can return, when any man, or any set of men, can presume to rebuke, by any system of social or civil vilification that great majority of the christian church, which bend the knee at the name of Jesus."

The speech from which the above paragraph was taken, has been attributed to Mr. O'Connell, we are proud to disown it, and to throw the weight of its iniquity upon those shoulders which ought to bear it. The speech was in reality spoken by Mr. Finlay who in the assassination of Mr. Perceval, and in the insanity of the king, saw what will appear to the future historian as "the finger of God," "distinct evidence of a controlling Providence removing the impediments to Catholic emancipation." This calumny was however uttered almost before Mr. Perceval was cold in his grave, while his bloody corse was yet almost before the eyes of his wretched widow, while her heart was torn with anguish, while the tears of his fatherless children yet bedewed his grave, while every feeling heart beat responsive to the widow's and the orphan's groans. Such was the time that Mr. Finlay chose to assassinate the reputation of one whom a murderous hand had consigned to an untimely grave.

To the misfortune however of Mr. O'Connell, this speech of Mr. Finlay's was published in the same pamphlet with his own speech, and as he was found in such dangerous and reprehensible company, the opportunity was greedily seized upon to visit him with the full share of the obloquy and the odium which ought to have been individually given to his companion. Still however we must not avert our eyes from the truth, that Mr. O'Connell himself dealt his blows around him at a furious rate, caring not on whose head they fell, provided the individual stood in the ranks of what he was pleased to call "the state bigots of the realm."

"There

The following may be taken as a specimen. remains," says Mr. O'Connell," "another delusion; it is, the darling deception of the ministry, that which has reconciled the toleration of Lord Castlereagh with the intolerance of Lord Liverpool; it is that which has sanctified the con

nection between both, and the place-procuring, prayermumbling Wilberforce; it consists in sanctions and securities. The Catholics may be emancipated, say the ministers in public, but they must give securities. By securities, say the ministers, in private to their supporting bigots, we mean nothing definitive, but something that shall certainly be inconsistent with the popish religion. Nothing shall be a security, which they can possibly concede, and we shall deceive them, and secure you; whilst we carry the air of liberality and toleration."

Again, speaking of Lord Wellesley's motion on the Catholic Question in the House of Peers, Mr. O'Connell says:"It was lost by the petty majority of one. It was lost by a majority, not of those who listened to the absurd prosings of Lord Eldon, to the morbid and bigotted declamation of that English Chief Justice, whose sentiments so forcibly recall the memory of the Star Chamber, nor of those who were able to compare the vapid or violent folly of the one party, with the statesman-like sentiments, the profound arguments, the splendid eloquence of the Marquess Wellesley; not of those, who heard the reasonings of our able illustrious advocates, but by a majority of men, who acted upon preconceived opinions, or from a distance, carried into effect their bigotry, or, perhaps, worse propensities; who availed themselves of that absurd privilege of the Peerage, which enables them to decide who have not heard, which permits them to pronounce upon subjects they have not discussed, aud allows a final determination to precede argument."

Of the scope of the latter part of Mr. O'Connell's speech, there cannot be a dissentient opinion, except in the minds of those, whose interest it is to oppose all eradication of the scandalous abuses, and inconsistent privileges, which so particularly display themselves in the constitution of the House of Lords. It is a most monstrous insult upon the very principle of good and equitable legislation, that an individual, because a fortuitous freak of fortune has made him a Peer, should be allowed, whilst lolling in the lap of an Italian

beauty, like Lord Hd, or like Lord E-11, when he was stealing from the Greeks the mutilated remains of their ancient temples; or like Lord Courtenay, who was too depraved a wretch to dare to set his foot on English ground; that men, like these, should possess the privilege of deputing another to vote for him on those momentous questions, on the success of which may, perhaps, depend the safety of the country. It was this preposterous system, which nearly brought the ill-fated Caroline of Brunswick to the scaffold; for a number of the right worthy hereditary legislators, declared her, by their proxies, guilty of all the charges adduced against her, without ever having heard a single word of her trial, the gross perjury of the suborned witnesses, or the circumstances which were brought forward in confirmation of her innocence. Is it not a mockery of legislation, that the Duke of Wellington can enter the House of Lords with between five-andtwenty and thirty proxies in his pocket? some of the grantors of which are, perhaps, at Constantinople, or Canton, perfectly ignorant of, and indifferent to the reasons, which he as a minister might bring forward, whether they might be to saddle the bastards of a king upon the public purse, or to support the Autocrat of the north in the effusion of Polish blood. When the late Duke of Northumberland was asked how he came to appear in the minority on a particular question, he drily answered, I expected to have been in the majority. In fact, scarcely one half of the English Peers know not whether they be in the majority or minority; and can a system like this be of much longer duration? Not, if the English people will it; and if they do not will it, and that very soon, they deserve to be ridden over rough-shod by the Courtnays and the Munsters, and all the legitimates and illegitimates of our hereditary legislators.

Disposed, however, as we may be, to give Mr. O'Connell the full share of merit that is due to him for his unexampled and determined exertions in favour of the emancipation of his Catholic brethren, we cannot at the same time wholly avert

our view from some circumstances, in which, perhaps, although not the immediate instrument, yet by giving his sanction to the measures proposed, he became intimately identified with the offending parties, and consequently came in for a share of the odium, which was so liberally, and perhaps not unjustly bestowed upon them.

So long as Mr. O'Connell, and those who acted with him, confined themselves to fair and legal discussion of their grievances, no complaint whatever would have been made of the tendency of their proceedings; but not content with holding up the ministers of the Prince Regent as desperate, profligate, and unprincipled, they resolved to apply to a Foreign Power, to assist them in procuring a redress of their grievances, which actually laid them open to an indictment for sedition, and ultimately involved the printer of their proceedings in an expensive prosecution, which terminated in fine and imprisonment. The wording of the motion was couched with all the art and subtlety of the lawyer, just steering clear of treason, but bringing it within the limits of sedition. They asked not for foreign aid, but foreign mediation, thereby spliting the hair very finely, but still not wholly divesting it of its offensive nature. The following is the motion which has called forth the above remarks ::

"That it be an instruction to the Catholic Board to consider of the constitutional fitness and propriety of sending an earnest and pressing memorial to the Spanish Cortes, stating to them the enslaved and depressed state of their fellow Catholics in Ireland, with respect to their exclusion, on the score of their religion, from the benefits of the British Constitution, and imploring their favourable intercession with their ally, our most gracious sovereign."

It

This proposal which was moved by Mr. O'Gorman and seconded by Mr. Bryan, might almost excite a smile, were not its evil and mischievous tendency at once apparent. was however carried with thunders of applause, and the latter gentleman, expecting perhaps to be appointed to the high

office of ambassador from the Catholic board, and thus have an opportunity of exhibiting himself before the Spanish Cortes, posted down to Kilkenny, and at an aggregate meeting of the Roman Catholics, put from the chair the following resolution: "That it is a wise and manly policy to proclaim our slavery to Europe in the most distinct manner possible, and that for this purpose, the measure of applying to the Spanish Cortes for its intercession with our sovereign on our behalf, meet our most decided approbation. If we suffer, let England at least be put to shame."

At this time, the Duke of Richmond was at the head of the affairs in Ireland, an individual who, to his honour be it said, carried an uncommon degree of patience and forbearance towards the malcontents of the Roman Catholics, yet who, by way of a grateful return, thus triumphed on his departure from Ireland in the following resolution.

"Resolved, That we congratulate our fellow countrymen, of all ranks and classes, upon the approaching deliverance of Ireland from the tantalizing and intolerant administration of the Duke of Richmond. Ireland has never known so mischievous a system, and can never know a worse. May the merited odium which pursues him, warn his successors against trampling upon the sacred rights of petition, outraging the feelings of a good and gallant people, or ministering to the base acts of intrigue, intolerance, and injustice."

The law officers of the crown. as was their duty, prosecuted Mr. Magee, the proprietor of the Dublin Evening Post, for publishing in that paper, the libellous resolution against the Duke of Richmond, and it was on the occasion of this trial that Mr. O'Connell exhibited himself, not only to Ireland, but to all England, as one of the most eloquent orators of his day. The trial came on in the Court of King's Bench, Dublin, when Mr. O'Connell moved, in the first place, that the trial should be postponed, on account of the absence of two material witnesses, Sir Charles Saxton and Mr. Pole. The Attorney General not consenting to this, on the part of the crown, Mr. O'Connell threw up his brief, saying, that he con