I withstood his impotent rage, unmoved by the vile calumnies to which it gave utterance-that his slanders were to me but as play-things to a boy, which, after amusing him, he flings to the wind-that in him we recognised an epitome of those odious peculiarities which distinguish the heartless Orangemen, and that his monstrous audacity in coming into an assembly of Catholics, whom he charged with the vilest atrocities, but dared not to support by one proof, served but to excite our quiet contempt; whilst we could not withhold our pity at his early desertion of all those amiable and honourable feelings and principles necessary to the profession of a Christian, and to discharging the duties of a good citizen and a good subject !

And now, Sir, having thus instructed this intemperate youth, let us proceed with the business of the day.

The speaker sat down amid general and hearty cheering.

The

MR O'CONNELL was followed in his animadversions upon the party who had made this interruption by Mr. Shiel and Mr. Kirwan; the latter of whom having used some strong language, was called upon by the unknown for his card. would-be challenger, however, refusing to state his own name, &c., his request was declined, and he speedily after made the best of his way out of the place. When this matter was concluded, the business of the day re-commenced.

CATHOLIC BARRISTERS.

MR. O'CONNELL proceeded to move his resolution respecting the statements of Mr. Goulburn, that appointments to the value of £3,000 per annum had been bestowed, under the Marquis of Wellesley's government in Ireland, upon Catholic Barristers.

Mr. O'Connell said, that he was aware he laid himself open to the stupid satire of The Correspondent, which would, no doubt. accuse him of envy, at not having obtained some of those appointments, which the law declared him eligible to; but the whole course of his public career, and the principles he professed on the subject of Parliamentary Reform, made it impossible (supposing he wished for it) to expect any situation from government. No love of power, no desire of emolument, should ever induce him to flatter the vices of the great, or assail the honest exertions of the poor. He had thus commenced with alluding to himself, in order to exclude from the subject the ribaldry o igotry, or the feelings of personal disappointment, with which

e might be assailed or accused. It was stated that there were no means of ascertaining how many Catholic barristers were at the Irish bar; but nothing was more easily known, for there was a separate roll of them kept in the Chancery registry, and there were at this moment one hundred and fifty Catholic barristers at the Irish bar, not one of whom enjoyed any professional appointment under government. The administration of the Marquis Wellesley made not the slightest difference as to the distribution of preferment or appointment amongst the Catholic barristers; yet Mr. Goulburn (then Secretary for Ireland) had modestly taken credit for appointments to the value of £3,000 per annum amongst Catholic barristers!

Mr. Goulburn's statement was given in the newspapers in the plural number. Now it was unquestionably a fact, that an Irish Catholic had received an appointment to that amount, and it was equally true, that the appointment was well bestowed; that the gentleman is attentive to his duties, that he thoroughly understands his business, and has given general satisfaction to the profession and the suitors; and he would further vouch for Mr. Blake, that any thing said in that meeting would have no influence upon his (Mr. Blake's) mind in the discharge of his duties. So much could not be said in other offices, where a more peculiar mode of doing business prevailed. He (Mr. O'Connell) made that observation because he had known, felt, and experienced the fact. He could speak of these circumstances with pride, because of the contrast; but that appointment, though it may add to the credit of Catholic talent, was no compliment paid to the Catholic bar of Ireland, nor could Mr. Goulburn take credit for it. Mr. Blake had risen to a proud eminence at the English bar, and he made a sacrifice of higher emoluments than his present office to the friendship of the Marquis Wellesley, whose esteem he was fortunate enough to obtain.

He (Mr. O'Connell) did not mean to censure the Marquis Wellesley-much less to attribute to him any hostile feelings towards Catholic aspirants, when he commented upon the neglect of the Catholic bar; for the Marquis, if he had it in his power, there was no doubt, would give the Catholics fair play: he had made the experiment, and they all knew the result; but he (Mr. O'Connell) ventured to blame the illustrious Wellesley, because with a sad forgetfulness of what was due to his own reputation, and of the position, in the eyes of the people of the three kingdoms, to which his high qualities had elevated him ae had descended to trail his laurels and his honours in the dust

;

and mire of that party which insulted his person and would sully his fame.

The learned gentleman proceeded to state, that having so proudly referred to Mr. Blake's discharge of his official duties, he could, with equal satisfaction, refer to the administration of justice through more officially important, though less exalted individuals. On his (Mr. O'Connell's) circuit he was generally employed for the most of the unhappy criminals; and whilst it was indispensably necessary for Catholics to challenge Protestant jurors, there was scarce an instance of Orangemen challenging Catholic jurors. When he (Mr. O'Connell) alluded to the necessity of challenging Protestant jurors, he begged to be understood as meaning ORANGE Protestants; he should be sorry to confound the terms, or to consider them synonymous.

Mr. O'Connell then adverted to the period of Mr. Saurin's having filled the office of Attorney-General, when that reckless partizan and Lord Manners had, in fact, the command of the country for sixteen or seventeen years. During that time there was, as it were, a premium upon the avowal by any member of the bar of sentiments of illiberality and intolerance-sentiments that previously no man would have had the evil courage of publishing and proclaiming.

Latterly, however, there has been a considerable improvement amongst the learned body-a return to the better practice of former times; but assuredly Mr. Goulburn had no right and should not be allowed to take credit for it. There was another matter to advert to, viz.:-Mr. Goulburn's statement of the constabulary appointments, of which he said one-half were Catholics. Now although there was no great stretch of liberality where the Catholics were fifty to one, yet he (Mr. O'Connell) could vouch for the accuracy of the statement as respected the county of Kerry, and what was the consequence? Why, that that county was the only one in which there had not been murders and aggressions by the police, and although it had been one of the most disturbed counties in the kingdom, it was now the most tranquil.

But was that owing to Mr. Goulburn? No-because the magistracy of the county Kerry kept the appointments of the constables to themselves.

But if the English ministry took their stand for liberality in the appointment of a portion of Catholic policemen, he (Mr. O'Connell) assured them he should defeat all their boasted liberality by the mention of as monstrous an act of intolerance and

bigotry as had ever come within his knowledge. He could give all the particulars if required. The case was this: a gentleman, a major in the army, who had served during the Peninsular war, having received a wound in the knee, was obliged to retire fron. the service. This gentleman applied to an English member of parliament, the representative of one of the most important mercantile towns in England, and requested his interference with the minister to procure him the appointment of a chief constable in a police district in Ireland. The member took a memorandum of the major's services, and felt confident of his success with the minister, upon whom he afterwards waited. The minister promised compliance; but after the next interview the member asked the major, as his name was rather a Popish one, if he had many Papist relations. The minister suggested that that might be the case. The major declared he had, and that he was a Papist himself; and upon the member informing the minister of that circumstance, he was told that the major could not be appointed. (Hear, hear, hear.)

That was a fact for the truth of which he (Mr. O'C.) pledged himself.

Mr. O'Connell concluded by moving a resolution, declaring, that since the Catholic barristers became eligible to many offices, that not one had been appointed by the government.

The resolution passed unanimously.

Of Mr. Goulburn's personal liberality, while in the office of Secretary for Ireland, the following circumstance will enable the reader to form a judgment.

The excellent and truly respected Mr. Bianconi, of Clonmel-at present a considerable land proprietor of the county Tipperary, and holding a position of deserved weight and importance, was at the time of Mr. Goulburn's secretaryship in Ireland, engaged in his first efforts to build up the handsome fortune that has rewarded his extraordinary energy and perseverance. Mr. Bianconi had

started a number of large stage-cars, to carry travellers and goods, in screr Counties of the south of Ireland; and in the prosecution of his enterprise, had found his arrangements much embarrassed by the operation of some of the petty annoyances to foreigners embodied in the then existing ALIEN ACT. Mr. Bianconi, it cannot be necessary to say to an Irish reader, is a foreigner-an Italian, a native of Bologna, in the north of Italy, which he had left while yet a boy, and whence he had wandered, somehow or other, all the way to Ireland, in almost utter poverty and without friends. Here the chance sale of a scanty stock of plaster images that he carried on his head, had given him some trifling means, which with that extraordinary prudence and management that have distinguished him throughout life, he contrived so well to husband and lay out as gradually to accumulate more; until at length he set about what has been the occupation of his life and the foundation of his fortunes-the originating a sys tem of cheap, facile, and convenient stage communication between the markettowns of Ireland. In the course of the development of his scheme, he had, as we

have mentioned, found himself much crippled and embarrassed by the enactments bearing against him as a foreigner; and being advised to look for the privilege of "denizenship," which would secure him against these annoyances, applied to the Irish government, through Mr. Goulburn, the proper channel, for the concession of that privilege. An old law of the sectarian Irish Parliament gave it at once to a foreign Protestant; but it depended on the favour of the governmen whether the letter of the Alien Act should be relaxed, according to the power: given them in that act itself, in any other case.

Mr. Bianconi's application was warmly supported by gentlemen of the first station and respectability in more than one of the counties through which his cars ran, and by several who were active supporters of the government itself; but the fact coming, as of course it directly did, to Mr. Goulburn's knowledge, that the applicant was a Papist, he declined to interfere, and left Mr. Bianconi under all the most unmerited disadvantages from which the slightest representation from the Secretary for Ireland in his favour would have infallibly caused him to be relieved!

DISARMING OF ORANGEMEN.

MR. O'CONNELL read the draft of a petition agreed to by the committec appointed to pro-, pare a petition for disarming Orangemen; and an amendment having been suggested to one of the clauses of it

MR. O'CONNELL replied that the amendment would not answer the object of the petitioners, who, unless they are worth £1000, or a fee-simple estate of £100 per annum, are not entitled to keep arms; and all the petitioners complain of is that their professed and sanguinary enemies, although not worth the feesimple of a glass of whiskey, are permitted the enjoyment of a privilege which enables them to commit such atrocious murders upon the defenceless and unoffending.

It is the duty of a government to protect the subjects, and which, in this instance, they are able to do, by depriving the furious and factious of the means of offence. It was idle to argue that the superior number of Catholics render it necessary to afford Orangemen a countervailing power by the possession of fire-arms for such a position implied premises that he should regret were sanctioned by rational men. That argument presumed a necessity for the existence of Orangemen ; and if that principle was admitted, he could not dispute the conclusion that hostility would exist between the Orangemen and the Catholics.

But let them consider the point as between Protestants and Catholics. Surely it was not meant to contend that Protes