Now I detest figures, and, therefore, I won't venture to dispute the man's arithmetic about the "ten in due time transported," nor Corkery, nor Mary Lynch, nor any of them.
I take the facts on his own showing, and I ground upon them the most triumphant defence of the calumniated viceroy. What was it, I ask, but the very prescience of the lord lieutenant we praise in the act? He liberated a gaol full of ruffians, not to inundate the world with a host of felons and vagabonds, but, simply, to give them a kind of day-rule.
"Let them loose," cried my lord; "take the irons off--devil a long they 'll be free. Mark my words, that fellow will murder some one else before long. Thank you, Mary Lynch, it is a real pleasure to me to restore you to liberty;" and then, _sotto_, "you'll have a voyage out, nevertheless, I see that. Open the gates--pass out, gentlemen highwaymen. Don't be afraid, good people of Cork, these are infernal ruffians, they 'll all be back again before six months. It's no consequence to me to see you at large, for I have the heartfelt conviction that most of you must be hanged yet."
Here is the true defence of the viceroy, here the real and well-grounded explanation of his conduct; and I hope when Lord Brougham attacks his noble friend--which of course he will--that the marquis will hurl back on him, with proud triumph, this irresistible mark of his united foresight and benevolence.
If a fair estimate were at any moment to be taken of the time employed in the real business of the country, and that consumed by public characters in vindicating their conduct, recapitulating their good intentions, and glossing over their had acts, it would be found that the former was to the latter as the ratio of Falstaff's bread to the "sack."
A British House of Commons is in fact nineteen out of every twenty hours employed in the pleasant personalities of attack and defence. It is something that the "noble baron" said last session, or the "right hon. baronet" did n't say in the present one, engrosses all their attention; and the most animated debates are about certain expressions of some "honourable and learned gentleman," who always uses his words in a sense different from the rest of the nation.