e, that there was an organization
and direction by some superior authority. This organization has
certainly produced a state of society in Ireland which we have not
heretofore witnessed, and an aggravation of all the evils which before
afflicted that unfortunate country.

My Lords, late in the year, a considerable town was attacked, in the
middle of the night by a body of people who came from the neighbouring
mountains--the town of Augher. They attacked it with arms, and were
driven from it with arms by the inhabitants of the town. This is a state
of things which I feel your Lordships will admit ought not to exist in a
civilized country. Later in the year still, a similar event occurred in
Charleville; and, in the course of the last autumn, the Roman Catholic
Association deliberated upon the propriety of adopting, and the means of
adopting, the measure of ceasing all dealings between Roman Catholics
and Protestants. Is it possible to believe supposing these dealings had
ceased, supposing this measure had been carried into execution--as I
firmly believe it was in the power of those who deliberated upon it to
carry it into execution--is it possible to believe that those who would
cease those dealings would not likewise have ceased to carry into
execution the contracts into which they had entered? Will any man say
that people in this situation are not verging towards that state, in
which it would be impossible to expect from them that they would be able
to perform the duties of jurymen, or to administer justice between man
and man, for the protection of the lives and properties of his Majesty's
subjects? My Lords, this is the state of society to which I wished to
draw your attention, and for which it is necessary that Parliament
should provide a remedy.

_April 2, 1829._

* * * * *

_Emancipation claimed as the Price of the Union._

I am old enough to remember the rebellion in 1798. I was not employed in
Ireland at the time--was employed in another part of his Majesty's
dominions; but, my Lords, if I am not mistaken, the Parliament of
Ireland, at that time, walked up to my Lord Lieutenant with an unanimous
address, beseeching his Excellency to take every means to put down that
unnatural rebellion, and promising their full support, in order to carry
those measures into execution. The Lord Lieutenant did take measures,
and did succeed in putting down that rebellion. Well, my Lords, what
h