virulent enemy to toleration-his ancestors were refugees from persecution, they had suffered persecution, but they had not learned mercy. A son of Mr. Saurin had been appointed to a high situation-there was another change. In Ireland, Catholics had learned a double distrust-a distrust of closed investigation or open trial. They had seen on the jury, Orangemen arrayed against them in judgement; and like the wretch who is drawn to the gambling table, where loaded dice await to decide his doom, he had seen the Catholic stand before them in the auspicious hope of obtaining justice. More than once he had stood forth to defend the victim, and more than once he had beheld him trampled on, and stained with Orange pollution. What man would not view with suspicion, the administration of justice, who had witnessed the late trials in their county.

We are the more particular in detailing these expressions, both because they form an admirable commentary on the assurances of grateful affection and profound tranquillity, with which the emancipationists had assured Parliament, the boon would be received, and because it would be an anomaly to have found harmony or good-will returning to a country of whose popular leader these were the doctrines and feelings— doctrines and feelings drunk in with greedy ears, and noisy applause by the listening crowds. They were expressly told that what had been gained so far from being any cause of peace and repose, was only to be a new source of universal excitement, and more ardent activity; they were told that many great changes were still to be effected, among others, nothing less than a legislative separation from Great Britian, their connection with which, pictured to them as "a cursed union," the source of degradation and impoverishment they were taught, that while so much remained to be effected, it was gained by stenuously following out the same measures which had gained emancipation that is, by assuming an attitude of organized defiance, which, by its threatening complexion, would compel concession, The administration of justice was held out to them as an object of distrust and detestation; their opponents

were still denounced as blood-thirsty oppressors. "The Tipperary men" were told they were "too brave to be intimidated" --and could the Tipperary men, or any other Irishmen under the influence of such exciting representations, do anything else than have their applauded bravery at hand, ready for use?

It is not wonderful, then, that Ireland very soon presented scenes of as much violence, as those from which the Emancipation Bill was for ever to relieve her. The hostile feeling of parties continued and manifested themselves in the same way. To the great body of the Catholics, emancipation had brought no change, except the destruction of their freeholds -a source of discontent, rather than of satisfaction. The Protestants felt that they had been deceived, and knew that they were in danger; it could not be expected then, they would remain unmoved, when their adversaries were openly threatening a renewal of their organized activity; they, too, had recourse to organization; and the heads of Orange lodges were officially inculcating firmness and union. The slightest accident, the most casual collision, produced contention, and ended almost uniformly in bloodshed.

At the opening of the session of Parliament of 1830, Mr. O'Connell took his seat; an act having been previously passed for rendering the Oath to be taken by the Catholic Members, agreeable to the tenets of their religious creed. The opinions which were formed relative to the line of conduct which Mr. O'Connell would pursue were various and conflicting, and whilst by some it was supposed that the measures proposed by him. would be of a conciliatory and healing nature; others affirmed that they would be distinguished by the same spirit of agitation, by which all his political actions had hitherto been distinguished. The emancipation of the Catholics from their political disabilities, had been for some time held up by Mr. O'Connell, as the panacea for all the troubles and misery real, or imaginary, under which Ireland had been groaning according to Mr. O'Connell's affirmation from time immemorial. In the plenitude of his patriotic spirit, and in the fulness of his egotism, he represented himself to the people of Ireland as their deliverer and saviour, by him, and

him alone had the great boon of Catholic Emancipation been obtained for them, and therefore, had he well and nobly earned the 18 or £20,000, which the population of Ireland, under a certain degree of coercion annually paid him, under the significant term of the Catholic Rent. This Rent was, however, originally established as a bonus to Mr. O'Connell, for resigning his profession as a barrister, and dedicating the whole of his gigantic powers exclusively to the service of his oppressed countrymen. By the exercise of those powers, all the evils of Ireland were to be redressed, but according to Mr. O'Connell, Ireland was at this time a kind of pandora's box, for one evil was no sooner remedied, than another presented itself, or in other words, there was also something to be found on which the powers of Mr. O'Connell were to be exercised, for the purpose of enabling the good Irish people to testify their approbation and gratitude, by the supposed voluntary payment of the Rent Nor was it exactly consistent with the design of Mr. O'Connell, that the payment of the Rent should cease, and such being the case, we find that although in every one of the numerous speeches which he uttered in every part of Ireland, he had distinctly stated, that the emancipation of his countrymen from their political disabilities was to be the foundation of the prosperity and happiness of Ireland, yet he had not been long in Parliament, before he openly avowed that the tranquillity of Ireland could not be confirmed, unless the union between the two countries was repealed. He had obtained all he had asked for, and all that the Irish people had paid him to obtain from the English Government, but now he sought for a disseveration of the two countries, as the only means of establishing tranquillity. The Rent had been paid to obtain Catholic Emancipation, and now he convinced his countrymen, that it was necessary to continue it to obtain a repeal of the Union, which like oil thrown upon the waves, was to confer peace and prosperity to his distracted country. The Rent was continued, and Mr. O'Connell promised his countrymen in return, he would obtain the repeal. The note of preparation was now heard, Mr. O'Connell gave notice in Parliament, that he

would move for the repeal of the Union, and although he must have been convinced in his own mind, that it was one of th most quixotic schemes in which he was ever engaged, and tha he had not the slightest prospect of success, yet he followed up the motion, and the following is a correct history of the whole of this memorable proceeding

The mournful tones of the death-bell-the mercenary indi cations of parochial regret-were sounding at intervals from the steeple of St. Margaret's church, as we passed by on our way to the House of Commons on the evening of the 22d of April, the time appointed by Mr. O'Connell for his proposition of a repeal of the Legislative Union; and we felt a kind of cheering presentiment conveyed to us with each clang of the deathknell, so totally disassociated with the idea of mortality which they were intended to convey, that we involuntarily exclaimed as we entered the precincts of imperial legislation—" that is the knell of the ill-starred Union! from this night its decline will commence, and its dissolution will be as certain as that of the nameless being, whose decease is now sought to be communicated by these dismal sounds."

Upon the eve of great events, trivial incidents often serve to encourage or depress those whose feelings are interested in the approaching result; and there is scarcely a circumstance, however trivial, that will not influence a mind excited by such a contemplation. The first discussion of the question which involved the fate of the Irish nation, was in itself an event sufficiently important to raise in the minds of every person belonging to Ireland emotions of the strongest nature. They were not, however, like those which are experienced upon the eve of an expected crisis, for every one felt that the fate of the Anti-Union cause was not at stake in the impending discussion, nor was it to be retarded by the defeat that the numbers on a division would array against it. It was the manner in which it would be discussed, not the circumstances under which it would be denied, that was to be regarded-the overwhelming nature of the host prepared to resist it, left no hope

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of encouragement from the latter, but the anticipations connected with the effect of the former were cheering-and accordingly the friends and advocates of Repeal waited the coming struggle with that calm confidence which they who have truth and justice on their side always feel when those pure and eternal principles are about to be investigated. As the hour approached for commencing the evening sitting of the House of Commons, the lobby became a scene of unusual bustle. The entire representation of the United Kingdom was summoned for the occasion, and the members crowded into the house at an early hour for the purpose of securing seats for the night. A call of the House upon the occasion of resistance to a motion of one of the opposition members was a circumstance sufficiently unusual to indicate that the ministers regarded the question with no inconsiderable degree of apprehension, and proved that they relied more upon the strength of the numerical force which they would parade against it, than the success of the arguments and eloquence with which the principle of anti-unionism would be resisted. The call of the House was therefore an indication that Mr. O'Connell's motion was regarded as one of those great occasions upon which the ordinary attendance of members was not competent to decide, and accordingly the summoned senate met en masse to hear and dispose of the daring proposition.

Public rumour had for some time bruited it about that Mr. O'Connell's proposition was to be resisted in the breach by Mr. Spring Rice, at the head of a strong column of financial forces, and that the ambitious invader of imperial power was to be overthrown by a few discharges of vulgar arithmetic; nay, it was also stated, that for several months entire branches of the financial department were busily engaged in preparing the materiel for the magnanimous Under Secretary, and that all he would have to do to put an end to the contest was to meet the assault by a judicious disposition of the principles of Cocker, and a copious use of arithmetical instead of oratorical figures. He, therefore, as he tripped in and out of the house,