readed
the execution of a duty which might involve a sentence of death upon
themselves. Rather than attend, they paid the fine for absence; or if
they attended, they were afraid to convict, even in the most atrocious
cases. The law-officers were, in fact, compelled to give up the
prosecutions in despair, and murder remained unavenged. In celebration
of this triumph over law and justice, the county of Kilkenny blazed
with bonfires, announcing to the world that the guilty had escaped
punishment. As for the "acquitting jurors," they were greeted with the
popular applause; and because they allowed murder to be committed
with impunity, the peasantry hastened in crowds to their fields in
harvest-time, and reaped their fields for nothing. Crime, therefore,
prospered; and the tale of murder was repeatedly told in the newspapers
of the day, while the perpetrators thereof escaped the punishment due
to their crimes. Yet no lament was raised by the political guides of
Ireland over murdered landholders and clergymen; it appeared to be, in
their sight, a just revenge. At the same time a long wail of woe was
heard throughout the country, if it happened that any of the resisting
peasantry were killed by the military in the performance of their duties
in securing the tithe. Four were thus killed in the county of Cork, and
others wounded, the military being compelled to fire in self-defence;
and Mr. O 'Connell immediately sent forth a letter to the reformers of
Great Britain, invoking vengeance. And yet this man, who could deplore
the fate of violators of the laws, could not find any cause for lament
in the deaths of the many clergymen and laymen who had been slain by the
infuriated peasantry. He could not find it in his heart to deplore the
fact that the blood of peaceful, respectable, and virtuous citizens, had
been shed on Irish ground; but he could palliate the conduct of their
murderers, and by his agitation virtually sanction the foul crime.

STATE OF THE CONTINENT.

During this year Don Pedro carried his threat into execution, of
attempting to recover the throne of Portugal from his brother by force
of arms. He had been permitted to levy men, and to purchase vessels and
shipments of arms and ammunition, both in England and France, and the
naval part of the expedition was placed under the command of a British
officer, who became a Portuguese admiral. The expedition sailed from the
rendezvous, in the Azores, on the 27th of Ju