ped, the bright hope of liberty, of life, and truth is cut off from our benighted land. Providence may over-rule, it is true, the wickedness of men to his own wise purposes; and had we not this rock of hope to rest upon, despair would long since have overwhelmed us, while the tide of revolution has been sweeping off all our institutions around us; but remember, that while it is our duty to await results with patience and submission, it is equally our duty to use the means that are given to us, for averting the danger with energy and vigour.

What may be the result of the crisis to which public affairs have now come, no human foresight can enable us to say; but if we may judge of the future from our experience of the past-if we observe the rapid progress which the spirit of revolution has lately made, well may we anticipate the worst-quickly indeed may each of us "set his house in order."

Among all the most zealous opponents of Roman Catholic emancipation, who was so rash as to prophesy the events, which are now passing before our eyes? Of all the solemn warnings, which were uttered by those, who most dreaded the passing of the Reform Bill, which ventured to assert that the prerogative of the Crown would so soon be rendered a nullity? Some men hazarded the doubt that his Majesty would have the free choice of his ministers at

certain moments of great excitement on any popu lar question (and we need not recur to the taunts and sneers which they encountered for the absurdity of the apprehension) but, gracious Heaven! who would have had the hardihood to predict the phenomenon which we now see? A majority of the House of Commons (reformed, forsooth, for the very purpose of making it a more perfect reflection of the sentiments and feelings of the people) diametrically opposed to all the rank, property, and intelligence of the country-public time wasted-public business interrupted-the nation deprived of the services of such a minister as Sir Robert Peeluniting, confessedly, more of the natural qualities and attainments, essential to the character of an eminent statesman, than any man of the present daysolely to gratify the spirit of faction, and by the opposition of those very men, whose incapacity to carry on the government, compelled him to undertake the arduous task in which he was engaged. We challenge any fair man to shew a plausible claim to office, which the present ministry can advance, except their holy alliance with the Irish radicals in the House of Commons, and their successful display of tactique in conducting a factious opposition to Sir Robert Peel's administration-and on this ground alone you are called on to sanction a cabinet without any pretension to the talent, the principle, or the character, which used formerly to give

weight and stability to the government of England-a cabinet of men, forcing themselves into office in opposition to addresses pouring in from every corner of the kingdom, in opposition to the voice of a people whose sentiments they affect to represent-whose interests they pretend to have at heart— a cabinet united but by one bond, their insatiable thirst for office-agreed upon one principle of action, and one only-the reckless abandonment of all our institutions. Now, we do not profess to pin our faith upon the opinions of the Right Hon. Baronet, or of any individual; but let us dispassionately enquire into the rational grounds for the opposition which has been given to his administration. Perhaps the majority of the House of Commons wished to try the experiment of what Mr. Hume calls "out-and-out reform and economy." If so, why were not the talents of its old and tried advocates called in? Why were Mr. Hume and Mr. O'Connell forgotten in making up the new cabinet? the new cabinet? An administration, composed of such men, would, at all events, have the charm of novelty, and would be a curious experiment even in these days of invention; but an open union with them was not prudent-any undisguised junction with such men must have foiled the hope of gratifying the fatal ambition, which has led to the late change of ministry. Thank God! no party, except the Irish tail, could yet dare, in the face of the British nation, openly to avow any such connexion.

But is there no identity with the great Agitator in principle? Is not the present government virtually pledged to those measures, of which he has ever been the zealous advocate? Is it not bound hand and foot to his plan for the appropriation of Church property in Ireland? If so, then, is cowardice too harsh a term for the weakness which thus shrinks from avowing the union, that has really been formed with Mr. O'Connell; or are we unfair in calling it avarice, thus to rush in and rob him of the spoils of place and power? Away with the name of political integrity-the mockery of public virtueif we are thus to have the dearest interests of our country bartered for the paltry emoluments of office-if the destruction of Ireland's tranquillity, the violation of the sacred rights of property, and the sacrifice of our religion, are to be held out as a sop to silence the abuse, or satisfy the ambition of any man or set of men. In the name of justice, if the principle upon which the House of Commons be resolved to act, be radical reform, let consistent radicals assume the reins of government, and let not those men, from whose grasp we have so lately escaped, again foist themselves upon the country a faction, whose imbecility, and ignorance hardly left them the semblance of a party in the nation, when they were last driven out of office. Nay, strange as it may seem, after four years' duteous submission to that portion of the

public press by which mainly they raised themselves to power, they were not able to procure, even from that quarter, the tribute of condolence on their late congé, which their subservient devotion to its suggestions seemed fairly to demand.

It is said, fellow-countrymen, that you are resolved to have reform and economy.-Conceded :-we claim the same, and we are entitled to both in their true sense; but we are sick of revolution under the cloak of reform, and disgusted with that under-current of reduction, which inflicts misery and starvation upon thousands, under the pretence of economy, while the public expenditure is increased ten-fold by the creation of new patronage, and the issuing of absurd, if not illegal, commissions, to provide for needy parasites, and the hangers-on of a weak government; while millions are squandered, and the industry of your labouring and manufacturing classes is oppressed by tax heaped on tax, in order to make amends for the government-plunder of the Irish Clergy to bribe the directors of the Bank of England, and the shareholders of East India property, into a compromise of their just rights-to prop up a puppet of the Modern Whigs' own fancy on the mock throne of Greece-to place the bauble of royalty in the hand of Prince Leopold-or, lastly, to purchase nominal liberty with the real misery of idleness and want, for those, who were, beyond comparison, in a superior condition to