stantly in the case both of Divorce Bills and of Inclosure Bills. On the same principle he thought it was the bounden duty of the House to admit Mr. Pease to make his declaration at the table, in lieu of taking the oath required from other members.-The Solicitor General agreed in these views. Originally by the common law, every person duly elected, was entitled to his seat without taking any oath. Oaths were first required by the 5th of Elizabeth, cap. 1. But as that statute, and the other statutes imposing oaths, were infringements on the common law, and were besides, penal statutes, they must be literally and strictly construed; whereas the remedial laws, relaxing such provisions, and so far restoring the common-law right, were to be liberally construed. It was clear that at the time of passing the 7th and 8th William III., Quakers could not sit in Parliament, having been excluded, along with all other dissenters, by the 30th Charles II.; but under the Act of William they would have been admissible, if its provisions, as they ought to have been, had been construed liberally. In a case which occurrred shortly after the passing of the Act, Chief Justice Holt had held, that in all cases where an oath was required, the Affirmation of a Quaker could be taken, under

the exceptions contained in the Act itself, viz. evidence in criminal trials, and oaths to be taken by persons appointed to offices under the government. In another case in the reign of George III., Lord Mansfield had said, that he could not even start a doubt, the point was so clear. But, at all events, the Act of George II. had removed every doubt. It was true, that superior courts, or persons of superior rank, were not to be concluded by Acts of Parliament which merely mentioned courts or persons of an inferior order; and it was likewise true, as a maxim of law, that the King was not bound by an Act of Parliament, unless he was expressly mentioned in it; but then the King was bound by an Act in which the legislature plainly intended to include the King. Now it was evident, that the legislature, in passing the 22nd George II., intended to put Quakers on the same footing in England, with all other dissenters, except Catholics; and this being the case, the Act ought to be construed in accordance with the intention of the legislature in passing it.

No member expressed an opposite opinion; and the motion to allow Mr. Pease to make his solemn Affirmation, in place of taking the oath, was agreed to unanimously.

sociation which proceeded openly under an organization, and was avowedly directed to the accomplishment of objects that destroyed the peace and safety of the community, and threatened the unity and integrity of the empire-to put down combinations formed in defiance of the law to defeat armed bodies that violated the rights of property, inflicted death for purposes of terror or vengeance, and rendered the law nugatory by deterring prosecutors and witnesses, and intimidating jurors. The association newly formed in Ireland, under the title of the Irish Volunteers, avowedly had for its object the repeal of the union. Neither past experience, nor the present aspect of affairs, furnished any well-grounded expectation that a mere redress of grievances would restore peace to Ireland. No one had been more sanguine than himself in hoping that emancipation would have produced tranquillity, and that Parliament would have been allowed to pursue its course of further amelioration undisturbed by popular violence. But he had been grievously disappointed. To allow such a pause did not suit the views of the promoters of agitation; the sweets of power had been tasted by the popular leaders; the slow work of redress did not answer their wishes or purposes; from that moment, agitation was renewed, and the state of Ireland had become, and now was, worse, perhaps, than at any former period. Nay, this new body of Irish Volunteers threatened consequences still more alarming. Its organization was to extend over the whole country. There was a central association in Dublin, and for every parish in Ireland were to be appointed three pacificators, one of

whose duties was to enlist and enrol the neighbouring population, farmers and labourers, in associations which should be under the direction of the central association. The declared objects of the society were, pacification, the maintenance of the peace, the holding meetings simultaneously with the quarter sessions, superseding the necessity of police. That the Volunteers were to be ultimately armed, though at present unarmed, was acknowledged; but they were not to be armed till the law of the land permitted it-till the association became, by the influence of moral and physical agency, a power superior to the government itself, and could establish, as a proof of revolutionary success, a national guard similar to that of a neighbouring country. This was the association, and its action depended on the breath of a single man. A Mr. Steele, a person actively employed by these Volunteers, had professed himself " an instrument in the hands of the great liberator and pacificator of his country. No man can be a pacificator, unless he be a fierce popular agitator, and has the approbation of Daniel O'Connell. I told the men of Clare, that if such a crisis were to arrive, in consequence of any atrocious act of the government, like that of Camden and Castlereagh in 1798, and if O'Connell should command us to have recourse to arms, blood, and convulsion, instead of our usual constitutional warfare, in that case, I would not order the Clare men to go into Cratloe-wood to cut down trees for pike-handles, but I would first send them to cut down the trees on my own domain, and would not myself be idle, nor a mere looker on, in the conflict." Such an association could not be

suffered to exist, and to extend itself throughout so many ramifications, without an abandonment of the security, the safety, and the power, on the maintenance of which government must depend for its well-being. To put down this association, therefore, and associations like it, was one of the first objects of the intended bill.

The other provisions would be directed to repress disturbances, for, in many parts of Ireland, a state of things existed little short of actual rebellion. Bodies of men were collected and arrayed by signals, evidently directed by a system of organization in which many were combined, and they were conducted in a manner that had hitherto set at defiance all the exertions of law and government. He would not say how far these disturbances and the association of Volunteers or its measures were connected as cause and effect; but there certainly was a remarkable coincidence between them; and persons forming such an association, and taking advantage of its meetings to make violent and inflammatory harangues, ought not to be surprised if further discontented feelings and disturbances were grafted on their proceedings. If the police force was denounced as cruel, arbitrary, and unconstitutional, was it wonderful, that attacks on the police, and death, should follow? But whatever was the cause, the condition of a great part of the country was notorious. The disturbers did not proceed merely against tithes. They prescribed the terms on which land should be let; and any who disobeyed their orders were subject to have their property destroyed, or to be put to death. They dictated what persons should employ

and be employed, forbidding labourers to work for obnoxious masters, and preventing a master from employing such as were not obedient to their orders. They enforced their commands by acts of cruelty and outrage-by spoliation-murder-attacks on houses in the dead of night-by dragging the inmates from their beds, and so maltreating them, that death often ensued, or by inflicting evils scarcely less than death. These persons assembled by signals, made concerte movements, watched the route of the military, and, by information received, so avoided them that they could not be put down by the army. It would, therefore, be one object of the act to prevent meetings of people by night.

But a still more material object was, to restore the authority of the law. The ordinary tribunals had been rendered almost powerless, for one of the chief causes which exposed persons to persecution and injury was, the having assisted in any manner in prosecutions for such offences; witnesses and jurors were equally terrified into silence. In one instance, the master of a female servant was ordered to dismiss her, because her mother had given evidence against a person brought to trial for a capital crime; and similar cases were of almost daily occurrence. A letter had been forwarded to the lord-lieutenant, dated Cashel, Jan. 29, from a chief constable of police, giving an account of a murder "which had just been perpetrated in that neighbourhood by five armed men, who went to the house of Patrick Lalor, a man of nearly 70 years of age, and shot him through the body. He had been ordered to give up some ground which he held, but disobeyed the mandate."

The writer added, "that there was strong moral evidence against a man who had formerly occupied the land in question, and that the police had brought into Cashel a son of Lalor, who had been an eye-witness of the murder, and whose manner betrayed, that he knew more than he chose to admit." Here was an instance of an atrocious murder for holding land contrary to the will of the disturbers, and a system of terror which prevented a son from giving evidence as to the murder of his father. All their lordships must have seen statements of the murder of the police at Carrickshaugh. On the trial of the murderers at the Kilkenny assizes, the jury, not agreeing, was dismissed. It had been agreed in the jury-room, that nothing should be stated as to the opinions of individual jurymen; yet, in half an hour, the names of those for acquittal, or for conviction, were printed, the former in black, and the latter, or, as they were designated, the jurors who were for blood, in red ink. The result was, that those whose names were printed in red were obliged to leave the country. At the Clonmel assizes in October last, when a person was to be tried for resisting the payment of tithe, only 76 jurors, out of 265 who had been summoned, made their appearance. A gentleman had been murdered in sight of his own gate, in consequence of some dispute connected with tithes. His son-in-law was summoned by the coroner, to give evidence against the supposed murderer. His answer was, "that he would submit to any penalty the crown or the law might impose upon him, but he would not appear at this trial, because he knew that if he stood forward as a wit

ness on the occasion, his life would inevitably be forfeited." The Irish government had received a notice from Kilkenny: "it is right the government should know, in due time, that many gentlemen, who have always been most conscientious in the discharge of their duties, will not attend at the next assizes. They care not what penalty may be imposed on them. They refuse to attend, because they know that death will follow, if they dare to act. It is the boast of the prisoners, that they cannot, under existing circumstances, be found guilty." No wonder that outrage had become triumphant. The catalogue of Irish crime, during last year, contained, 172 homicides; 465 robberies; 568 burglaries; 455 acts of houghing of cattle; 2,095 illegal notices; 425 illegal meetings; 796 malicious injuries to property; 753 attacks on houses; 280 arsons; 3,156 serious assaults. The aggregate of crimes of every description, during the year, connected with the disturbed state of the country, amounted to upwards of 9,000, and it was on the increase. In the province of Leinster, the number of crimes during the months of July, August, and September, had been 1,279; in the three following months, it had risen to 1,646. There was a system of general demoralization, such as never before existed in a country calling itself civilized.

His lordship then stated the provisions by which ministers proposed to meet these evils. The bill, he said, combined many provisions of the several laws that had been passed both in the Irish and English Parliament for the re pression of such lawless scenes as he had described, with such alterations as the peculiar circumstances