he controversy, into the midst of which
he had so chivalrously launched. He brought forward numerous details;
but his facts were, as they say in Ireland, "false facts." He had not
investigated the science of political economy, or the condition of the
nation, but had only "crammed," as they say in college phrase, for the
occasion and the controversy. He had industriously read whatever was
written, and listened to whatever was said on the side of protection,
but had not followed the counsel of an ancient adviser--_audi alteram
partem_; and the result was that even the most transparent fallacies of
the Protectionists were uttered by him with an air of serious but honest
importance, as if they were truths which he was raised up irrefragably
to establish by new and original arguments. When a free trade in corn
was at last sanctioned by the legislature, Lord George continued to
offer an industrious, courageous, and ingenious opposition, and by the
vigour of his mind and the incessant energy of his attacks, kept up the
party life of the opposition, which he resuscitated and led. Lord George
looked upon himself as the champion of a class; to save or serve the
aristocracy, irrespective of the interests of the masses of the people,
was, in his opinion, patriotism, and he was willing "to spend and be
spent" in that service. Throughout the debates on the customs bill, and
upon the measures of reduction of duties generally which Sir Robert Peel
proposed, Lord George offered an animated and pertinacious, although
unavailing opposition.

At this juncture the state of Ireland was melancholy in the extreme.
Unlawful confederacies were formed among the peasantry and small
farmers, and outrages of the most sanguinary character were perpetrated
in the open day. Disaffection pervaded the masses of the Roman Catholic
population, and language of daring menace was employed towards the
government by the popular leaders of every rank, both in and out of
parliament. Neither life nor property was safe, in any part of the
country, except where the Protestants predominated. The loyal and
peaceable petitioned for some measures of protection, and this class was
indignant that the government did not propose laws which would afford
security to the well-disposed. Sir Robert Peel listened to these
demands, and prepared a bill, known as the "life-protection bill," which
was very stringent in its nature, and proposed utterly to disarm the
whole population,