EUROPEAN EXTRACTS. WHAT THE REBELS INTENDED. (From the Times, November 14.)

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 310, 19 May 1849, Page 1 (Supplement)

EUROPEAN EXTRACTS. WHAT THE REBELS INTENDED. (From the Times, November 14.)

We have bc?n told, on high authority, that the Irish Rebellion was an illusion, a fiction, and a farce ; that nothing was ever intended by the Repealers, hut all was invented by the Government ; that Smith OBrien was a purposeless idiot, Mitchel a moonstruck enthusiast, Meagher a blustering mouther, but thf-t all design of insurrection and all thought of treason were far removed from the minds of the wretched victims who have expiated an imaginary guilt by a felon's penalty. We have heard the Government calumniated for excessive cruelty by the objects of its prosecution, and sneered at for excessive timidity by the subjects of its protection. When the danger was over — when the treason that made a flying camp of 40,0i10 horse, foot, and artillery necessary in three-fourths of Ireland, had ihrunk into the puny dimensions of an exploded braggadocio — then the Government, which, by timely precaution and large preparation, had 6aved the empire from the sanguinary excesses of civil war and the ferocity of an internecine strife, was laughed at and condemned for the failure of designs which its own energy had blasted in the bud. But those who doubted whether the Confederates hid any project at all, and those who limit that project to inoxiouf and immaterial ends, may now satisfy their scruples and recant their creed ; habemui confitcntes rcos. Mr. Thomas DArcy M'Gep, who rejoirces in, subscribing himself" A. Traitor to the Biitish Govern* ment," has confided to the congenial columns of the New Yoik Morning Herald the intention which he and his fellow conspirators entertained, aud his explanation of the failure of their plot. We quote his own w.<rdg for a history of its commencement:—" In 1847 Young Ireland was busy gaining over the inhabitants of the towns fio.n 'moral force,' and, with the example of Pius IX. and the revolutions of last Spring, we auccssdt'd. At any time during the last bix months the towns-people were in terms commit- ed to atempt a foicilile expulsion of the British power, 'Ihiatosnship organisation consisted of 500 clubs, in the total of about 30,000 men of the fighting age. 01 these less thnn half was more or less armed in July, and the other half were acquiring arms as iast as they could when, money wai scarce &nd military weapons dcai.'' So far Ux the invention of the couaphatois. There is po

doubt about that. Now for the causes of its failure:, Mi. M G c ii explicit enough on that head ; he ex plains them categorically, with a coolness which docs equal credit to his head and heart :— " The Confederate principles," says he, " did not pervade the rural population up to the last hour. For this there aie many causes. The famine of '46 and '47 had left a lassitude after it, like that which follows fever" Not a word about the Engliih subscription— rot a hint at the i?8,O00,O00 of English alms— not a sylhble about the unwillingness of the Itish to cut the throats of the people who had interposed an unstinted liberality between them and destruction,— no ; not a word of this. Mr. M'Gee's countrymen who were (according to hit statement) quite ready to pocket the Saxon's gold, and were only pi evented from shooting him afterwards by the "lassitude" of the famine which the Saxon had helped to mitigate! The Irish are under a deep obligation to Mr. DArcy M'Gee for giving to the world this illustration of the national character. •« The peasantry could not retain the heat that Mitchell, Duffy, and Meagher would infuse into them." No, starving and shivering as they were in the abyss of pestilence and famine, they were hardly susceptible of the lofty feelings of sedition and rebellion. Mesirs. Meagher, Duffy, and Metchel did their best to arm gaunt hunger and grim fever with the pike, the musket, and the scythe ; but it would not do ; the poor wretches' hands shook and trembled at the touch ; " they could not retain" the glow of treason that their fiery eloquence had inspired, and by which their selfish ambition would fain have worked its way. Well, then, hunger and disease battled againbt rebellion. But this was not all ; the priests fought against it too. Let the libellers of Lord Clarendon's administration mark these words of a fugitive accomplice and avowed traitor :— " The Catholic clergy (with the exception of the eloquent and courageous Bishop of Derry and his clergymen) abandoned the infant league ; and so the Confederates were left alone, face to face, and foot to foot with the Government. * * * ! am Batisfied, that if the Church had been involved, evea ever so ( little, in 1848, we would have beaten the English ; but the bishops and dignitaries opposed the movement." This was the principal cause of disunion and feebleness in the Repeal ranks. The priests were associated in the minds of the peasantry with the penal prosecutions and the insurrections of the bygone century ; they were regarded as their natural leaders against the Government, as the men who would be the counsellors and directors of a successful movement, and its protomartyrs if it failed. The priests held backed the Confederacy lost its strong bond of union. It is pleasing now to contemplate the schemes which were concerted for our confusion. The grand contrivance of the conspirators was to harass and distract the Queen's forces by an organised guerilla warfare. The army was to have been seduced into remote and scattered districts of the country, and then the " remainder of the course that might be taken would be to burn the towns and cities, as the Athenians did Athens, and the Russians Moscow." That is all, geutlemen of the Repeal and Orange opposition ! Dublin, Limerick, Cork, and Waterford, were to have lighted an universal bonfire to the honour of Messr*. Meagher and Co., and the discomfiture of the Queen's Government. A plea« Bant November you would have had if the " poor thoughtless victims," " the high-soukd martyrs," and the " contemptible rhodomontaders" bad had it all their own wayl A pleasant winter would it have oeen amid the black ruin, smouldering embers, and roofless tenements on the banks of the Liffey and the Shannon ! With what gleesome cordiality would the inaugurated Triumvirs of the New Republic have saluted their regenerated fellow-citizens, when they cried " A merry Christmas to you, my masters J" We have escaped this. We have escaped the massacre, murders, pillage, and atrocities of civil war. We have eFcaped seeing the devastation of the country, and the desolation of the towns. But— so far thanks to Mr. DArcy M'Gee — we may yet expect these pleasures and enjoyments. Treason is scotched, not killed. it lies mangled and bruised, but still full of life. " I do not despair of Ireland," says he. " The vice of loyalty is gone at the root, and it but neeos a little more of Time's teaching to make a democratic revolution, which will wait for no leadership to strike, to make Ireland as free as the freost— even as free as this parent land of libeity i self." So far Mr. M'Gee. We are obliged to him ; more, we fancy, than many of his compatriots and colleagues •will be. In the conclusion of his letter — or rather its peroration — he is at some pains to expound the sort of men that Ireland will require for perfecting her next rebellion. We beg to add a few elements to those -which he predicates to be necessary for '• saving the national spirit from barrenness, and the national cha racier from disparagement." We tell him, then, that when Ireland next lebels, she will not require the efforts of men who bluster more than they conspire — who conspire more readily than they fight— who are full of big, swelling words, and void of great or manly acts— who fly at the first indication of danger, and, when safe on a foreign or hostile shore, in the fervour of insatiable egotism, betray to the world the names and counsels of their guilty colleagues) whose doom sfll hangs in the balance of offended justice, and at the disposal of an insulted and triumphant Executive !