ing else than the admitted disaffection to the
law of the land prevailing among large numbers of Irish people. The
existence of this disaffection, whatever be the inference to be drawn
from it, is undeniable. A series of so-called Coercion Acts, passed both
before and since the Act of Union, give undeniable evidence, if evidence
were wanted, of the ceaseless and, as it would appear, almost
irrepressible resistance in Ireland offered by the people to the
enforcement of the law. I have not the remotest inclination to underrate
the lasting and formidable character of this opposition between opinion
and law, nor can any jurist who wishes to deal seriously with a serious
and infinitely painful topic, question for a moment that the ultimate
strength of law lies in the sympathy, or at the lowest the acquiescence,
of the mass of the population. Judges, constables, and troops become
almost powerless when the conscience of the people permanently opposes
the execution of the law. Severity produces either no effect or bad
effects; executed criminals are regarded as heroes or martyrs; and
jurymen and witnesses meet with the execration and often with the fate
of criminals. On such a point it is best to take the opinion of a
foreigner unaffected by prejudices or passions from which no Englishman
or Irishman has a right to suppose himself free.

"'Quand vous en etes arroes a ce point, croyez bien que dans cette voie
de regueurs tous vos efforts pour retabler l'ordre et la paix seront
inutiles. En vain, pour reprimer des crimes atroces, vous appellerez a
votre aide toutes les severites du code de Dracon; en vain vous ferez
des lois cruelles pour arreter le cours de revoltantes cruautes;
vainement vous frapperez de mort le moindre delit se rattachant a ces
grands crimes; vainement, dans l'effroi de votre impuissance, vous
suspendrez le cours des lois ordinaries proclamerez des comtes entiers
en etat de suspicion legale, voilerez le principe de la liberte
individuelle, creerez des cours martiales, des commissions
extraordinaires, et pour produire de salutaires impressions de terreur,
multiplierez a l'exces les executions capitales.'"[55]

The next passage is a trenchant condemnation of the "Union."

"There exists in Europe no country so completely at unity with itself as
Great Britain. Fifty years of reform have done their work, and have
removed the discontents, the divisions, the disaffection, and the
conspiracies which marked the firs