Lord Moira, in the House of Lords in 1797, in a powerful speech, which has remained without any refutation, described the Government of Ireland as "the most absurd, as well as the most disgusting, tyranny that any nation ever groaned under." He said: "If such a tyranny be persevered in, the consequence must inevitably be the deepest and most universal discontent, and even hatred to the English name. I have seen in that country a marked distinction made between the English and Irish. I have seen troops that have been sent full of this prejudice--that every inhabitant in that kingdom is a rebel to the British. Government. I have seen the most wanton insults practised upon men of all ranks and conditions. I have seen the most grievous oppressions exercised, in consequence of a presumption that the person who was the unfortunate object of such oppression was in hostility to the Government; and yet that has been done in a part of the country as quiet and as free from disturbance as the city of London." His lordship then observed that, "from education and early habits, the _curfew_ was ever considered by Britons as a badge of slavery and oppression. It was then practised in Ireland with brutal rigor. He had known instances where the master of a house had in vain pleaded to be allowed the use of a candle, to enable the mother to administer relief to her daughter struggling in convulsive fits. In former times, it had been the custom for Englishmen to hold the infamous proceedings of the Inquisition in detestation. One of the greatest horrors with which it was attended was that the person, ignorant of the crime laid to his charge, or of his accuser, was torn from his family, immured in a prison, and kept in the most cruel uncertainty as to the period of his confinement, or the fate which awaited him. To this injustice, abhorred by Protestants in the practice of the Inquisition, were the people of Ireland exposed. All confidence, all security, were taken away. When a man was taken up on suspicion, he was put to the torture; nay, if he were merely accused of concealing the guilt of another. The rack, indeed, was not at hand; but the punishment of picqucting was in practice, which had been for some years abolished as too inhuman, even in the dragoon service. He had known a man, in order to extort a confession of a supposed crime, or of that of some of his neighbors, picqueted till he actually fainted--picqueted a second time till he fainted again, and as soon as he came to himself, picqueted a third time till he once more fainted; and all upon mere suspicion! Nor was this the only species of torture. Men had been taken and hung up till they were half dead, and then threatened with a repetition of the cruel treatment, unless they made confession of the imputed guilt. These were not particular acts of cruelty, exercised by men abusing the power committed to them, but they formed part of our system. They were