Wexford had been dismissed on proof of his having attended an Orange lodge; and a drum-major was tried by court-martial, and reduced to the ranks, for having played party-tunes in the streets of Belfast. The viceroy disallowed the election of the master of an Orange lodge to the mayoralty of Cork, and of two other Orangemen as sheriffs, in September 1835. These instances looked like partiality while no Ribbonmen were dismissed or otherwise punished. If Ribbonmen could have been found, in office or out of it, they would have been punished; but all endeavours to detect and punish Ribbonism were in vain. A Catholic policeman endeavoured to join, in order to obtain information; and an inspector of police was sent to England to learn from an Irish soldier in a place of safety what he would not have told among his acquaintances at home: but all that could be discovered by all the powers of government and the police in five years, supplied ground for only one prosecution; and that broke down. Thus all the penalties devolved on one party; but it could not be said that that party met only with severity. As soon as the intention of the leaders to dissolve the Orange societies was known, the viceroy liberated all the Orangemen who were under arrest for joining prohibited party processions on the 12th July preceding.

The Irish Orangemen were, however, less obedient to their chiefs than the English and Scotch. The Dublin grand-committee met and decided that 'the mere will of the king was not law,' and that their watchword should be 'No surrender.' Sir Harcourt Lees addressed a letter to the brethren, the last paragraph of which was adopted as the Tory text or watchword from that day forward: Orangemen, increase and multiply-be tranquil-be vigilant. Put your trust in God-still revere your king-and keep your powder dry.' This letter was dated February 27, 1836. On the 7th of April following, the Orange idol was rent to pieces in its shrine; the statue of William III. was blown up on its pedestal in College Green, Dublin. Here was a Catholic outrage-an act of Ribbon sedition at last.

But

almost before this was said, men began to smell some of the dry powder' above referred to in the train which blew up the statue. Government offered a large reward for the detection of the offender; and the Dublin corporation offered as much again. The perpetrator was never discovered; but some incidents of the time caused a general impression that the hand employed was that of a wrathful Orangeman.

Meantime, the viceroy and his coadjutors in the government persevered in bestowing office without regard to religious persuasion. They selected the fittest men; and if they inquired whether they were Protestant or Catholic, it was for the purpose of holding the balance as evenly as they could. The practice of setting aside Roman Catholics as jurors was broken through; and throughout the island, the Protestants, who had always regarded their neighbours of another faith as idolators and rebels, saw with amazement and horror that they were trusted to try the accused, to administer the laws,

and transact the business of society, as freely as if they hated the pope and cursed the Jesuits.

All this was very well; but a more effectual method of ultimately extinguishing religious rancour was supposed to be by the system of national education established in Ireland.

In October 1831, the first announcement of this scheme was made in a letter from the then secretary for Ireland, Mr Stanley, to the Duke of Leinster. The object was not new-the object of diminishing the violence of religious animosities by bringing together the children of Catholic and Protestant daily to sit on the same bench, take an interest in the same ideas, and find by constant experience and sympathy how much they had in common. This object had been aimed at through the organisation of the Kildare Street schools; but the machinery was not of the right kind, though conscientiously worked. In 1828, a committee of the House of Commons had recommended the adoption of a system which should afford, if possible, a combined literary, and separate religious education, and should be capable of being so far adapted to the views of the religious persuasions which prevail in Ireland, as to render it, in truth, a system of national education for the poorer classes of the community.' In order to meet the religious wants and wishes of all parties, certain days in each week were set apart for the religious instruction of the children by their respective clergy; and every encouragement was given to the communication of such instruction daily, before and after school-hours. The great difficulty was about the method of giving any religious sanction to the secular teaching in the schools. All desired some such sanction; but the Protestants contended for the whole Bible, spurning the idea of selections being made from it for school reading, as the rankest blasphemy, while the Catholics are not, as every one knows, allowed the free use of the Scriptures. Selections from the Bible were made, to the satisfaction of many clergy, both Protestant and Catholic; and these have been in use to this day. A brief remark dropped by the Archbishop of Dublin in the debate (February 28, 1837) on the appointment of a committee of inquiry into the Irish schoolsystem, conveyed a significant hint and warning to those who heard him, and to many out of doors, that nothing could be more perilous than to circulate among the people exaggerated notions of the differences between the several versions of the records of their salvation. Yet, from the Bishop of Exeter in the Lords, down to the idlest clergyman without a flock in Ireland, the opposition to the Education Board and its acts, on the ground of the mutilation of the Scriptures, was virulent to a degree incredible in men who call themselves Christians. They could not, however, overthrow the board, or stop its good works. They could not even hinder Protestants in Ireland from accepting the benefit of the schools, though hundreds and thousands of children were kept away, to be lost in ignorance and superstition, who would otherwise have been rational and enlightened citizens of a country whose main want is of good citizens. The Archbishop of Dublin said, on this 28th of February

Whig administration in 1841, we find an annual advance in the number of schools and scholars, in an accelerating ratio, till, since 1834, the number of schools in operation had increased from 789 to 2337, and the number of scholars from 107,042 to 281,849. And the board was then about to aid 382 additional schools, which would add 48,000 to the number of pupils on the rolls. When hundreds of thousands of children were thus reared in security from sectarian rancour, it seemed to many that such rancour might, and must in time, be discharged from the mind of the Irish people; but good as was the work, and bright as were the hopes which it yielded, it is not the less clear that those were wrong who looked to this institution for the redemption of Ireland.

2. Next, we must glance at the policy desired by those who would have won over O'Connell from his practice of teaching dislike and distrust of the law, believing this dislike and distrust of the law to be the one impediment to the redemption of the Irish people. At the same time that O'Connell was won over to silence, the Irish government was to rule conspicuously by the ordinary powers of the law, to exercise the strictest impartiality, and to compel a similar recognition of equality before the law throughout the country, by a reform of the justiciary. The characterising virtue of Lord Mulgrave's administration in Ireland was its reliance on the ordinary powers of the law, and the impartial exercise of them. Extreme as was the consternation of the Church and Tory portion of Irish society at

seeing Catholic gentlemen admitted to the magistracy, and Catholic lawyers to office in Dublin, and Catholic juries sitting to try offenders, either Protestant or Catholic, and loud as was the outcry about the return of the times of James II., and the domination of the pope in Ireland, the improvement in social life, and the decrease of crime, soon became unquestionable facts. It was an affecting sight to those who happened to be in Ireland in 1837, to see the awakening of the Catholic population to a sense of what law and justice were, and to a hope that they might share in the benefit. The Catholic priesthood led the way in trusting the government; and the people followed. It was a touching sight-that of the melting down of the popular spirit of pride and cunning into gratitude and trust. Hitherto, the pride of the Irish peasant had nourished itself in defiance first, and then evasion of the law, as in defiance and circumvention of an enemy. The chief ground of the popular admiration of O'Connell was his success in defying and evading the law; and every follower of the agitator gloried in emulating him, as far as opportunity allowed. Now, for the first time, the idea dawned upon the general Irish mind, that law and justice might possibly be a benefit, and not an oppression; and when fostered by the priests, and justified by the whole course of the government, this idea grew clear and strong, the revulsion of feeling was a truly affecting sight. Criminals became odious, instead of endeared, by their crimes; they were informed against, instead of harboured; and the fiercest wrong-doers felt ashamed of outrages against the public peace, instead of glorying in them. If the cause of Irish misery had not lain deeper than was then dreamed of-if all collateral improvements had not been swept away through the absence of the only effectual remedythe training of the Catholic Irish to legality and order in Lord Mulgrave's time might have proved their permanent redemption from one of their worst national faults. As it was, the remarkable and steady subsidence of crime, during the whole term of the Whig administration in Ireland, is a sufficient testimony to the wisdom and humanity of the characterising principle of its rule.

Sir R. Peel reminded parliament, in 1829, that 'for scarcely one year during the period that has elapsed since the union, has Ireland been governed by the ordinary course of law.' Insurrection Acts, Suspension of the Habeas Corpus, and martial law, were all familiarly associated in men's minds with the very name of Ireland; and all had been in vain -so vain, that parliament itself became uneasy and remorseful; and Lord Grey's government fell on the question of a Coercion Bill. Now, for a term of years, the experiment was tried of putting the ordinary law in force without fear or favour; and the result was, that at the close of the viceroy's term of government, twenty-seven out of thirty-two counties in Ireland were perfectly tranquil, or eminently tranquillised, while the remaining five were not worse than they had always been before; that, while the decrease of crimes proceeded from year to year, the proportion of convictions to committals, and of committals to offences, was always

on the increase-shewing that at length the people were taking their part in the administration of justice, for the public good; that wherever the influence and example of the government could act freely, crime had almost disappeared-as in the instance of the celebrated faction-fights, which were now seldom heard of; while the crimes which did continue were those which arose from agrarian discontents-from that great underlying grievance which every government has left untouched; and, finally, that the decrease of crime, on comparison of the three years ending in 1838 with the three years ending in 1828, was no less than 10 per cent. of murder and manslaughter, 46 per cent. of shooting and stabbing, 29 per cent. of conspiracy to murder, 56 per cent. of burglary, and 86 per cent. of housebreaking for arms in the night.

The alarmed Protestants in parliament, however, complained that Lord Mulgrave desecrated and annulled the law by his clemency. He had made a circuit through the south first, and then through the north of Ireland, and had visited the jails, and most establishments supported by the public funds. In visiting the jails, he had inquired of three parties concerning the prisoners whose pardon might be desirable of the resident officers about their conduct in prison; of the medical officers about their health; and of neighbouring gentlemen about their previous character, and the probability of their good conduct henceforth. Where necessary, application was made to the judges for guidance. Of 800 petitions for pardon, about half had been entertained; of these, only 100 had been favourably answered, on certificates from medical men and others. These-whatever had been said to the contrary-were Protestants or Catholics, as might happen; while the rest, the only class to whom the prison-doors had been thrown open freely, were Orangemen convicted of joining illegal processions. The small proportion of recommitments among the offenders thus pardoned testified to the discretion of the mercy which had released them at the commencement of a new period in the government of Ireland; yet the political Protestants, perplexed and dismayed by the new doctrine and practice of equity before the law, persisted in calling the viceroy's journeys of inspection 'jail-delivery circuits,' and concluded that pardon was granted for the sake of the Catholics.

There was another doctrine, propounded by a member of the government at this time, which was offensive to the political 'Protestants,' as they called themselves, who opposed the acts of the Mulgrave administration. There is no survivor of that administration who will not eagerly assent to the avowal, that that one member, Mr Drummond, was the mind and soul of it. Mr Drummond, the military surveyor, the discoverer of the light known by his name, the private secretary of Lord Althorp, by the united wish of Lord Grey's cabinet, and the Irish under-secretary under Lords Mulgrave and Morpeth, was a man of great external calmness, of eminent prudence in the ordinary affairs of life, and, till of late years, apparently devoted altogether to scientific pursuits. His acquaintances were wont to rally him for his Scotch prudence and caution, and to describe

CHAP. VI.]

the pleasures and pains of enthusiasm to him, as things that he could not possibly know anything about. It was his function in Ireland which revealed him to his friends, if not to himself. His subdued enthusiasm now manifested itself in a moral force, as lofty and sustained as it was powerful. The cool man of science came out the philanthropist, the philosopher, the statesman, the virtual preachercarrying the loftiest spirit of devotedness into each function. He put wisdom into the counsels of the Irish government, and moderation into its demeanour. He put enthusiasm into the justice which he gave impartially to the Irish people; and he called for justice in the enthusiasms which the observant people paid back to the government. It was he who repressed crime throughout the nation, and rebuked its passions, and stilled its turbulence, and encouraged its hopes, and stimulated its industry, and soothed its sorrows. His sobriety of judgment and calmness of manner never gave way; but a fervour, like that of renewed youth, latterly pervaded his whole mind, animated all his faculties, and deepened his habitual composure, while he was consciously meeting the martyr's doom. He lived too fast, knowingly and willingly, during these few years which he believed to be so critical for Ireland. Under his work, his responsibilities, his thronging ideas, his working emotions, his frame could not hold out long; and he was prostrated at once by an attack of illness in the spring of 1840. 'I am dying for Ireland,' he said, just at the last. He died for Ireland; and in the contemplation of his death, how do other deaths which bear more of the external marks of martyrdom for Ireland shrink, by comparison, in our estimate! Here was no passion-no insulting speech-no underhand or defiant action-no collision of duties-no forfeiture of good faith-no implication of the helpless in danger-no disturbance of society-no imperiling of any life but his own. No man who courted the bullet or the gibbet ever dared more. No man who organised rebellion in consultations by day and drillings at night ever wrought harder. No man who cast his all into the revolutionary balance was ever more disinterested and devoted. He, a soldier of a sensitive spirit, brought upon himself unmeasured insult, which would elsewhere have been intolerable; but for Ireland's sake he bore it all. He went through endless toils which nobody knew of, who could give him any return of honour. He felt himself sinking, before he had attained the rewards which might once have been alluring to him-before he had attained wealth, or rank, or a post in the world's eye, or the fame of statesmanship; but he toiled on, too busy on Ireland's behalf to have a regret to spare for such things as these. If there are any who cannot reconcile themselves to such an issue, let them remember how noble a way remains to do him honour. Let them name his name when Ireland wants his example. When boasts of martyrdom abound, and blustering patriots would rouse the ignorant and suffering to rash enterprises, and men who will not work for Ireland talk of fighting for her, and those who cannot deny their own vanity, or indolence, or worldly care, claim the glory of patriotic agitation, let the name of Thomas Drummond

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be quietly spoken, and human nature has lost its rectitude and its sensibility if the arrogance be not shamed, and the vaunt silenced.

He was a man whom few things could astonish. One of the few things which did astonish him was the effect of certain words of his own which appeared to him as simple and commonplace as anything he ever uttered. It is certainly true, however, that the most common-place sayings have an effect proportioned to the moral force of those who utter them; and in this case the words appear-even now to us-instinct with the just and brave spirit of the man. The story was this. In the course of the debate in the Upper House on Lord Roden's motion, towards the close of 1837, it was mentioned by Lord Mulgrave (then become Marquis of Normanby), and by other speakers on the same side, that all inquiry led to the conclusion that the murders and manslaughter in Ireland were not owing to religious differences or political discontents, but almost exclusively to agrarian grievances. This opinion, far from acceptable to listening Orangemen and Irish landlords, was vehemently protested against, not only by Lord Roden, but by the Duke of Wellington, who quoted the Marquis Wellesley as an indisputable authority, who had said that the agrarian disturbances themselves were ascribable to political agitation. From that time, the Irish landlords and political chiefs on the Tory side seem to have taken for granted that the government was a company of declared foes, who would keep watch on the management of their private affairs, and cast upon them the responsi bility of all outrages perpetrated on Irish estates. On the 1st of January 1839, Lord Norbury was shot in his own shrubbery, in broad daylight, while pointing out to his steward some trees which he destined for removal. The cause of the deed

was shrouded in mystery. Lord Norbury was on good terms with his Catholic neighbours and tenants; and he did not concern himself about politics. The question was naturally asked by everybody whether this was another agrarian outrage. The very words fired the passions of the landlords-before jealous, and now panic-stricken. At a meeting which they held, in the name of the magistrates of King's County at Tullamore, to consider the circumstances of this murder and of the country, they reverted to those few words of Mr Drummond's, which their vehement wrath at once raised into a proverb. These words were found in a letter of Mr Drummond's, in reply to a request from the magistrates of Tipperary for an increase of military or police force. The under-secretary refused the assistance requested, and gave reasons which induced the receivers of the letter to keep it secret, lest the common people should hear about it, and be led to think ill of the landlords.' The letter was asked for in parliament, however, and necessarily produced; and it actually became a parliamentary document before the magistrates of Tipperary had been generally permitted to see it. In this muchcanvassed letter occurred the words: 'Property has its duties as well as its rights.' In their fear and grief at the murder of Lord Norbury,