this head, (though mixed with matter of which I less approve,) appears to be well deserving of attention; and what, if land-owners alone were listening, one might be glad they heard. The Irish peasant feels that he wants something. The agitators persuade him that some political change, (say Catholic Emancipation) is what he wants. But if, under the fostering care of a Protestant landlord, he found himself and his family surrounded with all the warmth, and comforts of a rustic plenty,-must be not soon acknowledge that he wanted nothing more? not even seats in the House of Commons, for the members of the Catholic Board?

I have now, by no methodical or formal course, reached opinions of Judge Fletcher, with which I less agree;-those, I mean, which regard the state of Ireland; and the bills lately introduced into parliament by Mr. Peel.

To infer the general tranquillity of the country, from that orderly state, which we will suppose Wexford to enjoy, would be to argue from particular to universal; a sophistry, in which the learned judge would be the less likely to persevere, because he cannot have forgotten that this county of Wexford might be now, that "moral curiosity," which he describes it as formerly having been. Neither can he dub the calendar a sure criterion of the situation of things within a county, when he calls to mind that, in Tipperary, "the appearance of one hundred and twenty names, on his crown book," did not deter him from denying that county to have been materially disturbed. He will feel that if a crowded calendar involve a suggestio falsi,-the scanty one might originate in suppres sio veri. If over-active magistrates might "crowd the gaols with prisoners, and swell the calendars with imaginary crimes,' "supine" ones, on the other hand, might leave a county full of guilt; while its gaol was, notwithstanding, empty, and its calendar a blank. Nor is this the more unlikely to occur, if magistrates have been at issue on the true state of the county. For will those who have called it tranquil, be vigilant searchers for disturbance, or prompt, by numerous committals, to disprove their own assertion? Thus, on the state of Wexford, we find different opinions to have prevailed; and Judge Fletcher to have wanted sufficient means for pronouncing which of them was the more correct. For my part, I can conceive a county's being in an unsettled and lawless state,with yet, but little business to do in its crown court. If persons, from terror, partiality, or connivance, be reluctant to lodge informations, or appear as witnesses in court, how will calendars or convictions ascertain the state of the country? I look on that to be at once a perilous, and not unprecedented case, in which, while the inhabitants are anxiously keeping guard over their own safety, the judges of assize have a very easy time.

Judge Fletcher did not consider the county of Tipperary as dis

turbed. Do the magistrates of Middlethird vouch the rectitude of this opinion? Have these, at the expense of truth, consented to impose a heavy liability on their barony, in order to compliment the government, and contradict the judge? If not, it only follows, that in that frequently disordered county, the ignes suppositi happened to escape the observation of this latter.

As to the county of Kilkenny too, he apprehends that there was considerably more of "bustle and parade," than the real state of things either warranted or required. On this, however, he refers to the authority of Judge Day; who, from having presided in the crown court, was more competent to form and deliver an opinion. He has delivered one. It will be found in his eloquent and published charge-in which we discover a strong picture of the criminal complexion of the county; an expression of complimentary surprise, that the abode of such a gentry should be reduced to such a state;-in short, in that discourse, we seem more likely to discover any thing, than a concurrence in sentiment with his brother judge.

But let us have done with opinions for the present; and pass from them to facts. Where are we to look for the mighty "bustle," of which Judge Fletcher has complained? In the intimation, by government, of a desire, that the circuit should commence at Kilkenny, instead of Wicklow? Causes incomparably short of national disturbance, might justify such a departure from the ordinary direction of the circuit route; which has formerly (and I believe without impropriety or inconvenience) been occasionally altered, at the mere discretion of the senior judge. Was there nothing to warrant such an alteration here? A prison, thronged with supposed criminals in Clonmel; of whom it was not easy for Mr. Peel, or the Attorney General, to foresee, that in the course of a few weeks, they would be nearly all "acquitted felons;"'—in Kilkenny a "heinous burglary;" I use Judge Fletcher's words which might have been even stronger, without being too strong, for the singular and alarming atrocity of that transaction; in the same Kilkenny, the hand of justice for a year arrested, and in suspense, over the heads of persons charged with " a most atrocious outrage," and whom the event demonstrates to have been guilty of this charge in Waterford, first, "an abominable conspiracy to poison;" secondly, the murder of a gentleman of the name of Smyth; and thirdly," a burglary in a dwelling house;" which the learned. judge describes as having been "a transaction of a public nature; an attack planned and executed by a body of arined men; whose

;

An expression, if my memory serves me, of the late Mr. Wyndham. In general, the passages marked as quotations are extracted from Judge Fletcher's Charge.

motive for this outrage was, that the owner of the house, a stranger to the country, had ventured to take a farm there."

I have been confining myself to the statement of convictions: but many prosecutions may have failed, not from the innocence of the accused, but through fatalities, and legal flaws. Independently of all such possible frustrations of public justice, have I offered no satisfactory or sufficient reason, for that "inversion of the ordinary course of circuit," about which Judge Fletcher seems to me to make too much "bustle and parade? Suppose that in Kilkenny, there was not much (in quantity) of offence; yet if, within that county, savage outrage was a novelty, (as appears to have been suggested by Judge Day,) was it reprehensible in government, venienti occurrere morbo? Should they have waited to let the malady take a deeper hold?—Then, to pass to the contagion which was at their doors, did the populous Gaol, (I believe I may have already asked this question) of the seldom too languidly tranquil county of Tipperary, contain no apology for the course which the Irish minister had recommended?-Is it improbable, that, before the circuits had gone out, he was apprized of that menacing aspect of affairs, of which the magistrates of Middlethird have since given us the results? Was there no reason (not even that of cautela major) for promptly delivering the gaols of Kilkenny, Waterford, and Clonmel? Would it have been more expedient to dispatch the justices in eyre, in the first instance to Wicklow, where there was nothing for them to do, and to Wexford, which Mr. Justice Fletcher represents as in a state of "the most profound tranquillity and peace"?-The burglary in Waterford, his lordship has treated as an offence, of what he calls "a public nature;" and, in noticing it, digresses into an ejaculatory lamentation, over those "terrible delusions," which not only produced this outrage, but are pregnant with violence, anarchy, and bloodshed;"" delusions. which," I agree with him in thinking, that "the peasantry cannot too soon reject, as ruinous and absurd;" but into which some declamatory and turbulent ringleader may have betrayed them, by harangues upon the griping conduct of land-owners; and by asking what an unfortunate Irish peasant had to do, but to apply to the terrors of those, who had no kind feelings that could be addressed, and with strong hand, to deter the stranger from intruding on their farms?

I am now arrived at the two statutes, introduced in the last session of parliament, by Mr. Peel; which the charge of Mr. Justice Fletcher appears to have confounded; but which, in fact, are perfectly distinct. They however admit of being considered jointly, with reference to a foundation, which is common to them both. This may be found in their respective preambles; of which one recites "disturbances" to "have from time to time existed," in

"different parts of Ireland;" and the other adverts to the possibility of "actual disturbance;" or of the country's being "in immediate danger of being disturbed." To vouch the truth of such recitals, and the reasonableness of such fears, I shall not call on Shanaghvests, or Caravats, Threshers, Ribbonmen, or Carders; nor yet invoke the manes of their predecessors in disorder, Defenders, Houghers, Peep-of-day boys; the White boys, United Irishmen, Hearts of oak, or Hearts of Steel. I shall not point to the plundering of arms, to the orations of the Catholic Board, to the harangues at popular meetings, or paragraphs in the Irish Magazine, Evening Herald, or Evening Post. I grant that it might be wrong to recur to 1798; and I have no need to recall the summer and autumn of 1803. Judge Fletcher relieves us from the trouble of resorting to such proofs. More than echoing the preliminary recitals of those statutes, he not only admits the disturbances of this country, but entering on an elaborate investigation of their causes, declares that as long as these are left remaining, it is vain to hope that the effects should be removed.

Let me here digress, for a moment, from my subject; and admit, for argument, that "my lord has hit it :"3 that his reasonings are all just; his deductions all correct:-I do not thereby admit the inexpediency of these statutes. On the contrary, they might still be justified, on a principle the most obvious. For will it be denied, that if a seditious or disorderly spirit is abroad, this ought vigorously to be repressed, be its remote causes what they may? Let tranquillity and subordination be first restored, with (if requisite) a strong hand; and then, and not before, let all grievances be redressed, all irritations be withdrawn, so far forth as either legislative or executive can reach them. Where goading ill-treatment and vexation have caused frenzy, an opposite system of conduct may conduce to the patient's cure;-but, until the paroxysms are removed, he should, by measures of coercion, be prevented from doing injury, to others or to himself.

But now to take a separate view of the statutes which I have mentioned. By the 54th of the King, chapter 131, it is declared that" for suppression" of those "disturbances," which it has noticed, "the ordinary police hath been found insufficient." Towards denying the truth of this declaration, it would be necessary to affirm, either that we have no disturbances, or that we have had no police. But indeed the fact is too notorious for contradiction. So far from disputing,--Judge Fletcher builds upon it. The dis

St. 54. G. III. c. 181.

2 St. 54. G. III. c. 180.

3 See the 19th page of Judge Fletcher's Charge, in No. viii.

turbances, he says, exist; (whence, say I, it follows-that the "ordinary police hath proved insufficient for their suppression;") and like disorders, adds his Lordship, will continue to molest us, until causes, which he proceeds to enumerate, shall have been removed. All this, for argument, we have already granted; and but ask, in return, a concession, which we would be entitled to without purchase; inasmuch as it is one, which can hardly be refused. The postulate is no more than this; that while we are deliberating on, and promoting the (assumed to be) requisite reforms, " it is" what the legislature has pronounced it to be "expedient to make provision for" the "case" premised; that is to say for the inability of an ordinary police, to suppress disturbances, which are found, in spite of it, to prevail. Attend to this "provision" and what is the effect? that you suspend those tumults, which you are taking measures to preclude; that you check the growth of outrage, till you can detect and fully eradicate its lurking cause.' Neglect this " provision," and what, on the contrary, may ensue? That when your reforms are all digested, and ready to be applied, these disorders, which in the mean time you have left free from all constraint, will have attained a stature so gigantic, and acquired such formidable strength, as shall set at naught both ordinary and extraordinary police.

It having thus been proved, or not denied, that the country is disturbed, that the ordinary police has been found insufficient for maintaining its tranquillity, and that for a failure and emergency of this nature, it was expedient to provide,-I would ask of the unprejudiced, whether such a case could have been met, more mildly, prudently, or constitutionally, than by the act which has been passed? Before it can operate on any district, it must sufficiently appear to the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council, that such district (inadequately protected by its ordinary authorities) is disturbed. And what ensues on its so appearing? A remedial system is introduced, as simple in its frame as it is likely to be effectual in its operation; for simplicity is as characteristical of wisdom as of truth. This salutary innovation neither spreads itself beyond the precincts which are disturbed; nor survives the complete restoration of the public peace. The unsettled district is placed under the temporary controul of not a military, but civil establishment; calculated to act with vigilance, energy, and effect. The municipal law is not altered; it is but invigorated and braced; and this bill might have passed the barons in--was it the reign of Henry the Third? Nolumus mutari leges would not have thrown it out. The provisional establishment consists of a superintending magistrate, his clerk, a chief, and as many petty constables, as (within a number not to be exceeded,) the circumstances may require. The

1 I am still, for argument, concurring in the opinions of Judge Fletcher.