fied our prophecy. The ostensible chiefs of the movement, which the "United Irishman" alone, in reality, led, have all, with inglorious precipitation, availed themselves of his disappearance to retire from the dangerous prominence into which the constraint of his example had dragged them. He had constantly presented to the public gaze a living type of sincerity and daring, which they, at their own proper peril, were forced to innitate. He not only mortified their vanity, but terrified their selfishness; and to them, consequently, his removal has been a blest relief. This is obvious, from the entire and almost instantaneous change which has since marked their policy

"Grim-visaged WAR hath smoothed his wrinkled front."

Mr. Smith O'Brien has learned that "the central organization ought to expose itself as little as possible to the penal operation of iniquitous laws." Safety has become the admitted principle of the body-and the committee thunder their defiance under the advice of counsel. Nor has the change stopped here. This might naturally

be attributed to the terror of Mitchel's punishment, operating upon men of average timidity and prudence. We do not blame them for even an excess of caution, however we may smile at their boasted contempt of personal consequences. But to this negative modification of their system they have superadded a positive movement, indicative of principles far less respectable than prudence, carried even to the verge of pusillanimity. John Mitchel has scarcely cleared the mouth of Cork harbour when his associates are deep in the details of a negotiation with the authors of the celebrated "peace-resolutions." His departure is the sig nal for a compromise; or, if you will, a reconciliation between the "Confederates" and the Old Ireland Repealers on Burgh-quay; and although Mr. John O'Connell has recorded his solemn protest against this union (as against the other), the basis of "THE LEAGUE" is (we believe), while we write, definitively settled. Now, we have no hesitation in saying, that three weeks before John Mitchel was convicted, the council of the Confedera

tion dared not have opened such a treaty.

In the first place, there exists an irreconcileable disagreement between the Young and the Old Ireland party, upon the only practical question with which repealers have to deal the selection of the course by which they propose to reach their ultimate object: "Old Ireland" insists upon constitutional means- -Young Ireland scouts them. One recommends petitions-the other, pikes-and each party obstinately persists in its own policy. How, then, are they to coalesce, without a shabby compromise of principle? One side or the other must yield, as soon as the League begins to work-and we suspect the tendency of the adjustment will not be to increase the perils of the composers of the peace-resolutions. But there are other obstacles in the way. Where very gross abuse has been exchanged where direct charges of mendacity, cowardice, and peculation, have been recriminated-where accusations involving great moral baseness have been publicly, deliberately and reiteratedly bandied to and fro between any two men, or two sets of men, there is nothing very creditable in an extemporaneous return to intimacy, unaccompanied by previous apology or retractation. The silence of the criminators and recriminators leaves us to believe that each party holds the same vile opinion of the other's honour and morals, which a short time since they so grossly expressed. It seems odd that gentlemen should desire to be associated with "swindlers," "hypocrites," "poltroons," &c.—and no less strange that pure patriots should choose to admit "veteran peculators" to the handling of the people's money, and "notorious corruptionists" to the management of their political interests. It is very plain, either that the Confederates did not believe one word of the opprobrious charges which they preferred against the moderates of Conciliation Hall, and vice versâ, or else that they are marvellously lax indeed in the choice of their companions. In public estimation, the Young Ireland party have lost themselves, we believe irretrievably, by this unworthy step.

The motives which have induced the sudden fraternization of these habitual

recipients of each other's abuse, are frankly enough avowed, upon one side at least. Mr. John O'Connell, in announcing the project to his Conciliation Hall audience, plainly said that the association had lost the confidence of the people, and added that the "rent" was not sufficient to defray the current expenses of the establishment. The Confederates, upon the other hand, declared that their influence was restricted to the towns, and that by a junction with the Old Ireland party, they would gain the country. They forgot, in their anxiety to fabricate a good excuse for a gross inconsistency, Mr. John O'Connell's previous admission, that the Old Ireland establishment had lost the confidence of the people altogether. Thus it is admitted, and the admission is important, that the agitation, of which Conciliation Hall was the centre, is absolutely lifeless, and that of which the Confederate Council is the organ, subsists only in "the towns." The repeal agitation, therefore, at present musters only the town mobs and the Roman Catholic priests-a happy combination of the piety and intelligence of the country!

But the true motives of the Confederates lay a little deeper than those they avowed. The transportation of Mitchel had a double effect upon that august body; it relieved them of the presence of a task-master, and it frightened them thoroughly. There There was no longer any one to prevent their coalescing with the "Association," and there was every reason, on the other hand, to render moderation desirable. Besides, something was wanted to fill an awkward pause in the agitation-something in the way of bustle and pageant, to divert attention from the depressing fact, that the movement had actually retroceded, per saltum, precisely to the point at which Mitchel had taken it up five months ago! A junction of the two rival institutions was precisely the thing required. The mob were amused with the strenua inertia of conferences, and speeches, and reports, while the tempered tone of Young Ireland's oratory, instead of being taken for a symptom of selfish trepidation, was applauded as a graceful deference to the prejudices of their new allies.

The organization of the clubs proceeds. Mitchel promised an insurrec. tion as soon as the harvest should

have been got in. But Mr. Smith O'Brien has cautiously unfixed the time for action. He names no day, no year; but declares, that as soon as the organization shall be completed, he will then proceed to decisive measures. The reader may perhaps inquire, at what point this condition will have been satisfied. Mr. O'Brien has not left us to grope in uncertainty. The organization will have been completed as soon as there are one thousand clubs, with three hundred men properly armed in each, and not sooner! In other words, until Mr. O'Brien finds himself, we will not say at the head, but in the rear of a disciplined and well-armed force of three hundred thousand men, he cannot be called upon to redeem his pledge, and give the word to advance. But although we unhesitatingly admit the practical adjournment sine die (by this clumsy but effectual device) of Mr. Smith O'Brien's own personal share in the dangers of insurrection, we are far from believing the foundation of such bodies as these rebellious clubs anything but a work of serious danger and positive mischief. Though three hundred thousand men are out of the question-fifty, sixty, or even a hundred thousand may possibly be got together. It is plainly possible that the organization may reach one-fourth or even one-third of the numerical strength stipulated for by Mr. O'Brien. Such

a body, comprising, as it necessarily would, the dregs of the folly, wretchedness, and crime, of the very worst districts of Ireland, would speedily become unmanageable, and, conscious of their own formidable numbers, would not submit to the uniform and never-ending pressure of the Confederate curb. In constructing this system of clubs, the council are creating a portentous machinery, which they have no power to control. They are playing with elements of whose true nature they know nothing, and whose explosion, come when it may, will terrify, perhaps destroy them.

It would be incompatible with the brevity of this article, to enter upon a review of the too-sadly instructive history of the old Repeal Association, or into an examination of the scandalous abuses of which it was the den. We extract, however, from a contemporary journal, the following brief comment upon one salient topic in the speeches

of the Irish Confederates, at their meeting on the 21st ultimo:-

In

"In the course of the proceedings last night it was stated that the total receipts of the Confederation, from the date of its foundation on the 15th of February, 1847, have, to the present day, been £916 18s. 1d., of which £400 was contributed by about one hundred of the more active members, and the remaining £500 only by the country at large. the same period the rival establishment has levied off the country fully £2,500, and yet not one farthing left! This statement proves the cost at which an energetic and spirited agitation may be really carried on. It shows that the Confederates supported theirs at a yearly cost of some £400, levied off the country. How, then, are the swindled people to account for the disappearance of such sums as £2,000 a-week?-at which figure, for a year and more during the agitation of '42-3, the repeal rent remained nearly fixed. These facts are eloquent, and the popular organs are bound to state them fairly."

The Freeman's Journal (one of the repeal organs in Dublin) has corrected an inaccuracy into which we were betrayed, in our necessarily hurried article upon "the state prosecutions" in the last number of this magazine. Our analysis of the ingredients of the jury, and the dissentients in Mr. Smith O'Brien's case, was, as we learned when it was too late to correct the error, inaccurate.* With respect to Mr. Meagher's case, however, we relied upon the statement of one of the jurors, addressed in open court to the Chief Justice, when discharging the jury-" My lord," said he, "we are eleven to one, and that one is a Roman Catholic." Behind this statement we do not feel ourselves warranted in going. We regret the mistake to which we have alluded; but know not to whom an apology is due.

We certainly owe none to the repealers. We cited what we relied upon as facts, to illustrate an admission obviously involved in the universal complaint of all repeal authorities of every degree. We designed merely to point the

case

as

great truth for which they, one and all, by necessary implication, contend. Mr. Mitchel's jury, they insist, was a packed one. And why is it pronounced a packed jury? Because, say they, no Roman Catholic was permitted to serve upon it. Had he been tried by a jury that was not packed, they continue (that is, by a jury having a Roman Catholic upon it), he would not have been convicted at all. Now, what is the basis of the argument, if it be not a distinct assumption that Roman Catholic jurors generally will not convict in prosecutions for political offences. It is an admission that a Roman Catholic would not have convicted, even in such a Mitchel's a case of guilt so desperately clear, that able counsel practically abandoned his defence-and leav ing him to consequences, against which no conceivable subtlety, or power of advocacy could possibly have opposed an obstacle-consequences that were constitutionally inevitable-launched his scathing declamation only against the government who arraigned him. The complaint is founded upon this position and every repealer who makes it, subscribes to the truth of the assumption-Mitchel's conviction is charged as the consequence of the exclusion of Roman Catholics from the jury-box-and that by the Roman Catholic party themselves! We leave our English readers to gather from this fact, how far we were justified in pronouncing that the supremacy of British law, and the practical existence of the constitution here, depend upon the conscientious loyalty of Irish Protestants-aloyalty which has passed the ordeal of fearful vicissitudesI which has withstood the shocks of civil commotion-and worse-the spurning of insolence, and the coldness of neglect-a loyalty, above all, which is impervious to the secret and mortal poison of casuist tongues-which cannot be seduced by the fraudulent subtleties, or overpowered by the exorbitant tyranny of a dark and sinister theology.