came engaged, it was supposed, in open hostilities. In fact, those of us who were not employed in robbing and murdering each other, or busied in some hostile intrigue or preparation, were seen in groups every where, like the Athenians in the time of Philip, asking, "what news? what news?"

When we heard, therefore, that the present Viceroy was appointed, we were all as much rejoiced as a young lady waiting in church, when she hears that the clergyman has arrived to make her happy, but who perhaps is only coming to wed her to the tribulations of this life. At all events we summoned up our spirits, we suspended our hopes and fears, and prepared to assist the Chief Governor and the Insurrection Act in going through the usual process of pacifying the disturbed districts. We heard that my Lord Grenville himself had been consulted about us; that Mr. Goulburn, who had made the last stand in the House of Commons against the emancipation of the Catholics, was appointed Chief Secretary;

we saw Alderman James created a baronet "without any compromise of principle" more than his predecessor in office; in fine, it was formally announced to a county in Munster, that the laws were to be administered, but not changed; and we sat down, such of us as could reflect, perfectly satisfied that though some new acts or afterpiece might be introduced, the general design of the drama was not to be changed, and to this hour the great principle of unity has not been violated "sit quod vis simplex duntaxat et unum, qualis ab incepto processerat et sibi constet."

There have been many efforts made by the Irish Government to engraft improvements on the old system, to correct its faults, to supply its defects, and occasionally to substitute one mode of proceeding for another; but little success has attended these efforts, unless where parliament directly interfered, as in repealing the union duties, or in appointing commissioners to inquire into the mode of collecting the revenue, &c. in Ireland. Indeed, the very attempts made to administer bad

laws justly, or to induce corrupt men to surrender their prescriptive right to embezzlement, oppression, and tyranny, have produced such heart-burnings, such private enmities, and such vindictive retaliations, that a person finds it difficult to determine whether it were not better to continue all the ancient abuses, and let us live in Ireland as they do in Turkey, where the want of all right, as well as power, in the slave, makes him feel occasionally the kindness as well as the cruelty of his master. For my part, I am disposed to think that it would be better to leave a community in a state of rest, however unequal the condition of its members, than to provoke the ascendant portion of it to anger, by requiring of them to relinquish a dominion which the law allows, and to the justice or injustice of which they are perfectly indifferent.

Unless in Ireland the whole system be altered; unless the fundamental abuses from which the minor ones issue be eradicated, and the Government exercised for the good of the people at large,

there can be no peace, nor confidence, nor security, nor repose. No government seeking to administer the laws as they now are, can acquire the character of strength or wisdom; it may be weak, or artful, or tyrannical, but it cannot appear strong, or wise, or consistent, nor can it fulfil the only ends for which power is given by God. The spirit and letter of almost all our laws, not only of the old penal laws, but of those which are every day enacting, are hostile to the people. To select one out of five hundred as an illustration, there is a law passed in the fiftieth year of his late Majesty, entitled, "An Act for enabling Tenants in Tail and for Life to grant Land for the purpose of endowing Schools in Ireland:" this statute, though evidently intended to favour education, is enacted in the same spirit which pervades the ancient penal code. It requires, as I am informed by one of those who are styled "learned in the law," that lands granted in virtue of it must be leased to the Protestant ordinary and church-wardens, and it subjects indirectly, if not expressly, the schools to be built

on such lands, as well as the system of education to be adopted in them, as also the appointment or removal of the masters, to the absolute control of the minister of the parish. The absurdity of such a provision is obvious, as in one half of the parishes throughout Ireland perhaps not a single child professing the faith of such a minister would attend a public school; but yet such is the law; and what can a Chief Governor do in the administration of such laws? Could he allow them to remain a dead letter, he might preserve the peace; but they will be put into operation even against his will; and his sole business seems to be to repress by force the discontent they generate, or to allay, by the influence of his personal character, the passions which they excite.

There is connected with the statute now noticed, a fund placed at the disposal of the Lord Lieutenant to assist in the building of schools; and the commissioners to whose management it is intrusted, require, by a printed form of lease, that the right, title, &c. of the school be conveyed, agreeably to