• Never perhaps within the range of contemporary criticism has
the state of Ireland appeared more devoid of hope. The internal diseases of that ill-conditioned land become worse, with a growth 'Visible to the sight. • Crimes of violence and conspiracy increase in variety, number, [LATEST EDITION.]
and atrocity. The combinations against rates, rents, and life, appear extending over the face of the country. In Roscommon there is a list of landlords marked out for destruction • they are known, and one of them, Major Mahon, has fallen. Major Ma- hon was spending his personal exertions and his substance in the endeavour to improve the state of agriculture, aiding his redun- dant tenant-labourers to emigrate : some, who fell outside the necessary limit imposed on his immense advances of money, con- ceived a grudge against him ; and a grudge against a landlord in Ireland means murder.
It almost looks as if Ireland were absolutely destitute of honest citizens ; since those who come forward as such consent to take part in miserable counterfeits of patriotism, like the associations now sitting in Dublin and paltering with discussions on the na- tional wants. There is the Repeal Association, still gathering its rent under the pretence of obtaining that Repeal which was pro- mised in the long past" Repeal year." The Irish Confederation maintains the abstract doctrine of the sword, while the country rings with the report of the gun in its concrete form. The "Irish Council" assembles to discuss tenant-right, &c.; and Mr. John O'Connell opens business with the declaration that the resolutions to be passed do not pledge the supporters to anything—they are only for talk I A number of Peers, Members, and other persons, assemble as a convention to discuss the state of the country ; and. they consent to take their cue from that so earnest Irish Council. The woes of Ireland are the stock in trade of her patriots, and. text for schoolboy themes which senators and citizens gravely assemble to concoct.
Government, driven up into a corner, unsupported by these honest citizens, unaided by any available counsel from Irish lips, is reported to contemplate coercion—very naturally.
