other for the poor, both equally ill-administered." That the relations between the proprietors and cultivators of the soil in Ireland continue to this hour grossly inequitable is sufficiently proved by the periodical visitations of famine and its attendant pestilence, recurring, too, at times when the country is exporting provisions more than sufficient for the support of twice the population. "Irresponsible power," says the first of politicians, "is tyranny." In describing the dominant party in Ireland as tyrannical, we must be understood to lay the blame more on the accidental circumstances of situation, than on any intellectual blindness or moral deficiency. The Irish oligarchy ceased to be responsible to the English parliament, and never was so to the Irish nation; corruption, shamelessness, and iron despotism, increasing with frightful rapidity, were the natural and the necessary consequences. It does not however follow that every individual in the dominant faction was a tyrant and corrupt, probably most of them were honourable and virtuous in private life; but every page of history teems with examples of crimes committed by bodies of men, from which every member singly would have shrunk with horror. "Two-thirds of the Irish House of Commons," said one of its greatest ornaments, are returned by less than one hundred persons! This is not even an aristocracy, it is an oligarchy. It is an oligarchy not of property, but of accident; not of prescription, but innovation."* The volunteers, after having established the exterual independence of their country, determined to reform the abuses in its internal constitution, but they sacrificed their patriotism to their bigotry, and at the moment that they clamoured loudest for liberty, laboured to perpetuate the slavery of the great majority of their fellow-countrymen. The cry for "reform," was now the whisper of a faction, and not the voice of a nation; as such the government could afford to disregard it, and the demand was met by a contemptuous refusal. The progress of misgovernment was now accelerated, the sale of peerages to purchase votes,† lavish grants of public money, * Grattan's Speeches, vol. iii. + Mr. Grattan, on the 20th of February, 1790, thus concluded his speech on the sale of peerages. "We charge them (the Irish ministers) publicly, in the face of their country, with making corrupt agreements for the sale of peerages; for doing which we say that they are impeachable. We charge them with corrupt agreements for the disposal of the money arising from the additional pensions, and profligate jobs, became so numerous, that the fearful consummation, described by Pope, seemed to have arrived, "When not to be corrupted was the shame." While the minds of the sober and intelligent middle class were alienated by the constant exhibition of criminality courting observation, the state of the unregarded peasantry was hourly becoming worse. We must bear in mind that the discontent of the reformers had originally no connexion with that of the labouring classes, and the two bodies, though perhaps equally hostile to the government, were nearly as much opposed to each other. The Irish peasants never took up arms, and probably never would have taken them up, to obtain parliamentary reform or Catholic emancipation; they made their struggle against practical grievances-magisterial tyranny, rack-rents, and tithes; abuses, in the support of which many of the reformers were as deeply interested as their neighbours. We must not then connect the numerous agrarian insurrections of white-boys and right-boys, hearts of oak and hearts of steel, with the progress of public discontent sale, to purchase for the servants of the Castle seats in the assembly of the people; for doing which we say they are impeachable. We charge them with committing these offences not in one, nor in two, but in many instances; for which complication of offences, we say they are impeachable; guilty of a systematic endeavour to undermine the constitution, in violation of the laws of the land. We pledge ourselves to convict them; we dare them to go into an inquiry; we do not affect to treat them as other than public malefactors; we speak to them in a style of the most mortifying and humiliating defiance. We pronounce them to be public criminals! Will they dare to deny the charge? I call upon and dare the ostensible member to rise in his place, and declare, upon his honour, that he does not believe such corrupt agreements to have taken place. I wait for a specific answer. The secretary of state (Major Hobart, afterwards earl of Buckinghamshire) declined giving any explanation, as it would be an interference with the royal prerogative; and Mr. Grattan's motion for inquiry was negatived by a majority of fifty-six. When a similar motion was made on the 8th of February in the following year, Mr. George Ponsonby (afterwards Chancellor of Ireland) said: "If gentlemen are unwilling to risk their reputation by instituting an inquiry on the ground of common fame, I will state to them what they will consider sufficient ground for this inquiry. A member of the House standing up and asserting that he has good reason to believe that peerages have been sold. Sir, I am that man; I say I have good reason to believe that peerages have been sold for money. Go into a committee, and if I do not establish my charge, degrade me-let me no longer enjoy the character of an honest man; I dare the administration to do it; I risk my reputation on the fact." The motion for inquiry was lost by a majority of fifty-two. b arising from parliamentary misgovernment. These calamitous ebullitions of rustic violence were occasioned by the anomalous condition of Irish property, and the unfortunate strength of the religious distinctions that existed between the higher and lower ranks of society. Oppression is the inevitable result of a state of things in which a marked class has the ascendency over another; no matter whether the inferior caste be black or white, Irishmen or Helots, Catholics or Plebeians, injury and insult must of necessity be its lot. Call an ill-treated slave a "nigger," and, such is the magic of a nick-name, that all sympathy for his sufferings will be destroyed. "He is a helot, he is a plebeian," were deemed sufficient excuses for murder in Sparta and Rome; Irish nature should have differed amazingly from human nature, if "he is a Papist" was not found equally potent as an apology for outrage in Ireland. But in all these instances the blame must rest upon the system and not upon individuals. The conduct of the Irish parliament on the memorable question of the regency completed the alienation of the thinking and intelligent classes: after having resisted the minister and rejected his plans almost with contumely, no sooner did the great majority find that the restoration of the king's health had confirmed his power, than they hurried once more to prostrate themselves at his footstool, and atone for their late exertion of independence by more than their former subserviency. This event was remarkable in another point of view : it first directed attention to the possibility of a separation between the islands; it led Mr. Pitt to form the project of a union; and it suggested to some of the more ardent patriots the possibility of raising Ireland into a republic after the model of America. It was about this period that Mr. Sampson first made his appearance in public life. He was a native of Derry, a city remarkable for its attachment to the principles of ultra-protestantism, and was by his family, his religion, and probably 2 • It would be an idle waste of words to prove that the term "Papist" is as inapplicable to the Irish Catholics, as the term Mohammedan or Confucian. Every man of common sense, not blinded by bigotry, knows it already, and those who persevere in its use must be either too ignorant to understand a refutation, or too obstinate to acknowledge an error. Besides it would be cruel to deprive men of the use of a nick-name who are incapable of using any other species of argument. his early prejudices, attached to the politics of the dominant party. After passing through the usual course of education with considerable éclat, he was called to the Irish bar at a time when that bar might have challenged comparison with the proudest exhibition of the legal profession in any age or country. Overcoming early prejudice, and disregarding the calls of interest, Mr. Sampson, like many of his brethren, embraced the cause of the people, and devoted himself heartily to the regeneration of his country. In the early part of the struggle, he was assisted by Robert Stewart, whose subsequent career, as lord Castlereagh and marquis of Londonderry, was little consonant to the expectations fondly formed at the commencement. Let us, however, do justice to his memory his connexion with liberal politics was sufficiently brief,-in 1793 he proposed a scheme of reform almost radical-in 1795 he was opposed to any change whatever. The great strength of the Irish reformers originally lay in the northern Protestant population. Descended from the old Puritans and Covenanters, they retained much of the stern republican spirit that had distinguished their ancestors, and no small proportion of the body had laid aside the fanatical hatred of Popery, too commonly mistaken for the best sign of attachment to Protestantism. It is doubtful whether they calculated at all on the support of the peasantry in the south and west; if they did, it must have been on the principle embodied in the popular rhyme Hungry belly, empty purse, but the mistake made by the volunteers was too flagrant and too fatal to be repeated; the Protestant reformers sought the support of the Catholic population, and, to induce compliance, took the name of United Irishmen. The outbreaking of the French revolution probably precipitated but certainly did not originate this coalition; the new dawn of freedom was hailed with enthusiasm throughout Europe, and few, very few, indulged in the gloomy anticipation of the horrors by which that event was followed. The government and the reformers were soon engaged in a hostile struggle, in which both parties soon lost their temper, and refused to be guided by prudence or moderation. "For bear to strike the land with whips," was the first moderate request of the reformers; "For daring to complain, we will chastise it with scorpions," replied the modern imitators of Rehoboam; and they kept their promise. Laws to repress almost every possible mode of expressing public opinion were hurried through the parliament, and the zeal of the local magistracy in their administration outran the enactments of the legislature. It is not possible, in these scanty limits, to give even a faint outline of the many illegal oppressions and tyrannical outrages committed by the magistrates during this unhappy period. Never was there a time when the character of the "village Hampden" was more exposed to destruction, nor the "little tyrant of the field" armed with sterner authority. The courts of law were still open, and Mr. Sampson soon became conspicuous for the zeal and ability with which he advocated the cause of the oppressed. If to redress wrongs, to punish injuries, to remedy injustice, and to protect innocence be the proudest boast of the legal profession, few can compete in these qualifications with Mr. Sampson; his memory is still hallowed in the breasts of thousands, and the blessings of those whom he saved from unmerited persecution still accompany him in his exile beyond the Atlantic. But a stop was at length put to his meritorious exertions-acts of indemnity were passed with fatal facility, and the doors of justice shut against the sufferers. The United Irishmen soon changed their character; from moderate they became radical reformers, and then the step to republicanism was easy. Such a course was natural, and under the circumstances scarcely blamable. All forms of government are means to an end, and that end is "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," or, if this phrase be deemed objectionable," the general peace and prosperity of the community." Now a man is not one whit the worse, morally, because he thinks such an end best secured by this or that particular form; he may deem mankind so very perfect that he would allow men to govern themselves and form some Utopian scheme of a republic; or he may have adopted so low an estimate of human nature as to believe that nothing but iron despotism could restrain the excesses of popular violence; but he does not deserve to be hunted out of society for either opinion; his mistaken notions are matters for argument not for punishment. This principle, though generally conceded in theory, is very rarely applied in practice, and to none has its benefit been more unfairly |