, at the time these commotions took place, was
enjoying the pleasures of conviviality in Ireland, expressed in somewhat
contemptuous terms his dissatisfaction at the want of arrangement and
energy on the part of ministers. But this seemed to proceed from the
failure of their plans rather than from any respect to his deceased
queen. She was persecuted even to the last. In the course of the
procession Sir Robert Wilson remonstrated with some soldiers on duty,
and this humane interference deprived him of his commission; the
directing civil magistrate, also, who consulted humanity in preference
to his orders, was dismissed from office. It was unmanly to persecute
the departed while in the land of the living; it was unworthy of manhood
to carry resentment beyond the grave.

MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.

{A.D. 1822}

On the meeting of parliament in January, one of the first subjects taken
into consideration was the state of Ireland. For some years that country
had been comparatively peaceable, but distress and outrage were again
walking hand in hand in every part. To repress the spirit of lawless
outrage, the Marquess of Londonderry--Lord Castle-reagh, who had
succeeded to that title at his father's death--introduced and carried
two bills for arming the administration with additional powers, the
insurrection act, and the suspension of the _habeas corpus_. Several
members wished the state of Ireland to be thoroughly investigated; but
this did not accord with the views of ministers. At length a famine,
from the failure of the potatoe-crop in 1821, spread over the country,
and disease waited in its train. A fever, of the typhus kind, swept
off its thousands, while starvation carried off its thousands more.
Government, on discovering this, placed L500,000 at the disposal of Lord
Wellesley, the lord-lieutenant, to be dispensed in charitable relief,
or in employing the poor on works of public utility, and private charity
afforded even more effectual aid; but still the people of Ireland could
not be wholly rescued from the calamity which had overtaken them. Many
were snatched from the jaws of death by this timely relief, but many
more perished.

CHANGES IN THE CABINET.

The continued distress of the agriculturists in England, at the
commencement of this year led to some modification in the state of
public parties. At many county meetings such a loud and imperative call
for retrenchment and remission of taxation, was made