remain undeveloped. If you will but endeavour to adapt your institutions to Ireland, instead of labouring to adapt Ireland to your institutions-in that antithesis you will find that a great deal of truth is condensed-if, I repeat, instead of adapting Ireland to your institutions, you do but try to adapt your institutions to Ireland; if, instead of inflicting a temporary tranquillity, you confer a perpetual peace, you will obtain from Ireland a revenue far exceeding anything which, by the torture of this inquisitorial imposition, it would be possible for you to obtain. Peace, true peace-peace founded upon justice and equality and national contentment, has an enriching as well as a civilising and ameliorating attribute. Peace will pay you large import duties-peace will consume in abundance sugar, and coffee, and tea, and every article on which a charge will remain-peace will draw from the earth twice its ordinary return, and while it shall give you more food will take more of your manufactures in return-peace will enlarge and give security to that market which is already the best you possess-peace will open a wider field to your laborious industry and your commercial enterprise; and for every benefit you confer upon us, for every indulgence you shall show us, for every gift you bestow, with an usury incalculably profitable by peace you will be repaid."

But while he was thus ready to join in maintaining, on questions of practical moment, what he considered National as distinguished from Imperial interests, the exclusive claim to patriotism which some ignorant and many dishonest men raised in Ireland on behalf of all who called themselves Repealers, excited only his contempt. Nor was he often moved to resent their senseless vituperation otherwise than by a bitter jest.

* Debate on Income Tax, House of Commons, 19th February, 1845.

On some one rather foolishly boasting in his presence that amongst the Repealers were to be found all the rising talent and real worth of the community, he said, laughing, "I am not competent perhaps to appraise their real value, but I have reason to believe that some of them are very expensive: a friend of mine says he paid twenty pounds a-head for them at the last election."

He took much interest in a case of libel which had arisen in Ireland about this time. An article in the Vindicator, a popular journal published in Belfast, by Mr. C. G. Duffy (now M.P. for New Ross), contained some strictures upon the state of things subsisting between landlord and tenant in many parts of Ireland, and had been made the subject of a Government prosecution. A trial took place in Dublin, in which Chief Justice Pennefather betrayed for the first time the singular unfitness for the discharge of high judicial functions, which afterwards became manifest in so conspicuous a degree. His charge to the jury was an attack upon the accused, and an invective against the opinions promulgated by him, and was more one-sided and vehement than the speeches which had been made by the counsel for the Crown. The sensation it was calculated to produce was heightened by the fact that, with a single exception, the jury had been taken from the party and the creed

opposed to that of the traverser. A verdict so obtained was little calculated to strengthen the respect for law or authority in Ireland; and viewed in connexion with other proceedings which had recently taken place under the administration of Earl de Grey, it seemed to Mr. Sheil a fitting subject for observation in the House of Commons. He wrote repeatedly to friends in Ireland, in order to obtain accurate details of all the facts which bore upon the case, and expressed his intention, if the matter was not previously taken up by others, to bring the subject forward in a substantive motion before the end of the session. To some it appeared doubtful whether he would succeed in fixing attention upon topics at all times so distasteful to the majority of the House as those in question. But he continued, both in writing and conversation, to urge its importance warmly. "If Pennefather's charge is not denounced in the House of Commons, there is an end in Dublin of the freedom of the press."* His advice however was neglected, and nothing was done. Unsupplied with adequate details, and unsupported by the Irish Liberal members, most of whom were then in secession, he was forced to forego his intention of bringing the

* Letter to M. Staunton, Esq., 1st August, 1842.

subject before the House. Utter apathy prevailed in Ireland, and it seemed to him "that the only chance of raising the popular cause from its abject condition was to open a fire upon the Church Establishment. He felt however that it might be better perhaps to wait until Peel should have carried his Irish Registration Bill, because he would be far more disposed to deal liberally with Ireland when he thought that he had nothing to apprehend."* O'Connell was still less disposed to encourage a renewal of the controversy respecting the temporalities of the Church. The personal popularity he had won with men of all parties by the manner in which he had discharged the duties of Lord Mayor of Dublin, under the new Municipal Act, revived in his breast the hopes he had so long cherished, of founding a strong national party in Ireland. As yet there were indeed few outward signs, indicating the possibility of re-kindling popular enthusiasm by the old watchword of Repeal; and he hesitated for some time after vacating the civic chair, before bringing forward the direct proposition in the metropolitan town council. With the carrying of his resolution there, however, a new condition of things appeared to arise, baffling at once all calcula

*Extract from a letter, 31st December, 1842.

tion, and resulting in consequences to which we shall presently have occasion more particularly to refer.

In the session of 1843, a Bill for the Regulation of Factories was introduced by Ministers, which, beside other important provisions, contained clauses enabling rates to be locally imposed for the purposes of providing the means of education for children employed in such establishments. Great objection was raised by the Dissenters of all denominations to the tenour of these provisions, by which, in all cases, a preference was to be secured in the selection of teachers to members of the Established Church. Special exemption as regarded Roman Catholics was made in the bill from the general obligation respecting the reading of the Scriptures. But to a mind like that of Mr. Sheil, this exception in favour of his own creed did not render him the less alive to the religious hardship conscientiously felt by those of other persuasions. It rather served to animate him in defence of what they deemed their undoubted rights; and when the education clause was about to be discussed in Committee, he availed himself of the opportunity to state, in a tone well suited to the occasion, views and sentiments whose value is not measurable by the effect they were calculated to produce at the time upon the