glaries 401, burnings 568, and so
on. The Bill gave the Lord-Lieutenant power to proclaim
disturbed districts, to substitute courts-martial for
the ordinary courts of justice, to prohibit meetings,
and to punish the distributors of seditious papers. Such
were the powers which Lord Wellesley described as more
formidable to himself than to the people of Ireland, for the
greater part of them were never exercised. The Act
produced the desired effect. In a year Ireland was
pacified; and the abandonment of several of the most
important clauses in the Act (contrary to Lord Grey's
wishes) was the cause which led to the dissolution of the
Ministry in the month of June 1834.]

London, February 22nd, 1833 {p.359}

Dined yesterday with Fortunatus Dwarris, who was counsel to the
Board of Health; one of those dinners that people in that class
of society put themselves in an agony to give, and generally
their guests in as great an agony to partake of. There were
Goulburn, Serjeant ditto and his wife, Stephen, &c. Goulburn
mentioned a curious thing _a propos_ of slavery. A slave ran away
from his estate in Jamaica many years ago, and got to England. He
(the man) called at his house when he was not at home, and
Goulburn never could afterwards find out where he was. He
remained in England, however, gaining his livelihood by some
means, till after some years he returned to Jamaica and to the
estate, and desired to be employed as a slave again.

Stephen, who is one of the great apostles of emancipation, and
who resigned a profession worth L3,000 a year at the Bar for a
place of L1,500 in the Colonial Office, principally in order to
advance that object, owned that he had never known so great a
problem nor so difficult a question to settle. His notion is that
compulsory labour may be substituted for slavery, and in some
colonies (the new ones, as they are called--Demerara, &c.) he
thinks it will not be difficult; in Jamaica he is doubtful, and
admits that if this does not answer the slaves will relapse into
barbarism, nor is he at all clear that _any_ disorders and evils
may not be produced by the effect of desperation on one side and
disappointment on the other; still he does not hesitate to go on,
but fully admitting the right of the proprietors to ample
compensation, and the duty incumbent on the country to give i