teristic of that organ of faction-it had a vehement affection for a plain lie; and in pursuit of that indulgence, asserted that Cobbett received a bribe from the Catholic Board for his exertions in the cause of religious liberty; now that justly celebrated man has been so much traduced that he (Mr. O'C.) would wish to brush one calumny off his shoulders. Cobbett's late articles upon the subject of religious toleration and Ireland's wrongs, were the genuine and unpurchaseable effusions of a mind convinced by the force of reason and justice. He (Mr. O'C.) had the pleasure of knowing Mr. Cobbett ; and there was only one thing that Cobbett would accept from the Association-an order for sending his register to the Association. A list of his valuable works should be posted up in the rooms of the Association, in order that the numerous persons attending, may have an opportunity of seeing what eminently useful works they can supply themselves with from the pen of such an admirable writer. Such a measure might give an increased circulation and usefulness to his works, and that was the only bribe he would accept.

The oppressors of mankind were ready enough with their bribes, but the professing friends of liberty were very niggardly in support of advocates.

Mr. O'Connell then gave notice of a motion for the Association taking Cobbett's Register and for posting up a list of his various works in their rooms.

STUDENTS OF TRINITY COLLEGE.

MR. O'CONNELL moved, "That all students of Trinity College should be admitted to the Meetings of the Association without payment."

He did not mean they should have the privilege of voting or speaking. The heads of the College had prohibited them from becoming members of political societies, and he (Mr. O'Connell) was not desirous they should be associated with illegal and secret political societies; but he was desirous that they should have an opportunity of attending the proceedings of the Catholic Association, in order that if there were any persons, part of whose duty it was to engender and encourage prejudices in the students' minds against the Catholics, and by false accounts make them imagine the Catholics were other than they are, they should have an opportunity of ascertaining, by their own observation, how unfounded were such calumnies. They would hear nothing t

The Association but professions of reciprocal good feeling and perfect liberality; and if any unfavourable impressions towards Catholics should have already been received, he felt confident that they would be dissipated when the candid and ingenuous minds of the youths had an opportunity of judging for themselves by their attendance at the Catholic Association.

He was induced to make the present motion in consequence of many gentlemen being obliged to leave the room, upon it being intimated to them that unless they were members they were not eligible to attend.

Mr. Curran seconded the motion, which passed unanimously.

With reference to the admission of College students, it is necessary to remark here, that for some time considerable caution was required. In fact the Trinity College "boys," as they were and are still often called, had nearly upset the infant Association. On leaving Capel-street, Mr. O'Connell had taken for that body the extensive premises on Usher's,quay, built by Homes, an enterprising speculator in buildings, long known in Dublin, but not a very successful one. These premises, subsequently used by the owner as a hotel, were at first all that could be desired. But the "College boys" commenced attending in great numbers, and interrupting the meetings to such an extent, as seriously to disquiet Mr. O'Connell as to the possibility of continuing the latter. To get into a more popular and populous neighbourhood, he transferred the sittings to the present Corn Exchange, where, without any previous expectation, he found he had a guard in the coal-porters (whose stand is just opposite) quite sufficient to frighten away the young Orangemen. He often afterwards declared that it was the Dublin coal-porters who saved the agitation, and thus mainly "carried emancipation!"

On the same day we have last noticed, Mr. O'Connell moved, that as the Association was about to adjourn till the second week in October, the committee of accounts should sit every Saturday, for business of the rent. It should be an open committee, in which any member could give his opinion.

Several additional members were then added to the list of the committee, and three were declared to be a quorum.

MR. O'CONNELL renewed the following notices of topics upon which committees are to be appointed to prepare petitions against the next aggregate meeting.

1st. Religious liberty for ourselves and for Protestant Dissenters. 2nd.-Education on liberal and just principles.

3rd.-Abolition of church rates.

4th.--Diminution of tithes, and to facilitate the delivery in kind.

5th-Abolition of corporation abuses, monopolies, and powers of levying

'noney.

6th. The administration of justice, rejection of party sheriffs and party juries, correction of the list of magistrates, and great diminution of their powers, so as to bring them as near to the common law as possible; the revision of al! inferior jurisdictions; reformation of the spiritual courts, and the taking away of all jurisdiction from them in cases of tithes and Ecclesiastical dues; abolition of the far greater number of local courts and total alteration of Civil Bill Tribunals; abolition of trials before sub-commissioners, and various other topics connocted with the administration of justice.

7th. To enable ecclesiastical persons to make leases of three lives or fortyone years.

8th. For redress of local grievances, and in particular for the abolition of the Paving Board.

Upon the latter topic Mr. O'Connell expressed a very reluc tant impression of its advisability under the sad existing circumstances of Ireland. Such a measure, it might be hoper' would lead to putting the burthen of the distress of the country upon the right shoulders.

Unhappily, the condition of the Irish peasantry was an anxious disposition of mind to work, as evidenced by the hardships they undergo in journeys through England in quest of employment; but that disposition was without effect; for what signified a man's ability and desire to labour, if he could get no one to give him employment? Men so circumstanced were as destitute as those who from infirmity and age were unable to work; and since the unfortunate and fatal Union nine-tenths of the peasantry of Ireland have been without employment. The country, drained of her resources and stripped of her gentry, could not furnish employment to a labouring peasantry, and unless they obtained a scrap of land to raise a supply of potatoes, they should perish. for want or live upon charity.—(“Hear, hear—true, true.")

There was some reason to expect an effective stimulus to the gentry, to induce a residence at home in their apprehension of the effects of poor laws-nor was there any hope of their obtaining any other mode for mulcting those who year after year impoverished the country and gave nothing in return.

The policy of doing away with middle-men was eagerly caught at. The nobility and gentry in England and this country were quite fascinated with such an equitable proposition, because the profits and advantages which the middle-men received would go into their own pockets. The exactions of middle-men were echoed, while there was not a sound of the oppressions of absentee agents, who like their brethren in the West Indies, are influenced by the Fame inhuman policy. The latter may work the slaves upon an estate to death with impunity. Their object and interest is, to obtain the greatest possible produce from the estate, without regard to the sufferings or feelings of the slaves, through whose exertions it is procured; the agents' object is the per centage, and that is also the stimulus to the Irish agent; and for that purpose he squeezes to death the slaves on the Irish estate.

By one process of law, he exacts the utmost, and frequently

more than the value of the land. There is neither indulgence for misfortune, nor encouragement for industry. The comfort or prosperity of the tenant-slave is never taken into consideration -all must yield to the main purpose of having funds to meet the drafts of the heartless absentee, and to compensate the avaricious agent, and although there might be many instances of middle-r e-man oppression, yet they were generally the source of support to the peasantry. They resided with their families in the country. Their style of living was in proportion to their incomes, which were not received from the tenants to be spent in a foreign country. They were the only approach in Ireland to that independent class in England, called yeomen.

He did not mean by yeomanry, that association of men who, in Ireland, are armed against the liberties and consciences of their countrymen, but that class of substantial farmers who existed in England before they were broken down by the fall of prices and abolition of the middle-men. The Irish middle-men were the only substitutes for the absentee landlords, and if their moderate resources did not enable them to confer the same benefits on the kingdom generally, they at least had done much that would otherwise have been left undone; and had contributed to the support of the peasantry, by giving them land for labour, and providing them with employment.

The peasantry were now without those resources. The evil was increasing daily, and something should be done to meet it. It would not exactly do to transport the people. Cobbett had demonstrated that it would take £50 a-head to establish them in a colony, and it would be better to spend the millions of money necessary for that purpose in Ireland. There was no mode of making the absentees feel the effects of their unnatura. policy at present likely, save by poor-rates.

There was also another plausible recommendation to their es tablishment, namely, that poor-rates were payable out of tithes, and the tithe-owners would, for their own sakes, spare the wretches whose crop of potato ground is at present made tributary beyond all measure to the splendid incomes of some bloated and rapacious high dignitary. They would then be cautious in drawing them to the extreme of distress, because they should then contribute towards the support of their victims. If a code of poor

laws had been in existence and operation in Ireland, there would not have been a parson found to put several miserable starving peasants to eighteen shillings costs in the tithe court, who were actually living rent free, because, as their landlord had written

1

to him (Mr. O'C.) a few days since, they were unable to pay rent for some years past. (Hear, hear.) Still they were inexorably to be made to pay eighteen shillings each to the costs, or that sum must be paid for them!

In the evidence given before the parliamentary committe? upon the employment of the poor, almost every witness stated that the most powerful check against the demand of excessive tithe, was a threat that the tithe-payer would not be able to employ the poor-found to be a warning, that if the tithe-owner or his agent persevered in demanding it, the plundered tithepayer would cease to be able to employ the poor. This threat had been found invariably to produce a beneficial effect, in causing the demand to be lowered to something like a reasonable rate of tithe, if anything connected with tithes could be so called, That which made the tithe-owner shrink-the poor.law-made him (Mr. O'Connell) inclined to it; and considering the degraded and neglected condition of the Irish peasant, perhaps a better atonement could not now be made for his past sufferings, than by making him a proprietor of the soil to a certain extent --that is, by giving him a right to be supported out of its produce.

To those sincerely solicitous for Ireland's return to peace and tranquillity, he would recommend the consideration of the poorlaws, because the great cause of Whiteboyism, is the tenacity with which the peasantry adhere to the land. When driven out from their holding, they assemble under the system of Whiteboyism, for the purpose of threatening and deterring persons to succeed them-they are driven to that desperate resource, because in losing their plot of potato ground, they lose their means of subsistence, and no other mode presents itself as likely to avert that terrible calamity, but deterring other persons fromi offering to the landlord to become tenants; but when they should know that their landlord must support them, if, he does not afford them the means of doing so themselves, they would not then have that incentive to lawless assemblages.

He had no inconsiderable stake in the country, and he would of course feel in proportion the effects of the poor-laws; but he should willingly do so if it were in obedience to a system which many thought could not fail to improve the wretched and degraded condition of the peasant, and give him some sort of hold pon the land which he now cultivated almost wholly for others, it is needless for us to remark that Mr. O'Connell afterwards entirely changed his opien upon poor-laws.