the victim of open violence, or secret assassination. Such an extensive
combination had been entered into to resist the payment of tithes, and
to protect all who might be implicated, that the ends of justice could
not be attained. Jurors were in danger of losing property and life; and
at Kilkenny the attorney-general even found it necessary to delay the
trials.

Government, as the year advanced, filled the disturbed districts with
troops and an augmented constabulary force; but no approach was made to
the restoration of order. The magistrates of the county of Kilkenny made
an unanimous application to the Irish government for stronger measures
to meet the crisis; but the lord-lieutenant stated in his answer, that,
from circumstances which had taken place, he had no expectation left of
any appeal to the law under the existing excitement proving effectual.
He sent, indeed, into that county three additional stipendiary
magistrates, and one hundred additional policemen; but this was
ineffectual: crime still prevailed, and resistance was successfully
made to the payment of tithes. In the meantime, the agitators and their
political unions, while they affected to deplore the perpetration of
the outrages which were every day occurring, did not cease to address to
their countrymen the same exciting language in which they had hitherto
indulged, and to devise new schemes and combinations for open resistance
to the law. It was quite evident, indeed, that they were at the bottom
of all the mischief that was afloat. It is true, they did not recommend
openly murder and arson, and that they preached passive resistance; but
they called upon every man to refuse payment of tithes, and in that call
was involved disobedience to the laws. Dublin was the seat of most
of the mischief going forward. From thence the agitators continued to
describe Ireland to its inhabitants as the slave of England, and to
denounce the existence of tithe. The remedy of the tithe-owner was
distraint; but in a few instances only could a sale be carried into
effect, and the clergy were at length compelled to give up all attempts
to enforce their rights, the more especially as the arrears, if the
measures proposed by ministers were carried, would become debts due to
government. Where-ever a sale was effected, all those connected with it
were objects of vengeance. Thus, in Kildare, a farmer who had purchased
some distrained cattle, was obliged to throw up his farm and l