A Popular History of Ireland Part 46

At the close of 1824, the government, really alarmed at the formidable proportions a.s.sumed by the agitation, caused criminal informations to be filed against Mr.

O'Connell, for an alleged seditious allusion to the example of Bolivar, the liberator of South America; but the Dublin grand jury ignored the bills of indictment founded on these informations. Early in the following session, however, a bill to suppress "Unlawful a.s.sociations in Ireland," was introduced by Mr. Goulburn, who had succeeded Sir Robert Peel as Chief Secretary, and was supported by Plunkett--a confirmed enemy of all extra-legal combinations. It was aimed directly at the Catholic a.s.sociation, and pa.s.sed both Houses; but O'Connell found means "to drive," as he said, "a coach and six through it." The existing a.s.sociation dissolved on the pa.s.sage of the act; another, called "the _New_ Catholic a.s.sociation," was formed for "charitable and other purposes," and the agitators proceeded with their organization, with one word added to then--t.i.tle, and immensely additional _eclat_ and success.

In Parliament, the measure thus defeated was followed by another, the long-promised Relief Bill. It pa.s.sed in the Commons in May, accompanied by two clauses, or as they were called, "wings," most unsatisfactory to the Catholic body. One clause disfranchised the whole cla.s.s of electors known as the "forty-s.h.i.+lling freeholders;" the other provided a scale of state maintenance for the Catholic clergy. A bishop was to have 1,000 pounds per annum; a dean 300 pounds; a parish priest 200 pounds; a curate 60 pounds. This measure was thrown out by the House of Lords, greatly to the satisfaction, at least, of the Irish Catholics. It was during this debate in the Upper House that the Duke of York, presumptive heir to the throne, made what was called his "ether speech"--from his habit of dosing himself with that stimulant on trying occasions.

In this speech he declared, that so "help him G.o.d," he would never, never consent to acknowledge the claims put forward by the Catholics. Before two years were over, death had removed him to the presence of that Awful Being whose name he had so rashly invoked, and his brother, the Duke of Clarence, a.s.sumed his position, as next in succession to the throne.

The Catholic delegates, Lord Killeen, Sir Thomas Esmonde, Lawless, and s.h.i.+el, were in London at the time the Duke of York made his memorable declaration. If, on the one hand, they were regarded with dislike amounting to hatred, on the other, they were welcomed with cordiality by all the leaders of the liberal party. The venerable Earl Fitzwilliam emerged from his retirement to do them honour; the gifted and energetic Brougham entertained them with all hospitality; at Norfolk House they were banqueted in the room in which George III. was born: the millionaire-demagogue Burdett, the courtly, liberal Lord Grey, and the flower of the Catholic n.o.bility, were invited to meet them. The delegates were naturally cheered and gratified; they felt, they must have felt, that their cause had a grasp upon Imperial attention, which nothing but concession could ever loosen.

Committees of both Houses, to inquire into the state of Ireland, had sat during a great part of this Session, and among the witnesses were the princ.i.p.al delegates, with Drs. Murray, Curtis, Kelly, and Doyle. The evidence of the latter--the eminent Prelate of Kildare and Leighlin--attracted most attention. His readiness of resource, clearness of statement, and wide range of information, inspired many of his questioners with a feeling of respect, such as they had never before entertained for any of his order. His writings had already made him honourably distinguished among literary men; his examination before the Committees made him equally so among statesmen. From that period he could reckon the Marquises of Anglesea and Wellesley, Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Brougham, among his correspondents and friends, and, what he valued even more, among the friends of his cause.

Mr. O'Connell, on the other hand, certainly lost ground in Ireland by his London journey. He had, unquestionably, given his a.s.sent to both "wings," in 1825, as he did to the remaining one in 1828, and thereby greatly injured his own popularity. His frank and full recantation of his error, on his return, soon restored him to the favour of the mult.i.tude, and enabled him to employ, with the best effect, the enormous influence which he showed he possessed at the general elections of 1826. By him mainly the Beresfords were beaten in Waterford, the Fosters in Louth, and the Leslies in Monaghan. The independence of Limerick city, of Tipperary, Cork, Kilkenny, Longford, and other important const.i.tuencies, was secured. The parish machinery of the a.s.sociation was found invaluable for the purpose of bringing up the electors, and the people's treasury was fortunately able to protect to some extent the fearless voter, who, in despite of his landlord, voted according to the dictates of his own heart.

The effect of these elections on the empire at large was very great. When, early in the following spring, Lord Liverpool, after fifteen years' possession of power, died unexpectedly, George IV. sent for Canning and gave him _carte blanche_ to form a cabinet without excepting the question of Emanc.i.p.ation. That high spirited and really liberal statesman a.s.sociated with himself a ministry, three-fourths of whom were in favour of granting the Catholic claims. This was in the month of April; but to the consternation of those whose hopes were now so justly raised, the gifted Premier held office only four months; his lamented death causing another "crisis," and one more postponement of "the Catholic question."

CHAPTER VIII.

O'CONNELL'S LEADERs.h.i.+P--THE CLARE ELECTION--EMANc.i.p.aTION OF THE CATHOLICS.

A very little reflection will enable us to judge, even at this day, the magnitude of the contest in which O'Connell was the great popular leader, during the reign of George IV. In Great Britain, a very considerable section of the ancient peerage and gentry, with the Earl Marshal at their head, were to be restored to political existence, by the act of Emanc.i.p.ation; a missionary, and barely tolerated clergy were to be clothed, in their own country, with the commonest rights of British subjects --protection to life and property. In Ireland, seven-eighths of the people, one-third of the gentry, the whole of the Catholic clergy, the numerous and distinguished array of the Catholic bar, and all the Catholic townsmen, taxed but unrepresented in the corporate bodies, were to enter on a new civil and social condition, on the pa.s.sage of the act. In the colonies, except Canada, where that church was protected by treaty, the change of Imperial policy towards Catholics was to be felt in every relation of life, civil, military, and ecclesiastical, by all persons professing that religion. Some years ago, a bishop of Southern Africa declared, that, until O'Connell's time, it was impossible for Catholics to obtain any consideration from the officials at the Cape of Good Hope. Could there be a more striking ill.u.s.tration of the magnitude of the movement, which, rising in the lat.i.tude of Ireland, flung its outermost wave of influence on the sh.o.r.es of the Indian ocean?

The adverse hosts to be encountered in this great contest, included a large majority of the rank and wealth of both kingdoms. The King, who had been a Whig in his youth, had grown into a Tory in his old age; the House of Lords were strongly hostile to the measure, as were also the universities, both in England and Ireland; the Tory party, in and out of Parliament; the Orange organization in Ireland; the civil and military authorities generally, with the great bulk of the rural magistracy and the munic.i.p.al authorities. The power to overcome this power should be indeed formidable, well organized and wisely directed.

The Lord Lieutenant selected by Mr. Canning, was the Marquis of Anglesea, a frank soldier, as little accustomed to play the politician as any man of his order and distinction could be. He came to Ireland, in many respects the very opposite of Lord Wellesley; no orator certainly, and so far as he had spoken formerly, an enemy rather than a friend to the Catholics. But he had not been three months in office when he began to modify his views; he was the first to prohibit, in Dublin, the annual Orange outrage on the 12th of July, and by subsequent, though slow degrees, he became fully convinced that the Catholic claims could be settled only by Concession. Lord Francis Leveson Gower, afterwards Earl of Ellesmere, accompanied the Marquis as Chief Secretary.

The accession to office of a prime minister friendly to the Catholics, was the signal for a new attempt to raise that "No-Popery" cry which had already given twenty years of political supremacy to Mr. Perceval and Lord Liverpool.

In Ireland, this feeling appeared under the guise of what was called "the New Reformation," which, during the summer of 1827, raged with all the proverbial violence of the _odium theologic.u.m_ from Cork to Derry. Priests and parsons, laymen and lawyers, took part in this general politico-religious controversy, in which every possible subject of difference between Catholic and Protestant was publicly discussed. Archbishop Magee of Dublin, the Rev. Sir Harcourt Lees, son of a former English placeman at the Castle, and the Rev. Mr. Pope, were the clerical leaders in this crusade; Exeter-Hall sent over to a.s.sist them the Honourable and Reverend Baptist Noel, Mr. Wolff, and Captain Gordon, a descendant of the hero of the London riot of 1798. At Derry, Dublin, Carlow, and Cork, the challenged agreed to defend their doctrines. Father Maginn, Maguire, Maher, McSweeney, and some others accepted these challenges; Messrs. O'Connell, s.h.i.+el, and other laymen, a.s.sisted, and the oral discussion of theological and historical questions became as common as town talk in every Irish community. Whether, in any case, these debates conduced to conversion is doubtful; but they certainly supplied the Catholic laity with a body of facts and arguments very necessary at that time, and which hardly any other occasion could have presented.

The Right Rev. Dr. Doyle, however, considered them far from beneficial to the cause of true religion; and though he tolerated a first discussion in his diocese, he positively forbade a second. The Archbishop of Armagh and other prelates issued their mandates to the clergy to refrain from these oral disputes, and the practice fell into disuse.

The notoriety of "the Second Reformation" was chiefly due to the ostentatious patronage of it by the lay chiefs of the Irish oligarchy. Mr. Synge, in Clare, Lord Lorton, and Mr. McClintock at Dundalk, were indefatigable in their evangelizing exertions. The Earl of Roden--to show his entire dependence on the translated Bible--threw all his other books into a fish pond on his estate. Lord Farnham was even more conspicuous in the revival; he spared neither patronage nor writs of ejectment to convert his tenantry. The reports of conversions upon his lords.h.i.+p's estates, and throughout his county, attracted so much notice, that Drs. Curtis, Crolly, Magauran, O'Reilly, and McHale, met on the 9th of December, 1826, at Cavan, to inquire into the facts. They found, while there had been much exaggeration on the part of the reformers, that some hundreds of the peasantry had, by various powerful temptations, been led to change their former religion.

The bishops received back some of the converts, and a jubilee established among them completed their reconversion.

The Hon. Mr. Noel and Captain Gordon posted to Cavan, with a challenge to discussion for their lords.h.i.+ps; of course, their challenge was not accepted. Thomas Moore's inimitable satire was the most effective weapon against such fanatics.

The energetic literature of the Catholic agitation attracted much more attention than its oral polemics.

Joined to a bright army of Catholic writers, including Dr. Doyle, Thomas Moore, Thomas Furlong, and Charles Butler, there was the powerful phalanx of the _Edinburgh Review_ led by Jeffrey and Sidney Smith, and the English liberal press, headed by William Cobbett. Thomas Campbell, the Poet of Hope, always and everywhere the friend of freedom, threw open his _New Monthly_, to s.h.i.+el, and William Henry Curran, whose sketches of the Irish Bar and Bench, of Dublin politics, and the county elections of 1826, will live as long as any periodical papers of the day. The indefatigable s.h.i.+el, writing French as fluently as English, contributed besides to the _Gazette de France_ a series of papers, which were read with great interest on the Continent. These articles were the precursors of many others, which made the Catholic question at length an European question. An incident quite unimportant in itself, gave additional zest to these French articles. The Duke de Montebello, with two of his friends, Messrs. Duvergier and Thayer, visited Ireland in 1826. Duvergier wrote a series of very interesting letters on the "State of Ireland," which, at the time, went through several editions. At a Catholic meeting at Ballinasloe, the Duke had some compliments paid him, which he gracefully acknowledged, expressing his wishes for the success of their cause. This simple act excited a great deal of criticism in England. The Paris press was roused in consequence, and the French Catholics, becoming more and more interested, voted an address and subscription to the Catholic a.s.sociation. The Bavarian Catholics followed their example, and similar communications were received from Spain and Italy.

But the movement abroad did not end in Europe. An address from British India contained a contribution of three thousand pounds sterling. From the West Indies and Canada, generous a.s.sistance was rendered.

In the United States sympathetic feeling was most active.

New York felt almost as much interested in the cause as Dublin. In 1826 and 1827, a.s.sociations of "Friends of Ireland" were formed at New York, Boston, Was.h.i.+ngton, Norfolk, Charleston, Augusta, Louisville, and Bardstown.

Addresses in English and French were prepared for these societies, chiefly by Dr. McNevin, at New York, and Bishop England, at Charleston. The American, like the French press, became interested in the subject, and eloquent allusions were made to it in Congress. On the 20th of January, 1828, the veteran McNevin wrote to Mr.

O'Connell--"Public opinion in America is deep, and strong, and universal, in your behalf. This predilection prevails over the broad bosom of our extensive continent.

a.s.sociations similar to ours are everywhere starting into existence--in our largest and wealthiest cities--in our hamlets and our villages--in our most remote sections; and at this moment, the propriety of convening, at Was.h.i.+ngton, delegates of the friends of Ireland, of all the states, is under serious deliberation. A fund will erelong be derived from American patriotism in the United States, which will astonish your haughtiest opponents."

The Parliamentary fortunes of the great question were at the same time brightening. The elections of 1826, had, upon the whole, given a large increase of strength to its advocates. In England and Scotland, under the influence of the "No-Popery" cry, they had lost some ground, but in Ireland they had had an immense triumph. The death of the generous-hearted Canning, hastened as it was by anti-Catholic intrigues, gave a momentary check to the progress of liberal ideas; but they were r.e.t.a.r.ded only to acquire a fresh impulse destined to bear them, in the next few years, farther than they had before advanced in an entire century.

The _ad interim_ administration of Lord G.o.derich gave way, by its own internal discords, in January, 1828, to the Wellington and Peel administration. The Duke was Premier, the Baronet leader of the House of Commons; with Mr. Huskisson, Lord Palmerston, in the cabinet; Lord Anglesea remained as Lord Lieutenant. But this coalition with the friends of Canning was not destined to outlive the session of 1828; the lieutenants of the late Premier were doomed, for some time longer, to suffer for their devotion to his principles.

This session of 1828, is--in the history of religious liberty--the most important and interesting in the annals of the British Parliament. Almost at its opening, the extraordinary spectacle was exhibited of a pet.i.tion signed by 800,000 Irish Catholics, praying for the repeal of "the Corporation and Test Acts," enacted on the restoration of Charles II., against the non-Conformists. Monster pet.i.tions, both for and against the repeal of these acts, as well as for and against Catholic emanc.i.p.ation, soon became of common occurrence. Protestants of all sects pet.i.tioned for, but still more pet.i.tioned against equal rights for Catholics; while Catholics pet.i.tioned for the rights of Protestant dissenters. It is a spectacle to look back upon with admiration and instruction; exhibiting as it does, so much of a truly tolerant spirit in Christians of all creeds, worthy of all honour and imitation.

In April, "the Corporation and Test Acts" were repealed; in May, the Canningites seceded from the Duke's government, and one of the gentlemen brought in to fill a vacant seat in the Cabinet--Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, member for Clare-- issued his address to his electors, asking a renewal of their confidence. Out of this event grew another, which finally and successfully brought to an issue the century-old Catholic question.

The Catholic a.s.sociation, on the accession of the Wellington-Peel Cabinet, had publicly pledged itself to oppose every man who would accept office under these statesmen. The memory of both as ex-secretaries--but especially Peel's--was odious in Ireland. When, however, the Duke had sustained, and ensured thereby the pa.s.sage of the repeal of "the Corporation and Test Acts," Mr.

O'Connell, at the suggestion of Lord John Russell the mover of the repeal, endeavoured to get his angry and uncompromising resolution against the Duke's government rescinded. Powerful as he was, however, the a.s.sociation refused to go with him, and the resolution remained. So it happened that when Mr. Fitzgerald presented himself to the electors of Clare, as the colleague of Peel and Wellington, the a.s.sociation at once endeavoured to bring out an opposition candidate. They pitched with this view on Major McNamara, a liberal Protestant of the county, at the head of one of its oldest families, and personally popular; but this gentleman, after keeping them several days in suspense, till the time of nomination was close at hand, positively declined to stand against his friend, Mr. Fitzgerald, to the great dismay of the a.s.sociated Catholics.

In their emergency, an idea, so bold and original, that it was at first received with general incredulity by the external public, was started. It was remembered by Sir David De Roose, a personal friend of O'Connell's, that the late sagacious John Keogh had often declared the Emanc.i.p.ation question would never be brought to an issue till some Catholic member elect stood at the bar of the House of Commons demanding his seat. A trusted few were at first consulted on the daring proposition, that O'Connell himself, in despite of the legal exclusion of all men of his religion, should come forward for Clare.

Many were the consultations, and diverse the judgments delivered on this proposal, but at length, on the reception of information from the county itself, which gave strong a.s.surance of success, the hero of the adventure decided for himself. The bold course was again selected as the wise course, and the spirit-stirring address of "the arch-Agitator" to the electors, was at once issued from Dublin. "Your county," he began by saying, "wants a representative. I respectfully solicit your suffrages, to raise me to that station.

"Of my qualification to fill that station, I leave you to judge. The habits of public speaking, and many, many years of public business, render me, perhaps, equally suited with most men to attend to the interests of Ireland in Parliament.

"You will be told I am not qualified to be elected; the a.s.sertion, my friends, is untrue. I am qualified to be elected, and to be your representative. It is true that as a Catholic I cannot, and of course never will, take the oaths at present prescribed to members of Parliament; but the authority which created these oaths (the Parliament), can abrogate them: and I entertain a confident hope that, if you elect me, the most bigoted of our enemies will see the necessity of removing from the chosen representative of the people an obstacle which would prevent him from doing his duty to his king and to his country."

This address was followed instantly by the departure of all the most effective agitators to the scene of the great contest. s.h.i.+el went down as conducting agent for the candidate; Lawless left his Belfast newspaper, and Father Maguire his Leitrim flock; Messrs. Steele and O'Gorman Mahon, both proprietors in the county, were already in the field, and O'Connell himself soon followed.

On the other hand, the leading county families, the O'Briens, McNamaras, Vandeleurs, Fitzgeralds and others, declared for their old favourite, Mr. Fitzgerald. He was personally much liked in the county; the son of a venerable anti-Unionist, the well-remembered Prime Sergeant, and a man besides of superior abilities. The county itself was no easy one to contest; its immense const.i.tuency (the 40-s.h.i.+lling freeholders had not yet been abolished), were scattered over a mountain and valley region, more than fifty miles long by above thirty wide. They were almost everywhere to be addressed in both languages--English and Irish--and when the canva.s.s was over, they were still to be brought under the very eyes of the landlords, upon the breath of whose lips their subsistence depended, to vote the overthrow and conquest of those absolute masters.

The little county town of Ennis, situated on the river Fergus, about 110 miles south-west of Dublin, was the centre of attraction or of apprehension, and the hills that rise on either side of the little prosaic river soon swarmed with an unwonted population, who had resolved, subsist how they might, to see the election out. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the eyes of the empire were turned, during those days of June, on the ancient patrimony of King Brian. "I fear the Clare election will end ill," wrote the Viceroy to the leader of the House of Commons. "This business," wrote the Lord Chancellor (Eldon), "must bring the Roman Catholic question to a crisis and a conclusion." "May the G.o.d of truth and justice protect and prosper you," was the public invocation for O'Connell's success, by the bishop of Kildare and Leighlin. "It was foreseen," said Sir Robert Peel, long afterwards, "that the Clare election would be the turning point of the Catholic question." In all its aspects, and to all sorts of men, this, then, was no ordinary election, but a national event of the utmost religious and political consequence. Thirty thousand people welcomed O'Connell into Ennis, and universal sobriety and order characterized the proceedings. The troops called out to overawe the peasantry, infected by the prevailing good humour, joined in their cheers. The nomination, the polling, and the declaration, have been described by the graphic pen of s.h.i.+el. At the close of the poll the numbers were--O'Connell, 2,057; Fitzgerald, 1,075; so Daniel O'Connell was declared duly elected, amidst the most extraordinary manifestations of popular enthusiasm. Mr. Fitzgerald, who gracefully bowed to the popular verdict, sat down, and wrote his famous despatch to Sir Robert Peel: "All the great interests," he said, "my dear Peel, broke down, and the desertion has been universal. Such a scene as we have had! Such a tremendous prospect as is open before us!"

This "tremendous prospect," disclosed at the hustings of Ennis, was followed up by demonstrations which bore a strongly revolutionary character. Mr. O'Connell, on his return to Dublin, was accompanied by a _levee en ma.s.se_, all along the route, of a highly imposing description.

Mr. Lawless, on his return to Belfast, was escorted through Meath and Monaghan by a mult.i.tude estimated at 100,000 men, whom only the most powerful persuasions of the Catholic clergy, and the appeals of the well-known liberal commander of the district, General Thornton, induced to disperse. Troops from England were ordered over in considerable numbers, but whole companies, composed of Irish Catholics, signalized their landing at Waterford and Dublin by cheers for O'Connell. Reports of the continued hostility of the government suggested desperate councils. Mr. Ford, a Catholic solicitor, openly proposed, in the a.s.sociation, exclusive dealing and a run on the banks for specie, while Mr. John Claudius Beresford, and other leading Orangemen, publicly predicted a revival of the scenes and results of 1798.

The Clare election was, indeed, decisive; Lord Anglesea, who landed fully resolved to make no terms with those he had regarded from a distance as no better than rebels, became now one of their warmest partisans. His favourite counsellor was Lord Cloncurry, the early friend of Emmet and O'Conor; the true friend to the last of every national interest. For a public letter to Bishop Curtis, towards the close of 1828, in which he advises the Catholics to stand firm, he was immediately recalled from the government; but his former and his actual chief, within three months from the date of his recall, was equally obliged to surrender to the a.s.sociation. The great duke was, or affected to be, really alarmed for the integrity of the empire, from the menacing aspect of events in Ireland.

A call of Parliament was accordingly made for an early day, and, on the 5th of March, Mr. Peel moved a committee of the whole House, to go into a "consideration of the civil disabilities of his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects." This motion, after two days' debate, was carried by a majority of 188. On the 10th of March the Relief Bill was read for the first time, and pa.s.sed without opposition, such being the arrangement entered into while in committee. But in five days all the bigotry of the land had been aroused; nine hundred and fifty-seven pet.i.tions had already been presented against it; that from the city of London was signed by more than "an hundred thousand freeholders." On the 17th of March it pa.s.sed to a second reading, and on the 30th to a third, with large majorities in each stage of debate. Out of 320 members who voted on the final reading, 178 were in its favour. On the 31st of March it was carried to the Lords by Mr. Peel, and read a first time; two days later, on the 2nd of April, it was read a second time, on motion of the Duke of Wellington; a bitterly contested debate of three days followed; on the 10th, it was read a third time, and pa.s.sed by a majority of 104. Three days later the bill received the royal a.s.sent, and became law.

The only drawbacks on this--great measure of long-withheld justice, were, that it disfranchised the "forty-s.h.i.+lling freeholders" throughout Ireland, and condemned Mr.

O'Connell, by the insertion of the single word "hereafter,"

to go back to Clare for re-election. In this there was little difficulty for him, but much petty spleen in the framers of the measure.

While the Relief Bill was still under discussion, Mr.

O'Connell presented himself, with his counsel, at the bar of the House of Commons, to claim his seat as member for Clare. The pleadings in the case were adjourned from day to day, during the months of March, April, and May.

A committee of the House, of which Lord John Russell was Chairman, having been appointed in the meantime to consider the pet.i.tion of Thomas Mahon and others, against the validity of the election, reported that Mr. O'Connell had been duly elected. On the 15th of May, introduced by Lords Ebrington and Duncannon, the new member entered the House, and advanced to the table to be sworn by the Clerk. On the oath of abjuration being tendered to him, he read over audibly these words--"that the sacrifice of the ma.s.s, and the invocation of the blessed Virgin Mary, and other saints, as now practised in the Church of Rome, are impious and idolatrous:" at the subsequent pa.s.sage, relative to the falsely imputed Catholic "doctrine of the dispensing power" of the Pope, he again read aloud, and paused. Then slightly raising his voice, he bowed, and added, "I decline, Mr. Clerk, to take this oath.

Part of it I know to be false; another part I do not believe to be true."

He was subsequently heard at the bar, in his own person, in explanation of his refusal to take the oath, and, according to custom, withdrew. The House then entered into a very animated discussion on the Solicitor General's motion "that Mr. O'Connell, having been returned a member of this House before the pa.s.sing of the Act for the Relief of the Roman Catholics, he is not ent.i.tled to sit or vote in this House unless he first takes the oath of supremacy."

For this motion the vote on a division was 190 against 116: majority, 74. So Mr. O'Connell had again to seek the suffrages of the electors of Clare.

A strange, but well authenticated incident, struck with a somewhat superst.i.tious awe both Protestants and Catholics, in a corner of Ireland the most remote from Clare, but not the least interested in the result of its memorable election. A lofty column on the walls of Deny bore the effigy of Bishop Walker, who fell at the Boyne, armed with a sword, typical of his martial inclinations, rather than of his religious calling. Many long years, by day and night, had his sword, sacred to liberty or ascendancy, according to the eyes with which the spectator regarded it, turned its steadfast point to the broad estuary of Lough Foyle. Neither wintry storms nor summer rains had loosened it in the grasp of the warlike churchman's effigy, until, on the 13th day of April, 1829--the day the royal signature was given to the Act of Emanc.i.p.ation --the sword of Walker fell with a prophetic crash upon the ramparts of Derry, and was shattered to pieces. So, we may now say, without bitterness and almost without reproach, so may fall and s.h.i.+ver to pieces, every code, in every land beneath the sun, which impiously attempts to shackle conscience, or endows an exclusive caste with the rights and franchises which belong to an entire People!

END