THREE:Thenby a process of argument so close, so logical, as to amount to a demonstrationSir Robert Peel meets this objection, and shows that the proposals of the Conservative party afforded no solution of the real difficulty. Granted that the overwhelming sense of the people of Great Britain was against concession, what aid could they afford in the daily, practical administration of the law in Ireland? If seditious libels were to be punished, or illegal confederacies, dangerous to the public peace, to be suppressed, the offenders could only be corrected and checked through the intervention of an Irish jury, little disposed, if fairly selected, to defer in times of political excitement to the authority of English opinion. But the real difficulty to be surmounted was not the violation of the law; it lay, rather, in the novel exercise of constitutional franchises, in the application of powers recognised and protected by the law, the power of speech, the power of meeting in public assemblies, the systematic and not unlawful application of all these powers to one definite purposenamely, the organisation of a force which professed to be a moral force, but had for its object to encroach, step by step, on the functions of regular government, to paralyse its authority, and to acquire a strength which might ultimately render irresistible the demand for civil equality. If, then, Irish agitation could not be repressed through the action of Irish juries, if the agitators kept strictly within the letter of the law, so that even a conviction by an Irish jury might be pronounced, by the highest legal authorities in England, an Act making trial by jury "a mockery, a delusion, and a snare," how was the public opinion of England and Scotland to be brought to bear in putting down the popular will in Ireland? It could be done only through the Imperial Parliament, by having a law passed to suspend or abolish the Constitution in Ireland. But the existing Parliament could not be got to pass any such measure, for the House of Commons had just voted that the proper way to put down agitation in Ireland was to grant Catholic Emancipation; and that the remedy of establishing civil equality ought to be tried without delay. Was[278] there any hope that a dissolution of Parliament would produce different results? No; for at the general election of 1826, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, and Devonshire sent representatives to Parliament, a majority of whom voted against the maintenance of Protestant ascendency in Ireland. The members for London, for Liverpool, for Norwich, for Coventry, for Leicester, were equally divided on the question; while the members for Westminster, Southwark, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Preston, Chester, and Derby voted unanimously for concession. Now, the Parliament which assumed this Liberal complexion had been elected in circumstances calculated to call forth the strongest manifestation of Protestant feeling; for it was only the previous year that, after long discussion and a severe contest, the Commons had sent up to the Lords, by a majority of twenty-one, a Bill for the repeal of Roman Catholic disabilities. Then, with regard to Ireland, what would have been the effect of a general election there? Would not the example of Clare have been imitated in every county and borough where the Roman Catholic electors were the majority? And what would have been the effect of such an attempt on the public peace? Probably, to involve the whole island in the horrors of a civil and religious war; to be followed by another penal code.The Emperor Joseph of Austria had returned from the campaign of 1788 against Turkey greatly chagrined, and with fast-failing health. Had he been wise, he would have accepted the overtures for peace made to him by the Sultan, and have spent the few remaining days of his existence in tranquillity. But his ambitious and persuasive ally, Catherine, prevailed upon him to make another effort. He mustered fresh troops. A hundred and fifty thousand men were marched against the Turkish frontier, early in the year of 1789, in different divisions. It was a circumstance very much in their favour that the able Sultan, Abdul Hamid, died suddenly in April, and was succeeded by his nephew, Selim, a young, rash, and unprincipled man. The acts of Selim, in murdering and dismissing his father's best ministers and commanders, and the unruly condition of the janissaries, rendered Turkey especially open to the attacks of its enemies. Marshal Laudohn, supporting his earlier fame, took the fortress of Gradiska, and stormed Belgrade. But this was not accomplished till the 8th of October, and an attempt was then made to reduce Orsova, but this failed. Coburg and Suvaroff having joined, won a great victory over the new Vizier, Martinitzi, in Wallachia, on the 22nd of September, and the remains of the Turkish army retired to the pass of Shumla, on the Balkan mountains. Potemkin, on his part, had greatly increased his forces after the reduction of Oczakoff, and after a desperate resistance took Bender, famous as the abode of Charles XII. of Sweden, after the battle of Pultawa. Before winter, the Russians had made decided progress in their inroads into the Turkish dominions on the Black Sea. They had gained possession of Akerman, at the mouth of the Dniester; of Keglia Nova, on the northern banks of the Danube, and of other places on the Black Sea. They had also extended their frontier to the left bank of the Danube, and they had actually reduced every important place between the Bug and Dniester and that river. Had Catherine had a sufficient fleet in the Black Sea, Constantinople might have trembled for its safety.
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