administration as to the numbers of their opponents, compelled the committee, which had been appointed to arrange a grand conciliation dinner in commemoration of his Majesty's visit the preceding year, publicly to relinquish their trust, the impossibility of carrying into effect that desirable object being now self-evident.

But while the spirit of faction showed itself in full vigour among the upper classes, the lower orders, notwithstanding the augmentation of the military force in the disturbed districts, and the terrible examples which had been recently made, continued to pursue, with unabated activity, their infatuated career of violence and crime. Acts of the most cold-blooded atrocity were still daily and nightly committed in many parts of the country; the spirit of evil seemed for a season let loose, and marked its baleful path by destruction and ruin. In the dispatches from the Marquis Wellesley, laid before both Houses of Parliament, in Febru. ary, the picture drawn is truly dreadful. The system of outrage was at work in the counties of Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Kerry, Clare, Kilkenny, Galway and Kildare; armed banditti, sometimes in large parties of horse and foot, burned, robbed, murdered, and carried off arms; a system of intimidation had also been adopted, by which the exertions of the civil power had, in a great degree, been paralized. In many parts, too, the means of repression, placed at the disposal of the magistrates, were totally inadequate. "The progress of this diabolical system," says the memorial of the Magistrates of the southern districts of the county of Cork, contained in Lord Wellesley's dispatch of the 19th of January, "has

been most rapid and alarming; and we regret to say, that we have been obliged, from want of adequate assistance*, to remain almost passive spectators of its daring advances, until at length many have been obliged to convert their houses into garrisons, and others have sought security in the towns. We know that nightly meetings are held in various parts of the district, which it would be our duty to disperse, and, if possible, to bring those concerned in them to justice; and we are most willing to do our duty if we had the means, but we are utterly destitute of any force adequate to such an undertaking. We cannot expect individuals to leave their houses and families exposed, while they go out with patrolling parties; and even if they could; for one or two nights, engage in such duty, they could not continue it; it would be beyond their physical strength, and incompatible with their other avocations. From Clonakilty, where there is a yeomanry corps on duty, to Skibbereen, where there is a subaltern and sixteen men of a regiment of infantry, a distance of sixteen miles, with a crowded population, there are about six policemen. From Skibbereen to Crookhaven, a distance of twenty-four miles, equally populous, there may be perhaps eight policemen; an establishment wholly inadequate to the ordinary duties of civil constables, much less to the suppression of formidable insurrection. In fact, the whole district may be said to be in a defenceless state."

But to demonstrate more clearly the nature and magnitude of the evils which now afflicted Ireland, it may not be improper to select, from the papers laid before Parliament, a few examples, (the full enumeration of the various outra

ges committed would require a volume,) of the atrocities daily perpetrated. At Donemarke, near Bantry, Mr Mellifort's house was attacked by a body of men, to the amount of some hundreds, all armed and mounted. They were pursued by Lord Bantry upwards of fourteen miles, but, as it would seem, without success, his Lordship's force, we presume, not being strong enough to attack them. On the 8th of January, the house of Dr Townsend at Kilmaraird, was forcibly entered by a large party with blacked faces, who, after searching in vain for arms, robbed the house and cruelly beat the owner. Two nights afterwards, some of the military having come up with a party of White Boys at Anverstown, (a distance of fifteen miles from Dr Townsend's,) one of their number was shot, by Captain B. Bernard, and on his person were found Dr Townsend's clothes, and a considerable part of his property. The individual killed proved to be a man of the name of Harrington, who lived at Ballydehot, upwards of thirty miles from the place where he met his fate; and which shows that these were not isolated aggressions, but the result of a concerted and widely-ramified system of action. On one occasion, they had the audacity to oppose force to force. By a report which reached him on the 17th of January, Lord Bantry having learned that nearly five hundred men, mounted and partly armed, had attacked some houses in the neighbourhood of Macroom, and robbed them of arms, he proceeded with five other gentlemen in pursuit of the offenders; but on coming up with them, the party under his Lordship's command was fired at, compelled to retreat, and pursued in their turn. These men were also ascertained to be from distant parts of the country.

Lord Wellesley's dispatch of the 27th of January contains an account of a great number of fresh outrages which

had come to his Lordship's knowledge since the date of his former dispatch (the 19th;) as these, however, are, in all their accompanying circumstances, similar to those we have already recorded, we shall content ourselves with only giving the details of an encounter which took place on the 21st, between the civil power, aided by a detachment of the 39th regiment, and the inhabitants of the mountainous district between Bantry and Macroom. On the evening of the 20th, Lord Bantry had made application to Major Carthew, commanding the 39th regiment, for a party of that corps to assist in apprehending some persons charged with being concerned in the disturbances recently so much extended in the neighbourhood of Macroom. The Major agreed to accompany his Lordship with fourteen men, who, with the civil power, consisting of magistrates, constables, and tenantry, made a total of fifty-five men. At five o'clock in the following morning they marched from Bantry, and about eight reached a glen, on the road to Macroom, which forms a strong pass or defile, where, as we have already stated, Lord Bantry, with a small number of mounted gentlemen, having a few days before been attacked, had with difficulty made good his retreat. The Major, therefore, took a position with his small force upon the heights at the entrance, for the purpose of preventing those who should penetrate into the glen from being assailed in their retreat with stones from the high cliffs by which it was commanded. Lord Bantry, accompanied by thirty-five mounted gentlemen, then advanced into the glen towards Inchgeelah ; but they had scarcely entered when shouts were raised, horns and bugle horns sounded, and men observed in every direction making for the road. His Lordship's party received the fire of the banditti; but judging the distance too great, they did not return it. A man, with a pike

in his hand, having advanced from the party who fired, and asked if they were Captain Rock's men, was made prisoner. After this his Lordship's party pushed forward; but not finding the persons at home whom they went to apprehend, they commenced their retreat. No sooner was this observed, than the White Boys advanced to the rescue, and, as had been anticipated, took to the heights, in order to cut off the party retiring through the glen. They did not discover Major Carthew's small force till they came pretty close, when they instantly fired a shot. The Major then ordered his men to move forward, and drove them back a considerable distance; but their numbers increasing, and the Major observing them ascending a mountain which commanded his position, he was obliged to order a retreat, and with some difficulty and hard fighting succeeded in regaining the pass. The military expended twenty-five rounds each in keeping the banditti in check, and Major Carthew thinks that twelve of their number were killed, and as many wounded. One of the military, who had advanced too far, was surrounded, knocked down, and dispatched by strokes of sticks, spades, and other weapons. Another party attempting to cut off Lord Bantry's retreat through the glen, were dislodged in the most spirited manner. The insurgents appeared in two parties; one of which consisted of about two hundred and fifty or three hundred men, and the other of about sixty. The larger party had nine muskets, the smaller five; the rest were irregularly armed. They were under some sort of discipline, and evinced a great deal of determina

tion.

This affair was succeeded by others of a similar description. On the 24th of January, a large body attacked the mail-coach from Tralee to Cork; and after having killed some of the horses,

and wounded the guard, coachman, and a passenger, overturned the coach, and obtained possession of the mail. On the receipt of this intelligence, Colonel Mitchell, who commanded at Macroom, proceeded from thence with a detachment of troops in the direction of Millstreet, near which place the coach had been attacked. He found there a large body of men partly armed; they made a show of resistance, but upon being attacked by the troops, they fled with precipitation, and twenty-three prisoners were secured. On the same day, two dragoons, dispatched with orders to the officer at Mill-street, were attacked and wounded on the road. The officer, under direction of a Magistrate, proceeded with some troops in the direction of Macroom, and met a large force of the insurgents, probably the same which had been encountered by Colonel Mitchell. He reports the number opposed to him to have been nearly five thousand, armed with weapons of various descriptions, of which muskets formed but an inconsiderable proportion. On the same day, in the neighbourhood of Charleville, a body of three hundred persons, of whom the leader and several others were armed with muskets, effected the rescue of a man (who had been apprehended, and was in charge of a party of police,) and compelled the police to retire. On the 25th, intelligence was conveyed to Sir J. Lambert, that the whole male population, to the north of Brandon, was proceeding to the mountains, and it was ascertained that the previous night had been employed in assembling the people, and that large bodies had been observed in the morning, on their march in that direction. Colonel Mitchell again marched from Macroom in the direction of Mill-street, where the man conveying the mail had been that morning attacked and murdered. He found there a body, stated to amount to two thousand men, posted on the heights, near

the road; of these, about one thousand descended to attack his detachment, and fired three shots; but on the advance of the troops, they immediately took to flight, leaving thirty prisoners in the hands of the military. At the same time, a very large body of people assembled in the neighbourhood of Newmarket and Kanturk, imagining, as is supposed, from the departure of some dragoons who had been stationed there, that the force of infantry remaining would be unequal to resistance. The rioters approached the town of Newmarket, and occupied the road. A detachment of the 22d regiment rapidly dislodged them, and secured three prisoners. On the evening of the same day a detachment of the 11th regiment was attacked, on its march from Macroom to Bandon, by a party of sixty men, who followed it for three miles, and took advantage of the enclosures to fire, and to retard the march of the King's troops.

While the county of Cork was thus the theatre of open insurrection, similar outrages, though on an inferior scale, and exhibiting less audacious temerity, took place in many other counties and districts. Assassinations were frequent in Kerry, Tipperary, and Limerick; illegal associations had spread over Kildare, Westmeath, King's County, and Meath, and were known to exist even in the county of Dublin. In Connaught, the disturbances were confined to the counties of Galway and Roscommon. About the beginning of the year, Ulster, which had hitherto been tranquil, exhibited symptoms of disorder, and it was known that the practice of administering unlawful oaths was very prevalent, and notices were posted up concerning the payment of tithes. In short, a total disorganization seemed to have taken place in the frame of society; the law had lost its efficacy, and its salutary terrors had been absorbed in the fury of those dreadful passions,

with which the lower orders of the Irish seemed at this period to have been possessed; the evil had indeed risen to such a magnitude, that its progress could only be arrested by arming the executive authorities of the state with extraordinary powers, suited to the exigencies of the occasion.

Accordingly, on the 7th of February, after the papers relative to the disturbed state of Ireland, (from which the preceding narrative has been in a great measure extracted,) were read, Lord Londonderry, in pursuance of notice, rose to call the attention of the House to that part of his Majesty's Speech which related to the internal state of Ireland; and after some preliminary remarks, observed that he should best execute his purpose by first stating the nature of the measures he should suggest; in the next place, the period for which he proposed they should continue; and, thirdly, the grounds on which those measures appeared to be of exigent necessity to the government of which he was a member. Upon the best view ministers had been able to take of the whole question, and at the immediate instance of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and his advisers, they had determined to propose, that Parliament ought to proceed with the least possible delay, to furnish the executive authorities in Ireland with additional powers for the restoration of the publie peace. They had, therefore, resolved to recommend to the House the reenactment of the Insurrection Bill, as well as of the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act, under which persons suspected of being dangerous might be apprehended and secured. He anxiously hoped it would not be found necessary to renew either of these bills beyond the first of August; more especially that by which the Habeas Corpus Act was to be suspended. He believed that the present was the first occasion on which it had ever been proposed to revive the

Insurrection Act for a time so limited. Whenever Parliament had adopted this precautionary measure to be applied locally, and on the statement of an adequate emergency, no shorter period for its duration than three years had yet been fixed. As, however, he trusted to be able to persuade the House to pass it now with the least possible delay, he should be sorry to name any time for its continuance beyond what the undeniable necessity of the case fully warranted. In a subsequent part of the session, it would be open to the House to consider whether a renewal of the bill might or might not be expedient. The papers just laid upon the table presented nothing short of absolute rebellion, prevailing in a considerable portion of the south and south-west of Ireland. Rebellion was in the field: it was characterized by every mark belonging to insurrection; resistance to the law, defiance of the constituted authorities, and every component principle of rebellion. The judgment and discretion of his Majesty's Lieutenant in Ireland must carry weight in every quarter of the House, and he was most decidedly of opinion that such extraordinary powers could not be too soon communicated. He had already stated that the papers contained such details as proved the clear, undoubted, but melancholy fact, that actual rebellion was at that moment in the field in the south and south-west of Ireland. He could conceive nothing more calculated to encourage the spirit of disaffection, and to appal and dismay the loyal subject, than for Parliament to hesitate now in strengthening the hands of Government, as it had done in the time of the predecessor of Lord Wellesley, when Ireland was exposed to peril, not of a more serious nature than at the present moment. It afforded him considerable satisfaction to be enabled to state, that the existing rebellion in Ireland was not characterised by any of those wild and

theoretical principles of government which at this moment might be said to pervade the world. There was a clear distinction between a rebellion of ignorance and of knowledge. Here pressing need and distress were the source of the calamity; but it was certainly no reason why the rebellion should not be met by the strong arm of the law, because political motives were not attributable to the rebels. The rebellion now carried on was not indeed directed against any particular constitution or form of government under which we lived, but it was directed against every principle of government, against every tie by which mankind was united, against the first principles of social order. The object was, by physical power, to overthrow and destroy all the constituted authorities of the country; and it called into aid the most desperate crimes by which our nature could be degraded-murder and assassination. He was happy, nevertheless, to be able to say, that as political feeling was not mixed up with the existing disturbances, so religious animosities had no connexion with them. Let not the House, however, be sure that if it delayed to act with vigour and effect against these infatuated traitors, the rebellion might not acquire both a religious and a political character. This, in short, was a rebellion of murder and plunder; and he therefore most solemnly protested against mixing up matters of grievance with the question of the maintenance of the law. He hoped honourable gentlemen would judge, from the course pursued by Government for many years towards the sister country, how anxious those at the head of the national affairs were to secure its peace and tranquillity; how desirous they felt that the cloud which at present darkened its prosperity should speedily pass away. The very delay which had taken place in bringing this subject under the consideration of Parliament was, in itself, a proof of the conciliatory spirit