r with a
firm, yet quiet grasp to the last; with the whole strength of Lord
Grey and the Whigs struggling for it in front, and George Canning, a
still more dangerous enemy, watching for it in the rear.

In one of the Notes referring to the appointment of Earl Cornwallis to
the vice-treasuryship of Ireland, the editor makes a remark which
ought not to pass without strong reprehension. Earl Cornwallis,
towards the close of the Irish rebellion in 1798, had been made chief
governor of Ireland, at the head of a large army, for the purpose of
extinguishing the remnants of the rebellion, and restoring the country
to the habits of peace. The task was no longer difficult, but he
performed his part with dignity and moderation. He had been sent
expressly for the purpose of pacifying the country, an object which
would have been altogether inconsistent with measures of violence; but
the editor, in telling us that his conduct exhibited sagacity and
benevolence, hazards the extraordinary assertion, that "he was one of
the few statesmen who inculcated the necessity of forbearance and
concession in the misgoverned country!" Nothing can be more erroneous
than this statement in point of principle, or more ignorant in point
of fact. For the last hundred years and upwards, dating from the
cessation of the war with James II., Ireland had been the object of
perpetual concessions, and, if misgoverned at all, it has been such by
the excess of those concessions. It is to be remembered, that in the
reign of William I. the Roman Catholics were in actual alliance with
France, and in actual arms against England. They were next beaten in
the field, and it was the business of the conquerors to prevent their
taking arms again. From this arose the penal laws. To those laws we
are not friendly; because we are not friendly to any attempt at the
suppression even of religious error by the force of the state. It was
a political blunder, and an offence to Christian principle, at the
same time; but the Papist is the last man in the world who has a right
to object to penal laws; for he is the very man who would have enacted
them himself against the Protestant--who always enacts them where he
has the power--and, from the spirit of whose laws, the British
legislature were in fact only borrowing at the moment. Yet from the
time when James II. and his family began to sink into insignificance,
the legislature began to relax the penal laws. Within the course of
half