On the 22nd of April, 1848, an Act of Parliament received the royal assent, which, under the somewhat ambitious title of "An Act for the better Security of the Crown and Government of the United Kingdom," attempted to provide an appropriate protection against the somewhat novel dangers which threatened them in the treason that raged in the columns of the rebel press.

This Act, so far as it affected newspaper publications, was passed solely for the purpose of crushing the United Irishman. No statute has ever been, perhaps, the subject of so much misapprehension; and as it is a key to much of the policy of the Executive that procured from the Legislature its enactment, a few words of explanation of the real character of its provisions may not be altogether thrown away.

It did nothing more than enable the Government to prosecute as a felony, punishable by transportation, crimes which, independent of that statute, and even at this moment, amount to the higher guilt of treason-while it simplified at the same time the legal forms of the accusation. From the earliest period, the crime of high treason had consisted, apart from some offences not necessary to advert to, either in the open levying of war against the Sovereign within his realm, or in adhering to the King's enemies in time of war, or "compassing, imagining, intending, and devising the death of the Sovereign," provided such design or intention was plainly manifested by any open act or deed, called, in the language of the old legal phraseology, an "overt act."

The design or intention to take away the life of the Sovereign was the treason. Although the law-indeed common sense-made it necessary that the design should be accompanied by some act sufficient to demonstrate palpably its existence before the person entertaining it made himself amenable to the penalties of treason; still the guilt of treason was in the design, and not in the act by which it was manifested. So strictly was this held, that when the law had to deal with the actual murder of a Sovereign, those who took away the life of Charles I. were exe

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cuted upon an indictment which charged them, not with killing the King, but with compassing his death-the actual putting him to death being alleged only as the overt act by which they proved the existence of the design.

A justly-celebrated statute of the reign of Edward III. had fixed and defined the limits of the crime of high treason, as we have stated. Whatever may have been the intentions of the framers of the statute, judicial decisions in process of time extended the meaning of the latter branch, so as to include all possible attempts to overturn the government, or even exercise a forcible constraint upon the royal will. It was said, that as it was the duty of the Sovereign to resist all attempts at illegal control or intimidation, at the hazard of his life, all persons designing such attempts must, in contemplation of law, be regarded as designing the destruction of that natural life. From the prison to the grave of a monarch is but a step," was an aphorism sufficiently proved by the experience of all history, to warrant the judgments which it was frequently cited to support; and before the close of the last century, a series of decisions, the authority of which in any court of law it would be perfectly impossible to question, had conclusively established that every project or design to interfere by force with the government of the country, even though never carried out into open insurrection, was still high treason within the statute of Edward III., because the design to interfere with or control the government, involved, by necessary legal inference, the design of putting the reigning Sovereign to death.

This is still, beyond all question, the state of the law. However wellfounded such maxims may be in political truth, it is not, perhaps, to be wondered at, that juries occasionally found a difficulty in applying them to the facts that might be established before them. A conspiracy to repeal the Legislative Union by force of arms even without disturbing the Monarchy, would, beyond all question, be high treason; yet a jury could only find it so

by declaring on their oaths, that those engaged in it compassed the death of the Queen, and held their meetings with a view and object of accomplishing that design. The very same principle would apply to an attempt to alter by force the laws of one of the most insignificant, or most distant islands of her Majesty's dominions. In every case the law would sternly say, that those who planned an interference by force with her Majesty's authority, must be held to design her Majesty's death; and judges would advise juries to convict of that charge, upon proof of the design to subvert her authority by force, in the most remote and most isolated portion of her vast empire-a portion which might be severed, perhaps, from her dominions without one hour's interruption to her happiness or

repose.

It is not to be wondered at that those stern maxims were occasionally listened to by juries with distrust. In the trials of Tooke and Hardy in London, in 1794, the genius of Erskine brought them to the test of the plain common sense of Middlesex juries. The accused parties were tried on the indictment in which alone the accusation could be legally expressed, that of "compassing the death of the King." The real offence of which they were accused was that of being members of a society which was charged with the intention to obtain a reform of Parliament by intimidation and force. unrivalled advocate who defended them boldly arraigned before the jury the construction which successive decisions of judges had placed upon the words of the charge which, upon their oaths, the jurors were to find proved. The trials resulted in successive acquittals; whether from the failure of the evidence to sustain any treasonable design, or the unwillingness of the juries to find a treasonable design, imputing, of necessity, the compassing of the King's death, may very fairly be doubted.

The

The result, however, was, that ministers determined that these difficulties in the application of the old and unquestionable law of treason should be removed. In 1796 an Act was passed which declared that it was high treason to compass the deposition of the Sovereign; or, in effect, to plan any interference, by force or intimidation, with his authority. So far it simplified the statement of the charge. To meet another difficulty, it enacted that the treasonable

design might be manifested by the publication of any printing or writing.

This statute was declared by every judge who commented on it to have done nothing more than expanded in terms the construction put upon the words of compassing the King's death. In truth nothing was treason after its passing which was not treason before. It only enabled a jury to find it to be "a compassing to depose the King," instead of being compelled either to acquit or find it "a compassing of the King's death."

This Act had been passed before the Union; it did not, therefore, extend to this country. Originally enacted for the life of George III., it had been made perpetual by an Act of 1817. It was believed, however, that the Act perpetuating it, although an Act of the Imperial Parliament, had not the effect of extending it to Ireland.

This somewhat dry detail will, perhaps, enable our readers clearly to understand the state of the law prior to the passing of the Act to which we refer. Had Mitchel published the treasonable papers of the United Irishman in England, he could plainly have been indicted for high treason, and that treason being designated as a compassing to depose the Queen, and a manifesting of it by these publications. In Ireland the charge of high treason must have been described as a compassing of the Queen's death, and these publications alleged as the overt acts by which that wicked compassing was to be brought to pass.

Under these circumstances, the statute known as the Treason-Felony Act was introduced. It followed the exact words of the statute of 1796, but it designated the offence as felony instead of high treason, and mitigated the punishment from death to transportation. It contained a pro

vision that the offences which it described should continue treason whenever they were so under the old statute of Edward III., and that no prisoner should be acquitted on an indictment for felony under this Act if his offence should appear to be high treason. The necessity for this latter provision arose from the technical rule of law which, to preserve the boundaries of the different degrees of crime, declares that any of fence merges in one of a higher degree. According to this rule nothing that amounted to treason ever could be considered as mere felony in the eye of the

law; and, but for the special provision we have mentioned, were a jury satisfied that the facts proved amounted to treason, they would have been bound to declare the accused, for that very reason, not guilty of felony.

The real effect of this statute was simply this to give the Executive the option of prosecuting certain treasonable practices as a felony; to simplify and make more accordant with common notions the statement of the charge; and to get rid of some difficulties that might arise, especially when the manifestation of the treasonable design depended solely upon the publication of treasonable incitements to rebel. It still, however, required as an essential ingredient of the offence the existence of that distinct and deliberate treasonable design which was, as we have seen, the essence of the crime of treason under the old law.

This legislation was, perhaps, admirably adapted to meet the only rebellion which we have expressed our belief then existed in Ireland-a rebellion carried on in the columns of a newspaper. In estimating Lord Clarendon's policy it is of some importance to observe the character of the legislation for which he asked. Although unquestionably the statute would have enabled the Government, if they pleased, to indict for felony persons engaged in insurrectionary plots, which for any reason it was not expedient to magnify by the importance of a trial for high treason— although the Act was actually so used in England against some despicable knots of petty insurrectionists; yet so far as Ireland was concerned, its avowed object and the only use ever made of its provisions-was to enable the Government to try as felons those who carried on their treason by newspaper publications.

The Act, we repeat, was well adapted to encounter that peculiar and probably unprecedented species of treasonable movement which then disturbed the tranquillity of the Irish Government. The managers of the United Irishman imagined they were to overthrow the Government by writing pikes and barricades. Never before had a rebellion been carried out by such instruments. The programme of an assault upon the Castle, published in the columns of the United Irishman, was exulted in by these monomaniacs as a triumph as great as if they had actually stormed the old building upon Cork-hill,

It certainly made more consternation in the presence-chamber than we are sure would have been felt from half an hour's actual assault upon the gates. Imaginary barricades, guarded by trained bands of sanguinary pikemen, occupied the streets each Saturday-in the columns of the rebel journal-and existed nowhere else. The pompous and bloodthirsty threats which every publication hurled at the Viceroy supplied the place by a compendious process of arms, of organisation, and of men. While the journalist wrote big the rebellion was going on; if he flagged for a publication in the ferocity of his treason, the authorities breathed freely, and "law and order" had a success. To meet such a state of things it was, perhaps, not unfitting that Lord Clarendon should invoke and obtain the aid of the Legislature to pass an Act which enabled him to try and punish as felony that treason, of which the overt acts were newspaper publications.

This was exactly what the statute of the 22nd of April enabled him to do. The more applicable that statute appears for the purpose of meeting the danger, the more is our statement confirmed, that so far as any overt act or preparation went, the treason confined its operations to the newspapers. The publishers of successive journals have been tried and convicted under this statute; but they have been convicted solely on the overt acts of their publications. Any other act, which indicated a participation in an insurrectionary design, subjected them to the penalties of this Act as completely as any newspaper article could do, and probably much more surely. But not a single human being was put upon his trial for a treasonable design manifested by any act except a newspaper publication. Is not the inference irresistible, that, at the time of which we write, the only overt acts were those of newspaper publications?!

If this be so, what excuse can be offered for those alarming preparations -those still more alarming hints, by which, during the months of March and April, the Viceroy so cruelly fooled the loyalty of the country, and so recklessly injured the trade and lowered the character of Dublin? Unwilling to repeat, we must only ask of our readers to remember the statements which we made last month, as to the disposition and the sudden and most horrifying movements of the troops, by

which, during the months of March and April, both military men and civilians were perplexed and alarmed. These movements, upon more than one occasion, indicated the expectation of an instant outbreak of a terrible and most sanguinary revolt. We must ask of our readers, once for all, to bear this in mind, through all the comments we may feel it our duty to make upon Lord Clarendon's conduct. By every indication that could give a pledge of his opinion, he several times manifested his belief THAT DUBLIN WAS

WITHIN A FEW MINUTES OF AN INSURRECTION WHICH ITS GARRISON OF TEN THOUSAND TROOPS WOULD BE UNABLE

EFFECTUALLY TO PUT DOWN. The importance of this statement will excuse its repetition. To no other belief than that of an immediate insurrection can

we refer the military occupation of every available post in the city for months; the defending of the Castle by ball-proof barricades; the sudden closings of the Castle gates; the commands at midnight to the artillerymen to stand by their guns and light their port-fires; the rousing of the whole garrison at dead of night with orders to prepare for instant action. Once for all, we ask our readers, as they go with us, to bear these extraordinary preparations and movements in mind.

We almost fear that, by those who were not eye-witnesses of them, we have been suspected of exaggerating those military preparations, which so perplexed the people of Dublin in the Spring of 1848. We venture to extract one or two paragraphs from the columns of a journal of the day, not only be cause they verify our statement, but show that even then there were persons who ventured perhaps faintly to hint that they were absurd :

"DUBLIN CASTLE-PATRICK'S-DAY IN THE MORNING.

"The Castle guard, relieved at six o'clock this morning, in order to avoid the usual Patrick's-day ceremonial, consists of a strong detachment of the 49th Regiment, of two troops of the 7th Hussars, and a company of Artillery, with four guns. The Castle gates are closed, and strengthened with wooden pallisades. There are moveable columns (each under the order of a military magistrate) of Artillery, Cavalry, and Infantry, stationed at Portobello, the University, the Royal Barracks, and the Royal Hospital; while strong parties of Infantry occupy the Post-office, the Rotundo, the Bank, the Custom-house, and the Four

Courts. At all these posts the men are under arms, and horses saddled, so as to enable the authorities, at a moment's notice, not only to demonstrate, but to crush a force a thousand times greater than any ever exhibited at the greatest of the monster meetings."-Evening Mail, March 17th.

These preparations were not intended for a single day. Most of the posts then occupied continued to be garrisoned for months. Thus writes the same journal on the 24th of April :—

"The Government continue their preparations. The housekeeper at the Customhouse has, we understand, received directions to prepare for the permanent accommodation of eighty soldiers in the building. A party of soldiers were this day under arms on the roof of the Bank."

And again, on the 28th, the same journal thus censures the absurd fears so undisguisedly displayed by Lord Clarendon :

"We cannot refrain from expressing our regret at the constant exhibition of superfluous alarm which for some time past has characterised the movements of the Government in Ireland. On more than one occasion troops have been suddenly, at night, summoned from their quarters, and marched to the occupation of posts in the city-cannon placed at night in position-marines hurried on shore, to find themselves more 'at sea' than on the quarter-deck; and all this, so far as we can learn, without adequate cause, or any instant danger. In addition, every day we find troops marching and counter-marching-instructions to the College and the Royal Dublin Society, that room for more military is needed in those places-more artillery brought into the Castle-more ball-proof barricading thrown up about it. The result of all this is necessarily to perplex and excite the citizens, who should, as far as possible, be kept in a state of tranquil confidence in the resources of their rulers, without intermitting their ordinary avocations of trade or commerce, which cannot fail to be interrupted while the public mind is held in constant suspense."

This is not all. We have already stated the effects of this alarm in inducing many sober citizens to form themselves into societies for the purpose of defending their homes. One central association of the citizens assumed the name of "The Defensive Association." These follies-for follies they were-Lord Clarendon distinctly and personally encouraged. While he refused openly to sanction any one company of armed loyalists-nay, while, as Lord Ellenborough most justly complained, in the House of Lords, he su

perciliously rejected the open, the generous, and the manly offers of men true to their Queen, to arm themselves in her defence, he privately encouraged and stimulated these unauthorised, and, therefore, we do not hesitate to say, illegal defensive associations, by addressing to them arguments and incentives the most powerful that could act upon the mind of man.

Lord Clarendon distinctly stated to the loyal citizens of Dublin, that when the insurrection came, he would not protect their homes! And telling them this, he refused to sanction the formation of a single company of volunteers! He told them, moreover, that he left it to themselves to defend the houses in those parts of the city in which the troops were not placed.

We feel this to be a grave accusation. It rests upon Lord Clarendon's own statement. These were his words in the House of Lords, on the 18th of February, 1850, in explaining! his connexion with the arming of the Orangemen :

"Captain Kennedy, who was stated to have been employed by me, held no employment under Government, but was agent to the Devon estate, and had volunteered his services as an experienced engineer officer, to organise the well-affected inhabitants of Dublin, and to make preparations for defending certain parts of the city, because I had given notice that in the event of an insurrection the troops should not be scattered about, and it was for the citizens to take some means for the protection of their own lives and property."

"It was for the citizens to take some means for the protection of their own lives and properties!" This from the Chief Governor of Ireland, whose bounden duty it was to take those very means; this from the Lord Lieutenant, who had refused to sanction a single armed society of those citizens ! this from the Sovereign's representative, who ought to have known that any association for military purposes, without the license of the Sovereign, was a high offence against the law!

We confess we hardly trust ourselves to comment upon this avowal. To whom had the experienced engineer officer volunteered his services? To Lord Clarendon, of course. What then becomes of the disavowal of that very Captain Kennedy's services in organising the Orangemen, assigning them their posts, and purchasing for them arms? What becomes of the

Lord Lieutenant's refusal publicly to sanction the enrolment of the citizens in armed companies? Lord Clarendon avows himself the getter-up of the societies which he was anxious in public to disown. He was the alarmist. He it was who told the "well-affected inhabitants" that a sanguinary outbreak was at hand, in which all his troops could not protect their families and their homes! while he took care every second night to quicken their terrors by those mysterious movements which indicated his apprehension of the instant outbreak of this terrible insurrection.

And yet he never proclaimed the city of Dublin; and when he did appeal to the Legislature for new powers, it was for the purpose of trying as felony, instead of treason, the authors of treasonable publications in newspapers!

We will not be understood for one moment as extenuating the danger and the mischief of those publications upon which we comment;-far from it. Our heaviest charge against Lord Clarendon is, that he continued to allow these publications to alarm the loyal, to inflame the disaffected, to give confidence to the enemies of Government, by the bold impunity of their unmasked and unshrinking treason. The mischief of these publications consisted in their effect upon the public mind, excited by the miseries of the country, and kindled by the tidings which each day brought of new European revolutions. Against this mischief, until the passing of the Treason-Felony Act, Lord Clarendon took no precaution whatever. But while he permitted these publications to do all that publications could do to CREATE an actual rebellion, he was industriously circulating the most horrifying accounts of a coming insurrec tion, and he lent all the weight of Government to these reports by military preparations, only to be justified by the presence of an armed, a numerous, and an organised rebel force.

The presence of such a rebel force in the city would have justified the military investment of our public buildings as fortresses for the troops. But if it did exist, then nothing can justify the inaction of the Executive. If Lord Clarendon had information of a rebel organis ation so strong as to make it necessary to garrison our public buildings, to prepare them to stand a seige, how can he justify it to his Sovereign and his