Chapter XVIII: Part II: The Blockhouse (4)

VI. and VII. Finally, however, all other questions connected with this great crisis, sink in importance by the side of the one great interest at stake upon the Union--is _that_ to be maintained? And, as the Union could not possibly survive the destruction of the Protestant Establishment, is _that_ to be protected? Are we to receive, at the hands of traitors, a new model for our glorious empire? and, without condescending to pause for one instant in discussing consequences, are we to drink of this cup of indignity--that the constitution and settlement of our state, which one hundred and fifty five years ago required the deliberations of two ancient nations, England and Scotland, collected in their representatives, to effect, now at this day are to be put into the furnace anew by obscure conspirators, and traitors long since due to the gallows. Say not, with Sir James Graham, "that this all-conquering England would perish by the consequences." If that were endured, already she _has_ perished: and the glory of Israel has departed. The mere possibility that, by a knot of conspirators, our arch of empire could be dismembered, that by a bare shout of treason it could be thrown down for ever like the battlements of Jericho at the blast of trumpets, would proclaim, as in that Judean tragedy, that we stood under a curse of wrath divine. The dismemberment itself would be less fatal than the ignominy of its mode. Better to court the hostility of foreign nations, better to lay open our realms to a free movement of that wrath against us which is so deeply founded in their envy, than to perish by the hands of poltroons, of thieves, of conspirators. But this fate is not ours. Many times our Government have repeated that assurance. But, as in the expressions of our affection to the Sovereign, this assurance is rightly renewed from time to time, and occasions are sought for renewing it, let the ministers be assured--that, on this point, we are all sound at heart. All of us are with them from shore to shore. In this island there will be no faltering. It is shocking, undoubtedly: it is awful, and _at such a moment_, to hear three lords of old official standing--Lords Palmerston, Howick, and John Russell, taking occasion to propound ridiculous and senseless modifications of a plan essentially rebellious, the plan of partial confiscation, or of partial degradation, for the Protestant Church. Patience hardly can keep pace with the deliberate consideration of the contradictions which would follow--whether from tampering with the Church, or with the political settlement of our nations. Sir R. Peel has traced both. From the one case _must_ follow an independent army, for Ireland an independent government, an independent war as often as the popular will should speak loudly. From a participation of Protestant property, or Protestant dignities with the Roman Catholics, would follow instantly the transfer of Protestant churches, already few enough, the translation of Popish priests (that is, of selected traitors) to our senate. The very hint is a monument to the disgrace of these noble lords; fatal to all pretences of _earnest_ patriotism; but still in _them_ accounted for, and perhaps a little palliated, by the known necessities of party. As respects the _general_ mind, there is no such imbecility abroad; no such disposition to traffic or go halves, temporize or capitulate with treason. One only error is prevalent: it has been noticed by Sir R. Peel, who indeed overlooked nothing; but it may be well to put the refutation into another form. The caballing for dissolution of the Union, why should that be treasonable? Is the Act of Union more than an Act of Parliament? Is not every act of Parliament open to objection, petition, annulment? No. It is dismemberment, says Sir Robert Peel, of the state. We add this--How, and in virtue of what law, does the house of Brunswick reign? By the Act of Settlement--an act of Parliament--an act about a hundred and fifty years old. That is but an act of Parliament. Is it open, then, to any of us, or all of us, to call a meeting for rescinding the Act of Settlement? But all will now advance to a rapid consummation; Mr O'Connell pursues only his old movement--then he is lost by the decay of the enthusiasm. He adopts a new one--that which he has obscurely announced. Then we are as sure as we are of day and night, of _his_ treason, as of British power to crush it, that the suspended thunderbolt, now raised aloft by the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, will put an end to him for ever.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote N: We use the words of the Chancellor; words, therefore, technically legal, in the debate of July, on Lord Clanricarde's motion for a vote of censure upon Sir E. Sugden.]

[Footnote O: A more striking neglect is chargeable upon _some_ administration in suffering the Repealers quietly to receive military training. We no more understand how this seditious act could have been overlooked at the time, than we understand the process by which modest assemblies of Orangemen have come to be viewed as illegal, pending a state of law, which, upon the whole, justifies the much larger assemblies of "foul conspirators."]

[Footnote P: People in Ireland, under various heads, as officers of the different services, &c., pay, but not in quality of Irishmen, when by accident they are such.]