no other man perhaps could have done as much towards it. His death is a national loss. It will be no easy matter to find a successor like him, in every respect qualified for that appointment. As a man of science, he occupied an elevated rank, and may be numbered among the most enlightened of our countrymen.

Account of Mr. Baird, who died June, 1816. Mr. Baird was of German extraction. His father left him a valuable farm of 500 acres in the vicinity of York, (Penn.) with some farming and household articles. He kept a tavern a number of years, married a wife, and raised four children. He accumu. lated an immense estate which he preserved so tenaciously, that he afforded not a dollar for the education of his family. He was never known to lay out one dollar in cash for any article he might be in want of; he would do without it, or find some person who would barter with him for something he could not sell for cash. He farmed largely and kept a large distillery, which he supplied entirely with his own grain. He kept a team for the conveyance of his whiskey and flour to Baltimore, which, when he could not sell for money at a price that would suit him, he bartered for necessaries for his family and tavern. In this way he amassed

an estate of $400,000.-Such was his attachment to money, that he was never known to lend or credit a single dollar to any man. Upon the best mortgage or other security that could be given, he would not lend a cent. He never invested one dollar in any of the public funds; neither would he keep the notes of any bank longer than till he could get them changed. He deposited his specie in a large iron chest, until it would hold no more-He then provided a strong iron hooped barrel, which he also filled. After death his strong boxes, "from whose bourne no traveller had ever returned," yielded $230,000 in gold and sil

ver.

The cause of his death was as remarkable as the course of his life. A gentleman from Virginia offered him 12 dollars per bushel for 100 bushels of clover seed; but he would not sell it for less than 13 dollars, and they did not agree. The seed was afterwards sent to Philadelphia, where it sold for $7 per bushel, and brought in the whole $550 less than the Virginian offered for it.-On receiving an account of this sale, he walked through his farm, went to his distillery, and gave various directions to his people. He then went to his waggon house and HANGED HIMSELF.

STATE OF IRELAND.

SIR JOHN NEWPORT.

IT will naturally be asked by an impartial inquirer, why Ireland has not been infinitely more improved by its long connexion during six centuries with England?why it still has to complain of evils which were the subject of animadversion in the early period of that connexion? The answer is obvious -the inference irresistible-it has been misgoverned. No other cause can been assigned. History does not afford a single instance of any two countries, so long united under the same government, which are not assimilated in manners, customs, and habits. Ireland is the solitary and melancholy exception to this general rule.

Illicit distillation is a source of much evil to Ireland, demoralizing her people, and encroaching on her scanty resources of taxation. It is, as I fear, too much protected by individuals of rank and power, and largely practised by the professors of exclusive loyalty. No man, however high in station, should be allowed to protect his dependents in a course of disobedience to law, nor should alleged loyalty secure any class of the community from sharing the burthens of the state. Parliament has indeed contributed to the exten

sion of this ruinous course, by that monstrous act which, remitting penalties incurred to highly of fending districts, sanctioned that shocking principle, that in the enormous extent of his offences the delinquent should find his best security.

I am astonished that the ministers who have, by the disturbed state of Ireland, justified their claim for extended military force, do not themselves propose remedial measures: one and one only, has been adverted to-education. Of its superior efficacy, no man can think more highly than I do, as providing largely for future amelioration. But can we look to this as a remedy for existing evils? I may be permitted, too, to say, that if by education be intended the capacity of reading and writing, I believe the Irish are not an uneducated people: certainly not as compared with the people of Eng. land: the reports before the house prove this. Mr. Newham, in a work containing much useful information, states, from actual inquiry, that in a district comprising about one half of the county of Cork, there were upwards of 300 unendowed schools, educating not less than 22,000 children.

Education can however be no cure for the political evils of Ireland, unless accompanied by radi

cal reform of the present vicious | ⚫ system;—it has grown out of the accumulated misgovernment of many centuries, and it is the bounden duty of parliament to institute exact inquiry into the causes and effects of that system -to search it to the bottom, and neither to be allured nor deterred from the path of duty by prejudice or power.

Sir J. Newport dwelt upon the litigation, difficulty, and delay attending Irish elections, especially where the returning officer had any bias. The difficulty and delay he instanced in his own case, where the election was extended to 15 days, although there were only 900 voters to poll. But when he had to petition against the return, the scrutiny continued no less than 76 days in Ireland, and 16 days before the committee of that house, before his claim was established. Such a system was, the house must feel, calculated to weary out any candidate; and as the evils belonging to the system were imposed upon the Irish representatives, by the union, it was peculiarly the duty of the imperial parliament to remove them.

from the writings of Dean Swift, he were to attempt to show the poverty, wretchedness, and cowardice of the Irish: if he undertook to prove from the operation of laws enacted before the reign of James I., that the affections of the people had been incessantly and violently alienated; if he undertook to show all those calamities, then, indeed, he could not much encourage the hopes of the right honourable baronet. Without, however, going so far as that, he was still inclined to think that the difficulties and evils which encompassed Ireland, formed a Gordian knot which could not be cut, and which only the gradual lapse of time could unravel.

Before he followed the right honourable baronet through all the details into which he had entered, the house would probably expect from him a statement of what was the present condition of Ireland. Generally speaking, the north of Ireland was tranquil. No disturbances prevailed there, except what arose from distillation, and the consequent opposition to the revenue laws in certain districts. Those, however, were neither serious nor alarming. The extreme

Ireland.

When the information which he (Mr. Peel) intended to move for, should be produced, it would then be competent for the house to decide what course ought to be pursued. He did not wish to discourage all expectation of its being possible to apply some remedy to the evils which afflicted Ireland. But, if he believed with the right honourable baronet, that the present state of tumult and disorder had grown out of the abuses and errors of six hundred years of mismanagement; if by quotations

of Mayo, Galway, and Carlow, were comparatively tranquil. The same might be said of the south of Ireland, of Cork, Wexford, &c. The east of Ireland was likewise generally tranquil. He meant that in those counties no applications had been made to government for extraordinary police. The counties in which disturbances actually prevailed were Tipperary, King's county, Westmeath, and Limerick. The magistrates of King's county had requested the application of the insurrection act: but they had since petitioned for its

was perfectly restored. In Westmeath and Limerick, a considerable improvement had taken place, but the insurrection act was still in force. Since he last addressed the house, the magistrates of the county of Louth and county of Cavan, had petitioned the government of Ireland for the application, not of the insurrection act, but of the extraordinary police act. Such was the general state of Ireland at the present moment There was nothing more difficult than to give the house a character of the precise nature of the disturbances which now agitated Ireland. In former periods of the history of that country, tumults and outrage had subsisted, but they were generally to be traced to small and comparatively unimportant causes. Particular and local grievances, personal animosities, or hereditary feuds, constituted the principal sources of them. At other times, grievances of a more distinct and positive nature were alleged, such as the high price of land, for example, and the professed object of the combinations was to lower it. But the disturbances which now prevailed had no precise or definite cause. They seemed to be the effect of a general confederacy in crime-a comprehensive conspiracy in guilt-a systematic opposition to all laws and municipal institutions. The records of the courts of justice would show such a settled and uniform system of guilt, such monstrous and horrible perjuries, as could not, he believed, be found in the annals of any country on the face of the globe, whether civilized or uncivilized. He was far from meaning to say that those dreadful offences arose from the generally malignant or depraved cha

ferent counties different appearances were presented. He had himself been in some, and it was impossible to find any where men more tractable, more obedient to the laws, or more disposed to pay all due deference to their superiors. He was ready to declare that it was impossible to see them without admiring many of their qualities. He believed, indeed, that the character of the Irish people had been variously misrepresented, in general, not from any deliberate design, but because, in fact, they were often presented under different and singular aspects. From his observation of them, he believed, they possessed great fidelity; in their dealings with each other great honesty; from their early marriages, they were in general very chaste; and be it told to their honour, that certain crimes which disgrace and degrade more civilised countries were utterly unknown to them. He was even told that the Irish language did not possess a name by which they could be designated. But in those parts of Ireland, especially in the county of Tipperary, their depravity was shocking. If any one should urge that he overstated it, he was prepared to confute him by irrefragable documents. He did not speak from vague and ambiguous rumours. What said the records of the courts of justice in that county? What would be the evidence of the twelve men impanelled to try midnight murderers of an invaluable magistrate belonging to that county? If he required proof for what he had asserted, he need go no farther. If any one would take the trouble to peruse the minutes of that trial, they would be able to form a thorough idea of the character of

the people. They would see their extraordinary fidelity to each other in a bad cause-the facilities they afforded to escape punishment the readiness they manifested to redress the injuries offered to any of their party-the difficulty of bringing home conviction to the guilty, and the detestation in which every one was held who at all contributed, or was instrumental in giving effect to the laws against them. With respect to the murder of that magistrate, he was afraid it was too clearly established, from the records of the court of justice, that it had been planned several weeks before it was carried into execution. The magistrate upon whom the foul deed was committed, was a most amiable man. He spoke from the opinions of others, as he had not the least knowledge of him personally. He was kind, indulgent, and a ready friend to the poor; but at the same time he was a most determined enemy to that terrible system of combination which prevailed. In the neighbourhood of his dwelling, a house had been burned down, because the inhabitant of that house had taken land at higher rent than was thought a proper equivalent by those misguided men. The magistrate in consequence, exerted himself to discover the offenders, and by his indefatigable efforts six of them were apprehended. Upon this, the remainder determined to murder him. On the day fixed for the atrocious act, there were no less than four different parties stationed on different roads waiting for his approach. The murder was committed at some distance from Cashel, and the particulars which he related were derived from a gentleman who happened to be travelling that road at that time,

and resembling the magistrate (Mr. Baker) in person, narrowly escaped from falling a sacrifice. Information was conveyed by signals from one party to another. The gentleman to whom he alluded saw several persons on the tops of the houses and hay-ricks, waiting for the fatal catastrophe. When the shot was fired, loud cheers were uttered by those who were thus waiting, and then they all retreated. The plan, therefore, had evidently been determined upon months before it was put in execution: and although no less than 13,000l. were offered as a reward for apprehending the murderers, by the government and by the resident gentry in the county, he believed no evidence whatever was obtained as the result of that offer: such was their fidelity in a bad cause, and such was the abominable system of confederacy upon which they acted. Not a person was found to come forward and make a voluntary disclosure. He would mention one conclusive proof of the feelings by which they were actuated. One of the murderers who was apprehended, and afterwards hanged for his crime, when in prison, expressed a desire to disclose some particulars. His life was offered as the promised reward for his confession. He accordingly communicated a part; but he afterwards retracted, at the instigation of his wife, who went on her knees to him in the prison, and implored him to be executed rather than divulge the secret. (A laugh, and hear, hear!) The house might probably smile at the conjugal affection of the woman, but he could assure them, there was as much attachment between the husband and the wife as could possibly exist between two persons and the concern which she felt