the noble lord courts an encounter, foretels his own victories, and tri umphs in their anticipation in the House of Commons. Where are his means of discomfiting us? To what resources does he look for the accomplishment of the wonders which he is to perform? Does he rely upon the excitement of the religious and national prejudices of England; and does he find it in his heart to resort to the "no Popery" cry?Instead of telling him what he is doing, I'll tell the country what, thirty years ago, was done. In 1807, the Whigs were in possession of Downing-street, and the Tories were in possession of St. James's Palace, but, without the people, the possession of St. James's was of no avail. The Whigs proposed that Roman Catholics should be admitted to the nigher grades in the army and navy. The Tories saw that their opportunity was come, and the "no Popery" cry was raised. There existed, at that time, a great mass of prejudice in England. You had conquered Ireland and enslaved her; you hated her for the wrongs that you had done her, and despised her, and perlaps justly, for her endurance: the victim of oppression naturally becomes the object of scorn: you loathed our country, and you abhorred our creed. Of this feeling, the Tories took advantage; the tocsin of fanaticism was rung; the war-whoop of reli gious discord, the savage yell of infuriated ignorance, resounded through the country. Events, that ought to have been allowed to remain buried in the oblivion of centuries, were disinterred; every misdeed of Catholics, when Catholics and Protestants imbrued their hands alternately in blood, was recalled;-the ashes of the Smithfield fires were stirred, for sparks with which the popular passions might be ignited. The re-establishment of Popery,-the downfal of every Protestant institution, the annihilation of all liberty, civil or religious, these were the topics with which crafty men, without remorse of conscience, worked on the popular delusion. At public assemblies, senators, more remarkable for Protestant piety than Christian charity, delivered themselves of ferocious effusions amidst credulous and enthusiastic multitudes :-then came public abuses, at which libations to the worst passions of human nature were prodigally poured out. Rally round the King, rally round the church, rally round the religion of your forefathers,"—these were the invocations with which the English people were wrought into frenzy; and having, by these expedients, driven their antagonists from office, the Tories passed, themselves, the very measure for which they made their competitors the objects of their denunciation. Are you playing the same game? If you are, then shame, shame upon you! I won't pronounce upon your motives: let the facts be their interpreters. What is the reason that a new edition of Fox's Martyrs, with hundreds of subscribers, and with the name of the Duke of Cumberland at their head has been announced? Wherefore, from one extremity of the country to the other, in every city, town, and hamlet, is a perverse inge nuity employed, in order to inspire the people of this country with a detestation of the religion of millions of their fellow-citizens. Why Popery, with her racks, her tortures, and her faggots, conjured up in order to appal the imagination of the English people? Why is perjury o our God-treason to our Sovereign-a disregard of every obligation, divine and human, attributed to us? I leave you to answer those questions. and to give your answers, not only to the interrogatories which thus vehemently, and, I will own. indignantly I put to you, but to reply to those which must be administered to you, in your moments of meditation, by your own hearts. But, whatever be your purpose in the religious excitement which you are endeavouring to get up in this country, of this 1 am convinced, that the result of your expedients will correspond with their deserts, and that as we have prevailed over you before, we shall again and again discomfit you. Yes, we, the Irish millions, led on by men like those that plead the cause of those millions in this house, must (it is impossible that we should not) prevail; and I am convinced that the people of England, so far from being disposed to array themselves against us, despite any remains of the prejudices which are fast passing away in this country, feel that we are entitled to the same privileges, and extend to us their sympathies in this good and glorious cause. What is that cause? I shall rapidly tell you. You took away our parliament-you took from us that parliament which, like the House of Commons of this country, must have been under the control of the great majority of the people of Ireland, and would not, and could not, have withheld what you so long refused us. Is there a man here who doubts that if the Union had not been conceded, we should have extorted emancipation and reform from our own House of Commons? That House of Commons you bought, and paid for your bargain in gold; ay, and paid for it in the most palpable and sordid form in which gold can be paid down. But, while this transaction was pending, you told us that all distinctions should be abolished between us, and that we should become like unto yourselves. The great minister of the time, by whom that unexampled sale of our legislature was negotiated, held out equality with England as the splendid equivalent for the loss of our national representation; and, with classical references, elucidated the nobleness of the compact into which he had persuaded the depositants of the rights of their countrymen to enter The act of Union was passed, and twentynine years elapsed before any effectual measure was taken to carry its real and substantial terus into effect. At last, our enfranchisement was won by our own energy and determination; and, when it was in progress, we received assuraues that, in every respect, we should be placed on a footing with our fellow-citizens; and it was more specially announced to us, that to oporations, and to all offices connected with them, we should be at one admissible. Peuding this engagement, a bill is passed for the reform of the corporatio of this country; and in every important municipal locality in England, councillors are selected by the people as their representatives. This important measure having been carried here, the Irish people claim an extension of the same advantages; and ground their title on the Union, on Emancipation, on Reform, and on the great principle of perfect equality between the two countries, on which the security of one country and the prosperity of both must depend. This demand, on the part of Ireland, is rejected; and that, which to England no one was bold enough to deny, from Ireland you are determined, and you announce it, to withhold. Is this justice? You will say that it is, and I should be surprised if you did not say so. 1 should be surprised, indeed, if, while you are doing us wrong, you did t profess your solicitude to do us justice. From the day on which Strongbow set his foot upon the shore of Ireland, Englishmen were never wanting in protestations of their deep anxiety to do us justice: even Strafford, the deserter of the people's cause-the renegade Wentworth, who gave evidence in Ireland of the spirit of instinctive tyranny which predominated in his character-even Strafford, while he trampled upon our rights, and trod upon the heart of the country, protested his solicitude to do justice to Ireland. What marvel is it, then, that gentlemen opposite should deal in such vehement protestations? There is, however, one man, of great abilities, not a member of this house, but whose talents and whose boldness have placed him in the topmost place in his party-who, disdaining all imposture, and thinking it the best course to appeal directly to the religious and national antipathies of the people of this country-abandoning all reserve, and flinging off the slender veil by which his political associates affect to cover, although they cannot hide, their motives-distinctly and audaciously tells the Irish people that they are not entitled to the same privileges as Englishmen; and pronounces them, in any particular which could enter his minute enumeration of the circumstances by which fellow-citizenship is created, in race, identity, and religion-to be aliens-to be aliens in race to be aliens in country-to be aliens in religion.* Aliens! good God! was Arthur, Duke of Wellington, in the House of Lords, and did he not start up and exclaim, Hold! I have seen the aliens do their duty?" The Duke of Wellington is not a man of an excitable temperament. His mind is of a cast too martial to be easily moved; but notwithstanding his habitual inflexibility, I cannot help thinking that when he heard his Roman Catholic countrymen (for we are his countrymen) designated by a phrase as offensive as the abundant vocabulary of bis eloquent confederate could supply-I cannot help thinking that he ought to have recollected the many fields of fight in which we have been contributors to his renown. "The battles, sieges, fortunes that he has passed," ought to have come back upon him. He ought to have remembered that, from the earliest achievement in which he displayed that military genius which has placed him foremost in the annals of modern warfare, down to that last and surpassing combat which has made his name imperishable-from Assaye to Waterloo-the Irish soldiers, with whom your armies are filled, were the inseparable auxiliaries to the glory with which his unparalleled successes have been crowned. Whose 66 Lord Lyndhurst was sitting under the gallery during Mr. Sheil's speech. Mr. Shei looked and shook his head indignantly at him at this part of his speech. The effect produced was remarkab.e. The whole house turned towards Lord Lyndhurst, and the shouts of the ministerialists, encountered by the vehement outcries of the Conservatives, continued fcr minutes. The Times next morning observed: "A scene of the Corn Exchange character occurred the course of Mr. Sheil's speech, when referring to the expressions said to have been used by Lord Lyndhurst with respect to aliens. The honourable member for Tipperary turned towards the benches alloted to the peers, where Lord Lyndhurst was sitting. This was the sigual for the most infuriate yelling from the ministerial benches."- Times, February 23, 1857, were the arms that drove your bayonets at Vimiera through the pha- CIVIL WAR IN SPAIN. SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, APRIL 18, 1837. IF the learned member (Mr. Grove Price) had been born in Spain, he ought to have been returned to the Cortes, as representative of La Mancha ! What a strange anomaly will enthusiasm produce in even an accomplished mind! Despite his habitual horror for Popery, I question whether he does not regard the Inquisition as a venerable Conservative institution; and whether, in the event of the triumph of Don Carlos, he would not gladly journey across the Pyrenees, in order to witness the burning of the Quadruple Treaty at an auto-da-fe. The military and political character of the gallant member by whom this motion was brought forward gives it a peculiar interest. As a soldier, his opinions, when unbiassed, are of the highest value. And the part he plays as a politician is so conspicuous, that it is not unreasonable to conjecture that this motion is part of a combined plan of operations, by which a very important position is to be carried by the gal lant officer. But an additional interest is given to this question by the admixture of military with civil accomplishments. The motion was seconded by a profound, but unemployed diplomast, Sir T. Canning; an eminent negociator, once in the confidence of the Whigs, and now not undeserving Tory trust. There is a practical antithesis in the right honourable gentleman; for while for the Emperor Nicholas he has no strong personal relish, he is not without some propensity to the adoption of a Sclavonic policy at Madrid. I like to do justice; and I trust the right honourable gentleman will forgive me if I say, having heard him designate the noble lord (Lord Palmerston) as his "noble friend," I should think that the right honourable gentleman must have laboured under a very strong and painful sense of public duty, when he took a part so prominent in assailing the measures of his noble-and I believe he has foura him his faithful-friend. If that speech had been made under ordinary circumstances, perhaps no great consequence might have attached to it. But there is yet another view in which this motion is most important; it is an announcement of the policy intended to be pursued by the Tories upon their anticipated advent to power The right honourable member for Tamworth has recently intimated that he will, although with great reluctance, submit to the infliction of power; and he has also intimated that he would endeavour to manage a House of Commons better than Lord Melbourne (he says) can manage the House o Peers-and give this house an opportunity of atoning for that parricidal blow by which his official existence was suddenly abridged. It is as well that we should be apprised that the victory of Conservatism in St. James's will be followed by the triumph of Carlism at Madrid. I pass to the Quadruple Treaty. The decision of the house, upon this subject, must turn upon the general construction of the treaty, and the course pursued by the government. Let me examine both. What |