feel the cold sympathy of a contemptuous pity for absurd and mischievous acts which would have met with their indignant execration, if attempted in the name of any other individual filling his office; but we emphatically deny that any one of these men will suffer himself to become the active agent or champion of the government, though he may abstain from hostility to it through compassion, or personal esteem for its ostensible chief. This is not all: it is notorious that it has not even the controul over its own hired, paid, servants throughout the country, sufficient to organise the ordinary agency necessary to effect any extensive influence on the public in its favour. We admit that numbers of the magistracy and other subsidiary instruments of the Executive, have been zealous enough-in some instances, alas! deplorably active-in the "vindication of the law," as the abomin able modern pharasaical phrase of the Irish authorities runs; but it was solely because the apparent designs of the government were in consonance with their own cherished objects, their old deep-rooted prejudices, and characteristic passions, and not through any reverence or tolerance of the government itself. There is not, in fact, any portion of the men who have signalised themselves by their récent execution of the fatal policy of the party now in power who do not ardently desire its subversion, and the restoration of that in which they were so long accustomed to repose their cordial confidence.

The Government have not, then, the common tools of power at their command, and we firmly believe they could not use them efficiently if they had. They are indeed, destitute of the very consistency and ability so essential to the constitution and management of political influence; and thus we find them on the eve of a contest which must be the crisis of their existence, totally unprepared for it, totally unsupported in the shadow of a hope, except by the greedy and despicable dependents who cling to them for hire,-nay, unpitied, except by those few charitable politicians who, in the plenitude of their own purity, generously bestow their commiseration upon the frailty of the unfortunate official doomed to disgrace his name by association with such a cause. This is a startling state of imbecility and degradation in those "vested with authority," and placed in such circumstances as Ireland now presents; but the causes of it are obvious. Every man familiar with the events of the last two years knows well the frantic foolish conduct of the Irish administration. There is scarcely an act of its policy-there is not a department in the state that does not furnish damning proofs of their utter disregard of both principle and prudence. The remonstrance of friends and the resentment of foes have been alike unheeded. unexampled series of rash, mischievous, and inconsistent measures has been pursued from the first, with an obstinate fatuity as unaccountable as it was dangerous. When their ill-fated dominion commenced they found the country divided between two parties-the one demanding those equal laws and substantial benefits of impartial and beneficial government, or those legislative powers that should promote the just rights and interests of the nation, which it was fully enti tled to; the other seeking to re-establish its recent ascendancy, without regard to decency, justice, or discretion. With which of these

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should they have coalesced? With that which sought for legitimate and most necessary improvements in the condition of the country, or with that which panted for the restoration of powers destructive of the peace and welfare of the great body of the people? Their true honour and best policy consisted in a temperate co-operation with the popular party, which would have satisfied the moderate and conciliated the intemperate; they should at least have faithfully observed that course most in accordance with the principles which had obtained for them power. How could they dream of countenancing the other? What interest or feeling should an upright and liberal government have formed in common with the blind and selfish bigots who detested them for the very profession of liberal principles? Matchless folly!-they provoked and justified the suspicions and hostility of the one, while they at once pampered and insulted the other. Let us place on record a few of those reckless aggressions on common honesty and common sense by which they contrived at once to estrange their early adherents, and exasperate their changeless enemies. Behold on the one side :-The appointment of an individual, who had been an ignorant lawyer and obnoxious political partisan, to the second highest legal station on the Irish Bench, and designed to be-oh, ignorance and dupery!-a judicious reward of talent and an act of popular favor! Behold the violent attempts to suppress the free and peaceful expression of public opinion by a system of proclamations, vehemently condemned by the very proclaimer-the official promulgation of doctrines and instructions not sanctioned by the law, and subversive of the liberty of the subject-the extra-legal, unconstitutional, and inflammatory prosecutions of the popular leaders and journalists for conduct strictly legal, under a temporary law denounced by the highest authorities in power, as despotic, unjust, and intolerable-the re-organization of the orange yeomanry, so notorious for its sanguinary factious, and virulent sectarian character, as to be confessedly inconsistent with the peace of the country-the establishment and hire of a press, only more silly and unprincipled than its patrons, to whose absurd vanity it ministers the praise they cannot earn from honest men, and for whose gratification--not service!-it pours the slaver of its slander and vituperation on every man and measure they dislike*-The unjust, degrading, and ungrateful distinction made between Ireland and Great Britain in that fraction of liberty, the Irish Reform Bill-The perverted use of their patronage-The retention of men in office, who were the insidious, and sometimes the open and active, enemies of both them and the people-for instance, their chief law officers; and the appointment and promotion of men, as in the case of the lords lieutenant and deputies lieutenant of counties, who constantly employed the very influence thus madly entrusted to them, to baffle

* We remember seeing, a few months ago, a slender pamphlet, published by a place-paid cleric of faded-orange politics, purporting to be the first year's history of the second administration of the Marquis of Anglesey, and dedicated by permission, of course, as a grateful tribute, to his Excellency. With appropriate adaptation to its subject, two-thirds of it were filled with singularly vulgar and ferocious abuse of the Irish people and Mr. O'Connell, and the remainder was occupied with such adulation of the munificent patron of the work as must have satisfied the most rabid appetite. Such really were the deeds of the Irish government, and such, therefore, their record.

every measure designed for the advantage of the country, or the security of the administration-The attempted Arms' Bill-The refusal of a Jury Bill, calculated to purify the administration of justice, and to protect the people from the corruption and injustice which, it is not denied, are perpetrated under the present system-The exaction of a grant of money for the parsons, under a pledge to extinguish Tithes, and the attempt to perpetuate them in defiance of the people, by a statute which has already been steeped in blood-The unconstitutional interference with the right to petition, by preventing, dispersing, and threatening by force of arms, meetings of the people, held peacefully for the purpose of petitioning-The arrests and prosecutions of individuals, on a pretext of conspiracy, for the open and legal expression of their opinions regarding ecclesiastical taxation, and the dismissal of independent and useful magistrates on the report or suspicion of supporting the people in demanding the extinction of Tithes, and without question of the legality of their conduct, while other magistrates, guilty of leading the people in tumultuous party processions, and other similar acts of illegality, were suffered to retain the commission of the peace without reproof.-These, with the swaggering and insolent defiance and threats uttered against the people, and the refusal to concede the slight indulgence lately required to promote "the full and free representation of the people in parliament" by an efficient registry, have naturally and irresistibly alienated from the government every man who respects justice, humanity, or freedom. On the other side we find a very different array of charges, but it is useful, as proving the unreasonable and insatiable character of the party they have attempted to conciliate. The Conservatives enumerate the following acts as injuries never to be forgiven:-The abandonment of the yeomanry when the momentary caprice which called them out had changed; and the “ungrateful” censure—harsh retribution for the blood of twenty peasants! pronounced on one of their favorite captains for a victory over the people-The daring, though ineffective, effort to prevent the opposition of their own servans at elections-as in Dublin-on the result of which their own power depended-The institution of an impartial plan for the useful education of the poor-really the only useful measure of the government, but which, with characteristic weakness, they have neglected to secure by a formal enactment; and the refusal to support the Kildare-place Society by a fund so criminally misapplied for years-The proposition to bring to trial the beings who had been active in the earlier slaughters of the people, committed during the present administration-The refusal to encourage the frequent and extensive massacre of those who objected to Tithes-The reception at the castle of some Catholic divines and gentry, and liberal Protestants-The appointment to petty places of emolument of three or four Catholics, and as many Protestants suspected of liberality-The concession of the slightest reform to Ireland-and the mere show of an intention to extinguish Tithes, or modify church property. Such are, seriously, the grievances of the Conservatives, and unfounded as the complaints may appear, we are confident the faction are prepared to carry their resentment to the most vindic

tive extent, They detest the design to restrict their intolerant insolence and atrocity, and despise any attempt to cajole them. From them the government have nothing to expect but the most unrelenting and unmeasured hostility; and from the people they dare not hope for assistance. What then are the prospects of the government party at the elections ?

The most besotted driveller belonging to it-the most servile parasite paid for his flattery, cannot form a hope or frame an assurance of success, that does not "turn to ashes on his lips" as he utters it. Yes! let who will triumph they must sink in defeat and disgrace.There is not a single independent influential constituency in the nation devoted to their cause. We defy them to point out a single county in which they can promise themselves the support of the electors of any class. Even in the towns-the trading towns ever deemed most subservient to our governments-there is not a candidate dare avow himself in their interest. Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Waterford, Galway, Limerick, Newry, and Derry, are all, without exception, decidedly opposed to them. The mere fact is the severest censure ever pronounced on their measures. Let their successors ponder deeply on the warning it conveys!

We now come to consider the claims and prospects of the Conservatives. There is not in the entire history of political parties, a more instructive example of the instability of intolerance, the suicidal tendency of tyrannic injustice-than that of the Irish Orange Tory party. Nor is there in the records of human nature, a more remarkable instance of inveterate pertinacy in error, than their present conduct exhibits. Who that remembers the days of their ascendancy, when they held the destinies of the country within their fell grasp, and in the fierce insolence of their pride trod out the very hearts of the people who that marked their mastery over the men who ruled and the millions who submitted, and traced their unchecked career through its centuries of oppression and blood, but must marvel with exceeding wonder at the sudden and utter prostration of their power? And who that contemplates the wrongs, the sufferings, the unchristian feuds, the inhuman ferocity by which that unjust, unholy power was so long maintained, and acknowledges the vitiating influence of tyranny on both master and slave, but must shudder at the untamed brutality and ignorance of that nature which could not only desire but attempt to regain an ascendancy so foul with crime, so fraught with mischief, so inconsistent with christian concord, so odious to every feeling of divine and human justice? Perhaps the worst consequence of civil distinctions between different classes of the same community is the demoralization, the subversion of the authority of conscience, in those who form the favoured class, in all that relates to the adjustment or promotion of its peculiar interests. not alone the excitement of the selfish and intolerant passions and their reckless gratification, thus fatally encouraged, that we deplore, but the disregard of censure, the indifference to infamy incurred in their collective capacity, produced in the minds of the best men who belong to it. For instance, see the unblushing corruption, the undisguised plunders, the unscrupulous perjury, and indecent interference

with the pure administration of justice, daily practised by our corporations, and supported by men who would shrink from such gross violations of rectitude in their private conduct, but are reconciled by custom to sanction it in their public acts, and deem themselves undisgraced by the shame shared with their associates. Even the very best designed institutions, if established on unjust distinctions in society, or sustained by the exclusive monopoly of any advantages, must at length degenerate by this irresponsibility of individual character into systems of vice, working injury to the community, and corrupting all connected with them. Such was, in reality, the great exclusive system of Protestant ascendancy in church and state in Ireland;– but as unequalled in evil as it was unrivalled in power and extent. And yet we find men of respectable character, men who are estimable despite of the system, sorrowing over its fall, and denouncing it as an unjust humiliation. It is a lamentable obliquity of judgment that can mislead well-meaning men into the slightest approbation of such monstrous injustice; but it is an inexcusable act of crazy fury to attempt its restoration. Even though a few amiable individuals, from the influence of early prejudice, may overlook, in their childish desire for ascendancy, the ruin of their country's peace and welfare, the injury of the best interests and rights of humanity, and the unchristian feuds and strife it has created and would again create, how can they be so ignorant as to believe it possible to restore it? They cannot expect more sympathy or assistance in such a mischievous and quixotic undertaking than they could enlist before, and the same spirit that overthrew them then is still more powerful now. They could not avert, and more certainly cannot redeem, their defeat; and they should learn, that continued hostility, unless favoured by a charitable contempt, may end in their own destruction, but never in success. Their designs have done more to perpetuate the miseries of the country, by dividing the people against each other, and defeating the common good, than their exertions can ever remedy, They have no real wrongs, or rights to redress or preserve, distinct from their fellow-countrymen,and why then should they indulge in such intolerant and ridiculous aspirations for an unjust and impracticable preeminence? It is urged by them that they apprehend the establishment of a Catholic religious ascendancy in the state, instead of their own. We shall pass over the indefensible inconsistency of inflicting on the Catholics that which they would not submit to themselves, and assure them that never were fears more unfounded. The horror they express would not be unnatural in men who had suffered the abominable tyranny of Protestant ascendancy; but how forcibly do the feelings of those who support it illustrate the frightful nature of its evils, when they thus shrink from the mere possibility of experiencing similar inflictions! There is not, however, a single circumstance in the past or present conduct of the Irish Catholics that can justify such an alarm. They have ever been distinguished for their mild tolerance of opinion, and are devoted, with sincere zeal, to the institution of free government, and the security of equal rights to all men; but even were it otherwise, they respect the purity of their faith too much to risk the corruption of its ministry and the pollution of its temples, by