Hemmed in on every side, harrassed by an incessant, plunging fire from the windows, roofs, and chimney-tops, which they could return with little effect-confined to the park and palaces, without orders to advance or permission to retire, they were uselessly exposed during four days to all the demoralizing effects of their fatal and false position. They held the key of the city; but it lay rusting in their hands, or rather it was turned upon themselves. Night after night closed in, and not an inch was gained; day after day dawned, and Prince Frederick, turning his eye to St. Gudule, and vainly expecting to see the Orange banner floating from its towers, persisted in maiutaining his ground, and pursuing the same ineffectual and dangerous system. Though resolved to restrict himself to the defensive, he neglected the commonest precautions for the safety of his people. Not a single attempt was made by day or night to obtain possession of any of the adjacent buildings whence his soldiers were so severely galled. Neither epaulments, trenches, or breast-works were thrown up to protect his skirmishers or artillerymen, who were compelled to employ the carcasses of their dead horses for the purpose. His brave gunners, though death was inevitable, manfully stood to their pieces in the open streets, and were killed one after another at pistol distance, until at length some of the guns ceased firing, having lost all their people, even the last officer; and yet it is notorious that at nightfall the greater part of the defenders abandoned their posts-that scarcely a single sentinel remained near the barricades-that all firing ceased and that a handful of resolute men, well led on, might at any moment have dashed forward, and carried all the adjacent edifices with the bayonet."

But while the defenders did more than could be imagined in repelling the attack, the assailants did nothing that might have been expected. Prince Frederick, having subjected his men to this cruel butchery for four days;and, having accomplished nothing but their destruction or their degradation, (as far as it was possible that brave and loyal men could have been

"On the 27th of September, Brussels, from being a scene of the wildest confusion and terror, was suddenly converted into a theatre of the most unbounded exultation. Yells, shouts, pæans of victory resounded from its remotest allies; the mournful booming of the tocsin, now swelled into a peal of rejoicing, bidding them repose in safety; the fugitives that had sought security in the provinces, returned to their abodes. All peril being past, De Potter, the ephemeral god of popular adoration, prepared to return home to enjoy the first honors of the ovation. The incredible intelligence of the discomfiture of the royal legions, with all its exaggerated accompaniments, was conveyed with lightning speed to the provinces, where the canker of disaffection and demoralization spread like wildfire through all ranks and classes. That which yesterday was a mere disjointed, local revolt, now rode triumphant on the blood-stained bayonets of the populace, a robust and general revolution. The nation was triumphant beyond its most sanguine hopes. The victory was essentially popular; for it was the undivided work of the people, gained, as they gain their daily bread, by the sweat of their brow. fabric raised at so much cost and labour by the congress of Vienna, stood tottering on the brink of a precipice. Europe looked on aghast, and wept; but not a hand dared to move to prop the crumbling edifice. The force of events, more powerful than the will of cabinets, pronounced the fiat of destruction, and set defiance to alliances. The doom of the

dynasty was sealed."

The

Thus ends Mr. White's first volume. In our next we will take up the other, and trace the progress of those events which have transtormed the barrier kingdom into an outpost of France, and confounded the calculations of the diplomatists of Europe.

We have not much space to devote to comment upon the recent proceed ings of the Privy Council with respect to the corporation of Cork. It is well, however, that these extraordinary proceedings should be put upon record, as they furnish a remarkable instance of the justice, the constitutional principles-ay, and the capabilities, of those to whom is entrusted the government of Ireland.

Our readers are aware that the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council, in the exercise of a power which had long been dormant, withheld their approbation from the gentlemen elected by the corporation of Cork to fill the office of mayor and sheriffs of that city. The whole proceedings of the Council in this matter present, we do not hesitate to say, the most extraordinary compound of arbitrary caprice and of legal blunders. They appear equally ignorant of the nature of the power which was entrusted to them, and regardless of the principles of equity that should guide its application. We shall first briefly detail what they did do, and then we shall refer to the authority under which they professed to act.

66

On the fifth of July the freemen of Cork proceeded to elect, according to their ancient charter, a mayor and sheriffs. To the former office they elected Mr. Deane, and to be sheriff's they nominated Messrs. Ballard and Rogers. Agreeably to a provision of the New Rules" made by the Lord Lieutenant in council in the year 1672, the names of the gentlemen so elected were immediately forwarded to the Lord Lieutenant for approval. A memorial was also forwarded by some of the inhabitants of Cork, praying that the Council would withhold their approbation, alleging, we believe, as the ground of such prayer, that the mayor and one of the sheriffs belonged to the Orange Association. In the end of September, and not till then, the Privy Council proceeded to take the matter into consideration. Mr. Deane, who was in waiting, was called in, and was asked if he would avow himself an Orangeinan. He answered, that he would. The agent for the memorialists was

So.

called in, and asked if he was ready with any evidence to substantiate the allegations of the memorial. He answered that he was not, upon which the Lord Lieutenant and Council came to one of the most extraordinary decisions that ever disgraced a judicial body. They determined to withhold their approbation, because there was no evidence to warrant them in doing Our readers should distinctly understand that the withholding of their approbation is equivalent to rejection, and forces the corporation to a new election. Thus, then, the Council refused to confirm the election of the freemen of Cork because there was no evidence to show that it had been an improper one: and they desired their clerk to frame a document to this effect, while at the same time they declared that they gave no opinion on the matter contained in the memorial.

Fully to comprehend the utter absurdity of this unjust and tyrannical resolution, it will be necessary to refer to the authority under which they acted.

In the year 1662 an act of the Irish parliament was passed "for the better execution of his Majesty's gracious declaration for the settlement of his kingdom of Ireland, and satisfaction of the several interests of adventurers, soldiers, and others his subjects there." By one of the clauses of this act a power was given to the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council to make rules for the regulation of corporations in Ireland, and such rules were declared to possess the authority of an act of parliament. In accordance with this provision the Lord Lieutenant and Council formed what have since been called "the New Rules." These rules differ for different corporations. On the 23d of September, 1672, they formed the rules which regulate the corporations of "Cork, Waterford, Kinsale, Youghal, Cashel, Cloumel, Athlone, Londonderry, Carrickfergus, Coleraine, Strabane, Charlemont, Trim, Dundalk, Kilkenny, Wexford, and Ross." The first of these rules is as follows:

"That upon all elections to be hereafter made after the last day of December

next, of any person or persons to serve in any of the offices of Chief Magistrate, or Magistrates, Recorder, Sheriffs, or Town Clerk of any of the said several cities, walled towns, or corporations, the names of the persons so elected to serve in the said several offices shall be by the said corporations forthwith after such election presented to the Lord Lieutenant, or other Chief Governor or Governors, and the Privy Council of this kingdom, to be approved of by them; and the said persons so elected for any of the said offices shall be incapable of serving in the said several offices unless they shall be respectively approved of by the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council, by

order under their hands; and in case the persons, or any of them, whose names shall be so presented shall not be approved of within ten days after their names shall be so presented-then and in such case the said corporation shall from time to time proceed to a new election of fit persons for the said respective offices for which the persons so presented shall not be so approved of, and shall in like manner present their names until they have chosen such persons for the said respective offices as shall be approved of as aforesaid."

And then follows a regulation most important to the present case, that all elections to these offices should take place at a period of three months previous to the usual time of their entering on the duties:

:

"To the end that there may be sufficient time between such their election and their entering upon the execution of their said respective offices for the obtaining of the approbation of the Lord Lieutenant and Council, and for the making of new elections in the places of such who shall not be approved of."

This is the authority which makes it necessary for corporate officers to obtain the approval of the Lord Lieutenant and Council. It will be observed that the Council are never empowered or required directly to refuse the officers: the withholding of their approbation for ten days is sufficient to compel the corporation to a new election. When, therefore, the Privy Council withheld their approbation from the Mayor and Sheriffs of Cork, they did all that they could do -they complied with the prayer of

the memorialists, and this they alleged in their document that they did-because they had no evidence to authorize them to do so!! and at the same time they asserted that they gave no opinion on the matters contained in the memorial!!!

Upon what, then, in the name of common sense, did they pronounce an opinion? They have put, as far as they could, a stigma upon the characters of honourable and respectable men; in their judicial capacity they office of magistrates in their native pronounced them unfit to hold the city; and they issue at the same time a document declaring that they have no reason whatever for this wanton attack upon private right and public privilege; they declare that they have no motive to assign beyond their own caprice, and they beg that it may be distinctly understood that their only pretext is

Sic volo sic jubeo stat pro ratione voluntas.

The only thing that could justify the Council in withholding their approbation is proof that the persons elected were "unfit." What constitutes "unfitness" is also a matter that may admit of discussion. But in the present case this is a question into which we need not enter. No proof was offered-allegations were made; but even the slender support of these allegations their own document dashes aside-they declare that they give no opinion upon the matters alleged against the officers elect-they separate, by a most extraordinary process, their judicial decision from their judicial opinion-they take from the former every thing that might conceal its injustice, every pretext upon which it might rest, and they leave it an abstract, naked, unsupported act of arbitrary power.

The Privy Council is a judicial body this is a maxim which no lawyer will dispute-it is supposed to be governed by the same rules and principles which regulate other courts of justice-and it is as emanating from a judicial body that we must regard the document which announces the withholding of their approbation. It is not the firman of an eastern divan, with whom their will is law, and with whom suspicion may supply the place of evidence-it is a judicial

document issued by a British court of justice bound by certain rules, and supposed to pronounce its decisions according to certain principles. Regarding the transactions only by the light which this document affords us, we say that this decision is as arbitrary as any that ever was pronounced by the Lords meeting in the starred chamber." They have declared that they had no evidence whatever to authorise their proceeding-they have then done gross injustice to the gentleman elected in pronouncing him unfit—they have wantonly insulted the freemen of Cork in negativing their choice. It is certainly the first time that we have heard the maxim laid down by any court, that because a party are not prepared with any evidence, they are entitled to a decision in their favour. Such, however, is the only reason that the Privy Council have assigned for their decision in favour of Messrs. Feagan and Hayes against the citizens of Cork.

To Mr. Deane, the injustice has been great. He was chosen by his fellow-citizens to the office which is naturally and justly the highest object of civic ambition-from the possession of that office the tyranny of the Privy Council has thrust him down. The rules of the corporation precluded his reelection, and he is now a private citizen-if the mayoralty of Cork be an honor worthy of being sought, surely the decision, which, without cause or reason, deprives an individual of that honor, is a wrong.

Surely the natural and equitable course for the Privy Council to have pursued, would be upon finding the memorialists unprepared to sustain their allegations, not to come to the preposterous resolution of therefore deciding in their favour, but to declare that as no reason was offered to induce them to interrupt the usual course of things, they would not be justified in withholding their approbation. In this case, as in all others, honesty would have been the best policy their decision would have been both in accordance with equity and law-and they would not have exposed themselves to the contempt of having issued a document such as that upon which we comment—a docu

ment which we protest we cannot conceive how any one who has read the "new rules" could frame-a document to which we do not believe the dullest and most incompetent barrister, even among the recent elevés of the Whigs, would sign his name-a document of which Mr. Justice Perrin might be ashamed, and of which Mr. Deputy Remembrancer Hudson could expose the absurdity.

This we say merely upon the evidence contained in this precious document itself. But let us return to the rule which we have quoted, and let us see how far the spirit of that rule has been conformed to. It is by that rule expressly provided, that an interval of three months shall elapse between the election of corporate officers, and their entering on their offices-for the express purpose of giving time for the obtaining of the approval of the council, and of a new election in case that approval shall be withheld. Mr. Deane is elected on the fifth of July, the return is forwarded forthwith." Unless the approval was to be as usage has now established it, a mere matter of form, the Council should immediately have adjudicated upon it, and not defeated the provisions of the rule by deferring the consideration until the last possible moment. If the routine of long prescription was to be broken through-if a power, lying in abeyance from the time it was granted, was now to be reasserted, the full provisions of the rule should have been complied with the return should have been taken into consideration as soon as forwarded-and the ten days, which the rule allows before the withholding of approval shall be considered final, should have been devoted to sifting the matters alleged in the memorial. All this, it is true, would have cost "their lordships of the starred chamber" some trouble. It would have brought my Lord Plunkett from his studies of Ovid at Old Connaught, and drawn his Lordship of Kildare from his ecclesiastical avocations at Glassnevin. It was much less troublesome to decide without examining

it was much easier for their high mightinesses to insult without reason a respectable citizen-to deprive him of the just prize of an honourable am

bition. There are men to whom nothing is so pleasing as the exercise of arbitrary power-nothing so troublesome as to be obliged to find reason or justice for their acts.

But this is not all-their subsequent proceedings still more effectually set the stamp of absurdity on these-the freemen of Cork hold a new election -they return Mr. Besnard as mayor, and the same gentlemen as sheriffs-a memorial is presented against this new return by the same individuals as before their agent is again called in and asked if he is ready with evidence -he answers that he is not-upon which the Council issue another document, in which they say that as the memorialists are not prepared with any evidence, they must approve of the return. This certainly was the just course-but why was it not followed in the first instance? It certainly is strange that the Council assigned the very same reason for their disapproval of Mr. Deane, and their approval of Mr. Besnard-namely, that they had no evidence against either.

We have sufficient in the documents furnished by the Privy Council themselves to condemn their proceedings as arbitrary and absurd; but we do not scruple to say, that the Privy Council do not possess an arbitrary power of rejection; as a judicial body, they are bound by rules of equity and justice; and, were the position important, we could, we think, maintain it, that they have not the power of withholding their approbation, unless they can prove that the officer elected has been legally convicted of a misdemeanor. In the present case, however, this is immaterial. Their lordships have furnished the grounds of their own condemnation. Whatever be the extent of their power, they confess that they have exercised it in the most arbitrary

an office to which he might almost be said to have an hereditary claim-to which, we believe, upon more than one occasion his ancestors had been advanced. But among a generous people the victim of arbitrary power is almost always sure of meeting with a sympathy that more than atones for the injury of oppression. The wrong that has been done him is a public wrong, and he will be regarded as a public sufferer. He has, too, received this proud testimony to his character, that when the malice of his enemies sought occasion against him, the worst they could allege is, that he is an Orangeman; they could find no other accusation than that he belonged to an association of loyalty and religion—a crime in which he has as his partners the most distinguished and the most virtuous in the land. He has carried with him into private life, not only the respect of his fellow-citizens, but a proud proof of their esteem-their high and honorable testimony to his integrity and worth. The freemen of Cork, who, in their corporate capacity, have presented him with the most laudatory addresses, are, perhaps, the most respectable body of freemen in the empire; and with their recorded approbation, and the still higher testimony of his own conscience, he may well disregard the efforts of arbitrary power. Moral worth can well afford to dispense with those outward insignia, that confer on its possessor no additional title to respect. The honors of a virtuous man are far higher than any that can be bestowed by the voice of the multitude, or taken away by the fiat of a Privy Council; and rectitude and independence give to their possessor a dignity which no magistracy could confer, and from which no tyraut can debar.

Virtus repulsæ nescia sordidæ
Intaminatis fulget horroribus
Nec sumit aut ponit secures
Arbitrio popularis auræ-

The Privy Council have done their worst; they have deprived Mr. Deane of the honor of the mayoralty-they cannot take from him the respect and esteem of his fellow-citizens; and in the possession of that esteem, and in the cou sciousness that he deserves it, he will enjoy far more solid, and far more