ment as commissioner of education and of justice. His chief source of emolument, the fountain from which his Pactolus flows, is in the revenue of Ireland; and, I conceive that, in his instance, a very unqualified job has recently been effected, notwithstanding all the boasted cleansing of that Cloaca Maxima, the Customhouse. I put all levity aside, because, in my judgment, the expedient by which an annual sum of two thousand pounds sterling has been given to him calls for decided condemnation; and furthermore, I am of opinion, that he is bound to resign his seat in Parliament under the Irish statute passed in the thirty-third year of the late King.

Mr. Foster was appointed counsel to the Commissioners of Customs and Excise in April, 1818. He succeeded Sir Charles Ormsby, with a salary of one hundred pounds sterling a year, payable by the Board of Customs, with certain fees on each brief. The Irish Board of Customs was annihilated by the Consolidation Act, which abolished the employments held under their authority. The office held by Mr. Foster was abolished as never having been necessary or useful, and the Lords of the Treasury recognise that abolition. If Mr. Foster has lost his original appointment, and in lieu thereof the Crown retain him (is not every information in the name of the Crown, and is he not its counsel?) "to act as counsel to the Board, with a salary of £2000 a year," to be payable without any reference to the extent or even the existence of business, this is a new office under the Crown; and if it be, he must resign his seat, under the 33d of George III., cap. 41, in which it is enacted, by section 4, that, "if any member of the House of Commons shall accept any office of profit from the Crown, during such time as he shall continue a member, his seat shall thereupon become vacant, and a writ shall issue for a new election." The 41st of George III. virtually re-enacts these clauses. In that event, Harry Mills and the Doctor will again parade the streets of Dundalk; Leslie Foster will again wipe the cold exsudation from his forehead with an orange kerchief, but he will not again be carried in triumph through the woods of Cullen, amidst the applauses of the yeomanry, the burras of the parson, the sexton, and the parish clerk, and the acclamations of the police.

THE CLARE ELECTION, IN 1828.

THE Catholics had passed a resolution, at one of their aggregate meetings, to oppose the election of every candidate who should not pledge himself against the Duke of Wellington's Administration. This measure lay for some time a mere dead letter in the registry of the Association, and was gradually passing into oblivion, when an incident occurred which gave it an importance far greater than had originally belonged to it. Lord John Russell, flushed with the victory which had been achieved in the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts,* and grateful to the Duke of Wellington for the part which he had taken, wrote a letter to Mr. O'Connell, in which he suggested that the conduct of his Grace had been so fair and manly toward the Dissenters as to entitle him to their gratitude; and that they would consider the reversal of the resolution which had been passed against his government as evidence of the interest which was felt in Ireland, not only in the great question peculiarly applicable to that country, but in the assertion of religious freedom through the empire. The authority of Lord John Russell is considerable, and Mr. O'Connell, under the influence of his advice, proposed that the anti-Wellington res

*

In February, 1828, Lord John Russell introduced a bill for the abolition of the Test and Corporation Acts (which subjected Dissenters to civil disabili ties on account of their religious faith), and it passed into a law that session, chiefly in consequence of the feeble opposition offered to it by Peel, then Ministerial leader in the Commons. In truth, Peel was just then in a transition state, having seen that the old Tory system of intolerance could not continue, and scarcely knowing how to change it. Observant politicians judged, when relief was afforded to the Dissenters, that justice to the Catholics must follow it did, in 1829.-M.

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olution should be with drawn. This motion was violently op posed, and Mr. O'Connell perceived that the antipathy to the Great Captain was more deeply rooted than he had originally imagined. After a long and tempestuous debate, he suggested an amendment, in which the principle of his original motion was given up, and the Catholics remained pledged to their hostility to the Duke of Wellington's Administration. Mr. O'Connell has reason to rejoice at his failure in carrying this proposition; for, if he had succeeded, no ground for opposing the return of Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald would have existed.

The promotion of that gentleman to a seat in the Cabinet created a vacancy in the representation of the county of Clare; and an opportunity was afforded to the Roman Catholic body of proving that the resolution which had been passed against the Duke of Wellington's Government was not an idle vaunt, but that it could be carried in a striking instance into effect. It was determined that all the power of the people should be put forth.* The Association looked round for a candidate, and,

* Clare Election, the unexpected result of which certainly compelled Wellington and Peel to grant Catholic Emancipation in 1829, took place under the following circumstances. The Catholic Association had resolved to oppose the election or re-election of any member of a Government hostile to the Catholic claims. On June 13, 1828 (the Duke of Wellington being Premier), Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, who had always voted for the Catholics, was gazetted President of the Board of Trade, the holder of which office is always a Cabinet Minister. On the 16th of June, he was also appointed Treasurer to the Navy. It is a constitutional rule, in England, that no office, having emolument attached, can be conferred by the Crown on a member of the House of Commons, without his thereby vacating his seat: which explains how, on a change of Ministry, Parliamentary business is usually suspended until the new officials have gono back to their different constituencies, for re-election or rejection. Mr. Fitzgerald, who was M. P. for Clare county, therefore, had to present himself to the electors; and did so, without any anticipation of rejection. Mr. O'Connell, on becoming a candidate, pledged h s professional reputation (than which none was higher) on his assertion that, f clected, he could take his seat in the House of Commons without taking the then usual oath that the Catholic religion was idolatrons. Mr. Charles Butler, the eminent Catholic barrister of London, well known as an erudite constitutional lawyer, unexpectedly backed this assertion by an elaborate argument which went to show that Mr. O'Con nell's view was right. The election commenced on June 30, 1828, and proceeded as graphically related by Mr. Sheil. The entire constituency of the

without having previously consulted him, re-elected Major M'Namara, a Protestant in religion, a Catholic in politics, and a Milesian in descent. Although he is equally well known in Dublin and in Clare, his provincial is distinct from his metropolitan reputation. In Dublin he may be seen at half-past four o'clock, strolling, with a lounge of easy importance, toward Kildare-street Club-house, and dressed in exact imitation of the King [George IV.]; to whose royal whiskers the Major's are considered to bear a profusely-powdered and highly-frizzled affinity. Not contented with this single point of resemblance, he has, by the entertainment of a score or two of tailors," and the profound study of the regal fashions, achieved a complete look of Majesty; and, by the turn of his coat, the dilation of his chest, and an aspect of egregious dignity, succeeded in pro ducing in his person a very fine effigy of his sovereign.

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With respect to his moral qualities, he belongs to the good old school of Irish gentlemen; and, from the facility of his manners, and his graceful mode of arbitrating a difference, has acquired a very eminent character as "a friend." No man is better versed in the strategies of Irish honor. He chooses the county of Clare was eight thousand, of whom two hundred were twenty and fifty pound freeholders and rent-chargers, while the rest were forty-shilling freeholders--the class who had beaten the Beresfords, at Waterford election, in 1826, and would have been disfranchised, by one of the " wings," had the Catholic Relief Bill been passed the year before. The polling terminated on Saturday, July 5, 1828. and the result showed-for O'Connell, 2,057; for Fitzgerald, 982: majority for O'Connell, 1,075. When the state of the poll was announced, the friends of Mr. Fitzgerald presented a protest to the HighSheriff, who was the returning-officer, claiming that Mr. F. be declared duly elected, because Mr. O'Connell was a Catholic, and had publicly declared that he would not take the usual oaths to sit in Parliament. The case was fully argued before the Sheriff and his assessor (a lawyer of eminence), and the result was that Mr. O'Connell must be returned as duly elected by a majority of votes: that the law did not disqualify a Catholic from being so elected; and that whether O'Connell would or would not refuse to take the oaths, to which he objected, could not be ascertained until his appearance in the House of Commons. So, he was declared member, and his first frank was on a letter communicating the intelligence to his wife. He exercised the privilege of franking (abolished by the penny-postage act in 1840) from the day of his election until the time after the Catholic Relief Bill was passed, when he was not allowed to take his seat without taking the old oaths, which he refused to do. - M.

ground with an O'Trigger eye, and by a glance over "the fif teen acres," is able to select, with an instantaneous accuracy, the finest position for the settlement of a quarrel. In his cal culation of distances, he displays a peculiarly scientific genius; and, whether it be expedient to bring down your antagonist at a long shot, or at a more embarrassed interval of feet, you may be sure of the Major's loading to a grain. In the county of Clare he does not merely enact the part of a sovereign. He is the chief of the clan of the M'Namaras, and after rehearsing the royal character at Kildare street, the moment he arrives on the coast of Clare, and visits the oyster-beds at Poldoody,f becomes "every inch a king." He possesses great influence with the people, which is founded upon far better grounds than their hereditary reverence for the Milesian nobility of Ireland. He is a most excellent magistrate. If a gentleman should endeavor to crush a poor peasant, Major M'Namara is ready to protect him, not only with the powers of his office, but at the risk of his life. This creditable solicitude for the rights and the interests of the lower orders had rendered him most deservedly popular; and, in naming him as their representative, the Association could not have made a more judicious choice. He was publicly called upon to stand.

Some days elapsed, and no answer was returned by the Major. The public mind was thrown into suspense, and various conjectures went abroad as to the cause of this singular omis sion. Some alleged that he was gone to an island off the coast of Clare, where the proceedings of the Association had not reached him; while others suggested that he was only waiting until the clergy of the county should declare themselves more

* In Phoenix Park, the suburban residence of the Lord-Lieutenant, a particular part, called "The Fifteen Acres," was noted as the place where the Dublin duellists generally had their little "affairs of honor." Duelling is nearly extinct in Ireland now.. -M.

†The Poldoody and Carlingford oysters were as popular in Ireland as the Colchester and Milton in London, or the Shrewsbury and East River in New York.-M.

Major M'Namara, who was O'Connell's second in the duel with D'Esterre, in 1815, was returned to Parliament, by his Clare neighbors, after Catholic Emancipation was obtained, and usually voted with O'Connell. He died much respected by all parties, but was a very commonplace man. — M.