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a political convulsion that shortly ensued, it was his fate once more to seek for safety in flight. He escaped this time unaccompanied, in a wherry, which he rowed, himself, down the Seine. The banks were lined with military; but he answered their challenges with so much address, that he was allowed to pass on unmolested. Having reached a French port, he embarked for the United States of America, where at length he found a secure asylum.

Hamilton Rowan, though of Irish blood, was born and educated in England. In his youth he acquired a large property under the will of his maternal grandfather, Mr. Rowan, a barrister, and lay-fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, who, in a kind of prophetic spirit, made it a condition of the bequest, "that his grandson should not come to Ireland until after he should be twenty-five years old."

251

THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND.

[JUNE, 1827.]

"Above all things beware of hoping that your arguments can prevail with a fanatic.-The fanatic persuades himself that he can see what is invisible, and pronounces his neighbour to be blind, unless he labours under the self-same optical illusion."

For the last six years the parish of Ballybogue, in the county of, had enjoyed such profound tranquillity, that even the family of Mr. Clutterbuck Casey, of Slug-mount, the most active magistrate in that part of Ireland, had discontinued the custom of sitting down to breakfast with loaded pistols upon the table. There were no burnings or burglariesno homicides, excepting now and then a Fair-manslaughter-no abductions, save an occasional one of

such doubtful violence, that Father Hennessy, when called upon, did not hesitate to sanctify the transaction by an ex-post-facto marriage; and what was better still in the opinion of the poor proscribed, and suffering Protestant gentry of the neighbourhood, rents were punctually paid.

This happy state of things was attributed by various persons to various causes:-by Father Hennessy to himself, and by his flock to "the Association;" by Mr. Hugh Maxwell Ellis, of Saintville, to the moralising influence of his new school-house; and by a particular friend of mine, who shall be nameless, to the abatement of rents that followed the insurrection of 1822; but Mr. Clutterbuck Casey, with the prophetic instinct of an Irish justice, used often to declare in his domestic circle, that things would sooner or later change; "let people talk as they might, he knew the country better than they did, both before ninety-eight and since; and with all this pretended tranquillity, depend upon it they would soon have the Insurrection Act among them again, and then, the district being once more fairly disturbed, who had a better claim than he to be made chief magistrate of police? for wasn't he an Orangeman? wasn't he a Friendly Brother? Hadn't he

stuck to the Glorious Memory, when others were afraid or ashamed to give it? Hadn't he distrained every tenant of his that paid the Catholic rent? Hadn't five stacks of his corn, besides a rick of hay, and three calves and a filly, been all maliciously burnt one night some years ago, and for which he never got anything but compensation from the county? Hadn't he been illegally fired at four times when riding along the public road, and once when walking in his shrubbery with his wife and daughters, and for which he never got any compensation at all? Hadn't he laid out more money in blunderbusses and gun-powder, than would have bought his son Frank a commission in the army? Had he ever refused to take an information against a Catholic, more especially if he was suspected of being a suspicious character; and accordingly was there a magistrate in all Ireland more detested by them? If these were not claims what were! And besides, hadn't he been faithfully promised over and over again by his friends in Dublin, including Alderman Twiss and the Dean of Glennacarry, that at the very next insurrection in his county, his services should be honourably and liberally rewarded?" In these cheering anticipations, Mr. Casey endeavoured

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to reconcile himself to the calm, that obstinately prevailed around him.

Winter (it was this last winter) and its long nights came and brought nothing insurrectionary with them; so that the worthy magistrate, rather disgusted with the "horrid stillness" of the scene, increased as it was by the absence of Mrs. Casey and the girls on their annual visit to Dublin, and being also privately informed that his name at the next assizes, from the many pressing claims upon the high sheriff, was either to be the last on the grandjury panel, or omitted altogether, was not sorry to receive an invitation from a friend in the adjoining county, to ride across and pass a few weeks at his house. Thither accordingly he went on the 24th of last February, and there he remained for one entire month; and although the distance was only forty miles from Slug-mount, it somehow so happened that no tidings, directly or indirectly, reached him of some most important local circumstances that, during the interval, had been occurring in his neighbourhood; so that he probably would have prolonged his visit, had it not been for the near approach of Lady-day, upon which he did not deem it prudent for a landlord to be

out of the reach of any rent that might be tendered.

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