sistency, pertinaciously adhere to the same course, in spite of every motive and consideration which might lead to a change in their conduct. The Grenvilles had always viewed with peculiar jealousy and alarm the growth of popular influence; and when they opposed Ministers, it was not so much on questions involving any broad principle of political faith, as on the expediency of particular measures: in a word, as democratic ascendancy had been the object of their supreme dread, their invariable policy had been to fortify the aristocratic bulwarks of the constitution, and to watch, with jealous observation, the operations of that spirit of innovation, which, in our times, has been so extensively diffused throughout the great mass of the people. The coalition in question was, therefore, effected with as little sacrifice of principle as of interest. They had never, on any occasion, been entirely identified with the Whigs, with whom they occasionally acted; they regarded with detestation the countenance afforded by many members of opposition to principles, which they had combated with great perseverance, and which they considered of most dangorues tendency; and they thought themselves at liberty to throw their weight, such as it was, into the scale of government, when the general bearing of ministerial policy harmonised, better than the course pursued by the party they occasionally supported, with those aristocratic principles to which they were so warmly devoted. Their acceptance of office can be no good argument against the honesty and sincerity of their purpose. Voting with administration without identifying themselves with its measures and its responsibility, would have at the best been but a partial, precarious, and

inefficient species of co-operation. Every tyro in politics is aware, that the possession of influence follows the possession of power, and that an isolated party, standing on the mere basis of a name, a few votes, and even distinguished talents, would have proved an incumbrance rather than a support, and been an exception to that unity of action which it is the great object of every wise ministry to establish.

But however much the Grenvilles may have gained by this coalition, neither the country nor the ministry were much the better for it. Lord Grenville had retired from public life, and, with the exception of the Marquis Wellesley, no other member of his small party possessed such talents for oratory or business as rendered their co-operation of much real value. Of the motives and probable results of that nobleman's appointment to the viceroyalty of Ireland, we shall speak immediately; as to the rest, the most that can be said, is, that the opposition lost a few votes they could ill spare, and the ministry gained a few for which they had little occasion.

Another change, which took place in the beginning of the year, was the retirement of Lord Sidmouth, who was succeeded in the office of Secretary of State for the Home Department by Mr Peel, a gentleman whose political principles, predilections, and prejudices, were in such perfect unison with his Lordship's, that this event could have no effect whatever on the course of administration. The resignation of the noble Lord was understood to have been altogether voluntary, and to have proceeded from finding the business of his office too much for his increasing age and infirmities.

great part of the county of Tipperary, considerable portions of King's county, and the county of Westmeath, and the whole of the county of Limerick, were placed under the Insurrection Act; and the counties of Limerick and Tipperary continuing in a dreadful state, remained under that act till, after a temporary renewal in 1817, it finally expired in 1818. In 1817, part of the county of Lowth was subjected to the Insurrection Act; in 1820, came the disturbance in the county of Galway; and in 1821, the deplorable outrages in that of Limerick, which still continue, and which, it is notorious, originated in the discontent and resentment excited in the minds of the tenantry of a very extensive property, by the proceedings of an agent under whose management it had been placed. This at least was the proximate cause; but, as usual, these disorders soon outgrew the cause which had originally occasioned them, and became truly formidable, both by the extent to which they spread, and the dreadful atrocity with which they were every where characterized. Murders, burnings, robberies, accompanied with every species of wanton mischief and destruction, prevailed in the southern and southeastern counties, to a degree hardly known even in the most sanguinary disorders of the last sixty years, and presented a terrible picture of that ferocity of character, that lamentable insensibility to moral obligation, and of that desperate determination in the prosecution of unlawful designs, for which the people of these counties have been long remarkable. To impress upon the minds of these furious and misguided wretches, a salutary conviction of the efficacy and vigour of the law, and thereby to check, if possible, the frequency of crime, a Special Commission was, towards the close of last year, issued for the trial of offences in the disturbed counties, and met at Limerick on the 10th of December. A number

of convictions immediately followed, but had little or no effect in diminishing the number of outrages which were daily committed, or in opening the eyes of the ignorant, cruel, and desperate villains, who, associated in bands under secret oaths, seemed bent on subverting the whole frame of society, and perpetrating, with remorseless brutality, crimes at which the heart shudders.

In this state of things, Lord Wellesley arrived in Ireland. His appoint- · ment as viceroy was hailed as the commencement of a new and better system of government, in a country in which, according to some, the effects of good government had never before been tried, (O'Driscol, ii. 218). He was the ablest man of his family, one of the ablest men of his day, known to possess great energy of character, as well as admirable talents for business, the declared friend of Catholic emancipation, and the patron and advocate of conciliating measures. Much was therefore expected from the vigour, the enlightened policy, and the humanity of his government. The removal of Mr Saurin, the able and vehement defender of the Protestant ascendancy, from the office of Attorney-General, to make way for the advancement of his rival, Mr Plunkett, the strenuous champion of the Catholics, as well as the enlightened and stedfast friend of his country, seemed to justify this augury, and to encourage the hope that, under the auspices of such men, the Catholics would acquire their natural influence in the councils of their country; that the intolerant zeal of orangeism would be repressed; that party spirit, the great curse of Ireland, would be discountenanced, and gradually softened down into a more tolerant and manageable principle; and, in short, that an era of internal union and tranquillity was about to succeed to the heart-burnings, animosities, recriminations, insults, and aggressions, by which so many and dreadful miseries had been inflicted upon the country.

In so far as regarded the talents and firmness of the two leading men of the new Irish administration, these expectations were not altogether unreasonable; but, unfortunately, the conciliating system had been adopted more in appearance than in reality, and although the government of Ireland was now in the hands of individuals known to be favourable to the policy of removing the remnants of the disabilities under which the Catholics originally laboured, and of laying open to their enterprise every department of the state, the cabinet had entrusted them with no powers to offer this boon to the Catholic population, who were still to continue, under their friends and champions, subject to the same exclusion as under their declared enemies. In this spirit of half measures, or rather no measures at all, Mr Saurin was removed from the situation of Attorney-General, while Mr Joy, his associate in office, and the strenuous partisan of the Protestant ascendancy, continued in that of Solicitor-General. Situated as parties are in Ireland, conciliation can only be effected by concession; and, therefore, to place at the head of the government men who had powerfully and eloquently advocated the policy of breaking down all politico-religious distinctions, was the most effectual mode which could have been devised for exasperating the orange faction, without conciliating the Catholics, and thus leaving the administration without support, and without hold on public opinion. Lord Wellesley might discourage Orange toasts, and prohibit the dressing of King William's statue; Mr Plunkett might preach conciliation and union with that eloquence peculiarly his own; a few men pre-eminent for the uncompromising violence of their exclusionary principles, or rather prejudices, might be removed and disgraced; but while the laws of the land conferred upon a handful of Protestants the monopoly of political power, and while the Catho

lics felt that they were to fare no better under the government of their friends than under that of their enemies, all such efforts of discouragement would necessarily prove worse than useless, by at once exposing the government to odium, and betraying its weakness. To calculate on any beneficial result from the mere talents and character of men whose hands are tied up, and who are destitute of any other means of governing except force, the instrument so frequently resorted to by their predecessors, argues an inconceivable degree of ignorance and folly; though the wonder certainly will be that men like Wellesley and Plunkett accepted office upon such terms.

The corporation of Dublin lost no time in demonstrating plainly enough the light in which they viewed the new administration, by presenting to Mr Saurin an address of affectionate condolence on his unexpected removal from the high office which had been so long filled by him with the most distinguished ability. This was tantamount to an overt act of hostility against their new rulers, and was followed up by another, if possible, still less equivocal. On the 14th of January, an attempt was made to set an example for the introduction of Roman Catholics into corporations; and, with that view, a proposal was brought forward at the quarterly guild of the merchants of Dublin, for the admission into their number of Catholic freemen. Though the motion was supported, among others, by Mr Grattan, Mr Hely Hutchinson, and Lord Cloncurry, yet an amendment being moved by Mr Ellis, that the question be adjourned sine die, and a ballot demanded, the adjournment was carried by a majority of 121; a pretty plain proof of the predominance of the Orange party, as well as of the impracticability, in present circumstances, of any such premature attempts at conciliation. This victory, which was owing as much to the rashness of the new