3rd. Whether in every country there be not a distinction necessary to be taken between a military and a numerical population?and whether it be not necessary to examine such a distinction negatively as well as affirmatively?

4th. Whether it be not necessary to examine the powers of Ireland relatively to the power of other nations.'-Ibid. p. 21.

The above extracts exhibit the purpose and design of this chosen counsellor of the Hibernian associations. The following will serve to show the temper and spirit in which he is disposed to regard the concern which England is likely to feel in the issue of the separation and independence for which the people of Ireland are stimulated to contend.

'Abroad, the proceedings during the French revolution show the domestic system of England, extending its profligacy in all external relations by a system of bribery called subsidizing, engaging most of the powers of Europe in a conspiracy against France,-not so much against France in its existing substance, as against its supposed moral principles-the sword against the thoughts of the human mind -like the absurdity of Milton's swords, in his battle of the angels, cutting through immortal essences. But this system of foreign bribery produced the ruin of the parties bribed. There is not one European power that received the money of England, that did not sink under the contagion of her alliance. The nations remained, but the governments were all overcome, and some of them annihilated.

'If from Europe we look to the east, not a single prince will be found, who put his trust in English protection, that was not ruinednot a treaty that was not broken. If one lover should perish in the embraces of a venal beauty, she might gain credit for an assertion of accident or misfortune; but if not merely one, but two, three, seven, or ten should successively die, with the same contact, it would require more than the impudence of a prostitute to assert, that the world must attribute their destruction, not to the taint of her embraces, but to the unlucky course of existing circumstances.

Yet THIS is the nation, with which a certain class in Ireland is seeking to confirm a mere legal, by a moral, and therefore a binding union-by humbly petitioning to be admitted to a full participation of the benefits of that constitution which has produced upon the subjects now panting for existence within its exhausted receiver, such effects, as the truths disclosed by England's own historians have put beyond denial or even controversy.'-Ibid. p. 92.

These passages make the object of Colonel Roche Fermoy's commentaries clear, and supply a fair specimen of his style and spirit. We do not think it necessary to follow out the full development of his principles, or to examine the grounds of his assurance. The reader who is curious in such matters may examine for himself the strength of the fortress-island, which has ocean, as the 'Commentaries' inform us, for its ditch, and may trace out and explore

the

the lines and posts and parallels, the rivers, and chains of mountains, and dangerous morasses by which an invading army could be harassed and impeded; he may consider also the capabilities of the soil to furnish a permanent and abundant supply of provision, and the various felicities of condition for having the garrison perpetually recruited. The curious in strategics may consult the diagrams by which Colonel Roche Fermoy illustrates his plans. They are not for our purpose. We consider nothing more than the fact, that his Commentaries' were written with a view to prove that Ireland could subsist and defend itself in separation from Great Britain, and that his opinions on this subject are understood to have been diligently studied by societies in that country, which have taken a leading part in the movement to effect a repeal of the legislative union. That our information in this matter is correct may be disputed. We have good reason to believe it cannot be disproved; and at all events it amounts to no more than what Irish agitation substantially confirms, namely, that the office, which Wolfe Tone is confessed to have held, or the influence rather which he exercised in the patriot societies of the last century, has been transferred, in this our day, to persons who find a sympathetic guide and counsellor in the exiled commentator on his Memoirs.

But, it must be acknowledged, the information which conveys only thus much cannot be regarded as unimportant. It intimates the fruitlessness of all endeavours which have been hazarded to reconcile Ireland to a patient acquiescence in her connexion with this country, and it suggests thoughts which impart a character of almost hopelessness to the efforts by which our laggard and desultory legislation would correct the errors of the past, or supply remaining deficiencies. To be reminded that concession, and indulgence, and immunity have provoked no answers but those of complaint and defiance, have awakened no feeling but discontent, and seem to have commended views of enlarged and more alarming ambition, is certainly not to be encouraged in the expectation of a good result from further concession; and it does not mend matters much to be told, that, however unwillingly, you must still continue to concede, because, little as there remains for England to grant, her powers to resist are still more limited. It may be not uninstructive to seek out a cause for those painful and repeated disappointments. A series of disasters such as have marred the various attempts of Great Britain to legislate for Ireland, no man would pronounce fortuitous or causeless.

The root of the evil seems to be a premature application of the forms of the British constitution to a country which had not the capabilities necessary for receiving them with advantage. It must

be

be acknowledged that various compensations and corrections were devised to provide against, or to remedy the evils attendant on this experiment. The province of legislation was narrowly limited, and jealously guarded; and the administration of justice, as well as the execution of the laws, was watched over with a carefulness which betrayed the influence of fear and suspicion. But all this was of evil. The constitution which demanded such guards or corrections was not fit for Ireland. The attempt to impose it on a society or a country for which it was not adapted, involved of necessity an evil for which there was no compensation, namely, a contrast between the professed principle of government and the details by which it was to be rendered effectual; the prospect of a freedom such as has attracted universal admiration, surrounded by jealous and irritating exclusions, the policy of which, considered in reference to a population like that of Ireland, could not be defended, except by an argument which assumed the unsuitableness of the constitution they protected.

From a state of things like this, discontent was inseparable. The ambitious, the disaffected, the generous, all beheld inconsistencies at which some were offended, and which some employed for purposes of agitation and excitement. Even the wise and farseeing were embarrassed. They could not accommodate to the shows of a free constitution measures necessary to preserve substantial good, which, under other circumstances, would have been constitutionally guarded; and, in prosecuting disinterested labours for the public advantage, they were forced to renounce all popular topics, and abandon all hope and effort to guide the mind of the multitude.

The objections to the project of governing Ireland agreeably to the spirit as well as the forms of the British constitution were mainly of two kinds-national and religious. The colony aspired to become a nation; the church of the majority fomented intestine disorder, and introduced foreign influence. England had to guard against both dangers. The direct course would have been the wisest she could adopt, that of framing a constitution which should be, in principle and in detail, adapted to the state of society for which it was designed. The readier and the more popular, but the more dangerous, course was to govern by British law, and to provide against attendant inconveniences, by adopting the precautions which indirectness rendered necessary. Restrictions were imposed on the exercise of colonial power-Roman Catholics were excluded from all situations in which it was thought they could have become formidable; and thus, by a successive application of stimulants and correctives, colonial jealousy was quickened, and new bitterness infused into religious rancour. It is only by its

evil consequences the absurdity of such a system is hidden. Were it not for the acrimony perpetuated and the disasters provoked, the attempt to force British law on a country to which it was not adapted would be merely ludicrous. Under the ostent and encumbrance of the British constitution, trusting altogether to other support, and obedient to other influences, Ireland might be not unaptly represented by her brawny son in the caricature, his feet in the mud, his face visible from the skeleton of a sedan chair, within which he is seen in an erect position, and out of his mouth the words, If it were not for the honour of the thing, a man might as well be walking.' But the experiment of Hibernian rule has supplied us with matter more engrossing than its absurdities.

A history of the eighteen years' independence, as the epoch might be termed in which Ireland enacted a nation, would be a valuable addition to our political literature. If the exhibition of high qualities and endowments could render a period illustrious, and overcome the disadvantage of circumstances, Grattan's metaphor was scarcely exaggeration when he said of his country that she had arisen, and was brought nearer to the sun. But during that brief period of excitement, everything was uncertain and everything was dangerous. Extravagancy was rendered more formidable by the genius which exalted and adorned it. The legal majority of the nation anticipated the physical one; and the consequences were such as might have been looked for. The freaks and excesses which followed upon a premature liberation from custody and restraint were calculated to occasion serious embarrassment and alarm-the general state of affairs in Europe caused both the difficulties and the apprehensions to be very greatly increased-and the inevitable conclusion followed, in a sanguinary insurrection, and in the act of legislative union, to which disastrous and boding events had reconciled, through the medium of their fears, many who could not have been brought to acquiesce in it by the considerations of a comprehensive policy.

The Act of Union simplified the difficulties to be overcome in the good government of Ireland. The Protestant population of that country became very speedily convinced that their interests were the same with those of England, and were best secured by British connexion. It remained to satisfy, or 'conciliate,' as it was called, the Roman Catholic portion of the people. Hic labor! Нос opus! Strange as it may seem, we believe that, even at this day, the peculiar character of this difficulty-the combination which rendered it formidable-the means by which the resistance it offered could best be weakened or overcome-are matters with which the working politicians' of highest reputation are very imperfectly acquainted.

The

The Church of Rome is well known to comprise among its members—or, as some say, to divide the whole body of its members. into two classes; the one consisting of those who hold the doctrine of papal infallibility and all the offensive dogmas of the ultra-montane school; the other of the more moderate party, which will not consent to leave all matters of faith and morals thus dependent on the will of a finite individual. It has ever been the policy of the Church of Rome in this kingdom to keep these two classes undivided. Some few British statesmen appear to have been aware of the importance of discriminating between them. James I. understood it ;-the great Duke of Ormond incurred much hatred and vituperation by endeavouring to effect a division; but, since the days of that illustrious statesman, the existence of two classes of believers in the Church of Rome appears to have been practically disregarded by any but those who took good care that the distinction between them should never become so marked as to constitute a barrier of separation. Circumstances, however, were against these wily politicians. The progress of light and knowledge was beginning to produce its natural effect, and to render the distinctions conspicuous. The moderate Roman Catholics in England began to form themselves into a party. They assumed the name of Roman Catholic Dissenters.' They formed a Cisalpine Club.' But these were matters beneath the attention of British statesmen, and Mr. Pitt was greeted with the very equivocal praise of having by his liberal policy arrested the progress of discussions which would have ended in the division of British Roman Catholics into two parties, and would have rendered their opinions known in all matters in which the state had a direct concern *.

A single

* Mr. Charles Butler, in his 'Historical Memoirs of the English Catholics,' c. lxvi. lect. 10, says, ' Dr. Curry (in his Review, b. ix. c. 14) cites a letter written by the Earl of Cork to the Duke of Ormond, in 1666, the year of the meeting, in which his lordship suggests to the duke's consideration, whether it were not a fit season to make that schism which you (says his lordship, addressing himself to the duke) have been sowing among the popish clergy; so as to set them at open difference, as we may reap some practicable advantage thereby.' The duke himself seems to have explicitly avowed that this was his object in permitting the meeting. Carte informs us, that when some of the political adversaries of his grace reproached him with favouring the Catholics during his administration, and instanced, in proof of it, his permission of the synodical meeting of the Catholic clergy, the duke frankly declared, that his aim in permitting that meeting was to work a division of the Romish clergy.' How very different was the conduct of Mr. Pitt, who, in 1791, when a division had broken out in the Catholic body, then petitioners to parliament for relief, nobly composed the difference, and annihilated the subject of contention.' Thus is the pretended unity of the Church of Rome protected against inquiry; and men who hold opinions opposite as loyalty and treason, as moral truth and vitiating error, are enabled, by the endeavours of those who should discriminate between them, to remain united; or rather thus are the designing and deadly enemies

of