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organised branch associations throughout Ireland. A plan was formed, and executed with the aid and agency of the priests, to sever the bond between the catholic forty shilling freeholders and their land. lords. Hitherto the landlords ordered their forty shilling voters to the hustings as they did their cattle to the market-place, and required their price for the one as for the other. They now clamoured about the wickedness of the agitators in encouraging tenants "to rebel against their landlords," and about the audacity of popish priests in meddling with elections. But the agitators and priests pursued their career. They told the forty shilling freeholders that they had a country, a religion, a vote; and a special fund in the hands of the association for their protection and relief against the threatened vengeance of their landlords. They framed and promulgated certain tests, of which the foremost was uncompromising opposition to the Wellington ministry, so long as the duke resisted emancipation; and without satisfactorily undergoing this criterion, no candidate was to have their support. The habitual system of nocturnal outrage and lawless violence, even the local feuds and factions of the peasantry amongst themselves, ceased at their word. It is an anomaly in terms, but not the less true in fact, that Ireland was pacified by agitation.

In England, it was a sort of fashion to talk contemptuously of the catholic association. There was, doubtless, in its oratory much extravagance and bad taste; but it was a political engine of great power, adapted to its purposes, and directed with energy and skill. What popular body, without mission,

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without authority, with only its moral and intellectual force, has achieved so much? Two of its members were especially distinguished-Mr. O'Connell and Mr. Sheil. Mr. O'Connell had the advantage of long experience in Irish politics, -a perfect familiarity with Irish temperament in the common people, a prompt, dexterous, rude eloquence, which could be humourous, vulgar, rhetorical, and abusive: his power over aggregate multitudes surpassed that of his colleague in agitation. Mr. Sheil, more educated, more accomplished, of higher aspiring, distinguished in literature, taking larger views and a superior tone of declamation, rising sometimes above his party and his cause to view emancipation as an imperial question, had more influence with the higher class of Irish catholics, and, through the publication of his speeches by the press, with the English people. The following vivid, yet faithful, description by him of the state of Ireland, at this period, produced a sensation in England: "Does not a tremendous organisation extend over the whole island? Have not all the natural bonds by which men are tied together been broken and burst asunder? Are not all the relations of society which exist elsewhere gone? Has not property lost its influence, - has not rank been stripped of the respect which should belong to it, and has not an internal government grown up which, gradually superseding the legitimate authorities, has armed itself with a complete domination? Is it nothing that the whole body of the catholic clergy are alienated from the state; and that the catholic gentry, and peasantry, and priesthood are all combined in one vast confederacy?

So much for catholic indignation while we are at peace:-and when England shall be involved in war -I pause; it is not necessary that I should discuss that branch of the division, or point to the cloud which, charged with thunder, is hanging over our heads."

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The government in England still appeared unmoved. The Irish government had no provocation to act. Agitation was at the highest pitch, but without infringing public order or the law. Lord Anglesea succeeded a popular viceroy: he came with all the odium of his appointment by the Wellington ministry, of having given an obnoxious vote, of having used an inconsiderate figurative expression in the warmth of debate; and his first appearance in Ireland was unpopular. But having taken his post, and looked around him, his just coup-d'œil and generous character dictated to him the course which he should pursue. Too honest, too humane, too enlightened to assume pretexts or create occasions for coercion, he soon became the most popular Irish viceroy.

The state of Ireland, as the summer advanced, bore a new, and still more awful, aspect. The Irish

protestants,

not only orangemen, but some who had hitherto been liberal or neutral,―alarmed at the tone and attitude of the catholics, disgusted at the seeming supineness of the government, formed themselves into rival and hostile associations, under the name of Brunswick clubs; and the declamations of both parties, breathing defiance and menace, augured nothing short of civil war. It will be best here to borrow again the graphic language of Mr. Sheil.

"Two great rivals are brought into political exist- ' ence, and enter the lists against each other.

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yet they have not engaged in the great strugglethey have not closed in the combat; but, as they advance upon each other and collect their might, it is easy to discern the terrible passions by which they are influenced, and the fell determination with which they rush to the encounter. Meanwhile the government stand by, and the minister folds his arms as if he were a mere indifferent observer, and the terrific contest only afforded him a spectacle for the amusement of his official leisure. He sits as if two gladiators were crossing their swords for his recreation. The cabinet seems to be little better than a box in an amphitheatre, from whence his majesty's ministers may survey the business of blood."

The seeming inactivity of the government continued. Two incidents excited attention, but were too trifling or dubious to fix opinion. Mr. Dawson, the member for Derry, hitherto a zealous anticatholic, declared, at a public dinner to his constituents, that he came to the conclusion of the necessity of emancipation, as the only means of restoring the supremacy of regular government and the laws in Ireland. He was secretary to the treasury, and the brother-in-law of Mr. Peel; but the catholic was an open question, his election was in peril from the catholics, and his speech might have been an unauthorised personal change of conduct for personal purposes.

The duke of Wellington had formed a friendly intimacy in Portugal with Dr. Curtis, the catholic

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primate of Ireland. In answer to a letter from this prelate on the alarming state of Ireland, the duke expressed his anxiety to witness the settlement of the catholic question; but confessed that he saw no prospect of such a settlement. "If, however," says he, we could bury it in oblivion for a short time, I should not despair of seeing a satisfactory result." The duke's letter may have been as wise, but it was also as obscure, as the oracles of the Dodonean oak, and left the question as it stood before. Dr. Curtis communicated it to the lord lieutenant. Lord Anglesey's opinion was long decided and pronounced. In answer to Dr. Curtis, after observing that the duke's situation was one of great difficulty, he said: - "I differ from the opinion of the duke, that an attempt should be made to bury in oblivion' the question for a short time. First, because the thing is utterly impossible; and next, if the thing were possible, I fear that advantage might be taken of the pause by representing it as a panic achieved by the late violent reaction, and by proclaiming that,, if the government at once and peremptorily decided against concession, the catholics would cease to agitate, and then all the miseries of the last years of Ireland will have to be re-acted. What I do recommend is, that the measure should not be for a moment lost sight of; that anxiety should continue to be manifested; that all constitutional (in contradistinction to merely legal) means should be resorted to to forward the cause; but that, at the same time, the most patient forbearance the most submissive obedience to the laws, should be incul

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