But as we were spared the necessity of testing the royal clemency to the submitted Provinces of North America, we had better pass on twenty years to the era of the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland.  In this country the Irishman need not “fear to speak of ’98,” and in this country he still treasures the memory of the whippings and pitch-caps of Major Beresford’s riding-house, and other pleasant souvenirs of the way in which, sixty years ago, loyalty dealt with rebellion.  There is no inherent proneness to treason in the Hibernian nature, as Corcoran and the Sixty-Ninth can bear witness; nor is Pat so fond of a riot that he cannot with fair play be a—­well, a good citizen.  Yet at home he has been so “civilized” by his British guardian as to be in a chronic state of discontent and fretfulness.

We must, however, hasten to our latest precedent,—­England in India.  The Sepoy Rebellion had some features in common with our own.  It was inaugurated by premeditated military treachery.  It seized upon a large quantity of Government munitions of war.  It only asked “to be let alone.”  It found the Government wholly unprepared.  But it was the uprising of a conquered people.  The rebels were in circumstances, as in complexion, much nearer akin to that portion of our Southern citizens which has not rebelled, and which has lost no opportunity of seeking our lines “to take the oath of allegiance” or any other little favor which could be found there.  We do not defend their atrocities, although a plea in mitigation might be put in, that these “were wisely planned to break the spell which British domination had woven over the native mind of India,” and that they were part of that decided and desperate policy which was designed to forever bar the way of reconstruction.  But toward the recaptured rebels there was used a course for which the only precedent, so far as we know, was furnished by that highly civilized guardian, the Dey of Algiers.  These prisoners of war were in cold blood tied to the muzzles of cannon and blown into fragments.  The illustrated papers of that most Christian land which is overcome with the barbarity of sinking old hulks in a channel through which privateers were wont to escape our blockade furnished effective engravings “by our own artist” of the scene.  Wholesale plunder and devastation of the chief city of the revolt followed.  The rebellion was put down, and put down, we may say, without any unnecessary tenderness, any womanish weakness for the rebels.

We have thus established what we believe is called by theologians a catena of precedents, coming down from the days of the Commonwealth to our own time.  It covers about the whole period of New England history.  And we next propose to ask the question, how far it may be desirable to be bound by such indisputable authority.

Is it too late to reopen the question, and to retry the issue between sovereign and rebel, less with respect to ancient and immemorial usage, and more according to eternal principle?  We answer, No.  The same power that enables us to master this rebellion will give us original and final jurisdiction over it.