But this is a trifle: the most unkind and groundless assertion the author of the letters of Runnymede makes, with regard to the man who called him the lineal descendant of the impenitent thief, is, when he says, that "this remarkable address was an abnegation of the whole policy of Mr. O'Connell's career." This is strangely inexact: nay more, if Mr. D'Israeli heard the speech, as is to be inferred, or if he read it, it is disingenuous. The speech was a bold denunciation of the system of evictions, carried out by Irish landlords, to which O'Connell attributed the murders the Government relied on, to justify them in bringing forward the Coercion Bill. Speaking of the murder of Mr. Carrick, he said: "here again let me solemnly protest--I am sure I need not--that I do not consider any of these acts as an excuse, or a reason, or even as the slightest palliation of his murder (hear, hear); no, they are not, it was a horrible murder; it was an atrocious murder; it was a crime that was deserving of the severest punishment which man can inflict, and which causes the red arm of God's vengeance to be suspended over the murderer (hear, hear)." But he adds: "I want the House to prevent the recurrence of such murders. You are going to enact a Coercion Bill against the peasantry and the tenantry, and my object is, that you should turn to the landlords, and enact a Coercion Bill against them." Who but Mr. D'Israeli can perceive any abnegation of O'Connell's principles in these sentiments? He quoted Parliamentary reports to prove what tyrannical use had been made of the powers conferred by Coercion Acts, and he enumerated those passed since 1801, under some of which trial by jury was abolished. He cited blue books to show the misery and destitution to which ejected tenants were sometimes reduced, closing his proofs with this sentence: "such is the effect of the ejectment of tenantry in Ireland." He next dwelt on the physical wretchedness of the people in general, relying chiefly for his facts on the Devon Commission. He reminded Sir James Graham of a statement of his, that the murders in Ireland were a blot upon Christianity. "Is not," said O'Connell, "the state of things I have described a blot upon Christianity? (hear, hear). This, be it recollected," he continued, "is forty-five years after the Union, during which time Ireland has been under the government of this country, which has reduced the population of that country to a worse condition than that of any other country in Europe" (hear, hear).