But are the Whig ministry sincere in their declarations against Irish crime, and is incompetency their only fault?--alas! we cannot believe it. There are amongst them shrewd and sensible men, who must have perceived that they have been hitherto acting in error, and there can scarcely be one so besotted or ignorant, as not to see that to the policy they have pursued is to be attributed the ruin of the country. But at the same time, they well know that they must obey the dictates of their task-masters the Irish priests, or surrender their power; and they yield themselves bound hand and foot, sooner than abandon office which they have made so many and such shameful sacrifices of principle to obtain. Thirty-seven Irish members are completely in the hands of the priests, and this is a political power which Lord John Russell's cabinet has not the courage or the strength to defy. While her Majesty's ministers and their supporters draw the most appalling pictures of the state of society in Ireland, and recount horrors which are enough to curdle the blood, they one and all abstain most scrupulously from attributing those evils to the causes which have really produced them--they studiously avoid touching the sore spot. It is admitted that priests denounce men from the altars, and that such persons become immediate victims. "Did you denounce this man from the altar?" asked a coroner the other day of a reverend gentleman who was giving evidence at an inquest. "I did." "And he was murdered immediately after?" "_Yes, he was murdered at five o'clock on the same day._" Now here is a palpable admission made by a man on his oath. He does not seek to screen himself from the consequences of his act; he seems rather to pride himself on the speedy execution of his decree. Henry the Second exclaimed, "Have I no friends to rid me of such a torment?" and Becket was sacrificed; a Roscommon priest, from the altar of God, and on his holy Sabbath, cries to his infuriated auditors, "_This man is worse than Cromwell, yet he lives_," and Major Mahon is savagely slaughtered! Is there any notice taken of the conduct of those men by the law-officers of the Crown?--any condemnation pronounced upon it by her Majesty's ministers? Not at all: although the crime of the one is admitted on his oath, and the truth of the accusation against the other is undenied--both, though in the eyes of God and the law equally criminal as the wretch who executed their commands, are "honoured and at large;" and while such things pass before our eyes, we are told, that "to the wonderful and praiseworthy exertions of the Roman Catholic priesthood," we are mainly indebted for not having the country in a worse condition than it really is!