Half an hour passed--an hour--and yet the conversation was flowing on
as briskly as ever. Mr Bill Whalley had explained the exact difference
between Norway and Canada timber, greatly to Miss Emily's
satisfaction; and Miss Sophia had again and again expressed her
determination to leave the house the moment Miss Hendy entered it; and
both the young ladies had related the energetic language in which they
had expressed this resolution to their father, and threatened him with
immediate desertion if he didn't cut that horrid old schoolmistress at
once. The same speeches about happiness and simple cottages, with
peace and contentment, had been made a dozen time over by all parties,
when the great clock in the hall--a Dutch pendule, inserted in a
statue of Time--struck three o'clock, and at the same moment a loud
rap was heard at the front door.
"Who can it be?" exclaimed Miss Sophia. "It isn't papa's knock;"--and
hiding her face in the thick hydrangia which filled the drawing-room
window, she gazed down to catch a glimpse of the entrance steps. She
only saw the top of a large wooden case, and the white hat of a
gentleman who rested his hand on the burden, and was giving directions
to the bearers to be very careful how they carried it up stairs.
Mr Whalley started up, as did Mr Sidsby, in no small alarm. "I
wouldn't be found here for half-a-crown," said the former gentleman:
"old father would shake his head into a reg'lar palsy if he knew I was
philandering here, when the Riga brig is unloading at the wharf."
"Let us go into the back drawing-room," suggested one of the young
ladies, "and you can get out quite easily when the parcel, whatever it
is, is delivered." They accordingly retired to the back drawing-room,
and in a few minutes had the satisfaction of hearing heavy steps on
the stairs, and the voice of the redoubtable Mr Bristles saying,
"Gently, gently,--I have no hesitation in stating, that you were never
entrusted with so valuable a burden before. Deposit it with gentleness
on the large table in the middle; and, you may now boast, that your
hands have borne the noblest specimen of grace and genius that modern
ages have produced."
"It's that everlasting donkey papa is always talking about!" whispered
Sophia.
"If it's Stickleback's statue," said Mr William Whalley, "the little
vagabond promised the first sight of it to old father. He'll be in a
precious stew when he finds his rival has been beforehand!"
The porters now apparently retired, and the youthful prisoners in the
back drawing-room tried to effect their escape by the door which
opened on the stairs; but, alas! it was locked on the outside, and it
was evident, from the soliloquy of Mr Bristles, that their retreat was
cut off through the front room. A knock--the well-known rat, tat, tat,
of the owner of the mansion--now completed their perplexity; and, in a
moment more, they heard the steps of several persons rushing up
stairs.
"Mr Pitskiver!" exclaimed Bristles in intense agitation, "you have
surely forgotten our agreement--Snooksby! Butters! Banks! Why, I am
quite overpowered with the surprise! It was to have been alone,
without witnesses; or at most, in my presence. But so public!"
"Never mind, my dear Bristles. Why should I conceal my triumph--my
happiness--the boast and gratification of my future days? Let us open
the casket that enshrines such unequaled merits."
"If you really wish for no further secresy," replied Mr Bristles.
"Certainly! Don't I know that that case contains a masterpiece, softly
sweet and beautifully feminine, as a talented friend of ours would
say?"
"An exquisite woman, indeed!" said Bristles; "and a truly talented
friend. The case, as you justly observe," proceeded the critic, while
he untied the cords, "contains the most glorious manifestation of the
softening influences of sex."
"It's a pity she's an ass," suggested Mr Pitskiver. "I can't help
thinking that that's a drawback."
"What?--what is a drawback, my dear sir?"
"That femininity, as Miss Hendy calls it, should be brought so
prominently forward in the person of an ass."
"An ass?--I don't understand! Are you serious?"
"Serious! to be sure, my dear Bristles. In spite of all efforts to
assume an intellectual expression, the donkey, depend upon it,
preponderates--the long visage, the dull eyes, the crooked legs--it is
impossible to perceive any grace in such a wretched animal. I can't
help thinking that if it had been a young girl you had brought
me--say, a sleeping nymph--full of youth and beauty, 'twould have been
a vast improvement on the scraggy jeanie contained in this box. But
clear away, Bristles, we are all impatience."
"My dear sir--Mr Pitskiver--unaccustomed as I am, his I can truly say
is the most uncomfortable moment of my life."
"Why, what's the matter with you, Bristles, can't you untie the
string?"--"Here," continued Mr Pitskiver, "give me the cord," and so
saying he untwisted it in a moment--down fell the side of the case,
and to the astonished eyes of the assembled critics, and also of the
party in the back drawing-room, revealed, not the masterpiece of the
immortal Stickleback, but a female figure enveloped in a grey silk
cloak, and covering its face with a white muslin handkerchief.
"Why, what the mischief is all this?" exclaimed the bewildered Mr
Pitskiver; "this isn't the jeanie-ass you promised me a sight of. Who
the deuce is this?"
The handkerchief was majestically removed, and the sharp eyes of Miss
Hendy fixed in unspeakable disdain on the assembled party.
"'Tis I, base man! Are all your protestations of admiration come to
this? Who shall doubt hereafter that it is the task of noble, gentle,
self-denying woman to elevate society?"
A smothered but very audible laugh proceeding from the back
drawing-room, interrupted the further eloquence of the regenerator of
mankind; and, finding concealment useless, the two young ladies threw
open the door, and advanced with their attendant lovers to the table.
The female philosopher, with the assistance of Mr Bristles, descended
from her lofty pedestal, and looked unutterable basilisks at the
open-mouthed Mæcenas, who turned his eyes from the wooden box to Miss
Hendy, and from Miss Hendy to the wooden box, without trusting himself
with a word of either explanation or enquiry.
"We told you of our intentions, papa," said Miss Sophia, "if you
brought that old lady to your house."
"I didn't bring her; I give you my honour 'twas that scoundrel
Bristles," whispered the dismayed Pitskiver.
"You told me sir," exclaimed Bristles, "that you would be for ever
indebted to me if I brought this lady to your mansion--that she was
the perfection of grace and innocence. By a friendly arrangement with
Mr Stickleback, the greatest sculptor of ancient or modern times, I
managed to secure to this illustrious woman an admission to your
house, which, I understood, she could not openly obtain through the
opposition of your daughters. I considered that you knew of the
arrangement, sir; and I know that, with a soft and feminine
trustfulness, this most gentle and intellectual ornament of her sex
and species consented to meet the wish you had so ardently expressed."
"I never had a wish of the kind," cried Mr Pitskiver; "and I believe
you talking fellows and chattering women are all in a plot to make me
ridiculous. I won't stand it any longer."
"Stand what?" enquired Mr Bristles, knitting his brows.
"Your nonsensical praises of each other--your boastings of
Sticklebacks, and Snooksbys, and Bankses; a set of mere humbugs and
blockheads! And even this foolish woman, with her femininities and
re-invigorating society, I believe to be a regular quack. By dad! one
would think there had never been a woman in the world before."
"Your observations are uncalled for"--
"By no manner of means," continued the senior, waxing bolder from the
sound of his own voice. "I believe you're in a conspiracy to puff each
other into reputation; and, if possible, get hold of some silly
fellow's daughters. But no painting, chiseling, writing, or
sonneteering blackguard, shall ever catch a girl of mine. What the
deuce brings _you_ here, sir?" he added, fiercely turning to Mr
Sidsby. "You're the impostor that read the first act of a play"--
"I read it, sir," said the youth, "but didn't write a word of it, I
assure you. Bristles is the author, and I gave him six dozen of
sherry."
"No indeed, papa; he never wrote a line in his life," said Sophia.
"Then he may have you if he likes."
"Nor I, except in the ledger," modestly observed Mr Bill Whalley.
"Then take Emily with all my heart. Here, Daggles," he continue,
ringing the bell, "open the street-door, and show these parties out!"
Amidst muttered threats, fierce looks, and lips contorted into all
modes and expression of indignation, the guests speedily disappeared.
And while Mr Pitskiver, still panting from his exertions, related to
his daughters and their enchanted partners his grounds for anger at
the attempt to impose Miss Hendy on him instead of a statue, Mr
Daggles shut the front door in great exultation as the last of the
intruders vanished, and said--
"Snipe, old Pits may do after all. He ain't a bad round of beef; and I
almost like our two mutton-chops, since they have freed the house from
such shocking sour-crouts and watery taties as I have just flinged
into the street."
But it was impossible to convert the great Mr Bristles to the belief
into which his quondam follower, Mr Pitskiver, had fallen as to the
qualities of Miss Hendy. That literary gentleman had too just a
perception of the virtues of the modern Corinne, and of a comfortable
house at Hammersmith, with an income of seven hundred a-year, to allow
them to waste their sweetness on some indecent clown, unqualified by
genius and education to appreciate them. The result of this resolution
was seen in a very few days after the interesting scene in Harley
Street; and the following announcement in the newspapers will put our
readers in as full a state of knowledge as we can boast of being in
ourselves:--
"Woman's value Vindicated as the teacher and example of Man, by Mrs
Bristles, late Miss Hendy, Hammersmith."
* * * * *
IRELAND.
An interdict has rested, through four months, on the discussion of
Irish affairs--an interdict self-imposed by the English press, in a
spirit of honourable (almost of superstitious) jealousy on behalf of
public justice; jealousy for the law, that it should not be biased by
irresponsible statements--jealousy for the accused, that they should
not be prejudiced by extra-judicial charges. At length the interdict
is raised, and we are all free once more to discuss the great
interests so long sealed up and sequestered by the tribunals of
Dublin. Could it have been foreseen or fancied, pending this
sequestration, that before it should be removed by the delivery of the
verdict, nay, two months before the trial should have closed in a
technical sense, by the delivery of the sentence, the original
interest (profound as it was) would be obliterated, effaced,
practically superseded, by a new phasis of the same unparalleled
movement? Yet this has happened. A debate, which (like a series of
natural echoes) has awakened and revived all the political
transactions of last year in Ireland, should naturally have preserved
the same relation to those transactions that any other shadow or
reflection bears to the substance. And so it would: but unhappily with
these rehearsals of the past, have mingled tumultuous menaces of a new
plot. And these menaces, in the very act of uttering themselves,
advertise for accomplices, and openly organize themselves as the
principle of a new faction for refusing tranquillity once more to
Ireland. Once more an opportunity is to be stifled for obtaining rest
to that afflicted land.
This "monster" debate, therefore, presents us in equal proportions
with grounds of disgust and terror--a disgust which forces us often to
forget the new form of terror--a terror (from a new conspiracy) which
forces us to forget even the late conspiracy of Repeal, and that
glorious catastrophe which has trampled it under foot for ever.
It is painful to the understanding--this iteration of statements a
thousand times refuted; it is painful to the heart--this eternal
neglect (in exchange for a _hear, hear_) of what the speaker knows to
be mere necessities of a poor distracted land: this folly privileged
by courtesy, this treason privileged by the place. If indeed of every
idle word--meaning not trivial word, but word consciously false--men
shall hereafter give account, Heavens! what an arrear, in the single
case of Ireland, will by this time have gathered against the House of
Commons! Perfectly appalled we are when we look into the formless
chaos of that nine nights' debate! Beginning with a motion which he
who made it did not wish[28] to succeed--ending with a vote by which
one-half of the parties to that vote meant the flattest contradiction
of all that was contemplated by the rest. On this quarter, a section
raging in the highest against the Protestant church--on that quarter,
a section (in terror of their constituents) vowing aid to this church,
and yet allying themselves with men pledged to her destruction.
_Here_, men rampant against the Minister as having strained the laws,
in what regarded Ireland, for the sake of a vigour altogether
unnecessary; _there_, men threatening impeachment--as for a lenity in
the same case altogether intolerable! To the right, "how durst you
diminish the army in Ireland, leaving that country, up to March 1843,
with a force lower by 2400 rank and file shall the lowest that the
Whigs had maintained?" To the left, "how durst you govern Ireland by
martial strength?" Question from the Minister--"Will you of the
Opposition place popish bishops in the House of Lords?" Answer from a
premature sponsor of Lord John's--"We will." Answer from Lord John--"I
will not." _Question retrospective_ from the Conservatives--"What is
it, not being already done, that we could have done for Ireland?"
_Answer_ from the Liberals--"Oh, a thousand things!" _Question
prospective_ from the Conservatives--"What is it, then, in particular,
that you, in our places, would do for Ireland? Name it." _Answer_ from
the Liberals--"Oh, nothing in particular!" Sir R. Peel ought to have
done for Ireland whole worlds of new things. But the Liberals, with
the very same power to _do_ heretofore, and to _propose_ now, neither
did then, nor can propose at present. And why? partly because the
privilege of acting for Ireland, so fruitful in reproaches, is barren
in practice: the one thing that remained to be done,--viz. the putting
down agitators--_has_ been done; and partly because the privilege of
proposing for Ireland is dangerous: first, as pledging themselves
hereafter; second, because to specify, though it were in so trivial a
matter as the making pounds into guineas for Maynooth, is but to put
on record, and to publish their own party incapacity to agree upon any
one of the merest trifles imaginable. Anarchy of anarchies, very mob
of very mobs, whose internal strife is greater than your common enmity
_ab extra_--what shall we believe? Which is your true doctrine? Where
do you fasten your real charge? Amongst conflicting arguments, which
is it that you adopt? Amongst self-destroying purposes, for which is
it that you make your election?
[28] The reader may suppose that Lord John Russell had no
motive for wishing his motion to fail, because (as he was
truly admonished by Sir Robert Peel) that motion pledged him
to nothing, and was "an exercise in political fluxions on the
problem of combining the _maximum_ of damage to his opponents
with the _minimum_ of prospective engagement to himself."
True: but for all that Lord John would have cursed the hour in
which he resolved on such a motion, had it succeeded. What
would have followed? Ministers would have gone out: Sir Robert
Peel has repeatedly said they would in the event of parliament
condemning their Irish policy. This would bring in Lord John,
and _then_ would be revealed the distraction of his party, the
chicanery of his late motion, and the mere incapacity of
moving at all upon Irish questions, either to the right or to
the left, for _any_ government which at this moment the
Whig-radicals could form. Doubtless, Lord John cherishes hopes
of future power; but not at present. "Wait a little," is his
secret caution to friends: let us see Ireland settled; let the
turn be taken; let the policy of Sir Robert Peel (at length
able to operate through the last assertion of the law) have
once taken root; and then, having the benefit of measures
which past declarations would not permit him personally to
initiate, nor his party even to propose, Lord John might
return to power securely--saying of the Peel policy, "Fieri
non debuit, _factum_ valet."
It might seem almost unnecessary to answer those who thus answer
themselves, or to expose the ruinous architecture of politicians, who
thus with mutual hands tear down their own walls as they advance, were
it not for the other aspect of the debate. But the times are agitated;
the crisis of Ireland is upon us; now, or not at all, there is an
opening for a new dawn to arise upon the distracted land; and when a
public necessity calls for a contradiction of the enemy, it is a
providential bounty that we are able to plead his _self_-contradiction.
In the hurry of the public mind, there is always a danger that many
great advantages for the truth should be overlooked: even things seen
steadily, yet seen but once and amongst alien objects, are seen to
little purpose. Lowered also in their apparent value by the prejudice,
that what passes in parliament is but the harmless skirmishing of
partisanship, dazzling the eye, but innocuous as the aurora borealis,
demonstrations only too certain of coming evils receive but little
attention in their earlier stages. Yet undoubtedly, if the laws
applicable to conspiracy can in any way be evaded, we may see by the
extensive cabal now organizing itself in England for aiding the Irish
conspiracy to overthrow the Irish Protestant church, that we have but
exchanged one form of agitation for a worse. Worse in what respect?
Not as measured simply by the ruin it would cause--between ruin and
ruin, there is little reason for choice; but worse, as having all the
old supporters that Repeal ever counted, and many others beside.
Especially with Repeal agitation recommending itself to the Irish
priesthood, and to those whom the priesthood can put in motion, it
will recommend itself also and separately to vast multitudes amongst
ourselves. It is worse also--not because in the event more ruinous,
but because in its means less desperate. All the factious in politics
and the schismatic in religion--all those who, caring little or
nothing about religion as a _spiritual_ interest, seek to overthrow
the present Ministers--all those who (caring little or nothing about
politics as a trading interest) seek to overthrow the Church of
England--all, again, who are distressed in point of patriotism, as in
Ireland many are, hoping to establish a foreign influence upon any
prosperous body of native prejudice against British influence, are now
throwing themselves, as by a forlorn hope, into this rearmost of their
batteries, (but also the strongest)--a deadly and combined struggle to
pull down the Irish Protestant establishment. And why? because nothing
else is left to them as a hopeful subject of conspiracy, now that the
Repeal conspiracy is crushed; and because in its own nature an assault
upon Protestantism has always been a promising speculation--sure to
draw support from England, whilst Repeal drew none; and because such
an assault strikes at the citadel of our strength. For the established
church of Ireland is the one main lever by which Great Britain carries
out the machinery of her power over the Irish people. The Protestant
church is by analogy the umbilical cord through which England connects
herself _materially_ with Ireland; through _that_ she propagates her
milder influence; _that_ gone, the rest would offer only coercive
influence. Without going diffusively into such a point, two vast
advantages to the civil administration, from the predominance of a
Protestant church in Ireland, meet us at the threshold: 1st, that it
moulds by the gentlest of all possible agencies the _recusant_ part of
this Irish nation into a growing conformity with the two other limbs
of the empire. The Irish population is usually assumed at about one
fourth part of the total imperial population. Now, the gradual
absorption of so large a section amongst our resources into the
temper, sympathies, and moral habits of the rest, is an object to be
kept in view by every successive government, let their politics
otherwise be what they may; and therefore to be kept in view by all
Irish institutions. In Canada everybody is _now_ aware how much this
country has been wanting to herself, (that is, wanting to the united
interests equally of England and Canada,) in not having operated from
the first upon the political dispositions of the old French population
by the powerful machinery of her own language, and in some cases of
her institutions. Her neglect in this instance she now feels to have
been at her own cost, and therefore politically to have been her
crime. Granting to her population a certain degree of education, and
of familiarity with the English language, certain civic privileges,
(as those of voting at political elections, of holding offices,
profitable or honorary, &c.,) under such reasonable latitude as to
time as might have made the transition easy, England would have
prevented the late wicked insurrection in Canada, and gradually have
obliterated the external monuments of French remembrances, which have
served only to nurse a senseless (because a hopeless) enmity. Now, in
Ireland, the Protestant predominance has long since trained and
moulded the channels through which flows the ordinary ambition of her
national aristocracy. The Popery of Ireland settles and roots itself
chiefly in the peasantry of three provinces. The bias of the gentry,
and of the aspiring in all ranks, is towards Protestantism. Activity
of mind and honourable ambition in every land, where the two forms of
Christianity are politically in equilibrium, move in that same line of
direction. Undoubtedly the Emancipation bill of 1829 was calculated,
or might have seemed calculated, to disturb this old order of
tendencies. But against that disturbance, and in defiance of the
unexampled liberality shown to Papists upon _every_ mode of national
competition, there is still in action (_and judging by the condition
of the Irish bar, in undiminished action_) the old spontaneous
tendency of Protestantism to 'go ahead;' the fact being that the
original independency and freedom of the Protestant principle not only
create this tendency, but also meet and favour it wherever nature has
already created it, so as to operate in the way of a perpetual bounty
upon Protestant leanings. Here, therefore, is _one_ of the great
advantages to every English government from upholding and fostering,
in all modes left open by the Emancipation bill, the Protestant
principle--viz. as a principle which is the pledge of a continual
tendency to union; since, as no prejudice can flatter itself with
seeing the twenty-one millions of our Protestant population pass over
to Popery, it remains that we encourage a tendency in the adverse
direction, long since established and annually increasing amongst the
six and a half Irish Papists. Thus only can our total population be
fused; and without that fusion, it will scarcely be hoped that we can
enjoy the whole unmutilated use of our own latent power.
Towards such a purpose therefore, _as tending to union_ by its
political effects, the Protestant predominancy is useful; and
secondly, were it no otherwise useful, it is so to every possible
administration by means of its patronage. This function of a
government--which, being withdrawn, no government could have the means
of sustaining itself for a year--connects the collateral channels of
Irish honours and remunerations with the great national current of
similar distributions at home. We see that the Scottish establishment,
although differing essentially by church government, yet on the ground
that doctrinally it is almost in alliance with the Church of England,
has not (except by a transient caprice) refused to the crown a portion
of its patronage. On the other hand, if the Roman Catholic church were
installed as the ruling church, every avenue and access for the
government to the administration of national resources so great, would
be closed at once. These evils from the overthrow of the Protestant
church, we mention _in limine_, not as the greatest--they are the
least; or, at any rate, they are so with reference to the highest
interests--but for their immediate results upon the purposes common to
all governments; and _there_ they would be fatal, for any Roman
Catholic church, where it happens also (like the Irish) to be a Papal
church, neither will nor _can_ confide privileges of this nature to
the state. A Papal church, not modified (as the Gallican church) by
_original_ limitations of the Papal authority, not modified (as even
the bigoted churches of Portugal and Austria) by modern _conventional_
limitations of that alien authority, gloomily refuses and must refuse,
to accept any thing from the state, for the simple reason that she is
incapacitated for giving any thing. Wisely, according to the wisdom of
this world, she cuts away from below the footing of the state all
ground on which a pretence could ever be advanced for interfering with
herself. Consequently, whosoever, and by whatsoever organs, would
suffer from the overthrow of the Irish church as now established by
law, the administration of the land would feel the effects from such a
change, first and instantly. Let us not mistake the case. Mr O'Connell
did not seriously aim at Repeal--_that_ he knew too well to be an
enterprise which could not surmount its earliest stages without coming
into collision with the armed forces of the land; and no man will ever
believe that he dreamed of prevailing _there_. What was it, then, that
he _did_ aim at? It was the establishment in supremacy of the Papal
church. His meaning was, in case he had been left quietly to build up
his aspiring purpose so high as seriously to alarm the government,
then suddenly to halt, to propose by way of compromise some step in
advance for his own church. Suppose that some arrangement which should
have the effect of placing that church on a footing of equality, as a
privileged (not as an endowed) church, with the present establishment;
this gained, he might have safely left the church herself
thenceforwards, from such a position of advantage, to fight her way
onwards, to the utter destruction of her rival.
Thus it was that the conspirators hoped to terrify the minister into
secret negotiation and compromise. But that hope failed. The minister
was firm. He watched and waited his opportunity; he kept his eye
settled upon them, to profit by the first opening which their folly
should offer to the dreadful artillery of law. At last, said the
minister, we will put to proof this vaunt of yours. We dare not bring
you to trial, is your boast. Now, we will see that settled; and, at
the same time, we will try whether we cannot put you down for ever.
That trial was made, and with what perfection of success the reader
knows; for let us remind him, that the perfection we speak of lay as
much in the manner of the trial as in its result--in the sanctities of
abstinence, in the holy forbearance to use any one of many decent
advantages, in the reverence for the sublime equities of law. Oh,
mightiest of spectacles which human grandeur can unfold to the gaze of
less civilized nations, when the ermine of the judge and the
judgment-seat, belted by no swords, bristling with no bayonets--when
the shadowy power of conscience, citing, as it were, into the
immediate presence of God twelve upright men, accomplishing for great
kingdoms, by one day's memorable verdict, that solemn revolution which
elsewhere would have caused torrents of blood to flow, and would
perhaps have unsealed the tears of generations. Since the trial of the
seven bishops[29]--which inaugurated for England the certainty that
for _her_ the "bloody writing" was torn which would have consigned her
children to the mercies of despotism--there has been no such crisis,
no such agitation, no such almighty triumph. Here was the _second_
chapter of the history; and lastly, that the nine nights' debate
attached itself as the _third_, is evident from its real purpose,
which may be expressed strictly in this problem: Given, as a fact
beyond all doubt, that O'Connell's Repeal conspiracy is for ever
shattered; let it now be proposed, as a thing worthy of the combined
parties in opposition, to find out some vicarious or supplementary
matter for sedition. A new agitation must be found, gentlemen--a new
grievance must be had, or Ireland is tranquillized, and we are lost.
Was there ever a case illustrating so strongly the maxim, that no man
can be effectually ruined except by himself? Here is Lord John
Russell, taxed a thousand times with having not merely used Mr
O'Connell as an ally, but actually as having lent himself to Mr
O'Connell as an instrument. Is that true? A wise man, kind-hearted,
and liberal in the construction of motives, will have found himself
hitherto unwilling to suppose a thing so full of disgrace; he will
have fancied arguments for scepticism. But just at this moment of
critical suspense, forth steps Lord John himself, and by his own act
dissipates all doubts, frankly subscribing the whole charge against
himself; for his own motion reveals and publishes his wrath against
the ministers for having extinguished the only man, viz. a piratical
conspirator, by whose private license there was any safety for
navigating the sea of Irish politics. The exact relation in which Lord
John had hitherto stood to Mr O'Connell, was that of a land-owner
paying black-mail to the cateran who guaranteed his flocks from
molestation: how naturally must the grazier turn with fury on the man
who, by suppressing his guardian, has made it hopeless for the future
to gain private ease by trafficking in public wrongs! The real
grievance was, the lopping Dagon of all power to stand erect, and thus
laying the Whig-radical under the necessity of "walking in the light
of the constitution" without aid from Irish crutches. The real _onus_
imposed on Lord John's party is, where to look for, and how to suborn,
some new idol and some fresh idolatry. Still to dispense with the laws
in Ireland in the event of their own return to power, still to banish
tranquillity from Ireland in the event of Sir Robert's power
continuing, required that some new conspiracy should be cited to the
public service, possibly (after the 15th of April) some new
conspirator. The new seditious movement could not be doubtful: by many
degrees of preference, the war upon the Irish church had the "call."
This is to be the war now pursued, and with advantages (as we have
already said) never possessed by the Repeal cause. The chief advantage
of _that_ lay in the utter darkness to the Irish peasantry of the word
"Repeal." What it meant no wizard could guess; and merely as a subject
to allure by uncertain hopes, on the old maxim of "omne ignotum pro
magnifico," the choice of that word had considerable merit. But the
cause of Popery has another kind of merit, and (again we remind the
reader) reposes upon another kind of support. In that cause the Irish
peasantry will be unaffectedly and spontaneously zealous; in that
cause there will be a confluence from many quarters of English aid.
Far other phenomena will now come forward. Meetings, even of the kind
convened by Mr O'Connell, are not, we must remember, found to be
unlawful by the issue of the late trials. Had certain melodramatic
features been as cautiously banished from Mr O'Connell's parades as
latterly they were affectedly sought, it is certain that, to this
hour, he and his pretended myriads would have been untouched by the
petrific mace of the policeman. Lay aside this theatrical costuming of
cavalry, of military step, &c., and it will be found that these
meetings were lawful. Most certainly a meeting for the purpose of
petitioning is not, and (unless by its own folly) never can be, found
unlawful.
[29] The trial of the seven bishops for declining to obey the
king's order in council against what, in conscience, they
believed to be the law of the land, is the more strictly a
parallel case, because, as in Ireland, the whole Popish part
of the population--in effect, therefore, the whole physical
strength of the land--_seemed_ to have arrayed itself on the
side of the conspiracy; so in England, the only armed force,
and that close to London, was supposed to have been bought
over by the systematic indulgence of the king. Himself and the
queen (Mary of Modena) had courted them through the summer.
But all was fruitless against the overwhelming sympathy of the
troops with an universal popular feeling. Bishop Burnet
mentions that this army (about 10,000 men, and then encamped
beyond Hounslow) broke into tremendous cheers at the moment
when the news of the acquittal reached them. Whilst lauding
their Creator his majesty was present. But a far more
picturesque account of the case is given by an ancestor of the
present Lord Lonsdale's, whose memoirs (still in MS.) are
alluded to in one of his Ecclesiastic Sonnets by Mr
Wordsworth, our present illustrious laureate. One trait is of
a nature so fine, and so inevitable under similar
circumstances of interest, that, but for the intervention of
the sea, we should certainly have witnessed its repetition on
the termination of the Dublin trials. Lord Lowther (such was
the title at that time) mentions that, as the bishops came
down the Thames in their boat after their acquittal, a
perpetual series of men, linked knee to knee, knelt down along
the shore. The blessing given, up rose a continuous thunder of
huzzas; and these, by a kind of natural telegraph, ran along
the streets and the river, through Brentford, and so on to
Hounslow. According to the illustration of Lord L., this voice
of a nation rolled like a _feu-de-joie_, or running fire, the
whole ten miles from London to Hounslow, within a few minutes;
or, like a train of gunpowder laid from London to the camp,
this irresistible sentiment finally involved in its torrent
evenits professional and hired enemies. Cæsar mentions that
such a transmission, telegraphically propagated from mouth to
mouth, of a Roman victory, reached himself, at a distance of
160 miles, within about four hours.
But may not this new conspiracy, which is now mustering and organizing
itself, be put down summarily by force? We may judge of _that_ by what
has happened to the old conspiracy. Put down by martial violence, or
by the police, Repeal would have retired for the moment only to come
forward and reconstruct itself in successive shapes of mischief not
provided for by law, or not shaped to meet the grasp of an executive
so limited as, in these days, any English executive must find itself.
On the other hand, once brought under the cognizance of law, it has
been crushed in its fraudulent form, and compelled to transmigrate at
once into that sincere, substantial, and final form, towards which it
was always tending. Whatever of extra peril is connected with a
movement so much more intelligible than Repeal, and so much more in
alliance with the natural prepossessions of the Irish mind--better it
is, after all, that this peril should be forced to show itself in open
daylight, than that it should be lurking in ambush or mining
underground; ready for a burst when other mischief might be abroad, or
evading the clue of our public guardians. Besides that, Repeal also
had its own peculiar terrors, notwithstanding that it did not grow up
originally upon any stock of popular wishes, but had been an
artificial growth propagated by an artificial inoculation. That flame
also could burn fiercely when fanned by incendiaries, although it did
not supply its own combustibles. And, think as we may of the two
evils, valued as mischief against mischief, Repeal against
Anti-protestantism, certain it is, that one most important advantage
has accrued to Government from the change. Fighting against Repeal,
they had to rely upon one sole resource of doubtful issue; for, after
all, the law stood on the interpretation of a jury, and therefore too
much on the soundness of individual minds; whereas in meeting the
assaults of Anti-protestantism, backed as it is by six millions of
combatants, ministers will find themselves reposing on the whole
strength of two nations, and of that section, even amongst the Irish,
which is socially the strongest. An old enemy is thus replaced by a
new one many hundred-fold more naturally malignant; true, but
immediately the new one will call forth a natural antagonism many
thousand-fold more determined. Such is the result; and, though
alarming in itself, for ministers it remains an advantage and a
trophy. How was this result accomplished? By a Fabian policy of
watching, waiting, warding, and assaulting at the right moment. Three
times within the last twelve months have the Government been thrown
upon their energies of attack and defence; three times have they been
summoned to the most trying exercise of skill--vigilantly to parry,
and seasonably to strike: _first_, when their duty was to watch and to
arrest agitation; _secondly_, when their duty was, by process of law,
to crush agitation; _thirdly_, when their duty was to explain and
justify before Parliament whatsoever they had done through the two
former stages. Now, then, let us rapidly pursue the steps of our
ministers through each severally of these three stages; and by
seasonable _resumé_ or recapitulation, however brief, let us claim the
public praise for what merits praise, and apply our vindication to
what has been most misrepresented. The first charge preferred against
the Government was, that it did not instantly attack the Repealers on
their earliest appearance. We must all recollect this charge, and the
bitterness with which it was urged during the whole of last summer;
for, in fact, the difference of opinion upon this question led to a
schism even amongst the Conservative party and press. The majority,
headed by the leading morning paper, have treated it to this day as a
ground of suspicion against Government, or at least as an impeachment
of their courage, that they should have lingered or hesitated upon the
proper policy. Our Journal was amongst the few which, after
considerable reflection and perhaps doubt, defended the course
adopted; and specifically upon the following suggestion, _inter alia_,
viz. that Peel and the Wellesley were assuredly at that moment
watching Mr O'Connell, not at all, therefore, hesitating as to the
general character of the policy to be observed, but only waiting for
the best mode (best in effect, best in popularity) of enforcing that
policy. And we may remind our readers, that on that occasion we
applied to the situation of the two parties, as they stood watching
and watched, the passage from Wordsworth--
"The vacillating bondsman of the Pope
Shrinks from the verdict of that steadfast eye."
There was no great merit in being right; but it is proper to remind
our readers that we _were_ right. And there is considerable merit,
more merit than appears, in not having been wrong; for in that we
should have followed not only a vast leading majority amongst public
authorities, but we should have followed an instinct of impassioned
justice, which cannot endure to witness the triumph, though known to
be but fugitive, of insolence and hyperbolical audacity. Not as
partisans, which was proved by the caution of our manner, but after
some deliberation, we expressed our conviction that Government was not
slumbering, but surveying its ground, taking up its position, and
trying the range of its artillery, in order to strike surely, to
strike once, but so that no second blow should be needed. All this
has been done; so far our predictions have been realized; and to that
extent the Government has vindicated itself. But still it may be
asked, to _what_ extent? Doubtless the thing has been done, and done
completely. Yet _that_ will not necessarily excuse the Government. To
be well done is, in many cases, all that we require; but in questions
of civil policy often there is even more importance that it should be
_soon_ done, done maturely, (that is, seasonably done with a view to
certain evils growing up concurrently with the evil,) done even
prematurely with respect to immediate bad consequences open to instant
arrest. At this moment amongst the parliamentary opponents of
ministers, though some are taxing them with unconstitutional
harshness, (or at least with that _summum jus_ which the Roman proverb
denounces as _summa injuria_,) in having ever interfered at all with
Mr O'Connell, others of the same faction are roundly imputing to them
a system of decoy, a "laying of traps," (that was the word,) in
waiting so patiently for the ripening of the Repeal frenzy. Upon the
same principle, a criminal may have a right to complain that her
Majesty, when extending mercy to a first crime, or a crime palliated
by its circumstances, and that a merciful prosecutor who intercedes
effectually on his behalf with the court, have both been laying a trap
for his future conduct; since, assuredly, there is one motive the less
to a base nature for abstaining from evil in the mitigated
consequences which the evil drew after it. On the same principle the
Repealers, having found Sir R. Peel so anxious, in the first stages of
their career, to spare them altogether, were seduced into thinking
that surely he never would strike so hard when at length he had made
ready to strike. Still, with submission, we think that to found false
expectations upon a spirit of lenity, and upon that mistake to found
an abuse of goodness that was really sincere, was not the fault of Sir
R. Peel, but of the Repealers. Any man's goodness becomes a trap to
him who is capable of making it such; since the most noble
forbearance, misinterpreted as fear, will probably enough operate as a
snare for such a person by tempting him into excesses calculated to
rouse that courage with which all genuine forbearance is associated.
If the early moderation of Government did really entrap any man, that
man has himself, and his own meanness of heart, to thank for his
delusion. But were it otherwise, and the Government became properly
responsible for any possible misinterpretation of their own
lenity--even in that case, it will remain to be enquired whether
Government _could_ have acted otherwise than it did. For else, though
Government could owe little enough to the conspirator; yet with
respect to the ill-educated and misled labouring man, whose honest
sensibilities were so grievously played upon by traitors, we do
ourselves conceive that Government had a clamorous duty. If such men
by thousands believed that the cause of Repeal was patriotic, that we
consider a delusion not of a kind or a class to challenge exposure
from Government; they have neither such functions assigned to them,
nor could they assume any office of teaching without suspicion. But
when the credulity of the poor was shown also in anticipating impunity
for the leader of Repeal, and upon the ground that ministers feared
him, when for this belief there was really much plausible sanction in
the behaviour of the Whig ministers--too plainly it became a marked
duty of Sir Robert Peel to warn them how matters stood; to let them
know that sedition tended to dangerous results, and that _his_
Government was bound by no secret understanding, with sedition for
averting its natural penalties. So much, we all agree, was due from
the present Government to the poorer classes; and exactly because
former governments had practically taken another view of sedition. If,
therefore, Sir R. Peel had left unpaid this great debt, he failed
grievously in the duties of his high office; but we are of opinion
that he did _not_. We have an obscure remembrance that the Queen's
speech uttered a voice on this point--a solemn, a monitory, a parental
voice. We seem to recollect also, that in his own parliamentary place
he warned the deluded followers of Repeal--that they were engaged in a
chase that must be fruitless, and might easily become criminal. What
was open to him, therefore, Sir Robert did. He applied motives, such
as there were within his power, to lure men away from this seditious
service. The "traps" he laid were all in that direction. If more is
required of him by people arguing the case at present, it remains to
ask whether more was at that time in his power.
The present administration came into power in September 1841. Why the
Repealers did not go to work instantly, is more than we can explain;
but so it was. In March of 1843, and not sooner, Mr O'Connell opened a
new shop of mercenary agitation, and probably for the last time that
he will ever do so. The _surveillance_ of Government, it now appears,
commenced almost simultaneously; why not the reaction of Government?
Upon that it is worth spending a few words. It is now made known to
the public, that from the very first Sir R. Peel had taken such
measures of precaution as were really open to him. In communicating,
officially with any district whatsoever, in any one of the three
kingdoms, the proper channel through which the directions travel is
the lord-lieutenant of the particular county in which the district
lies. He is the direct representative of the sovereign--he stands at
the head of the county magistrates, and is officially the organ
between the executive and his own rural province. To this officer in
every county, Sir R. Peel addressed a letter of instructions; and the
principle on which these instructions turned was--that for the present
he was to exercise a jealous neutrality; not interfering without
further directions in ordinary cases, that is, where simply Repeal was
advocated, or individuals were abused; but that, on the first
_suggestion_ of local outrages, the first _incitement_ to mischief,
arrests and other precautionary measures were to take place. Not much
more than twenty years are gone by, since magistrates moved on
principles so wholly different, that now, and to the youthful of this
generation, they would seem monstrous. In those days, let any man be
found to swear that he apprehended danger to his property, or violence
to his person, from the assembling of a mob in a place assigned, and
the magistrate would have held it his duty to disperse or prevent that
meeting. But now _on a changé tout cela_; and as easily might a
magistrate of this day commit Fanny Elssler as a vagabond. Yet even in
these days we have heard it mooted--
1. On the mere ground of _numerical amount_, and as for that reason
alone an uncontrollable mass, might not such a meeting have been
liable to dispersion? _Answer_--this allegation of monstrous numbers
was uniformly a falsehood; and a falsehood gross and childish. Was it
for the dignity of Government to assume, as grounds of action, fables
so absurd as these? _Not_ to have assumed them, will never be made an
argument of blame against the Executive; and, indeed, it was not
possible to do so, since Government had employed qualified persons to
estimate the numbers, and in some instances to measure the ground. The
only real charge against Government, in connexion with these fables,
is (and we grieve to say it) that of having echoed them, in an
ambiguous way, at one point of the trials; not exactly assuming them
for true, and resting any other truth upon their credit, but repeating
them as parts _inter alia_ of current popular hearsay. Now this,
though probably the act of some subordinate officer, does a double
indignity to Government; it is discreditable to the understanding, if
such palpable nursery tales are adopted for any purpose; and openly to
adulterate with falsehood, even in those cases where the falsehood is
not associated with folly, still more deeply wounds the character of
an honourable government. But, besides, had the numerical estimates
stood upon any footing of truth, mere numbers could not have been
pleaded as an argument for reasonable alarm. The false estimate was
not pleaded by the Repealers until _after_ the meetings, and as an
inference from facts. But the use of the argument was _before_ the
meeting, and to prevent the meeting. And if the experience of past
meetings were urged as an argument for presuming that the coming one
would be not less numerous, concurrently would be urged this same
experience as a demonstration that no danger was to be apprehended.
Dangerous the meetings certainly were in another sense; but, in the
police sense, so little dangerous, that each successive meeting
squared, cubed, &c., in geometrical progression the guarantee in point
of safety for all meetings that were to follow.
2. On the ground of _sedition_, and disaffection to the Government,
might not these assemblages have been lawfully dispersed or prevented?
Unfortunately, not under our modern atmosphere of political
liberality. In time of war, when it may again become necessary, for
the very salvation of the land, to suspend the _habeas corpus_ act,
sedition would revive into a new meaning. But, at all times, sedition
is of too unlimited a nature to form the basis of an affidavit sworn
before a police magistrate; and it is an idea which very much
sympathizes with the _general_ principles of political rights. When
these are unusually licentious, sedition is interpreted liberally and
laxly. Where danger tightens the restraints upon popular liberty, the
idea of sedition is more narrowly defined. Sedition, besides, very
much depends upon overt acts as expounding it. And to take any
controversial ground for the basis of restraint upon personal liberty,
would probably end in disappointment. At the same time, we must make
one remark. Some months ago, in considering what offence was committed
by the public avowal of the Repeal doctrine, we contended, that it
amounted constructively to treason; and on the following argument--Why
had any body supposed it lawful to entertain or to propagate such a
doctrine? Simply, on the reflexion that, up to the summer of 1800,
there _was_ no union with Ireland: since August of that 1800, this
great change had been made. And by what? By an act of Parliament. But
could there be any harm in seeking the repeal of a parliamentary act?
Is not _that_ done in every session of the two Houses? And as to the
more or less importance of an act, _that_ is a matter of opinion. But
we contended, that the sanctity of an act is to be deduced from the
sanctity of the subjects for which it legislates. And in proof of
this, we alleged the _Act of Settlement_. Were it so, that simply the
term _Act of Parliament_ implied a license universally for undoing and
canceling it, then how came the Act of Settlement to enjoy so peculiar
a consecration? We take upon us to say--that, in any year since the
Revolution of 1688-9, to have called a meeting for the purpose of
framing a petition against this act, would have been treason. Might
not Parliament itself entertain a motion for repealing it, or for
modifying it? Certainly; for we have no laws resembling those Athenian
laws, which made it capitally punishable to propose their repeal. And
secondly,--no body external to the two Houses, however venerable, can
have power to take cognizance of words uttered in either of those
Houses. Every Parliament, of necessity, must be invested with a
discretionary power over every arrangement made by their predecessors.
Each several Parliament must have the same power to _undo_, which
former Parliaments had to _do_. The two Houses have the keys of St
Peter--to unloose in the nineteenth century whatever the earliest
Parliament in the twelfth century could bind. But this privilege is
proper and exclusive to the two Houses acting in conjunction. Outside
their walls, no man has power to do more than to propose as a
petitioner some lawful change. But how could that be a lawful change
which must begin by proposing to shift the allegiance into some other
channel than that in which it now flows? The line of succession, as
limited in the act, is composed of persons all interested. As against
_them_, merely contingent and reversionary heirs, no treason could
exist. But we have supposed the attempt to be against the individual
family then occupying the throne. And it is clear that no pretence,
drawn from the repealable nature of an English law, can avail to make
it less, or other than treason, for a person outside of Parliament to
propose the repeal of _this_ act as to any point affecting the
existing royal family, or at least, so many of that family as are
privileged persons known to the constitution. Now, then, this remark
instantly points to two classes of acts; one upon which to all men is
open the right of calling for Repeal; another upon which no such
right is open. But if this be so, then to urge the legality of calling
for a Repeal of the Union, on the ground that this union rests only
upon an act of Parliament, is absurd; because that leaves it still
doubtful whether this act falls under the one class or the other.
Why do we mention this? Because we think it exceedingly important that
the attention of parliament should be called to the subject, and to
the necessity of holding certain points in our constitution as
absolutely sacred. If a man or party should go about proclaiming the
unlawfulness, in a religious sense, of _property_, and agitating for
that doctrine amongst the lower classes by appropriate arguments--it
would soon be found necessary to check them, and the sanctity of
property would soon be felt to merit civil support. Possibly it will
be replied--"Supposing the revolutionary doctrines followed by overt
acts, then the true redress is by attacking these acts." Yet every
body feels that, if the doctrine and the acts continued to propagate
themselves, very soon both would be punished. In the case where
missionaries incited negro slaves to outrages on property, or were
said to do so, nobody proposed to punish only the overt outrages. So,
again, in the event of those doctrines being revived which denounced
all differences of rank, and the official distinctions of civil
government, it would be too late to punish the results after the bonds
of society were generally relaxed. Ministers are placed in a very
false position, continually taxing a man with proposing the repeal of
a law as if _that_ were an admitted crime, and yet also pronouncing
the proposed repeal of any law to be a privilege of every citizen.
They will soon find it necessary to make their election for one or
other of these incompatible views.
Meantime, in direct opposition to this uncertainty of the ministers,
the Irish Attorney-General has drawn the same argument from the Act of
Settlement which we have drawn. In February 1844, the Irish
Attorney-General pronounced his views; _Blackwood's Magazine_ in
August or September 1843. A fact which we mention--not as imputing to
that learned gentleman any obligation to ourselves; for, on the
contrary, it strengthens the opinion to have been _independently_
adopted by different minds, but in order to acquit ourselves from the
natural suspicion of having, in a legal question, derived our own
views from a high legal authority.
3. Might not the Repeal Association have been arrested and prosecuted
at first, viz. in March 1843, as six months afterwards they were, on a
charge of conspiracy? That was a happy thought, by whomsoever
suggested; and strange that an idea, so often applied to minor
offences as well as to political offences, should not at once have
been seen to press with crushing effect upon these disturbers of the
public peace. Since the great change in the combination laws, this
doctrine of conspiracy is the only means by which masters retain any
power at all. Wheresoever there are reciprocal rights, for one of the
two antagonist interests to combine in defence of their own,
presupposes in very many cases an unfair disturbance of the legal
equilibrium. Society, as being an inert body in relation to any
separate interests of its own, and chiefly from the obscurity of these
interests, cannot be supposed to combine; and therefore cannot combine
even to prevent combinations. Government is the perpetual guardian and
organ of society in relation to its interests. Government, therefore,
prosecutes. This, however, left the original question as to the Repeal
of the Irish Union act, whether a lawful attempt or not lawful,
untouched. And necessary it was to do so. Had the prosecutor even been
satisfied on that point, no jury would have regarded it as other than
a delicate question in the casuistry of political metaphysics. But the
offence of combining, by means of tumultuous meetings, and by means of
connecting with this obscure question rancorous nationalities or
personalities, so as to make _that_ a matter of agitating interest to
poor men, which else they would have regarded as a pure scholastic
abstraction--this was a crime well understood by the jury; and thence
flowed the verdict. But could not the same verdict have been obtained
in the month of March? Certainly not. For the act of _conspiracy_ must
prove itself by collusion between speeches and speeches, between
speeches and newspapers, between reporters and newspapers, between
newspaper and newspaper. But in the infancy of such a concern, these
links of concert and mutual reverberation are few, hard to collect,
and unless carelessly diffused, (as in the palmy days of the Repeal
Association they were,) difficult to prove.
In short, no indictment could have availed that was not founded on the
offence of conspiracy; and _that_ would not have been available with
certainty much before the autumn, when in fact the conspirators were
held to bail. To have failed would have been ruinous. We have seen how
hardly the furious Opposition have submitted to the Government
measure, under its present principle of simple confidence in the law
as it is: had new laws, or suspension of old ones, been found
requisite--the desperate resistance of the Liberals would have reacted
contagiously on the excitement in Ireland, so as to cause more
mischief in a secondary way, than any measure of restraint upon the
Repealers could have healed directly.
It is certain, meantime, that Sir R. Peel did not wish to provoke a
struggle with the Repealers. Feeling, probably, considerable doubts
upon the issue of any trial, moving upon whatsoever principle--because
in any case the composition of the jury must depend a good deal upon
chance, and one recusant juror, or one juror falling ill at a critical
moment, might have reduced the whole process to a nihility--Sir
Robert, like any moderate man, hoped that his warnings might meet with
attention. They did not. So far from _that_, the Repealers kindled
into more frenzy through their own violence, irritated no doubt by
public sympathy with their worst counsels in America and elsewhere. At
length the case indicated in the minister's instructions to the
lords-lieutenant of counties, the _casus fæderis_, actually occurred.
One meeting was fixed ostentatiously on the anniversary of the
rebellion in 1798; and against the intended meeting at Clontarf, large
displays of cavalry and of military discipline were publicly
advertised. These things were decisive: the viceroy returned suddenly
to Ireland: the Privy Council of Ireland assembled: a proclamation
issued from government: the conspirators were arrested: and in the
regular course the trials came on.
Such is our account of the first stage in this great political
transaction; and this first stage it is which most concerns the
reputation of Government. For though the merit of the trials, or
second stage, must also belong to Government, so far as regards the
resolution to adopt this course, and the general principle of their
movement; yet in the particular conduct of their parts, these trials
naturally devolved upon the law-officers. In the admirable balance of
firmness and forbearance it is hardly possible to imagine the minister
exceeded. And here, where chiefly he stood between a double fire of
attacks, irreconcilable in themselves, and proceeding not less on
friends than foes, it is now found by official exposures that Sir
Robert's conduct is not open to a trivial demur. He made his
preparations for vindicating the laws in such a spirit of energy, as
though he had resolved upon allowing no escape for the enemy; he
opened a _locus penitentiæ_, noiseless and indulgent to the feelings
of the offenders, with so constant an overture of placability as if he
had resolved upon letting them _all_ escape. The kindness of the
manner was as perfect as the brilliancy of the success.
Next, as regards the trials, there is so very much diffused through
the speeches or the incidents of what is noticeable on one ground or
other--that we shall confine ourselves to those points which are
chiefly concerned in the one great factious (let us add fraudulent)
attempt within the House of Commons to disparage the justice of the
trial. In all history, we remember nothing that ever issued from a
baffled and mortified party more audacious than this. As, on the other
hand, in all history we remember nothing more anxiously or sublimely
conscientious than the whole conduct of the trial. More conspicuously
are these qualities displayed, as it was inevitable they should, in
the verdict. Never yet has there been a document of this nature more
elaborate and fervent in the energy of its distinctions, than this
most memorable verdict; and the immortal twelve will send down their
names to posterity as the roll-call of those upright citizens, who, in
defiance of menaces, purchased peace to their afflicted country at the
price of peril to themselves. With partisans, of course, all this goes
for nothing; and no cry was more steadily raised in the House of
Commons than the revolting falsehood--that the conspirators had not
obtained a fair trial. Upon the three pretences by which this
monstrous allegation endeavoured to sustain itself, we will say a
word. Two quarrels have been raised with incidents occurring at
separate stages in the striking of the jury. What happened first of
all was supposed to be a mere casual effect of hurry. Good reason
there has since appeared, to suspect in this affair no such excusable
accident, but a very fraudulent result of a plan for vitiating the
whole proceedings. Such things are likely enough to be attempted by
obscure partisans. But at all events any trick that may have been
practised, is traced decisively to the party of the defendants. But
the whole effect of the trick, if such it were, was to diminish the
original fund from which the names of the second list were to be
drawn, by about one twenty-ninth part. But this inconsiderable loss
was as likely to serve the defendants as not; for the object, as we
have said, was--simply by vitiating the proceeding to protract the
trial, and thus to benefit by a larger range of favourable accidents.
But why not cure this irregularity, however caused, by the means open
to the court? Simply for these reasons, explained by the
Attorney-General:--1st, that such a proceeding would operate
injuriously upon many other trials; and 2d, as to this particular
trial, that it would delay it until the year 1845. The next incident
is still more illustrative of the determination, taken beforehand, to
quarrel with the arrangements, on whatever principle conducted. When
the list of persons eligible as jurors has been reduced by the
unobjectionable process of balloting to forty-eight, from that amount
they are further reduced by ultimate challenges; and the necessity
resting upon each party to make these challenges is not discretional,
but peremptory. It happened that the officer who challenged on behalf
of the crown, struck off about ten Roman Catholics. The public are
weary of hearing it explained--that these names were not challenged
_as_ Catholics, but as Repealers. Some persons have gone so far as to
maintain--that even Repealers ought not to have been challenged. This,
however, has been found rather too strong a doctrine for the House of
Commons--to have asked for a verdict of guilty from men glorying in
the very name which expresses the offence. Did any man ever suggest a
special jury of smugglers in a suit of our lady the Queen, for the
offence of "running" goods? Yet certainly they are well qualified as
respects professional knowledge of the case. We on our part maintain,
that not merely Repealers were inadmissible on the Dublin jury, but
generally Roman Catholics; and we say this without disrespect to that
body, as will appear from what follows. It will often happen that men
are challenged as labouring under prejudices which disqualify them for
an impartial discharge of a juror's duty. But these prejudices may be
of two kinds. First, they may be the natural product of a certain
birth, education, and connexion; and these are cases in which it will
almost be a _duty_ for one so biased to have contracted something of a
permanent inability to judge fairly under circumstances which interest
his prejudices. But secondly, there are other prejudices, as, for
instance, of passions, of blind anger, or of selfish interest. Such
cases of prejudice are less honourable; and yet no man scruples to
tell another, under circumstances of this nature, that he cannot place
confidence in his impartiality. No offence is either meant or taken. A
trial is transferred from Radnorshire to Warwickshire in order to
secure justice: yet Radnorshire is not offended. And every day a
witness is told to stand down, when he is acknowledged to have the
slightest pecuniary interest in the case, without feeling himself
insulted. Yet the insinuation is a most gross one--that, because he
might be ten guineas richer or poorer by the event of the trial, he is
not capable of giving a fair testimony. This would be humiliating,
were it not seen that keen interests compel men to speak bluntly and
plainly: men cannot sacrifice their prospects of justice to ceremony
and form. Now, when a Roman Catholic is challenged as a juryman, it is
under the first and comparatively inoffensive mode of imputation. It
is not said--you are under a cloud of passion, or under a bias of
gross self-interest. But simply--you have certain religious opinions:
no imputation is made on your integrity. On the contrary, it is
honourable to you that you should be alive to the interests of your
class. Some think, and so may you, that separation from England would
elevate the Catholics; since, in such a case, undoubtedly your
religion would become predominant in Ireland. It is but natural,
therefore, that you should lean to the cause of those who favour
yours. In setting aside a Catholic as a juryman on the trial of
Repealers, this is the imputation made upon him. Now, what is there in
that to wound any man's feelings? Lastly, it is alleged that the
presiding judge summed up in terms unfavourable to the Repealers. Of
course he did; and, as an upright judge, how could he have done
otherwise? Let us for one moment consider this point also. It is often
said that the judge is counsel for the prisoner. But this is a gross
misconception. The judge, properly speaking, is counsel for the law,
and for every thing which can effect the right understanding of the
evidence. Consequently he sometimes appears to be advocating the
prisoner's cause, merely because the point which he is clearing up
happens to make for the prisoner. But equally he would have appeared
to be against the prisoner, if he found it necessary to dissipate
perplexities that would have benefited the prisoner. His business is
with no personal interest, but generally with the interest of truth
and equity--whichever way those may point. Upon this principle, in
summing up, it is the judge's duty to appraise the entire evidence;
and if any argument lurks obscurely in the evidence, he must strip it
of its obscurity, and bring it forward with fuller advantage. That may
happen to favour the prisoner, or it may weigh against him. But the
judge cannot have any regard to these consequences. His concern is
simply with the pressure and incidence of the testimony. If,
therefore, a prisoner has brought forward witnesses who were able to
depose any thing in his favour, be assured that the judge will not
overlook that deposition. But, if no such deposition were made, is it
meant that the judge is to invent it? The whole notion has grown out
of the original conceit--that a defendant in relation to the judge is
in the relation of a client to an advocate. But this is no otherwise
true than as it is true of every party and interest connected with the
case. All these alike the judge is to uphold in their true equitable
position and rights. In summing up, the judge used such facts as had
been furnished to him. All these happened to be against the Repealers;
and therefore the judge appeared to be against then. But the same
impression would have resulted, if he had simply read his notes of the
evidence.
Such are the desperate attempts to fasten charges of unfairness on
this fairest of all recorded trials. And with an interest so keen in
promoting the belief of some unfairness, was there ever yet a trial
that could have satisfied the losing party? Losers have a proverbial
privilege for being out of temper. But in this case more is sought
than the mere gratification of wrath. Fresh hopes spring up in every
stage of this protracted contest, and they are all equally groundless.
First, Mr O'Connell was not to be arrested: it was impossible and
absurd to suppose it. Next, _being_ arrested, he was not to be tried.
We must all remember the many assurances in Dublin papers--that all
was done to save appearances, but that no trial would take place.
Then, when it was past denial that the trial had really begun, it was
to break down on grounds past numbering. Finally, the jury would
never dare to record a verdict of guilty. This, however, being
actually done, then was Mr O'Connell to bring writs of error; he was
to "take the sense" of the whole Irish bench; and, having taken all
that, he was to take the sense of the Lords. And after all these
things were accomplished, finally (as we then understood it) he was to
take himself off in the direction pointed out by the judges. But we
find that he has not yet reconciled himself to _that_. Intimations
come out at intervals that the judges will never dare to pass any but
a nominal sentence upon him. We conclude that all these endless
conflicts with the legal necessities of his case are the mere
gasconades of Irish newspapers, addressing themselves to provincial
readers. Were there reason to suppose them authorized by the
Repealers, there would be still higher argument for what we are going
to say. But under any circumstances, we agree with the opinion
expressed dispassionately and seasonably by the _Times_
newspaper--that judgment must be executed in this case. We agree with
that journal--that the nation requires it as a homage rendered
necessary to the violated majesty of law. Nobody wishes that, at Mr
O'Connell's age, any _severe_ punishment should be inflicted. Nobody
will misunderstand, in such a case, the mitigation of the sentence.
The very absence of all claim to mitigation, makes it impossible to
mistake the motive to lenity in _his_ case. But judgment must be done
on Cawdor. Two aggravations, and heavy ones, of the offence have
occurred even since the trial. One is the tone of defiance still
maintained by newspapers under his control. Already, with one voice,
they are ready to assure the country, in case of the sentence being
incommensurate to the case, that Government wished to be severe, but
had not courage for the effort; and that Government dares not enforce
the sentence. The other aggravation lies in this--that he, a convicted
conspirator, has presumed to take his seat amongst the senators of the
land--"Venit in senatum, fit particeps consilii." Yet Catiline, here
denounced to the public rage, _was_ not a _convicted_ conspirator; and
even his conspiracy rests very much on the word of an enemy. It is
true that, in some formal sense, a man's conviction is not complete in
our law until sentence has been pronounced. But this makes no real
difference as to the scandalous affront which Mr O'Connell has thus
put upon the laws of the land. And in that view it is, viz. as an
atonement for the many outrages offered to the laws, that the nation
waits for the consummation of this public example.
* * * * *
Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work_