Such is the present state of this question, but how would it have stood had not that other to which he alluded been carried two years ago?  And how did that one then stand?  Why, the noble Duke and all his friends, and a large proportion of the Irish people, were anxious that that question should be carried.  Such, also, do we know to a certainty was the desire of the majority of the other House of Parliament, whilst at the same time there was in this House a minority in its favour, daily acquiring greater strength; and at present, I presume, no one will deny that a large body of the best informed people of this country were also decidedly for conceding this point.  We do not now stand on worse ground on the question of the repeal of the union than we should have done had not the Catholic question been carried.  I do not see the advantage, therefore, of repeating reproaches against me for having given way on that occasion from fear.  I gave way because I conceived the interests of the country would be best answered by doing so; I gave way on the grounds of policy and expediency, and upon those grounds I am at this moment ready to justify what I did.  The noble Lord must forgive me for saying that the state of irritation which has continued to exist in Ireland since that question was carried must not be attributed to the King’s Ministers:  they have done every thing in their power to conciliate, and heal the divisions which distracted that country for so many years previously to the settlement of that question.  It is not my duty, any more than my inclination, to cast imputation on any man; but this I will say, that if the King’s Ministers had been supported as strongly as they have been opposed in their endeavours to heal those divisions, Ireland would have been in a very different state from what it now is.

November 2, 1830.

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Magistrates should be appointed by Lords Lieutenant.

Lords Lieutenant of counties are generally chosen in consequence of their possessing large properties, and from their weight and consideration in the counties over which they preside.  They must, therefore, be the most highly interested in selecting proper persons, and a proper number of persons, whom they know will do their duty well as magistrates.

In choosing magistrates, in my opinion, it is essentially necessary that local knowledge should operate.  Before any man should venture to recommend another to be appointed to the commission, he should have knowledge of his character, and of other circumstances, which can only be discerned by local knowledge.

Nov. 29, 1830.

The Agrarian Outrages of 1830.

It appears to me that the outrages which have taken place in the country are of two descriptions—­the first is that open description of outrage, which there is no doubt, may be got the better of by the operation of the ordinary process of law; the second is that description of crime—­the destruction of property by fire,—­of the perpetrators of which Government have not hitherto been able to discover any trace whatever.  I do not know what information the Noble Earl may have received on the subject within the last week, but up to that period we had discovered no traces whatever of these incendiaries.