It might have been thought that such a statement as this could have produced but one effect, or at least that no man could have been found who would attempt to weaken its effect, by ♦MR. WHITBREAD;♦ recriminating upon his own country. Mr. Whitbread, however, after observing that he believed Mr. Jacob had gone to Spain upon a mission, half commercial, half diplomatic, demanded of him whether he had been an eye-witness of these atrocities; and if he were, or if he were not, why he had detailed them, unless it was to inflame the house upon a question where their judgement only ought to decide? “Abuses, no doubt,” he said, “must have prevailed; but were gentlemen aware of none committed under circumstances of less provocation, when the clergy received the mandates of power to ascend their pulpits, and issue from them falsehoods not more rank than they were notorious?” Such is the language which Mr. Whitbread is reported to have uttered upon this occasion. He proceeded to ask, “Where was the spirit of the Spaniards? where were its effects? were they seen in suffering the French to pass over the face of their country, like light through an unresisting medium? We were gravely told that the post could not pass unmolested; no doubt this was a most serious calamity, and a conclusive proof of the energy of the popular spirit, ... only, unfortunately, we had the same proof in Ireland! Spain,” he averred, “had not done its duty ... no matter from what cause; the people had, however, some excuse, they had been under the selfish sway of an aristocracy, that only wanted to use them as an instrument for effecting their own narrow purposes; their implicit confidence had been abused by the blind bigotry of an intolerant priesthood, ... a priesthood that, whatever it preached, practised not the gospel; they had had the sword in their hands as often as the crosier, and they had had, he feared, in their hearts any thing but the meekness, humility, charity, and peace, that their blessed Master had inculcated by his pure precepts, enforced by the example of his spotless life, and sealed by the last sufferings of his all-atoning death. While,” said Mr. Whitbread, “I value those precepts and that example, I never can take pleasure in setting man against his fellow-man in a hopeless struggle. I think the present cause hopeless, and as such I never will consent to its being uselessly and cruelly protracted.”