a salary of £700 per annum, in addition to a furnished official residence provided at the public expense; and this was the first institution of what are now called stipendiary magistrates. The appointment also rests with the Lord Lieutenant of a clerk to each chief magistrate, with a salary of £150 per annum; a chief constable, with a salary of £150 per annum ; and sub-constables, to the number of not more than fifty for each district, at salaries of £50 per annum each. The powers also include the provision of arms and accoutrements, horses, saddles, bridles, and all other things deemed necessary. This force is placed under the sole control of the chief magistrate, and is to execute and obey his lawful warrants, orders, and commands, the whole police machinery being independent of the ordinary magistrates, whose orders and processes are to be disregarded unless they are expressly approved by the chief magistrate.

As usual in such cases, the Act was amended by another Act passed on the 1st of December in the same year, when additional powers of appointment were given, and regulations made by the Acts jointly for continuing or withdrawing the whole system at the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant, and for diminishing or increasing the number of constables in any district, or for arming them or disarming them, as circumstances seemed to justify.

It was in defiance, therefore, of these police arrangements, and in defiance also of Peel's Peace Preservation Act, and numerous Acts relating to arms, assaults, combinations, oaths, and the like, that the disturbances of 1815 and 1816 prevailed.

Altogether independent of the good or bad effect of Peel's police upon Irish society, the system greatly increased the power and patronage of the government, and was, upon the whole, a vast scheme of centralization. The county magistrates were extremely jealous of the consequent interference with their functions and authority, and resented the inferior position they were in as compared with the upstart stipendiaries, who it was then said were usually briefless barristers or broken-down politicians in a small way, to whom the salaries were peculiarly acceptable. The whole system, therefore, became extremely

THEIR MILITARY CHARACTER.

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unpopular with all classes of the nation, and the constables very soon got to be called, in derision, "Peelers," long before that now familiar expression was known in England. They were introduced, ostensibly, for coping with extraordinary derangements of the public peace, but they gradually got a footing, which was strengthened by very numerous subsequent Acts for increasing their power and influence. Of late years the popular grievance has been, not that they have acted against outrage, but that they have been very extensively employed at the public expense to execute, or assist in executing, legal processes for the benefit of individuals,-the peculiarity of the Irish police being that, contrary to custom in England and Scotland, they are frequently or habitually armed with cutlasses or revolvers, or both, and are altogether of a semi-military character.

CHAPTER XVIII.

FAMINE AND RENEWED OUTRAGES-DEATH OF

GEORGE III.

HE wars of Napoleon, in their tendency to increase the prices of

THE

food, operated upon English markets, and created what were called war prices. This very much affected Ireland, in consequence of the large proportion of the Irish who depended upon the produce of small farms. For several years previously to Waterloo, the continuing rise of prices was made the excuse for raising rents. With that excuse, rents were considerably raised, and most of the outrages arose from that cause. Soon after Waterloo, prices rapidly fell. Tenants universally claimed reductions of rent; landlords universally declined to entertain the proposal. In the emergency an Act was passed to facilitate evictions, and evictions were resorted to as they never had been before. Hundreds of tenants were turned out upon the highways; their dwellings, such as they were, were destroyed to prevent the possibility of re-occupation. The Suppression Act of 1814 had been kept alive by repeated renewals. In 1816 it was in full vigour, filling the gaols with wretched outcasts, and transporting great numbers. Prices of food were down. Those who still held their farms suffered from the reduction. To those who had been evicted the low prices were of no advantage, for they had no money. So the Irish starved and pinched, for the only means of paying rent was to export to England produce for which Ireland produced no customers. The natural result was that large quantities of land fell out of cultivation, and 1817 brought a terrible famine. Multitudes of the people tried to subsist by gathering wild kale, nettles, and various weeds. Typhus broke out

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with great virulence, and of that and starvation many thousands died. How many, there is no record, for that was long before the Registration Acts were passed, and means of obtaining and publishing the truth were then very limited; but the circumstances were sufficiently recorded to prove that the mortality must have been as fearful as the sufferings were desperate. Outrage and suppression contended together; there were numerous murders, but organization of popular resistance had ceased, for famine and disease had done more than Coercion Acts could do to zubdue the people.

In some instances rents were not exacted, indeed there is reason to believe that at this time very few rents of farms were paid. It was not so with tithes. The tithe proctor was an immediate and inexorable judge, increasing hardship everywhere. This was made the ground for some revival of effort amongst the leaders of the Catholics, but they, in common with the whole country, were paralyzed by the magnitude of the universal distress, in the midst of which a prosecution was instituted by the government against Mr. M'Donnell, the proprietor of the Dublin Chronicle, for criticisms that proved to be too pungent for endurance. Notwithstanding his spirited defence by O'Connell, he was convicted. His sentence of a fine of £100 and six months' imprisonment was considered lenient. The people, additionally exasperated wherever intelligence of the imprisonment reached, continued as before, in spite of every effort to control them, to indulge in what was called at the time "the wild justice of revenge." This continued with more or less virulence all through 1818 and 1819, in which latter year the disturbances in England, culminating in the Peterloo massacre, tended to distract attention from Ireland; and so we arrive, in the midst of dark clouds and angry portends, at the death of George III., on the 20th of January, 1820.

CHAPTER XIX.

SUCCESSION OF GEORGE IV.-INCREASING CATHOLIC SUCCESS-THE ROYAL VISIT.

HE first year of the reign of George IV. as King was signalized

THE

by a remarkable degree of quiet. There seemed to be a vague hope that somehow the change of kings would inevitably bring about some good. The Catholic leaders during this year concentrated all their forces for another great effort; and, accordingly, on the 28th of February, 1821, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Plunkett introduced into the House of Commons another of the long series of resolutions having for their object the removal of Catholic disabilities. The resolution was for a committee to inquire into Catholic grievances, and the resolution was carried by 227 to 221. Accordingly, on the 2nd of March the House went into committee, and Mr. Plunkett then moved six resolutions which were carried without a division. Soon afterwards, Mr. Plunkett was permitted to introduce two bills for carrying into effect the resolutions already agreed to. The country was thoroughly cognizant of what was going on. The Catholics of England exerted themselves more than they had ever done before, and petitions in favour of the bills poured in from all parts of the kingdom. On the other hand, the Protestant clergy, evidently apprehending that the bills might pass, were unusually active in opposition, so that petitions against the bills were even more numerous than those in its favour. It is remarkable that Mr. Plunkett was a Protestant, and also in favour of the veto previously described, and therefore he took great credit to himself for having embodied in his bills that proviso. The bills were eventually consolidated; and in committee it was moved that the