hard upon the fundowners. It is, perhaps, dustry as well as of his capital. He would not but right to acknowledge that, speaking of be compelled to labour for year after year, them as a body, the measure in question was and to see the fruits of his labour continually in no respect of their doing or contriving. It passing from his hands. "The hope of rewas entirely the measure of the great lauded ward," it is said, "sweetens labour." But interest of both parties, who adopted it of what hope can now console the labours of the their own free will, without being at all soli- farmer, who has been lured and deluded from cited thereto by the country, or by any part year to year, until his capital and credit are of the country. The great landowners have well nigh exhausted; and now, threatened by long had the government of things in their his creditors on the one hand, and by his landown hands; but this, their last favourite mea- lord on the other, is urged on by inevitable sure, if persevered in, will terminate shortly, ruin behind, to inevitable ruin before? not merely in taking the government of things out of their hands, but also iu stripping them of the last shilling of their own property. It will, in fact, strip them as naked as it is now stripping their tenants. I have stated that, in giving the fundowner 281. 10s. of our present money, where he now receives 821. of our present money, he would receive the very same justice as he is now measuring out to the tenantry and landowners of the country. But the real truth is, that if equal justice is to be done to all parties, the How many thousands of industrious and intelligent farmers are now to be found in England, who would cheerfully give up the fruits of seven years' industry and care, and would gladly be permitted to retire from approaching ruin, with 147. 5s. in their pockets for every 571. which they possessed seven years ago! I am, sir, Your obedient servant, THOMAS ATTWOOD.' (From the Pilot.) TO MY CONSTITUENTS. "Hereditary bondsmen! know you not, Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?" payment of 281. 10s. for every 1001. consols, is Mr. O'CONNELL'S SECOND LETTER. more than he is entitled to receive; for it would still leave him in a better situation than the farmers and landowners. The fundowners, as a body, may be considered as comparatively free from mouied debts and obligations, because the funds are themselves, as i: were, a species of money, and it is not often that men owe money upon money. The fundDarrynane Abbey, Oct. 8, 1833. owners would therefore, in general, get the Lord Anglesea is gone-blessed be whole of the 281. 10s. into their own pockets; God. One page more is turned over same value, and command the same quantity in the sad story of Ireland. One proud of the necessaries and comforts of life, as satrap more has fretted his hour on the their 571. commanded during the war, their stage of Ireland's disgrace and degradasituation would in reality be exactly the same; tion. For what wants our nation these or, at least, it would be so as soon as ever and since this 287. 10s. would contain the their servants and trades people were brought puny minions of a power that springs down to the metallic level. not from ourselves, nor is directed for But very different from this is the situation our advantage-the only object being of the landowners and farmers, who, it is well to ascertain how far this lovely and ferknown, are generally and necessarily encumbered with monied obligations of a hundred tile island can be made subservient to kinds. These obligations remaining to be the wealth, the power, and the pride of discharged in full, without any diminution at the rulers of Great Britain. all, cannot fail, in most cases, to take away the whole of the 281. 10s. from the farmers and Lord Anglesea is gone; and never landowners, and certainly, in nine cases out had man a more noble opportunity of ten, they will ultimately take away at least to show the superior mind, the high one-half of the 284. 10s., and leave to the generosity of spirit, the protecting farmers and, the landowners only about 147. 5s. upon an average, for every 571. which power-that combination of authority they possessed during the war; and this is with virtue-which would have raised probably as great a proportion of their pro-him beyond the common lot of huperty as these classes of men can even now, manity, whilst it cheered and vivified in general, be said to possess. every thing within its enlivening inIn receiving, therefore, 281. 10s. of our pre-fluence. Lord Anglesea is gone! after sent money for every 1001. consols, the fundowner would still have a very great advantage having thrown away all his splendid over the farmers and landowners; an advantage occasions of utility, of goodness, and of which would aggrandise his relative situation glory. He is gone, covered not merely above its proper level, and secure to him a great predominance of political power. And with the hate and indignation, but with after all, he would not be robbed of his in- the scorn and contempt of the Irish people-nay, the jeer and jest of all who | Blackburne to be his Attorney-Genethink or talk of his miserable adminis-ral!!! Look at the present state of the tration; or if the laughter ceases, it is bar patronage. ment. only because the horrible overcomes But no, my present object is not to the ridiculous, and that the scent of write a history of Lord Anglesea's ludiblood stifles every emotion of merri-crous, yet ensanguined career. I want to return to the subject of these letters There was more blood shed in Ire- -one reflection more only on his adland there was more human blood ministration. It has often struck me shed in Ireland during the two years that the excess of unpopularity which and a half of the Anglesea-Stanley ad- has followed Lord Anglesea's conduct ministration, than during any other ten was not so much produced by his tithe years of our wretched history. Take out campaigns, his arming the yeomanry, or the year of actual open rebellion, and his fostering his and the people's eneyou will find that more human blood mies, as by his fatal and most undignilay on the face of the earth in Ireland fied affection for the chicanery of litigaduring his short government, than during tion. There was something so unchithe government of any three other lieu-valrous in his love of indictments-his tenants. Does that blood cry to heaven ardent affections for criminal informafor vengeance, or shall the earth cover tions-his overweening and gloating it for ever? delight at prosecutions, that he became What a strange, and silly, and way-infinitely more distasteful for these proward career has been his! Look back pensities than he could have been renat its commencement-how much of dered by the most direct and oppressive good was anticipated from his supposed cruelties, had he been guilty of them. regard to Ireland-how soon, how sadly, The prosecuting Lord Lieutenant must how completely was every anticipation be ever odious. rendered vain his appointment of Joy Lord Angelsea was the greatest proto be Chief Baron, was anything ever so foolish! One Chief Baron was superannuated! Well, Anglesea seeks the foremost rank of the enemy to find out nearly, if not altogether, as old a man to fill the place. Why? for what? on what account? for what reason? Simply because he was an enemy--an old enemy. Could he not, at least, have found some man of Whig, or, at least, of moderate principles Easily. Why preferred he the high and bitter Orange ?-Because he was an enemy. O! sapient Anglesea! Then he makes a Chief Justice of the We shall see what course his sucCommon Pleas!!! But of this melan-cessor will steer. Are the instruments choly instance of the party-fatuity of who deformed and disgraced the last Anglesea, it is not necessary to speak. government to be still confided in and He who runs reads its strange folly. If used by the present? We shall see. I he were to make a tenth-rate man a expect not much from what has hitherto Chief Justice, why not at least, select a happened: but we shall see. In the friendly struggler at the bar? The meantime, hereditary bondsmen! conanswer is obvious-because, if that fide in yourselves. Be up and stirring. were done, it would have been a proof Begin the war of tithe petitions. Prepare of common sense, and of a consistency for the war of repeal petitions! far below the high vagaries of the selfsufficient Anglesea. And then to select, of all the bar, secutor that ever came to Ireland, and the most disliked as a governor of any man that within my recollection ruled this unhappy land. There is something so low-there is something so mean in mere prosecuting-there is something so foreign from the nobler emotions of our nature something so congenial with the baser passions of our nature, in the chicanery of prosecution, that of all bad governments, a prosecuting government must of necessity be the most execrated. I love the apparent tranquillity and calm of the moment. An idle observer, or any stranger, would suppose that the tithe question was postponed, and the on, and victory over, the present very repeal question extinguished. How inferior race of persons engaged in Parlittle do they know of Ireland! The liamentary reporting. I begin with cause of recent wrongs creates a calm which is any thing but symptomatic of oblivion. But I must return to the subject of my address to you, my constituents. THE EAST INDIA BILL. It may appear surprising how little of attention this important measure produced even in England. The destinies I am upon my trial before you. I in- of more than one hundred millions of vite every one of you-I invite my ene- human beings were involved in it. It mies- invite the enemies of Ireland is impossible to exaggerate its magni-I invite the friends of Ireland, to in-tude. We legislated for the peace, vestigate my parliamentary conduct prosperity, and happiness of one hunwith the most scrutinizing eye. I vo-dred millions of human beings, and yet luntarily place myself at the bar of my the bill attracted but a small share of country, and challenge investigation. public notice, I have already specified my parliamentary conduct, and I will say my parliamentary services, on the topics connected with the soap trade, the leather trade, the distilleries of Ireland, with the subletting act, the vestry acts, and last, but not least, with tithes. These were all subjects immediately and exclusively connected with Ireland. There were many, very many, others of a similar character. There was, in a former session, the attempt, which I defeated, to bring in a "mortmain" act into Ireland; there were the abuses in corporations; the grand-jury laws; the special-jury laws; the poor-laws; there was, besides, the violation of constitutional principle in the change of Venue Bill; and, before all, and beyond all, in point of frightful and portentous magnitude, the Coercion Bill. Much of this inattention was occasioned by the ignorance, or gross misconduct, or both, of the reporters. The debates on the East India Bill were all but suppressed. A miserable inaccurate outline of these debates was all that was given to the public. Discussions of the utmost interest to the people of India were thus, as it were, concealed from view. The professions of the Ministry, that their first and greatest object was to prepare the inhabitants of India for self-government, would have done honour to those who uttered such sentiments, and would have been more than consolatory to the Tory-oppressed population of the vast regions under the British sway. Words, in such a case, are things. They operate to give a new station in the social state to those of whom they are uttered. But, alas! the wretched reporters took effectual care to prevent the advantages of the publication of such words. Before I enter upon these subjects, I would, however, respectfully submit my conduct to my constituents on other measures of great importance; such as, The situation of the native inhabitthe East India Bill and the Anti-ants of India is deplorable, and yet it Slavery Bill. There was, besides, my has been much improved by the conbattle with the reporters; a battle of quest or acquisitions of the British. which I acknowledge I am not a little The new India Bill does not go to the proud. I am, I believe, the only man in Parliament who would have dared to attack the miscreant and mischievous power of the reporting press. I am, it is certain, the only person who ever succeeded against that power. root of the evil. It does little, indeed, to ameliorate the state of the natives. If that state were understood in England, it would excite much sympathy, and probably produce some redress. But the limits of a letter are insuffiThese, then, should be the objects of cient to explain the vicious and atrothis letter to present to your judgment cious conduct of the East India Commy conduct on the East India Bill, on pany towards the natives-the grinding the Anti-Slavery Bill, and on my attack and desolating effects of what is called "the land revenue." It is a system of ment has taken place, as in the districts monstrous and perfect oppression-it of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, the concombines all the evils of the five mis-dition of the peasantry is little, if at all, chiefs. First, a total uncertainty and alleviated; and nothing can demand precariousness in the tenure and occu- more of vigilant compassion than the pation of the land by the inhabitants deplorable state of all the cultivators of generally. Secondly, rack-rents assessed the land in a population of about one with some of the forms, but without hundred millions of souls. any of the guarantees, which justice There is another strange coincidence requires. Thirdly, absenteeism of the between the history of India and the sad real landlords, and absenteeism in its story of Ireland. The subjugation of the worst form. Fourthly, these rents col- former was only the enactment on a lected by the worst possible species of broader scale of the system of rapacity agents-persons who have not any in- and deception by which the latter was terest whatsoever in the prosperity of subjugated. The support given by the the natives, and whose interest it is to English to the weaker O'Donnell in extort or collect from the occupiers of order to put down his more formidable the lands the largest possible sums of competitor, O'Neill, has been one thoumoney in the shortest possible time: sand times imitated in India. The East these persons are called collectors of India Company, in all disputes between the laud revenue. And, fifthly, the the native powers, took part uniformly most defective and multifarious scheme with the weaker party, and generally or plan, or rather hotch-potch, of ad- with the worst title; and when their ministration of law. powerful aid placed on the throne the once weaker competitor, they soon taught him that he reigned not for himself but for his allies, and made him feel the full effects of British venality and British treachery. Only conceive for one moment all the oppressions of Ireland multiplied by themselves, and then the total inflicted on countless regions. You have thus some idea of the sufferings and degradations of the people of India; and what There is another point in which a is the excuse for the commission of this more faint resemblance to Ireland apoutrageous tyranny? Only this the pears in the Indian story-I allude to precedents set us by the Mahometan the state of Catholicity in our Indian powers who conquered a very large possessions. The number of native portion of India. By the Moslem system Catholics is comparatively great. It is of rule, the natives of countries con- calculated as certainly exceeding one quered by them were bound to embrace million of souls. If, indeed, any attenthe religion of the conquerors, or to tion had been paid by the British to the submit to extermination, unless they extension of Catholicity in India, it is purchased existence by the payment of probable that great progress would have one-half the gross produce of their been already made in the conversion of lands, besides other tributes. We have the great body of the natives. But the inherited the dominions of the Mussul-English preferred that the natives should mans-we insist on the right to half continue in the filthy and horrible suproduce. Thus our land revenue ought, by the very terms of its payment, to vary from year to year, as the amount of the crop necessarily varies with the difference of seasons and other circumstances. Who is it that does not perceive what an abundant source of exaction and oppression is thus opened for the practically irresponsible collectors of such a revenue? Even when a more permanent settle perstitions of Gentooism to their becoming Catholics. This is the great impulse unhappily of Protestantism, to calumniate and to hate what they call Popery, and to attribute to Catholics the horrible imaginings of their enemies, instead of giving them credit for the tenets we really profess, and then to act towards Catholicity as if it really was what its calumniators describe it. There is a curious illustration of this Protestant propensity to act with abhor- of any such persecution, but they have support. I do not intend that this The species of Gentooism professed by the native Ceylonese, was the religion of Buddha, an obscene and horrid religion, which had organized itself into a faint resemblance of the Christian hierarchy. In fact, that religion could not subsist for any length of time without The present plan of Indian governthe regular gradation of orders of their ment is a strange anomaly. It allows priesthood. Such, however, was the the East India Company of merchants success of the Jesuits and other Catho- to subsist, but it takes away from them lic missionaries, that the hierarchy of all commercial pursuits-it leaves them the Buddhists in Ceylon was broken up, the power of electing directors, and perand the religion itself was nearly extin- mits these directors to exercise a consiguished at the period of the Dutch con- derable degree of Indian patronage, but quest. What did the Dutch do? When it absorbs all the real powers of Gothey found that they could not put vernment in the Board of Controul, down Catholicity otherwise, they ac- that is, in other words, in the minister tually entered into an arrangement with of the day. It thus most enormously the King of Candy, who reigned in the increases ministerial power and ininterior of the island, and lent him a fluence. frigate, and fitted out for him an embassy, which they conveyed to the Isle East India Company was highly unfaof Java for a fresh college of Buddhist vourable to the British nation. It has priests. They brought these priests probably added thirty-six millions to back to Ceylon, and thus actually re- the debt commonly, but erroneously, established the Buddhist hierarchy, to called the national debt, because, taking preserve the natives from Catholicity! into consideration the great probability, Perhaps nothing in the history of man nay, the certainty of the recurrence of was ever more revolting. war in India, there are no resources adequate, in such a contingency, to defray the debt which the Government has The Indian Catholics in the British dominions have no complaint to make Again, the bargain made with the |