The vengeance, however, of his enemies, was signal and severe. His territories were ravaged, and his people slaughtered. Numbers of Numbers of his unfortunate vassals were forced into castles and houses, which were then set on fire, the soldiers shooting or stabbing the wretches who attempted to escape. To carry infants on the point of their spears, and enjoy their tortures, was a favourite recreation. Numbers of women were found hanging upon trees, with their children strangled with their mothers' hair. Famine completed what the sword had begun, and pestilence succeeded to conflagration. Spenser has left us a tremendous description of the calamities of this ill-fated province. The unhappy people crept out of the woods, for they were unable to walk-flocked as to a feast to every plot of grass that was visible-devoured the carrion that strewed their plains-and poisoned their atmosphere; and actually scraped the putrefying carcass from the grave, to appease the cravings of intolerable hunger. A tract of country, which had once been the most fertile and populous in Ireland, was thus suddenly converted into a barren and uninhabited wilderness. The reader, perhaps, may be curious to learn the fate of Desmond himself. This unfortunate nobleman, bending under the weight of years, was compelled, like an abject outlaw, to take refuge in his own forests. The Countess, upon her knees, and in tears, had in vain besought the Viceroy for his forgiveness. The Earl was no longer formidable as an enemy, and his estate was a forfeiture too tempting to be relinquished. He was therefore pursued to destruction, and his own relative, but implacable enemy, the Earl of Ormond, was selected as the arbiter of his destiny. Deserted by all, except four of his followers, he had taken shelter in a miserable hut, where he was discovered by a partisan of Ormond's, of the name of Kelly, who, with a body of soldiers, had been commissioned to pursue him. This leader,on entering the hut, found that all had fled, except one man of a venerable aspect, who was languidly stretched before a half-expiring fire. This person Kelly instantly assailed and wounded. Spare me,' he exclaimed, for I am the Earl of Desmond !' The other immediately struck off his head, and brought it to Ormond, by whom it was sent to the Queen, and impaled on London Bridge. Thus perished the once powerful Earl of Desmond, the lord of many counties, whose estate contained six hundred thousand acres, and whose influence extended over the entire of the south of Ireland-a descendant of the ancient kings of the province, commanding in person, dignified in aspect-and possessing in a high degree those virtues of hospitality, generosity, and courage, which the selfish apathy of modern refinement has stigmatized by the epithet of barbarous. A witness to the down. fall of his house, the extirpation of his kindred, and the ruin of his country, reduced to the lowest privations of nakedness and hunger, deserted by every friend, at night, alone, in a wretched hovel, he fell by the base hand of an obscure and hireling murderer-In this reign Ireland was completely subjugated. THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN IRELAND. ToMr.Doherty, alias O'Doherty, I would recommend the following short extract from a pamphlet published some time ago in Ireland, entitled An Impartial Review of the Proceedings of the Catholic Association,' before he next makes his standing speech in Parliament. The author of this pamphlet is a man of very superior talents, though evidently unaccustomed to literary composition; for, though there is an exuberance of thought in his work, his style is rather rugged and declamatory. There is also a great deficiency of method; for, though his purpose is apparent, the means by which he arrives at it are by no means obvious. These, though decidedly faults, are of a minor order; and a little more labour would set the author's talents (for talented he undoubtedly is) in a proper light, and place them in a conspicuous point of view. Of his principles I highly approve; and of his independence his pamphlet bears ample testimony. His charac. ters of the Catholic leaders are ably drawn, and his satire occasionally piercing. Indeed it is in detached sketches he appears to best advantage; and the following, though by no means one of his best, is eloquent and just : 'But some inconsiderate cavillers exclaim-"Ireland requires no im. mediate redress-the original system of government would improve her constitution by suppressing a gang of Agitators!" Now let us examine the merits of "original systems of government," even withtyranny, magisterial vindictiveness, in a late period. Aristocratical oppressive exactions, and the petty malice of every venal hireling, whose profligate subserviency to ascendant dictation elevated him above his tribe-all this 66 graduated turpitude" was in a manner overlooked, if not sanctioned, by the narrow-minded policy of Irish misrule. These are not mere assertions, but such as I can uphold by the frank testimony of judicial functionaries and the reports of even ministerial prints. The law became odious to the peasantry because it had been tortured into an instrument of injury to them, Judge Moore's memorable display of integrity in the North of Ireland affords an incontestable attestation of this fact! The Patriot' Newspaper, that "nervis alienis mobile" instrument of the Government, remarks in one of its ministerial eulogies "Formerly a party governed the they did it in despair; and, when the other state." When one party went to seek redress, were accused, they went to their trial as to a triumph! A Dublin corporator will "get a jury to acquit him!" This was the meanest of Ireland's metallic ages. Astræa was indeed exiled from the soil! and a screen of security to their Amidst the multifaoppressors. rious perversions and abuses of law, what example shall I select as hav. ing a peculiar bearing on this subject? Have not masked hypocrites A been actually dispersed throughout =the country, for the purpose of instigating the peasantry to acts of indiscretion and atrocity-and then of prosecuting them?* Have not even some of the higher order of society pandered to the depraved and vitiated taste of ascendant directors? The magisterial revision, in particular instances, attests the truth of this statement. Has not even a guardian and dispensator of the law degraded himself into an instrument for the execution of the vilest project that the tyrannical mind could devise; namely, the irrecoverable ruin of several unsuspecting peasants!!!+ Has not the most abominable and unparalleled combination recorded in the annals of human atrocity been overlooked-because--it had been promoted by Orangemen !!! Have not the Roman Catholics of Parsonstown (without even the deduction of its respectable inhabitants) been insidiously accused of a conspiracy to murder the Earl of Ross? The imposition was sufficiently serious to induce his lordship into the adoption of precautionary measures against the alleged design! What could have been the object of this malignant scheme but to alienate his lordship's regard from the Catholics, and necessarily estrange his affections from the country? And yet, though this wicked device was traced to the jealousy of Orangeism, all was overlooked and buried in conciliatory oblivion!!! What impartial justice! Even the representative of Majesty was grossly insulted-and with impunity-in See Curran's Speeches.' A certain magistrate in Roscrea was actually convicted of an attempt to prosecute capitally several men, whom he knew to be innocent. Vide the Report of Trials at Clonmel, in the year 1816. This unparalleled infamy has been almost without record! O'DOHERTY ON IRISH SONGS. (Concluded from page 56.) Molly Astore is a beautiful tune to namby-pamby New-Monthlylooking words, and the parody on it is quite a poor thing. I flatter myself I have made better. A poet farther on treats us to the following description of a Kerry man: His hair was so red, and his eyes were so bright.' No doubt there are red-haired compliment to Orange influence! What equality of law! Are not political principles substituted in the most awful cases of trial for im. partial and dispassionate feeling? Has not a judge expressed on the bench his indignation at the preparations for a trial? To be briefhave there not been numerous executions of Ribandmen, and, moreover, frequent unjust committals of peasants, while a single execution for Orange murders is not, I believe, on record !!! The indepen-Kerrymen, but they are not one in dence of the Marquis Wellesley's fifty. The complexion is dark olive, government has tended to develop and the hair black, they being in an iniquitous system of misrule. all probability descended from the To his benevolent regard for the Spaniards. The poet was thinking general interests of the country we of a Highlander. Now the knights are in a great measure indebted for of Kerry wear breeches, and are in the dismissal of several bigoted a small degree civilized. magistrates, and the appointment of impartial king's counsel to administer the laws of that ominous Insurrection Act. We have the authority of a government newspaper for stating that the Orange murderer usually predicted the certainty of his acquittal with an unenviable complacency, while the poor unpatronised Catholic peasant approached the tribunal of justice full of apprehensions, notwithstanding even his conscious integrity! To be brief-NOT LAW, but LICENTIOUSNESS, TOO OFTEN PREVAILED! An indiscreet word was sufficient to seal the doom of the unfortunate Catholic. Many peasants have fallen victims to their unsuspecting generosity of character. || Oh! Equity, how oft has thy sacred name been invoked by those who never entered thy temple but with polluted hands!' By referring to a late Number of the Freeman's Journal,' it will be seen that a statement is made, on unimpeachable authority,tending to show that on an average, out of thirty committals, four or less are convicted! So much for the affected vigilance of modern peace-makers. It is here worthy of remark, that the Anti-national press estimate the amount of crime not by the number of convictions, but of committals! Vide Curran's eloquent vindications and recent exposures in the North of Ireland. Another Irishman, from Cockneyshire, sings of Cormac O'Con, Of the great Con grandsire, If I met this fellow, who has our Irish names so glib at his fingers' ends, at the top of the highest housc of the city, I should kick him down stairs. A Ludgate Hill pawnbroker could not be more impertinent if he wrote of the fine arts. In the same de haut en bas fashion should I kick him who informs us that I were astonished as much as e'er man was, To see a sea-fight on an ocean of canvass.' You hear the barbarian saying canvass-I long to pull his nose. I apprehend the author of the Irish Wedding' (see Jon Bee) is a Scot. First, book in hand, came Father Quipes.' What part of the world does that name belong to? Came Father Quipes, With the bride's dada, the Bailie, O.' Bailies we have none in Ireland, and if we had they should be all Protestants, and thereby out of the pale of Father Quipes. A piece of politics, in another ditty, is quite diverting to us, who know a thing or two. "Though all taxes I paid, yet no vote I could pass O-' and was in consequence, though With principles pure, patriotic, and firm, Attach'd to my country, a friend to reform,' obliged to fly. His case was certainly hard in not having a vote, when every farmer or labourer in Ireland may have one if he likes, or rather if his landlord likes. In the county of Cork there are twenty-five thousand voters; in Down about twenty thousand, and so on; so that this grievance about the want of suffrage is rather singular. There is no use in bothering the public with any more remarks on such a subject. I hope nobody will think I have any spleen against this collection of songs, which is just as good as any other similar one; but I wished to show that I had some ground for saying that we are not quite wrong in accusing our English friends of ignorance of our concerns. Some time or other, perhaps, I may in the same way get through the usual stage characters in which we figure, and prove them equally remote from truth. It would, perhaps, be a good thing to go over some of the political speculations on Ireland in the same manner; but I never liked Irish politics, and now I particularly detest them. I frequently admire the intrepidity of the heads which John Black spins out for the edification of the Whigamores, whenever he takes us in his hand. Evidently wishing to patronise us, he nevertheless treats us as mere barbarians. I remember reading one morning in the Chronicle,' that, except Dublin and Cork, which guards its heel, sooner than give a verdict against the right.Counselled by these reflections, let kenny, and Belfast, fall little short He of the 'Courier' knows, in his writings, something more; but, personally, Mudford is quite horror-struck at the notion of us. The Roman Catholic Association, professedly friends of the liberty of the press, have brought an information against him for inserting some remarks of a correspondent on May. nooth College, and availed themselves of an obscure law to lay the venue against him in Cork. The very wind of the word has frightened my friend Mudford out of his seven senses. Some Cockney black. guard, with that spirit of personality so disgustingly the distinction of the Cockney school, once called him a pile of fleecy hosiery,'but that name is every day becoming less and less applicable. He looks on the Corkagians as no better than Ashantees, and, no doubt, anticipates from the jaws of long John Brixon, mayor of that beef-abounding city, the fate of poor Sir Charles M'Carthy. Let him be comforted. Cork, I can assure him, is well munitioned with victual and drink, and he has but a small chance of being eaten alive there, particularly as he remains but a fortnight. Nor let him dread the hostile countenances of a grand jury, empannelled by Jack Bagnell and Ned Colburn-best of little men-sheriffs of the aforesaid there were no large towns in Ire-bailiwick. And, even if that is im--they will sell it to him from land, which accounts for its want of civilization; while Scotland was indebted for her superiority over us to her possessing such eminent cities as Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paisley, Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness, and some others which I forget. Now Limerick is larger and more populous than any except the first two; Waterford, Galway, Kil probable, the thing comes to a The spreading lee that like an island fayre, 6s. 6d. to 7s. 6d. a gallon-and a gallon will make sixty-four tumblers-I have often calculated it— and that is three times as much as he should drink in an evening. So doing, he will be happy, and fearless of the act of Judge Johnson. But what is this I am about? digressing from a disquisition on songs, pseudo Irish, to the way in SCENE. A Room in the Eight Bells-Captain Rock - Denis O' Kavanagh. O' Kavanagh. I am sorry, Captain, that I was not with you at Lawless's dinner. Rock. There is no occasion for sorrow, Denis. The dinner was wretched, the wine bad, and the speeches horrible. Hunt, who took the chair, is not the man I imagined. You know the Irish adage, Cows in Connaught have long horns; and, to use a nationalism, Hunt is seen best the farther you are from him. He completely disappointed me; for, instead of being vested with those attributes which command respect and ensure in. fluence, he appears to be a very common-place personage, without talent or dignity. O'Kavanagh. Does he not speak well? mob, though the most unmanage. able in Europe, is at the same time the most stupid. Time, however, brings reflection; and now you see how deserted is the favourite demagogue, though he is still as ambitious as ever for open-mouthed popularity. Lawless appeared fair game, and so he fastened on him; but it would not do. The friends of Ireland' appeared as insensible as the Radicals, and Hunt has shrunk back to his Blacking;' not, however, before he had degraded his victim, and the cause he espoused. sellor to retire, while he would have earned the gratitude of his country, The man is honest, but his vanity leads him astray. O'Kavanagh. He has not neglected the forty-shilling freeholders, however; and during the contest he has continued temperate. I wish I could say as much for O'Connell. Rock. The great leader is no stoic,-in fact, he is a weak man after all; for, in using the ungentlemanly phrase, the undergrowl of Jack Lawless,' he lessened his own dignity, without having affected the cause of his opponent. The counsellor has complained much of my Gazette,' but without cause. At first 'tis true, I expressed Law-myself warmly, because I felt so on a vital question; but, hoping that O'Connell erred only in judgment, I gave, and still give, him every credit for honesty of intention. Have you seen his letters ? O'Kavanagh. How many attended? He is a Rock. About thirty. O'Kavanagh. I suppose less appeared chagrined. Rock. By no means. man of the most inordinate vanity, and delivered his set speech with proper emphasis. O'Kavanagh. He speaks well. Rock. He does; and, did he confine himself to the proper discharge of his duties, he would prove a most efficient and useful Irishman; for he possesses talents of a decidedly superior order. He speaks comparatively well, and writes well, and thinks accurately; but his folly mars the utility of all these; for the advocate who loses respect is deprived of the power to benefit his country. O'Kavanagh. Lawless, Captain, is of a most respectable family. Rock. True, Denis, but his own ridiculous conduct has degraded him; for that man cannot be called respectable who is to be found every night, either spouting at debating clubs, or getting drunk with newspaper reporters in the cidercellars about the Strand. By selecting Hunt as a friend and companion, he has lost a glorious opportunity of acquiring honourable notoriety. Had he returned, as he should have done, to his family and newspaper at Belfast, instead of loitering about London, and kept up a regular fire on O'Connell's principles, he would have compelled the coun O'Kavanagh. Of course, and think poorly of them, so far as they have gone. His second letter was spoony in the extreme: for he set out by assuming, as a fact, that the Catholics were ignorant of the advantages that would result from emancipation, and concludes with out having made, in my opinion, those advantages sufficiently apparent. Rock. Still the counsellor is a great man. O'Kavanagh. Undoubtedly, Captain; but, as you foretold, he knew little or nothing of the actual condition of the peasantry. His evidence betrays a total absence of information; while the smiles of greatness seem to have allured him to admissions inconsistent with his former declarations, and at variance with truth. Rock. His words have been in accurately reported, for I'll never believe that Daniel O'Connel misrepresented or libelled his countrymen by stating that the wives and daughters of our peasantry are prostituted to obtain justice for their husbands, fathers, and brothers. No, no, Rock will not swallow that; for, though there are Kirks enough in Ireland, I know there are no females to purchase their favours at the expense of their chastity. -- O'Kavanagh. His words are, The poor people give free labour when they can give nothing else, and immorality where females are concerned complaints of that description have been frequently made, that they purchase favour in a mode which is not difficult to be understood.' Rock. O'Connell never used such Janguage; for though my countrymen have, to be sure, an inconvenient love of justice, I never heard that it was so dearly purchased. For the honour of Ireland, and the interest of truth, I hope O'Connell will give the statement an unqualified contradiction. O'Kavanagh. He should speedily do so; for all the English papers have inserted the paragraph with comments, thus degrading still more the morality of our country. Rock. Aye, and the base Dublin newspapers are silent, for fear of offending O'Connell. This conduct is pusillanimous; it is cowardly, it is unworthy of a press that pretends to be free. O'Connell is a public man, liable to err like others; and when he obviously does so, his contemporaries have a right to correct him, and he should not be offended by manly opposition. The public character, which acquires a predominance that silences the press, is a dangerous one; and every good man will unite in reducing it to the harmless level of others, where alone the patriot can be useful. O'Connell is not immaculate; and those who now flatter him that he is right are his bitterest enemies; for public opinion respecting him is obviously wavering. In his last, letter I am glad to find that he has signified his intention of submitting to the decision of his peers when that is fairly ascertained. This is as it should be; and O'Connell, like Richard, will be himself again,' the beloved leader of his countrymen. O'Kavanagh. You have, of course, read Dr. Doyle's evidence? Rock. I have, with unmingled delight. All parties unite in commending his candour, his gentlemanly and dignified tone, as well as the extent of his information. Ten thousand blessings on his head! He has shed a new lustre on the Catholic religion, and placed it in that point of view in which Englishmen will see it in its proper colours. The testimony of all the other persons examined was mere fudge and confusion, contradiction and nonsense: they knew nothing. But the Doctor's evidence will procure emancipation for Ireland one day or other. O'Kavanagh. Then you think it will not be granted this sessions? Rock. Certainly not. The Catholic deputation, in the theatrical phrase, have damned it for this time, by loading it with extraneous measures that must impede its progress. You will see it kicked out before the third reading. I am sometimes inclined to think that the ministers have purposely humbugged the deputation, to prevent opposition to the suppression of the Catholic Association, and, having accomplished their object, they will laugh in their sleeve at O'Connell's credulity. O' Kavanagh. Very likely. It is the old way.-(Sings.) Oh! vain are our hopes, while this spirit remains ; Still the demon of party gives weight to our chains Still droops our lost country, of faction the spoil, Rock. Oh! aye, the author of the Plagues of Ireland,' reviewed 'Gazette.' Have you read his Misanthrope?' in my O'Kavanagh. I have. It is a sweet poem, but too didactic to befor Campbell's Magazine, but I come popular. He used to write hear he is now engaged on the 'Dublin and London.' Rock. So it appears, from the attack made on him by that unreverend-looking character, Tighe Gregory. O'Kavanagh. How was that? Rock. Why, the factious parson, as Watty Cox informs me, felt hurt at some allusion to him in the 'Magazine,' and charged Furlong, in the Dublin library, with being the author. He got but little satisfaction, however, and has ever since been the butt of all the witlings of the news-room. O'Kavanagh. Ha! ha! ha!Very good, very good! Parsons should mind their prayers, and leave politics to such men as you and O'Connell, who understand them. But when, Captain, are you going to give my Irish Characters?' Rock. Next week. (Left sitting.) LONDON:-J. Robins and Co. Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row; J. Robins, jun, and Co. 38, Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin ; and all Booksellers, &c. |