50 Lord Wcllcslcifs Administration in Ireland. QJAN 



saw that, without being invested with any new or additional powers, he 

 was called upon to effect greater changes than had ever been expected at 

 the hands of any other Vice-Regent; but the populace thought dif- 

 ferently : they could not be persuaded, that he who was born an Irish- 

 man, and who had long been one of the prominent advocates of Irish 

 freedom, was not authorized to re-model the whole system of Irish legis- 

 lation, and to produce at one happy moment a great national reformation. 

 They could see in Lord Wellesley only the pacificator of India, and 

 anticipated nothing less than that he should become the Saviour of 

 Ireland. 



With a people so obstinate and so misinformed it was in vain to 

 argue. They had seized upon a position from which it was impossible 

 to drive them, and they were permitted to indulge in their hopes until 

 experience rectified and disappointed them. It may be remarked, too, 

 that the early part of Lord Wellesley's administration was so decisive and 

 imperative as to give still greater currency and strength to the notion 

 that he was the depository of unusual authority, and that, without 

 seeming to hold any delegated jurisdiction beyond that of the naked 

 executive, he maintained some secret understanding with the minister, 

 tantamount to a promise of an act of indemnification for all extra-official 

 privileges he might deem it expedient to assume. This notion, originating 

 with the vulgar, spread to the violent heads of the dominant party, who 

 seduously laboured to torture it into a thousand charges and accusations 

 against the new government. But the truth was, Lord Wellesley had 

 no powers confided to his discretion; and acted as much under the 

 dictation of the Home Secretary, in all matters that involved disputed 

 questions, as any lord-lieutenant from the days of Townsend to the 

 present. Nor could it have been otherwise without the commission of a 

 dangerous infraction upon the constitution ; for, however sincere Lord 

 'Wellesley's desire to improve the condition of Ireland, and however 

 qualified he might be to act upon it, the principle that would repose in 

 his hands a trust so important,, might be extended to future governors, of 

 different views and inferior capacities, who, in the exercise of an un- 

 limited sway, might have plunged the country into a revolution. 



The first act of his administration that was seized upon as an indication 

 of his sentiments, was the suppression of the annual display of orange 

 ribbons and trophies that were wont to decorate the statue of the third 

 William, in College Green, within a few hundred yards of the castle. 

 This " dressing of the statue" had been an old commemorative custom of 

 the Orange lodges, and, in latter years, excited the most alarming 

 sensations in the city. It was the badge of a party that had obtained an 

 ascendancy in the councils of the country, and through whose influence 

 the administration of justice, in all its details, was perverted to the objects 

 of family intrigue and factious politics : and it was also the type of the 

 degradation of the great majority of the people, who, smarting under that 

 degradation, naturally felt disposed to resent all emblems that were 

 triumphantly and insultingly exhibited to represent it. On these 

 occasions the military remained under arms all night, to be ready at a 

 moment's call ; the city police paraded the streets ; and the inhabitants 

 were accustomed to prepare for the annual fete of the Orangemen with 

 something of the fearful precaution adopted by people in the neighbour- 

 hood of a volcanic mountain previously to an expected eruption. Under 

 his lordship's commands, an imperative interdict was placed upon the 



