vessels. The Government have very properly sent a large naval force to the coasts of Ireland; but we have not heard that any communications between them and the interior have been organized.

Another more permanent and still more important measure, and one that it is surprising should have been so long omitted, would be the erection of a certain number of fortifications—or we should rather say fortified places of refuge-both in the interior and on the coast. They should be placed in the districts least accessible to other protection, and should be calculated to afford shelter to the persons, cattle, and other movable property of the Loyalists. This was an old precaution in Ireland, where there were numerous instances of the castle and its bawn,' which was a strong inclosure attached to a fortified residence, in which the cattle of the lord and his tenants were secured against depredation. They need not for this purpose be what is technically called strong-it would be sufficient to make them capable of resisting a coup de main. At the same time we should be disposed to recommend four or five of these works of a superior military strength. It is very strange that, in a country twice invaded, and constantly threatened during the Great Revolutionary war, there should have been erected no fortified place to impede or even embarrass an enemy's army. The harbour of Cork has been fortified with considerable expense, and there is something like a fort at the Pigeon-house on the Bay of Dublin, and another small one at the mouth of Waterford harbour-all proper enough for the protection of military and naval stores lodged there, and to secure those points of communication with England, but of no value whatsoever for internal defence. There were also some works at Athlone, and a small ancient fort at Charlemont; but there is not, that we know of, in Ireland any other place that could keep out even a mob armed with pikes, except always the glorious old walls of Derry, which the pride and the prudence of that loyal city have fortunately preserved. These could not effectually resist a modern siege; but they would, if the inhabitants should be, as we trust they would again be, animated by the spirit of 1689, set mere rebellion at defiance, and would at least embarrass and delay, if they did not baffle, an invading army that should not have time and means for a regular siege. Those who remember the interior state of Ireland during the rebellion and invasions of 1798 and 1799 must remember also the comfort and security which the old walls of Derry gave to their inhabitants and to the neighbouring country. It is not for us to enter into any technical details on this point-but we cannot but express a strong and

2R 2

anxious

anxious opinion that such works as these would be infinitely more important to the safety of the empire than the extensive and expensive works now in execution as well as in contemplation on the coasts of England. Does any rational man believe that we are so vulnerable in Sussex or Hampshire as in Clare and Tipperary?

There is still another, temporary but not unimportant, consideration to be superadded. If the Government be driven, as it seems too probable, to find work to save the people from famine, these local works of defence would afford a useful resource. They would, it is true, give most help to classes that would want it least-masons, bricklayers, carpenters, and other artizans,but there would still be much room for less skilful labour; and if some half-dozen regular fortifications were to be erected— citadels near large towns, or fortresses in the interior-the works required for them would occupy a great deal of mere bodily labour. In short, without expecting too much from this source, we may say that at least it has this advantage-that the proposed constructions-necessary, as we think, in themselves-would be extremely opportune both for employing labour and intimidating rebellion. It would be a pleasant and gratifying Hibernianism to see the starving peasantry fortifying Sleive-na-mann-against themselves!

The barracks for the Troops and the Police, particularly in the country parts, should be systematically constructed on this defensive plan. We have seen in the recent disturbances strong instances of the danger of neglecting to strengthen the police stations with material defences. The Illustrated London News of the 24th of September gives a view of the police barrack of Aheny destroyed by the rebels in the recent outbreak, which shows better than any verbal argument the absurdity of the existing system. Instead of a little wooden paling round a cottage no more defensible than any cottage in the neighbourhood, there should have been a good stone wall, with a gate protected by a salient angle. Such a station would not have been taken, but it would not have been even attacked. Every barrack and police station should, therefore, be immediately made capable of resisting at least a mob; and their positions, instead of being, as they have hitherto been, the results of accident or jobbing, should be determined by military considerations of defence for themselves, and communication with and protection of the loyalist population wherever there is one. These measures of protection for the Police themselves and for the Loyalists seem to us of urgent importance, and we are well satisfied that the expense

not

not great in itself-would be altogether inconsiderable when compared with the extensive moral as well as material effect of such a system for loyal organization.

There is another subject of more delicacy, but on which we cannot omit saying a few words- -we mean the choice of the agents of the Government. Ever since the alliance of O'Connell and the Whigs, the whole, or at least a vast preponderance, of the patronage of the Government has been bestowed on Romanists, for no other reason than that they were Romanists-nay, on Romanists who had distinguished themselves as agitators, associators, repealers, and, in short, as enemies of British connexion. We have on a former occasion frankly admitted the good policy as well as justice of giving to the Romanist Loyalists as large a measure of countenance and favour as their abilities would justify -nay, in consideration of the small number of the class, we are inclined to approve a very liberal estimate of the individual merits. But the Whig practice has been not merely to dispense with any personal capacity or merit, but to select for favours absolute incapacity and demerit. We are unwilling to descend into details of this nature, but it is generally notorious in Ireland that offices have been filled with a scandalous inconsistency between the duties which public functionaries ought to perform and the mischievous principles they had antecedently professed.

We were inclined to say something on the conduct of state trials in Ireland, and on the strange acquittal of Messrs. O'Brien and Meagher, and of the causes of so profligate an abuse of the power of individual jurymen. In Meagher's case, when the jury was brought before the judge to be discharged, one of them indignantly exclaimed- My Lord, we are agreed to a conviction, eleven to one, and that one is a Roman Catholic.' The trials now pending at Clonmell induce us to forbear for the present any further discussion of these important questions. We shall only say generally that, whatever be the result of the approaching trials, we hope that Lord Brougham may again introduce-and we are satisfied he would now carry-the Change of Venue Bill, which he was induced, by the mistaken policy of Sir Robert Peel's Government, to abandon in 1843. The principle of that Bill was founded in common sense: it is the law of Scotland, and must become, we venture to assert, the law of Ireland.

Finally, the last and not least important suggestion that we venture to make for the pacification of Ireland is, that the tone and spirit of the Administration should be brought into a bold and perfect consistency with the one or two vigorous measures of the last session. We have in the earlier part of our article given some samples of the unfortunate views in which the Whigs in

general,

general, and Lord John Russell in particular, have dealt with English and Irish sedition. His Lordship, we have little doubt, has entirely changed those false and mischievous opinions-his Irish measures seem to prove it, and his Irish friends—now, we believe, no longer his friends-appear to know it. Let him then honestly avow the change. They talk of his being in peril of some exposure at the approaching trials for having heretofore dabbled in factious and even seditious movements. We can easily give credit to the former, and should not be surprised at the latter. He was, as we have been inculcating these many years, mischievously giddy and intemperate. And we know not how he could have acted much more imprudently than in the cases we have specified. We hope that experience has corrected him—if so, let him say so. It may be a painful, but it will be an honourable confession, and once made he will find himself at ease in the discharge of his public duties. He owes his country that reparation; and if he makes it frankly, and pursues it honestly, the public will gladly condone earlier errors, and Lord John Russell, purified from those stains, may, if he pleases, conciliate a support both in and out of Parliament more solid, more honourable, and in every way more conducive to the good government of the country than the false, hollow, and hypocritical help of English agitators and Irish demagogues, on which he has so long, so blindly, and so deplorably relied.

INDEX

TO THE

EIGHTY-THIRD VOLUME OF THE QUARTERLY REVIEW.