Lastly, let us notice the Irish Arms' bill; which, amongst the measures framed to meet the momentary exigence of the times, stands foremost in importance. This is one of those fugitive and casual precautions, which, by intense seasonableness, takes its rank amongst the permanent means of pacification. Bridling the instant spirit of uproar, carrying the Irish nation over that transitional state of temptation, which, being once gone by, cannot, we believe, be renewed for generations, this, with other acts in the same temper, will face whatever peril still lingers in the sullen rear of Mr O'Connell's dying efforts. For that gentleman, personally, we believe him to be nearly extinct. Two months ago we expressed our conviction, so much the stronger in itself for having been adopted after some hesitation, that Sir Robert Peel had taken the true course for eventually and finally disarming him. We are thankful that we have now nothing to recant. Progress has been made in that interval towards that consummation, quite equal to any thing we could have expected in so short a lapse of weeks. Mr O'Connell is now showing the strongest symptoms of distress, and of conscious approach to the condition of "check to the king." Of these symptoms we will indicate one or two. In January 1843, he declared solemnly that an Irish Parliament should instal itself at Dublin before the year closed. Early in May, he promised that on the anniversary of that day the great change should be solemnized. On a later day in May, he proclaimed that the event would come off (according to a known nautical mode of advertising the time of sailing) not upon a settled day of that month but "in all May" of 1844. Here the matter rested until August 12, when again he shifted his day to the corresponding day of 1844. But September arrived, and then "before those shoes were old" in which he had made his promise, he declares by letter, to some correspondent, that he must have forty-three months for working out his plan. Anther symptom, yet more significant, is this: and strange to say it has been overlooked by the daily press. Originally he had advertised some pretended Parliament of 300 Irishmen, to which admission was to be had for each member by a fee of L.100. And several journals are now telling him that, under the Convention Act, he and his Parliament will be arrested on the day of assembling. Not at all. They do not attend to his harlequin motions. Already he has declared that this assembly, which was to have been a Parliament, is only to be a conciliatory committee, an old association under some new name, for deliberating on means tending to a Parliament in some future year, as yet not even suggested.
May we not say, after such facts, that the game is up? The agitation may continue, and it may propagate itself. But for any interest of Mr O'Connell's, it is now passing out of his hands.
In the joy with which we survey that winding up of the affair, we can afford to forget the infamous display of faction during the discussion of the Arms' bill. Any thing like it, in pettiness of malignity, has not been witnessed during this century: any thing like it, in impotence of effect, probably will not be witnessed again during our times. Thirteen divisions in one night—all without hope, and without even a verbal gain! This conduct the nation will not forget at the next election. But in the mean time the peaceful friends of this yet peaceful empire rejoice to know, that without war, without rigour, without an effort that could disturb or agitate—by mere silent precautions, and the sublime magnanimity of simply fixing upon the guilty conspirator one steadfast eye of vigilant preparation, the conspiracy itself is melting into air, and the relics of it which remain will soon become fearful only to him who has evoked it.
The game, therefore, is up, if we speak of the purposes originally contemplated. This appears equally from the circumstances of the case without needing the commentary of Mr O'Connell, and from the acts no less than the words of that conspirator. True it is—and this is the one thing to be feared—that the agitation, though extinct for the ends of its author, may propagate itself through the maddening passions of the people, now perhaps uncontrollably excited. Tumults may arise, at the moment when further excitement is impossible, simply through that which is already in operation. But that stage of rebellion is open at every turn to the coercion of the law: and it is not such a phasis of conspiracy that Mr O'Connell wishes to face, or can face. Speaking, therefore, of the real objects pursued in this memorable agitation, we cannot but think that as the roll of possible meetings is drawing nearer to exhaustion, as all other arts fail, and mere written addresses are renewed, (wanting the inflammatory contagion of personal meetings, and not accessible to a scattered peasantry;) but above all, as the day of instant action is once again adjourned to a period both remote and indefinite, the agitation must be drooping, and virtually we may repeat that the game is up. But the last moves have been unusually interesting. Not unlike the fascination exercised over birds by the eye of the rattlesnake, has been the impression upon Mr O'Connell from the fixed attention turned upon him by Government. What they did was silent and unostentatious; more, however, than perhaps the public is aware of in the way of preparation for an outbreak. But the capital resource of their policy was, to make Mr O'Connell deeply sensible that they were watching him. The eye that watched over Waterloo was upon him: for six months that eagle glance has searched him and nailed him: and the result, as it is now revealing itself, may at length be expressed in the two lines of Wordsworth otherwise applied—
"The vacillating bondsman of the Pope
Shrinks from the verdict of that steadfast eye."
Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive; being a connected view of the Principles of Evidence, and the Methods of Scientific Investigation. By John Stuart Mill. In two volumes. London: Parker.