tant kingdom to be governed by a Popish prince, or by any king or queen marrying a Papist. But if the principle upon which that succession was established be retracted, the principle of legitimacy revives, and the Bill of Rights, which is the Magna Charta of our religious, and moral, and intellectual freedom, becomes as much an old almanack as history-as mere a bugbear as the Coronation Oath. The right of succession reverts to the house of Sardinia, that house, whose tender mercies the Vaudois experienced formerly, and whose generosity the descendants of the Vaudois are experiencing at this day.” *

1

IV.

Proceedings of the Catholic Association, and incendiary Speeches of its Members.

"Let us look (says the Quarterly Review) at the state of Ireland, as it is represented to us, in terrorem, by the agitators and their partisans. Notwithstanding the malus animus of the painter, the picture is not overcharged in any of its features; and for this simple reason, that truth

* See the Speeches of the present Bishop of London, of Sir J. Nicholl, Mr. Dawson, and No. lxxvi. of the Quarterly Re

serves the purpose, in this case, better than falsehood, and therefore, truth is told. They tell us that the Catholic Association has erected a complete imperium in imperio, or, rather, that it has taken the people entirely out of the hands of the government, the police, the local authorities, and the magistrates;-that in every village throughout the south of Ireland, and in Leinster also, there is a conservator of the peace, bearing the commission of Catholic churchwarden from this self-constituted government, and in constant communication with that body; that the whole country is actually organized, disciplined, and regimented, like a single company of soldiers, ready to obey the command of the Catholic Association, under officers, and for a cause to both of which they are devoted. 'There never,' says a newspaper partisan * 'was organization so complete as that of the Irish Catholics at this moment; peaceful as we are persuaded is its primary object, (!!) its principles are all of a military cast. It is an array and discipline of almost countless numbers, under known officers, with gradations of ranks, commanded from one centre, and inspired by one soul. This, we say, however pacific in its immediate purpose, (!) is convertible, on the miscarriage of that purpose, to any and every service of actual hostility.' 'We are masters of the representation,' says one of their incendiary orators. This

*The Times.

is the pivot of the case. We have wrested their influence from the gentry, and the Protestant who draws rent from thousands of acres is almost as much destitute of power at an election, as the peasant without a rood.' 'The Association will continue to sway and to control the passions of the enormous and powerful population of this country, so long as government persevere in the miserable system of anomaly and misrule which has produced that great convention.' If that body,' says one of its newspaper advocates, ' decreed it, every county in Ireland would be in rebellion in the course of a week. But of this,' the same writer assures us, there is not the slightest apprehension. The leaders of that body feel the tremendous responsibility with which they are invested. They know that they are surrounded by vigilant and active enemies, and every thing they do is done openly. Mr. O'Connell can wield five or six millions of the Irish people at will: with Mr. O'Connell, however, the peace of the country is safe!'

"If proof of this latter part of the assertion be required, Mr. O'Connell and the Association are held up to us as the pacificators of their country! When they bring the people together, in whatever numbers, and on whatever occasion, they bring them in order, keep them sober, and obtain from them the most willing and entire obedience while they are assembled. They have them under perfect command, like dogs who are held

in the leash, till they who hold them shall cry havoc! and let slip. More than this-interfering, as the Popes were used to do, in former times, by their legates between contending potentates, they have succeeded in putting old enmities to rest, and making peace between inveterate factions. Effecting thus what the laws never could effectuate, and what the priests never before attempted, they have reconciled the Moll Doyles and the Padeen Gars, the Cummins and Darrigs, the Dungans and Hackets, the Carneys and the O'Flannigans; the Shanavests, so called because one of their leaders (like El Chaleco, in the Spanish war) was distinguished by his waistcoat, which was an old one, and the Caravats, so denominated because one of their chieftians was unfortunate enough, at last, to have the place of his cravat supplied by a hempen noose, the bight of which was so adjusted, by a certain legal practitioner, as to press under the left ear. At their entreaties, the Three Years' Old and the Four Years' Old have thrown down their shillelahs, and embraced like heroes of the Homeric age. Peace has been concluded between the Magpies and the Black Hens, the General of the Magpies presenting, in token thereof, a living Magpye to the Cock of the Black Hens, and the Cock of the sable poultry giving a black hen in return to his former rival. Under the same auspices, peace also was made between the Coffeys and the Rieskavalla Boys-made, alas! but

not concluded; for, upon casting up the number of the slain, on both sides, the Rieskavalla Boys discovered that the Coffeys had a majority over them, having notched one death more; and, therefore, they resolved that peace could not properly be concluded, till they should haye killed one of the Coffeys, just to balance the account, and make things even. Such relations will be perused in England with a smile or with a sigh, according to the mood or disposition of the reader; but in Ireland it is remembered, that 'previously to every insurrection, since the year 1798, whether political and general, like the rebellion of that year; or local and Rockite, like those which occurred in the years 1812, 1813, 1819, and 1823, these quarrels seem to have ceased, as if by mutual and tacit consent;' and this is a consideration which may reasonably excite alarm. 'I well remember,' says Mr. Gamble*, that on the eve of our rebellion those who knew the country best were never thoroughly alarmed until they remarked the entire change and conduct of the people, and saw them go home from fair and market as sober as they had come: they then said that the cloud which hung over us would soon come down in a storm.'

6

"It is distinctly proved,' said Mr. George Robert Dawson, (speaking in 1825,) that the Catholic Association has assumed a form inconsistent with the principles of the constitution;

* Sketches of Society in the North of Ireland, p. 13.