122 The Year 1830. [FEB. 



same extraordinary result followed, rendered still more unaccountable 

 by its circumstances. On the 31st of March, the bill was brought in ; 

 the debate was continued on April the 2d, the 3d, and 4th ; when the 

 House divided, the Propatists being 217, the Protestants 112 ! On the 

 7th, the bill was committed ; on the 8th, the report was received. On 

 the 10th of April the bill was read the third time and passed, the Pro- 

 papists being 213, the Protestants 104. In the preceding session those 

 same Lords had flung out the measure with strong contempt by a 

 majority of 40. The bill was now carried by a majority of the very 

 same men, amounting to 109. 



No measure that ever came before an English Legislature had pro- 

 duced so strong an expression of feeling out of the House. The whole 

 number of petitions that could be obtained by the entire force of 

 Whiggism, of apostate Toryism, and of Popery, making every effort for 

 triumph, was scarcely more than a fifth of the Protestant petitions. The 

 exact numbers were to the Lords, petitions against popery, 1,994 -for 

 it, 630 ! To the Commons, petitions against popery, 533 for it, 159. 



The names to the Protestant petitions were by tens and hundreds 

 of thousands. The single petition of London bore 116,000 signa- 

 tures of householders. The petition from the Protestants of the north 

 of Ireland, bore, as well as we can recollect, upwards of 200,000 

 names of landholders, manufacturers, and other persons of pro- 

 perty. The church of England distinguished itself ably; the utter 

 rejection of the Home Secretary by Oxford; and the eager and 

 triumphant voting for Sir Robert Inglis, whose claim on the University 

 was of neither office nor patronage, but of sound principles and uncom- 

 promising Protestantism ; the whole of the proceedings through the 

 empire, were irrefragable evidences of the national feeling in the rich 

 and poor, the high and the low, in the seats of learning, in the factories 

 and in the cottages. The total number of petitions against popery were 

 2,537 of those for popery, 789. The majority thus in favour of the 

 religion and Constitution of England were 1,748. 



But what have been the effects of this sweeping measure on Ireland ? 



" My Lords," were the words of the Premier, " I am sanguine 

 that this will produce a state of amelioration in Ireland the higher 

 orders (the agitators) will have a motive in promoting tranquillity 

 there; and, I trust, they will set an example which will be followed 

 by their inferiors, and that they will live upon good terms with each 

 other. This is all that we ask of them ; and if they should consent 

 to do so, the country will be quiet. If it is not so if this measure will 

 not answer, I shall be prepared to come down with other measures 

 which, /, trust, will prove more efficacious" 



This " amelioration" has been a perpetual course of outrage, midnight 

 murders, burnings, and defiance of the law. We have seen within a few 

 months the necessity for anticipating the regular course of the circuits ; 

 and a special commission sent down to the south of Ireland, to check, if 

 it could not extinguish, a notorious system of mid-day assassination. 

 What was the language of the direct agent of government, the Solicitor 

 General : " There is a system of conspiracy of the most branching atrocity, 

 spread through a vast extent of the lower classes, marked by mysterious 

 symbols, bound by horrible oaths, carried on by secret and universal 

 correspondence, and characterised by the most hideous violences to law, 

 religion, and. human nature." How much of this has subsided; or 



