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).

His great object was to prove that the state of the Land Laws was the cause of agrarian murders, and that Coercion Acts were not a remedy.  In the County Tipperary, where there were most ejectments, there were also most murders, and he called the particular attention of the house to this fact.  He referred to the Land Commission report with regard to ejectments, and showed from it, that in the year 1843 there were issued from the Civil Bill Courts 5,244 ejectments, comprising 14,816 defendants, and from the Superior Courts 1,784 ejectments, comprising 16,503 defendants, making a total of 7,028 ejectments, and 31,319 defendants; or within the period of five years—­1839 to 1843—­comprised in the return, upwards of 150,000 persons had been subjected to ejectment process in Ireland.

He complained of the administration of justice in that country.  The government had, he said, appointed partizan judges (he named several of them) and partizan magistrates, in whom the people had no confidence, whilst they took away the commission of the peace from seventy-four gentlemen, simply because they advocated a repeal of the Legislative Union.