It must be evident to every one who will honour the following pages with their perusal, that they were written when no idea was entertained of the recent extraordinary changes in the management of the government of these kingdoms.

They

were written at a time when it was the loud and bold assertion of a certain party, that one of two things the English government should speedily do—that they should either grant Catholic Emancipation, or undertake the suppression of a rebellion in Ireland, which would certainly be consequent upon its continued denial.

With a facility of change most marvellous and astonishing, the same party now maintain a directly opposite doctrine, and assert that they can go on extremely well for some time longer without emancipation.-Nay, that it would be quite contrary to their wishes, that any attempt were made for some considerable time, to obtain the very thing, the least delay of which, they maintained but a few weeks ago, was fraught with most imminent danger.

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Even those more respectable advocates of emancipation, who did not go quite so far as to threaten absolute rebellion, yet held, that on all grounds of good policy, an immediate concession of the Catholic Claims was most imperiously necessary. At their head stood the Right Honourable Gentleman now at the head of the Government, concerning whose change of opinion I might venture to say a few

words, were it not that the task has been already undertaken by " a master hand," and executed in a manner of which I should in vain attempt to speak in adequate terms of praise.

In Ireland, those who are called " government men" or Tories, and who comprise the greater part of the landed proprietors and respectable gentry of the kingdom, naturally look with great surprise at the late alterations, and while they do not disguise their fears that the Government, with its present supporters, will not be carried on upon " Lord Liverpool's Principles," await with eager expectation the practical results of the change of men. The Whig gentlemen, and another set of persons infinitely less respectable, whom it would be difficult to designate by any more appropriate name than the old one of Agitators," seem to imagine that a great triumph has been achieved by their

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friends in England; and that, in short, the Government is no longer to be conducted upon Lord Liverpool's principles, but on theirs. That an impression of this kind should exist in Ireland, where people are more apt to yield to their feelings than to examine into the reason of them, is not perhaps so very extraordinary; but that such a feeling should gain ground in England-that the Whigs, and the Whig press, should appear so extravagantly joyful, does indeed appear under present circumstances a little preposterous. True it is, that some of them have obtained office, but how have they obtained it? Not surely by the triumph of the principles for which so long a time they have been advocating. To say that they had obtained office by the desertion of their principles would perhaps be too harsh an expression, but undoubtedly they are in possession, on condition of supporting a government, which distinctly says it

will not adopt the policy which they for the last twenty years have been continually asserting that any government worthy their confidence and that of the country should adopt. What triumph is there here? There were always some amongst the Whigs clever enough to have obtained office, had they chosen to become Tories, and something very like this they now profess to do.

It is but fair to say, that the Whig gentlemen of Ireland, whether right or wrong, have been hitherto zealous, active, and sincere in their attempts to forward Catholic Emancipation. Can they see any triumph in the present state of things, when the Government is still determined not to make their question a cabinet measure, and the prime minister, notwithstanding his dark saying about " a moral influence," is bound by his regard for the royal conscience not to press the question for

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