Under this Proclamation, Gen. Lake deprived of arms not only the traiterous and the disaffected, but the loyal and most zealous friends of the constitution. Where arms were expected and not found, a very new mode of trial was instituted. The suspected or accused person was suspended by the neck until the process of strangulation was nearly completed. He was then let down, and if he was still pertinacious, the touchstone was again tried, until he either confessed or accused others. In other cases, it was ascertained what quantity of arms should be brought in by a certain village or district--if the full quantity could not be produced by the inhabitants, their habitations were reduced to ashes to detect the concealment. These seem to have been ordinary modes of proceeding under the military system; there were others more irregular and eccentric which the zeal of the soldiers frequently prompted them to indulge in. Of the system thus steadily pursued by the Irish administration, the Irish legislature expressed their most hearty and zealous approbation.--Throughout the whole train of violent measures to which the Irish administration resorted, the Irish Parliament went with them _pari passu_. Without stopping to enquire whether this co-operation of the legislature tended rather to reconcile the people to the system than to encrease the discontents which it was naturally calculated to produce, it is certain that some very celebrated characters, whose opinions in this case deserve to be respected, had declared the most decided disapprobation of at least that part of it which related to the military. The conduct of my Lord Moira, in the Parliament of both countries, himself a soldier, an Irish nobleman, and one possessed of such a stake in the country as must make him anxious for its welfare and its peace, has already perhaps inclined the British public to doubt whether the enormities practised under that system were tolerable in any country. The manly and candid opinion of the brave old Abercrombie, "That the conduct of the army in Ireland was calculated to make them formidable only to their friends," must have also had its weight in ascertaining the merits of that system. That the feelings and the honour of that venerable officer did not suffer him longer to remain in the command of the Irish army, Ireland will long have reason to lament. The influence of even _one_ such mind on Irish politics would have produced the most important benefits.