1828.] [ 47 J 



LORD WELLESLEY'S ADMINISTRATION IN IRELAND. 



LORD CLARE said that Ireland was governed, not by law, but by a 

 faction, and,, therefore, voted for the union as a means of attaching the 

 Irish to the constitution of England, by making them participators in its 



frotection. Lord-chancellor Redesdale said that there were two laws in 

 reland, one for the rich, and another for the poor, and that, therefore, 

 popular confidence in the government was hopeless. While, however, much 

 of the evil may be partially traced to a system of misgovernment, much 

 also may be referred to that proverbial dissention which is indigenous to 

 the soil, and which has, time immemorial, prevented the Irish from coming 

 to any clear and united decision upon their own interests. When did it 

 occur that the Catholics were unanimous, even upon their own question ? 

 When did it occur that the Protestants of Ireland formed a compact body 

 of opinion ? and when did it occur that English prejudices were sought 

 to be conciliated, except by a party ? or that even concession was not 

 received by ten thousand variations and fluctuations of acknowledgment 

 and distrust ? Even the ablest, and most zealous advocates of emancipa* 

 tion, in and out of parliament, have been at all times subject to the ingra- 

 titude of suspicion, and, at one period or another, rewarded by calumny. 

 Even Grattan, the veteran patriot, who carried the measure of commer- 

 cial freedom in 1782, and who, in 1798, stood between the violence of the 

 people and the retaliations of the government, even Grattan was assaulted 

 by an Irish mob in the streets of Dublin, by that very order of his 

 constituents to whose independence and interests he had devoted the 

 energies of a long and laborious life ! When it is evident, therefore, that 

 Ireland herself is quarrelling about her own objects, and that she has 

 always manifested the most singular want of knowledge, or of union, 

 upon every question of domestic expediency, and upon every system of 

 government, good or evil, that has been adopted in her behalf, it is not 

 very surprising that, after centuries of internal distraction, she should yet 

 require legislative correctives. 



It is certainly true that the real state of Ireland is not very accurately 

 known here ; and it is also true, that the Irish have never yet agreed in 

 representing it. For thirty years, the usual mode of characterizing that 

 country was to speak of its wretchedness, the dismal condition of the 

 peasantry, their wants, their abandonment, their destitution, &c. ; and 

 just as this opinion was beginning to gain ground, and people were in the 

 habit of lamenting the distresses of the population, the London and Dublin 

 Magazine was started, to publish the statements of another class of Irish 

 politicians, whose favourite position was, that the Irish peasantry were 

 more comfortable, more moral, more independent, and better informed 

 than the peasantry of Scotland or England ! Why, it would be as difficult 

 to legislate under these circumstances, as to provide a suitable king for 

 the frogs ! 



Let us not be understood, however, as denying to the mistaken policy 

 that has been pursued towards Ireland, its due share in the encouragement 

 of these disastrous divisions. We are free to admit, that we have too 

 long dallied with the symptoms, when we should have penetrated to the 

 seat of the disease ; and that we have been satisfied to effect the appear- 

 ance of a cure, while the foul humours have been driven back, as Lord 

 Bacon says, to burst inwards. Of this, the positive existence of discon- 

 tent is a proof; and if we required further evidence of the inapplicability 



