evils afflicting not one class or trade, but the bulk of the community. Take away from them the broad surface of misgovernment-no matter what be its intensity-confine it to a few, and they perish. It is childish to say they influence the popular mind with imaginary wrongs. This betrays profound ignorance of the world. The great difficulty is to move men, but, beyond all, to move a nation. Great judgment, great eloquence, are not sufficient, without great and continual suffering-broad, palpable, permanent wrong. The means adopted by political unions are directly repugnant to the truth of the charge. If, then, complaints are well founded, they are, they must be, the greatest idiots alive who subject them to the scrutiny of eternal inquiry. None but sterling metal can bear long circulation. If merely washed over-without any refined process, by no more than casual rubbing-the gilding wears away, and the utterer of the counterfeit coin is detected. Experience is totally opposed to those who represent the mass of a nation, giddy, false, and quarrelling with their food. These calumnies are poor devices of misgovernment, and refute themselves. It may be said, the people are sometimes subject to delusions-to furious paroxysms, in which their strength is directed against their permanent interests. Granted: but it is in the exact ratio of their ignorance. It was a sense of that which produced political unions. It was a perception of the necessity of diffusing accurate knowledge, of ascertaining the exact cause of the national suffering, of bringing all classes together, from their various evidence, deducing the real seat of the disease, and substituting, as a remedy, the force of reason and opinion, for secret conspiracy, that mainly created them. The great objection to improvement was the evils through which it was supposed we must necessarily wade before we attained it: but discussion, influencing opinion, produces, within the shell of existing law, a new body, which gradually absorbs and supersedes the old. All is smooth, regular, and in the ordinary course of nature. Particle is replaced by particle, until at length-while the

general shape has been preserved, and its functions interrupted by a change analogous to that in the human frame-good institutions are gradually substituted for bad; but the living principle of impartial justice continues, during the change, to preside through society. The power of political unions bears an exact proportion to the state of education. In barbarous countries, they cannot exist for an hour. So that the very nature of their power contains within itself an effectual check upon abuse. The Association felt this, and founded a national system of education. They worked by enlightening the people. Observing that, in all ages, an ignorant population is disposed to conspiracies, insurrections, and wild massacres, as the means of escaping from oppression; and clearly discerning, not merely the wickedness, but the total inutility of these, they inculcated peace, and taught patience. But as such preachings would have been properly despised, if offered in the nakedness of a servile morality, they shewed that they were the surest means of ameliorating their condition, when combined with other measures. Accordingly, the quantity of political and general information they threw out, was incredible. Secret meetings, conspiracies, ribbon associations, were abandoned; and the efforts of the people for redress, rushed, in the light of day, along the channels of the constitution, They raised the national character, and were raised along with it. Broader principles, measures of a more general utility, and a nobler style of oratory, were necessary to suit a whole nation. Never was there a more magnificent spectacle. In Brazil, they judge of the richness of mines contained in their mountains by the loudness of the echoes in a thunder storm; and the noble spirit of the Irish people was evinced by the manner in which it replied to the eloquence of the Association. Poor peasants, humble farmers, for their country and religion, made the most heroic sacrifices. Ties, thought almost omnipotent, burst like twists of rotten silk, when put in competition with duty. Money and influence were despised. Men who never had £5 at a time in their lives, during the Waterford election

produced the notes that had been offered them, in open court, and flung them in the faces of Lord Beresford's agents. It was in vain to threaten them with the vengeance of their land lords. As they said themselves, "they would sooner die, than demean themselves in the presence of the whole country;" and the spirit was fully shared even by their wives and daughters. But what rendered this enthusiasm more striking, was the extraordinary self command that controlled and sustained it. At the elections in 1825, but particularly at the Clare election, the order and peaceableness were amazing. It fully proved how thoroughly penetrated the humblest classes were with the nature of their cause, and the mode in which it could be injured. So far from the usual riots, there was not one breach of the peace, not a blow struck, except by an enemy. Every thing bent to "the good of the country." The Association shewed the necessity of sobriety; and not a glass of whisky was drunk. It inculcated and demonstrated the necessity of peace. A man was struck, we believe, by a policeman, he stopped, looked at him, and said, "Do that, this day week!" A freeholder, quite exhausted, asked for a drink of water. A priest poured out a glass of whisky the man said, "Sure, we were desired not to drink whisky during the election," and spilled the liquor on the ground. The same feeling was shared by thousands. Enormous masses of the peasantry preserved the peace. The whole county was a policeman. Military men were more astonished at these circumstances than at any other, The discipline, the organization, the enthusiasm, and the universal feeling. produced the most profound impression on their minds. They said that such a people could not be oppressed with impunity; and of course, their representations were not disregarded by the Duke of Wellington.

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But there was a still more formidable feature. It is one of the direct consequences of the system of Political Unions, that it effects changes, as has been observed, peaceably, by not only combining the oppressed, but by converting the very instruments of oppression to its side, The legs are knocked from under tyranny. The cements of a corrupt self-interest run like

wax in the general conflagration of feeling. A nation on fire is a terrible and affecting spectacle. The coldest bodies at length become warmed. Soldiers are but men, with the same feeling as the rest of the community, susceptible of the same love of justice and liberty, though modified by habits of blind obedience. If they sometimes consider the interest of the army as separate from that of the nation, the meanness of acting on any such consideration is sure to be exposed by a comparison with those generous principles with which they see others actuated; and, as their interest is really identified with that of their country, the force of public discussion will, at length, attach them to the people. This brings us to the next great advantage of Political Unions, that they neutralize the effects of standing armies.

The Tories talked big of the army in the late crisis. We firmly believe they would not have acted—some few regiments of guards, perhaps, excepted-against their country; but it was of greater importance, that their resistance would have been but chaff to a people as brave as themselves, contending for their rights, and more than a hundred to one. In Ireland, discussion had shaken the minds of the soldiery. The good humour of the people conciliated, while the obvious justice of their cause strongly affected them. They felt, without any reasoning, the extreme cruelty of interfering with religion. Their feelings revolted at the idea of butchering their fellowcreatures for a faction. It is now notorious, that in the towns and along the line of march, hundreds threw up their caps for O'Connell; and there seems no doubt that General Thornton, who commanded in Ulster, like a rational man, told the Duke of Wellington not to calculate on the troops. But, it will be asked, is the country to be agitated on every light occasion by unions? Are the hammers of perpetual discussion to resound through the land? This cannot be answered until another question is resolved-Are the people to be always oppressed? Is the state to be completely overrun with the fungus of various abuse? Is the majority to be sacrificed to the minority? Must the frame of government always press on the raw necks of the

poor? Unions cannot exist on every light occasion. Without numbers-in short, the bulk of the nation-attached to them by the bond of general suffering, they are a mere odious parcel of brawlers. Take away from them actual and extensive grievances, and they gasp on the strand. But when is it to be known that the crisis has arrived which demands national combination? We reply, the time will find itself. The general sense produces the general union. Men meet, bring their wrongs into the middle, and the thing is done. When government, which was established to aid, becomes so perverted as to obstruct the interests of the community, and has taken a settled bias towards mischief-when it has hopelessly become a great engine to squeeze industry, and when injustice is barbed with insult-the natural effort of society attempts to supply the deficiency by creating a new organ. If the legislature from whatever cause, is below the average spirit and intelligence of the country, it will be despised. If it oppress, it will be hated, and men will look elsewhere for substantial government. This is the eternal law of things. It is a mere fallacy to represent the option as between unions and civil war. Had not the Birmingham Political Union, with the rest, existed, we would, undoubtedly, have had the scenes of 1648 renewed in 1832.