1.
Henry M'Cormac (1800–1886; ODNB), Belfast physician and author of medical works; see TC to CAH, 13 June 1843. M'Cormac wrote to TC from Belfast, 1 May: “I read with pain, as coming from you, the letter in last Examiner [“Repeal of the Union,” 29 April]. The produce of this country is sent out of it, in order to be sold & pay the absentee landlord … . Thus capital in every form is abstracted, leaving insufficient for the comfortable subsistence of the people. Hence, misery, discontent, & wholesale Starvation. … The accompanying communication [not found] printed for my own convenience was sent to most of the London Journals: I am
unaware that it received insertion or attention. The same also of a subsequent, & perhaps more impressible, letter addressed
to the Times. / I can assure you Dr Sir, that discontent—a discontent that slashing philippics will hardly appease—is likewise very rife in the North of Ireland.”
TC presumably answered this letter, whereupon M'Cormac responded by enclosing a letter addressed to the ed. of the Examiner, dated 5 May and signed “M.,” which was printed in the Examiner, 13 May. The writer of the letter, identifying himself as one of TC's “earliest admirers,” took exception to TC's “judgment on the
question of Irish Repeal. … It is good government that should be agitated for, not separate government; but separation is
better than bad government; and I entirely sympathize in the indignation which an Irishman is entitled to feel at the reasons
given by [TC] for refusing it. / The doctrine of your correspondent is (to quote his own words) that ‘the Destinies have laid
upon England a heavier, terribler job of labour than any people has been saddled with in these generations’—no other than
that of ‘conquering Anarchy’: that this, which is ‘England's work, appointed her by the so-called Destinies and Divine Providences,’
cannot go on unless Ireland is either English, or in English hands; and that consequently the repeal of the Union is ‘flatly
forbidden by the laws of the universe.’ / … Instead of telling of the sins and errors of England, and warning her of ‘wrath
to come,’ as he has been wont to do, he preaches the divine Messiahship of England, proclaims her the prime minister of Omnipotence
on this earth, commissioned to reduce it all (or as much of as is convenient to herself) into order and harmony, or at all
events, under that pretext, into submission, even into ‘slavery,’ under her own power—will it or will it not.” See also Rodger
L. Tarr, “Thomas Carlyle and Henry M'Cormac: Two Letters on the Condition of Ireland in 1848,” Studies in Scottish Literature 5 (1967–68): 253–56.
2. In the event the article did prove too long, and TC was forced to divide it into two parts. One part appeared as “Ireland
and the British Chief Governor” in the Spectator, 13 May. Another part, “Legislation for Ireland,” was printed in the Examiner, 13 May. Both excoriate the prime minister for dealing with the most pressing matters in Ireland by urging measures inadequate to
the situation. In the former, TC says: “By what means, then, are Irish wrongs to be redressed? Fifty thousand armed soldiers,— … here is prohibition of Repeal treason, but here is no cure
of the disease which produces Repeal treason, and other madnesses and treasons among us.” In the latter essay TC begins by
asking, “[W]hat has become of the Sale of Encumbered Estates Bill for Ireland? Surely in the front rank, as a preliminary
to all other bills, the Minister was bound to have got that bill passed. It is the preliminary and foundation-stone of all
Irish arrangements whatsoever.” And he ends by insisting that the chief minister should see that steps are “taken, and that
soon. These weeks and months are precious, are perhaps priceless; rushing swiftly,—everyone asks, Whitherward? The rapids
of Niagara, after a while, become too rapid; and then there is no oaring or steering!”
