The consequences have already developed themselves, and they have struck with dismay the very authors of the Reform Bill. The Globe tells us that there are sixty-seven members supported by O'Connell, standing for the Irish cities and counties, and that a great majority of them will to all appearance be returned. Mr Shiel boasts that the Repealers are already forty strong, and daily receiving accessions of strength; a force quite sufficient, by throwing itself into the scale when nearly balanced, to drive any Government into their terms. The Ministerial papers are daily firing signal-guns of distress for the effects of their own healing measure. On their recent allies, the Radicals, they have opened with unexampled fierceness: for them, in gratitude for their past services, they have invented the epithet of "the Destructives," which Tory malignity never yet thought of; and on these their leading journal has lately opened those floodgates of slang and abuse, which a few months ago were bestowed exclusively on the Conservative party. It is Ireland which has produced this consternation in the Ministerial ranks. They were fully warned, a hundred times over, during the progress of the Reform Bill, that this consequence would infallibly result from sweeping away all the barriers of the constitution in Ireland; but to all these warnings they were utterly deaf; with obstinate resolution they forced through the whole dangerous clauses of the revolutionary measure, and they now confess that the empire in consequence is on the verge of dissolution.

So vacillating, contradictory, and yet obstinate, has been the conduct of Ministers in Ireland, that they have contrived to accomplish what would a priori have been deemed impossible-viz. the union of Catholics and Orangemen in one common opinion. That common opinion is detestation of them and their measures. The Protestants, with reason, look upon them as the worst enemies Ireland ever saw; as the original authors of the fatal admission of Catholic influence into the House of Commons; as the patrons and rewarders of the greatest enemy to the peace of Ireland that time has ever produced. The Catholics regard them as men who have betrayed them into measures which they now punish them for pursuing; as having set the country

on fire by the promised extinction of tithes, which they are now supporting with the whole military force of the empire. In the universal obloquy which they have acquired, the supporters of the Union itself have rapidly and alarmingly decreased, and a portentous alliance of Catholics and Protestants has taken place, to support the severance of the island from British dominion.

O'Connell has treated the Government as all men deserve to be treated who, for party purposes and the maintenance of power, surrender the independence and spirit of freemenhe has turned upon them with indignation. Loaded with their honours, he has spurned them with contumely; rising from their caresses, he has turned from them with vituperation. The English newspapers have been for the most part afraid to print, even in these days of general license, the volley of abuse with which he has assailed those who lately loaded him with honours. The leading feature, says he, of Lord Anglesey's government, has been the immense quantity of blood which has been shed during its continuance; more lives have been lost in one year of Whig rule, than in fifteen of Tory domination.* The present Ministers deserve to be-No! we will not pollute our pages with the filthy abuse which the leader of the Irish bar out upon his loving benefactors. We have always opposed, and fearlessly opposed, the present Ministers; but we should deem ourselves disgraced if we applied to them the epithets which they have received from their revolutionary favourite.

pours

But the matter does not rest here. If their domestic dissensions led only to the exposure of the monstrous alliances which the present Ministry had formed to uphold their fortunes, they would be rather a subject of ridicule than lamentation. But unfortunately, graver and weightier consequences have followed in the train of this monstrous alliance. All Ireland is disgusted; the hatred at the Ministry is not only universal, but it has involved Great Britain in the obloquy. There can be no doubt, that the union of England and Ireland is more seriously endangered

* This is exactly what the French say, with truth, of Louis Philippe's government as compared with the fifteen years of the Restoration. It is curious to observe how, in different countries, similar systems produce similar effects.

by the measures of the present Ministry, than by anything else that has ever occurred. O'Connell openly boasts of this. Hear his own words:

"Mr Shiel's conviction, as to the necessity of repeal, was produced by the conduct of the British Parliament; and the administration of Lord Anglesea, Stanley, and the Attorney-General showed that, without repeal, it was impossible to do any service to Ireland. (Hear, and cheers.) He was proud to think that the enemies of Ireland were no longer to be distinguished by their religion, but by their servility. (Hear, and cheers.) Orangemen, Methodists, Presbyterians, can now be ranged amongst the patriots of Ireland; and he was most proud to be able to state this fact, that the first person who tendered a vote to his son in Tralee, was the Methodist preacher of that town. (Cheers.) Amongst the Irish patriots were to be found men of every persuasion, while the vilest and most servile, the veriest lickspittle'-(it was an unpleasant word to use, and which he should not pronounce in a public assembly, if he could find one equally expressive of the class he was describing)-but that filthy word particularly applied to the Catholic portion of the herd of slaves who were the most bitter and malignant enemies of Ireland. (Hear, and cheers.)"

In these circumstances, the salvation of the empire hangs upon a thread. If the Irish members generally support the repeal of the Union, there is no concealing the fact, that, in the present distracted and divided state of parties in this country, they may soon be able to dictate it to any Administration.

One only resource remains to hold together the falling members of the empire. The great and noble Orange party of Ireland are still firm to their duty, and to the integrity of the British dominions. Calumniated, maltreated, injured as they have been by the liberal measures, both of the present and the preceding Cabinet, they are yet firm in their allegiance both to the British crown and the British legislature. But let us not throw away our last chance. This brave and patriotic body may be driven to desperation; a drop may make the cup overflow. They are assailed by a reckless and desperate Catholic faction, strong in numbers, able in guidance, reckless in intention; men whom no bloodshed or conflagration will intimidate, no public suffering deter; who will pursue the objects of their own ambition, careless though the ruins of the empire were to overwhelm them in the pursuit. This terrible body has been headed, patronised, and flattered by the Government of England during the whole struggle on the Reform Bill, and nothing but the triumph of that measure has cooled the

VOL. I.

S

alliance, or made them sensible of the desperate danger which they ran in the attempt. Such a combination, a little longer persisted in, would have led to the dismemberment of the empire. It is by supporting, with all the might of England, the Orange party of Ireland, and by such a measure alone, that the crown of Ireland can be kept on the head of the British sovereign, or the independence of the British empire maintained. The Catholics will never cease to desire a severance-because it would lead, they hope, to a Catholic Prince and a Catholic Government, and the restitution of the whole estates, both civil and ecclesiastical, to the Catholic proprietors. Her Revolutionists will never cease to desire it, because it will at once occasion the formation of a Hibernian Republic, in close alliance with the great parent democracy of France, and place the agitators at the head of affairs. Her Protestants alone are prompted by every motive, human and divine, by kindred interest, religion, and loyalty, to resist the convulsion; and hitherto, through evil report and good report, through support and injury, they have stood firm in their faith. What madness if the affections of this great body, the sole remaining link which holds together the empire, is lost in the flattery of revolutionary passions! But that must be the consequence if the present vacillating system is persisted in, and the tried support of the Protestant Union is lost in the vain attempt to conciliate its Catholic enemies.

THE COMMERCIAL CRISIS OF 1837

[BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, AUG. 1837]

FOR the last nine months, distress and suffering in their worst, most protracted, and aggravated form, have been passing over the commercial world both of this country and America. Inferior to the great catastrophe of December 1825 in the pressure on the banks, and consequent general panic through the community, the crisis of 1837 has been infinitely superior to it in the lengthened suffering which it has diffused through the manufacturing interests, and the unparalleled distress in which it has involved the working classes. The greatest mercantile houses of Britain have been brought to the edge of perdition; some, whose credit a year ago stood as high as any in Europe, have sunk in the struggle; the prudent conduct and well-timed liberality of the Bank of England alone has averted a still greater convulsion, and possibly saved the nation from the horrors of a general bankruptcy. While manufactured articles of every sort have fallen a half in value; while the produce of the British customs has sunk £900,000 in a single quarter; while nearly one-half of the cotton mills of the island have been shut up, either from inability to find a market for their produce, distrust of the solvency of their purchasers, or the insane attempts of their workmen to keep up their wages by combination and outrage, in a period of adversity, at the high level to which they had risen in the preceding unparalleled prosperity-the distress universally diffused throughout the working classes has been unprecedented. For nearly six months, 50,000 hands have been unemployed in Manchester and its vicinity; the destitution of the silk-weavers of Spitalfields and Macclesfield has been relieved for a time only