to be examined, however, he denied everything and repudiated everybody, but the jury disbelieved him and found a verdict for the plaintiff. When the news was flashed throughout the Empire the sensation was intense. One of the Queen's Government directing a fraudulent arrest, supported by deliberate forgery, was an unheard-of scandal; but it was still worse to have such an official disbelieved on oath by a respectable jury. He was compelled to resign his office and quit Downing Street for ever. In most civilised countries this exposure would have ruined and scattered the political connection which he had created, but in Ireland it ruined no one but Mr. Sadleir. Happily villainy is not an agreeable pursuit. I saw Mr. Sadleir at this time when he came to the House to vote on a party division, and his face was appalling. He had always been a dark, mysterious person, but now he looked wild, haggard, and repulsive. None of us had any suspicion that he was an undetected forger and a swindler, but it seemed that thwarted ambition had turned his blood into liquid mud.
During the recess the gentleman who accepted the succession to John Sadleir in the Treasury, and two County members who had violated their pledges and voted steadily in the interest of the landlords, presented themselves for re-election, and Mr. John O'Connell, the old marplot of popular agitation, found the era a convenient and agreeable one for returning to the House of Commons; and they were all elected. When Parliament met the natural consequences followed. The Government were asked on behalf of Mr. Napier what they had done with his Bills, of which they had taken possession. Lord John Russell, in the slow and discontented drawl which was his ordinary method, declared that nothing had been done because it was not desirable to do anything. The Lord- Lieutenant and other persons in Ireland, with the best information, assured him that there was no longer need for legislation; there was a good harvest, a friendly feeling existed between landlord and tenant, and the question was settling itself.—On the face of God's earth there was not a country so miserable and hopeless as Ireland at that time. The population were flowing out of it like water from a vessel which had been staved. The work-
