THE first subject worthy of attention in our political department, at the present moment of domestic tranquillity, is, as usual, Ireland and its grievances. That these attract some portion of attention is not wonderful; it is only extraordinary that the happiness of six millions of souls should have so little of our concern, and rot lead to the adoption of measures analogous to their importance. It might be thought that motives of good policy and national interest would in the present time overweigh the narrow and sordid principles of a party in this country, that, with an obstinacy only paralleled by its bigoted, self-interested, and ignorant supporters on the other side of the Channel, would again plunge a nation in horror and desolation. The one strives there to hold fast the good things of their party and trample on their countrymen, the other here to prop and bolster up a system which they denominate that of true religion' a system which makes, contrary to reason, the fractional few govern the whole many-a system that makes natural right and temporal liberty subservient to spiritual despotism; a system that while foreign nations abrogate the laws which prevent the advantages a government may gain from the allegiance and services of every native, would debar for ever of civil rights nearly a whole people. But though the interest of the Protestant religion is one pretence for the conduct of this party, it is not the real one;-they hold the profit and power, and wish to keep them. Few are so ignorant as not to know from the experience of the past, that continued persecution increases proselytes*, and that many dogmas of catho

There is a remarkable proof of the truth of this in Ulster, which in 1773 contained only 38,459 Popish families; it had then 62,620 Protestants: now the proportions are reversed-the Catholics nearly double the Protestants. VOL. XV. NO. XLIX.

licism, the miracles of Hohenlohe, and a great portion of the superstitions now clung to, would be eradicated before the spread of common sense, did not the natural passion of resistance to persecution, grounded on the belief that the truest faith was ever that most belied in all times, and the obstinacy with which people hold fast even hereditary errors, with an indignant spirit burning under civil privation and oppression, prevent the still small voice of reason from being heard. True religion never makes proselytes by aid of gibbets and transportations. It is not to be spread over a nation by giving bishops 20,000l. a-year to revel in purple pomp, nor by levying tithes and supporting canonical rapacity at the expense of the poorest peasantry in the world. It will not become the reigning faith by building churches in parishes where there is not a single Protestant resident, at the expense of the Catholic inhabitants, and by levying tithes and church-rates on them, as in the parish of Ballyvoorney, where there never was a resident rector nor a single Protestant. At Tuonadroman there are six Protestants and a curate, and the rector an absentee. The tithes and rates are, however, extracted from those of the opposite faith, and the curate preaches to the church walls that the emoluments of the sinecure may travel into the pockets of the far-distant rector. Under the present system in Ireland, Catholicism cannot diminish. There are only two ways in which both ignorant and enlightened can view the church of Ireland as at present constituted-either as a thing working for the spiritual benefit of the people, or a mere receptacle for fat sinecurists and an instrument of temporal power. In the first of these cases it is easy to judge of the fitness of its constitution. Examine it by the Church of England, though this last may have its blemishes, or by the Church of Scotland, or by the College of Fishermen, the founders of Christianity;

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look at its bloated wealth, its idleness, its influence-not acquired by the only lawful means, mild persuasion, superior learning, and earnest zeal, but by penal statutes, and the sword of temporal power. Were these the rules of the ministry of Him, the very first article of whose creed was, that his kingdom was not of this world, and can the propagation of the faith of the founder of Christianity be secured by violating its fundamental doctrines ? If in the second place the Church of Ireland is to be regarded merely as an instrument for securing political influence, and providing for those families and that party which riot there upon the places and property of the country; it is far better that Government should use a species of continental police, and cease to govern the Irish people by the present pernicious agency. No clergyman in Ireland should be in a commission of the peace. In England the clergy and people are one; but in Ireland, if the spiritual welfare, if the gaining disciples to the established faith be the real object, as it can be the only legitimate one of any church establishment, [In Ireland 6,400,000 out of 6,800,000 are of a different persuasion, either Catholic or Protestant, from the Church of England,] the clergy should never be made the instruments of temporal coercion, the chiefs of police over a people that it is their duty to allure by the mild truths of the Gospel, to persuade, to attach to them. Clergymen heading parties of soldiers and traversing the country to arrest depredators and suppress insurrections, by the aid of military agency, can only by such exhibitions create a distaste towards the faith of which they ought to be humble teachers. This is more especially the case when the Catholic parish ministers, in the more enlightened nations of the Continent, and also in Ireland, furnish such a contrast, and in this respect certainly approach nearer to the original ministry of the Gospel. In France the account of two clerical magistrates of the establishment going out in the night to detect some of the depredators in the South of Ireland, each with a party of soldiers or armed men, and by mistake unfortunately firing on each other, by which one of them was said to be killed, occasioned great astonishment; the priests could not comprehend it. Such a state of things may be in England without ill effects, but in Ireland it is worse than impolitic. A hundred serious, devout, zealous country English Protestant curates, on their little stipends, mingling among the people, taking a real interest in their welfare, visiting their humble abodes, and shewing that

they sympathized with the sufferings while they checked the excesses of their parishioners,-who comforted them in sickness and healed their divisions, would more essentially promote real religion and public tranquillity within their sphere of influence, and would do more in spreading the Protestant faith, than five hundred clergy mounted and harnessed with all the police and soldiery of Ireland at their backs. The latter might silence, but they would not convince; they might suppress, but would not remove ill-feeling; they might keep knowledge at a stand, but they would never enlighten. In addition, they must be objects of constant suspicion, and even their wellmeant efforts would be ineffective. It is to be lamented that so few politicians know any thing of the constitution of the human mind.

Let it not be thought from this, that we are the defenders of the Catholic faith. We should not be so, were it only because we know that the Protestant is more enlightened, allows more scope for reason and the free use of the faculties God has given to man-because he does not admit of delusions contrary to the every day evidence of the senses. The age of superstition is gone by with him; indeed, in many Catholic countries, an enlightened Catholic and Protestant differ but little; the former rejecting those absurdities, which in Ireland and in Spain so fetter the lower classes. If the better informed of the Catholics in Ireland (and we would hope they do not) believe in Prince Hohenlohe, or the sanctity of the race of Popes as mere men, (when they have many of them been, like most sovereigns, secret gratifiers of their passions, and with as little holiness or honour as the Bourbon race, for example,) and endeavour to support the Catholic faith by such delusions we must deprecate it. But we support the right of the Catholic, as well as of every other man, to think as he pleases, in what alone concerns his spiritual welfare; and we deny the right of 400,000 persons to hold the rod of power, the sweets of place and emolument, and to dictate in matters of faith to six millions and a half in their common country, and at their expense; and to quarter and father ministers of a different faith upon them, as well as to confer in their common country exclusive power and emolument on a few equally as ignorant as those of the deprecated tenets, because they will take oaths which the others dare not conscientiously take. The present time can nowhere shew a parallel to this monstrous and flagitious system; and we are confident the coming time never

will. It is the duty of a government to see that all obey the common head, in every respect in which the social compact can lawfully claim obedience, namely, as to temporal matters-but it is an iniquity to degrade a whole nation of faithful people, because in one or two points that people may differ from seceders from their own more ancient creed; and to suffer them to be trampled upon by a few, who have no superior title to do so; save in subscribing to a different point or two of the established religious doctrine.

This, however, is not all-the Catholic is now to be debarred from the advantages of education, because he objects to the Bible being read in schools by youth, without explanation. He says there are things that are not fit for the eye of very young persons in the Bible, and that it is not approved of by the priests on this account. But if the Catholic be educated, he can read the Bible for himself; and as knowledge is the object, why not substitute the New Testament only, which, perhaps, would be unobjectionable, or some other book? This will not, however, suit the views of those who have the management of these things, and therefore it is wisely resolved the Catholics shall remain untaught! Can stupidity and folly go farther. The teaching children to read in the Bible will not make them Protestants-disciples to that faith must be obtained by reading and reflection, and children do not reflect. First make the Irish people read, any how, if they do but learn to read, and leave the rest to time, and the attention of those among the protestant ministry who are not above enter ing their cabins and instructing the lowest. The intemperate speeches of one or two of the Catholic Association have set the enemies of Ireland on the scent again for a renewal of her past horrors. Our reliance, however, on the liberal part of the cabinet, on the kind temper of the King, and on the sense of Parliament, and the people of this country, makes us believe that the alarm they sound, and which is the echo only of Orange insanity, will die without effect. The Catholic rent, and a few thousand pounds in the hands of the Association, are viewed by these persons as dreadful things. In England, Constitutional Associations, so miscalled, may be formed, and funds raised to persecute every one who differs from the self-constituted authority; but in Ireland, when an association is formed openly, consisting of persons belonging to the prevailing faith of the country,-the wealthy and titled included of that faith-when every name is published openly, and its proceedings are open-when its objects are to

punish, by due course of law, the perpetrators of cruelties and oppressions exercised on the poorest peasantry in the world, by the Orange faction and its members; in a country where many magistrates are partial, and neglect their duties, befriend their associates, or screen offenders; and where police-men accused of high crimes get Orange juries and acquittals-in that country, such a society is unlawful! But it is in reality a benefit to Ireland, for the peasantry will view it as the outlet of their grievances, and cease to take personal revenge. Already has the Society addressed them wisely and temperately, and outrage has nearly ceased. Government, having the whole body under its eye, and their very funds in its hands-knowing all its movements-witnessing the prosecutions it may institute, and every step it may take, is better off, and more secure than before-more able to repress it, if needful, or bear it out in dealing evenhanded justice in the Courts. Force and fraud, violence and blood, have been too often tried in that unhappy country already; ministers will be no worse off by the experiment of mildness and temperance, should it not succeed, than they were before. Still their temper will be triedthe Orange faction will hatch plots, invent conspiracies, and spread alarms, that it will require no common firmness to meet. If, which no reasonable, disinterested person believes, the Association is all its enemies assert, it is better to put it down when it has given something like justifiable ground for so doing, and thus have the whole strength of this country to support the measure, which could not be now. But the best plan of all is, to sincerely set about removing the evils that oppress the Irish people, with activity and earnestness.

Since writing the above, Mr. O'Connell has been held to bail, on a report of his speech in a Dublin Newspaper, for seditious expressions. As the objects of the Catholic Association, if open and legitimate, as they appear, cannot be supported by intemperance of speech, perhaps this step may not be an impolitic one on the part of the Government, and will have the effect of conducing to a more moderate tone of debate. Mr. O'Connell, however, denies that the expressions in the paper on which his arrest has been founded were his own; states that they are misrepresented; and he has accordingly given notice of legal proceedings against the printer. If Mr. Plunket has no other ground of charge, he may fail as he did in the affair of the Theatre, by trying to do too much. The measure may tend, however, to shew that the Go

States, and the acknowledgment of their independence. The former was entirely without foundation, and the latter report also does not appear to have the shade of ground for its promulgation.

The melancholy state of the Spanish and Italian refugees in this country, who have some of them been nearly perishing with hunger in the streets, has been taken up in the City with an earnestness that does honour to the mercantile interest, the Lord Mayor having called a meeting for the purpose. It would have been a slur for ever upon the national character had these brave men been suffered to die, without that relief their bravery and the justice of their cause have a claim to in a country of liberty.

The London Gazette has published the official accounts of the affair of the Liffey with the Burmese, which the reader will find anticipated, Vol. XII. p. 484.

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A supplement to the Gazette also contains details of the events of the Burmese war on land; portions of which the reader will find, Vol. XII. p. 531 and 532. We shall merely give, therefore, in regu lar detail, and as briefly as possible, the operations up to the 16th of May, of which the reader will find parts more at length in the volume before alluded to, extracted from the East India newspapers. suree was taken by a Burmese force on the 24th of September, 1823. It was recaptured by the British on the 21st of November. On the 17th of January there was an action at the stockade of Bickrampore, with 4000 Burmese, in which the latter were defeated with the loss of 185 men. The loss of the victors was 6 killed and 13 wounded. In February the Burmese advanced on Budderpore, when they were again beaten, with the loss of one jemadar killed, and 30 seapoys wounded on our side. While these operations were going on, Major Newton took possession of the stockades at Juttrapore, which the enemy abandoned; and Lieutenant-Colonel Bowen attacked the Burmese Chiefs, who had concentrated their forces, and taken up a position under the Berteaka Pass; they were strongly posted in two stockades, on the left bank of the Jeltingly river, which was not fordable except by means of elephants, on the backs of which a detachment was conveyed across the river, and the stockades carried. "From all the accounts which have reached me," says Colonel Bowen, "and from the number and extent of the stockades they had constructed, I cannot estimate the number of the enemy in this affair at less than five thousand, of whom

the greater part are supposed to be Assamese, and the remainder Burmahs; their dispersion and flight towards the hills (in the greatest disorder and confusion) and passes into Assam, the capture of all their standards, gingals, and eight gilt chattahs, are the fruits of this affair." This was on the 18th of February: on the 21st there was another gallant affair, but not with equal success, at Doodpatlee; and attended with the loss of Lieutenant A. B. Armstrong, of the 1st battalion 10th regiment of native infantry, who was killed in action with the Burmese. This officer was shot at the head of the grenadiers, among the stakes and spring guns which were planted all round the enemy's stockades outside for a distance of from twenty to thirty yards, concealed for the most part in long grass. Lieut.-Colonel Bowen and Captain Johnston were also wounded, the latter severely. Next follow the naval and military operations against Cheduba, Negrais, and Rangoon, which we have already given. After General Campbell had taken Rangoon and liberated the Europeans kept there prisoners, the enemy concentrated his force at the village of Killyendine, from which he was driven on the 16th of May, with the loss of Lieutenant Thomas Kerr, of the 38th regiment, and one private killed, and nine privates wounded. Lieutenant Wilkinson was also severely wounded, with eight or nine of his crew. In these several actions a large quantity of ordnance was captured. The detachment sent against Negrais returned to headquarters, aud it not being calculated for a military post, though captured, it was abandoned as not capable of being made defensible by the Burmese. Thus it may be seen that up to the arrival of the latest accounts, little or no impression had been made upon the country. Of the