1828.1 Lord Welleslny 'a Administration in Ireland. 51 



irritating ceremony ; and from that hour the Orange porcupine pointed 

 its thousand shafts against the viceroy. His character no longer stood 

 upon doubtful speculation ; he was branded at once with epithets of con- 

 tempt, opposition, and hatred ; the very officers in his household, some 

 of whom had been accustomed to the impunity of the old regime, under 

 which every change was a revolution, and every improvement a bar- 

 barism, ventured to mimic the person as they derided the measures of the 

 lord-lieutenant, for which, one of them, who imagined he held office in 

 perpetuity, was instantly dismissed. His excellency at once became the 

 immediate topic of bacchanalian politicians; the Catholics chuckled over 

 the prospect of a Papist governor, and the Orangemen, assembled in 

 secret juntos, deliberated upon the means of thwarting or terminating the 

 new government. 



The differences that, at the beginning, promised a ready adjustment 

 under his lordship's auspicious administration, now widened, and the 

 ferocities of party spirit were manifested in the ill-concealed discontent 

 that sat upon the brows of the intolerants. Catiline, or Rienzi, or Mas- 

 saniello, were imperfect conspirators, considered in reference to the 

 Thistlewoods and Watsons of Dublin ; they sent abroad into society the 

 sentiments of insurrectionary loyalty, and although they had no Voltaire, 

 or Rousseau, or Swift, amongst them, yet they contrived to inspire their 

 own followers with a desperate fidelity. Alas ! they had no midnight 

 piazzas no Rialto no chief conspirator's house of assembly their 

 rendezvous was an obscure pot-house ; no pilastres, no secret springs, 

 no glorious effigies, no columns ; sans wrongs, sans dignity, satis parade 

 and circumstance, they went to work in the dim, dirty attic of a public- 

 house, to concoct the materials of a petite revolution. Unfortunately, 

 the foundation of their enterprize was built upon whiskey-punch, and 

 the superstructure was engulfed before it was completed. 



The attack upon Lord Wellesley in the theatre was the result of this 

 immature and contemptible cabal ; some of the conspirators were secured, 

 and bills of indictment against them laid before the grand jury ; but the 

 grand jury of Dublin being principally composed of corporators, a class 

 of men who were never known to inquire into the merits of any case if 

 they could discover the politics of the parties concerned, ignored the 

 bills ; when Mr. Plunkett, the attorney-general, declared his intention of 

 resorting to the extreme powers of his office, and of proceeding ex officio 

 against the accused. Intense anxiety was excited as to the result of the 

 trial, which occupied the Court of King's Bench six days, and terminated 

 in the locking up of the jury for one night in their chamber, and their 

 discharge, the next day, on their being unable to agree upon a 

 verdict. 



This affair, which was considered as a trial of strength between the 

 Wellesley and the Orange parties, afforded a subject of triumph amongst 

 the intolerants. They gloried in the attorney-general's defeat, and, 

 borrowing a term from the process of law he had adopted, they nick-named 

 him " Ignoramus." Squibs and lampoons circulated in abundance, and 

 the wit of the ascendant exhausted itself in libel. But these were edged 

 tools, and, instead of assisting to secure a temporary success, only pro- 

 voked a reaction that led to consequences of an enlarged and unexpected 

 importance. 



Some gentlemen, holding high trusts under government, who had 

 been educated in the bigotijy of the last century, and whose political 



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