invite the French republic to become his auxiliary in an enterprise which should put the British empire to hazard. Full of a purpose, which at first view appeared to be as extravagant as it was criminal, he set sail from America, and arrived at Havre on the first of February, 1796 Having reached Paris, he found himself in a state which men less ardent, and with less fixedness of intent would have looked upon as desperate: he failed for a considerable time in obtaining access to any man in authority, and the little money in his possession was almost expended. He was without friends, without resources of any kind, and could scarcely express himself in the language of the country. It is, indeed, difficult to conjecture a state more utterly hopeless than that to which he was reduced. Yet, in the desolation of a great metropolis, he was upheld by that unalterable purpose, from which the aliment of his soul was derived. At last he obtained an interview with the minister of war His chief credentials, the documents on which he grounded his claim to the confidence of Charles Lecroix, were two votes of thanks, which he had received as their secretary from the Catholics of Ireland. Although Lecroix had never heard of him before, he was struck by his project, and sent him to General Clarke, whose family was connected with Ireland; but Clarke entertained such strange notions about the country from which his father had emigrated, that he inquired from hin', whether Lord Clare was likely to co-operate with the French, and whether the Duke of York would accept the sovereignty of Ireland, in the event of its conquest by the French republic. Tone perceived that little could be effected with Clarke, and determined to go directly to the President of the Directory, who was no other than the celebrated Carnot, to whose genius the marvellous successes of France were in a great measure to be ascribed. An interview was obtained, in which the victorious mathematician listened to the enthusiastic Irishman, with a not very unnatural distrust in the feasibility of his project. He slowly acceded to it, and it was proposed by the French Government to send two thousand men to Ireland. This suggestion Tone treated as an absurdity. His reasoning was so cogent, that he prevailed upon the Directory to resolve upon an expedition of eight thousand men, with fifty thousand stand of arms; but Hoche, who enjoyed the highest mili tary reputation, having been named to the chief command of the invading army, insisted on its being increased from eight to fifteen thousand men, with a large park of artillery, and arms sufficient to supply the insurgent population. The French Directory acceded to this requisition, and that large force, conveyed by seventeen ships of the line, sailed from Brest. While every good citizen must concur in the unqualified con demnation of the man, at whose instance the French Government embarked in an undertaking which, if it had been successful, would have entailed irretrievable calamity upon his country, yet when we look back at the circumstances in which Wolfe Tone was placed, and consider the difficulties with which he had to struggle, that his achievement was a most extraordinary one, must be acknowledged. How must his heart have beaten when he beheld that great armament, with its vast sails dilated in some sort by his own aspiring spirit, steering its course to the

is and where his cradle was rocked. where the bones of his fathers were deposited, on whose green hills his eyes had first rested, and on whose Lofty peaks, against which the Atlantic breaks in thunder, he felt assured that his triumphant standard would be unfurled. Happily for England, these visions of victory, when almost embodied in a fatal realization, were dispelled by the winds, called so justly "the only unsubsidized allies of England;" and by those auxiliaries, on which England cannot rely for ever, the want of wisdom and of foresight in the Government, and the want of an army to defend the country, when it was left wholly unprotected, was supplied. The French fleet was dispersed by a storm;-Hoche was blown out of his course with seven ships of the line; but ten sail of the line, with six thousand troops, reached the Irish coast. Wolfe Tone says that they were so near that he could have pitched a biscuit on shore. A landing might have been at once effected, but the Directory had given orders that the fleet should. proceed to Bantry Bay. Ten ships of the line did proceed there, with a force which might have marched to Dublin, and lay for five days in a harbour on the Irish coast. It is a most remarkable circumstance that in the absence of Hoche, the command of the army should have devolved upon Grouchy, in reference to whom these words are set down in the diary kept by Wolfe Tone: "all now depends upon Grouchy." After the lapse of nineteen years, upon the 18th of June, 1815, in what an agony of hope the great emperor directed his glass to the horizon in search of those battalions which he had confided to the same questionable soldier, expecting, to the last, that in the distance he should behold his eagles upon the wing to his rescue. That Grouchy was an instrument of Providence it may not be irrational to think, but that such implements of safety will always be provided it is not an article of faith to believe. Grouchy did not land; and Ireland was preserved. I have done with the incidents in the Memoirs of Wolfe Tone. His subsequent history, the two expeditions which he afterwards planned, and the last scene in his eventful life, in which be resorted to what Edmond Burke has called "the sharp antidote against disgrace,' to avoid the doom which, for those who are guilty of having failed, is proverbially destined,—are full of painful interest; but for the purpose which has induced me to advert to this book what I have said of it is sufficient. That purpose is different from that which may, perhaps, be imputed to me. But what I deeply deprecate, I may be permitted honestly to apprehend, and I own that the perusal of this book has excited in my mind an alarm, to which I think myself justified in giving expression. The voice of admonition is grating to the ear, but the reflections suggested by this volume ought not to be suppressed, however disinclined a minister may be to listen to them. I believe this country to be exposed to the most serious risks, in consequence of the fatal policy which the government are pursuing; I consider their security to be false, and believe them to be treading on the edge of a fearful peril. Who that sees the sleep walker advancing to the precipice. would heed how rudely he might awaken him, if by boldly grasping him he can drag him from the gulf?

In the year 1796, the Catholic population of this country did not

exceed three millions; it amounts to double that number. in 1796, the French republic had not recanted its profession of infidelity, and was deeply stained with the blood of martyred priests and pontiffs. The throne of France is occupied by a sovereigu anointed with legitimacy; the altar has been rebuilt, and the ancient Catholic Church lifts up its mitred and apostolic head. Attractive relations have arisen, where an intercept was created by many repulsive circumstances. The application of steam in naval warfare deserves to be taken into account, and more especially by Mr. Canning, who recently told us that moderv science had taken from the winds their proverbial fickleness." To that eminent man I would more peculiarly commend the memoirs of Wolfe Tone. He cannot fail to recollect, that not very long ago, when he made it his boast that from the recesses in which they were immured, he could let loose the popular passions, and sweep the French monarchy in a hurricane away, Monsieur de Chateaubriand, and Monsieur Hyde de Neuville, and Monsieur de Beaumont, indignant at this presumptuous intimation, pointed to Ireland with a fierce and retaliatory menace, and warned him and his colleagues to beware, lest France should be provoked to do what it was so obvious that it was in her power to accomplish. Mr. Canning must have been stung to the soul by this formidable retort: he acted wisely in not having noticed it in Parliament; but I do think that it is his duty to tell his associates, to whose fatal obstinacy the perils of this country are to be referred, that from the foes of England this disastrous advantage should be taken away, and that by an act of wise and timely justice a country exposed to imminent peril should be impregnably secured. Ile ought to go with this book in his hand into the cabinet, and plead for the emancipation of Ireland, with the memoirs of Wolfe Tone. There are men among his colleagues by whom he will be told that the Protestants of Ireland are a match for traitors, and that upon them, as the faithful and incorruptible garrison of the country, an unfaltering reliance may be placed. No man outertains a higher estimate of the courage, of the union, of the high and daring spirit of the Protestants of Ireland than I do. Their military qualities are inversely as their numbers. If England be sustained by that powerful body of adherents the likelihood is, that no matter how strongly seconded, France would be ultimately vanquished; but, to what a condition would Ireland be reduced, when the domination of England had been restored in its despotic plenitude, and the penal code in all its baneful vigour had been renewed. Torrents of blood would have been shed, millions of treasure would have been lavished, civil war raging in its worst and most frightful form 'would have left behind a desolation, to which, by those who made it, he name of peace would be assigned. In six months of a warfare, nore than civil, Ireland would recede more than half a century, and 'rom that retrogradation to barbarism, the Protestants of Ireland would hot most assuredly derive any advantage equivalent to the calamity which would have been inflicted upon their country. In the Cromweltian spoliation the misfortunes of Ireland were turned by the soldiers of he slaughterer of Drogheda to account. Conquest was followed bɩ

confiscation: but Protestantism is now seised in fee of the island, and of the national calamity nothing substantial could be made. The Procestant proprietors of Ireland are as much interested in the pacification of the country (which can be only effected by the redress of the national grievances) as we are. There is, indeed, a class of political sectaries whose livelihood is derived from their religion. The fouler as well as smaller birds of prey croak and flutter in the fear that the receptacles of ascendancy, in which their loathsome nests are built, should be disturbed. But a Frotestant gentleman of rank and fortune, who cannot be swayed by the same sordid considerations, should consider the permanent establishment of order, the reconciliation of the people to the government, the abandonment of all revolutionary purpose, the security of the country from all foreign danger, and from all intestine commotion, as objects which, at the sacrifice of his bad predominance, would be cheaply purchased. A Cromwellian proprietor views the tract of woods and lawns with which the piety of his puritanical forefather was rewarded, in all the pride with which the consciousness of long transmitted property is attended. The hope of transmitting his estate_to his descendants is one of the most pleasurable of his emotions. He devises his property in strict settlement, and, by complicated limitations endeavours to impart a feudal perpetuity to his possessions; and yet, an admonition, solemn as the warning of Lochiel, might, perhaps, be appropriately given him, that the time might come, when, amidst the shouts of insurgent onslaught, his mansion should be given to the flames; those dearer than his life-blood should lie slaughtered or dishonoured in that home in which they could no longer find a sanctuary, and horrors should be enacted, at the contemplation of which religion trembles and humanity recoils. That the daring intimations, to which I have been sufficiently venturesome to give this impassioned utterance, will be read by those to whom they are intended to be addressed with feelings of resentment, I do not doubt; but by the insensibility of Protestant Ireland to the perils which impend upon us all, a fearless adjuration is required. If I thought that by a reference to such topics, no useful purpose could be accomplished, I should not warn men of a peril which it is not in their power to avert. In the city of lava, with a burning mountain above, and with Herculaneum buried beneath, what would it avail to bid men listen to the roll of the subterranean thunder? wherefore speak of an eruption to those by whom Vesuvius cannot be extinguished? but it is in the power of those to whom I have addressed this intrepid invocation, to save themselves from the peril that overhangs them, and to put the volcano out.

COURT OF KING'S BENCH-TUESDAY, May 8, 1827

SPEECH, IN SHOWING CAUSE WHY A CRIMINAL INFORMATION SHOULD NOT BE FILED AGAINST MR. ENEAS M'DONNELL, AT THE PROSECUTION OF THE HONOURABLE AND VENERABLE CHARLES LE POER TRENCH, ARCHDEACON OF ARLAGH

Mr. SHEIL, after reading the affidavits, said: I have stated, at very considerable, I hope not at any unnecessary length, the affidavits of the prosecutor and of the defendant, together with the matter contained in the affidavits which have been filed in sustainment of the defendant's case. It remains that I should submit to your Lordships such observations as appear to me to arise out of the facts, and which in my judg ment, ought to induce the court to refuse a criminal information. It is right to state, in the first place, the principles on which this court exercises its discretionary power in allowing criminal informations. That they are entirely in the option of the court, will not be disputed. Still this court does not act in an uncertain and capricious spirit, but applies to the circumstances of every case a fixed standard of decision. In the case of the King against Robinson, Lord Mansfield laid it down that the court will not grant a criminal information where the prosecutor is himself to blame, or where considerations of public policy render it inexpedient. The question was connected with an election, and involved much popular passion. The words used by Lord Mansfield are remarkable. "There is," he said, "bad blood enough already." For that, among other reasons (but it was not the least cogent one), he refused the motion. In the present case, the political and religious animosities of two powerful classes of the community are involved, and I cannot refrain from asking, even at the outset, whether there is not already between the parties themselves, and the bodies which they respectively represent, a sufficiency of "bad blood?" The grounds on which I am instructed to rely are threefold :-the prosecutor is himself to blame, and does not come into court (to use the technical expression) with clean hands-the charges brought against him by the defendant are substantially established—and the subject out of which the differences between the parties has arisen is of such a nature, that the court will be loath to interfere. Who is the prosecutor? What are nis merits in the transaction? Is he entitled to any special interposition in his favour? These are questions which offer themselves at once to the court. He is the member of a powerful family, with an earl and and an archbishop at its head, which has devoted itself, with a verv ardent zeal, to the scriptural education of the Irish peasantry. Among the remarkable, Docter Trench has rendered himself conspicuous. He was once a soldier, and belonged to a profession whose habits are essentially different from those which are supposed to belong to his preseut occupation. His life, according to his own description of himself, does not appear to have been immaculate, and if he brought no other qur lification to the performance of his sacred duties, he seems at least to