1829.] at the Commencement of the Session. 119 
the scale ; and that, with political influence, he was to be the heir of 
the whole inheritance of freedom and virtue. 
The romance was ridiculed, and the reasoning was disproved. But 
the Irish parliament was already marked for suicide ; and its last work 
was to leave a legacy of mischief to its country. The instant operation 
of the boon was the shame of modern philosophy. The condition of 
the peasant became instantly darkened. His original evil, the minute sub- 
division of the land, was increased tenfold by the eagerness of the land- 
lord to increase the number of voters. The land was perpetually cut 
into still smaller fragments ; for the spot that could sustain nothing else, 
could sustain the false oath of a mock freeholder. The peasantry were thus 
reduced to the verge of beggary ; and their moral condition was as much 
sunk as their physical. One-third of these freeholders were without the 
value of forty shillings on earth; but it was enough for the landlord’s 
purpose if they had the hardihood to swear. The elections became, 
year after year, a thicker tissue of abomination. Perjury was notorious, 
till it almost ceased to be thought a crime. Then came a rebellion that 
wreaked its vengeance on this perjured peasantry. Next came a more 
enduring and. final vengeance, that smote the landlord through his 
pride—The house of merchandize, the temple, turned by his atrocious 
traffic of conscience and honour into a den of thieves—the Irish parlia- 
ment, was extinguished for ever. 
The punishment was inflicted, but the crime remained. The manu- 
facture of false oaths and false freeholders, the only manufacture of 
popish Ireland, went on flourishing to the highest hope of every scorner 
of the common decencies of truth and law. At the last numeration, 
made in 1815, the freeholders, above twenty pounds a-year, were not 
quite 20,000 ; while the forty shilling freeholders, or those who perjured 
themselves by the name, were no less than one hundred and _ fifty-seven 
thousand! Electors, of whom the vast majority knew no more of the 
qualities of a representative than of the philosopher’s stone ; two-thirds 
of whom could not read, write, or even speak the English language ; 
and almost the whole of whom were as much under the slavery of the 
priests, as ever dog was under the lash of his master. 
Mr. O’Connell at last made the daring attempt to turn this infamous 
abuse to the purposes of that Association, which “ governed the govern- 
ment” of Ireland. He solicited the aid of the lords of the rabble, the 
priests ; and the priests forthwith issued their indisputable commands to 
their slaves. The.mob of Clare carried the day at once. The landlords 
were trampled down in the general rush round the triumphal car of the 
© Liberator.” Old memories of benefits, the natural connexion of the 
tenant with the proprietor, the whole of the links of mutual kindness, 
obligation and service, were snapped at a touch of the priestly 
hand ; and Mr. O’Connell, the mock representative, was returned, by 
a mock election, to a parliament within whose doors he was never to set 
his foot. 
The Clare election struck the timid with the last dismay. They 
saw in it the total abscission of the people from their natural represen- 
tatives ; Ireland in the hands of the mob of superstition and civil turbu- 
lence; and the English parliament besieged by a host of popish 
radicalism ; or every county of Ireland virtually disfranchished by the 
return of disqualified members. 
The prospect was as alarming as the offence was monstrous. And yet it 
