utrage failed most
signally. The difficulty of arresting a suspected individual was great
in a country where a large force was always necessary. The difficulty of
procuring evidence against him was still greater; for even such as were
not banded in the conspiracy, had a greater dread of the reproach of
informer, than of any other imputation; and when these two conditions
were overcome, the last and greatest of all difficulties remained
behind,--no jury could be found to convict, when their own lives might
pay the penalty of their honesty. While thus, on one side, went the
agent, with his cumbrous accompaniments of law-officers and parchments,
police constables and bailiffs, to effect a distress or an ejectment;
the midnight party with arms patrolled the country, firing the haggards
and the farmhouses, setting all law at defiance, and asserting in their
own bloody vengeance the supremacy of massacre.

Not a day went over without its chronicle of crime; the very calendar
was red with murder. Friends parted with a fervour of feeling, that
shewed none knew if they would meet on the morrow; and a dark, gloomy
suspicion prevailed through the land, each dreading his neighbour, and
deeming his isolation more secure than all the ties of friendship. All
the bonds of former love, all the relations of kindred and affection,
were severed by this terrible league. Brothers, fathers, and sons were
arrayed against each other. A despotism was thus set up, which even they
who detested dared not oppose. The very defiance it hurled at superior
power, awed and terrified themselves. Nor was this feeling lessened
when they saw that these dreadful acts--acts so horrible as to make
men shudder at the name of Ireland when heard in the farthest corner
of Europe--that these had their apologists in the press, that even
a designation was invented for them, and murder could be spoken of
patriotically as the "Wild Justice" of the people.

There is a terrible contagion in crime. The man whose pure heart had
never harboured a bad thought cannot live untainted where wickedness
is rife. The really base and depraved were probably not many; but
there were hardships and sufferings every where; misery abounded in
the land--misery too dreadful to contemplate. It was not difficult to
connect such sufferings with the oppressions, real or supposed, of the
wealthier classes. Some, believed the theory with all the avidity of men
who grasp at straws when drowning; o