Let us again point with undisguised triumph to IRELAND, as a very striking instance of the results of a sound and firmly-administered Conservative policy. The late Government misgoverned Ireland, in order that they might be allowed to continue misgoverning England. Their memory will ever be execrated for their surrender of that fair portion of the empire into the hands of a political reprobate and impostor, of whom we cannot trust ourselves to speak, and the like of whom has never yet appeared, and it is to be hoped never will again appear, in British history. Immediately before and after their expulsion from office, they pointed to this scene of their long misconduct, and, with a sort of heartless jocularity, asked Sir Robert Peel "What he meant to do with Ireland?"--adding, that whatever else he might be able to do, by the aid of intrigue and corruption, "he could _never_ govern Ireland." How _now_, gentlemen? What will you find to lay to the charge of Ministers in the coming session? What has become of your late patron, Mr O'Connel? Is "his occupation gone?" Is he spending the short remainder of his respectable old age at Darrynane, even (begging pardon of the noble animal for the comparison) --"like a worn-out lion in a cave, That goes not out to prey?" What can you any longer do, or affect to do, old gentleman, to earn your honourable wages? Is there not (as the lawyers would style it) a failure of consideration? If you go on any longer collecting "the rent," may you not be liable to an indictment for obtaining money under false pretences? Poor old soul! his cuckoo cry of Repeal grows feebler and feebler; yet he must keep it up, or starve. _Tempus abire senex! satis clamasti!_ That Ireland is still subject to great evils, recent occurrences painfully attest. Mr Pitt, in 1799, (23d January,) pointed out what may still be regarded as their true source:--"I say that Ireland is subject to great and deplorable evils, which have a deep root: for they lie in the nature of the country itself in the present character, manners, and habits of its people; in their want of intelligence, or, in other words, in their ignorance; in the unavoidable separation of certain classes; in the state of property; in its religious distinctions; in the rancour which bigotry engenders, and superstition rears and cherishes."[6] How many of these roots of evil are still in existence! [6] Parliamentary History, vol. xxxiv. p. 271. But consider what we have done, even already, for Ireland, by giving her the blessings of a strong and honest Government; what a blow we have aimed at absenteeism, in a particular provision of our income-tax! _Nil desperandum_, gentlemen, give us a little time to unravel your long tissue of misgovernment; and, in the mean time, make haste, and go about in quest of a _grievance_, if you can find one, against the ensuing session. Depend upon it, we will redress it! * * * * *