice for Ireland!"" In what spirit of peace those pacificators were to be appointed, we may conjecture from the police reports of the country. 2. That such pacificators shall be appointed, one by the clergyman who has the greatest number of persons of his communion in the parish, the other by the parishioners. But in case the clergyman shall decline to nominate, then both shall be chosen by the parishioners." This direction happily establishes a popish canvass, with the popish priest for its organ. Of course, the author was not simple enough to suppose that the protestant clergyman would have any thing to do with the matter. The popish priest, at all times willing enough to busy himself with politics, is here invited to perform the part of returning officer-unless he still prefer the part of choosing a representative, of his reverence's own politics, interests, and attachment to the protestant constitution! 3. "That the Secretary of the Association be empowered immediately to call on each parish to appoint such pacificators, and to appoint none but persons of unquestionable loyalty, activity, and integrity." Of course, these persons must be of unquestionable zeal for the Association, of activity fully sufficient for the purposes of electioneering, and of integrity, such as Faction conceives fit to figure in his service. 5. "That the Association do furnish gratuitously to each pacificator, a weekly Dublin newspaper; such newspaper to be selected by the individual to whom it is sent, and to be continued to him so long as he shall remain in the office of Pacificator." Innocently expressed as this is, it has a meaning worthy of the great Mendicant. There are about 2000 parishes in Ireland; thus about 4000 copies of a radical and papist journal would be thrown into circulation, and that into the hands of violent and bitter men, expressly chosen for their avowed subserviency. The power of selection itself seems an artifice, to induce the Dublin papers to O'Connellize, in the hope of increasing their sale; for the paper chosen is sure to be fixed on for the activity of its partizanship. An additional object clearly is, that of supplying a means of instantly spreading the words and will of the Mendicant through the land. But another and still more important portion of this document consists in what its author entitles, "The Duties of Pacificators." They wholly refer to the object of agitation and the elections. 1. "They are to prevent and put an end to all riots, factionfights, and breaches of the peace in the parish; and to assist the agent for the Crown prosecutions in punishing any person who shall be guilty of the folly and wickedness of engaging in any such riots." This sounds honest, but it is as dexterous as the rest. The perfection of such a plan would actually create a new police in Ireland; and that police wholly under the command of Mr. O'Connell. The 4000 delegates would take upon themselves the interference in all meetings of the peasantry. They would be looked up to on those occasions as acting by an authority to which the peasantry look up much more than to the laws: but how long are we to trust an influence thus obtained above the law? 2. "They shall ascertain and report to the Association the number and names of all persons registered in the parish; the names of their landlords; the principles of the voters, and the influence that is supposed to be exerted to induce them to vote for or against their country." If there is meaning in language, this "duty" would involve the establishment of a system of perpetual and most vexatious surveillance. It declares that a constant and minute inquiry is to be set on foot, as to political principles and personal influence; and further, that this inquiry is to be the subject of a constant and minute correspondence with a self-constituted and irresponsible body in Dublin-the Association! There is not a transaction of human life which might not be comprehended, by an active and angry agent, within the line of the names, principles, and influences of the obnoxious individuals. But to proceed in this showy catalogue. 3. "They shall ascertain the number and names of persons who, not being registered, are qualified to be registered; and give notice for the registry of every such person being in the popular interest, and pursue every fair and legitimate means to procure such persons to register.' وو This sounds fair, but it is still a part of the system. Every man capable of voting would thus have a notice served on him by one of those officials; and those who know the nature of Irish freedom in those matters, will know that vote he must. In England, votes are often left unregistered; and here we have scarcely any other solution of this neglect of a public duty, but indolence. But in Ireland many a man shrinks from the hustings through conscience acting against terror: conscience forbidding him to vote for popery and its accomplices; terror forbidding him to vote against them: the only way of escape seeming to be, the avoidance of registering altogether. But this order now puts the escape out of the question; the man must register, and the registered must vote: and he is a bold man who in these times will venture to vote in Ireland, but according to the will of the papist. 4. " They are to procure the collection of the Justice Rent' in all cases in which the parishioners, or any of them, are perfectly willing to contribute the same." In other words, they are to be the tax-gatherers of the Association; and this tax is to go on, apparently without limit in either extent or time. 5. "They are to ascertain the number of persons illegally and unjustly sued, or persecuted, for tithes, and to report their names and grievances to the Association." The law pronounces tithe legal, and commands its payment: popery resolutely pronounces it illegal, and its demand persecution; and orders the recusants to be taken under the papist protection. A final clause commands the "pacificators" to correspond, at least once a month, and as much oftener as they conveniently can, with the Association. If this whole document imply not the formation of an imperium in imperio for Ireland, we are much at a loss to know by what other means it can be implied. Of course the Association will not interfere with the throne so suitably held by Lord Mulgrave. It will leave the noble lord to the full enjoyment of his tastes; it will not interfere with his farces or his flirtations; it will neither mulet him of a toothpick, nor willingly inflict on the polished vacancy of his forehead an additional wrinkle. But if it does not virtually purpose to relieve him of all the toils of government, its language is as destitute of meaning as one of his lordship's most laboured novels. That the " pacificators" were immediately set in motion, we owe it to the Agitator's known promptitude fully to believe; that they still have the honour of his confidence, we perceive, from his adverting to their labours in his electioneering letters; and that they have done all their "duties" to the utmost point, we must judge from the still more unequivocal evidence, that the Beggarman still continues to flourish in his annual rent; that he enters parliament with a tail of nearly seventy joints, acknowledged and unacknowledged; and that Ireland exhibits a state of tumult and misery unequalled at this moment by any land of savagery, from itself to the wall of China. Yet we should be doing great injustice to Irish faction, if we conceived that the honour of embroiling Ireland was the sole reward contemplated by its patriotic labours. It is the grand depository of Irish finance; and the vigour with which the system is worked, is equalled only by the profound secrecy in which its fruits are concealed from the unhallowed eye. First, we have the Catholic Rent. This is a fund of about fifteen years' standing, and notoriously of so large a produce as to have been urged on the late Lord Liverpool as a valid argument for what is called "Catholic Emancipation." The noble lord's decaying mind, unhappily, instead of regarding this rent as a popish attempt to control the legislature and defy the laws, weakly submitted to its existence. Of this fund, election expenses and lawyers' bills have been the alleged absorbents, but no satisfactory statement has ever been furnished to the public. Next comes the Justice Rent. Of this fund nothing has transpired, but that its collection was very vigorously urged: the whole affair remains a secret of state. No public account of receipts or disbursements has yet been furnished. Next comes the O'Connell Tribute; a fund pressed on the Irish population by every art of which the distinguished taxgatherer in question has so long been master. This ten years' demand on national gratitude, still paying, still to owe;" this extraction of the pence of the little beggar by the great one; this incomparable machine for grinding the rags and famine of the Irish populace into solid money, owes its whole invention to the "Agitator," and, we presume, rewards his merits with its fruits. On this head we have not heard of any account whatever. Next comes the Dublin Cemeteries Fund, a very productive conception. Some half dozen years ago, a party clamour was raised in Ireland against the terrible tyranny of refusing to allow the popish ceremonial of burial to be read in protestant churchyards. The papists, who had submitted to the law in this instance. without discovering any evil in the matter for a hundred years, suddenly found out that it was an insufferable breach of the rights of man; made a riot, and succeeded accordingly. The protestants, both clergy and laity, were glad to get rid of an intrusion which was a pretext for ill-blood, and raised no opposition to the plan of popish places of burial. Subscriptions were |