pose of obstructing the lawful proceedings. The presence of a peaceable crowd, indeed, cannot add any difficulty to the execution of a lawful process; but the agitators knew full well what the nature of mankind would lead any one to anticipate, and what sad experience has too clearly demonstrated, that crowds collected and excited by such means, would not be peaceable spectators of proceedings which they had heard denounced in such unmeasured terms. Accordingly, in every instance in which a civil or military force was not at hand, the populace effected their object either by intimidation, or by actual violence. Even in cases where a sufficient lawful force was present to protect those engaged in the execution of the law, the crowd interfered, and succeeded by driving off the cattle that were seized, or by holding out threats of future injuries (threats that were sure to be executed) on any that should dare to purchase them. In many instances the furious passions of the populace drove them to assault the military and police, who were scarcely able to protect themselves with the aid of the deadly weapons entrusted to them by the laws. When such fatal conflicts took place, the agitator, undismayed by the horrid consequences which he could not but have foreseen, stepped forward still more boldly, in cries for revenge and blood. The people were taught that their friends and relatives had been butchered by the military, to gratify the malice of a blood-thirsty clergy. Men who fell in such battles were represented as martyrs who were murdered because they refused to pay tithes; and at several contested elections the bloody clothes of men who fell in mortal combat with the military, were displayed as standards to fill the people with horror and revenge. A fatal event of this nature always rendered it impossible to collect any part of the clergyman's income in the parish in which it occurred, and increased the power of the agitator, and made the clergyman's situation one of distress and despair. Nevertheless, in every case the agitator represented the clergy who were ruined by them, as seeking for such collisions: and the furious crowd who collected, unlawfully armed with sticks and stones (weapons which they use with fatal effects), and who avowed their furious determination not to suffer tithes to be collected, were represented as unoffending spectators, massacred by the sanguinary parsons.

But in all cases there were not present armed forces, nor in every case were the military and police (menaced as they were alike by law and lawless violence) able to protect themselves from. the multitudes which attacked them. In the former case, the execution of legal process was generally defeated by number, or by the timely flight, which saved the fugitive from death. Even the service of process, the first step in any action brought to recover tithes, was an offence to be expiated only by death. Many process-servers murdered in the execution of their duty —many who had given thanks for their providential escape were afterwards murdered, some when employed on other occupations, being recognised, and assaulted by mobs who knew not mercy

were

others being watched, waylaid, and murdered, when returning home-others, with more premeditated guilt, were dragged out of their beds by night and murdered. A catalogue of the murders which were perpetrated on innocent men, for no offence but that of having endeavoured to support themselves and their families by a lawful occupation, would, we feel convinced, even now induce the agitator to pause in his desperate career, and lament the mischief he has caused.

The clergy, the populace, and the process-servers and inferior officers of the law, were not the only victims of this state of things. The military and police were on several occasions destroyed by the mobs, whom prudence or compassion had prevented them from effectually resisting. Part of the policy of the agitator was to paralyse the exertions of the police, by raising up false charges against them. When death is the consequence of a conflict, compassion for the fallen naturally leads the mind to conceive that he was innocent, and therefore, that the person who committed the deed could not have been altogether free from guilt. Taking advantage of this feeling, the agitator denounced the police as murderers. False witnesses were readily procured, and the police were persecuted, imprisoned, and their lives endangered by the law for acts, which the defence of themselves or of others whom they were bound to protect in the execution of the law, had rendered necessary. Our readers may recollect a case in Cork, in which a priest conducted a prosecution against a policeman for murder. The dying declaration of the deceased was the principal evidence, and on cross

examination of the priest, it came out that he was aware of the policeman's innocence, which was proved by a fact mentioned by the deceased to the priest, but suppressed in the dying declaration, for the purpose of procuring a conviction of the innocent policeman for murder. Had not Sergeant Jackson extorted the truth by a most dexterous crossexamination, the policeman would have been executed on this false charge!!! Thus, in the multitudes by whom they were surrounded, the military saw false witnesses to bring them to a disgraceful death, if in defending themselves any blood was shed. Dread of this sometimes prevented them from resisting until it was too late. Although a small body of infantry would, in a fair battle, disperse and conquer the largest mob, yet by delaying their resistance even a few seconds, the contest may be reduced to a close struggle between man and man, in which arins and discipline are useless, and numbers must prevail. This compound organization, for defeating the claims of the clergy, by fraud and intimidation, and perjury and violence, was by the agitator called the system of passive resistance!!!

Meanwhile the agitator's privileges and influence, as a member of parliament, were sedulously employed in favour of this passive resistance, and were especially and successfully directed to overawe the government, and prevent them from taking any steps to suppress this rebellion. Bills, in their progress through parliament, were carefully stript of any provisions that might discourage this resistance to tithes, and it soon became apparent that the government was not strictly neutral, but was, as far as it could with safety, lending its assistance to those who opposed the laws. The assistance of the military or police was refused on every futile pretext, and when granted, was placed under so many restrictions as to be unavailing. Letters demanding protection were unanswered until an answer was extorted by threats of publishing the refusal. In the case of the writ of rebellion this assistance was illegally refused, and the attorney and solicitor-general were seen to argue the right of a constable to refuse obedience to the court, and to deny protection to an officer employed in executing a high prerogative writ. The decision being against the government, they appealed to the House of Lords, but did not venture to get the appeal heard. It is known that it cannot be heard in the absence of the English judges, and this

year they are pursuing the same course as last year, viz.: putting off the hearing until the judges shall have left town for their circuits.

As a final and determined step, on one occasion, when a private application was made to government for the assistance of the police, it was refused, and the application itself was published. When we remember how many of the clergy have been murdered for slighter offences than demanding the assistance of the police, we may presume that this vigorous measure had the effect of deterring them from troubling the government with any more applications.

To put a stop to the flow of blood in Ireland, and, if possible, to restore peace, Sir R. Peel brought in a bill by which the present tithe composition would have been commuted for a smaller composition, to be paid by the landlord, who would at the same time have the privilege of redeeming it upon very advantageous terms. By this arrangement the clergy would have made a sacrifice of one fourth of their incomes, for the sake of peace, and would have been secured in the enjoyment of the rest, without trouble or litigation. The Irish Roman Catholic members opposed this plan, and by bartering their general sup ort, prevailed upon a large body of the Whigs to abandon their former principles and professions, and formed a combination which drove Sir R. Peel from office, and pledged the House of Commons not to assent to any bill which did not contain a provision which would in effect work the subversion of the established church in Ireland. The measure, indeed, proposed by the Whigs, would not altogether destroy the established church, although it would detract very much from its efficiency; but O'Connell and the rest of his party always declared that they considered the measure only as an instalment, and that they would not cease to agitate until tithes and all compensation for them, were altogether extinguished in substance as well as in name.

The above is a brief and certainly not an exaggerated statement of the conduct of which the Protestants complain, as inconsistent with the Roman Catholic oath.

We proceed now to the arguments urged by those who defend this conduct.

First-They allege that it was not intended by the legislature to fetter the Roman Catholic members in their legislative capacity, and that the oath was only intended to operate on them as

individuals and as citizens, outside the walls of parliament.

The second qualification attempted to be put on the oath is in observations, page 29:

"The object of the legislature, if it intended to bind the Roman Catholic member in his legislative capacity at all, could at the highest have extended only to this, to bind his conscience not to vote merely for the purpose of weakening or disturbing the Protestant religion or Protestant government in this country, without reference to the good of the whole." The next ground of defence is that in page 33:

"A discretion is vested in the Catholic who is to be the judge, whether by the bill about to be passed he intends to subvert the church establishment, and whether the bill will have the effect of weak

ening or disturbing the Protestant religion or Protestant government in the United Kingdom. The individual member is then the judge, the sole judge; no one else has a right to adjudicate upon the point. When he is satisfied, who has a right to question his determination ? It is a question between him and his Godthere is no arbiter or medium-and no frail mortal should claim to interfere, for if interference be claimed, what becomes of the discretion ?"

In the Dublin Review, April, 1837, page 574, the writer introduces his strongest argument, which Mr. Sadleir had foreseen in his speech against emancipation, 17th March, 1829. The Reviewer terms it "an argument of the greatest weight," namely, "the conflict of duties in which the Catholic may find himself involved." According to Burke and all political writers, the member is not "the member for Bristol," but the member for the whole community-the trustee of the rights of the whole constituency, and any failure on his part in the exercise of that trust, from whatever cause, is an injury to the whole constituency of the empire.

"The moment he is elected," according to Mr. Tyler, "he is involved in the obligation of performing all the duties of his office, and the people have the right to demand from him the discharge of all those duties, or to resign, and it is his duty to obey. It seems obvious that the legislature could not intend the mockery of making it the duty of the Catholic to resign, the moment any question of religion is mooted; or, in other words, on the day he takes his seat, if any hostile member should so desire. It is then to be

presumed that it was the intention of the legislature that the Catholic, when allowed to be a member, should do his duty-the whole of his duty. How far, therefore, regard being had to the rights of his constituency to elect a Catholic member, and to require him to perform his duty, such member can be considered to be bound by any oath which may interfere with the performance of his duty, is an important consideration, to which we cannot now devote sufficient attention."

The first consideration that occurs to any one after reading all those inthey leave a great part of the conduct terpretations and arguments is, that of the Roman Catholic party utterly without defence. We allude to the conspiracy against payment of tithes in a conspiracy to withhold by fraud and force a considerable portion of prothe laws of the land. Reconcile this perty from those on whom it is settled by with the oath to defend to the utmost of his power the settlement of property within this realm, as established by the laws. The agitator now asserts that he considers the revenues of the church not entitled to the protection of this clause, and that it was only intended to apply to the settlement of property under the act of settlement. We must, however, remember that this clause is to be found in the oath imposed by the act of 1793, and the public declaration of the Roman Catholics after that act and the language of their petitions for further rights, showed that they the protection of that clause, as it unconsidered church property entitled to questionably is, if the oath is taken "in the plain and ordinary sense of the words, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation." The declarations to which we allude are such tion of the British Roman Catholic as the following, viz.: in the declaraBishops, 1826, they say—

"We regard all the revenues and temporalities of the church establishment as the property of those upon whom they are settled by the laws of the land."

In a letter from Mr. Poynter, Vicar Apostolic in London, to Mr. Wilmot Horton, on the securities for the church establishment, in the event of granting Catholic emancipation, the same expression occurs. When we consider that those declarations were publicly made by persons having authority to act on behalf of those by whom the oath was taken, and repudiated by none, can we doubt that the war against tithes now raging in Ireland is a direct

violation of that oath? From this guilt the English Roman Catholics are altogether free.

Even to confine the protection of this clause to the property disposed of by the act of settlement would not establish their innocence, since part of the titles belonging to the incumbents of many parishes are given to them and to the Church for ever, by this very act of settlement, vide the 107th section of said act" and be it also enacted by the authority aforesaid, that all and every impropriations or appropriate tithes forfeited to or vested in his Majesty, his heirs and successors, &c. are hereby given to the Church for ever; and hereby are and for ever shall be settled and established upon the present and future incumbents, and their successors, of the respective parishes."

It has been argued, whether seriously or in jest, it is not easy to determine, that the combination against tithes did not interfere with the settlement of property, as it left the rights untouched, and merely prevented them from being reduced into possession. But in this sense of the word the property cannot be transferred, except by an act of the legislature; and such acts are not in any manner (it is alleged,) restricted by the oath. The consequence, therefore is, that a great mass of property may be withheld from those upon whom it is settled by law, that a combination may be entered into, out of parliament, to defeat the laws, and in parliament to alter them; in short, that there is no possible manner in which the present settlement of property may not be assailed by inen who have sworn to defend it.

One of the most eminent of the Roman Catholic orators, if not actually the first among them, felt the difficulty of this position so strongly, that he was obliged to make use of an argument on which we think nothing but despair would have induced him to place any reliance. In the committee of the House of Commons Sir R. H. Inglis moved an amendment that after the words "the present settlement of property," the words "ecclesiastical as well as lay" should be inserted. Sir R. Peel opposed this amendment on the grounds that it weakened the clause rather than strengthened it, as the words in its present state applied to every kind of property, and that it was better not to encumber the oath by any unnecessary prolixity. The

amendment was therefore either negatived or withdrawn. And this withdrawal appearing on the journals of the House unaccompanied by the reasons, is by rather curious reasoning taken as a proof, that in "the plain and ordinary sense of the words," the present settlement of property does not include the present settlement of ecclesiastical property! The limits of our article will not permit us now to enter into the defence put forth for the parliamentary conduct of the Roman Catholics, which asserts, that a test imposed upon men entering into either house of parliament is not intended to have any effect on their conduct there, and that their speeches and votes there, coupled with their declarations out of the house, are not to be considered indicative of an intention to subvert the Church Establishment. Unless more important matter presses, we shall, in our next number, give a history of the emancipation act, and shew that the oath was directed principally to the members in their legislative capacity. But we hope the task will be rendered unnecessary by the altered conduct of the Roman Catholic party. They cau gain nothing by perseverance, except a poor gratification of their hatred to Protestants. If the struggle lasts, their party must sink. They are compelling the Protestants to unite by every motive of fear and indignation; and the best and most honorable of their own persuasion are withdrawing from their party in disgust. So far from keeping out the Tories by it, (if that is their great object for which it is worth while to keep Ireland in anarchy,) the present ministry are siuking under their hostility to the Church. The Whigs and Radicals united had a decided majority in the House of Commons, in 1835. They could have compelled Sir R. Peel to retire from office on any question, and they chose precisely that on which they are now able, with all the influence which the most profuse corruption could create, to command the smallest majorities. Notwithstanding their professed anxiety to have the church question settled, it is evident that the Whigs, whose feelings to the Church are rather those of indifference than hostility, are afraid of bringing it forward. Had the Roman Catholic party adhered to their pledges, and spared the Church, they would have met with but little opposition from the Irish Protestants, and they might have governed