have occasionally given pretty good people. I have seen thousands of stacks scoldings and angry words; but I never (in one single ride of mine) of wheat did them injury, gave them no ground and barley, as well as of hay, standing for revenge, and I can truly say that I out at from a quarter of a mile to a mile never had a moment of inquietude with distant from any house, tree, or hedge. regard to the safety of my property. What in all the world is there but a Yet there has not been one single night sense of moral right and wrong, to'preduring the last three months and a half vent the destruction of property thus when the whole of this property might situated? If, upon coming up to a rick not have been destroyed, barn and thus situated, a man finds it guarded, house and all, without a possibility of he turns about and goes away, that's detecting the offender, if he had gone all. In short, to shut out the rooks alone and held his tongue; and if I from a 'pea- field of a hundred acres is had been generally hated in the neigh-just as easy as to preserve this species bourhood, where was I to have found watchmen, and how was I to have prevented the watchman from setting fire himself?

of property without the good-will of the labourers, or, at least, in defiance of their vengeful feelings. The exposition of the law, as Scott Eldon called it, has taught them the danger of Ellenborough's Act, and of the softened code of George the Fourth; but it has not taught them to be content with potatoes and water.

I pray you to observe, that to go into a rick-yard or homestead is no crime at all! It is only a trespass at the utmost, punishable to be sure without trial by jury. Suppose a man to be found in a rick-yard, or in a barn, with- Besides these dangers to barns and out breaking in, with a pipe in his stacks, are there no dangers to fields of mouth, and matches in his pocket, he corn! A gentleman mentioned this to is merely a trespasser. He must ac-me the other day as the greatest danger tually set the fire before he incurs the of all. A piece of wheat, barley, rye, guilt of committing the crime; and, in or oats, fit for the sickle or the scythe, all human probability, this species of set fire to on the windward side, would reconnoitreing always takes place. Be-be demolished in a twinkling; and here sides, every labourer in the neighbour- the facility of execution, and the safety hood knows every one who lives in the of the perpetrator are so complete! Alhouse; and the labourers having been most every-where there are foot-paths driven from the farm-houses, there is or roads of some sort; and if there be seldom any male in the farm-house ex- not, and if the perpetrator be found out cept the master and his sons, if he have of the road, a trespass is his offence at any, and a sort of a groom. These are the most. Here detection, except by a all away from home together very fre- man's own confession, seems to be abquently; so that, in fact, there is no solutely impossible. And you, the protection at all other than the good-King's Ministers, should be informed w of the neighbourhood., that farmers are talking of this everyBut how many hundreds of thousands where. I know nothing of the immeof wheat-ricks, and oat-ricks, and bar-diate means of setting fire in this way. ley-ricks, are not only built out in the Samson did it by tying brands of fire fields, but at a distance from all dwell-to the tails of young foxes. Our fellows ing-houses whatsoever! How many would, most likely, not do the thing in thousands upon thousands of ricks of so open a manner, though as yet there clover, upland grass, and saintfoin, are is, I believe, no law making it felony. built out in the middle of immense I think it is only a trespass, subjecting fields, to be given to the sheep while the party to action of damages It is a they are eating off the turnips in win-deed which, if done maliciously, and ter. These can have no earthly protec-without monstrous provocation, ought tion but that of the general good-will to be punished with death; but the and common consent of the labouring truth is, that until the hellish workings

of loan-mongers came into the world, law-givers never imagined the existence of a state of society in which such laws would be necessary: they never imagined the existence of a state of society when the whole body of the labourers would be the deadly enemies of the occupiers of the land; a state of society which it is impossible should exist for any length of time without producing something very like the dissolution of that society.

Now, King's Ministers, if you be convinced, as I hope you are, that the fires have been set by the labourers without instigation from any-body; that the means of terror or of punishment are not calculated to put an end to the fires; and that the fires, unless effectually put a stop to, may become far more extensive than they hitherto have been; if you be convinced of these trnths, as I hope you are, it only remains for me to point out to you what I deem the proper and effectual means of putting a stop to these fires; and these means are as follows:

demeanour punishable with heavy fine
and imprisonment for any overseer or
other person in parochial authority to
subject the indigent poor to work like
beasts of burden, to put them up at
auction, or otherwise wantonly to de-
grade them, taking as the preamble of
the bill that text of holy writ which
says, "Oppress not the poor because
he is poor!"

4. To repeal all the acts which
have been passed relative to the game
since the late King George the Third
mounted the throne, and particularly
that act which punishes poaching with
transportation, which act has filled
the county jails with prisoners, which
has trebled the county rates, which has
thrown a burden on all the people in
order to preserve the sports of the rich,
which has filled the breasts of all the
villagers of England with vindictive
feelings, which has been the cause of
endless affrays between poachers and
keepers, and which in conjunction
with Ellenborough's act has brought
scores of men to the gallows.

1. To issue a proclamation pardon- 5. To pass an act to repeal and uting all the offenders of every description, terly abolish Ellenborough's act, which, whether tried or not, upon their enter- by making it a capital felony to strike ing into sureties to keep the peace for a man with a heavy instrument without a year, and bringing back those who killing him, or to use deadly weapons have already been sent away, and in-in your own defence against a gamecluding them in the pardon on the like terms. Oh! Gentlemen, think of the joy, think of the happiness, with which you would thus fill all the bosoms in all the villages in these beautiful counties! And think of the gratitude with which you would fill those bosoms towards yourselves; and, above all things, think of the blessings which, coming from the hearts of fathers and mothers and children and brothers and sisters, you would bring down upon the head of your royal master.

keeper, though without killing him, puts the striker in the one case, and the defender in the other, upon a level with the wilful, premeditating, cool, and cruel murderer, tends to confound all notions of discrimination in crime; tends to harden men's hearts, and. weaken in them every sise of justice and humanity.

Now, Gentlemen, these are, in my firm conviction, the only effectual means of putting a stop to the fires which now terrify and disgrace this once great and 2. To repeal Sturges Bourne's two happy England. That they are easy of bills, and thereby restore to the rate-execution and speedy and quiet you payers their rights, restore the power of the native overseers, and restore to the justices of the peace their former power of ordering relief, without which the indigent poor can have no sure protection.

3. To pass an act, making it a mis

know well; for you know that they
all may be accomplished in about forty-
eight hours after the meeting of parlia-
ment; and you know that the pro-
clamation may be issued to-morrow,
and that is the great thing of all. The
four Acts of Parliament would be.

IRELAND.

passed amidst the shouts of the whole kingdom. I propose to you nothing new, be it observed; not only nothing REPEAL OF THE UNION. revolutionary but nothing new do I My readers remember that, when the propose; nothing but a return, in four Catholic Emancipation Bill was passed, apparently unimportant particulars, to I distinctly said, over and over again, the long-established laws of the land; that it would not at all tend to better the nothing do I propose touching the pro- lot of the people, or to tranquillize that perty of any body of persons; nothing part of the kingdom. I said that the to meddle with any institution of the measure was of no use unless it were country, even so far as to correct its followed, and that too right speedily, by acknowledged abuses; but I simply a repeal of the Protestant Established propose an act of graciousness and Church in Ireland. This has been the goodness which would reflect eternal canker-worm in the heart, the blister honour on yourselves and on the King, plaster, on the back, the goad in the the love of whose people to him it is side, the every-thing that is evil to that your first duty to preserve; and I pro- Island, which, if man did not appear to pose to you the repeal of four Acts be resolved to counteract and defeat the which you yourselves, upon reflection, intentions of God, might be one of the must lament to see in the statute-book. happiest on the whole globe. The inAnd, Gentlemen, if you believe that juries of Ireland began with the creation these measures would extinguish the of this Protestant hierarchy, which was fires, you will not, I am sure, suffer forced upon the people by every one of false pride to restrain you from the those means, which are known of in the performance of a duty so sacred. There catalogue of oppressions. From that is no remedy but that which goes to day to this day wrong and insult seem the root of the evil. That root is in to have contended with each other for the hearts of the people: you must ex- pre-eminence in the treatment of the tract the root or tear out the heart, or Irish people, who have never been disthe evil must remain. I meddle not loyal to the King any more than Cornin this case with the rate of wages, or wall or Devonshire has. with any other detail: restore the law; It is a false and villanous assertion restore protection to the labourer, and that they want or have ever wanted to he and his employer will speedily come be separated from England, except as to an equitable adjustment of their re- far as relates to this church. This is spective claims. If you have even a well known to every man who undermisgiving upon your minds upon the stands any-thing of the real state of subject, disdain me, I pray you, as Ireland. There is something so unmuch as you please, but do not disdain natural; something so monstrous; the advice which I have respectfully something so insulting to the common tendered you, and which I press upon understanding of all mankind, in comyou with all the earnestness and anxiety pelling the people of a country to mainthat the heart of man is capable of en-tain, at prodigious expense, an establishtertaining. Thus, at any rate, I have ment called religious, and which that done what I deemed to be my duty to people in all sincerity and from the botyou I must now leave the matter; with tom of their souls regard as a damnable this assurance, however, that if you follow this advice, amongst all the millions in whose hearts you will create feelings of gratitude, in no one will you create more than in that of

WM. COBBETT.

heresy, the sure leader to everlasting perdition; there is something so insulting to human nature in this, that the wonder is how one single man upon the face of the earth is to be found, not ashamed to utter a single breath in defence of upholding such an establishment under such circumstances! Emancipation, indeed! How can men be said

beg to read these documents with the greatest posible attention, they will then understand the nature of the quarrel, and will easily be able to determine which of the two parties are in the wrong.

"By the Lord-Lieutenant-General and General-Governor of Ireland,

to be emancipated, if still living in sub-in favour of the measure of repeal. jection to this establishment? So con- When I have inserted these documents, vinced was I that the thing called I shall have some further remarks to emancipation would only give rise to a tender to my readers, whom, however, I new struggle to get rid of this monstrous evil, that I petitioned the Parliament the moment the bill was passed, in language that must have convinced the two Houses, that I was ready to go upon my bare knees to prevail upon them to save England as well as Ireland from the perils that must attend an attempt to perpetuate this establishment. Unhap"A PROCLAMATION. pily my supplications were unavailing ; "ANGLESEY-Whereas, by an Act passed and now the perils really seem to be at in the 10th year of his late Majesty's reign, hand. The Irish people of whom Mr. entitled An Act for the Suppression of Dangerous Associations or Assemblies in Ireland,' O'Connell is no more than the faithful a power is vested in the Lord-Lieutenant, or organ, now demand a repeal of the other Chief Governor or Governors of Ireland, union, as the sure and certain means of by his or their proclamation or order, to progetting rid of this enormous establish- tion, assembly, or body of persons, in Irehibit or suppress the meeting of any associament. The Government are endeavour-land, which he or they shall deem to be daning to stifle the voice of the people. They have issued proclamation after proclamation having this object in view; and at last they have proceeded to the use of force in order to disperse persons assembled to discuss the subject. I know perfectly well how greatly Eng-been in the habit of meeting, weekly, at a land as well as Ireland would be bene-place in the city of Dublin, called Holme's fited by a repeal of the union. I shall now insert first one of the proclamations recently issued in Dublin, signed by that sensible, unassuming and high-blooded Statesman, E. G. Stanley, who had the refined taste, when he went to what he expected to be his re-election at Preston, the said assembly or body of persons, and the to make a display of his wit in a bon-meetings thereof, to be dangerous to the pubmot relative to Irish bulls, which he has lic safely, and inconsistent with the due adfound to be provided with horns as well ministration of the law. as with tongues. The next document is a speech of Mr. O'Connell's upon the subject of that proclamation; and it is one of the best that even he ever de-sembly or body of persons, and all adjourned, livered.

gerous to the public peace or safety, or inconsistent with the due administration of the law, tinued meeting of the same, or of any part or any adjourned, renewed, or otherwise conthereof, under any name, pretext, or device whatsoever.

"And whereas it hath been made known to us that an assembly or body of persons has

Hotel, Usher's-quay, and that the said assembly has been designed, and the meetings thereof held, for the purpose of disseminating seditious sentiments, and of exciting amongst his Majesty's subjects disaffection against the administration of the law, and the constituted authorities of the realm:

"And whereas we deem the existence of

"We, therefore, the Lord Lieutenantbeing resolved to suppress the same, do General and General Governor of Ireland, hereby prohibit the meeting of the said as

renewed, or otherwise continued meetings of the same, or of any part thereof, under any name, pretext, or device whatsoever; and being determined and resolved strictly to enforce the law and penalties thereof against all persons offending in the premises, do charge and command all Mayors, Sheriffs, Justices of and others whom it may concern, to be aidthe Peace, and all other Magistrates, officers,

Next comes another proclamation from E. G. Stanley, acting under the authority of the profound Lord Lieutenant, and this is followed by two proclamatious from Mr. O'Connell, but then follows an account of the forcible dispersion of the people; and last comesing and assisting in the execution of the law a short extract or two from the Irish papers, which will prove to every reader that all Ireland except those who profit from the tithes and the taxes are

in preventing the meeting of said assembly or body of persons, and all adjourned, renewed, or otherwise continued meetings of the same, or any part thereof, and in the effectual dispersion and suppression thereof, and in the detec

1

1

1

tion and prosecution of those who, after this
notice, shall offend in the respects aforesaid.
"Given at his Majesty's Castle of Dublin,
this 10th day of January, 1831.

"By his Excellency's command,
E. G. STANLEY.

"God save the King."

Instead of doing us mischief, it has only served to stimulate men to double energy, and it has roused to exertion those who before were apathetic. I have met, in the course of this day, twenty individuals who before had not taken part in politics, and have declared themselves decided friends to a repeal of the Union. I also see in this room, at this very moment, men whom I never knew before to

REPEAL OF THE UNION-ANTI-PRO-take a part in agitation. (Hear.) I perceive,

CLAMATION DINNER.

YESTERDAY evening, in consequence of an advertisement from Mr. O'Connell, calling upon his friends to meet him, at six o'clock, in Hayes's Tavern, Dawson-street, there were, long before six o'clock, upwards of three hundred applicants for tickets; but the rooms not being capable of accommodating more than half that number, one hundred and fifty sat down to dinner. A good substantial repast was provided for the company; as usual, the Government reporters were in attendance.

too, that in Orangemen and Protestants, their blood boils with still greater indignation than even mine does, at the issuing of this proclamation. They detest, even still more than I do, any attempt at gagging the public voice and popular sentiment. (Hear.) 1 received this day, what I should never like to get, an anoymous letter, advising that Mr. Home should petition Parliament. I do not advise him to do so; though I think he should try an action with E. G. Stanley, for depriving him of 101. a week, which he had clear out of the breakfast. (Cheers and laughter.) ! purpose, gentlemen, to give three toasts, and I think we should confine ourselves to three:

the first, "The People;" the second, "The King;" and the third, "The Repeal of the Union." (Cheers.) After that, any gentleman in whose face I see a speech, I will call upon him to make one by drinking his health. (Cheers and laughter.) The first toast, gentlemen, then, that I propose to you is, "The People "-it is with a proud and bounding heart I propose it to you, because the rights aud the cause of the people have been triumphant over the world. (Cheers.) In America they have succeeded in establishing free institutions aud cheap governmentsHeaven bless them for it! In South America and on the continent, liberty has been triumphant over bigotry and despotism. In Ireland, we are still struggling to obtain liberty and constitutional independence for the people -to see our Parliament restored to us, and our country enjoying all those blessings which nature and nature's God intended for her. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) It is melancholy now for me to look upon the wreck of the Marquess of Anglesey's character. I cannot look upon the prostration of that character without some feelings of affectionate solicitude for one who, I had hoped, would never have thus lowered himself. There is but one bright spot about him as a politician-he has been lucky once, by accident; and having then acted well, I should wish him never to act ill. Up to that period, however, he was not a very consistent politician. I recollect, in 1825, his

Mr. O'CONNELL, immediately upon the cloth being removed, rose to address the assembly, amid the most enthusiastic cheers. As we have, said he, met for business, and not for the mere purpose of amusement, the sooner, I think, we proceed with the business, the better. You all know that we are assembled here in consequence of another exceedingly foolish exhibition of power. It is idle to suppose that the exercise of that power can be injurious to the popular cause, much less is it probable that such proceedings can convince the people that it is best for Ireland to have a government uncontrolled by an Irish Parliament-that they should be at the mercy of a British Minister, and without the shield of an Irish Parliament to protect their rights and guard their liberties. (Hear, hear.) Every additional Proclamation can have but this effect-to increase our exertions, to redouble our energies, and to add to our desire to attain that which can alone be the salvation of Ireland-the Repeal of the Union. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) In point of fact, can anything be more foolish than these prolamations? Do they imagine, that by preventing us from assembling at one place they can hinder us from meeting somewhere else? All they can do by their last proclaination is to prevent us from breakfasting at Home's. We may, for instance, meet here to-morrow and breakfast; if they proclaim us down here, we can go to another tavern; then we have all the public-houses to go to, and, after that, we can have the private houses. (Cheers and laughter.) My two drawing-rooms are as large as these rooms. Some of my independ-"sword speech," upon which I was then ent and particular friends can meet ne there; and I shall be extremely happy that my friends, the reporters, will also come there to breakfast with me. (Cheers aud laughter.) If they should issue a proclamation against my house, then we have five thousand other houses in Dublin, which will do equally well. (Hear, and cheers.) In my opinion, then, the proclamation is as foolish as it is absurd.

obliged to comment at some length. That speech, however, was an exceedingly awkward oue at the time. Why did he then speak of the sword? But he had the good fortune to come to Ireland at a lucky period, and he had common sense enough to bend to the circumstances by which he was surrounded. Swift, in his Instructions to Servants, says to them, "If you could once be so lucky