on prosecutions of innocent and
respectable men, sometimes for libels, which all publications were
construed to be that dared to talk of reform as a good measure, or of
constitutional rights as things to be desired; others for crimes of a
deeper die--for sedition and for treason. The evidence adduced in
support of these charges were often the vilest of the rabble, whose
testimony on the trials was discredited even by themselves, and the
prisoners discharged, to the honour of themselves and the detestation of
their accusers. Such was the case of the Drogheda merchants, on whose
trial came out proofs of subornation and perjury which would shock
credibility. These, however, were but venial errors, compared with those
more mortal sins against the constitution and against common right, with
which the Irish administration stands charged--sins, which including a
violation of general and vital principles, may be fairly reckoned among
those great and leading causes which have reduced Ireland to the
dreadful state of discontent and disorder in which she now stands.

Of these, one was the Convention Bill--a measure proposed by
administration, and adopted by the Parliament of that day, for the
avowed purpose of preventing the Catholics from collecting the sense of
their body on a petition to Parliament, or to the Throne, for the
elective franchise. This bill, if it did not annihilate a popular right,
certainly narrowed it to a degree which, in a great measure, under the
then existing circumstances, destroyed its efficacy. It had been one of
the special pleading tricks of the Irish Court, when the people
expressed their sense on particular measures, if there happened to be
any variations of mode or sentiment in the application of different
bodies, to take occasion, from these variations, to reject the whole as
inconsistent. This scheme had been practised with much plausibility on
the question of reform. No reform, they contended, was practicable,
which would content the nation; because of the many petitions which had
been presented from the different counties, cities, and towns in the
country, and of the many plans which had been proposed, no two were
found perfectly to correspond--as if when the general sense of the
people was fully expressed, no attention should be paid to it, because
there was not to be found in the various expressions of that sense that
perfect coincidence which on a general question of morals or politics it
is