The writer added, "that there was strong moral evidence against a man who had formerly occupied the land in question, and that the police had brought into Cashel a son of Lalor, who had been an eye-witness of the murder, and whose manner betrayed, that he knew more than he chose to admit." Here was an instance of an atrocious murder for holding land contrary to the will of the disturbers, and a system of terror which prevented a son from giving evidence as to the murder of his father. All their lordships must have seen statements of the murder of the police at Carrickshaugh. On the trial of the murderers at the Kilkenny assizes, the jury, not agreeing, was dismissed. It had been agreed in the jury-room, that nothing should be stated as to the opinions of individual jurymen; yet, in half an hour, the names of those for acquittal, or for conviction, were printed, the former in black, and the latter, or, as they were designated, the jurors who were for blood, in red ink. The result was, that those whose names were printed in red were obliged to leave the country. At the Clonmel assizes in October last, when a person was to be tried for resisting the payment of tithe, only 76 jurors, out of 265 who had been summoned, made their appearance. A gentleman had been murdered in sight of his own gate, in consequence of some dispute connected with tithes. His son-in-law was summoned by the coroner, to give evidence against the supposed murderer. His answer was, "that he would submit to any penalty the crown or the law might impose upon him, but he would not appear at this trial, because he knew that if he stood forward as a wit

ness on the occasion, his life would inevitably be forfeited." The Irish government had received a notice from Kilkenny: "it is right the government should know, in due time, that many gentlemen, who have always been most conscientious in the discharge of their duties, will not attend at the next assizes. They care not what penalty may be imposed on them. They refuse to attend, because they know that death will follow, if they dare to act. It is the boast of the prisoners, that they cannot, under existing circumstances, be found guilty." No wonder that outrage had become triumphant. The catalogue of Irish crime, during last year, contained, 172 homicides; 465 robberies; 568 burglaries; 455 acts of houghing of cattle; 2,095 illegal notices; 425 illegal meetings; 796 malicious injuries to property; 753 attacks on houses; 280 arsons; 3,156 serious assaults. The aggregate of crimes of every description, during the year, connected with the disturbed state of the country, amounted to upwards of 9,000, and it was on the increase. In the province of Leinster, the number of crimes during the months of July, August, and September, had been 1,279; in the three following months, it had risen to 1,646. There was a system of general demoralization, such as never before existed in a country calling itself civilized.

His lordship then stated the provisions by which ministers proposed to meet these evils. The bill, he said, combined many provisions of the several laws that had been passed both in the Irish and English Parliament for the re pression of such lawless scenes as he had described, with such alterations as the peculiar circumstances

of the case seemed to require. The provisions for suppressing illegal societies or associations, had been adopted from the statute Sth of George IV. cap. 1, which empowered the lord-lieutenant to suppress the meeting of any assembly which should be deemed by him dangerous to the public peace, and to prevent the future meeting by adjournment of such assembly, under any different denomination whatsoever. The assembling was made punishable as a misdemeanor. Provision was made for proclaiming districts in a state of disturbance; and it was provided that courts should be appointed, in which offences connected with the proclamation of disturbed districts, and for suppressing illegal meetings, were to be tried. It was also provided, that persons prosecuted under this act should be obliged to plead forthwith, as in cases of felony, and should not be permitted to delay their trial. The lord-lieutenant was empowered to declare, on due information, any county to be in a disturbed state; such county to be immediately deemed a proclaimed district. All parties were to be warned to abstain from seditious and illegal meetings. No persons were to be absent from their houses from an hour after sunset until sunrise, un. less they could give good reason for their being abroad, under the penalty of being found guilty of a misdemeanor. This provision was taken from the 4th of George I., and might seem a severe one, but, under existing circumstances, it was absolutely necessary. Another provision was, that meetings, for the purpose of petitioning Parliament, or for discussing any grievance in church or state, should not be held without giving 10 days'

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notice to the lord-lieutenant, and obtaining his sanction to such meeting. The period of 10 days was selected lest meetings should be held at a distance from Dublin, without the sanction of the government; but, by this arrangement, time was given for forwarding a due notice of such meetings to government, as well as for receiving an answer to the requisition. Ministers further thought it advisable that proclaimed districts should, to a certain extent, be subjected to martial law. It was proposed that military courts should be formed to try all offences under this act, with power to pronounce sentence as decidedly and effectually as any commission of oyer and terminer. This, on the face of it, appeared unconstitutional. was, unquestionably, substituting a military tribunal for the ordinary courts of law. But to make the law efficient for the correction of the evils which he had described, it was not possible to stop short of this proposition. By the 39th of George III. powers were given to the lord-lieutenant for the appointment of courts-martial. was therein provided, that courtsmartial, assembled under that act, should not consist of more than nine gentlemen, nor less than five. It was also provided, that no officer under 21 years of age, or who had held his commission for less than two years, should act on any such court-martial. These provisions were continued in the bill which he was about to propose. It was further provided, that such courtsmartial should not have the power of trying for any offence to which a felonious punishment was attached, except by the special direction of the lord-lieutenant; and, in that case, they should not pro

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nounce sentence beyond transportation for life or for seven years. Under the former act, a courtmartial was permitted to call in the assistance of a King's serjeant, or a serjeant-at-law; here, however, it was made imperative that a serjeant-at-law, or a King's counsel, should sit to assist in the judgment. A clause was likewise introduced to shield officers who had acted on courts-martial under this act from future prosecution. It was clear that, however faithfully, however carefully, however justly (and, he believed, that in no case would they be found to act otherwise than faithfully, carefully, and justly), those officers performed their unpleasant duty, they could not be protected, except by the power of the law, from future vexation, and from the most litigious proceedings. To prevent this, it was provided, that any complaints made against officers, on account of the proceedings at any courtmartial to which they might have been attached should be inquired into before a court-martial to be called for that purpose. The bill further gave power to enter houses in search of arms, and persons refusing to produce them were sub jected to punishment; and it was made a misdemeanor to disperse seditious papers in a proclaimed district, with a provision, that if the person actually dispersing them gave up his employer, the former should be discharged. Lastly, it was intended to be enacted, that when any individual arrested under this bill sued out a writ of habeas corpus within three calendar months after his having been so arrested, it should be a sufficient return to the writ, that the person so detained was kept in custody on a charge of offence perpetrated in a

proclaimed district. The power, however, of detaining a person thus charged was to be limited to three months; for it was provided, that every person arrested should be brought to trial within three calendar months, or should be discharged.

Lord

The bill encountered no opposition in the Lords, the conservative, or anti-ministerial peers thinking that the only fault lay in the government not having had recourse to such measures sooner. Teynham, objected to leaving the power of proclaiming a district in the hands of the Lord-lieutenant alone, and moved for a list of Irish privy councillors, with the intention of proposing that such proclamations should be signed by six privy councillors; but his mo tion was negatived without a division. Some amendments were adopted in Committee, arising principally from suggestions of the duke of Wellington regarding the constitution, the powers, and the mode of procedure, of the courtsmartial, and the bill was passed on the 22nd without having produced a single division.

It had to struggle, however, through a much more stormy course in the lower House. When it came down from the Lords, on the 22nd, the first reading was postponed till the 27th; many members having expressed a wish that it should be printed before passing through any of its stages. Mr. O'Connell immediately gave notice that he would move a call of the House for the 27th, and would repeat the call whenever he thought he perceived any relaxation of its effects, so long as the bill was before the House. He taunted ministers, likewise, with the delay which he insinuated was inter

posed to their remedial measures, and reminded them there was another House of Parliament, through which they might find it impossible to carry redress of grievances, with whatever unanimity it might enact measures of coerciona House where 66 any measure springing from malignant hatred of Ireland was sure to pass." Mr. Stanley denied, that there was any necessity for the remedial and the repressive measures going on together, but he declared, at the same time, that if ministers could not carry both, they would resign. He would not stop to inquire whether this or that measure should be passed first; it was sufficient to state, that if they could not carry every thing they proposed, they were no longer the government. The two sets of measures were independent of each other, but the rejection of either would equally establish this fact, that the administration did not possess the confidence of the two Houses of Parliament, and therefore could not continue to conduct the affairs of the country.

On the 27th of February, the House having been called over, lord Althorp moved the first reading of the bill. Ministers, he said, had waited to the last, to ascertain whether order could be restored by the ordinary administration of the law. On their appointment to office, they had sent a special commission into the county of Clare, and it had been successful. When the disturbances broke out in Queen's County, the same experiment had been tried, but it had utterly failed. Outrage, and open and successful defiance of the law, had spread more widely, and were increasing with frightful rapidity. His Lordship

entered into a full detail of particular offences, characteristic of the state of the country, and the nature of the insubordination. The first case to which he would refer was that of the murder of a man named Farrell, at Castle Comer, in February last. A large body of men entered his house, and, in the words of the person who gave the information, he was shot like a dog through the head. The next was the murder of a man named Patts, an engineer at a colliery near Kilkenny, in March. About 11 o'clock in the forenoon, in the presence of nearly 20 persons, and within a quarter of a mile of the barracks in which the 50th regiment were quartered, four men went up to and shot him, and then walked deliberately away; and though this crime was committed under the circumstances which he had stated, no attempt was made to prevent its perpetration or to arrest the murderers. The next case was the murder of a person named Mana. Between 10 and 11 o'clock in the forenoon he proceeded from his residence to a carpenter's shop, about a mile distant, in which were a man and a boy; three men followed him into the shop, and fired at and wounded him severely; they then knocked him down and killed him with the but end of their guns. Another case of murder was that of a man named Shee, at Cashel, on the 26th of August. This person was in a room of a public-house with two other persons, when two men entered the room with their faces blackened, and one of them dressed in woman's clothes; they ordered Shee to go on his knees, and instantly shot him dead. The next case, though not one of mur

der, was an instance of daring out rage, which might have terminated in murder. A person residing at Portarlington, in the Queen's County, was attacked in his house, on the 23rd of September, by an armed party. One of the party fired and wounded him in the breast dangerously, after which his assailants beat him and his brother in an inhuman manner. The next case was the murder of Mr. Houston in the Queen's County, on the 25th of October, an inoffensive, quiet man, very much respected in his neighbourhood, though he certainly had been guilty of the crime of collecting tithes. He was murdered within a mile of his residence. On the 23rd of November an attack was made on the house of a person named Maddox, in the county of Wexford. The assailants set fire to the house, on which two constables who had been placed in it for the protection of the inmates made their escape by the door, but were immediately murdered. Maddox, his wife, and daughter were so severely wounded that they survived but two days, and one of his sons received two balls in his chest, but was still alive. It appeared that these crimes were planned, and in part executed by a person who three years ago, had been dispossessed of Maddox's land. On the 5th of December, a party of about 50 men attacked a farmer's house, and fired a number of shots, by which one of the family was killed. The reason assigned for this outrage was, that the former tenant had been ejected for non-payment of tithes. The same party next proceeded to the house of a farmer, into which they were admitted by a servant lad. They killed the farmer, and

his wife and children only escaped the same fate by secreting themselves in a barn. They then proceeded to the house of a third person, and not having succeeded in forcing an entrance, they destroyed all his corn. The same party effected an entrance into the house of a fourth, and because he denied having any arms, one of the party fired at and wounded him severely, and he was still in a dangerous state. In January a party broke into the house of Christopher Goward, a young man of excellent character, and shot him dead. This was a murder committed in consequence of previous provocation, which consisted in the person murdered having overbid the former tenant of the land which he occupied. The next case was that of a man charged upon oath of having employed Whitefeet to murder his brother, because the latter would not give up three acres of land. This crime was committed on the 25th of January. The man had been committed on the charge of murder.

These, his Lordship continued, were cases of actual murder, or of attempts to murder; but he must likewise state to the House the progress of outrages of a different kind. He then read a letter from the county of Kilkenny, dated 21st January, 1833, stating, "We have to report that outrages last week were on the increase, chiefly near Carlow. So well are the proceedings of the Whitefeet arranged, that at the very moment at which the police are ordered out beacons are lighted as signals upon all the hills. It is dangerous to leave a small post of police, lest it should be overpowered; and, therefore, the duty of the members of it is now peculiarly heavy; they are