Did this mean that if cess or rent or any other payment was withheld, except that of tithe, the lord lieutenant was to proclaim the district? He called upon the solicitor-general to say whether such would not be the natural inference, and whether such an amendment was not ridiculous and absurd? The solicitor-general admitted, that, under the clause, as it originally stood, the lord-lieutenant could not proclaim a district merely because tithe was not paid, and that it would stand much better without the amendment, which would certainly encumber it, and might give rise to the inference which Sir Robert Peel had suggested. Mr. Stanley, too, when called on to state his views of the effect of the amendment, said that, in his opinion, the clause would certainly be better without it, and that ministers agreed to it merely in deference to the opinion of the mover. The amendment accordingly having been limited, as Lord Althorp proposed, they divided in favour of it, though their own solicitorgeneral had declared it to be injurious to the bill; the majority for the amendment being 284, against 81, while the minority contained several of their own supporters. At a subsequent stage, Mr. Shaw moved the omission of this proviso, on the ground that it was absurd in itself, and would lead to very erroneous and injurious impressions as to the payment of tithes. Mr. O'Connell supported this motion, because the proviso was nonsense, declaring against that which was admitted to be nearly impossible; Mr. Stanley retained his opinion that the proviso was unnecessary, and left it to the House to deal with it; but, as a considerable majority of the committee had adopted it,

he would divide in favour of it. It was allowed to remain by 123 to 44.

Ministers, of their own accord, omitted, in the clause giving power to search for, arrest, and detain for trial, in proclaimed districts, the provision which gave this power to certain classes of persons mentioned, "and such other persons as the said lord-lieutenant shall think fit to authorize in that behalf." Mr. O'Connell wished likewise to strike out "all commissioned officers commanding his Majesty's forces in Ireland, or any part thereof," for these words were not strict enough to exclude yeomanry otticers. Mr. Stanley had no objection to limit it to officers of the line; but Mr. O'Connell would have military officers excluded altogether, and an amendment moved by him to that effect was supported by 40 members against 205.

The clause establishing the courts martial was more vigorously resisted than any other, its opponents not attempting to amend or soften it, but meeting it with a direct negative. To disarm this hostility, ministers had made important alterations in the clause since it left the House of Lords, and even since the second reading. These were detailed by Mr. Stanley. In the first place, it was intended, that no officer below the rank of captain should be a member of any such court. This would meet the objection of those who considered that, if officers of twó years' standing, and of 21 years of age, were eligible as members, the court might be composed of men of comparatively little experience. Another modification was, that officers should not be appointed as members of such courts who had been already harassed with daily and nightly

duty in the disturbed districts, and who, from that circumstance, might probably come to the courts with feelings less calm and unbiassed than would be desirable. In ordinary cases of courts-martial, the verdict was pronounced by a simple majority of voices in all cases, save where the penalty of death was awarded. The courts under this act, however, were not to be empowered to adjudge the punishment of death; nor even to try for a capital offence without the special leave of the lord-lieutenant, and even then they were not, on a conviction, authorized to pass sentence of death. The proviso which would be introduced for this purpose would enact, that where the court should consist of nine members, seven should concur in the finding, and when there were less than nine, five at least should concur; and in no case was sentence to be executed, until the finding and sentence had been submitted for revision to a higher authority. By the 15th clause, courts-martial appointed under the bill as it now stood were authorized to issue orders for bringing before them all persons charged with offences under it, and also for carrying their sentences into effect, and all jus tices, sheriffs, and others were bound to execute their orders. It was now intended not to give the courts such an executive power, but to confine them to merely judicial functions, except giving them authority to compel the attendance of witnesses, and to commit for refusal to give evidence. It was proposed to throw on the lord-lieutenant, or on those commissioned by him, the responsibility of bringing any person charged with offences before the court, leaving to the court only the judi

cial determination of the cases submitted to them. In no case ought these courts to be made instrumental to any civil process whatever. It was also desirable to keep from them the cognizance of all offences which were not of an insurrectionary character, and of words or speeches uttered, not accompanied by violence or threats. In the 27th Geo. III. there was a clause which involved the trial of a civil right. It was not intended to bring any case of that kind before those courts. It was also intended to keep from them the determination whether any matter was or was not a seditious libel. There would thus be taken from these courts the trial of offences for holding or being present at any unlawful meeting (so declared by the bill), and also for being parties to any confederacy or any conspiracy to defraud; also any charges for seditious libels, and offences under the 11th section of the 27th George III. c. 15; and for any expressions, unless accompanied by violence or threats; all which offences were to be brought for trial before the ordinary tribunals. It was further proposed to make an alteration in the preamble. The preamble would have these words

"And whereas the ordinary tribunals in the disturbed districts in Ireland, are inadequate for the trial of offences under this act, the lord - lieutenant or other chief governor or governors may, if he or they see fit, authorize the appointment of courts-martial for the trial of such offences, &c., in any such district so proclaimed." This would remove the doubts of some who imagined that the moment a district was proclaimed to be in a state of disturbance, it must necessarily be placed under martial law.

This, however, would not necessarily be the case. He was inclined to think that the courts-martial would be brought into operation in very few instances; but he had no doubt that the power of placing such districts under martial law would be found of great efficacy.

Notwithstanding all these modifications, ministers found the clause opposed, not only by those who had resisted the whole measure from the outset, but by many of their usual supporters, who were prepared to carry through the other parts of the bill. Mr. Cutlar Fergusson, Mr. Abercromby, one of the members for Edinburgh, Mr. Serjeant Perrin, and Lord Hotham, spoke and voted against it. This, they said, was by far the weakest part of the bill. There was not such an amount of evidence as to the intimidation of jurors-for it was the intimidation of jurors which was the ground of this clause-as to show, that the intended change in the administration of the law was necessary. It had been said, that when you overstep the constitution, you cannot go too far. But the only question was, did the necessity exist? If it did not, there was the limit; and wherever the constitution was overstepped, injustice was done to those who were entitled to its rights. The doctrine had hitherto been, that, when we trenched on the constitution, the more lightly we touched it the better. This doctrine was, it seemed, now to be reversed; but, in this instance, the enactment was so severe that it was calculated to produce terror and dismay. One would suppose that such an enactment was resorted to now, in order to enable others to infringe on the constitution hereafter with impunity. There could not be a more

mistaken or mischievous policy than employing officers of the army in capacities where political feelings might be called into action. These military courts would raise such powerful objections in the mind of the people of Ireland as no measure of conciliation could remove. They would cease to consider these military men as their friends, arrayed as they would be, under this act, against them. This measure would have the effect of completely changing the relations of the peo ple of Ireland towards the army. Was intimidation proved to have occurred in any one case, except that of the Carrickshaugh murders? Giving ministers credit for that case, was it not met by the cases in Clare, by the cases in Galway, by the cases in Kilkenny, by the cases in the Queen's County, and by all the cases at the present assizes? It would, however, appear by this clause, that ministers did not think the other provisions of the bill would put down agitation, protect the peaceable, and secure the property of the country. And yet, if the other parts of the bill were good for anything, they ought to be efficient for those purposes. Ministers had all the aid which the Special Constables' Act of last session, which a greatly increased military force, and a native police, could give. If these could not secure the safety of jurors, if these could not protect property, what was the use of this measure? If such available powers as these were not sufficient to put an end to disorder, how were courts-martial to effect that object? It was quite clear that courts-martial might fail in coming to a right decision on nice questions of law. And when it was said that such questions

could not come before them, what questions could be more nice or difficult to decide than those which were connected with points of evidence? Let first some legal tribunal be tried in the proclaimed districts; and if that were found insufficient, then this military tribunal might be introduced.-On the other hand, the defenders of the government considered this clause as the most important part of the bill; without it, no adequate protection could be afforded by the quick punishment of offences. In timidation was clearly proved. The general diffusion of intimidation was admitted; and how could jurors escape the influence of the feeling? Mr. Stanley admitted that, at the late Kilkenny assizes, held since this measure was introduced, there had been an unprecedented attendance of jurors; but he had no confidence in sudden conversions. If there had been a gradual increase in the attendance of jurors under a healthy system, there might be some plausibility in the argument; but when he found that at one time the court was deserted-that the ordinary civil business could not be proceeded in-that nothing was more common than the boast of the prisoners in the gaol, that no jury could be found that would convict them; and when he found that, suddenly, on the introduction of this measure, which was to provide a restraint on the lawless and turbulent, and to prevent agitation from exercising an influence over the people, there was a sudden and rapid influx of jurors, he derived anything but satisfaction and confidence from that fact. He traced in it a systematic organization, an assembling not to support the authority of the law, but to defeat its purposes. But even if he were driven

to another argument, he should contend that the influx of jurors was to be attributed to the confidence which the bill gave them, and which induced them to come forward. Therefore, whether this sudden influx of jurors was owing to the confidence of the well-disposed or to the artifice of the illdisposed, he saw in it an argument not against but in favour of the temporary employment of this measure. They had been asked, why not send down a standing commission to try offences as they occurred? There was nothing in the act which prevented the lord licutenant from exercising that power; and if he had reason to think, from the number of offences in a county, and from the readiness of gentlemen to come forward, that a special commission would answer the object of the bill, there was nothing in the bill which prevented him from trying the measure. He preferred the ordinary tribunals to any extraordinary measure; but the question was, whether we could he secure of a sufficient attendance of petty jurors to answer the purpose of a special commission? not, it was proper to give the lord lieutenant a discretionary power, to be used in the last extremity. Inquiries had been made at Kilkenny into the means of procuring convictions; and had there been any chance of succeeding, the judges would have proceeded from Maryborough to Kilkenny to hold a special commission; but it was found impossible. Jurors were now said, however, to convict all, right or wrong, guilty or innocent. This was not his statement-it was the statement of the member for Dublin. And, in cases of conviction, whence was the evidence derived ? In not one case in twenty were

If

convictions obtained by any evidence except that of police constables alone. If that was not a proof of intimidation in Kilkenny, he would abandon his case altogether. The member for Sligo had the other night referred to the answer of a witness examined before the committee, who declined to give an answer on the ground that his life would be in danger if he answered it truly; and the committee, though the question went precisely to the point of their inquiry, struck out the question. With regard to the suspicion of officers of the army being liable to be biassed by political feelings, he could only say, that the member for Waterford had let out the other night an important fact, that if a choice was given to the people of Ireland by what tribunal they would be tried, the answer would be a tribunal consisting of military officers, and he added, that he should prefer such tribunal himself.

Another section of the House again-members of the conservative opposition-expressed themselves much inclined to withdraw their support from this clause, because they thought that the alterations now made in the constitution of the intended courts, and the large subtractions from their jurisdiction, would deprive them almost entirely of that efficacy which alone could justify them. Mr. O'Connell, too, professed himself unable to comprehend what manner of things these courtsmartial would now be. Jury trial was to be abolished; and what were they going to substitute for it? Not a court-martial, but some bastard thing that was called a courtmartial, but, in point of fact, was not one. He meant no offence personally to the gentlemen who were

to serve upon it; but he must say that the country was going to have a packed court-martial, a rambling tribunal, undefined by principle, unlimited by anything like law, misshapen, ill-begotten, in a word -a mere embryo-a mongrel species of ambulatory court-martial, docked above and cut away below, which was neither fish nor flesh nor good red-herring. It had no power to try murders-no power to try those violent outrages at which good men of all parties naturally shuddered-no power to try political offences, for that power had very properly been taken from it. Thus, then, there remained nothing for it to try but the middle species of offences. But then the erection of these courts-martial was rendered necessary by the intimidation practised upon jurymen, and the Irish secretary, in arguing this question, placed the opponents of the bill in a curious dilemma. At the last assizes, the jurors for the county of Kilkenny did not attend. That was intimidation. At the present assizes they do attend; and that, said he, was intimidation again. Such were the miserable grounds upon which an intelligent people were to be deprived of their dearest rights. How then were the honest friends of Irish liberty to act, when they found that, whether jurors attended or not, their rights and franchises were to be equally destroyed? It was miserable, that the trial by jury should be the stake for which he was playing, and that such wretched counters as these should be set against so valuable and inestimable a prize.

On the division, ministers had a majority of 140 votes; 270 members voting for the clause, and 130 against it. Divisions likewise took