to ruin a virtuous citizen, for defending his character and asserting the liberties of Ireland; if they do not, let them beware of the awl of the cobler of Messina!'"

The progress of revolutionizing principles in Ireland is followed with masterly precision up to the disastrous 23d of May, 1797, when the history of the country, in the hands of every schoolboy, takes up the tale, writ as it is in characters of blood so legible that "those that run may read," and which period Mr. Martin, so far from dilating on, "draws a veil over," on the noble principle, we suppose, of the hero in Cymon and Iphigenia ;" who

"The weak disdained, the valiant overthrew,"

repelling, however, with proof as well as indignation, the foul assertion made by many who are called the friends of this country, that " England fomented the rebellion of 1798, for the purpose of having the Union carried!"

Among the most popular grounds on which the arguments in favour of a repeal of the Legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland have been sustained are, the hopes held out that it would "bring back the absentees." Mr. Martin, in his fourth chapter, (by far the most useful and interesting of all) meets them boldly, and in two directions. He asserts that there was a notorious drain of landed proprietors out of the country before the removal of the seat of legislature, and that even in the boasted period of independence this was a source of uneasiness to politicians. Laws were proposed and passed to remedy the evil, from the remotest period of our parliamentary history to the days of Flood and Grattan, and these venerated individuals made repeated efforts to invigorate and enforce them; but in every instance with ill success.

But even allowing to the Union the origin of this overstated grievance, we are presented with a table which shews that absenteeism is not carried to such a frightful extent as has been supposed. In the year 1831 the "Dublin Almanack" thus exhibits the number of resident and non-resident peers, peeresses, and bishops; and the number of nonresidents is now decreasing.

"Of the representative peers, only three out of twenty-eight are non-resident, and the majority of baronets and commoners are also residents.

"The rent drawn by absentees is proved by Mr. Stanley as probably not exceeding £2,000,000, and if we take the total annual income of Ireland at £100,000,000, how can it be said that absenteeism is the grand cause of Irish misery; or that the re-establishment of a separate legislature in Dublin is a necessary step for procuring prosperity in Ireland, when the remittance to absentees in England in 1785 was £1,608,932; a sum equivalent to £3,000,000 of our present money." (Newenham.)

Our author is induced in support of his argument, (reluctantly, we are sure,) to bring forward some testimonials of no very flattering description, as to the characters of those gentry who think proper to remain amongst us. We hope his authorities have a little overstated matters, or that a tinge of democratical principle has lent its colour to his view of the subject; but for ourselves we are tardy to receive the conviction that we are the better for having our esquires and right honourables enjoying the smoke of Westminster or Vesuvius, instead of that of their own blazing chimHowever nies on their native soil. this may be, to the following paragraph we must not shut our eyes--where facts are placed before thus, we are ever ready to look them in the face:

"The county of all others in Ireland selected by the late parliament as the one most disorganized and most loudly calling for a commission of enquiry, was the Queen's County-a county chiefly in the hands of resident landlords, some in the possession of large estates, but the majority holding just sufficient to entitle them to seats on petty session benches, or the profitable privilege of being grand jurors:

they are, one and all, pitted against the peasantry, as the slave-driver is against the colonial slave-gangs.' ”—Dublin Express, January 3d, 1833.

In addition to all this, he gives it as an undoubted fact, (and we can ourselves vouch for its truth in some instances which have come under own eyes) that the estates of Irish absentees are among the best, if not the very best managed estates in Ireland.

Again does Mr. Martin fall foul of Mr. O'Connell on the subject of the analogical reasoning of the latter for repealing the Union. It is so manifest that a country having an hundred and five representatives in the imperial parliament, is not to be classed with one such as Jamaica or Canada, which has not a single one, that we are at a loss to conceive how men have been found not only to utter, but to believe the assertion that the two cases possess a degree of resemblance. But our author is not content with simply defeating his adversaries, he must have them at the wheels of his car to grace his triumph. You not only have failed, Mr. O'Connell, (it is thus we may imagine Mr. Martin addressing the doughty Hibernian) in making out your parallel, but you are proved, upon your own showing, to have been for some time endeavouring to degrade your own country, to reduce her, in fact, from a nation into a province! You would have a colonial legislation in this country, as in Jamaica and other remote colonies, possessing restricted powers, (for thus alone could an Irish parliament be constituted,) and you would relinquish your present position-you would vacate your hunded and five seats in the parliament of England! Here the author grows warm, and, we fear, loses temper; for we find him, in a few paragraphs farther on, hotly endeavouring to prove that the miseries of its British population are increasing in a ratio proportionate to our internal progressive prosperity.

In the next round with Mr. O'Connell, there is some scientific sparring, on the score of his repeated attempts to display the "Sassenach" as continually inflamed with the spirit of rancour against his Irish half-brethren. He gives the agitator some hard hits upon his ingratitude to his benefactors; and after having planted a facer on the subject of taxation, (wherein he makes

it appear that Ireland is taxed less heavily, in proportion to its population, than either England or Scotland) he floors him completely when he proves that the favourite theme of declamation with him and his gang, is a mere chimera, and that the compact entered into at the Union has not been broken, at least on the side of the British; and as in the fifth and last chapter, at its commencement, he gives a domestic application to the following expressions of General Jackson-" The Union was formed for the benefit of all parties. It was produced by mutual sacrifices of interests and opinions"-the natural consequence is, as he would draw the conclusion, (and we have no logical or personal objection to his doing so) that Daniel O'Connell deserves a mode of treatment at the hands of the British, somewhat of the nature of that which he has, no doubt, planned' in his prospective wisdom for them and their children. In this chapter several extracts are to be met with from the address of General Jackson to the factious citizens of South Carolina, which we wish our limits had enabled us to give entire. The sentiments are not only just and noble, but so precisely applicable to this island, that we can scarcely bring ourselves to think that the Atlantic is interposed between us and the people addressed; but still less can we believe what is the fact, that many Irish journals denied that there was a parallel between the two cases!

"The manner in which a great part of the Irish people have been led on, step by step, to the precipice on which they are now placed, is thus eloquently and truly described by President Jackson, when warning the South Carolinians against delusions exactly similar to those practised by the Irish demagogue:

666

Let me tell you, my countrymen, that you are deluded by men who are either deluded themselves, or wish to

deceive you. Mark under what pretences you have been led on to the brink of insurrection and treason, on which you stand! First, a diminution of the value of your staple commodity, lowered by over-production in other quarters, and the consequent diminution in the value of your lands, were the sole effect of the tariff laws.

The effects of those laws are confessedly injurious; but the evil

was greatly exaggerated by the unfounded theory you were taught to believe that its burthens were in proportion to your exports, not to your consumption of imported articles. Your pride was roused by the assertion, that a submission to those laws was a state of vassalage, and that resistance to them was equal, in patriotic merit, to the opposition our fathers offered to the oppressive laws of Great Britain. You were told that this opposition might be peaceably-might be constitutionally made that you might enjoy all the advantages of the Union, and bear none of its burthens.

666

your

Eloquent appeals to your passions, to your state pride, to native courage, to your sense of real injury, were used to prepare you for the period when the mask which concealed the hideous features of disunion should be taken off. It fell, and you were made to look with complacency on objects which, not long since, you would have regarded with horror. Look back at the arts which have brought you to this state-look forward to the consequences to which it must inevitably lead!'"

But the GREAT CAUSE yet remains behind, of all this evil the principal and fount. Hear it shadowed forth by O'Driscoll::

"Never was a principle more free, in its onset, from RELIGIOUS taint than that of the United Irishmen; but on the very breaking out of the insurrection, the od fiend, the evil genius of Ireland, appeared upon the field, drinking the blood of the people; a long untasted luxury a war of separation would soon become a religious war, and then a war of extermination; it would leave Ireland a desert deluged with blood.' (vol. ii. p. 228.) "Ireland, is divided into two great parties, peasantry and gentry, protestant and catholic; a war of separation from England would be a war between these parties; any war in Ireland, come how it may, let it spring from whatever principle, would soon take this direction, and find the old and frightful channel in which the blood of that country has flowed for ages."

And yet Mr. Martin is not a Conservative! Nay, is a Whig!! But perhaps we should rather say, was; he proceeds to say—

for

"What must be the inevitable result of such policy as that now pursued by Mr. O'Connell? Why, that Protestant

ascendancy must be revived in all its plenitude of power, or the Legislative Union be repealed, and Ireland governed by the sword, until a generation more capable of appreciating the inestimable blessings of peace and liberty has arisen in the stead of those who are either incapable of judging for themselves, or who spurn a connexion which a rightly constituted mind would gladly embrace."

A federal connection between England and Ireland is not to be thought of in the present state of the world. The talented writer of the papers known by the name of "The Federalist" is theoretical and subtle, but not convincing; because he does not follow Mr. Martin's system, and throw down his facts before us, unreservedly and honestly.

A recent writer on the moral and political state of Ireland thus remarks, in reference to a federal union :—

66

It was proposed to obviate some of the difficulties which follow separation by a species of federal connexion: such a connexion could not be permanent. Two independent nations, of equal length and lying close together, would not long remain at peace. Their position and their inequality would lead to war. Every circumstance, such as the similarity of language and manners, would, in case of separation, heighten the probability of dissension, and make war inevitable. The balance between the nations might occasionally be maintained by well-managed alliances; but woe to that nation which is forced to rest its security upon foreign aid, or the wretched reliance of treaty or policy! This is dear defence of nations."

England is, in fact, necessary to Ireland in even a greater degree than Ireland is necessary to England. Let England open her ports to the world as she does to Ireland, and where would Irish produce find a market?— But we are running on to an unreasonable length in such speculations. In what follows, Mr. Martin has, with singular felicity, appropriated the lan guage of another to himself. He says

American Republic, I implore my fellow"In the language of the president of the countrymen to contemplate the condition of that country of which they still form an important part; to consider its government uniting in one bond of common interest and general protection, so

many states (fifty-six colonies in every ocean and on every shore of this habitable world, with a population of one hundred and fifty millions of subjects, spread over a fertile surface of one million five hundred thousand square miles!) giving to all their inhabitants the proud title of American [British] citizens; protecting their commerce, securing their literature and their arts, facilitating their intercommunication, defending their frontiers, and making their name respected in the remotest parts of the earth. Consider the extent of its territory, its increasing population, its advance in arts, which renders life agreeable, and the sciences which elevate the mind! See education spreading the lights of religion, humanity, and general information, in every cottage in this wide extent of our territories and states! Behold it as the asylum where the wretched and the oppressed find a refuge and support. Look on this picture and say, we too are American [British] citizens; Carolina [Ireland] is one of those proud states. add, without horror and remorse, this happy Union we will dissolve this picture of peace and prosperity we will deface -this free intercourse we will interruptthese fertile fields we will deluge with blood-the protection of that glorious flag we renounce the very name of Americans [Britons] we discard. And for what, mistaken men? for what do you throw away these inestimable blessings-for what would you exchange your share in the advantages and honour of the Union? For the dream of a separate independence; a dream interrupted by bloody conflicts with your neighbours, and a vile dependence on

Can you

a foreign power. If your leaders could

succeed in establishing a separation, what would be your situation? Are you united at home; are you free from the apprehension of civil discord, with all its fearful consequences? Do our neighbouring republics, [kingdoms, viz. France, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Germany, &c.] every day suffering some new revolution, or contending with some new insurrection-do they excite your envy? But (continues General Jackson) the dictates of a high duty obliges me solemnly to announce that you cannot succeed. The laws of the United States [Kingdom] must be executed; I have no discretionary power on the subject; my duty is emphatically pronounced in the constitution. Those who told you that you might peaceably

prevent their execution, deceived youthey could not have been deceived themselves. They know that a forcible opposition could alone prevent the execution of the laws, and they know that such opposition must be repelled. Their object is disunion; but be not deceived by names; disunion, by armed force, is treason, and are you really ready to incur its guilt? If you are, on the heads of the instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences; on their heads be the dishonour, but on yours may fall the punishment; on your unhappy state will inevitably fall all the evils of the conflict you force upon the government of your country. It cannot accede to the mad project of disunion, of which you would be the first victims; its first magistrate cannot, if he would, avoid the performance of his duty; the consequences must be fearful for you, distressing to your fellow-citizens here, and to the friends of good government throughout the world.'"*

tion-that which his whole work has Mr. Martin's grand concluding posibeen written with a tendency to establish is this, that Mr. O'Connell's threat of repealing the Union

"At every moment when his personal feelings are hurt, MUST be finally put a stop to by the passing of an Act of Parliament, declaring that every attempt_or design, overt or covert, to Repeal the Legislative Union between England, Ireland, and Scotland, be deemed high treason, and subject to the pains and penalties attending thereon."

We are not prepared to say whether this measure would be expedient, or even possible to be adopted; but this we willingly admit, that the blow is aimed in the right quarter, and that the pacification of Ireland must be gained the time come when Lucifer may not at the sacrifice of her enemies. May only fall as lightning from heaven, but his attendant angels acknowledge, in his transformed and undeified hideousness, the justice of his condemnation!

At the moment we are writing, anarchy is again walking her now beaten track of blood. Resistance to constituted authorities, at first reluctantly and irresolutely entered upon as the last resource under the pressure of intolerable tyranny, is now boldly