of remorse, and our aristocracy now live and cherish their bodies upon this very property that was left to all time for the good of the souls of very different families. Henry VII. and Henry VIII. left property of more than eight hundred a-year in their time, at Windsor, for masses for their souls, and the souls of their parents and wives, which property now must be worth many thousands a-year. Was any regard paid to even those royal wills? Are masses yet sung there for those monarchs' souls? No! And if their wills are not to be strictly abided by, why are those of the founders of hospitals and schools? Wills are wills, and may be set aside or not. If in one case they can be voided at the pleasure of rulers, so in another; and an act of a truly reformed parliament would speedily convert all the charity property in the country to its legitimate purposes,-comfort and sustenance for the aged poor, and general education for the young.

CHAPTER XXIV.

IRELAND AND THE COLONIES.

THUS We have taken a survey of almost all imaginable property in this kingdom, and we find that the aristocracy has seized upon it by hook or by crook. However sacred to God or man; to state or church; to religion or the poor; to the solace of body and soul, of the aged or ignorant; for whatever purpose it had been given, or by whomsoever; in words or testaments however solemn, on occasions however great; by whatever noble actions it had been wrung from the grasp of former oppressors; to whatever noble objects it was devoted; they have broken through all bonds, however holy, to come at it; they have scorned all fears, however salutary; and have snatched, with remorseless hands, that glorious portion laid on the altar of the country, by patriotism and religion; and applied that to their daily paltry needs, and their tinsel, beggars' opera splendour, which should have become the food of political independence and national greatness, and have raised into the light of knowledge and of renown millions of resplendent souls.

Oh! what numbers of these souls, ay, any one of them worth more than the whole herd of their Epicurean sty, have, through their thefts, their frauds, and their oppressions, gone in groans and tears through the narrow places of the world, into that land

of oblivion, where the perished dead and the souls forgotten, still live to lift up their heads and hands in one fiery and inextin+ guishable prayer for vengeance and redress.

How many such souls have been lost to themselves, to their country, and mankind, through this great wrong! How many have writhed darkly, as in the very mud of the morasses of life, half conscious of their capabilities, and wholly conscious of their misery, who, had the funds destined by pious ancestors to their use not been absorbed by the aristocratic vampyres, would have come forth Miltons, Newtons, Bacons, Hampdens, or Fox's, or statesmen of a still higher and more effective school, who should have set the fame of their country on the grateful heart of the world, and poured from this island-temple of God, his laws, his love, and civilization, round the globe, in an ocean greater and more beneficial than that of its waters. What poets now like Burns, but without the blight which aristocratic pride and contumely cast upon him, would have been singing the sublimest truths to thousands of ears that now, wrapped in the clammy clay of indigence, shall never open to any sounds but curses and cries for bread! What statesmen and philanthropists, warmed to new life, and awakened to new perceptions by genius and by mind, that the fostering beams of ancient and well-applied bounties had called out of the limbo and wastes of life to a broad sun-bright knowledge of themselves and the universe, would now be acting for the common family of England in the spirit of diviner men! With what a splendour of heavenly radiance, with what gems and gold of purest glory, would these have already surrounded the beautiful crown of our common country! and what millions of spirits-dead-dead-for ever dead to light and hope and comfort, would now be living over our broad lands, in our cities, and on our mountains, a life of dignified happiness, and breathing fervent wishes,-doing purest deeds for the welfare of the world at large and of coming times!

Such might have been, and such would have been the fruits of our wealth, well directed. But what now have we reaped instead? Wars, bloodshed, deaths and miseries in mountainous heaps; debt, poverty, ignorance, crime, and overflowing despair. Our civilization has been retarded, our rightful glory has been suppressed, our principles have been corrupted, our brethren have been made miserable, and we have still to undo the evil of our deeds, before we can begin that work of social and universal improvement which God and the age of the world demand of us. And now, in our own immediate task, in our own portion of this combat with the old giants of caste and voluptuous greed, we must advance yet a step farther into the melancholy field.

We have traversed, we have said, our island in all directions, and found that the aristocracy have seized on all public property and right. If we extend our search to the farthest bounds of our transmarine empire, we shall find it the same. Our colonies are as much the usurped property of the aristocracy as our native soil. They and their sons occupy all their good offices, their wealth, and their best things. By their greed and maladministration they have reduced one of the vastest to famine and difficulty; by their despotism and imbecility, they have lost us one of the noblest. But before we proceed so far, there is another and more proximate scene of their misdeeds that we must take a glance at, and that is-Ireland.

Ireland, in the very beginning of our connexion with her, was an aristocratic conquest and booty. Strongbow, Earl of Strighul, in the reign of Henry II., with his adherents, went over thither, slew, and took possession. From that hour to this, that fair island has been treated as a conquered country. At the time of the Reformation under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, at the time of the Commonwealth, at the time of the Revolution in 1688,-in short, at all times when the internal distractions of England have given the oppressed Irish a hope of freeing themselves from the galling yoke of the British, they have risen to assert their right to their own soil and to their freedom; and by our superior might and unmitigated cruelty, have been rebranded by the fires of their blazing huts, and rebaptized in their own blood, as our serfs and slaves. We have robbed them of their lands, of their churches, of the government of their towns and country; we have sent over swarms of aristocrats to take possession of the estates of their ancient families; and hordes of parsons to occupy their churches and devour the tithes which had been given by their fathers for the maintainance of their own religion. And these heretic parsons,-heretic in the sight of the natives, and these English aristocrats, and these Scotch and English intruders, styled colonists, have lived and rioted before their eyes on the lands of their ancestors, and the dying bequests of the ancient saints, as sacred and perpetual funds for the good of their own souls, of the souls of the poor, and of the whole people. From age to age they have been insulted, trodden on, thrust out of their own soil and their own offices; and taunted with being "alien in blood, in language, and religion !"

Great God! what business had we there? What business had we with their lands, their churches, and their endowments? If we went as Christians to convert them, were violence and robbery and injustice the means? If we went to rule them, was it to be only by insult and slaughter? If we went to bind Green

Erin to Britannia as a sister, was it to be only as an erring sister, whose fortune is to be flung into the streets, and frowned on in her misery? In whatever character we pretended to go there, our eyes full of vengeance, and our hands full of chains and plunder, betrayed us to the whole wide world as thieves and hypocrites.

Was there any people on earth deserving the name of a people, and of making a portion of the great British realm, who could endure this, and not glow with resentment, and cherish thoughts of blood and death, and freedom? From age to age,

these things have been in Ireland the origin of insurrections, massacres, and violent treadings down again. But still Ireland had its own parliament, and through this a voice of freedom, and of discontent with a condition in which contentment were base and unmanly, might speak. It must be put down. And how was this done? And how was THE UNION planned and effected? We have the record of the transaction and the means.

In 1799, the proposal of the Union was rejected by an overwhelming majority. In 1800 it was carried by a majority of 90. But what were the means employed by the English government to produce the change? O'Connell in his speech before the Dublin corporation in 1843, declared that he had it on the authority of Bushe and Plunket, and on that of the report of the committee of the Irish House of Commons in 1798, to inquire into the causes of that event; that not only had the great Irish rebellion been fomented by the English government, as preparatory to their plan of urging a union; but the parliamentary papers published since then," he added, "disclosed the astounding fact, that one million two hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds were paid in the purchase of boroughs, and that more than a million had been expended in mere bribes. Bribery was unconcealed. The terms of the purchase were quite familiar in those days. The price of a single vote was 80001. in money, or an appointment to an office with two thousand a-year if the parties did not chose to take ready money. Some got both for their votes; and no less than twenty peerages, ten bishoprics, one chiefjusticeship, and six puisne judgeships, were given as the price of votes for the Union. Add to this the officers who were appointed to the revenue, the colonels appointed to the army, the commanders and captains appointed to vessels in the navy, in recompense for Union votes. Spite of this, the first attempt to carry the Union failed; Castlereagh then changed his hand, and some of those who would not take money for their votes consented to sell their seats. These seats were filled with the tools of government, and the consequence was—a majority."

T

We have already shown what we paid for these votes, and are still paying. In a word, Ireland was forced into the union by the same means that the liberties of England had been ruined by the public money and the bribes of elevation to the rankof aristocrats. That the sense of Ireland was against the measure, Lord Grey showed in 1800. Twenty-seven counties, he said, had petitioned against the measure, there were 707,000 who petitioned against the measure, and only 3000 for it. Grattan also described the measures for carrying the Union thus" Half a million or more was expended some years ago to break an opposition; the same, or a greater sum may be necessary now; that Lord Castlereagh has said himself, in the most extensive sense of bribery and corruption. The threat was proceeded on; the peerage sold; the caitiffs of corruption were everywhere-in the lobby, in the streets, on the steps, and at the doors of every parliamentary leader, offering titles to some, offices to others, corruption to all.”

The names and prices of all the purchased members of the Irish Parliament were preserved in the Irish Red and Black lists. A selection of a few of these may be edifying :

J. Bingham, created a peer, Lord Clanmorris; got 8000l. for two seats; and 15,000l. compensation for Tuam, First offered himself for sale to the Anti-Unionists.

Joseph H. Blake, created a peer; Lord Wallscourt.

Sir J. G. Blackwood, created a peer; Lord Dufferin.

Sir John Blaquiere, created a peer; Lord de Blaquiere, with offices and pensions.

Lord Boyle, son of Lord Shannon; father and son got an immense sum of money for their seats and boroughs; 15,000l. for each.

Charles H. Coote, a peerage; Lord Castlecoote; a regiment, patronage of Queen's County, and 7500l. in cash.

James Cuffe; his father made Lord Tyrawley.

Lord Fitzgerald, a pension and a peerage.

Luke Fox; made judge of Common Pleas.

William Fortescue; pension of 3,0001, a-year.

J. Galbraith; a baronetage.

Richard Hare; made Lord Ennismore, with patronage.

Colonel B. Heneker; a regiment, and 3500l. a-year for his seat.

Hon. J. Hutchinson; made Lord Hutchinson, and a general.

Hugh Howard; made Postmaster-General.

William Handcock; an extraordinary instance. He made and sang songs against the Union in 1799, at a public dinner; and made and sang songs for it in 1800; for which he got a peerage, as Lord Castlemaine; a title which seems to have been selected as a badge of particular infamy, having been before given by Charles II. to one Palmer, for the debauchery of his wife..

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