inquire; but we allege that the returns depended upon the discretion of the were artfully framed and arranged to officer, and that there was no room for impose upon the public. The noble Viceroy produced returns which he stated to include every offence from which a fair comparison as to the state of the country could be drawn. The offences enumerated he stated to be-homicides, firing at the persons, cutting and maiming, assaults, (specially reported,) abductions, rapes, and attempts to ravish, levelling, burglary, burning, attacks on houses, demands or robbery of arms, oaths unlawfully administered, illegal notices or meetings, riots, faction fights, rescue and resistance to legal process. During the six months preceding the coercion bill, these offences amounted, according to the reports of the constabulary, to 6,235 Corresponding period, 1837, 2,385 Now the fraud of which we complain is this-that this statement appears to be as irrefragable as mathematical demonstration. It is not opinion, but it is an abstract of returns; these returns must, to all appearance, give a fair account of the state of the country-unless we suppose that the officers being desired to report all offences neglect to do so, or that Lord Mulgrave, or some one for him, positively misrepresented what they reported; in the way of either of these suppositions there are difficulties almost insurmountable. But had Lord Mulgrave fully and fairly explained the construction of these returns, no one would have been thus deceived, and every peer in the house would have at once perceived that it was perfectly possible for Lord Mulgrave to have copied the figures fairly, and for his officers to have done all that they were desired to do, and yet for the returns to be of no value whatever in indicating the state of crime. When he came to the item of assaults, he should not have contented himself with the parenthetical addition (specially reported)-words which were calculated to attract no attention what ever-but he should have fully informed their lordships, that only those assaults which the officer judged of importance were included that this was a matter left to his own discretion, and that, therefore, their lordships must judge whether the diminution did not proceed from a change in the officers, or from an actual falling off in crime; but he merely added the words, specially reported, and left the returns to produce the false impression that nothing error. This impression was produced-it was held to be impossible that crime could occur without the knowledge of the constabulary-impossible that the constabulary should know them and not report them-and impossible that Lord Mulgrave should conceal what had been reported. This was the case of the tranquillity-mongers, a case resting altogether on the suppression of the important fact, that in the most important, because by far the largest item the officer was desired to report, not all the offences which came to his knowledge, but that which he thought fit. We repeat that this fact was thrown artfully into the shade-it escaped the observation even of many who read the printed speech-and by this ingenious device, the false impression was produced that there was no room for incorrectness in these returns. How much the knowledge of this fact altered the case, any one who knows Ireland can judge. We can now account for the diminution of the special reports between 1832 and 1837, by many causes, without ever supposing the character or number of assaults diminished-a supposition which all other evidence contradicts. 1st-When the Grey government were about to propose the coercion bill, it was only natural that they should endeavour to justify that measure, and of course the greatest strictness was enforced on the officers in their reports. Lord Mulgrave's government, on the other hand, are not over-anxious that the account of outrage should appear large-the strictness of those at the head would soon tell on their inferiors. 2nd, The character of the constabulary force is quite changed; the officers are now selected from the ranks of agitators. Now, a circumstance which might appear to a Conservative officer eminently entitled to a special report, might be regarded by an O'Connellite as a trivial matter of no moment. Protestant and anti-English spirit of the people. Under Lord Mulgrave's government a special report, founded on such considerations, would expose the officer to reproof. We KNOW instances in which the reporting zeal of some of the officers has been rather roughly checked. The instance to which last month we alluded, of the outrage in the Waterford cathedral, triumphantly establishes our case; a disgraceful outrage perpetrated against the observance of Protestant worship occurs in one of the first cities in Ireland; under Lord Grey's government a special report would instantly have followed; under Lord Mulgrave's there is no such thing. Lord Mulgrave is forced to acknowledge that his special reporters did not do their duty; in a document dated the 26th of December, he declares the Waterford officer to be a person of the highest character for vigilance; but "his Excellency is of opinion that, in considering this occurrence, one which he should not have REPORTED SPECIALLY, he took a very incorrect view of his duty." Mr. Wright thought, what every constabulary officer in Ireland thinks, that if he appeared to attach any very great importance to such a thing as an interference with Protestant worship, he would be branded at the Castle as belonging to "the party who desire to perpetuate religious discord;" for this is the cant of the day; it is thus that my Lord Mulgrave, and my Lord John Russell meet the arguments of those in other spheres who dare to hint that the character of popery is intolerant and persecuting; these lessons are not lost upon the constabulary. When they find the journals which bring forward these facts, stigmatized as Orange, and as anti-Irish, they that are the favoured and avowed organs of the government make it their business to suppress and deny the outrages which manifest the spirit of religious bigotry. The language held in parliament is just the same; Lord John Russell and Lord Morpeth do not. scruple to stigmatize, with such invective as they are capable of, all who adduce any facts that shew the real character of Popery in Ireland. What must be the effect of all this, upon the minds of the inferior officers of govern ment? what inference must they draw? Unquestionably, that the surest road to the displeasure of their mas ters is to appear to believe in the influences, the existence of which it is the daily and hourly employment of their masters to deny. The governors of Ireland have, in fact, entered upon their task with a fixed resolution to believe one theory of the state of Ireland, and to expect an inferior officer to presume to send up a special report, which would imply a dissent from that theory, is utterly absurd. One fact, however, is worth a thousand arguments. We recur to the case of the Waterford cathedral, and we defy any impartial person to read over the facts of this case-to consider the aggravated character of the outrage, its peculiar features, the high character given to Mr. Wright by Lord Mulgrave, and then the absence of a special report, and further, to consider that it was mere accident brought the omission to light-and not to form the conclusion that such omissions are frequent and numerous; because some of the constabulary are inclined to make light of matters such as these, and others are afraid to attach any importance to them. That the special reporting is the entire secret of the diminution we apprehend, there is no rational man who has read what we have written, will doubt; but we charge upon the fabricator of Lord Mulgrave's abstract, the fraud of designing that this important fact should not be distinctly stated, but, as far as possible, kept out of view. This, our readers will bear in mind, is the gravamen of our charge. We have shewn that the fact of the special reporting was quite sufficient to render the returns worthless as evidence of the state of the country; but this fact was designedly and artfully thrown into the shade. The returns were so framed that no person who merely heard them read, could possibly be expected to detect the artifice - - that most persons would read them over for themselves without perceiving it; that is, in plain words, they were a gross, although, we admit, an ingenious fraud. We do trust that good will result from its exposure. We trust that Lord Mulgrave himself will begin to reflect upon the hands in which he has placed himself. He must see that he has lent himself to a faction who do not scruple even to compromise him for their darling object of perverting truth. He must see that the men upon whom his position compels him to rely, are not trustworthy. There is nothing which a high-minded man will so indignantly resent as to find himself made the unconscious instrument of a fraud. But, meantime other considerations arise; something is due to the public morality-something to the dignity of the British senate. The presentation of these returns should not be permitted to pass unobserved and unreprobated. In our sphere we have done what we could to point attention to the dishonest artifice which united the wickedness of an enormous fraud with the littleness of a mere manœuvre. The paltry trick was played off on the honor of the British senate, and in a matter in which the interests of an entire country were involved. Shall the subject be permitted to let drop and this add another to the instances already too numerous, which recent times afford, in which the deception serves its purposes for the time, and its exposure brings afterward no discredit to the successful cheat? We challenge we demand from some advocate of government, an ex planation, or let Lord Mulgrave's official returns be branded, for the future, as worthless. In all sincerity we acquit Lord Mulgrave of any designed participation in this scandalous fraudbut a fraud has been attempted, to some extent successfully, upon the House of Peers. It is for some member of that august assembly to ask for an explanation-no underling should dare, behind the shelter of the Viceroy, to practise his imposition upon that body; the name of Lord Mulgrave should not protect the jugglery from exposure, or we must suppose that, even in the noblest assembly which the world now witnesses-the assembly of the British peers-indignation against artifice and fraud is silenced before station and rank, and the impostor may continue his tricks with impunity, provided he can manage to employ a coronet among the implements of his jugglery. Here's a good world the while.-Who is so gross IERNE. Beauty goes forth upon thee with the sun Among the gleamy lakes; the shamrock springs Numb'ring them with their shadows as they die, And many a simple heart has learned, I ween, To love, at eve, beneath thy thousand ruins green! THE RUBI, A TALE OF THE SEA. IN SIX CANTOS. "A bawbling vessel was he captain of, Cried fame and honour on him." Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Aot v. Sc. i. PRELIMINARY NOTICE. The following tale is founded on the history of those lawless adventurers, who in the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries, harassed the coasts of Southeru America and the adjacent Isles; immediately succeeding the Buccaneers, and forming, as it were, a link between those notorious freebooters, and the more obscure pirates of later days. Equal in atrocities, but far inferior in numbers and internal government, to their formidable predecessors, they are comparatively little known; enough, however, has survived in legend and record, in the regions of their exploits, to afford sufficient ground for a description of them in tale and lay. Of the story produced from these sources, many of the particular incidents are historical facts. Many, at the same time, are imaginary; while thè structure of the whole in a connected narrative is purely fictitious. The scene is laid first in the Caribbean sea; then in a bay on the southeastern coast of the Island of Cuba; and, lastly, among the keys or islets of the Bay of Honduras. The time occupied by the action is a period of thirty days, twenty of which are supposed to elapse between the conclusion of the first Canto, and the openThe remaining of the second; and about eight or nine early in the sixth. ing space of about thirty hours is occupied by the intermediate Cantos. The tale is entitled THE RUBI, after the Pirate-ship, which is, so to speak' the hero, or more properly the heroine, of the story. The Pirates are represented in conformity with their historical character; for it has been no part of the purpose of the author to extenuate the enormity of vice, much less to invest it with the semblance of virtue. 100 110 Yet seldom pride had left its trace And turn them to its will. 120 |