t a considerable distance. "Respect for
the great parliamentary personage kept all as orderly as if the fortunes
of a party hung upon his rhetoric," Mr. D'Israeli says. He ought to have
recollected, that the fortunes of a party did really hang upon his
rhetoric on this very occasion; for, to the uncompromising opposition of
O'Connell and his friends, may be fairly attributed the ultimate defeat
of this Coercion Bill, which defeat drove Sir Robert Peel from power,
and brought in Lord John Russell. As to some means or other having been
taken to publish a speech that had not been heard, there can be little
doubt but the reporters took it down substantially, with the exception
of the documents read. It was not O'Connell's habit to write his
speeches; where then could the means of publishing this one come from,
except from the reporters? He made several short speeches during the
progress of the bill, which were printed in the newspapers in the usual
way, surely they must have been reported in the usual way.

But this is a trifle: the most unkind and groundless assertion the
author of the letters of Runnymede makes, with regard to the man who
called him the lineal descendant of the impenitent thief, is, when he
says, that "this remarkable address was an abnegation of the whole
policy of Mr. O'Connell's career." This is strangely inexact: nay more,
if Mr. D'Israeli heard the speech, as is to be inferred, or if he read
it, it is disingenuous. The speech was a bold denunciation of the system
of evictions, carried out by Irish landlords, to which O'Connell
attributed the murders the Government relied on, to justify them in
bringing forward the Coercion Bill. Speaking of the murder of Mr.
Carrick, he said: "here again let me solemnly protest--I am sure I need
not--that I do not consider any of these acts as an excuse, or a reason,
or even as the slightest palliation of his murder (hear, hear); no, they
are not, it was a horrible murder; it was an atrocious murder; it was a
crime that was deserving of the severest punishment which man can
inflict, and which causes the red arm of God's vengeance to be suspended
over the murderer (hear, hear)." But he adds: "I want the House to
prevent the recurrence of such murders. You are going to enact a
Coercion Bill against the peasantry and the tenantry, and my object is,
that you should turn to the landlords, and enact a Coercion Bill
against them." Who but Mr. D'Israeli can perceive any abneg