Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/51

 and composed the juries there was 110 tribunal created by public opinion to which virtue could appeal from oppression, or before which profligacy might be arraigned and convicted. No! for there was no press but that worked by the hireling of corruption; or if another press only breathed on gilded or ermined crime, it was subdued, prosecuted, James persecuted, and extinguished.

Such was, unhappily, the system of government established during the years of Irish legislative independence which Grattan achieved for his country. 'I rocked her cradle; I followed her hearse,' said the patriot orator. But the death of this rickety infant need not have caused him any sorrow.

The matter to be lamented was, that, by the unwise and narrow policy of the volunteers, the legislative independence of Ireland was confined to Protestants only; that, in the whole course of imperial policy, government by corruption was substituted for government by force; that at the Union the large and wise plans of Mr. Pitt were rejected, and the miserable monopolising minority had complete sway, dominion, and office, with the short interval of 1806, till 1830.

To overthrow this vicious scheme of administration was the first duty of a liberal Government.

With regard to the Church, the majority of Lord Grey's Cabinet were favourable to the appointment of a commission, by whose inquiries the proportion of the different religious communities could be ascertained, and the ground thus cleared for the erection