hment. Do you suppose that men of their description do not
calculate on the events which are likely to happen? Do you suppose that
they do not read the history of past times? We have heard the noble
viscount talking of the history of the year 1782, and of the year 1798,
and of various other transactions. Let us look at the letters of Henry
Lord Clarendon, formerly chief governor of Ireland; and, having looked
at them, let any man ask himself whether the Protestants of Ireland have
not a right to conceive that matters are advancing rapidly to the state
described by that noble personage, and whether the same description of
power is not now growing up which exercised so enormous an influence on
the government of his day. I consider that the statements made by the
different peers who have spoken to night from this (the conservative)
side of the house ought to have, and I trust they will have, a powerful
effect on the Protestant mind of this country. At the same time that
these statements are brought forward, and the facts are made known to
the public, showing that neither property nor life is secure in Ireland,
his majesty comes down to parliament with a speech, in which he says,
"Ireland is in a state of tranquillity;" and yet there is not one
gentleman residing in Ireland who was not aware, when that speech was
delivered, that a general association had been formed and was in
existence in Dublin for the sole purpose of agitation--of that agitation
which, as Lord Wellesley told the country, was the cause of disturbances
as undoubtedly as any one circumstance ever was the cause of another. Do
your lordships suppose that the Protestants of Ireland are not aware of
that fact?

_April_ 28,1837.

* * * * *

_Lord Normanby's Gaol Deliveries_.

What was the next step of which the Protestants of Ireland complained?
The lord lieutenant, they say, went into the country, from place to
place, without having any communication either with the judges or with
the magistrates;--and that is a fact on which I greatly rely--the lord
lieutenant, they say, released at every county gaol which he visited a
certain number of prisoners. I have said, that the Protestants of
Ireland have a very peculiar interest in the impartial administration of
the law, and in the tranquillity of the country, because they form the
great body of its landed proprietors. They must look at such a
transaction with jealousy; and if there