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THE LAST CONQUEST OP IRELAND 
 
 (perhaps). 
 
THE 
 
 LAST CONQUEST 
 
 OF 
 
 IRELAND 
 
 (PERHAPS). 
 
 By JOHN MITCHEL. 
 
 AUTHOR'S EDITION. 
 
 BOSTDH mum, UBHARY 
 CH£SiNiiT hill; IVJASS/? 
 
 ■ ■ ■ • ■- C; . ■ 
 GLASGOW: 
 
 R. & T. WASHBOTJRNE, Ltd,, 248 Buchanan Street. 
 
 Head Office : 1, 2 and 4 Paternoster Row, London, 
 
 Manchester Depot : 74 Bridge Street. 
 

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CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 Introduction — Address of the American Congress " To the People of 
 Ireland," in 1775 — Satistics and Condition of Ireland — Ireland in 
 1843 — O'Connell — The Repeal Debate in the Corporation of 
 Dublin— The "Monster Meetings" in 1843— Opinion in the 
 English Parliament — Sir Robert Peel's Declaration in Answer to 
 Mr Bernal [Osborne], • .--.-...7 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ** Repeal Year " (1843) — Resources of O'Connell — Clare Election, and 
 Catholic Emancipation — Shiel — " Young Ireland" — Davis, Dillon, 
 Dufl^ — The "Nation" — Resources of the English — Disarming 
 loiwa, ---.-•---••-II 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ** The Repeal Year " still— O'Brien's Motion— Arms BiU— Sir Edward 
 Sugden — Dismissed Magistrates — Arbitrators — More Monster 
 Meetings, •••• -••. ••-22 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 O'Connell's Oratory — Its Themes — The Whigs— Davis and the " Natien" 
 — The Young Agitators — Tara Meeting — Council of Three 
 Himdred — The Queen's Speech against Repeal — Great Meeting 
 at MuUaghmast — Meeting at Clontarf forbidden, • - - -30 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Determination of the Enemy — Clontarf — The " Projected Massacre " — 
 Arrest of O'Connell and the " Conspirators " — Opening of " Con- 
 ciliation Hall " — O'Brien joins the Repealers — I'reparatiou for the 
 Trials, - «« 
 
It content^ 
 
 CHAPTER VI. tkm 
 
 The Trial — SyBtein of " Selecting " a Jury in Ireland — Verdict against 
 O'Comiell — Debate in Parliament on the State of Ireland — Opera- 
 tion of the Arms Act — Sentence and Imprisonment of O'Connell, - 46 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 O'Connell in Prison — Davis; his Misgivings — Reversal of the Judgment 
 — Whig Law Lords — Rejoicings in Dublin — llie People disap- 
 pointed — Federalism — O'Brien, ..-..••55 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Approach of the Famine, in 1845 — Repeal prospects after the liberation 
 of O'Connell — Irish Produce exported to England in 1844 — Arms 
 and Detectives in return for it — " Landlord and Tenant " Commis- 
 sion — Ejectment Legislation — Condition of Ireland in 1845 — The 
 Devon Commission — The Tenant-Right of Ulster — Conspiracy of 
 Landlords and Legislators — Sir Robert Peel, • ■ • -63 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Land-Tenure Report — O'Brien — Eighty-Two Club— Grey Porter— A 
 National Militia — President Polk and Orgeon Territory — Robert 
 Tyler— Colleges BUI — MacNevin— James Haughton — John O'Con- 
 nell and General Jackson— Lord Stanley's Bill — " Surplus Popu- 
 lation " — Death of Davis — Famine, 74 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Davis; his influence, aim, and labours — His opinion of " Imposing 
 
 Demonstrations " — His Letters — His Death— Fate of MacNevin, 84 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Duties of Government — Alms — Playfair and Lindley — Memorial of the 
 Corporation and Citizens of Dublin — Lord Hey tesbury — O'Connell'g 
 proposals — O'Brien's — Meeting of Parliament — Coercion Bill — 
 Repeal of the Com Laws — Relief, ...... 93 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Lobs of the Irish Crops — Accounts between England and Ireland — 
 Rapid export of Irish harvest and cattle — Sir Robert Peel's 
 " Remedial Measures '* — O'Brien in Parliament — English Press on 
 "Alms" — Sir Robert Peel's two weapons — Repeal Association — 
 Resistance to the Coercion Bill — Extermination in Connaught — 
 The " Nation " and Young Ireland — Another State Prosecution 
 —Change of Ministry, 103 
 
CONTENTS. ▼ 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. Fia 
 
 ** Relief of Famine "- Importations of grain — Imprisonment of O'Brien 
 — Destruction of the Eepeal Association — The Labour-rate Act — 
 More Poor Law Extermination — Recruiting, » • • . 112 
 
 CHAPTER XrV. 
 
 Lalxmr-rate Act — Bigfjing holes — England begs for us — Out-door 
 Kelief — " Fast and humiliation " — Quarter-acre clause — The Calcu- 
 lations of " Political Circles " — Two millions of Celtic corpses — 
 America baffled — Parish coffins — Repudiation of Alms by the 
 • Nation," 122 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Death of O'Connell — His character — Arrangements for the next year's 
 famine — Emigration — Keport of a '* Select Committee " — A New 
 Coercion Act — The Crisis approaches, --•••• 135 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Lord Clarendon, Viceroy — Subterranean agencies of Government — 
 
 Monahan, Attorney-General — Galvvay Election, - • - . 144 
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 Dublin during the Famine — "Young Ireland " — Alr>,rm of the Moneyed 
 Classes — " S. G. O." — Sudden meeting of Parliament — New 
 Coercion Act — Differences in the Irish Confederation — Break up 
 in the " Nation Office "—O'Brien— The United Irishman," - - 151 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The "United Irishman" Newspaper — Nature of the enterprise — 
 Effect of the French Revolution of February, 1848 — Situation of 
 the Govermnent — Examples, • - - • • ■•160 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 March, 1848— The French Revolution- fTaterford Election — Aggre- 
 gate Meeting in Dublin — Prosecution of O'Brien, Meagher, and 
 Mitchel— O'Brien in the English Parliament — The "Treason- 
 Felony" Act— Trial of O'Brien and Meagher for "Sedition"— 
 The " United Irishman " — Trials for illegal drilling — Prosecution 
 for "Sedition" abandoned- x-vrrest of Mitchel for "Treason- 
 I'elony," ..,-..,.•.. i^ 
 
Yl CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. FAGi 
 
 Bag* of the British Press — Protestant Repeal ABSociatlons— Lord 
 Clarendon's Manoeuvres among the Orangemen — Proclamationa 
 against " Communists " — -The Chartists and Irish in England — 
 Letter to the Protestants of the North — Prosecution, - • 174 
 
 CHAPTER XXT. 
 
 Juries in Ireland — Whig professions of impartiality — In the Dock — 
 Holmes — Challenging the array — Closing Scene — The Clubs 
 restrained — Meagher's Account — My last week in Ireland, - - 182 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Triumph of the Enemy — The " Irish Tribune " — The Ech'tors — Habeas 
 Corpus suspended — Numerous Arrests — O'Brien takes to the 
 Country — Carrick — Killenaule — Ballingarry — Dispersion of the 
 people — No Insurrection, 192 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Arrest of O'Brien; of Meagher; of MacManus, etc. — Trials — Excuse 
 for more Jury-packing — Excitement in England — Trial of Chartists 
 — Special Commission in Clonmel — Trial of O'Brien for High 
 Treason — Sentence of Death — Trials of MacManus, O'Donohoe, 
 and Meagher — Commutation of the Sentences of Death — Plan for 
 a New " Plantation of Ireland " — Systematic vilification of the 
 Celtic Irish by Enghsh writers, 202 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Consummation of the " Conquest " — The Queen's Speech in 1849 — 
 More Coercion — More Poor-law — Depopulation: condition of the 
 people, as described by Mr DufFy in 1849 — Lord John liussell's 
 •' Eate-in-aid " — The '* Incumbered Estates Act " — Result to 
 Ireland of Incumbered Estates Court — Queen's Visit to Ireland 
 in 1849: Popular feeling in Dublin suppressed by the Police — 
 L^eland "tranquil," "improving," and " prosperous " — Statistics 
 — KecaiDituletiun— Conclusion, --.«--• 210 
 
THE 
 
 LAST CONQUEST OF IRELAND 
 
 (PERHAPS). 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION — ADDRESS OF T^E AMERICAN CONGRESS " TO TEE 
 PEOPLE OF IRELAND," IN 1775 — STATISTICS AND CONDITION OF 
 IRELAND — IRELAND IN 1843— O'CONNELL — THE REPEAL DEBATE 
 IN THE CORPORATION OF DUBLIN — THE "MONSTER MEETINGS" 
 IN 1843 — OPINION IN THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT — SIR ROBERT 
 peel's DECLARATION IN ANSWER TO MR BERNAL [oSBORNe], 
 
 " We are desirous of possessing the good opinion of the virtuous and 
 humane. We are peculiarly desirous of furnishing you with the true 
 state of our motives and objects) the better to enable you to judge of our 
 conduct with accuracy and determine the merits of the controversy with 
 impartiality and precision.^' 
 
 These sentences are taken from the " Address to the People 
 of Ireland/' by the Continental Congress of America, adopted 
 July, 1776. They fit the other side at present. The Irish 
 People are now the pleaders and appellants. Americans are 
 the virtuous and humane. 
 
 In the same Address, Congress was pleased to say to the 
 People of Ireland: 
 
 " Your Parliament had done us no wrong. You had ever been 
 friendly to the rights of mankind; and we acknowledge with pleasure 
 and gratitude that your nation has produced patriots who have nobly 
 distinguished themselves in the cause of humanity and America." 
 
 Ireland, at that time, had a Parliament, and national exist- 
 ence; and her voice counted for something among civilized 
 nations. And Americans, at that time, would have been very 
 unwilling that the civilized world should form its ideas of their 
 rightSj wrongs, and resistance from the British Press; but their 
 eventual success set them quite above that apprehension; for 
 the civilized world " sympathizes " with success. Ireland^ on 
 
$ THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 the contrary, having been, since that day, ttoice broken, con- 
 quered, and utterly ruined, it may seem that the English have 
 a patent-right in our history, as well as in everything else of 
 ours, and must not be interrupted or controverted. 
 
 Yet there are some circumstances which perplex an inquirer 
 who derivep his information from the English periodical press. 
 That an island which is said to be an antegral part of the 
 richest empire on the globe — and the most fertile portion 
 of that empire; — with British Constitution, Hahecis Coi-pus^ 
 Members of Parliament, and Trial by Jury — should in five 
 years lose two and a half millions of its people (more than one- 
 fourth) by hunger, and fever the consequence of hunger, and 
 flight beyond sea to escape from hunger, — while that empire of 
 which it is said to be a part, was all the while advancing in 
 wealth, prosperity, and comfort, at a faster pace than ever 
 before, — is a matter that seems to ask elucidation. 
 
 In the year 1841, Ireland, a country precisely half the size 
 of the State of Georgia, had a population of 8,175,124. The 
 natural rate of increase of population in Ireland, through all her 
 former troubles, would have given upwards of nine millions in 
 1851; but in 1851 the Census Commissioners find in Ireland 
 but 6,515,794 living souls. (Thorn's Official Director//.) 
 
 Another thing, which to a spectator must appear anomalous, 
 is that during each of those five years of " famine," from '46 to 
 '51 — that famine-struck land produced more than double the 
 needful sustenance for all her own people; and of the best and 
 choicest kind. Governor Wise, of Virginia, was in Brazil while 
 the ends of the earth were resounding with tlie. cry of Irish 
 starvation; and was surprised to see unloaded at itio abundance 
 of the best quality of packed beef from Ireland. That the 
 people who were dying of hunger did, in each year of their 
 agony, produce upon Irish ground, of wheat and other grain, 
 and of cattle and poultry, more than double the amount that 
 they could all by any gluttony devour, is a fact that must be 
 not only asserted, but proved beyond doubt. 
 
 That with one hundred and five members in the Parliament 
 of the " United Kingdom," ^he Irish people (supposing them 
 to suifer any grievance or injustice) could get no redress; that 
 with the British Constitution, Habeas Corpus, and Trial by Jury, 
 as aforesaid, most Irishmen you meet with in America tell you 
 there is no Law or Justice to be had 'v.^ Ireland ; — that to the 
 benevolent exertions on a vast scale, which F.nglish periodicals 
 assure us were made h} thr Tnr[Kii;il («(.v<'nnri. ut, to iv.scrie the 
 ptsrishiuij Irish from their sutit'iin;;.^. that people, though 
 
01" lEELAND, (perhaps). 9 
 
 "warm-hearted" to a proverb, respond not only with ingratitude, 
 but with imprecations, — that even now, when the country is, 
 we are assured, prosperous and wealthy, there is still an eager, 
 multitudinous emigration, to fly from such prosperity, — that 
 all this time, be the island hungry or well fed, prosperous or 
 insolvent, more than one-half of Queen Victoria's army consists 
 of Irishmen, of all ranks and creeds, who fight as zealously for 
 their Queen (or at least for their pay), in Kussia, India, and 
 China, as any other of her troops; — all these phenomena to- 
 gether, present a case not paralleled in any other country or 
 any other age. 
 
 A plain narrative of events may throw some light on it. My 
 authorities shall be principally the Parliamentary Keports, as 
 given in the newspapers of the time ; Official Returns and Blue 
 Books, as abstracted in the Government Statistical Directories; 
 Speeches of O'Connell and O'Brien, as well as of Palmerston 
 and Russell; Pamphlets and Memoirs whi^h shall be cited 
 hereafter ; and my own personal knowiea^ 
 
 So much by way of preface and programme. 
 
 The spring of the year One thousand eight hundred and 
 forty-three opened brightly on Ireland. For years the seasons 
 had been favourable and abundant ; and although there had 
 been, as usual, much ejectment and extermination of tenants, 
 and the ordinary and normal amount of distress and hunger ; 
 although of the greater products there were greater exports to 
 England, and a larger resort of landlords to England to spend 
 the improved rentals ; although every winter was a winter of 
 misery which in any other land of white men would be intoler- 
 able; — still there had been no desolating and sweeping "famine" 
 for twenty years. 
 
 O'Connell was at the height of his popularity and power. 
 He had wrung from a hostile English ministry Catholic 
 Emancipation, and was now representative in Parliament for 
 the county of Cork, the greatest county in Ireland. Pie had, 
 further, forced from England a measure of municipal reform, 
 which opened the city corporations to Catholics ; and had been, 
 himself, first Catholic Lord Mayor of Dublin. The people 
 believed he could do anything ; and he almost believed it him- 
 self. ^ In the beginning of this year he announced that it was 
 the "Repeal year-" asked for three millions of enrolled 
 Repealers in the Repeal Association ; and confidently promised, 
 and fully believed, that no English administration would 
 venture to resist that great measure so enforced. The more 
 
10 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 thoroughly to arouse the people, he declined to go over to 
 London to take his seat in Parliament (many other members 
 following his example), and resolved to hold multitudinous 
 meetings in every comer of the island. 
 
 First, he moved in the DubMn Corporation a resolution, for 
 the adoption of a petition to Parliament, demanding a Repeal 
 of the Union with England — that is to say, demanding back 
 the Irish Parhament which had been extinguished in 1800 ; so 
 that Ireland should once more have her own House of Peers 
 and House of Commons ; the Sovereign of England to be also 
 Sovereign of Ireland. His speech was masterly, and covered 
 the whole case. He cited the ablest jurists to show that the 
 so-called Union was in law a nulhty ; reminded his audience of 
 what was at any rate notorious and never denied — that sup- 
 posing the two Parhaments competent to pass such an Act, it 
 had been obtained by fraud and open bribery ; an open market 
 of bribery, of which the accounts are extant : £1,275,000 paid 
 to proprietors for the purchase of nomination boroughs, at 
 £15,000 per borough (which seats were immediately filled by 
 Imglisli officers and clerks); — more than one million sterling 
 expended on mere bribes; the tariff being quite familiar^ 
 £8,000 for an Union vote, or an office worth £2,000 a-year, if 
 the member did not like to touch the ready money; twenty 
 peerages, ten bishoprics, one chief-justiceship, six puisne judge- 
 ships; not to count regiments and ships given to officers in the 
 army and navy; all dispensed as direct payment for their votes. 
 He reminded them that the right of holding public meetings 
 to protest against all this was taken away during the time the 
 Union was in agitation ; that county meetings convened by 
 High-sheriffs of counties, as in Tipperary and Queen's county, 
 were dispersed by troops ; that martial law was in force and 
 the Habeas Corpus suspended ; that, in 1800, the number (/ 
 soldiers concentrated in that island (half the size of Georgia 
 was 129,000, as "good lookers-on ;"~l)hat, notwithstanding all 
 intimidation, seven hundred thousand persons had petitioned 
 against the measure; and, notmthstanding all enticements, 
 only three thousand had petitioned for it, most of these being 
 government officials and prisoners in the gaols. If he had 
 stopped here, most persons would think it f aough : that was a 
 deed which at the earliest possible moment must be undone 
 and punished. 
 
 But he did not stop here : he went into all the details of 
 ruined trade and manufactures since the Union — immensely 
 increased drains in the shape of absentee rents and surplus 
 
OF IRELAND, (PEEHAPS). 11 
 
 t.'«:ation — frauds in subjecting Ireland to a charge for tlx; 
 ij\(flish national debt, and even charging to Ireland's special 
 a(3c\:)unt the very moneys expended in bribes and military 
 expenses for carrying the Union ; which he said was about as 
 fair as " making Ireland pay for the knife with which Lord 
 Castlereagh cut his throat ;" — injustice in giving Ireland but 
 100 members in the House of Commons while her population 
 and revenue entitled her to 175; and above all, the injustice of 
 fixing the qualification of electors of these members much higher 
 in Ireland, the poorer country, than in England. 
 
 This is a sketch only of the case for Eepeal of the Union ; 
 — the necessity for some remedy or other was only too ap- 
 parent in the poverty and wretchedness which moved and 
 scandalized all Europe — iri fche increasing beggary, notwith- 
 standing the new Poor Law, — a measure which had been forced 
 on the country against its will, and was totally unsuited to it. 
 
 The petition for Repeal was adopted by a vote of forty-one 
 to fifteen in the Dublin Corporation; and a similar petition 
 shortly after by the Corporation of Cork. Hitlierto the English 
 press, and the Irish press in the English interest, looked on 
 with afiected or real indifference and contempt. 
 
 The spring opened; and O'Connell left Dublin for the 
 provinces. Then began the series of vast open-air meetings, to 
 which the peasantry, accompanied by their priests, Eepeal 
 Wardens, and " Temperance bands," flocked in numbers varying 
 from 50,000 to 250,000, — (I take the reduced and disparaging 
 estimate of enemies; but the Repeal newspapers put up the 
 Tara- meeting to 400,000). Of course the orator always 
 addressed these multitudes; but though his voice was the most 
 powerful of his day, he could not be heard by a tenth of them. 
 Neither did they come to hear; they were all well indoctrinated 
 by local Repeal Wardens; had their minds made up, and came 
 to convince their leader that they were with him, and would be 
 ready at any time when called upon. 
 
 But all was to be peaceable. They were to demand their 
 rights imperatively; they were, he assured them, tall men and 
 strong; at every monster meeting he had around him, as he 
 often said, the materials of a greater army than both the armies 
 combined that fought at Waterloo. But, he said — 
 
 ** But take heed not to misconceive me. Is it by force or violence, 
 bloodshed, or turbulence that I shall achieve this victory, dear above 
 all earthly considerations to my heart? No! perish the thought for 
 ever. I will do it by legal, peaceable, and constitutional means alone, 
 — by the electricity of public opinion, by the moral combination of good 
 
13 • J THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 men, and by the enrolment of four millions of Repealers. I am a 
 disciple of that sect of politicians who believe that the greatest of all 
 sublunary blessings is too dearly purcluiscd at the cxjnynse of a sifigU 
 drop of hmnan blood.*- 
 
 Many persons did not understand this sort of language; and, 
 what is worse, did not believe him sincere in using it. The 
 prevailing impression was that while the Repeal Association 
 was a peaceful body, contemplating only "constitutional agita- 
 tion," yet the parade of such immense masses of physical force 
 had an ulterior meaning, and indicated that if the British 
 Parliament remained absolutely insensible to the reasonable 
 demands of the people, the Association must be dissolved; and 
 the next question would be how best and soonest to exterminate 
 the British forces. I say of my own knowledge that many who 
 were close to O'Oonnell expected all along that the English 
 Parliament and government never would yield; and these 
 would have taken small interest in the movement if it was 
 never to go beyond speeches and cheers. 
 
 Meanwhile, nothing could be more peaceful, orderly, and good- 
 humoured than the meetings. Father Mathew's temperance 
 reformation had lately been working its wonders; and all the 
 people were sober and quiet. Eepeal Wardens everywhere 
 -organized an " O'Connell Police," with wands, and any person 
 of the whole immense multitude who was even noisy was 
 instantly and quietly removed. The government, indeed, soon 
 took alarm, or affected to do so, for the peace of the country; 
 and they sent large forces of armed constabulary to bivouac on the 
 ground; but there never was the slightest excuse for interference. 
 
 The movement of the people, throughout this whole summer, 
 was profound and sweeping: it carried along with it irresistibly 
 the Catholic clergy, though in many cases against their will: 
 but they were of the people, bound up with the people, depen- 
 dent on the people, and found it their best policy to move not 
 only with the people, but at their head. The Catholic Bishops 
 and Archbishops gave in their adhesion, and began to take the 
 chair at meetings; the French and German Press began to 
 notice the struggle, and eagerly watch how England would deal 
 with it. At last, on April 27th, Mr Lane Fox, a Tory member 
 of Parliament, gave notice, ''That it is the duty of her Majesty's 
 Government to take immediate steps to put an end to the 
 agitation for Repeal " — and on the same day Lord Eliot, Chief 
 Secretary for Ireland, gave notice of a Bill " for the regulation 
 of arms in Ireland." At the same moment the funds fell on© 
 and a half per cent. 
 
OF IEi!;LAND, (PEEHAl'S). 13 
 
 Jie first threat of coercion brought important accesRiops to 
 the i^auks of the iiepealers; and the monster nieetiugb became 
 now Qiore monstrous than ever; but, if possible, even gayer and 
 more good-humoured. O'Connell appeared in the Repeal 
 Association on the Monday after Mr Lane Fox's notice of 
 motion; and on the proceedings being interrupted for a moment 
 by the braying of a donkey on Burgh-quay, he said gently: 
 "Maybe that's Lane Fox:" whereupon the braying was in turn 
 drowned by roars of laughter. Mr Lane Fox wrote a newspaper 
 letter to O'Connell, inquiring when he would be in his place in 
 Parliament, that the motion to put down Repeal might be pro- 
 ceeded with. O'Connell replied by a card, recommending the 
 friends of that gentleman " to obtain for him that protection 
 which the court in matter of lunacy is enabled to give," etc. 
 At another meeting he exclaimed: — 
 
 " That man is one of the legislators for Ireland ; and though I went 
 to Parliament as the representative of 700,000 Irishmen in the county 
 of Cork, the individual who can talk such nonsense is equal to me 
 there. If I had no other reason for looking for a repeal of the Union 
 than that Mr Lane Fox is a legislator for Ireland, I never cheered my 
 beagleb upon a drag with one half the voice that I would hunt this 
 foolish fox.'^ 
 
 His sarcasm was bitter, his reasoning irrefragable, his array 
 multitudinous in its peaceful might; but in the meantime Lord 
 Eliot was preparing his Arms Bill (an invention which I shall 
 presently describe); and on the ninth of May, the Duke of 
 Wellington in the Lords, and Sir Robert Peel in the Commons, 
 declared that all the resources of the empire should be exerted 
 to preserve the Union; and Sir Robert Peel added, quoting 
 Lord Althorp, that, deprecating civil war as he did, he should 
 hold civil war preferable to the "dismemberment of the 
 Empire." Mr Bernal [Osborne] instantly asked Sir Robert, as 
 he cited Lord Althorp's v/ords, "whether he would abide by 
 ^another declaration of that noble lord, namely, that if all the 
 members for Ireland should be in favour of Repeal, he would 
 consider it his duty to grant it." And Sir Robert Peel replied — 
 "I do not recollect that Lord Althorp ever made any such 
 declaration; but if he did, / am not irrepared to abide hy it.'' 
 
 At this point issue was joined. The majority of the Irish 
 nation desired to undo the union with England; but England 
 declared that if all Ireland demanded that measure, England 
 •would rather drown the demand in blood. 
 
 In the next chapter, I shall endeavour to give an idea of the 
 personnel of the Repeal Association, and of its enemies. 
 
14 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE "repeal tear" (1843) — RESOURCES OP CONNELL—- CLARK 
 ELECTION AND CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION — SHIEL — " YOUNG IRE- 
 LAND" — DAVIS, DILLON, DUFFY — THE " NATION " — RESOURCES 
 OF THE ENGLISH — DISARMING LAWS. 
 
 The " Repeal Year," then, had only advanced as far as the 
 month of April. O'Conuel was collecting the suffrages of an 
 unarmed people by millions for the restoration of Irish nation- 
 hood ; England had already announced, through the mouth of 
 her Premier and her commander-in-chief, that though all Ire- 
 land should demand Repeal, Fdigland's will was to keep her as 
 a province. 
 
 We are to see what were the resources and relative strength 
 of the two islands ibr tJie struggle which seemed impending. 
 On the Irish side was O'Connell, with his miraculous power 
 over the vast Catholic population of Ireland, whicli he wielded 
 absolutely at his will. No country had ever seen so potent a 
 popular leader. When he began his career, the Catholics of 
 Ireland were a degraded race. After the defeat of the Stuarts, 
 the capitulation of Limerick, and the breach of the Treaty con- 
 cluded at that city, by imposing a code of penal laws upon 
 Catholics, they had sunk into a state of abject submission and 
 impotence under the operation of those laws, from which it 
 seemed impossible ever to arise. Denied the privilege of bear- 
 ing arms — forbidden education — prohibited to exercise trade 
 or commerce in any corporate town — excluded from all profes- 
 sions, — disqualified from holding a lease of land for a longer 
 term than thirty-one years— and forbidden to own a horse of 
 more than five pounds value, it was no wonder they had be- 
 come impoverished in spirit as well as in means. 
 
 The immense increase in their numbers towards the end of 
 the last century; the success of the American Revolution, and 
 the disasters of the British arms in the Netherlands, had made 
 it necessary to conciliate them by a relaxation of that infamous 
 code ; and when O'Connell first undertook their cause, they 
 had been relieved from most of those restrictions ; but were 
 still excluded from Parliament, the Corporations, and the 
 Judicial Bench. At first he had devo^i^c"^ himself to their 
 service in his own profession of the law. He was the great 
 Catholic barrister. If any tyrannical scheme of the Orange 
 
OF IRELAND, (perhaps). 15 
 
 Corporation of Dublin was to be exposed and baffled ; if, in 
 any prosecution of a Catholic newspaper, the Orange Judges 
 were to be bearded on the Bench, and the Orange Jurors 
 shamed in their jury-box, O'Connell was the champion to whom 
 the labour and the honour fell. It would be long to tell the 
 series of legal battles he fought in the Four Courts and at 
 County assizes. His tone and manner were always defiant and 
 contemptuous. If he knew the Judges were predetermined, 
 and the jury well and truly packed, he condescended to argue 
 no points of law ; but launched out into denunciation of the 
 whole system of law and government in Ireland ; informed the 
 jurors that they knew they were packed ; charged the Judges 
 with having advised and urged on the prosecution which they 
 pretended to try; in short, set his client and his client's case at 
 one side as a minor and collateral affair ; took all Ireland for 
 his client ; and often made Judges, Sherifi!}, and juries feel that 
 they were the real criminals on trial. 
 
 It is easy to understand that this conduct, if it did not save 
 his clients, inspirited his people. All Ireland was proud of 
 him, and felt that he had been sent as their deliverer. At 
 length he renounced the general practice of law (which brought 
 him in =£8,000 per annum) and became a professional agitator. 
 He established the Catholic Association, expressly to promote 
 the emancipation of the Catholics from all remaining penal 
 laws ; and finding that his agitation produced small impression 
 in England, he at length suddenly left Dublin on the eve of an 
 election for Clare county; travelled day and night to Ennis ; 
 announced himself, though a proscribed Catholic, as a candi- 
 date against Mr Vesey Fitzgerald; and easily carried the 
 election. He then went to London, proceeded to the House 
 of Commons, and demanded to take his seat without the oaths 
 which excluded Catholics. Of course he was refused ; and a 
 new writ was issued for a new election^ in Clare He returned 
 to Ireland, resolved to be returned again for the same county; 
 but, before the new election. Parliament was dissolved; and Sir 
 Eobert Peel and the Duke of Wellington announced their Bill 
 for emancipation of the Catholics — expressly, as the Duke 
 avowed, to avert civil war. 
 
 Undoubtedly this was a daring achievement and a noble 
 triumph : and O'Connell thought the same system of agitation 
 might^ at any time coerce the British Government to yield all 
 the rest. Catholic Emancipation, however, it must be remem- 
 bererl, was a measure for the consolidation uf the '"' British 
 Empire;" it opened luijh official position to the wealthier 
 
1.6 THE LASt CONQUEST 
 
 Catholics and educated Catholic gentlemen; and thus separated 
 their interest from that of the peasantry. But it was of the 
 peasantry mainly that the government had any apprehension ; 
 and British Ministers felt that Catholic Emancipation would 
 place this peasantry more completely in their power than ever. 
 
 Besides, Emancipation had a strong party in its favour both 
 amongst Irish Protestants and in England : and in yielding to 
 it England made no sacrifice, except of her ancient grudge. 
 To her it was positive gain. O'Connell did not bethink him 
 that, when his agitation should be directly aimed at the 
 "integrity of the empire," and the supremacy of the British 
 in Ireland, it would be a different matter. 
 
 Such, however, had been his achievements. The door of 
 Parliament once opened, he made brilliant use of his privilege. 
 At the next election he looked round the island to see where 
 he could strike the most telling blow at the "Ascendancy." 
 He pitched on Waterford. That count}'' had been hitherto 
 under the complete control of the great Orange family of Beres- 
 ford, to which belongs the Marquis of AVaterford. They were 
 of the wealthiest and haughtiest of the British landlord garrison 
 of Ireland, and predominated over the people like Pachas.. 
 O'Connell at once entered the lists against the nominee of the 
 Beresforcltj, to the astonishment both of friends and foes. To 
 the Catholic electors of Waterford themselves it seemed an 
 act of almost godlike audacity; the long nightmare of oppres- 
 sion still lay upon their breasts ; but his voice rang amongst 
 them, and the proud defiance of an Irish Catholic flung down 
 to the mighty house of Waterford, awoke them from their 
 dreaming. By an overwhelming majority he trampled on the 
 pride of Beresford ; and old men embraced him with tears of 
 joy, and women would have spread their hair beneath his feet. 
 
 This Emancipation was carried in 1829. Thence till the 
 " Repeal Year," the people had greatly multiplied in numbers, 
 and improved in education and spirit. 
 
 Hitherto I have spoken of all movements in Ireland as created, 
 moved, and appropriated by this giant O'Connell. It was so; 
 there was no man equal to him, and none second to him. His 
 most effective aid during the Emancipation struggle was Richard 
 Lalor Shiel, another Catholic barrister, and a man of great 
 genius and accomplishments : but Shiel desisted from agitation 
 after tliat was won. Up to the time of the Ministerial declara- 
 tion against repeal in April, very few members of Parliament 
 were actual members of the Association; but among them was 
 Henry Grattan, member for Meath; who brought to its ranks 
 
OP IRELAND, (rEPvHAPs). It 
 
 an illustrious name, if nothing else of great value. O'Brien 
 still stood aloof. The working staff of the Association in 
 Dublin consisted of obscure people, generally very humble 
 servants of O'Connell. 
 
 But within this same Association there was a certain smaller 
 Association, composed of very different men. Its head and 
 heart was Thomas Davis, a young Protestant lawyer of Cork 
 county, who had been previously known only as a scholar and 
 antiquarian; a zealous member' of the Eoyal Irish Academy, and 
 of the Archaeological Society In the autumn of '42, he and 
 his friend John B. Dillon (then a Roscommon lawyer and after- 
 wards a New York lawyer) had projected the publication of a 
 weekly literary and political journal of the highest class, to sus- 
 tain the cause of Irish nationhood, to give it a historic and 
 literary interest which would win and inspire the youth of the 
 country, and above all, to conciliate the Protestants, by stripping 
 the agitation of a certain suspicion of sectarianism, which^ 
 though disavowed by O'Connell, was naturally connected with 
 it by reason of the antecedents of its chief 
 
 Mr Duffy, the editor of a provincial newspaper in Belfast, 
 happened to be then in Dublin, on the occasion of a State pro- 
 secution against his journal, and Davis and Dillon proposed 
 that he should undertake the ostensible editorship of the new 
 paper; of which, however, Davis was to be the principal writer. 
 So commenced the NaMon newspaper; and for three years it was, 
 next to O'Connell, the strongest power in Ireland on the national 
 side. Its editor, Mr Duffy, had good literary talent, great ambi- 
 tion, abundant vanity, but defective education. He had been 
 connected with the Press from his boyhood, had most excellent 
 ideas about the arrangement and organization of a newspaper, 
 and great zeal and earnestness in the cause of repeal. Dillon 
 was a man of higher mark and greater acquirement: but both 
 these were indolent; and in fact Davis took upon him the burden 
 of the labour. Writing was a small part of his duty. He was 
 indefatigable in searching out efficient recruits amongst the 
 young men of his acquaintance, kindling their ambition, and 
 filling them with the same generous spirit of mutual forgiveness 
 for the past, and a common hope for the future, by which he 
 designed to obliterate the religious feuds of ages and raise up a 
 new Irish nation. Whatever was done, throughout the whole 
 movement, to win Protestant support, was the work of Davis. 
 His genius, his perfect unselfishness, his accomplishments, his 
 cordial manner, \m high and chivalrous character, and the dash 
 and iinpel;us of his Nvritings, soon brought around him a gifted 
 
18 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 circle of young Irishmen of all religions and of none, who after- 
 wards received the nick-name of "Young Ireland." Their 
 head-quarters was the Nation office; and their bond of union 
 was their proud attachment to their friend. 
 
 O'Connell knew well, and could count, this small circle of 
 literary privateer repealers; he felt that he was receiving, for 
 the present, a powerful support from them — the Nation being 
 by far the ablest organ of the movement ; but he knew also 
 that they were outside of his influence, and did not implicitly 
 believe his confident promises that repeal would be yielded to 
 "agitation" — nor believe that he believed it; that they were 
 continually seeking, by their writings, to arouse a military spirit 
 among the people; and had most diligently promoted the for- 
 mation of temperance bands with military uniforms, the prac- 
 tice of marching to monster meetings in ranks and squadrons, 
 with banners, and the like; showing plainly, that while they 
 helped the Eepeal Association, they fully expected that the 
 liberties of the country must be fought for at last. O'Connell, 
 therefore, suspected and disliked them; but could not well 
 quarrel with them. Apparently, they worked in perfect har- 
 mony; and during all this " Repeal Year" few were aware how 
 certainly that alliance must end. Personally, they sought no 
 notoriety; and the Nation was as careful to swell O'Connell's 
 praise, and make him the sole figure to which all eyes should 
 turn, as any of his own creatures could be, O'Connell accepted 
 their services to convert tlie " gentry," and the Protestants — 
 they could not dispense with O'Connell, to stir and wield the 
 multitudinous people. 
 
 Here, then, was the array and the whole force at one side. 
 
 When Ministers came down to Parliament, and pledged them- 
 selves to maintain the Union, even by civil war, they had on 
 their side these following powers and agencies: 
 
 First — A million and a half of Protestants, most of them 
 English or Scottish by descent; and bound to England by 
 having been for ages maintained in a position of superiority 
 over the Catholics. Five hundred thousand of these were 
 Presbyterians, nearly all in the northern province of Ulster. 
 The rest belonged to the Established Church; and in the hands 
 of these last was almost all the landed property of the island. 
 This gave them the power of life and death over the tenantry. 
 
 Second. — A regular army of between thirty and forty thousand 
 men, disposed in barracks and fortresses, at the principal stra- 
 tegic positions in the island. 
 
 Third. — Another regular force of ftlaveu thousand armed and 
 
OF IRELAND, (pERSAPS). 19 
 
 drilled police, cantoned in small police-) )ai'racl<:s all over the 
 ••oiiutry, in parties of from four to t^vehf. Th^^..- v^ire all 
 picked' men, well paid, partly by assessments on tlie counties, 
 and partly by the treasury. A portion of them were mounted 
 and trained to act as cavalry; and they had a complete code of 
 signals, for communicating from station to station, by day and 
 by night; with blue lights, red lights, and other apparatus. To 
 this service was also attached a numerous corps of detective 
 police, whose functions will be mentioned more fully hereafter. 
 
 Fourth. — A Eevenue Police, and Coast-guard Service, with a 
 large fleet of armed revenue cruisers. 
 
 ^iftJi, — The Church Establishment— which is, in truth, 
 nothing but an apanage of the aristocracy, supplying lucrative 
 situations to many younger sons. Catholics and Presbyterians 
 are both obliged to pay for the support of this Church — not now 
 by tithes, but in a way much more eifcctuai, and impossible to 
 resist or evade; namely, by a tithe rent-charoe, payable in the 
 first instance by the proprietor, and then levied by distraining 
 on the tenant. This system, together with the land laws, 
 placed all the peasantry in the power of their landlords — that 
 is of the government. 
 
 Sixth. — The Presbyterian Church must also be counted 
 amongst the forces of the government. During the insurrec- 
 tion of 1798 the northern insurgents had been Presbyterians, 
 all at that time zealous republicans. After the " Union" the 
 English government had taken the precaution to make a large 
 grant for payment of the Presbyterian clergymen; after which, 
 that body of divines was counted on as part of the general 
 police of the island. 
 
 Seventh. — A Poor Law had been forced upon the country a 
 few years before. The island was now studded with Union 
 Workhouses, built like fortresses; and in each Union was a gang 
 of well-paid officers, all humble servants of the government. 
 
 Eighth. — The system of making all education penal had been 
 discontinued, but very carefully. There was now " National 
 Education," under the management of a board of Commissioners 
 appointed by government, the Chairman of which bor.rd was 
 Dr Whately, Archbishop of Dublin — an Englishman. He took 
 charge of preparing and revising the school-books which were 
 to be used; and he took care to keep out of them any, even the 
 remotest, allusion to the history of the country, and even such 
 extracts from well-known authors as illustrate or celebrate tht, 
 virtue of patriotism in ani/ country. The 3000 national school- 
 tep-chers, paid by the governnient, were 3000 mare servants of 
 
20 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 the government; and the system required in the schools was, 
 as we see, c-arefully calculated to crush every spark of national 
 feeling. 
 
 Ninth. — The only investment of their small savings which 
 industrious people could make was in the Savings Banks (land 
 being unpurchaseable in small lots); and the Savings Banks 
 are government institutions. The law requires them to invest 
 the money deposited with them in the public funds; and so 
 every depositor, feeling that his little all is in the power of the 
 English government, is to that extent interested in maintaining 
 its credit and stability. 
 
 Tenth. — The Sheriffs are nominees of the Crown; and the 
 Sheriffs arrange the Juries. In England, every corporate city 
 elects its own Sheriff; but in the " Municipal Reform Bill" for 
 Ireland this power was reserved to the Crown. It is in the 
 city of Dublin that State prosecutions are usually tried; and the 
 Sheriff of Dublin is always a creature of the government. The 
 use of this is too obvious. 
 
 Eleventh. — And best of all — for even the other ten arrange- 
 ments, though you may think they give England a tolerably 
 strong grasp of the little island, could not have been relied upon 
 without this — a system of Disarming Acts. I have mentioned 
 tliat on the same day the Ministers declared in the Queen's 
 name that the Union must at all hazards be maintained. Lord 
 Eliot introduced a new " Arms Bill" for Ireland. Ever since 
 the Union it had been thought necessary by the British Govern- 
 ment to have stringent laws in force to prevent " improper per- 
 sons" from possessing arms — that is, persons supposed to be 
 disaffected — that is, the great majority of the population. I 
 shall not detail the long series of acts for this purpose, with 
 their continual amendments, but simply describe the provisions 
 of this new one, which Lord Eliot recommended in the. House 
 of Commons, by the remark: " That it was substantially similar 
 to what had been the law in Ireland for half a century," (June 
 15th,) and again, (June 26th,) "He would ask the noble lord 
 to compare it with the bill of 1838, and to point out the differ- 
 ence. In fact, this was milder."' This mild act, then, provided: 
 that no man could keep £;Tms ot any sort, without first having 
 a certificate from two householders, "rated to the poor" at 
 above £20, and then producing that certificate to the Justices 
 at Sessions (said Justices being all appointed by the Crown, and 
 all " sure" men); and then — if the Justices permitted the appli- 
 cant to keep arms at all — they were to be registered and h'anded 
 hj the police. After that they could not be renioved, soldj or 
 
OF IRELAND, (perhaps). 21 
 
 inherited, without new registry. And every conversation re- 
 specting these arms in which a man should not tell truly what- 
 ever he might be asked by any poKceman, subjected the delin- 
 quent to penalties. To have a pike or spear, " or instrument 
 serving for a pike or spear," was an offence punishable by trans- 
 portation for seven years. Domiciliary visits by the police 
 might be ordered by any magistrate " on suspicion;" whereupon 
 any man's house might be broken into by day or night, and his 
 very bed searched for concealed arms. Blacksmiths were re- 
 quired to take out licenses, similar to those for keeping arms, 
 and under the same penalties; in order that the workers in so 
 dangerous a metal as iron might be known and approved per- 
 sons. And to crown the code, if any weapon should be found 
 in any house, or out-house, or stack-yard, the occupier was to 
 be convicted, unless he could prove that it was there without 
 his knowledge. 
 
 Such had been " substantially the law of Ireland for half a 
 century." The idea of arms had come to be associated in the 
 people's minds with handcuffs, jails, petty sessions, and transpor- 
 tation; a good device for killing the manly spirit of a nation. 
 
 There is, however, one precedent for the Arms Bill in history. 
 The Israelites were forty years under the dominion of the 
 Philistines; and we read in 1st Samuel, c. 13: "Now there was 
 no smith found throughout all the land of Israel; for the Philis- 
 tines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords and spears." 
 
 Review, now, those eleven arms of British power; and say 
 whether it was an easy enterprise to tear Ireland out of their 
 iron grip. 
 
22 THK LAST COIN QUEST' 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 " THE REPEAL YEAR " STILL — o'BRIEn's MOTION — ARMS BILL — SIR 
 EDWARD SUGDEN — DISMISSED MAGISTRATES — ARBITRATORS — 
 MORE MONSTER MEETINGS. 
 
 The Disarming Act passed into a law, of course, by large majo- 
 rities. It was in vain that some Irish members resisted; in vain 
 Mr Smith O'Brien moved that instead of meeting the discontent 
 of Ireland with a new "Arms Bill/' the House should resolve 
 itself into a committee '' to consider the causes of the discontent 
 with a view to the redress of grievances." O'Brien, who was 
 afterwards to play so conspicuous a part, was not yet a repealer; 
 he had been for twenty years one of the most industrious mem- 
 bers of Parliament, and was attached, on most questions, to the 
 Whig party. His speech, however, on this motion, showed that 
 he regarded it as a last effort to o]:)tain any approach to justice 
 in a British Parliament; and that if they still resolutely adhered 
 to the policy of coercion, and nothing but coercion, he would 
 very shortly be found by O'Oonnell's side. He pointed out the 
 facts which justified discontent;— tl^at tlie Union made Ireland 
 poor, and kept lier poor;— -tha.t it encouraged the absenteeism 
 of landlords, and so caused a great rental to be spent in England; 
 that nearly a million sterling of "surplus revenue," over what 
 was expended in the government of Ireland, was annually re- 
 mitted from the Irish to the English exchequer; that Irish 
 manufactures had ceased, and the profits ori all the manufac- 
 tured articles consumed in that island came to England; — that 
 the tenantry liad no permanent tenure or security that they 
 would derive benefit by any improvements they might make; — 
 that Ireland had but 105 members of Parliament, whereas her 
 population and revenue together entitled her to 175; — that the 
 municipal laws of the two countries were not the same; — that 
 the new " Poor Law" was a failure, and was increasing the 
 wretchedness and hunger of the people; — and the right honour- 
 able gentleman (Sir K. Peel) had now declared his ultimatum; 
 he declared that " conciliation had reached its limits; and that 
 the Irish should have an Arms Bill, and nothing but an Arms 
 Bill/' (Speech or July 4 th, 1843.) 
 
 His facts wiii-e. rjot disputed. Nobody in Parliament jirett'ridpd 
 to say that any tiling in this long catalogue was overstated; but 
 
OF IRELAND. ("rETinAPS). 23 
 
 the House refused the committee of inquiry; would discuss no 
 grievances; and proceeded with their Arms Bill. 
 
 It may be said that tliese excessive precautions to keep arin.s 
 out of the hands of the Irish people, testified the high esteem 
 in which the military spirit of that people was held in England; 
 and in that point of view the long series of Arms Acts may be 
 regarded as a compliment. In truth, the English had some 
 occasion to know that the Irish make good soldiers. In this 
 very month of July, 1843, for example, a British General fought 
 the decisive battle of Meeanee, by which the Ameers of Scinde 
 were crushed. While the Bill for disarming Ireland was pend- 
 ing in London, far off on the banks of the Indus, Napier went 
 into action with less than 3000 troops against 25,000; only four 
 hundred of his men being "British" soldiers; but those four 
 hundred were a Tipperary regiment, — the 22d, — and they did 
 their work in such style as made the gray old warrior shout 
 with delight: " Magnificent Tipperary!" In some distant lati- 
 tude or longitude arms are thought to fit Irish hands, but not 
 at home. 
 
 In the meantime, some additional regiments, mostly of Eng- 
 lish or Scotch troops, were landed in Ireland; and several war- 
 steamers, with a fleet of gun-brigs, were sent to cruise around 
 the coast. Barracks began to be fortified and loop-holed; and 
 police-stations were furnished with iron-grated windows. It 
 was quite plain that the English Government intended, on the 
 first pretext of provocation, to make a salutary slaughter. 
 
 The vast monster meetings continued, and with even intenser 
 enthusiasm; but always with perfect peace and order. The 
 speeches of O'ConneU at these meetings, though not heard by 
 a fourth of the multitudes, were carefully reported, and flew 
 over all Ireland and England too, in hundreds of newspapers. 
 So that probably no speeches ever delivered in the world had 
 so wide an audience. The people began to neglect altogether 
 the proceedings of Parliament, and felt that their cause was to 
 be tried at home. More and more of the Irish members of 
 Parliament discontinued their attendance in London, and 
 gathered around O'ConneU. Many of those who still went to 
 London were called on by their constituents to come home or 
 resign. 
 
 Sir Edward Sugden was then Lord Chancellor of Ireland; and 
 he began offensive operations on the British side by depriving 
 of the Commission of the Peace all magistrates who joined the 
 Eepeal Association, or took the chair at a Eepeal meeting. He 
 had dismissed in this way about twenty, including O'ConneU 
 
24 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 and Lord French, usually accompanying the announcement of 
 the supersedeas mth an insolent letter; when Smith O'Bfien 
 wrote to him that he had been a magistrate for many years, 
 that he was not a Repealer, but could not consent t.o hold his 
 commission on such humiliating terms. Instantly his example 
 was followed by many gentlemen, who flang their commissions 
 in the Chancellor's face, sometimes with letters as insulting as 
 his own. And now O'Connell brought forward one of his 
 grand schemes. It was to have all the dismissed magistrates 
 appointed "arbitrators," who should hold regular courts of 
 arbitration in their respective districts — all the people pledg- 
 ing themselves to make no resort to the Queen's magistrates, 
 but to settle all questions by the award of their " arbitrators." 
 This was put into operation in many places and worked very 
 well. 
 
 In reply to questions in Parliament, as to what they were 
 concentrating ^.roops in Ireland for. Peel and Wellington had 
 said they did not mean to make war or attack anybody, but 
 only to maintain the peace of the country. Shortly after, there 
 was a monster meeting in Kilkenny; the trades of the city 
 marched in procession with their banners; thirty or forty tem- 
 perance bands in military array, and playing Irish music; vast 
 bodies of horsemen, amounting probably to twenty thousand, 
 ranked in deep masses around the outskirts of the meeting. 
 Now I shall give you a specimen of the Agitator's oratory. 
 After having called for " three cheers for the Queen" — 
 
 " I suppose you have heard," he said, " of the Duke of Wellington 
 and Sir Robert Peel having come down to Parliament one fine evening 
 to declare they would prevent the Repeal of the Union even by civil 
 war. We will not go to war with thetn; but let them not dare to go 
 to war with us! The great Duke and the crafty Sir Robert have pulled 
 in their horns a little; and said they did not mean to attack us. Very 
 well; there is peace, then, for we will not attack them. . . . 
 
 " What is the next step? Up comes Chancellor Sugden, — what an 
 ugly name the fellow has.' Why, there is not one of you would call a 
 decent-looking pig Sugden, This Chancellor issues a letter, striking us 
 from the Commission of the Peace. . . The Commission of the Peace 
 was also taken from Colonel Butler, from Lord French, from Sir Michael 
 Dillon Bellew, and from Daniel O'Connell, and other vagabonds. This 
 Sugden, who took away the Commission of the Peace from us, is a 
 lawyer, and has made an enormous fortune by the law; yet he does not 
 understand the law; for he says it is unconstitutional to attend meet- 
 ings, while he himself publishes an alleged speech of the Queen, and 
 attributes to her the unconstitutional speech uttered by a Prime Minis- 
 ter. But they have sent over 36,000 men here, cavalry, infantry, artil- 
 lery, and marines. , . Do you know what they are going to do? The 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPs). 25 
 
 Admiral is coming down the Grand Canal to examine all the turf-boats, 
 and look into their potato-lockers to try if they have any hidden cannon 
 on board. . . . And a lieutenant, of the navy has been sent by the 
 fly-boat on the Royal Canal to fmd out what became of the army of 
 lb,000 men that the Rev. J^.Ir O'Higgiua "ad hid in his back parlour!" 
 
 The Kilkenny meeting, like all tlie other meetings, dispersed 
 in perfect order and tranquillity; but O'Connell pledged them 
 to come back to that spot whenever he might want them. 
 
 Undoubtedly this sort of procedure from week to week, and 
 O'Connell's ridicule and vituperation, poured out upon every 
 one who opposed "the repeal," was extremely provoking to the 
 government and their party; yet no great progress was made. 
 O'Connell, indeed, knew the law: he knew how far he could go 
 with safety; and the people had full confidence that he would 
 accomplish all he promised, "without the shedding of a drop 
 of blood;" but all the while the enemy was in actual occupation 
 and full possession of the whole country, its revenues and re- 
 sources; and intended so to continue. Some of our friends 
 about the Nulion office began to ask themselves how long this 
 was to go on. When all Ireland shall have paraded itself at 
 monster meetings, they said, what then? What nextl 
 
 Notwithstanding the very resolute countenance shown by the 
 government, however, O'Connell still believed that they must 
 yield at last, as they had done upon the Catholic Emancipation 
 question; and, certainly, the impetus and volume which his 
 movement was daily acquiring, would have seemed to make 
 almost anything possible to him who wielded such a wondrous 
 machine. He moved to tears, or convulsed with laughter, or 
 excited to suppressed rage, hundreds of thousands of people 
 every week; and his loud defiance to the Saxon made men's 
 hearts burn within them as they prayed that he would only 
 give them the word. 
 
 One of his great meetings was at Baltinglass, in Wicklow 
 county. The proprietor of most of the land thereabouts was 
 Lord Wicklow: and his lordship had posted over his estate a 
 placard exhorting, or almost commanding, his tenants to stay 
 home at their work, and not to be flocking to a meeting " only 
 to minister to the vanity of an individual." They all disobeyed; 
 and O'Connell, when he rose up to address them, opened a copy 
 of the placard. He read it, and the hills re echoed the laughter 
 of a hundred and fifty thousand throats. "I know whom he 
 means by an individual,'' he exclaimed. " He means me. Indi- 
 vidual in his teeth! I'm no more an individual than Lord 
 Wicklow's mother!" 
 
26 THT^ LAST C0NQT7Kf?T 
 
 Lord Beaumont, an English Catholic peer, who owed his seat 
 in the House to O'Connell, thought himself called on to denounce 
 the E^peal agitation. "Do you know who this Beaumont isT 
 asked O'Connell at his next meeting, '* Why, the man's name 
 is Martin Bree, though he calls himself Stapleton, His grand- 
 father married a Stapleton for her fortune, and then changed 
 the name He waa a Stapleton when I emancipated him. I 
 beg your pardon for having emancipated such a fellow." 
 
 Sir Edward Sugden, as Lord Chancellor, had the control over 
 all lunatic asylums, and frequently visited those near Dublin. 
 After he had dismissed about a dozen magistrates, and others 
 were pouring in their resignations, and getting appointed arbi- 
 trators in consequence — and his act of vigour was manifestly 
 and admittedly a failure, O'Connell, at one of the meetings of 
 the Repeal Association in Dublin, said:- — 
 
 "If these men are not mad, they give some signs of madness; and a 
 most ludicrous instance of a thing of the kind occurred on Saturday 
 last. The Lord Chancellor, in the intervals of making out writs of 
 supersedeas,was fond of investigating the management of lunatic asylums, 
 and made an appointment with the Surgeon-General to visit, without 
 any previous intimation, an asylum kept by a Dr Duncan in this city. 
 Somebody sent word to the asylum that a patient was to he sent there 
 in a carriage that day who was a smart little man, that thought himself 
 one of the Judges, or some great person of that sort. Sir Edward came 
 there, and on knocking at the door, he was admitted and received by 
 the keeper. He appeared to be very talkative, but the attendants 
 humoured him and answered all his questions. He asked if the Sur- 
 geon-General had arrived, and the keeper assured him he was not yet 
 come, but would be there immediately, ' Well,' said he, ' I will inspect 
 some of the rooms until he arrives.' ' Oh! no, sir,' said the keeper; ' we 
 could not permit that at all.' ' Then I will walk awhile in the garden,' 
 said his Lordship, ' while I am waiting for him.' ' We can't let you go 
 there either, sir,' said the keeper. ' What?' shouted Sir Edward, ' don't 
 you know that I am Lord Chancellor?' ' Sir,' said the keeper, ' we have 
 four more Lord Chancellors here already' (roars of laughter). He got 
 into a great fury, and they were thinking of a strait waistcoat for him, 
 when fortunately the Surgeon-General drove up. ' Has the Lord Chan- 
 cellor arrived yet?' said he. ' Yes, sir, we have him safe; but he is far 
 the most outrageous patient we have' (renewed laughter)." 
 
 Since that day the English Press has mocked at the whole 
 Repeal movement; and in Parliament it was never mentioned, 
 save with a jeer. In the summer of 1843, they neither laughed 
 nor jeered. Sir James Graham, earnestly appealing to the 
 House to refuse O'Brien's motion of inquiry, exclaimed: — 
 
 " Any hesitation now, any delay and irresolution, Avill multiply the 
 danger an hundredfold (hear, hear). If Parliament expresses its sense 
 
«F IHELaND, (t'EROAPS). 27 
 
 iltt favour of the course pursued by Government, Ministers have every 
 hope that with the confidence of the House, they will be enabled to 
 triumph over all difficulties (cries of oh, oh, and loud cheers). I appeal, 
 then, to both sides— not to one, but to both — I appeal to both sides, and 
 say, if you falter now, if you hesitate now in repressing the rebellious 
 spirit which is at work in the struggle of Eepeal, the glory of the country 
 is departed — the days of its power are numbered; and England, this all- 
 conquering England, must be classed with those countries from lohom 
 power has dwindled away, and present the melancholy aspect of a falling 
 nation (oh, oh, and cheers)." 
 
 To refuse a Committee of Inquiry was reasonable enough; 
 because Parliament, and all the children — men, women, and 
 children — already knew all. The sole and avowed idea of the 
 Government was that to admit the idea of anything being wrong, 
 would make the Eepeal movement altogether irresistible. The 
 various projects now brought forward in England showed the 
 perplexity of that country. Lord John Russell made an ela- 
 borate speech for conciliation; but the meaning of it seemed to 
 be merely that it was no wonder Ireland was unquiet, seeing he 
 was out of power. The grievance of Ireland, said he, in effect, 
 is a Tory Ministry, Let her be ruled by us, Whigs, and all 
 will be well. Lord Brougham also gave it as his opinion, that 
 "you must purchase, not prosecute Repeal." The Morning 
 Chronicle (Whig organ), in quite a friendly spirit, said, "Let 
 us have AjJerfect Union; let us know each other; let the Irish 
 Judges come circuit in England; and let the English Judges 
 occasionally take the same round in Ireland," and so forth. 
 " Is it absolutely certain," asked the JVesimmster Review, " that 
 we can beat this peopled* And the Naval and Miliiary Gazette, 
 a high military authority, thus expressed its apprehensions: — 
 
 " There are now stationed in Ireland 35,000 men of all arms, but 
 widely scattered over the island. Jn the event of a rebellion — and who 
 can say that we are not on the eve of one? — we feel great solicitude for 
 the numerous small detachments of our gallant soldiers. . . . It is 
 time to be up and doing. iVe have heard that the order and regularity 
 of movement displayed by the divisions which passed before Mr O'Con- 
 uell, in review order, en route to Donnybrook lately, surprised many 
 veteran officers, and led them to think that some personal training, in 
 private and in small parties, must be practised. The ready obedience 
 to the word of command, the silence while moving, and the general 
 combinations, all prove organization to have gone a considerable length. 
 In these trained bands, our soldiers, split up into detached parties, 
 would find no ordinary opponents; and we therefore hope soon to learn 
 that all small parties have been called in, and that our regiments in Ire- 
 land are kept together and cornplete. That day, we fear, is near, \vlien 
 "^ quite, pmceahhf every Repe.-iler will come armed to a meeting to be 
 held simultaneuiisly as to day and hour all over the island, and then 
 
28 tUE LAST CONQUESt 
 
 try to cut off quite peaceably every detachment of her Majestjr's loyat 
 army." 
 
 What contributed to disquiet the British exceedingly, was, 
 that great and excited Repeal meetings were held every week 
 in American cities; meetings not only of Irish-born citizens, but 
 of natives also; and considerable funds were remitted from 
 hence to O'Conn ell's Repeal Exchequer. 
 
 " If something is not done (said Colonel Thomson in the Westminster) 
 a fleet of steamboats from the United States will some fine morning be 
 the Euthanasia of the Irish struggle." 
 
 I might cite many extracts from the Press of France, exhibiting 
 a powerful interest in what the French conceived to be an 
 impending military struggle. Take one from the Constitiiiionnel : 
 
 " When Ireland is agitated — when, at the sound of the powerful voice 
 of O'Connell, four hundred thousand Irish assemble together in their 
 meetings, and pronounce, as if it were by a single man, the same cry 
 and the same word, it is a grand spectacle, which fills the soul, and 
 which, even at this distance, moves the very strongest feelings of the 
 heart, for it is the spectacle of an entire people who demand justice — of 
 a people who have been despoiled of everything, even of the means of 
 sustenance, and yet who require with calmness and with firmiiess the 
 untrammelled exercise of their religion, and some of the privileges of 
 their ancient nationality." 
 
 'Now nobody, either in France or the United States, would 
 have given himself the trouble to Avatch that movement with 
 interest, if they had not all Iseiieved that O'Connell and the 
 Irish people meant to fight. Neither in America nor in France 
 had men learned to appreciate " the ethical experiment of moral 
 force." Clearly, also, the English expected a fight, and were 
 preparing for it, and greatly preferred that mode of settling 
 the difficulty (having a pov/erful army and navy ready) to 
 O'Brien's method, inquiry, discussion, and redress — seeing that 
 they were wholly unprovided with arguments, and had no idea 
 of giving redress. 
 
 It is also quite as clear that the Irish people then expected, 
 and longed, and burned for battle; and never believed that 
 O'Connell would adhere to his " peace policy" even in the last 
 extremity. Still, as he rose in apparent confidence, and became 
 more defiant in his tone, the people rallied more ardently around 
 him; and thousands of quiet resolute men flocked into the Repeal 
 cause, who had hitherto held back from all the agitations, merely 
 because they had always believed O'Connell insincere. They 
 thought tliat the mighty movement which now surged up around 
 him had Avhirled him into its own tempest at last, and that 
 **the time was come." 
 
0? lEELAJsri), (perhaps). 29 
 
 Ko speech be ever uttered roused suck a stormy tumult of 
 applause as when, at Mallow " monster meeting/' referring to 
 the threats of coercion, and to an anxious Cabinet Council 
 which had just been held, he said: — 
 
 " They spent Thifrsday in consulting whether they would deprive us 
 of our rights, and I know not what the result of that council Tiay be; 
 but this I know, there was not an Irishman in this council. 1 may be 
 told that the Duke of Wellington was there (oh, oh, and groans). Who 
 calls him an Irishman (hisses and groans) ? If a tiger's cuId was dropped 
 in a fold, would it be a lamb (hear, and cheers/? Bat perhaps I am 
 wrong in anticipating, perhaps I am mistaken in warning you (no, no). 
 But is there reason to caution you? The council sat for an entire days., 
 and even then did not conclude its deliberations, but adjourned to the 
 next day, while the business of the country was allowed to stand still 
 (hear, hear, hear). What had they to deliberate about? The Kepealers 
 were peaceable, loyal, and attached — affectionately attached — to the 
 Queen, and determined to stand between her and her enemies. If they 
 assailed us to-morrow, and that we conquered them — as conquer them 
 we will one day (cheering) — the first use of that victory which we would 
 make would be, to place the sceptre in the hands of her who has ever 
 shown us favour, and whose conduct has ever been full of sympathy anrl 
 emotion for our sufferings (hear, hear, and loud cheers). Suppose, thei» 
 for a moment, that England found the Act of Union to operate not for 
 her benefit — if, instead of decreasing her debt, it added to her taxation 
 and liabilities, and made her burthen more onerous — and if she felt 
 herself entitled to call for a repeal of that Act, I.ask Peel and Welling- 
 ton, and let them deny it if they dare, and if they did they would be 
 the scorn and byeword of the world, would she not have the right to 
 call for a repeal of that Act (loud cheers) ? And what are Irishme'n that 
 they should be denied the same privdege? Have we not the ordinary 
 courage of 'Englishmen? Are we to be trampled under foot? Oh, they 
 shall never trample nie at least (tremendous cheering, which lasted 
 several minutes). I was wrong— they may trample me under foot 
 (cries of no, no, they never shall) — I say they may trample me, but it 
 will be my dead body they will trample on, not the living man.'' 
 
 — And a roar, two hundred thousand strong, rent the clouds. 
 From that day the meetings went on increasing in numbers, in 
 regularity of training, and in highly-wrought excitement; until 
 at Tara, and at Mullaghmast, the Agitator shook with the pas- 
 sion of the scene, as the fiery eyes of three hundred thousand 
 upturned faces seemed to crave the word. 
 
 If it be asked whether I now believe, looking calmly back 
 over the gulf of many years, that O'Connell's voice could indeed 
 have made a revolution in Ireland, I answer, beyond all doubt, 
 Tes. One word of his mouth, and there would not, in a month' 
 have been one English epaulette in the island. He had that 
 power; we shall see what he did with it. 
 
 B 
 
30 THE LAST COl-^QirESt 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 0'00NNELL*S ORATORY — ITS THEMES — THE WHIGS — DAVIS AND THB 
 "nation" — THE YOUNG AGITATORS — TARA MEETING — COUNCIL 
 OF THREE HUNDRED — THE " QUEEN's SPEECH " AGAINST RE- 
 PEAL — GREAT MEETING AT MULLAGHMAST — MEETING AT CLON- 
 TARF FORBIDDEN. 
 
 I HAVE sought to give somewhat like a correct idea of Daniel 
 O'Connell ; yet feel that an extract here and there from speeches 
 is but a brick from Babylon. This orator was no maker of 
 sentences; and when he attempted now and then to perorate, 
 the thing was a failure. His power lay in his perfect knowledge 
 of the people he addressed, their ways of life, wants and 
 aspirations; and his intensely human sympathy with all. Thus 
 it needed but a small joke from him to convulse a large meet- 
 ing, because his lip and eye quivered vrith inexpressible fun. 
 His pathos had no occasion for modulated periods, because 
 when he told in simplest words some tale of sorrow and oppres- 
 sion (and many a sorrow and oppression was close at hand to 
 point the moral), — and when the deep music of his voice grew 
 husky, and clenched hand and swelling chest revealed the 
 wrath and pity that burned and melted within him, — the pas- 
 sions of miglity multitudes rose and swayed and sunk again 
 beneath his Jiand, as tides heave beneath the moon. 
 
 Every day's history gave him his theme and his illustrations. 
 
 From a Londonderry newspaper, I cut an advertisement, 
 signed by one M'MuUin, " Emigration Agent," which will show 
 wliat was going on throughout Ireland in the spring of this 
 year, better than particular details could do : — 
 
 " Notice. — A favourable opportunity presents itself, in the course of 
 the present month, for Quebec, to gentlemen residinsf in the counties of 
 Londonderry, Donegal, Tyrone, or Fermanagh, who wish to send to 
 the Cauadas the overstock tenantry belonging to their estates — as a 
 moderate rate of passage will be taken, and six months' credit given 
 for a lump sum to any gentleman requiring such accommodations," &c. 
 
 The mode in which the " overstock tenantry" are persuaded 
 in Ireland to embark for America, is ejecting them, and pulling 
 down their houses. And in 1843, and man}'- years before and 
 since, i\\\>\ j(n)c<\SK has been going on so extensively and notori- 
 ously, tliat I shall have no further occasion to refer to it, until 
 
OF mELAND, (pEPvHAPS). 31 
 
 we aiTive at what the British call the ^' Famine." This treat- 
 ment of the peasantry, though continued ever since O'Neill 
 nnd O'Donnell fell, early in the 1 7th century, seemed yet new 
 and strange to the Irish peasant, and to him more intolerable 
 than to any other in Europe, except the Highland Scots ; — for 
 the reason that, in the social polity of the Gael, no such thing 
 as a " tenant " was known : every man being as free as his 
 Chief, and, by virtue of the clanship, owning as clear a title in 
 the tribe-lands. Upon this ancient social system the new feudal 
 tenures were forced in by English power; and the struggle 
 between them lasts to this day. O'Oonnell, then, was sure of 
 a sympathetic audience, when he thus addressed a vast meeting 
 in Oonnaught : — 
 
 " When struggling for Catholic emancipatiou, they were only looking 
 for the rights of a class, but they were at present struggling to bring 
 back nine millions a year to their country, which would give comfort 
 and riches to Protestant, Presbyterian, and Catholic (hear, hear). They 
 were struggling to give Fixity of Tenure to the landholder, and safety 
 to the landlord: and, oh! he would call upon the landlords of Ireland 
 to unite with him in the attainment of a measure that would ultimately 
 be of the greatest benefit to themselves, whilst it would put a stop to 
 the horrible clearance system, with ail its frightful crimes and evils 
 upon one side, and the dreadful assassinations, on the other, which 
 were prompted by deep despair and vengeance (hear, hear, hear). He 
 often heard the poor woman say, when about to be turned out of the 
 cabin, that it was there she lighted the first fire in her own house, — it 
 was there her children were born and brought up about her, — there her 
 husband reposed after the hard toil of the day, — there were all her 
 affections, centred, because they called to her mind all the pleasing 
 reminiscences of early life; but her tears were disregarded, her feelings 
 scoffed at; and the tyrant mandate was heard to issue — ' Pull down the 
 house!' (Very great sensatiou). Yes, wholesale murders were com- 
 mitted, on the one side, by a slow but not less certain process; — sudden 
 individual assassinations were committed on the other; — both bringing 
 down upon the perpetrators the wrath of the Divine Being! With the 
 blessing of heaven they would put an end to these crimes, and he called 
 upon the good and virtuous to unite with him in the attainment of so 
 holy a purpose." 
 
 So, when he would suddenly ask : " Did you ever hear of 
 the tithes?" he knew what long and bitter memories of blood 
 and horror the question would cpJl up. 
 
 " Did jou ever hear of the Tithesi They call them Rent-charge now; 
 do you like them any better since they have been newly christened?" 
 
 And when the murmur of execration had subsided: 
 
 "Well; repeal the Union, and you get rid of that curse: no widow 
 
32 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 woman's stack-yard Avill ever more be plundered by the police and red- 
 coats, to pay a clergyman whom she never saw, and whose ministration 
 she would not attend. Repeal the Union, and every man will pay the 
 pastor of his choice. I don't want Protestants to pay our Catholic 
 clergy; — why should we be compelled to pay theirs?" 
 
 Language, this, which generally seemed to his audience per- 
 fectly fair. 
 
 Whig newspapers and politicians in England (the Whigs 
 being then in opposition) began now to suggest various concili- 
 atory measures — talked of the anomaly of the " Established 
 Church" — and generally gave it to be understood, that if they 
 were in power, they would know how to deal with the Repeal 
 agitation. At every meeting, O'Connell turned these profes- 
 sions into ridicule. It was too late now, he said, to offer to 
 buy up Repeal by cor sessions, or good measures. An Irish 
 Parliament in College Green; this was his ultimatum. He 
 " once knew an omadliaun (idiot) in Kerry — where, by-the-bye, 
 there were not many of them — who used to watch till the hen 
 was out, and then slip to the nest and suck her eggs. One day 
 he went to the nest and found some eggs — bored a hole in the 
 end of one with his linger, and just as he turned the whole 
 contents of it over his tongue, the chicken that was in il 
 squeaked. 'Ha! lad,' said he, ^you spoke late.' He would say 
 the same to Lord John Russell and the Whigs, when they 
 talked of of^eYing justice instead of Repeal: ' Ha! lads, you spoke 
 late.' " 
 
 Again, at another meeting, referring to the same matter: — 
 
 " It had also been said by another paper that he had always preferred 
 the Whigs to the Tories; but let them always recollect that it had been 
 a familiar jest of his, that Paddy supported the Whigs for the same 
 reason that he stuffed his hat in a broken pane— not to let in the light, 
 but to keep out the cold (laughter)." 
 
 There Avas not the least fear, however, of either Whig or 
 Tory killing Repeal by too much kindness. If the whole un- 
 broken mass of grievances was necessary to keep up the agita- 
 tion in full force, he was likely to be left in clear possession of 
 it all. For example, when Mr Ward, Whig member for Shef- 
 field, on the first of August in this year, brought forward a 
 motion directed against the Irish Church Establishment, the 
 principal Whig leaders were absent; all the ]\linisters were 
 absent except Lord Eliot; and nearly all the Members of Par- 
 liament rose and left the House. On motion of Mr Escott, the 
 House was " counted out," and there was an end of the subject. 
 
 It was clear enough that the mind of England was made up. 
 
OP IRELAND, (PERHArs). 33 
 
 Any faltering — any admission, even that there was anything in 
 Ireland to be complained of, and everything might follow. 
 Repeal was to be crushed, said the Tories; was to be bought, 
 said the Whigs. And still, as England grew more resolute on 
 the one side, Ireland became more ardent on the other. 
 
 I have already mentioned Thomas Davis and his circle of 
 friends. Through the Nation they had now the ear of the 
 people almost as completely as O'Connell himself; and while 
 they carefully reported and circulated all his speeches, they 
 were at the same time infusing into the agitation a proud and 
 defiant military spirit — by essays on Irish history, and national 
 ballads, presenting, with the symmetry and polish of a cut gem, 
 the most striking events and personages of our story; from 
 Clontaf, where " King Brian smote down the Dane," to Ben- 
 burb, where Owen Roe O'Neill trampled the blue banner of 
 the Covenanting army, and Limerick, from whose old towers 
 and moats the sword of Sarsfield bore back King William. In 
 any account of the movement which then stirred the Irish 
 people, it would be a blunder to omit this silent band of literary 
 revolutionists with their exciting appeals to history, their popu- 
 lar essays, full of accurate knowledge, and instinct with genial 
 fire, and their impassioned and hopeful songs. The enemy 
 appreciated them well; and O'Connell feared them hardly less; 
 for they threatened to precipitate a species of struggle for which 
 he was by no means prepared. TLe Morning Post, one of the 
 Ministerial organs, in July, described these young revolutionists 
 in no complimentary terms, thus: — 
 
 "We have reason to believe that the younger part of the Irish 
 agitators are a far more serious set of men than their fathers. They 
 think more, and drink and joke a great deal less. They are full of the 
 dark vices of Jacobinism. They worship revenge as a virtue. It suits 
 the gloomy habit of their souls. They look forward to the slaughter of 
 those they hate as the greatest enjoyment they could experience. Our 
 correspondent tells us that the example of Belgium is much in the 
 heads of these agitators, but that, in his opinion, if these people had 
 their way, the upshot would be a Republic, and not a Monarchy. We 
 have every reason to believe that this opinion is a correct one. The 
 young men of the movement are Jacobin Republicans. They are full 
 of vanity and of bad passions, and they want to be themselves the 
 government; and they have an enthusiasm, which, once brought into 
 action, may perhaps almost convert dreams into realities, and make 
 short work with our placid, patient, unmovable lookers-on, who think 
 they are 'discharging the functions of government." 
 
 The presence, and vehement activity, and growing influence 
 or these men — namely, Dillon, Barry, Doheny, MacNevin. 
 
34 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 Duffy, and, above all, Davis — had the effect of urging and 
 goading O'Connell forward. He could not ignore, nor combat, 
 tlie spirit they were aronying in the masses; he saw and 
 appreciated their power in kindling the fine enthusiasm of our 
 cultivated youth ; and felt himself obliged to raise his own 
 tone in accord with them. Yet he loved them not. Such men 
 are dangerous ; and he would have been much better content 
 to have around him only his own humble dependants, expec- 
 tant barristers, paid inspectors of Repeal Wardens, and poor 
 Tom Steele, once a noble gentleman and soldier, then a ruined 
 wreck, solemn sesquipedali?„n buffoon, and " Head Pacificator " 
 to the Liberator. 
 
 We approach the end of the monster meetings. Neither 
 England nor Ireland could bear this excitement much longer. 
 The two grandest and mo.st imposing of these parades were at 
 Tara and Mullaghmast ; ])oth in the province of Leinster, 
 within a short distance of Dublin ; both conspicuous, the one 
 in glory, the other in gloom, tlirough past centuries, and 
 haunted by ghosts of kings and chiefs. 
 
 On the great plain of Mer.th, not far from the Boyne river, 
 rises a gentle eminence, in the midst of a luxuriant farming- 
 country. On and around its sunmiit are still certain moulder- 
 ing remains of earthen mounds and moats, the ruins of the 
 " House of Cormac " and the " Mound of the Hostages," and 
 the Stone of Destiny. It is Temora of the Kings. On Tues- 
 day morning, the 15th of August, most of the population of 
 Meath, with many thousands from the four counties round, 
 wei-e pouring along every road leading to the hill. Numerous 
 bands, banners, and green boughs, enlivened their march, or 
 di^aded their ordered squadrons. Vehicles of all descriptions, 
 from the handsome private chariot to the Irish jaunting-car, 
 were continually arriving, and by the Wardens duly disposed 
 around the hill. In Dublin, the " Liberator," after a public 
 breakfast, set forth at the head of a corUge, and his progress to 
 Tara was a procession and a triumph. Under triumphal arches, 
 and amidst a storm of music and acclamations, his carriage 
 passed through the several little towns that lay in his way. 
 At Tara the multitudes assembled were estimated in the Nation 
 at 750,000 ; an exaggeration, certainly But they were at least 
 350,000. Their numbers were not so impressive as their order 
 and discipline ; nor these so ivonderful as the stifled enthusiasm 
 that uplifted them above the earth. They came, indeed, with 
 naked hands; but the Agitator knew well that if he had invited 
 them they would have come still more gladly with extempo- 
 
OP IRELAND, (perhaps). 36 
 
 raneous pikes and spears, "or instraments serving for pikes 
 and spears." He had been proclaiming from every hill top in 
 Ireland for six months that somefMng tvas coming — that E-epeal 
 was " on the wild winds of heaven." Expectation had grown 
 intense, painful, almost intolerable. He knew it ; and those 
 who were close to him as he mounted the platform, noticed 
 that his lip and hand visibly trembled, as he gazed over the 
 boundless human ocean, and heard its thundering roar of wel- 
 come. He knew that every soul in that host demanded its 
 enfranchisement at his hand. 
 
 O'Connell called this meeting " an august and triumphant 
 meeting ; " and as if conscious that he must at least seem to 
 make another step in advance, he brought up at the next meet- 
 ing of the Kepeal Association, a detailed "plan for the renewed 
 action of the Irish Parliament," which, he said, it only needed 
 the Queen's writ to put in operation. The new House of 
 Commons was to consist of three hundred members, quite 
 fairly apportioned to the several constituencies; and in the 
 meantime, he announced that he would invite three hun- 
 dred gentlemen to assemble in Dublin early in December, 
 who were to come from every part of^ Ireland, and 
 virtually represent their respective localities. This was the 
 " Council of Three Hundred," about which he had often 
 talked before in a vague manner; but had evidently great diffi- 
 culty in bringing to pass legally. For it would be a " Conven- 
 tion of Delegates," — and such an assembly, though legal enouo-h 
 in England, is illegal in Ireland. Conventions (like arms and 
 ammunition) are held to be unsuitable to the Irish character. 
 For, in fact, it had been a Convention which proclaimed the 
 independence of Ireland in Dungannon; and the arms and 
 ammunition of tlie Volunteer army had made it good in 1782- 
 good for eighteen years. 
 
 The plan of this Council of three hundred was hailed with 
 great joy by the Nation party. They felt that if boldly carried 
 into effect, it must bring on the crisis one way or another. 
 "The hour is approaching," they wrote, "that will test the 
 leaders of tlie people, and try the souls of the millions. The 
 curtain has risen on the fifth iuct of the drama." 
 
 Two weeks after, the London Parliament was prorogued; and 
 the Queen's speech (composed by Sir Eobert Peel) was occupied 
 almost entirely by two subjects — the disturbances in Wales, 
 and the Repeal Agitation in Ireland. There had been some 
 rioting and bloodshed in Wales, in resistance to oppressive 
 turnpike dues, and the like;— there was a quiet and legal ex- 
 
36 THE LAST CONQtrEST 
 
 pression of opinion in Ireland, unattended by the slightest out- 
 rage, demanding back the Parliament of the country. The 
 Queen first dealt with Wales. She had taken measures, she 
 said, for the repression of violence — and at the same time 
 directed an inquiry to be made into the circumstances which 
 led to it. As to Ireland, her Majesty said there was discontent 
 and disaffection, but uttered not a word about any inquiry into 
 the causes of that. " It had ever been her earnest desire." her 
 Majesty said, " to administer the government of that country 
 in a spirit of strict justice and impartiality" — and "she was 
 firmly determined, under the blessing of Divine Providence," 
 to maintain the Union. The little principality of Wales was 
 in open revolt; there ministers would institute inquiry. Ireland 
 was quiet, and standing upon the law; there they would meet 
 the case with horse, foot, and artillery: for we all knew that 
 was what the Queen meant by " the blessing of Divina Pro- 
 vidence." 
 
 Again the Agitator mustered all Connaught at three great 
 monster meetings — in Roscommon, Clifden, and Loughrea. 
 Again he asked them if they were for the Repeal; and again 
 the mountains and the sea-cliffs resounded with their acclaim. ■ 
 Yes; they were for the Repeal; they had said so before. What 
 next? 
 
 Leinster, too, was summoned again to meet on the 1st of 
 October, at Mullaghmast, in Kildare county, near the road from 
 Dublin to Carlow, and close on the borders of the Wicklow 
 highlands. Every device was used to make this the most im- 
 posing and effective of all the meetings. The spot was noted 
 as the scene of a massacre of some chiefs of Offaly and Leix, 
 with hundreds of their clansmen, in 1577, by the English of 
 the Pale, who had invited them to a great feast, but had troops 
 silently drawn around the banqueting hall, who, at a signal, 
 attacked the place and cut the throat of every wassailer. The 
 hill of Mullaghmast, like that of Tara, is crowned by a Rath, 
 or ancient earthen rampart, enclosing about three acres. 
 
 To this meeting it was supposed that additional importance 
 would be given, if the members of the town corporations of 
 Leinster should repair thither in their corporate robes. O'Con- 
 nell took the chair in the scarlet cloak of Alderman. There 
 had lately been invented a " national cap," modelled after the 
 form of an ancient Irish crown. One of these was prepared, 
 splendidly embroidered, wherewitli to crown O'Connell on the 
 Rath of Mullaghmast; and it was with great ceremony placed 
 on his head by John Hogan, the first of Irish sculptors. We 
 
07 IRELANI/, (perhaps). 8T 
 
 read in the papers of the day how the Liberator's face beamed 
 with pleasure when Hogau placed the cap upon his lioad, say- 
 ing — *'6VV, / only regret thai this cap is not of gold.'* 
 
 And again there was a vast assemblage; and again the 
 numerous bands discoursed Irish music, and the air was fanned 
 by a thousand banners, and rent by the acclamations of hun- 
 dreds of thousands of human beings; and again O'Connell 
 assured them that England could not long resist these demon- 
 strations of their peaceful resolve that the Union was a nullity 
 — that he had already arranged his plan for the new Irish Par- 
 liaments — and that this was the Eepeal year. 
 
 In truth, it was time for England either to yield with 
 good grace, or to find or make some law applicable to this 
 novel " political offence," or to provoke a fight and blow away 
 Eepeal with cannon. Many of the Protestants were joining 
 O'Gonnell; and even the troops in some Irish regiments had 
 been known to throw up their caps with " Hurrah for Repeal!" 
 It was high time to grapple with the " Sedition." 
 
 Accordingly, the government was all this time watching for 
 an occasion on which it could come to issue with the Agitation, 
 where all advantages were on its side. The next week that 
 occasion arose. A great metropolitan meeting was appointed 
 to be held on the historic shore of Clontarf, — two miles from 
 Dublin, along the Bay, — on Sunday, the 8th of October. The 
 garrison of Dublin amounted then to about 4,000 men, besides 
 the 1,000 police, with abundance of field artillery. 
 
 Late in the afternoon of Saturday, when it was already al- 
 most diisk, a Proclamation was posted on the walls of Dublin, 
 signed by the Irish Secretary and Privy Councillors and the 
 Commander of the Forces, forbidding the meeting; and charging 
 all magistrates and ofi&cers, " and others whom it might con- 
 cern, to be aiding and assisting in the execution of the Law, in 
 preventing said meeting." 
 
 " Let them not dare," O'Connell had often said, " to attack 
 us !" The challenge was now to be accepted. The curtain 
 rises on the fifth act. 
 
38 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 €t 
 
 DETERMINATION OF THE ENEMY — CLONTARF — THE " PROJECTBD 
 MASSACR.E" — ARREST OF O'CONNEI.L AND THE "CONSPIRATORS" 
 — OPENING OF "conciliation HALL " — o'bRIEN JOINS THB 
 REPEALERS — PREPARATION FOR THE TRIALS. 
 
 British Government, then, closed with Eepeal ; and one or 
 the other, it was plain, must go down. 
 
 The British Empire, as it stands, looks vast and strong ; but 
 none know so well as the statesmen of that country how in- 
 trinsically feeble it is : and how entirely it depends for its 
 existence upon prestige, that is, upon a superstitious belief in 
 its power. England, in short, could by no means afford to 
 part with her " sister island :" both in money and in credit 
 the cost would be too much. In this same Repeal year, for 
 example, there was an export of provisions from Ireland to 
 England of the value of seventy-five million dollars.* And 
 between surplus revenue remitted to England, and absentee 
 rents spent in England, Mr O'Connell's frequent statement that 
 £9,000,000 of Irish money was annually spent in England, is 
 not over the truth. These wev^. substantial advantages, not to 
 be yielded up lightly. 
 
 In point of national prestige, England could still less afford 
 to Repeal the Union, because all the world would know the 
 concession had been wrung from her against her will. Both 
 parties in England, Whigs and Tories, were of one mind upon 
 this; and nothing can be more bitter than the language of all 
 sections of the English Press, after it was once determined to 
 crush the agitation by force. The Times said : — 
 
 "Repeal is not a matter to be argued on; it is a blow which despoils 
 the Queen's domestic territory — splinters her crown — undermines, 
 and then crushes her throne — exposes her to insults and outrage 
 from all quarters of the earth and ocean; a Repeal of the Union 
 leaves England stripped of her vitality. Whatever might be the incon- 
 venience or disadvantage, therefore, or even unwholesome restraint upon 
 Ireland — although the Union secures the reverse of all these — hut even 
 were it gall to Ireland, England must guard her own life's blood, and 
 sternly tell the disalfected Irish, 'you shall have me for a sister or a 
 subjugatrix; that is my Wfiwai'wm.'" 
 
 * Offidal Reports of the amount of this Export ceased to be kept after 1826. Up to 
 that date, the food export from Ireland had l>een rapidly increasing ; and the Act which 
 was then passed, placmg it on tlie footin:; of a coasting-trndij, prevented accounts from 
 being kept of it, and thus concealed its aniuunt. The estimitte ^veti above is perh^m 
 ijjQ low ; certainly not too high. 
 
OF iRKL\NfD, (perhaps;. 39 
 
 Andthe Morning Chronicle, speaking of tlie Act of ^'Union," said: 
 
 " True, it was coarsely and badly done ; but stand it must. A Crom- 
 welVs violence, loith Machiavelli's perfidy, may have been at work; but 
 the treaty, after all, is more tha)i •parchment.''^ 
 
 The first bolt launclied, then, was the Proclamation to pre- 
 vent the meeting at Clontai I have mentioned that the Pro- 
 clamation was posted in Dublin shortly before dusk on Saturday. 
 But long before that time thousands of people from Meath, 
 Kildare, and Dublin counties were already on their way to 
 Clontarf. They all had confidence in O'Connell's knowledge 
 of law; and he had often told them (and it was true) that the 
 meetings, and all the proceedings at them, were perfectly legal: 
 and that a proclamation could not make them illegal. They 
 would, therefore, have most certainly fiocked to the rendezvous 
 in the usual numbers, even if they had seen the Proclamation. 
 
 Readers may not fully understand the object of the Privy 
 Council in keeping back their Proclamation to so late an hour 
 on Saturday, seeing that the meeting had been many days 
 announced; and they might as well have issued their command 
 earlier in the week. Some may also be at a loss to understand 
 why the Proclamation called not only upon all Magistrates and 
 civil and military ofiicers to assist in preventing the assembly, 
 but also " all others whom it might concern." They meant to 
 take O'Connell by surprise — so that he might be unable to pre- 
 vent the assembly entirely, or to organize it (if such were his 
 policy) for defence — and thus they would create confusion and 
 a pretext for an onslaught, or " salutary lesson," Besides, they 
 had already made up their minds to arrest O'Connell and several 
 others, and subject them to a State Prosecution; and the Crown 
 lawyers were already hard at work getting up a case against 
 him. It is quite possible that they intended (should O'Connell 
 go to Clontarf in the midst of such confusion afid excitement) 
 to arrest him then and there; which would have been certainly 
 resisted by the people; and so there would have been a riot; 
 and everything would have been lawful then. As to the 
 " others whom it might concern," that meant the Orange Asso- 
 ciations of Dublin, and everybody else who might take the 
 invitation to himself. " Others whom it may concern! Why, 
 this is intended for, and addressed to, Tresiiam Gregg and his 
 auditory!" [said O'Connell] Thus the enemy had well provided 
 for confusion, collision, and "a salutary lesson." 
 
 O'Connell and the Committee did, perhaps, the best thing 
 possible in that exigency, except one. He issued another pro- 
 clamation, and sent it off by parties of gentlemen known to the 
 
40 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 people, and on whom they would rely, to turn back the crowds 
 upon all the roads by which they were likely to come in. All 
 that Saturday night their exertions were unremitting; and the 
 good Father Tyrrell, whose parishioners, swarming in from 
 Fingal, would have made a large part of the meeting, by his 
 exertions and fatigue that night, fell sick and died. The meet- 
 ing was prevented. The troops were marched out, and drawn 
 up on the beach and on the hill; the artillery was placed in a 
 position to rake the place of meeting, and the cavalry ready to 
 sweep it; but they met no enemy. 
 
 Within a week, O'Connell and eight others were held to bail 
 to take their trial for ''conspiracy and other misdemeanors." 
 
 If I am asked Avhat would have been the very best thing 
 O'Connell could do on that day of Clontarf — I answer: To let 
 the people of the country come to Clontarf — to meet them there 
 himself, as he had invited them — but, the troops being almost 
 all drawn out of the city, to keep the Dublin Repealers at 
 home, and to give them a commission to take the Castle and 
 all the barracks, and to break down the canal bridge and barri- 
 cade the streets leading to Clontarf. The whole garrison and 
 police were 5000. The city had a population of 250,000. The 
 multitudes coming in from the country would, probably, have 
 amounted to almost as many; and that handful of men between 
 ! There would have been a liorrible slaughter of the un- 
 armed people without, if the troops would fire on them — a very 
 doubtful matter — and O'Connell himself might have fallen. It 
 were well for his fame if he had; and the deaths of five or ten 
 thousand that day might have saved Ireland the slaughter, by 
 famine, of an hundred times .as many; a carnage of which I 
 have yet to give the history. 
 
 The "Government," as they called themselves, — but, as I 
 choose to call them, the enemy, — were much delighted with 
 the success, even so far as it was a success, of their first blow. 
 They had prevented the meeting, and that by a display of 
 force. Next, they proceeded with great ostentation to prepare 
 for the State Trials of the " Conspirators." 
 
 O'Connell, on his side, laughed both at the " Clontarf War " 
 and at the State Trials. He seemed well pleased with them 
 both. The one proved how entirely under discipline were the 
 virtuous, and sober, and loyal people, as he called them. The 
 other would show how wisely he lincl steered tlie agitation 
 throuf'^h the rocks and shoals of law. In t'.is he would have 
 been perfectly right, his legal position would iiave been im- 
 pregnable, but for two circumstances. First, " Conspiracy," in 
 
OV IRELAND, (perhaps). 41 
 
 Ireland, means anything the Castle Judges wish : second, the 
 Castle Sheriff was quite sure to pack a Castle jury; — so that 
 whatever the Castle might desire, the jury would affirm on 
 oath, " so help them God !" The July System in Ireland I 
 shall have occasion more than once to expound hereafter. 
 
 For the next eight months, that is, until the end of May, 
 1844, the State Prosecution was the grand concern around 
 which all public interest in Ireland concentrated itself The 
 prosecuted " Conspirators " were nine in number — Daniel 
 O'Connell; his son, John O'Connell, M.P., for Kilkenny; 
 Charles Gavan Duffy, Editor of the Nation; the Eev. Mr 
 Tyrrell, of Lusk, county Dublin (he died while the prosecution 
 was pending) ; the Rev. Mr Tierney, of Clontibret, county 
 Monaghan ; Richard Barret, Editor of the FUot, Dublin • 
 Thomas Steele, "Head Pacificator of Ireland;" Thomas M. 
 Ray, Secretary of the Repeal Association ; and Dr Gray, Editor 
 of the Freeman's Journal, Dublin. All these gentlemen were 
 waited upon by the Inspector of Police, and requested to give 
 bail for their appearance. 
 
 While the proceedings were pending, the agitation seemed 
 to gather strength and acquire impetus. There was general 
 indignation even among anti-Repealers at the transaction of 
 Clontarf ; and Lord Cloucurry made no scruple to term it "a 
 projected massacre." In every corner of the island there was 
 new and multitudinous enrolment of Repealers • and laro-e 
 sums were forwarded to the Association under the title of 
 "Proclamation Money." Every Monday, as usual, O'Connell 
 attended the weekly meeting of the Association, and treated 
 the legal proceedings as a new and powerful agency placed in 
 his hands for working out " the Repeal." He poured ridicule 
 on the Law-officers, the Ministers, the Lord Lieutenant the 
 Privy Council ; and promised that he would put them a'll to 
 shame, and come triumphantly out of the prosecution (which 
 he did) ; and that he would thereafter hold the Clontarf meet- 
 ing, and call t-ogether the Council of Three Hundred ; neither 
 
 of which he ever did. 
 
 The specific charge in the indictment (which was tne longest 
 indictment ever seen in any court) was "conspiracy" (con- 
 spiracy hatched in pubhc meetings !) to bring the laws and 
 administration of the laws into contempt, and to excite hatred 
 and -dissension between various classes of her Majesty's subjects • 
 and the overt acts were O'Connell's speeches ;— the appoint- 
 ment of Repeal Arbitration Courts, in contempt and derogation 
 of the regular tribunals lield under royal commission ;~aud 
 
42 TH^ LAST CONQUEST 
 
 articles in the several newspapers wliose editors were included 
 in the prosecution. 
 
 All these '• overt acts " continued to be transacted with even 
 greater activity than ever. The open air monster meetings, 
 indeed, ceased ; as Clontarf was to have been the last of them, 
 at all events, owing to the approach of winter; but in no 
 other respect was there any change in the system of agitation. 
 The new hall, which had been built as a place of meeting for 
 the Association, was just finished ; and O'Connell, who had a 
 peculiar taste in nomenclature, christened it "Conciliation 
 Hall ;" intending to indicate the necessity for uniting all classes 
 and religions in Ireland, in a common straggle for the indepen- 
 dence of their common country. 
 
 This " Conciliation Hall " was a large oblong building on 
 Burgh Quay, next door to the Corn Exchange, the scene of 
 O'Connell's agitation for many years. The new hall was not 
 a beautiful building, externally, presenting to the street 
 a front ornamented with pilasters, — the Harp and Irish 
 Crown, cut in stone — and over all a balustrade. Internally, 
 it was spacious, handsome, and convenient. On the 22d of 
 October it was ojDened in great form and amidst high enthu- 
 siasm. The chair was taken by John Augustus O'Neill, of 
 Bunowen Castle, a Protestant gentleman, who had been early 
 in life a cavalry officer and Member of Parliament for Hull, in 
 England. Letters from Lord French, Sir Charles Wolesley, 
 Sir Richard Musgrave, and Mr Caleb Pov/ell, one of the Mem- 
 bers for Limerick county, were r<'ad and placed on the minutes 
 — all breathing vehement indignation against the "govern- 
 ment," and pledging the warmest support. But this first 
 meeting in the New Hall was special!}^ notable for the adhesion 
 of Mr Smith O'Brien. Nothing encouraged the people, nothing 
 provoked and perplexed the enemy, so much as this. O'Brien 
 was of the great and ancient house of Thomond, in Munster; 
 his father was Sir Edward O'Brien, an extensive proprietor in 
 Clare county, and regarded as the chief of his clan. His eldest 
 brother was Sir Lucius O'Brien, then a Baronet, but afterwards 
 Lord Inchiquin. The family had been Protestant for some 
 generations; and Smith O'Brien, though always zealous in pro- 
 moting everything which might be useful to Ireland in Parlia- 
 ment, had remained attached to the Whig party, and was hardly 
 expected to throw himself into the national cause so warmly, and 
 at so dangerous a time. His Whig associates, not having been 
 accustomed to meet with men of his stamp, confessed their 
 surprise. 
 
\ OF IRELAND, (PERHAPS). 43 
 
 As Mr O'Brien afterwards became a conspicuous figure in 
 Irisa politics, I here present the greater part of the letter in 
 whidi he sought admission into the National Association: — 
 
 " Cahkrmoyle, Rathkkale, Oct. 20, 1843. 
 
 " Dbar Sir, — I beg to transmit herewith an order for £5, my first 
 subscription to the treasury of the Loyal Repeal Association of Ireland. 
 
 " As it is due to those who have hitherto honoured me with their 
 confideEce that I should state the reasons which induce me to take this 
 step, I shall feel oblij^ed if the Association will allow the following 
 remarks to appear in the next report of their proceedings : 
 
 " When the proposal to seek for a Repeal of the Act of Union was 
 first seriously entertained by a large portion of the Irish people, I used 
 all the influence which I possessed to discountenance the attempt. I 
 did not consider that the circumstances «nd prospects of Ireland then 
 justified the agitation of this question. Catholic Emancipation had 
 been recently achieved, and I sincerely believed that from that epoch 
 a new course of policy would be adopted towards Ireland. I persuaded 
 myself that thenceforth the statesmen of Great Britain would spare no 
 effort to repair the evils produced by centuries of misgovernmeut — that 
 the Catholic and Protestant would be adajitted to siiare, on equal terms, 
 in all the advantages resulting from our constitutional form of govern- 
 ment — that all traces of an ascendancy of race or creed would be efiaced 
 — that the institutions of Ireland would be gradually moulded so as to 
 harmonize with the opinions of its inhabitants — that in regard to poli- 
 tical rights, legislation for both kingdoms would be based upon the prin- 
 ciple of perfect equality — that an improvoment in the social condition 
 of our people would become an object of the deepest interest to the 
 British Parliament — that the disadvantages resulting to Ireland from 
 the loss of her legislature, and from the transfer of her public establish- 
 ments to London, would be compensated by equivalents such as would 
 enable every friend of the Union to point to numberless benefits as con- 
 sequent upon that measure — and that in interest and feeling the two 
 nations would be for ever identified as one people. 
 
 " Fourteen years have elapsed since that event, and the experience of 
 each succeeding year has tended to show the fallacy of these expecta- 
 tions and to dissipate these hopes. I have elsewhere taken an oppor- 
 tunity of illustrating in detail the progress of misgovernment. Eecapi- 
 tulation is almost unnecessary. We have seen that the anti-Catholic 
 prejudices of the English people are still as strong as when they brought 
 these countries to the verge of a civil war by protracted resistance to 
 Emancipation. The feelings of the Irish nation have been exasperated 
 by every species of irritation and insult; political equality has been 
 denied to us. Every proposal tending to develop the sources of our 
 industry — to raise the character and improve the condition of our popu- 
 lation — has been discountenanced, distorted, or rejected. Ireland, in- 
 stead of taking its place as an integral part of the great empire which 
 the valour of her sons has contributed to win, has been treated as a 
 dependent, tributary province; and at this moment, after forty-three 
 years of nominal union, the affections of the two nations are so enti>'*.ly 
 
44 THE LAST CONQgEST 
 
 alienated from each other, that England trusts for the maintenanci of 
 their connection, not to the attachment of the Irish people, but tc the 
 bayonets which menace our bosoms, and to the cannon which shi has 
 planted on all our strongholds 
 
 "For mj^self, I have not been able to witness this course of events 
 without feeling that the conduct of the British Parliament has fully 
 justified the endeavour to obtain the restitution of our national legis- 
 lature; but a strong sense of the dijSiculties which obstruct the ac- 
 complishment of that measure — a thankless apprehension of incon- 
 veniences which it might possibly cause to England— a lingering hope 
 that a nobler or wiser spirit would still exhibit itself in the policy 
 to be adopted towards Ireland — perhaps also personal considerations 
 connected witt my own education and individual position, have 
 hitherto restrained me from engaging in pursuit of the remedy pro- 
 posed by my fellow-countrymen for wrongs which, equally with them, 
 I resent. I resolved, before I should throw myself into your ranks, to 
 leave no effort untried to obtain redress by other means. Of our 
 labours in Parliament, d .ring the last session, you know the result. 
 We condescended to address to the government entreaties and expostula- 
 tions, humiliating to ourselves and to the country whose interests we 
 represent;— all wa^ in vain. We made a last appeal to the British 
 people; our warning — the friendly remonstrance of men averse to 
 agitation, and for the most part fiivourable to the Union, — was treated 
 with neglect, ridicule, or defiance. Still a hope remained on my mind " 
 that the government, alive to the evils to which Ireland is exposed 
 from the continuance of national discontent, would call Parliament 
 together in the Autumn, and submit some general system of conciliatory 
 measures for its tranquillization. Lest I should be led to form a pre- 
 cipitate decision, I availed myself of the interval which followed the 
 close of the session to examine whether, among the governments of 
 central Europe, there are any so indifferent to the interests of their 
 subjects as England has been to the welfare and happiness of our 
 population. After visiting Belgium, and all the principal capitals of 
 Germany, I returned home impressed with the sad conviction that 
 there is more human misery in one county in Ireland than throughout 
 all the populous cities and districts which I had visited. On landing 
 in England, I learn that the Ministry, instead of applying theraselves 
 to remove the causes of complaint, have resolved to deprive us even of 
 the liberty of discontent, — that public meetings are to be suppressed, — 
 and that state prosecutions are to be carried on against Mr O'Conneil 
 and others, on some frivolous charges of sedition and conspiracy. 
 
 " I should be unworthy to belong to a nation which may claim at 
 least as a characteristic virtue that it exhibits increased fidelity in the 
 hour of danger, if I were to delay any longer to dedicate myself to the 
 cause of my country. Slowly, reluctantly convinced that Ireland has 
 nothing to hope from the sagacity, the justice, or the generosity of the 
 English Parliament, my reliance shaU henceforth be placed upon our 
 own native energy and patriotism.** 
 
 The example of a man so universally esteemed as O'Brien, of 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPS). 45 
 
 course induced many other Protestants to follow his example. 
 The weekly contributions to the revenue of the Association 
 became so great as to place in the hands of the Committee 
 a large treasury to be used in spreading and organizing the 
 movement ; arbitration courts decided the people's complaints 
 with general acceptation : and great meetings in American 
 cities sent, by every steamship, their words of sympathy and 
 bills of exchange. 
 
 It is not very certain that the " Government " was at first 
 resolutely bent on pressing their prosecution to extremity. 
 Probably they rather hoped that the show of a determination 
 to put down the agitation somehow would cool the ardour both 
 of demagogues and people. Plainly it had no such effect; and 
 it was, therefore, resolved to pursue the " Conspirators " to 
 conviction and imprisonment, at any cost and by any means. 
 
 By what means they sought to secure this result — and how 
 juries and verdicts are manufactured in Ireland — I shall narrate 
 in the next chanter. 
 
46 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 (C 
 
 THE TRIAL — SYSTEM OF " SELECTING" A JURY IN IRELAND — VERDICT 
 AGAINST O'CONNELL — DEBATE IN PARLIAMENT ON THE STATE 
 OF IRELAND — OPERATION OF THE ARMS ACT — SENTENCE AND 
 IMPRISONMENT OF o'cONNELL. 
 
 On the 2d of November, 1843, in the Court of Queen's Bench, 
 Dublin, began one of the most remarkable comedies of modern 
 times — the trial of the Repeal " Conspirators." To spectators 
 from other lands it was, doubtless, highly entertaining; and, 
 indeed, Irishmen themselves, being naturally prone to merri- 
 ment, could not but laugli. Yet, to thoughtful minds in that 
 country, there was somewhat tragic in the comedy — seeing that 
 it was enacted in tlie high courts of law, with aged and vener- 
 able Judges for actors; and many (^*3emed it an irreverent and 
 demoralizing species of play. 
 
 To begin wdtli the "Jury"' — (a word which I enclose by 
 inverted commns purposely) — the Sheriff of Dublin was of 
 course a nominee, of the Crown, instead of being elected, as in 
 England, like other municipal officers. The inhabitants of 
 Dublin qualified to serve on juries were in the proportion of 
 three Catholics to one Protestant. And it was the business of 
 the Sheriff to take care that not one of these Catholics should 
 be on this jury, or any other jury, to try what is called a 
 " political offence." But, further, there were large numbers of 
 the Protestant residents of Dublin favourable to the Repeal of 
 the Union; as, in fact, over and above the general interest of 
 the whole country in that measure, Dublin had a special interest, 
 as the metropolis. The Sheriff's function, then, was to make 
 it sure that none of those Protestant residents should be on the 
 jury. This limited his range of selection to a small number — 
 Orangemen, Englishmen, and tradesmen, " by special appoint- 
 ment," to the Lord-Lieutenant: in short, to men whose vote 
 (which was, however, to be called a " verdict") might be counted 
 upon with the utmost certainty. It was to be a part of the 
 performance that these men, being so well and truly packed, 
 should make oath on the Holy Bible, to give a true verdict 
 according to the evidence — so help them God! 
 
 A revisal of the special jury-list took place before Mr Shaw, 
 Recorder of Dublin, with a special view to these trials. The 
 names, when passed by the Recorder from day to day, were 
 
Ot IRELAND, (PEKHAPS). 47 
 
 then sent to the SheriiT's Office, to be placed on his book. 
 Counsel were employed before the Eccorder to oppos.> by every 
 means the admission of everj Catboiic gentleman against wh:^m 
 any colour of objection could be thought of; yet, with all this 
 care, a large number of Catholics were placed on the list. As 
 the names were transferred to the Slieriif's office, it happened 
 that the slip which contained the largest proportion of Catholic 
 names missed its way, or was mislaid; and the sixty-seven names 
 it contained never appeared on the Sheriff's book. This became 
 immediately notorious, and excited what one of the Judges 
 called "grave suspicion." 
 
 In striking a special jury in Ireland, forty-eight names are 
 taken by ballot out of the jurors' book in the Crown Office. 
 Then each party, the Crown and the traverser, has the privilege 
 of striking off twelve, leaving twenty-four names. On the day 
 of trial, the first twelve, out of these twenty-four, who ansv,rer 
 when called, are sworn as jurors. Now, so well had the Sheriff 
 discharged his duty in this case, that of the forty-eight names 
 there were eleven Catholics. They were all struck off by the 
 Crown, and a " Jury" was secured on whose patriotic vote her 
 Majesty could fully rely. 
 
 Of course the "Conspirators," tlirough their counsel, chal- 
 lenged the array on the express ground of fraud in the matter 
 of the list of names which missed its way as aforesaid; and of 
 the four judges, one, Perrin, gave his voice for quashing the 
 whole proceeding and letting the Crown begin anew; — but the 
 other three held the jury panel to be good enough; and the 
 drama was to proceed. 
 
 The indictment covered, with close print, the skins of a flock 
 of sheep; the parchment monster measured thirty-three yards 
 in length, and gave a history of the whole agitation, including 
 speeches at monster meetings and ballads from the Nation. 
 The most eminent counsel in Ireland were employed at either 
 side, with hosts of juniors; and the ingenuity of every one 
 of them was exerted for many weeks to devise motions, affi- 
 davits, demurrers, pleas in abatement, and the other incidents 
 of a highly-developed and full-blown State Prosecution. The 
 trial proceeded ; and both inside and outside the courts, there 
 was a strange mixture of jest and earnest. The Attorney- 
 General was T. B. C. Smith (aftervt^ards Master of the I^olls), 
 a very .small, withered gentlemen, of great legal learning, but 
 most peevish temper, and very sensitive to taunt and ridicule. 
 Of taunt and ridicule, therefore, he liad plenty, botli in the 
 court and the newspapers. Stung to madness, he at last slipped 
 
48 i:he last conquest 
 
 to Fitzgibbon, in open court, a pencilled note, requiring that 
 gentleman to name a friend and meet him next morning in 
 mortal combat. Fitzgibbon read the note to the Judges ; and 
 they mildly rebuked the rancorous little public prosecutor. 
 Day after day passed, and week after week ;— O'Connell and 
 the traversers all the time attending public festivals and Repeal 
 meetings, and organizing the Repeal Wardens in a more com- 
 pact and steady power. Ml the world soon perceived that the 
 cause of the country in no way depended on what was passing 
 in the Queen's Bench; and the trials would have been absolutely 
 devoid of interest, but for the brilliant speeches of Shiel, 
 Whiteside, and MacDonagh, and the occasional jokes which 
 enlivened the galleries and awaked the Judges. 
 
 Early in February the trials ended : and when the Chief 
 Justice, in his charge to the jury, argued the case like one of 
 the counsel for the prosecution, and so far forgot himself as to 
 term the traversers' counsel ''the gentlemen on the other side," 
 there was more laughter than iiidignation throughout the 
 country. The jury brought in their verdict of Guilty,— -of 
 course. O'Connell addressed a letter to the People of Ireland, 
 informing them that " the Repeal " was now sure ; that all he 
 wanted was peace, patience, and perseverance; and that if they 
 would only " keep the peace for six, or, at most, for twelve 
 months more," he would promise Repeal. Having published 
 this letter, he went straight to London, and strode into Parlia- 
 ment, where he was received with a tumult of acclamation by 
 the Whigs, then out of place, who saw in his whole movement 
 nothing more than a machinery to raise them to power. It was 
 while they were engaged in a debate on the state of Ireland, 
 that O'Connell stalked into the House. He had got somewhat 
 to say on the state of Ireland. But before going farther, take 
 two extracts from the speeches of Lord John Russell and of Mr 
 Macaulay, in that debate, — both of them, being then out of 
 place, zealous for "Justice to Ireland," and highly indignant at 
 the packing of juries. Said Lord John Russell : — 
 
 "Nominally, indeed, the two countries have the same laws. Trial 
 by jury, for instance, exists in both countries; but is it administered 
 alike in both countries ? Sir, I remember on one occasion when an 
 honourable gentleman, Mr Brongham, on bringing forward a motion, 
 in 1823, on the administration of the law in Ireland, made use of these 
 words: — 'The law of England esteemed all men equal. It was sufficient 
 to be born within the King's allegiance, to be entitled to all the rights 
 the loftiest subject of the land enjoyed. None were disqualified, and 
 the only distinction was between natural-born subjects and aliens. 
 Such, indeed, was the liberality of our system in times which we called 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPS). 49 
 
 barbarous, but from which in these enlightened days it might be as 
 well to take a hint, that if a man were even an alien-born, he was not 
 deprived of the protection of the law. In Ireland, however, the law 
 held a directly opposite doctrine. The sect to which a man belonged, 
 the cast of his religious opinions, the form in which ho worshipped his 
 Creator, were grounds on which the law separated him from his fellows, 
 and bound him to the endurance of a system of the most cruel injustice.* 
 Such was the statement of Mr Brougham, when Mr Brougham was the 
 advocate of the oppressed (hear, hear). But, sir, let me ask, was what 
 I have just now read the statement of a man who was ignorant of the 
 country of which he spoke 1 No ; the same language, or to the same 
 effect, was used by Sir Michael O'Loghlen in his evidence before the 
 House of Lords. T^hat gentleman stated, that he had been in the habit 
 of going the Munster circuit for nineteen years; and on that circuit it 
 was the general practice for the crown in criminal prosecutions to set 
 aside all Catholics and all the liberal Protestants; and he added, that 
 he had been informed thj>^ on other circuits the practice was carried on 
 in a more strict manner. Sir Michael O'Loghlen also mentioned one 
 case of this kind which took place in 1834, during the Lord Lieutenancy 
 of the Marquis of Wellesley, and the Attorney-Generalship of Mr 
 Blackburne, the present Master of the Rolls, and in which, out of forty- 
 three persons set aside (in a cause, too, which was not a politicla one), 
 there were thirty-six Catholics and seven Protestants, and all of them 
 respectable men. This practice is so well known, and carried out so 
 generally, that men known to be Liberals, whether Catholics or Pro- 
 testants, have ceased to attend assizes, that they might not be exposed 
 to these public insults. Now, I would ask, are these proofs of equal 
 laws, or laws equally administered ? Could the same or similar cases 
 have happened in Yorkshire, or Sussex, or Kent? Are these the fulfil- 
 ment of the promises made and engagements entered into at the Union?" 
 
 This sounds extremely fair. Who would think that Lord 
 John Russell was Prime Minister in '48 ! Mr Macaulay said, 
 in the same debate (Feb. 19th, 1844): — 
 
 " I must say, too, in the spirit of truth, that the position which Mr 
 O'Connell holds in the eyes of his fellow-countrymen, is a position such 
 as no popular leader in the whole history of mankind ever occupied 
 (loud cheers). You are mistaken if you imagine that the interest with 
 which he is regarded is confined only to the island. Go where you will 
 upon the Continent, dine at any table dliote, tread upon any steamboat, 
 enter any conveyance, from the moment your speech betrays you an 
 Englishman, the very first question asked — whether by the merchants 
 or manufacturers in the towns in the heart of France, or by the peasants, 
 or by the class who are like our yeomen in this country — is, what has 
 become of Mr O'Connell (cheers, and cries of oh, oh)? Let those who 
 deny this assertion take the trouble to turn over the French journals 
 (cheers). Jt is a most unfortunate^ it is a most unhappy fact^ — hut it 
 is impossible to dispute it, — that there is throughout ths Continent a 
 feeling respecting the connection between England and Ireland not very 
 
60 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 much unlike that which exists with respect to the connection between 
 Russia and Poland. 
 
 " I do say that on this question it is of the greatest importance that 
 the proceedings which the government have taken should be beyond 
 ini]")ea.chment, and that they should have obtained a victory in such a 
 way tliat that victory should not be to them a greater disaster than a 
 defeat. Has that been the result (cheers)? First, is it denied that Mr 
 O'Connell has suffered wrong? Is it denied that if the law had beer 
 carried into effect without those irregularities and that negligence which 
 has attended the Irish trials, Mr O'Connell's chance of aquittal would 
 have been better ? — no person denied that. The affidavit which has 
 been produced, and which has not been contradicted, states that twenty- 
 seven Catholics were excluded from the jury-list (hear, hear, from Mr 
 Shiel). I know that all the technicalities of the law were on the side 
 of the Crown; but my great charge against the government is, that 
 they have merely regarded this question in a technical point of view. 
 We know what the principle of the law is in cases where prejudice is 
 likely to arise against an alien, and who is to be tried de medietate 
 lingucB. Is he to be tried by twelve Englishmen? No; our ancestors 
 knew that that was not the way in which justice could be obtained; — 
 they knew that the only proper way was to have one-half of the jury- 
 men of the country in which the crime was committed, and the other 
 half of the country to which the prisoner belonged. If any alien had 
 been in the situation of Mr O'Connell, that law would have been 
 observed. You are ready enough to call the Catholics of Ireland 
 'aliens,' when it suits your purpose; you are ready enough to treat 
 them as aliens when it suits your purpose; but the first privilege, the 
 only advantage, of alienage, you practically deny them (hear, hear, and 
 loud cheers)." 
 
 This oraiior also was a member of the Administration in 
 1848; and he did not utter any of his fine indignation at what 
 was done then: of which I shall hereafter give some account. 
 Bear in mind these fair and liberal protestations of Eussell and 
 Macaulay, until we come down four years later in this 
 history. 
 
 The debate lasted m^re than a week. O'Connell listened to 
 it ; and, at last, amidst breathless silence, arose. He did not 
 confine himself to the narrow ground of the prosecution, but 
 reviewed the whole career of British power in Ireland, with 
 bitter and taunting comments. As to the prosecution, he 
 treated it slightly and contemptuously: — 
 
 " I have at greater length than I intended, gone through the crimes 
 of England since the Union — I will say the follies of England. I have 
 but little more to say; but I have in the name of the people of Ireland, 
 • — and I do it in their name, — to protest against the hite prosecution 
 (loud cries of liear, hear,, hear). And I protest, first agaiust the uature 
 
OP IRELAND, (perhaps). 51 
 
 of that prosecution. Forty-three public nieetiiif^s were held, and every 
 one of them was admitted to be lega,]; not one w.r; itnpeached as being 
 against the law, and every one of them making on the calendar of crime 
 a cypher; but by multiplying cyphers, you come, by a species of legal 
 witchcraft, to make a number that shall be fatal. One meeting is legal, 
 another meeting is legal, a third is the sa/me; and three legal meetings, 
 you say, make one illegal meeting. The people of Ireland understand 
 that you may oppress them, but not laugh at them. That, sir, is my 
 first objection. The second is the striking out all the Catholics from 
 the jury panel. There is no doubt of the fact. Eleven Catholics were 
 upon the jury panel, and every one of them was struck out." 
 
 All the world knew it. Nobody pretended to deny it, or 
 publicly to excuse it : but what availed all this % The ulti- 
 matum of England was, that the Union must be maintained at 
 any cost and by all means, ^nd O'Connell was to return to 
 Dublin by a certain day for judgment and sentence. It may 
 have been some satisfaction to him — or it may not — to expose 
 and turn inside out the whole procedure of tliat trial before 
 Englisli audiences; the loud laughter of all Liverpool may 
 have pleased him, when he described, with exuberant merri- 
 ment, the nature of the cumulative crime, contained in his 
 monster meetings — one meeting legal, another meeting legal, 
 but forty-three illegal. Said he, in Liverpool : — 
 
 "What would a merchant of this city say if a fellow, just escaped 
 from some Lunatic Asylum, were to come into his office and request 
 him to tot up lorty-thvee noughts? Would he not turn the mad fellow 
 out of his office? This is what I want done to the present Ministry; — 
 I want them turned out of office." 
 
 This was extremely gratifying and amusing to Liverpool 
 Whigs, who looked only at the chances of their friends coming 
 into power. But no man in all England ever, for one moment, 
 suffered the idea to enter his head that Ireland was to be in 
 any case permitted to govern herself. 
 
 In truth, it was apparent both to Englishmen and Irishmen, 
 that the real struggle between the two islands did not lie in 
 the Court of Queen's Bench, but in the country — and that it 
 would be decided, not by the learned Judges with their packed 
 jury, but by the Eepeal Wardens on the one side, and the troops 
 and police on the other. And British Whigs could well afford 
 to let O'Connell have a legal triumph, to the damage of Britisli 
 Tories, so long as the real and substantial policy of England ia 
 Ireland was pursued without interruption. As to this point, 
 tfeere must be no mistake: no British Whi^ or British Tory 
 
53 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 regarded the Irish question in any other point of view than as 
 a question on v/Lich might occur a change of Ministry. 
 
 An army of fifty thousand men, inchadin^ police, was all this 
 wliile in full military occupation of the island; the Arms Bill 
 had become law; and in the registration of arms before magis- 
 trates, under that Act, those who were in favour of their coun- 
 try's independence were usually refused the privilege of keep- 
 ing so much as an old musket in their houses for the purposes 
 of self-defence This same registration made manifest the fact 
 that the Protestant "gentry" of the country were providing 
 themselves with a sufficient armament. For example, Mrs 
 Charlotte Stawell, of Kilbritton Castle, registered "six guns 
 and six pistols;" and Richard Quinn, of Skivanish, " nine guns, 
 one pair pistols, two dirks, two bayonets, and one sword." No 
 objection was offered arainst these persons keeping as many 
 fire-arms as they chose! So worked the Disarming Act. - 
 
 The police-barracks were strengthened; the detectives were 
 multiplied; the regular troops were kept almost constantly 
 under arms, and marched to and fro with a view of striking 
 terror; improved codes of signals were furnished to the police, 
 for use by day and by night — to give warning of everything 
 they might conceive suspicious; and, above all, the Post-office 
 was used systematically as a bureau of espionage. During the 
 progress of the trials, Mr Gartlan, one of the attorneys for the 
 traversers, and Mr O'Mahony were surprised to see their pri- 
 vate letters printed in the government newspapers of Dublin. 
 Sir Edward Sugden and the Secretary of State for Ireland had 
 issued warrants under which the correspondence of any sus- 
 pected person was to be carried to the Castle, opened by a 
 government clerk, copied, resealed, and forwarded as if nothing 
 had happened. The extent to which this system operated was 
 hardly appreciated, until the discovery, during this same year, 
 1844, of Sir James Graham's behaviour with respect to the 
 correspondence of Mazzini, the Italian. By diligent inspection 
 of the letters to and from Mazzini, the British Minister was 
 enabled (in the interest of good order, tranquillity, and civili- 
 zation,) to give notice to the King of Naples of all the move- 
 ments and designs of the brothers Bandiera; and thereby had 
 the satisfaction of putting it in that monarch's power to entrap, 
 capture, and kill those rash young men. 
 
 It has been the custom, ever since the " Union," for either 
 the liOrd-Lieutenant, or Secretary, or any of the Lords Justices 
 or Privy Councillors, to order the detention in the post-office of 
 ^^i^rs to ^nd from any person whomsoever they might thinfe 
 
OF IRELAND, (JPERHAPS). 53 
 
 fit to suspect, or pretend to suspect. The mode of opening the 
 letters was by softening the seals or wafers by means of steam; 
 and the government kept workmen cunning in re-sealing; so 
 that the parties might not conceive suspicion, and thus be put 
 on their guard. After the Mazzini case was exposed, the 
 British public affected to be indignant; and the House of Com- 
 mons appointed a committee to investigate, That committee 
 very coolly informed the British public and the rest of mankind 
 that the practice was not new — was common — ^was needful; and 
 gave the public names and dates to make the most of. Con- 
 fining myself to Irish cases alone, it appears by this report that 
 warrants were issued at the following times by the following 
 persons, for opening and copying the letters of various in- 
 dividuals: — 
 
 " Year 1832 — Marquis of Anglesey. 
 
 1834— E. J. Littleton (Secretary). 
 
 " — Marquis Wellesley. 
 1835 — Earl of Mulgrave [afterwards Marquis of Normanby]. 
 1836— Ditto. 
 
 " — T. Drummond (Secretary). 
 1837— Ditto. 
 
 " — Lord Plunket (one of the Lords Justices). 
 
 " — Archbishop of Dublin (ditto). 
 1838 — Lord Morpeth (Secretary) [afterwards Earl of Carlisle]. 
 1839 — Marquis of Normanby. 
 
 " — Lord Viscount Ebrington. 
 
 " — Gen. Sir T. Blakeney (one of the Lords Justices). 
 1840 — Lord Yiscount Ebrington. 
 1841 — Chief Justice Bushe (one of the Lords Justices). 
 
 « — Earl De Grey. 
 1842— Ditto. 
 
 " — Sir E. Sugdeu (one of the Lords Justices). 
 1843— Earl De Grey." 
 
 The British public, seeing the thing to be " necessary," said 
 no more about it; and the practice has continued in full activity 
 from that day to this. 
 
 With so firm a hold upon the island, the British Ministers 
 might have thought themselves in a condition to abandon their 
 questionable prosecution; but they had the idea that O'Con- 
 nell's power lay very much in the received opinion of his legal 
 infallibility; so they were resolved to imprison him, at any rate 
 for a short time — even though he should finally trample on 
 their prosecution and comf forth in triumph;— -as in fact 
 he did. 
 
 On the 30th of May the '' Conspirators" were called up for 
 
9% THE LAST C0NQUE81 
 
 sentence; and were imprisoned in Richmond Penitentiary- & 
 suburban prison at the south side of Dublin, with splendid 
 gardens and handsome accommodations. Here they rusticated 
 for three months, holding levies in an elegant marquee in the 
 garden; addressed by bishops; complimented by Americans; 
 bored by deputations; serenaded by bands; comforted by 
 ladies; half smothered with roses; half drowned in cham- 
 pagne. 
 
 The great multitudinous people looked on in some amaze. 
 "Peace" was still the order; and they obeyed: but they much 
 marvelled what it meant, and when it would end. 
 
OF IRELAND, (perhaps). 65 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 O'CONNELL IN PRISON — DAVIS, HIS MISGIVINGS — REVERSAL OF THE 
 JUDGMENT — WHIG LAW-LORDS — REJOICINGS IN DUBLIN — THE 
 PEOPLE DISAPPOINTED — FEDERALISM — o'BRIEN. 
 
 The Repeal year had conducted not to a Parliament in College 
 Green, but to a Penitentiary at Richmond. Yet the people 
 believed in O'Conneil's power, wisdom, and truth. From his 
 prison he sent weekly messages to the Repeal Association 
 (which continued to meet as usual), announcing that the inde- 
 pendence of the country was never so certain; — that he rejoiced 
 to be imprisoned for Ireland; — above all, that he implored the 
 people to be peaceful and patient. Peaceful and patient they 
 were; and the Wardens and clergy laboured more zealously 
 than ever to keep up the agitation and swell its funds. Cor- 
 porations, bishops, *' dismissed magistrates," and mayors of 
 cities, thronged the courts and gardens of the prison, bringing 
 their addresses of confidence and assurances of co-operation. 
 Very considerable indignation had been excited, even amongst 
 the Protestants, by the means which had been used to snatch 
 this conviction. The agitation had rather gained than lost: 
 and many gentlemen who had held back till now, sent in their 
 names and subscriptions. O'Brien was a constant attendant at 
 the Association; and by his boldness and purity of character, 
 and his extensive knowledge of public atfairs, gave it both 
 impetus and steadiness. 
 
 Yet O'Connell and his friends were in a prison, sentenced to 
 an incarceration of one year; and it would be vain to deny that 
 there was humiliation in the fact. True, the jury had been 
 notoriously packed; the trial had been but a sham; and the 
 sentence would probably be reversed by the House of Lords. 
 Still, there was Ireland, represented by her chosen men, suffer- 
 ing the penalties of crime in a gaol. The island was still fully 
 and effectively occupied by troops, as a hostile country; and all 
 its resouroes were in clear possession of the enemy. Many 
 began to doubt whether the "Moral-Force principle" of O'Con- 
 nell would be found sufficient. 
 
 In an elegant tent, with a green flag flying over it, O'Connell, 
 with his green Mullaghmast cap on, received the deputations, 
 and made them gracious answers, not without a seasoning of 
 
56 THE LAST C0NQC7EST 
 
 merry jest. Through the trees, and amongst parterres of 
 flowers, one might sec the "martyrs " and their friends saunter- 
 ing about ; the tall forai of Mr Steele, the " Head Pacificator," 
 strode alone and apart; pretending to read "Kane's Industrial 
 Resources of Ireland." John O'Connell, with a smile ready for 
 all comers, but an air somewhat pre-occupied, as if intent on 
 weighty business, remained generally near to his father. He 
 was then about thirty-two years of age, small of stature, but 
 rather corpulent, and extremely unlike in every respect to the 
 "Liberator." He was then member of Parliament for Kil- 
 kenny. Duffy might have been seen on a rustic bench, sur- 
 rounded by certain young poets, his pale face illuminated with 
 a glow that looked very like the light of enthusiasm, and 
 almost of genius ; and he seemed to be rather too nervously 
 anxious that the " Nation party " should be forward and con- 
 spicious at this crisis of the cause. Davis was still making the 
 columns of the Nation flash with proud hope and defiance; but 
 did not affect to conceal a certain despondency. " No," he 
 said ; " O'Connell will run no more riski Even when this 
 judgment shall be set aside, and he will come out in triumph, 
 he will content himself with ' imposing demonstrations.' He 
 will not call the Clontarf meeting again — he will not summon 
 the Council of Three Hundred; and from the day of his release 
 the cause will be going back and going down. What care the 
 government," he exclaimed, with bitterness, " how many thou- 
 sands of people may meet peacefully and legally, or in what 
 trappings they dress themselves, or to what tunes they march, 
 or what banners they may flaunt, — while there are fifty thousand 
 bayonets in all our garrisons, besides the Orange Yeomanry V 
 In truth, the Repeal Agitation, as a living and formidable 
 power, was over from the day of imprisonment ; and I shall 
 not dwell on the details of it any farther. 
 
 The judgment of the Irish Court of Queen's Bench was 
 brought up to the British House of Peers on a Writ of Error ; 
 and on the 2d and 4th of September, the opinions of nine 
 English Judges were delivered, and the decision pronounced. 
 Eight of the Judges gave their opinion that the jury was a 
 good jury, the verdict good, and the judgment good. It 
 appeared, however, that Mr Justice Coleridge dissented. Lord 
 Lyndhurst, the Lord Chancellor, then delivered his decision; 
 he agreed with the majority of the judges, and thought the 
 judgment should stand, packing of the jury being immaterial. 
 He was followed by Lord Brougham, — and nobody could doubt 
 what would be the decision of tliat learned person ;— the jury 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPS). 67 
 
 was a good enough juiy ; some of the counts in the indictment 
 might be bad ; but, bad or good, the judgment of the Irish 
 court Avas to stand ; and O'Connell Avas to remain in prison. 
 
 Lord Denman, Chief Justice of England, then arose. I 
 have already mentioned that the whole Irish question was 
 regarded in the British Parliament solely with reference to its 
 affording a chance for turning out the Tory ministry, and con- 
 ducting the Whigs into power and place. We have seen, 
 accordingly, the virtuous indignation of Lord John Eussell, 
 and of Mr Macaulay, against the packing of the juries. It 
 seems an atrocious charge to make upon Judges and law-lords 
 — that they could be influenced by any other considerations 
 than the plain law and justice of the case. But the mere matter 
 of fact is, that the majority of the English Judges were of the 
 Tory part)'. Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst was a violent Tory, 
 and moreo7er, an avowed enemy to Ireland. Lord Brougham 
 was at that time a Tory, and also a personal foe to O'Connell, 
 having been often stung by the vicious taunts and ridicule of 
 that gentleman. But Lord Dennmn, Lord Cottenham, and 
 Lord Campbell were Whigs; and Denman, Cottenham, and 
 Campbell gave it as their opinion that the jury had been unfair 
 and fraudulent — that no fair trial had taken place — and there- 
 fore that the judgment against the Kepeal Conspirators should 
 be reversed. 
 
 Some circumstances attending this transaction deserve to be 
 stated. After the delivery of the opinions of the law-lords, 
 the Chancellor put the question, " Is it your lordships' pleasure 
 that the judgment be reversed T — and several lay-lords, who 
 knew no more of law than of anything else, shouted in 
 chorus to Lord Brougham, "Not Content." This was 
 too much : Lord Wharncliffe, President of the Council, 
 himself rebuked the indecency; and even Lord Brougham 
 declared that it was better not to go out of the usual course, 
 even for the sake of doing justice in so important a case, as it 
 would diminish the respect and confidence of mankind towards 
 that most illustrious tribunal. The noisy lay-lords, therefore, 
 took their hats and went out; and the votes only of the law- 
 lords were taken. Lyndhurst and Brougham were for sustain- 
 ing the judgment; and three others against it. The Chancellor, 
 therefore, announced — "the judgment is reversed." 
 
 The State Trials, then, were at an end. It lin'^ been beside 
 my present purpose to detail the complicated incidents of that 
 procedure — the motion for a new trial, motion for amendment 
 in the postea, and so forth — which served to protract the affair 
 
58 THE LA.ST CONQUEST 
 
 month aftor month. Proof of the " overt acts," also, has been 
 omitted, as hemg of no consequence at tJie time, jior at a.ny 
 time since. The thing was indeed no criminal trial at all; — it 
 was a de facto government making use of its courts of justice 
 and officials, of its executive power, to try and convict a whole 
 people for the crime of demanding their independence. Thus 
 considered, it v^as deemed by all high-spirited Irishmen as an 
 outrage and public aftront before the world; and the reversal 
 of the judgment by Whig law-lords in London, and consequent 
 liberation of the prisoners, was by no means regarded as atoning 
 the outrage or wiping out the insult. We tried hard, indeed, 
 to feel triumphant: it needed no trouble to feel indignant and 
 humiliated. The Nation exclaims: — 
 
 " What — what — vv-hat ! is the decision of the Queen's Bench of Irr- 
 land reversed? So thej^ have kept us for three months from our freedom 
 without law, or right, or justice? Out upon their Constitution! - 
 
 " And was the Trial by Jury made a ' mockery, a delusion, and a 
 snare,' for this opening of the prison-gates? Were the names omitted, 
 the list fraudulent, and did all the attendant circumstances of a Govern- 
 ment conspiracy take place only that the unwilling hands which closed 
 the doors of Richmond prison should open them to-day? 
 
 " And so the ' convicted conspirators,' the ' hoary criminal,' and his 
 * suffering dupes,' were robbed of their liberty by the Government of 
 England! With hot, indecent haste — with furious hurry — they drove 
 them from the Court-house to the gaol. The men who stood con- 
 victed appealed to a higher, and, as it appears, a luckier court, from the 
 inferior tribunal; yet, contrary to all the dictates of true justice, they 
 were forced to endure the punishment without their crime being proved. 
 The Government were warned not to inflict this wrong. They were 
 warned to abide the issue of the appeal — to stay their vengeance — to 
 ^aik their appetite for punishment. Yet that sleek tyrant at their 
 head would not have it so. He would have O'Connell in the prison. 
 He would wreak malignant vengeance on his 'difficulty;' — he did so. 
 He inflicted three months' false imprisonment." 
 
 Yes, it was true; the " sleek tyrant" had done it; and we 
 might make the most and say our worst of it. Re had shown 
 that he dared inflict three months' false imprisonment: — and 
 the very appeal to a British House of Lords, from an Irish law 
 Court, was felt to be degradation, because it was an attornment 
 to the jurisdiction of the enemy. 
 
 Before quitting the subject, one or two inatters deserve com- 
 memoration. The British Government, by openly and osten- 
 tatiously striking off from the jury panel all Catholics v/ithout 
 exception, and all Protestants of moderate and liberal opinions, 
 made proclamation that they knew the great mass of the people 
 to be averse to them and their rule — avowed that they accounted 
 
OV IRELAND, (PERHAPS). 69 
 
 that small remainder, out of whom they selected their jurors, 
 to be the only "good and lawful men." This, to be sure, 
 amounted to an admission that nine-tenths of Irishmen desired 
 the freedom of their country; but then it also amounted to a 
 declaration that England meant to hold the country, whether 
 Irishmen would or not. 
 
 One other noteworth}'- matter: after the verdict, but before 
 the sentence, it was well known that the traversers would bring 
 the whole matter up to the House of Lords by Writ of Error; 
 but it was also known that Ministers would insist upon im- 
 prisonment, pending the Writ of Error, ^nd that the Judges 
 would refuse all bail; for the sole policy of "government" 
 seemed to be that O'Connell must see the inside of a gaol, 
 guilty or not guilty, law or no law. Accordingly it was con- 
 ceived by certain Whig statesmen in London (then out of place, 
 as aforesaid, and eager to " make capital" by their friendship 
 for Ireland), that a bill might be introduced into Parliament, 
 authorizing bail to be received in criminal cases, pending a 
 Writ of Error, in order that persons might not suffer imprison- 
 ment as criminals, who might turn out to be innocent. Lord 
 Campbell introduced the bill. On the second of May, he moved 
 that it should be referred to a committee. Lord Lyndhurst, 
 the Chancellor, opposed it on the part of the government. He 
 said not a word against the fairness and justice of the measure; 
 but boldly founded his opposition on the ground that it was 
 brought in to answer a particular case. Lord Brougham, of 
 course, opposed it too; and was so foolish as to say that — 
 
 " Though aio^jroving of the gennral principles of the measure, he had 
 at the first stated that it was most objectionable to introduce a measure so 
 ■important, pending the proceedings now going on in Dublin." 
 
 Lord Clanricarde observed that the opposition of their Lord- 
 ships to the measure amounted to this — that if it were passed, 
 they might be unable wrongly to imprison six or seven gentle- 
 men then in Dublin. Without so much as a division, the motion 
 was negatived; and, on the 30th of tlie same month of May, 
 O'Connell and his friends were carried to prison. 
 
 It was easy to expose and denounce all these proceedings; 
 and they were triumphantly denounced in prose and verse. 
 But the more thoroughly they were exposed and dwelt upon, 
 and the more ostentatious and audacious they were, just the 
 more stinging and deadly was the insult to our people. It was 
 a kind and amount of outrage which, if any people endure 
 without battle, virtue has gone out of them. Under that 
 
60 THE LAST CONQtJEST 
 
 insult I do not pretend to deny that our national honour still 
 lies a-bleeding. 
 
 But in Dublin there was the show of high rejoicing; and the 
 prisoners were escorted from the Penitentiary, through the city, 
 by a vast and orderly procession, to O'Connell's house in Merrion 
 Square. In deep and ordered ranks the " Trades " of Dublin 
 marched, preceded by bands, and innumerable banners fanned 
 the air; and splendid carriages, with four horses and with six, 
 conveyed committees, attorneys for the traversers, aldermen, 
 and other notabilities. The procession marched through Col- 
 lege Green; and just ?.s O'Connell's carriage came in front of 
 the Irish Parliament House (the most superb building in Dublin), 
 the carriage stopped — the whole procession stopped — and there 
 was a deep silence as O'Connell rose to his full height, and, 
 pointing with his finger to the portico, turned slowly around, 
 and gazed into the faces of the people, without a word. Again 
 and again he stretched forth his arm and pointed; and a suc- 
 cession of pealing cheers rent the air and " shook the banners 
 like a storm/' until, say the reporters, ''Echo herself was 
 hoarse." 
 
 All the country, friends and enemies, Ireland and England, 
 were now looking eagerly and earnestly for O'Connell's first 
 movement, as an indication of his future course. Never, at any 
 moment in his life, did he hold the people so wholly in his 
 hand. During the imprisonment, both clergy and Hepeal War- 
 dens had laboured diligently in extending and confirming the 
 organization; and the poor people proved their faith and trust 
 by sending greater and greater contributions to the Eepeal 
 Treasury. T^hey kept the "peace," as their Liberator bade them, 
 and the land was never so free from crime — lest they should 
 " give strength to the enemy." 
 
 I am proud of my people; and have always regarded with 
 profound admiration the steady faith, patient zeal, self-denial, 
 and disciplined enthusiasm they displayed for these two years. 
 To many thousands of those peasants the struggle had been 
 more severe than any war; for they were expected to set at 
 naught potent landlords, who had over them and their children 
 power of life and death — with troops of insolent bailiffs, and 
 ejecting attorneys, and the omnipresent police; and they did set 
 them at naught. Every vote they gave at an election might 
 cost them house and home, land and life. They were naturally 
 ardent, impulsive, and impatient; but their attitude was calm 
 and steadfast. They were an essentially military people; but 
 the great " Liberator " told them that " uo political ameliora- 
 
Of? IRELAND, (PEXiKAPS;. 61 
 
 tion was worth one drop of human blood." They aia not believe 
 the form ila, and in assenting to it, often winked with their 
 eyes ; yet steadily and trustfully, this one good time, they 
 sought to liberate their country peacefully, legally, under the 
 advice of counsel- They loyally obeyed that man, and would 
 obey no other. And when he walked in triumph out of his 
 prison, at one v,''ord from his mouth they would have marched 
 upon Dublin from all the five ends of Ireland, and niade short 
 work with police and military barracks. 
 
 But what shall I say of him? He knew tnat millions of 
 his countrymen were hanging upon his lips, and secretly pray-, 
 in 3 that he would bring this long agony to the arbitrament 
 fif manhood ; and his soul sank within him. For years he 
 had been promising them freedom, or his head upon the block: 
 he had taken the starving peasant's mite, and " the priceless 
 trust of youth;" and, now, let me not say he betrayed, but 
 lie disappointed that trust. Let there be such excuses for him 
 as Uie nature of the case admits. He was old ; the disease 
 of which he died (softening of the brain) had already 
 begun to work upon his energies: the thought of bloodshed was 
 horrible to him; for he was haunted by the ghost of D'Esterre, 
 whom lie had slain in the pride of life. Yet, after all, what a 
 poor comfort, what a poor excuse is all this! 
 
 Almost the first thing lie proposed after his release, in a 
 secrut conclave of the Repeal Association, was the dissolution 
 of the Association, in order to construct another body on a 
 little more legal and s?fe basis. He knew that the Association 
 now contained thousands who eagerl}^ demanded some decisive 
 step in advance; and though he constantly flattered Smith 
 O'Brien in public, yet he already feared that man's well-known 
 inflexibility of character, and knew that he had not thrown 
 himself into the cause without stern purpose. The proposal to 
 disband was combated, and was given up. He occupied his 
 weekly speeches with collateral issues upon parliamentary ques- 
 tions which were often arising — the ''Bequests Act," the " Col- 
 leges Bill," the Papal Rescript negotiation, and the like — all 
 matters which would have been of moment in any self-govern- 
 ing nation, but were of next to no account in the circumstances; 
 or he poured forth his fiery floods of eloquence in denunciation, 
 not of the British G-overnment, but of American Slavery, with 
 which he had nothing on earth to do. 
 
 Very shortly after his release, he went so far as to declare in 
 a published letter (2d October,) that he preferred Federalism to 
 Repeal- that is^ a local Parlian:ent for local purposes; but hew 
 
 C 
 
62 THE LA.ST CONQUEST 
 
 again he was met. Dufify published a letter, very respectfully 
 but firmly declaring tbat the cause we were all enlisted in was 
 the national independence of Ireland. From other quarters 
 also came symptoms of discontent; and at the next meeting of 
 the Association he exclaimed: " Federalism! I would not give 
 that for Federalism/' and he snapped his fingers. And still his 
 entreaties for " peace, law, and order," became more nervously 
 anxious, day by day; and he often declared that his " Head 
 Pacificator" was now the most important person in the Asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 He said no more of his plan for a Council of Three Hundred, 
 or adjourned it to a distant contingency. He praised too much, 
 as many thought, the sublime integrity and justice of the three 
 Whig law-lords who had voted for reversing the judgment 
 against him. But the most significant change in his behaviour 
 was in the querulous captiousness he showed towards the Nation 
 •and those connected with it. He had much to say in depreca- 
 tion of rash young men; and hinted that the youngsters in 
 question were no better than infidels. 
 
 All these symptoms of retreating from his position, these 
 good words to British Whiggery, and censure on " rash young 
 men," appearing from week to week, fell upon the highly 
 wrought excitement of the people with the eff*ect of a repeated 
 shower-bath, and the patient perceptibly cooled. 
 
 The Association all tliis time was becoming more powerful 
 for good than ever. O'Brien had instituted a " Parliamentary 
 Committee," and worked on it continually himself; which, at 
 all events, furnished tlie nation with careful and authentic 
 memoirs on all Irish questions and interests, filled with accurate 
 statistical details. Many Protestant gentlemen, also, of high 
 rank, joined the Association in '44 and '45, being evidently 
 unconscious how certainly and speedily that body was going to 
 destruction. The meetings were constant and crowded; and to 
 a casual observer the agitation was as formidable and active as 
 ever. "Our position," said the Nation, " is as good as the 
 Duke's at Torres Vedras." Perhaps; but then the enemy was 
 inside our position, not outside, which makes a great diff'erence. 
 In short, the British government set its back to the wall, 
 loaded and primed, and let the Kepealers talk. 
 
 The history of Ireland must now be sought elsewhere than 
 in the Repeal Association; and I have next to mention the 
 movements on the other side. The situation was uneasy, was 
 intolerable, and had to be brought to an end somehow or other. 
 
Of IRELAND, (perhaps). 63 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AIPROACH OF THE FAMINE IN 1845 — REPEAL PROSPECTS AFTER THBS 
 LIBERATION OF o'CONNELL — IRISH PRODUCE EXPORTED TO ENG* 
 LAND IN 1844 — ARMS AND DETECTIVES IN RETURN FOR IT-i 
 "LANDLORD AKD TENANT'^ COMMISSION — EJECTMENT LEQISLA* 
 TION — CONDITION OF IRELAND IN 1845 — THE DEVON COMMISSION 
 — THE " TENANT-RIGHT OF ULSTER " — CONSPIRACY OF LANDLORD! 
 AND LEGISLATORS — SIR ROBERT PEEL. 
 
 The Fall of the year 1845 brought the first shadow of "Famine.* 
 But, before coming to that dreadful time, some preliminary in^ 
 formation will be useful. 
 
 After the liberation of O'Connell there was apparently greater 
 zeal and diligence than ever in working the cause of Repeal ; 
 but the English, being now quite sure there would be no fight- 
 ing, at least while O'Connell lived, paid it much less regard. 
 There was no more terror of the monster; which, indeed, had 
 proved itself a harmless monster, and boasted that it was 
 toothless and fangless. They could even afibrd to dally 
 with it in a playful manner, or to reprove it gently and good- 
 humouredly. The Times, for example, which was then accounted 
 the most influential organ of British opinion, published some 
 articles, immediately after the liberation, advocating some sort 
 oi federal Union. Said the Times — 
 
 " The idea of a Congress has occurred to other minds before this as 
 a solation of many existing difficulties. We are becoming less of a nation 
 and more of an empire. The conduct of an empire and the government 
 of one's own people seem quite different and incongruous operations. 
 The very ethical qualities necessary, perhaps, for keeping a barbaric 
 continent in subjection don't do at home. One is shocked to see either 
 Irish peasants or English labourers ruled with the same rod of iron as 
 Mahrattas or Belochees — with the same suspicious discipline as a mutin- 
 ous man-of-war crew, or a black regiment at the Cape. There is, too, 
 something absolutely ridiculous in the present mixture of parliamentary 
 subjects. An hour's talk on the balance of power between the Conti- 
 nental empires is followed by three days' animated discussion on a per- 
 sonal squabble." 
 
 Did this indicate that the English mind was becoming recon- 
 ciled to the thought of a distinct legislature for Ireland? Not 
 at all ; every real movement was the other way, tending to 
 consolidation and centralization — not of the legislature only, 
 
64 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 but of the very inw courts, and stamp office, and other public 
 departments. It indicated only that the Times thought it 
 might be politic to tlirow out this federal idea as an apple of 
 discord amongst Eepeaiers; and it had some effect. Again, 
 said the Times, remarking on the high rank of some of those 
 Irishmen, who were now (not in masses, but in units) joining 
 Repeal : — 
 
 " No, the movement is not essentially a democratic one. It is no more 
 democratic than the American Revolution was in its outset. That was 
 a revolution of which the most earnest leaders and the most respectable 
 were, in the first instance, men of birth and family, representatives of 
 some of the oldest families in the colony. The course of events changed 
 with time, and swept the Virginian gentlemen into the same gulf of 
 equality as the grocer of Boston, or the drab-coloured draper of Penn- 
 sylvania. But the principles from which that revolution sprung were the 
 same as those which are now operating in Ireland — impatience of control, 
 private ambition; and, we must add, a poetical patriotisaij which is 
 charmed by the sound and enchanted by the vision of ' The Kingdom 
 and ParHament of Ireland.' " 
 
 It is evident, then, that there was no more shrieking and 
 howling in England over the phenomenon. For, in fact, all 
 this time, the steady policy of England towards her " sister 
 island " was proceeding on the even tenor of its way quite un- 
 disturbed. Four millions sterling of the rental of Ireland was, 
 as usual, carried over every year, to be spent in England ; and 
 the few remaining manufactures which our island has struggled 
 to retain, were growing gradually less and less. The very 
 " frieze " (rough, home-made v/oollen cloth) was driven out of 
 the market by a far cheaper and far worse Yorkshire imitation 
 of it. Some Repeal artist had devised a "Repeal button," 
 displaying the ancient Irish Crown. The very Repeal button 
 was mimicked in Birmingham; and hogsheads of ancient Irish 
 Crowns were poured into the market, to the utter ruin of the 
 Dublin manufacturer. True, they were of the basest of metal 
 and handiwork; but they lasted a^ long as '' the Repeal " 
 lasted. 
 
 All great public expenditures were still confined to England; 
 and, in the year 1844 there was, quite as usual, Irish produce 
 to the value of about fifteen millions sterling exported to 
 England. We cried out that our trade was ruined, and our fine 
 harbours empty: the "Cyclops" and " Rhadamanthus" war- 
 steamers came to us, with 25,000 stands of arms for distribu- 
 tion among the garrisons. We complained that nothing was 
 done in their Parliament for Ireland: straightway we got an 
 
OF IRELAND, ^tSRHAPS). 65 
 
 Arms Bill. We represented that our factories had stopped 
 work, and our citizens were starving: without delay the 
 Government powder mill near Cork was sst to work. While 
 Irislnuen were talking and passing resolutions, the Parliament 
 and Government were steadily confirming, extending, strength- 
 ening their grip upon all things Irish. We all lived, at all 
 times, in the full sight and full power of the enemy, and lay 
 down to rest under the shadow of his wings. If it was desir- 
 able to know the movements of any suspected person, detec- 
 tives dogged his footsteps in ever-changing disguises; if he was 
 supposed to be in communication with others, the letters of 
 both corresnondents were carefully opened and copied in the 
 Post ofEce. Iduch care had been used during the past year in 
 strengthening police-stations, to resist any sudden attack of 
 peasantry; in fortifying barracks, and disposing garrisons still 
 more and more cunningly, so as to be in full military occupa- 
 tion of every strategic point and road in the island. The Arms 
 Act, too, was administered with much care at Petty Sessions; 
 and it was made certain that an}'- Repealer who had a gun in 
 his house should be at least well known to the police. 
 
 I recapitulate all this, that readers may bear in mind, 
 throughout the remainder of the story, what a powerful and 
 cunning tyrannj" it was which pressed upon that people at 
 every point, and by means of which British Ministers believed 
 they might safely pledge themselves to maintain the Union at 
 all hazards, "under the blessing of Divine Providence." It 
 was the British Government, not we, who held the position of 
 " Torres Vedras." 
 
 In 1843, the Government sent forth one of their endless 
 " Commissions" — the famous " Landlord and Tenant Commis- 
 sion" — to travel through Ireland, collect evidence, and report 
 on the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland. In '44 it 
 travelled and investigated; and the next year its report came 
 out in four great volumes. The true function and object of 
 this Commission was to devise the best means of getting rid of 
 what Englishmen called " the surplus population" of Ireland. 
 Ever since the year 1829, the year of Catholic Emancipation, 
 British policy had been directing itself to this end. We shall 
 see how it worked. 
 
 As a condition of Catholic Emancipation, the " forty shilling 
 franchise" had been abolished, so that the privilege of voting 
 for members of Parliament should be taken away from the 
 great mass of the Catholic peasantry. This low franchise had 
 theretofore induced landlords (for the sake of securing political 
 
66 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 power), to subdivide farms an«l create voters. The francliiso 
 abolielii'd, there was no longer any political use for the people; 
 and it happened about the same time that iiew theories of farm- 
 ing became fashionable. " High farming" was the word. There 
 was to be more grazing, more green cropping; there were to be 
 larger farms; and more labour was to be done by horses and by 
 steam. But consolidation of many small farms into one large 
 one could not be effected without clearing off the ''surplus 
 population;" and then, as there would be fewer mouths to be 
 fed, so there would be more produce for export to England. 
 The clearance system, then, had begun in 1829, a.id had pro- 
 ceeded with great activity ever since; and as the tenants were 
 almost all tenants -at-will, there was no difficulty in this, except 
 the expense. 
 
 The Code of Cheap Ejectment was therefore improved for 
 the use of Irish landlords. As the laws of England and of 
 Ireland are extremely different in regard to franchise and to 
 land-tenure; and as the Ejectment-laws were invented exclu- 
 sively for Ireland, to clear off the '-surplus population," I shall 
 give a short account of them. 
 
 There had been an Act of George the Third (1815) providing 
 that in all cases of holdings, the rent of which was under £20 
 — this included the whole class of small farms — the Assistant 
 Barrister at Sessions (the County Judge) could make a decree 
 at the cost of a few shillings to eject any man from house and 
 farm. Two years after, the proceedings in ejectment were 
 still further simplified and facilitated, by an Act making the 
 sole evidence of a landlord or his agent sufficient testimony to 
 ascertain the amount of rent due. 
 
 By another Act of the first year of George the Fourth, it was 
 declared that the provisions of the cheap Ejectment Act " had 
 been found highly beneficial" (that is to say, thousands of farms 
 had been cleared off) — " and it was desirable that same should 
 be extended." Thereupon it was enacted that the power of 
 summary ejectment at Quarter Sessions should apply to all 
 holdings at less than £50 rent; and, by the same statute, the 
 cost of procuring ejectments was still farther reduced. In the 
 reigns of George the Fourth and Victoria, other Acts were made 
 for the same purpose, so that the cost and trouble of laying 
 waste a townland and levelling all its houses, had come to be 
 very trifling. It must be admitted that there is cheap justice 
 in Ireland, at least for some people. 
 
 In many parts of the island extermination of the people had 
 been sweeping. At every Quarter Sessions, in every county, 
 
Of IRELAND, (perhaps). 67 
 
 there were always many ejectments; and I have seen them 
 signed by Assistant-Barristers by hundreds in one sheaf. They 
 were then placed in the hands of bailififs and police, and came 
 down upon some devoted townland with more terrible destruc- 
 tion than an enemy's sword and torch. Whole neighbourhoods 
 were often thrown out upon the highways in winter, and the 
 homeless creatures lived for a while upon the charity of 
 neighbours; but this was dangerous, for the neighbours were 
 often themselv'es ejected for harbouring them. Some land- 
 lords contracted with emigration companies to carry them to 
 America " for a lump sum," according to the advertisements I 
 cited before. Others did not care what became of them; and 
 hundreds and thousands perished every year, of mere hardship. 
 
 All this seems a tale of incredible horror. Bat there are 
 in these United States, this moment, at least one million of 
 persons, each of whom knows the truth of every word I have 
 written, and could add to my general statement, circumstances 
 of horror and atrocity, that might make one tremble with rage 
 as he reads. 
 
 The Irish are peculiarly attached to their homesteads; and, 
 like all people of poetic temperament, surround their homes and 
 hearths with more tender associations than a race of duller per- 
 ception could understand. Take, from a volume published in 
 '44:, one ejectment tableau — 
 
 " Having swept from every comer towards the door, she now took 
 the gatherings by handfuls, and flung them high into the air, to be 
 scattered by the winds. Having next procured some salt upon a plate, 
 she went again through every part of the dwelling, turning the salt over 
 and over with her fingers as she went. This lustral visit finished, she 
 divided the salt into separate parcels, which she handed to those with- 
 out, with directions for its farther distribution. 
 
 " She now wrenched from the threshold the horse shoe which the 
 Irish peasantry generally nail upon it, imputing to it some mystic in- 
 fluence; after which, standing erect, with one foot within the house and 
 the other outside, she signed the sign of the Cross on her brow and on 
 her breast. This strange ceremony was concluded by a sweeping mo- 
 tion of the hand towards the open air, and a similar one in the contrary 
 direction, attended by a rapid movement of the lips, as though she 
 muttered some conjuration. A reverent inclination of her body 
 followed, and again she made the holy sign; then, drawing herself up 
 to her full stature, she took her place among the children, and, without 
 casting a look upon the desecrated cabin, she departed from the place." 
 
 It is but fair to tell, that sometimes an ejecting landlord or 
 agent was siiot by desperatf;, liou.seless men. What wouder 1 
 There wt^re not half enough of them shot. If the people had 
 
68 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 not been too gentle, forgiving, and submissive, their island could 
 never have become a horror and scandal to the earth. 
 
 There was a "Poor Law" in Ireland since 1842 — a law 
 which had been forced on the country against its will, on the 
 recommendation of an English tourist (one Nichols); and work- 
 houses, erected under that law, received many of the extermin- 
 ated people. But it is a strangely significant fact, that the 
 deaths by starvation increased rapidly from the first year of the 
 poor law. The Report of the Census Commissioners, for 1851, 
 declares that, while in 1842 the deaths registered as deaths by 
 famine amounted to 187, they increased every year, until the 
 registered deaths in 1845 were 516. The "registered " deaths 
 were, perhaps, one-tenth of the unregistered deaths by mere 
 hunger. 
 
 Such, then, was the condition of Ireland in 1844-5; and all 
 this before the " Famine." 
 
 Now, the •' Landlord and Tenant Commission " began its 
 labours in '44. The people were told to expect great benefits 
 from it. The Commissioners, it was diligently given out, would 
 inquire into the various acknowledged evils that were becoming 
 proverbial tliroughout Europe and America; and there were to 
 be parliamePatary " ameliorations." This Commission looked 
 like a deliberate fraud from the first. It was composed entirely 
 of landlords: the chairman (Lord Devon) being one of the Irish 
 absentee landlords. It was at all times quite certam that they 
 would see no evidence of any evils to be redressed on the part 
 of the tenants; and that, if they recommended any measures, 
 those measures would be such as should promote and make 
 more sweeping the depopulation of the country. " You might 
 as well," said O'Connell, "consult butchers about keeping 
 Lent, as consult these men about the rights of farmers." 
 
 The Report of this set of Commissioners would deserve no 
 more especial notice than any of the other Reports of innumer- 
 able Commissions which the British Parliament was in the 
 habit of issuing, when they pretended to inquire into any Irish 
 "grievance" — and which were usually printed in vast volumes, 
 bound in blue paper, and never read by any human eye,— but 
 that the Report of this particular "Devon Commissio.n" has 
 become the very creed and gospel of British statesmen with 
 regard to the Irish people from that day to this. It is the 
 programme and scheme upon which the Last Conquest of 
 Ireland was undertaken in a business-like manner years ago; 
 and the completeness of that conquest is due to the exactitude 
 Y?ith which the programme was observed. 
 
OP IRELAND, (perhaps). 60 
 
 The problem to be solved was, how to get rid of the people. 
 There was a "surplus population" in Ireland— this had long 
 been admitted in political circles— and the alarming masses of 
 powerful men who had trooped to the summons of O'Connell, 
 and had been by him paraded "in their moral might," as 
 he said, at so many points of the island, brought home to 
 the bosoms of Englishmen a stern conviction of the 
 absolute necessity that existed to thin out these multitudin- 
 ous Celts. 
 
 One of the strongest demands and most urgent needs of these 
 people, had always been permanence of tenure in their lands; 
 — O'Connell called it "fixity of tenure," and presented it 
 prominently in his speeches, as one of the greatest benefits to 
 be gained by repealing the Union. It was indeed the grand 
 necessity of the nation — that men should have some security — 
 that they who sowed should reap — that labour and capital 
 expended in improving farms should, in part, at least, profit 
 those who expended it. This would at once prevent pauperism, 
 put an end to the necessity of emigration, supersede poor-laws, 
 and prevent the periodical famines which had desolated the 
 island ever since the Union. It is a measure which would 
 have been sure to be recommended as the first, or indeed, the 
 only measure for Ireland, by any other Commission than a 
 Commission of Irish landlords. 
 
 In the northern province of Ulster, there was, as before 
 mentioned, a kind of unwritten law, or established custom, 
 which, in some counties, gave the tenant such needful security 
 The "Tenant-Right of Ulster" was the name of it. By virtue 
 of that Tenant-Right, a farmer, though his tenure might l| 
 nominally " at will," could not be ejected so long as be paid his 
 rent; and if he desired to move to another part of the country, 
 he could sell his " good will " in the farm to an incoming tenant. 
 Of course the greater had been his improvements, the larger 
 price would his Tenant-Right command; in other words, the 
 improvements created by his own or his father's industry were 
 his. The same custom prevented rents from being arbitrarily 
 .taised in proportion to the improved value; so that in many 
 eases which came within my own knowledge, in my profession, 
 lands held " at will " in Ulster, and subject to an ample rent, 
 were sold by one tenant-at will to another tenant-at-will at full 
 half the fee-simple value of the land. Conveyances were made 
 of it. It was a valuable property, and any violent invasion of 
 it, as a witness told Lord Devon's Commission^ would have 
 *' made Down another Tipperary." 
 
70 THE t.*tST CONQUEST 
 
 The custom was almost coatined to Ulster. It was by no 
 means (though this hcis often been stated), created or commenced 
 by the terms of the Plantation of Ulster in the time of King 
 James the First; but was a relic of the ancient free social polity 
 of the nation, and had continued in Ulster longer than in the 
 other three provinces, simply because Ulster had been the last 
 part of the island brought under British dominion, and forced 
 to exchange the ancient system of tribe-lands for feudal tenures. 
 Neither is the custom peculiar to Ireland. It prevails in Italy, 
 in Spain, in Hungary, in all Austria. In France and Prussia 
 it has ripened into full peasant proprietorship; and nowhere, 
 perhaps, in all Europe, is it denied or disallowed to the tillers 
 of the soil, except in Galicia (the Austrian part of Poland), and 
 in the three Southern provinces of Ireland. 
 
 Surely it was fair, it was not unnatural, that Tipperary 
 should seek to become another Down; and if, throughout all 
 Munster, Leinster, and Con naught, there was idleness and 
 indifference to improvement of farms, who could expect it to 
 bo otherv/ise, seeing that if a man was so insane as to improve, 
 to drain, to fence, to build a better cabin, his landlord was quite 
 sure to serve him with a " notice to quit." In fact, on many 
 estates those notices were always served regularly from six 
 months to six months — so that at every Quarter Sessions the 
 whole population of such estates was liable to instant exter- 
 mination. 
 
 The people of Ireland are not idle. They anxiously sought 
 opportunities of exertion on fields where their landlords could 
 not sweep off all their earnings; and many thousands of small 
 farmers annually went to England and Scotland to reap the 
 harvest, lived all the time on food that would sustain ik) other 
 working men, and hoarded their earniugs for their wives and 
 children. If they had had Tenant-Right they would have 
 laboured for themselves, and Tipperary would have been a 
 peaceful and blooming garden. 
 
 Is the American mind able to conceive it possible that noble 
 lords and gentlemen, the landlords and legislators of an ancient 
 and noble people, should deliberately conspire to slay one out 
 of every four — men, women, and little children — to strip the 
 remainder barer tiian they were — to uproot them from the soil 
 where their mothers bore them — to force them to flee to all the 
 ends of the earth — to destroy that Tenant-Kight of Ulster where 
 it was, and to cut off all hope and chance of it where it was 
 not ? No ; I can hardly suppose that an American is able to 
 grasp the idea ; his education has not fitted him for it ; and I 
 
i)l? IRELAND, (PiiliHAPS). 71 
 
 hesitate to make tiie avssertion of this deliberate conspiracy. 
 Take the facts and documents, and draw such inferences as 
 they will bear. 
 
 First, then, for the Eeport of the Devon Commission. As 
 first printed, it fills four stupendous "Blue Books." But it 
 contained too much vahiable matter to be buried, like other 
 Reports, in the catacombs which yawn for that species of litera- 
 ture. The Secretary of the Commission, therefore, was employed 
 to abstract and condense, and present the cream of it in two or 
 three octavo volumes. This had the advantage, not only of 
 condensrition, but of selection; the Commissioners could then 
 give the pieces of evidence which they liked the best, together 
 with their own recommendations. Now, those volumes have 
 been the Bible of British legislators and Irish landlords; the 
 death-warrant of one million and a half of human beings, and 
 the sentence of pauper banishment against full a million and a 
 half more. It is worth while to examine so portentous a volume. 
 It is called a "Digest of the Evidence," &c., is published by 
 authority, and has a preface signed " Devon." 
 
 Much of the volume is occupied with dissertations and evi- 
 dence respecting " Tenant-Right," which the North had, and 
 the South demanded. The Commissioners are clearly against 
 it in every shape. They term it " unphilosophical;" and in the 
 preface they state that the Ulster landlords and tenants look 
 upon it in the light of a life-insurance — that is, the landlord 
 allows the sale of Tenant-Iiight, and the incoming tenant buys 
 it, lest they should both be murdered by the outgoing tenant. 
 The following passage treats this Tenant Right as injurious to 
 the tenant himself: — 
 
 "It is even questionable whether this growing practice of Tenant- 
 Right, which would at the first v-iew appeal' to heavaluahk assumption 
 on the part of the tenant, be so in reality; as it gives to him without 
 any exertion on his own part an apparent projjerty or S:<iiinnt,j, by means 
 of which he is enabled to incur future incumbrance in order to avoid 
 present inconvenience— a practice which frequently terminates in the 
 utter destitution of his family, and in the sale of his farm, when the debts 
 thus created at usurious interest amount to what its sale would produce.'' 
 
 It appears, then, that it is injurious to the tenant to let him 
 have anything on the security of wliich he can borrow money; 
 a theory which the landlords v/ould not relish if apphed to 
 themselves. Further, the Comraissionei^g declare timt this 
 Tenant-Right is enjoyed witliout any exertion on the part of 
 tenants. Yet they have, in all cp-ses^ either created the whole 
 
72 I'HE LAST COlNQtTEST 
 
 value of it in tne sweat of their brows, or bought it from those 
 who did so create it. 
 
 The Commissioners "foresee some danger to the just rights 
 of property, from the unlimited allowance of this Tenant-Right." 
 But they suggest a substitute: " Compensation for future im- 
 provements/' surrounding, however, that suggestion with diffi- 
 culties which have prevented it from ever being realized. 
 
 Speaking of the corosolidation of farms, they say: — 
 
 " When it is seen in the evidence, and in the return of the size of the 
 farms, how small those holdings are, it cannot be denied that such a 
 step is absolutely necessary.'* 
 
 And then, as to the people whom it is thus " necessary" to 
 eject, they say: — 
 
 "Emigration is considered by the committee to be peculiarly 
 applicable as a remedial measure." 
 
 They refer to one of their Tables (No. 95, p. 564), where 
 
 " The calculation is put forward, showing that the consolidation of • 
 the small holdings up to eight acres* would require the removal of 
 about one hundred and ninety-two thousand three hundred and sixty- 
 eight families." 
 
 That is, the removal of about one million of persons. 
 
 Such was the Devon programme: — Tenant Right to be dis- 
 allowed; one million of people to be removed, that is, swept out 
 on the highways, where their choice would be America, the 
 poor-house, or the grave. We shall see with what accuracy the 
 details were carried out in practice. 
 
 The " Integrity of the Empire" was to be menaced no more 
 by half-million Tara meetings: those ordered masses of the " Irish 
 Enemy," with their growing enthusiasm, their rising spirit, and 
 their yet more dangerous discipline, were to be thinned, to be 
 cleared off: but all in the way of " amelioration. ' They were to 
 be ameliorated out of their lives: there was to be a battue of 
 benevolence. Both government and landlords had been 
 thoroughly frightened by that vast parade of a nation: and they 
 knew they had only been saved by O'Connell and his Peace- 
 principle: and O'Connell was not immortal. 
 
 When I say there was a conspiracy of landlords and legislators 
 to destroy the people, it would be unju.A, nsit is unnecessary, 
 to charge all members of tlie Queen's Oovernnicnt, or all or any 
 
 • An Irish acre is to an English one in the proportion of eight to five, nearly. 
 
09 IRELAND, (pERHArs). tS 
 
 of the Devon Commissioners, with a privity to that design. 
 Sir Eobert Peel knew how Irish landlords would inquire, — 
 and what report they would make, — ^just as well as he knew 
 what verdict a jury of Dublin Orangemen would give. Sir 
 Eobert Peel had been Irish Secretary. He knew Ireland 
 wellj he had been Prime Minister at the time of Catholic 
 Emancipation; and he had taken care to accompany that 
 measure with another, disfranchising all the small farmers in 
 Ireland. This disfranchisement, as before explained, had given 
 a stimulus and impetus to the clearance system. He had helped 
 it by cheap Ejectment Acts. But it had not worked fast 
 enough. 
 
74 THE LAST CONQUEg^ 
 
 CHi^PTER IX. 
 
 LAND-TENURE REPORT— o'bRIEN — EIGHTY-TWO CLUB — GREY PORTER 
 — A NATIONAL MILITIA — PRESIDENT POLK AND OREGON TERRITORY 
 — ROBERT TYLER — COLLEGES BILL — MACNEVIN — JAMES HAUGHTON 
 — JOHN O'CONNELL AND GENERAL JACKSON — LORD STANLEY'S 
 BILL — " SURPLUS POPULATION" — DEATH OP DAVIS — FAMINE. 
 
 It was in tlie month of February, 1845, that the first of the 
 four voluminous Reports was published by the Land Tenure 
 Commission. Sir RobertPeel was Prime Minister; Lord Stanley 
 (afterwards Lord Derby) was Colonial Secretary. In England, 
 the Repeal Agitation was still regarded as formidable. Twenty- 
 six of the hundred and five Irish Members of Parliament' were 
 declared and enrolled Repealers; and these, despairing of 
 influencing the course of Imperial legislation by attending the 
 London Parliament, gave their attendance in "Conciliation 
 Hall," along with O'Connell and O'Brien, or else stayed at. 
 home. O'Brien, zealously aided by Davis and his friends in 
 the Nation office, and by John O'Connell, was labouring on the 
 Committee of the Association; whose reports and pamphlets, 
 widely circulated amongst the people, were diflTusing sound in- 
 formation upon the national resources of the island, and the 
 state of the account lying open 'oetween Ireland and England. 
 Mainly through the exertions of Davis, " Repeal Reading Rooms" 
 sprang up in every town; and a Club was formed, which called 
 itself the " Eighty-two-Club," in honour of the era of Ireland's 
 Independence (1782). The members of the Club attended 
 public meetings and festivals in a dark green uniform, adorned 
 with gold lace; and the uniform cap resembled the forage-cap 
 of an officer of hussars. Mr Grey Porter, a gentleman of large 
 property in Fermanagh, and son to the bishop of CI ogher, joined 
 the Association; and forthwith published a pamphlet, propound- 
 ing, amongst other things, that Ireland ought to have a national 
 militia of 100,000 men. Men's thoughts were tending towards 
 battle : the agitation was beginning, notwithstanding all the 
 Head Pacificator's labours, to assume a semi-military look; and 
 this hardly alarmed the English more than it alarmed O'Connell. 
 He loved not that " Eighty-two Club," with its forage cap; but 
 seeing he could not prevent its formation, he accepted — that is, 
 assumed—the presidency of it; cind ;;oon took care to swamp it 
 with his own peaceful and conatitutioiiai creatures. 
 
OF IRELAND, (PErvHAPS). 75 
 
 Grey Porter's pamphlets were stirring and bold: and hb 
 ideas about the Jiiilitia were welcomed warmly and passionatelv 
 by Davis, '^ Honour to Mr Porter/' he wrote, '^ for having had 
 the manliness to propose what thousands thought but spoke 
 not." His appeals to his fellow-Protestants were strong and 
 warm. His first pamphlet says: — 
 
 " At present the Irish Protestants have a great deal of smothered 
 national feeling. They may he distinct from their Catholic country- 
 men — they are equally so from the natives of England. Their psych- 
 ology is national, though their politics are imperial. They have more 
 self-control, more self-reliance, than their Catholic countrymen; but 
 who that is familiar with their minds but knows that they are full of 
 Irish ardour, — of Irish love of whatever is dashing and splendid; and 
 that in favourable circumstances they are just the body who, backed by 
 the Catholic multitudes, would achieve a revolution in Ireland, whose 
 vibrations would be felt wherever a single foundation of British empire 
 has been laid? It would certainly be a most magnificent consumma- 
 tion of Irish history, if that proud and fiery body, the Protestants of 
 Ireland, should, iaflaraed by a generous nationality, marshal in the ranks 
 of their Catholic countrymen — unfurl the standard of Orange and Green, 
 and casting off the shackles of England, display their hereditary valour 
 in fields that would eclipse the glories of Derry and the Boyne." 
 
 AU this talk about unfurling standards, and the like, was 
 highly distasteful to O'Oonnell; and the "Head Pacificator'* 
 snuffed carnage. But O'Brien hailed with a calm smile the 
 evident progress of the true gospel of manhood; and the Nation 
 busied itself in pointing out and enumerating the militia force 
 of all the countries of Europe; and telling how even the British 
 Colonies, Canada, and the West India islands, were guarded by 
 that indispensable kind of force. To exhibit and prove all this 
 was easy; but all the while there was the Disarming Act; and 
 the crime of training or drilling in Ireland was felony, punish- 
 able by transportation. 
 
 Still the enemy looked on not without uneasiness. It was 
 to them very evident that they held Ireland only by the tenure 
 of O'Connell's life: and therefore it became highly necessary to 
 break up the organization before the Agitator's death. 
 
 The extermination of tenantry, which was expected to follow 
 Lord Devon's Report, might be too slow for their purposes, 
 though it was quite sure. The " Report " was in the mouths 
 of all; and was precisely such as Sir Robert Peel had expected, 
 and intended to get, from Irish landlords. It was a report of 
 foxes upon a flock of geese; and it clearly appeared in its pages 
 that the geese had nothing to say for themselves why judgment 
 should not be passed upon them, to be devoured whole, with 
 
76 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 the feathers. Upon that "Eeport" Sir Eobert was determined, 
 indeed, to act, and did act with sweeping effect. But in the 
 meantime, something must be done to divide and distract the 
 Eepeal cause. The people were becoming perilously organized; 
 and any accident might in a moment shiver to atoms the 
 " ethical experiment of moral force." 
 
 Danger threatened from the side of America. President 
 Polk had declared that the American title to the Oregon 
 territory, up to a certain line of latitude, was "clear and 
 unquestionable." Sir Eobert Peel had declared that a great 
 portion of what was so claimed belonged to England, and 
 England would defend it. Kow, there had sprung up, within 
 two or three years, a close correspondence and alliance between 
 the Irish in America and the Irish at home; and encouraging 
 and inspiring addresses were regularly sent over, accompanied 
 by large remittances of money. The addresses were generally 
 written by Eobert Tyler, who was then, as he is yet, a warm 
 and disinterested friend of the Irish race. O'Connell was glad 
 to get the money; but the tone of the addresses sometimes 
 made his old brown wig stand on end; and the poor " Head 
 Pacificator " snorted v/ith alarm for the " ethereal and balmy 
 principle." The Nation gave unmistakable notification that in 
 case of war about Oregon, the Americans might count upon a 
 diversion in Ireland. 
 
 Suddenly, Sir Eobert Peel's Ministerial organs announced 
 that there were "good measures," or what the English call 
 "ameliorations," in store for Ireland. And in truth three 
 measures, having mucli show of liberality, were soon brought 
 forward. They were all <3unningiy calculated to the great 
 end — the breaking up of our Eepeal Organization. On the 
 2d of April, then, Sir Eobert " sent a Message of Peace to Ire- 
 land:" it was a proposed bill to give some additional thousands 
 per annum to the Catholic College of Maynooth; and in the 
 House of Commons the Premier thus urged his measure: — 
 
 ** I say this without hesitation, and recollect that we have been 
 responsible for the peace of Ireland: you must, in some way or other, 
 break up that formidable confederacy which exists against the British 
 government and British connection (hear, hear). I do not believe you 
 can break it up by force. You can do much to break it up by acting 
 in a spirit of kindness, and forbearance, and gejierosity. (Cheers)." 
 
 It was novel to hear these good words, and we knew they 
 meant fraud. But the Premier continued: — 
 
 " There rises in the far western horizon a cloud [Oreixon], small, in- 
 deed, but threatening fature storms. It bccauje my d-.iLy on the part 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAW). 77 
 
 of the go-vernment, on that day, in temperate but significant language, 
 to depart so far from the caution which is usually observed by a 
 Minister, as to declare publicly, that while we were most anxious for 
 the amicable adjustment of the differences — while we would leave 
 nothing undone to affect that amicable adjustment, — yet, if our rights 
 were invaded, we were prepared and determined to maintain them. 
 (Loud cheers). I own to you, that when I was called upon to make 
 that declaration, I did recollect, with satisfaction and consolation, 
 that the day before I had sent a message of peace to Ireland.'" 
 
 The object of the bill was to provide more largely for the 
 endowment of Catholic Professors, and the education of young 
 men for the Catholic Church; and the Minister prudently cal- 
 culated that it would cool the ardour of a portion of the Catho- 
 lic clergy for Eepeal of the Union. It was forced through 
 both Lords and Commons as a party que&tion, though vehe- 
 mently opposed by the intense bigotry and ignorance of the 
 English nation. But the Premier put it to them in that irre- 
 sistible form — Vote for our measure, or we will not answer for 
 the Union! 
 
 Another of the Premier's ameliorations was the Colleges 
 Bill, for creating and endowing three purely secular colleges in 
 Ireland, to give a good course of education without references 
 to religious belief. This also was sure to be regarded as a great 
 boon by a portion of the Catholic clergy, while another portion 
 was just as sure to object violently to the whole scheme; some 
 because it would place education too much under the control 
 of the English Government; and others because the education 
 was to be " mixed," strict Catholics being much in favour of 
 educating Catholic youth separately. Here then was a fruitful 
 source of quarrel among Repealers; and in fact it arrayed bishop 
 against bishop, and O'Connell against " Young Ireland." The 
 walls of Conciliation Hall rung with denunciations, not of the 
 Union but of "Godless Colleges," and of "the young infidel 
 party." 
 
 But the Premier had another plot in operation. For ages, 
 Protestant England had refused to recognize the Pope as a 
 Sovereign, or to send a Minister to the Vatican. It was still 
 illegal to send an avowed Minister; but Sir Robert sent a secret 
 one. He was to induce his Holiness to take some order with 
 the Catholic bishops and priests of Ireland, to draw them off in 
 some degree from the Repeal agitation. By what motives and 
 inducements that agent operated upon the Pope, one can only 
 conjecture, and my conjecture is this: Italy was then in con- 
 tinual danger of revolution; if Sardinia and Naples should 
 whip out their kings, the Pope would not be safe. Within the 
 
78 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 year that had passed, England had demonstrated that she held 
 m her hand the clue to all those Republican conspiracies, by 
 lier post office espionage; and it was evident that the same Sir 
 James Graham, who had copied the private correspondence of 
 Mazzini and the Bandieras, and laid it all before the King of 
 Naples, could as easily have kept it all to himself. Highly 
 desirable, surely, that " peace, law, and order" in Italy should 
 secure so useful a friend. 
 
 In short, the Sacred College sent a Rescript to the Irish 
 clergy, declaring that whereas it had been reported to His 
 Holiness that many of them devoted themselves too much to 
 politics, and spoke too rashly in public concerning affairs of 
 State, they were thereafter to attend to their religious duties. 
 It was carefully given out, in the English Press, that the Pope 
 had denounced tlie Repeal: if he had done so, nobody would 
 have minded it, because Catholics do not admit his jurisdiction 
 in temporal affairs. Hear how MacNevin, a young Catholic 
 lawyer, spoke of this fulmination on its first appearance, and 
 while yet it was generally believed to be directly aimed against 
 the Repeal agitation: — 
 
 " By whom was the Holy Father informed that certain prelates were 
 *nimium addicti politicis negotiis et minus prudentes de republica/ 
 which I translate Repeal (cheers)? By whose whisperings did he learn 
 that the Bishop of Ardagh or the Priest of Ciontibret were too 
 prominent or too imprudent? We are informed, sir, that there is an 
 English emissary, — shall I say spy? It is now an established English 
 functionary, — at Rome (loud cheers). Is his the discretion which guides 
 the Cardinal Prefect of the Propaganda ! Do not suppose, for a moment, 
 that I question the supremacy of the Pope in religious matters. Surely 
 nothing is farther from my mind. But, sir, I do question his right to 
 dictate"to an Irish clergyman the degree ofprominence or prudence with 
 which he shall serve his country. I hope I am not irreverent in doing 
 so. I shall continue to hold my opinion until I am authoritatively in- 
 formed that he has the right,— then I shall be silent. But I never 
 heard before, and it will be a singular doctrine, in my view of the case, 
 that his holiness can take cognizance of the political movements of the 
 Irish people, and use his influence to disarrange the powers we bring to 
 bear in favour of our liberty (cheers). Now, mark who will applaud 
 this repressive movement the most: — why, the men who for centuries 
 have denounced you, and falsely denounced you, as being under the 
 influence of the temporal power of Rome. They made it high treason 
 to communicate with Rome; they sank to the mean vulgarity of with- 
 iiolding the usual diplomatic relations between European courts; they 
 invented a praemunire to keep out the corruption of the Seven-hilled 
 City; but they are now moving every engine to induce the Pope t-^ lend a 
 hand at suppressing Repeal. I beg to tell them, neither he Dor they can 
 dp it (tremenduoua applause). If oar liberty depended on a. monarch ov 
 
OF IRELAND, (perhaps). 79 
 
 a mob — if it waited on the dictum of a prelate or a Pope — if it could 
 be wrested from us by intrigue — if it were not a thing to be won and 
 kept by honour, and courage, and fidelity, — I would prefer to see the 
 country remain the comfortable servant of England, with a little better 
 food, and a degree of higher wages (cheers j." 
 
 It was soon settled, however, that the Eescript had no such 
 power, and presumed that it ha,d no sucli intention, on the part 
 of the Pope; yet a certain prudent reserve began to be observ- 
 able in the Repeal speeches of the clergy. So far the Premier's 
 Roman policy had succeeded. 
 
 Mr Grey Porter, the dangerous pamphleteer, who wanted 
 100,000 militia-men, was soon disgusted out of the Repeal 
 Association. In fact, he found that no accounts of the money 
 transactions of that body were ever published, although they 
 were always open to any member who might go to the officesr 
 to examine them. He suddenly washed his hands of the 
 whole affair, went to Rome, and hunted all the next season in 
 the Campagna, thinking on accounts. 
 
 One word on these accounts. O'Brien, Davis, and all the 
 circle denominated *' Young Ireland," were always in favour 
 of a publication of the accounts, because it would take out of 
 the mouth of the enemy a very common taunt against Mr 
 O'Connell — that ho was taking the people's money and not 
 telling what he did with it. They knew also that much of it 
 was employed in paying" unnecessary salaries, and to very un- 
 worthy persons — for it was one singiihir fatality of O'Oonnell, 
 that his creatures, dependants, and employ 6s, were always of 
 the rascal species. Yet none of us evi.r suspected that O'Con- 
 nell used one farthing of the money for any other purpose than 
 furthering the Repeal cause, according to his best judgment. 
 The man did not care for money, save as a political engine; 
 and I have no doubt, for my own part, that when he died Ire- 
 land was in his debt. It was a point gained, however, for the 
 English, to send Oroy Porter to luiiit in the Campagna of 
 Rome. To create a grudge betweoii Irish Repealers and the 
 Americans was the next point. 
 
 There dwelt in Dublin a benevolent looking, elderly gentle- 
 man, of the name of James Haughton; a Protestant of some 
 sect or other; Quaker, perhaps. He joined all benevolent 
 enterprises; interested himself for plundered Indian Rajalis — 
 made temperance speeches — was against " flogging in the army," 
 capital punishments, and in gGr.aral everything that was strong, 
 harsh, or unplcdsant; and being a wealthy man, in a good posi- 
 tion in r*4ety, his sayings were inenerally treated with respect. 
 
80 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 Such a character, of course, was desperately excited about negro 
 slavery. But he was also a zealous Kepealer; and he even 
 seemed to have associated together in his mind (by some Jogi- 
 cal process which I have not learned) the cause of " Abolition" 
 with the cause of Irish independence. Mr Haughton, 
 accordingly, was sorely scandalized by Robert Tyler's sym- 
 pathy, and even by the money which authenticated it. And 
 he wrote a public letter, from which I here extract a few 
 sentences: — 
 
 "I believe in my soul that Robert Tyler is one of the greatest 
 enemies of Irishmen and of Irish liberty on the face of the earth. He 
 knows that our countrymen have much political power in America; he 
 is anxious to gain their suffrages for his party; these are cheaply pur- 
 chased by a few hollow-hearted and fiery speeches in favour of Irish 
 independence, and by a willingness to contribute to our Repeal fund. I 
 unite with the Liberator in repudiating all such unhallowed sympathy 
 and assistance." 
 
 O'Connell afterwards followed up this by rejecting and 
 sending back, with contumelious words, some money remitted 
 from a Southern State in aid of his Repeal Exchequer. In 
 the September of this year, '45, John O'Connell, in Con-' 
 ciliation Hall, thus deals with the subject, — and it will 
 doubtless be mortifying to American readers to learn that this 
 gentleman felt it his duty to pass a censure upon General 
 Jackson: — 
 
 " No one could admire all that was worthy of imitation in General 
 Jackson's character more sincerely than he (Mr J. O'Connell). He 
 was unquestionably a man of great firmness, and of undaunted courage 
 in carrjang out his views; and there was this feature in the history of 
 his life which it was not likely many in that Hall would revere his 
 memory the less for — namely, that he had given a capital good licking 
 to England. (Loud and vehement applause). That seemed to cover a 
 multitude of sins. (Hear, hear). He would not— the more particularly 
 as the man was dead — be found to indulge in any lengthened attack 
 upon him. He spoke only to vindicate himself, and to vindicate those 
 — and he believed they were a majority of the Irish people — who 
 abhorred negro slavery, and who could not allow any palliation for those 
 who tolerated it. (Cheers). It was for this reason he adverted to the 
 subject, and no matter how high General Jackson might have stood in 
 the estimation of the world, he would not for a moment have it supposed 
 that the Irish people were admirers of all parts of his character. 
 (Hear). It was a blot upon General Jackson's otherwise bright name, 
 that he was a steadfast and inveterate supporter of the accursed ajs^fim 
 of slavery." 
 
 So far, the Premier's plans were successful in breaking up 
 ttie Repeal movement. Religious disputes were introduced by 
 
OP IRELAND, (PEPwHAPg). 81 
 
 the Colleges Bill; and this held the Protestants aloof, and 
 produced bitter altercation throughout the country. By the 
 discussion on slavery, American alliance and co-operation were 
 checked; a great gain to the Premier; for the imericans, and 
 the Irish in America, all looked forward to something stronger 
 than " moral force." 
 
 The Minister thought he might proceed, under cover of this 
 tumult of senseless debate, to take the first step in his plan for 
 the depopulation of Ireland in pursuance of the " Devon 
 Commission " Eeport. Accordingly, his third measure for the 
 " amelioration " of Ireland was a bill ostensibly providing for 
 " Compensation of Tenants in Ireland," but really calculated 
 for the destruction of the last relics of Tenant-Right. In 
 introducing this bill, Lord Stanley said: — 
 
 '" Now, my Lords, I apprehend there is no man who knows aught 
 of the state of Ireland who will not concur in this statement of the 
 report — that between the population and the means of employing the 
 population there is a great and alarming disproportion, (hear, hear); 
 and that that disproportion can be met and conquered only by one of 
 two modes; either by reducing the population to the limits of the 
 means of giving employment, or by increasing the employment in 
 proportion to the populatior *' 
 
 I need not go through the details of the proposea measure 
 it is enough to observe that Lord Stanley admitted that he 
 contemplated the " removal of a vast mass of labour " from its 
 present field. "In justice to the colonies,*' he would not 
 recommend, as the Devon Commissionei-s did, merely that the 
 whole of this vast mass should be shot out naked and destitute 
 upon their shores; and his bill proposed the employment of a 
 part of it on the waste lands of Ireland, — of which waste lands 
 there were four millions of acres capable of improvement. A 
 portion of the "vast mass of labour" removed from other 
 places was to be set to work under certain conditions to reclaim 
 these lands for the landlords. 
 
 The bill, though framed entirely for the landlords, did yet 
 propose to interfere, in some degree, with their absolute rights 
 of property. They did not choose that tenants should be 
 presumed to have any right to " compensation," even nominally; 
 or any other right whatever; and as for the waste lands, they 
 wanted them for snipe shooting. Accordingly they resisted 
 the bill witli all their power; and English landlords, on 
 principle, supported them in that resistance. On the other 
 iiand, tlio Jiish Tenants, with one consent, exclaimed against 
 the bill as a bill for open robbery and slaughter. A meeting 
 
82 The last conquest 
 
 of county Down tenants resolved that it would rob their class 
 (in one province, Ulster, alone), of £1,500,000 sterling. The 
 Nation commented upon it under the title of "Robbery of 
 Tenants (Ireland) Bill." The opposition of the Tenant 
 class, and of the Eepeal newspapers, would have been of 
 small avail, but for the resistance — -upon other grounds — of 
 the landlords. The bill was defeated; Sir Eobert Peel had 
 to devise some other method of getting rid of the "surplus 
 population." 
 
 Reflect one moment on the established idej^ of there being 
 a ''surplus population" in Ireland; — an idea and phrase 
 which were at that time unquestioned and axiomatic in 
 politicfii circles; while, at the same time, there were four 
 millions of improvable waste-lands; and Ireland was still, this 
 very year, exporting food enough to feed eight millions of 
 people in England. Ireland, perhaps, was the only country in 
 the world which had both surplus produce for export and sur- 
 plus population for export; — too much food for her people, and 
 too many people for her food. 
 
 It was with bitter disappointment and gloomy foreboding, 
 that Davis and his friends witnessed the progress of disorganiza- 
 tion and discomfiture in that Repeal movement which had so 
 many elements of power at first. O'Brien, indeed, still laboured 
 on the Committees, preparing Reports and the like, with the 
 same calm and imperturbable cheerfulness. If he fe] t discourage- 
 ment he did not show it, and the agitation proceeded much as 
 usual, with occasional interruptions, discussions about Catholic 
 faith and negro slavery. 
 
 But towards the close of this year, two events befell, which 
 gave the enemy most material aid. One was the potato blight, 
 which threatened to cut off almost the whole supply of food 
 on which the great mass of the people had been reduced to 
 subsist. 
 
 The other was the sudden death of Thomas Davis. Of him, 
 his peerless character, his work, and his loss, never to be re- 
 paired, I shall endeavour to give a more specific idea in my 
 next chapter. That of all the band of friends and comrades 
 who used to be called " Young Ireland," Davis was the fore- 
 most and best, the gentlest and bravest — the most accomplished 
 and the most devoted — there is not one amongst us wlio is not 
 glad and proud to proclaim; — the more readily, perhaps, seeing 
 that Davis is dead. 
 
 But the potalo i)liij,ht, nud confli-quHut famiiie, placr.d in the 
 liands of the Britisn government an engine of wtate by which 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERH APS). 83 
 
 tliey "vvere eventually enabled to clear ol , not a niillion, but two 
 millions and a half, of the "surpiuy popuLitiyn" - to ''preserve 
 law and order" iu Ireland (what they call law and order), and 
 to maintain the "integrity of the Empire' for this time. It 
 was in the winter of 1846-47 that proceedings began to be 
 taken in a business-like manner — (and in a business like 
 manner I shall relate them)— ^or th» List Conquest of Ire- 
 land, (Perh£ips). 
 
84 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 DAVIS; HIS INFLUENCE, AIMS, AND LABOURS — HIS OPINION OF " IM- 
 POSING demonstrations" — HIS LETTERS — HIS DEATH — FATE 
 OF MACNEVIN. 
 
 On the 16th of September, 1845, Tliomas Davis died, and 
 the cause of Ireland's independence lost its very heart and 
 soul. He it was, and tlie lofty and generous impulse which 
 his character and writings gave the movement, that won to its 
 side such a man as William Smith O'Brien, and others of his 
 high order of intellect, accomplishments, and honest purpose: 
 and this was what redeemed the Repeal Association from 
 brawling vulgarity and inanity. But for him, O'Connell's 
 Agitation would have been all along, as it begun (and as, indeed, 
 it ended), a Catholic concern only. Educated and high-spirited 
 Catholics themselves would have held aloof from it; and the most 
 prominent persons, next to the " Liberator," would have been 
 Mr Arkins, Liberator's tailor, and a few Connaught members 
 of Parliament who held their seats by virtue of the fiat of 
 Catholic clergymen. 
 
 It is very safe to say, that to the personal influence of Davis, 
 to the grandeur of his aims, to his noble tolerance, to his im- 
 passioned zeal, and the loving trust which all generous natures 
 were constrained to place in him, the Association was indebted, 
 not for O'Brien only, but for Dillon, MacNevin, Meagher, 
 O'Gorman, Martin, and Reilly; and to the same influence they 
 were indebted for their fate; pining captivity, long exile, death 
 in mad-houses, or foreign graves. Yes, to them and hundreds 
 more, he was indeed a Fate; and there is not one amongst them, 
 still alive, but blesses the memory of the friend who first filled 
 their souls with the passion of a great ambition and a lofty pur- 
 pose. In the estimation of the British he was, of course, a 
 Nena Sahib. 
 
 One may well perceive that this was no common being. 
 Yet I cannot refer for proof of it to any masterpiece of literary 
 or rhetorical efibrt He was not a speaker at all; and " litera- 
 ture," for the mere sake of literature, he almost despised 
 He never wrote f^ny tiling but for some immediate or remote 
 effect which he sought to produce: every sentence was a lever 
 or a wedge. His writing was the writing of a journalist, and 
 was always done in a hurry. " As for writing," says his friencl 
 
OF IRELAND, (perhaps). 86 
 
 Wallis, "there is enough to make men love him, and guess at 
 him — and what more can the best of readers do with the 
 supremest writer, though he lived to the age of Sophocles or 
 Goethe. The true loss is of the oak's timber, not of its own 
 acorns or of the flowers at its base. The loss of its immediate 
 influence on the events of his time, and on the souls of his 
 contemporaries, by guidance and example: that is the true 
 bereavement; one which possibly many generations to come will 
 be sufl'ering from and expiating^ consciously or unconsciously." 
 Davis is not an Irish name, but Welsh; and in fact his father 
 was a Welsh gentleman who had settled in Cork county, where, 
 at Mallow, on the banks of the Blackwater, Thomas Davis was 
 bom. He always boasted that he was of the Celtic race of the 
 Cymry; he would rather have been a Cherokee than English; 
 his nom-de-plume was ever " The Celt;" and his best loved study 
 from boyhood had been the language and literature, the tradi- 
 tions and antiquities, of the two branches of the great Western 
 European family, the Gael and the Cymry. Though by pro- 
 fession a barrister, Davis had been a mere silent student till 
 his twenty-fifth year; and his studies had ranged from poetry 
 to statistics, and back again. Of history, in several languages, 
 he was a voracious reader. He had thoroughly mastered the 
 economic and political questions involved in the connexion of 
 Ireland with England; and thought it shame and sin (which, 
 indeed, it was and is), that our old island should be devoured 
 by strangers; that the people of the ancient clans, who had once 
 taught half the schools and won half the battles in Europe, 
 should send tribute of corn and cattle; nay, (as Athens did of 
 old to Crete), tribute of her choicest youth also, of her genius 
 and her energy, to swell the pride and power of an inferior 
 race. He longed to see Ireland standing on her own feet, using 
 her own resources for her own behoof, living her own genial 
 life, with her own flag floating above her — a free and sove- 
 reign State among the nations of Europe. And he knew that 
 all this might be achieved, if only the hereditary religious feuds 
 of ages could be healed; and by inculcation of mutual tolerance 
 and respect, by kindling a common love for our own land, by 
 education, by the promotion of Irish art, and re-awakening of 
 Irish military spirit, he hoped to effect it all. It gave him 
 intense pleasure when the Dublin Evening Mail, the greatesti 
 organ of Irish Orangeism, came out (for example) with such 
 hints as this: — 
 
 ^ If a British Union cannot be formed, perhaps an Irish one might. 
 
86 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 What could Repeal take from Irish Protestants that they are not 
 gradually losing ' in due course ? ' 
 
 " However improbable, it is not impossible, that better terms might 
 be made with the Repealers than the government seems disposed to 
 give. A hundred thousand Orangemen, with their colours flying, 
 might yet meet a hundred thousand Repealers on the banks of the 
 Boyne; and, on a field presenting so many reminiscences to all, sign 
 the Magna Charta of Ireland's independence. The Repeal banner 
 might then be Orange and Green, flying from the Giant's Causeway to 
 the Cove of Cork, and proudly look down from the walls of Derry upon 
 a new-born nation." 
 
 Eagerly he thus hailed the overture in the Nation — 
 
 " Here it is at last — the dawning. Here, in the very sanctuary of 
 the Orange heart, is a visible angel of nationality." 
 
 He was too sanguine, as we can now all see. He knew not 
 that such threats from Orangeism were meant only to frighten 
 the British Government into "better terms," for Orangeism, 
 for the Established Church, for the "Ascendancy." In tlio 
 sanctuary of the Orange heart no angel dwells — of the better 
 species. 
 
 For a year before his death, Davis had been busy in further- 
 ing the preparation of a series of small volumes, called the 
 " Library of Ireland," each of which v/as to narrate some im- 
 portant period of Irish history, or to present gems of Irish 
 literature, or give a biography of some Irishman of whom we 
 could all be proud. His friends had eagerly responded to his 
 suggestions. MacNevin Jiad written a " History of the Volun- 
 teers of 1782;" and Duffy had compiled a volume of National 
 Ballads. He had undertaken himself to write a Memoir of 
 "Wolfe Tone; but his other multifarious labours had delayed 
 its preparation, and death cut short the task. 
 
 From the last chapter it is apparent that Sir Robert Peel 
 had sldlfully thrown elements of discord amongst us; his 
 Colleges Bill, his Papal Rescript, his "message of peace to 
 Ireland," and the like; and that O'Connell and his creatures, 
 as if prompt to aid the Minister, had made Conciliation Hall 
 (and, of course, a thousand minor Conciliation Halls through- 
 out the country) a theatre of angry discussion and recrimina- 
 tion. Davis would gladly have accepted the new Colleges Bill, 
 as he would accept almost any facilities for education. O'Con- 
 nell and a portion of the clergy denounced it, not because it 
 was an English invention, ])nt liecause the colleges were to be 
 "godles.s colleges." Joliii ('J'Conneli, tlie "Liberators'' yon, 
 who had most unaccountably gained much ascendancy over his 
 
OF IRELAND, (PEllHAPS). 87 
 
 father's mind since his im]>riROinTiont, was especially prominent 
 and energetic in liig opp(.i.^ition to the colleges, and to all who 
 favoured them. The question was perpetually dragged into 
 discussion; and the grand national movement seemed to have 
 become an organization for settling or guarding Catholic faith 
 or morals. Davis saw too well that his dreams of years were 
 to be dissipated; and though he never relaxed his exertions, 
 the disappointment preyed upon him. 
 
 On the 30th of May there was a great " demonstration" in 
 Dublin. It was the anniversary of the imprisonment of the 
 Conspirators, and it was determined by the Repealers to make 
 an imposing show. A pledge was to be duly registered — not 
 to give up the Repeal. It all came off according to programme. 
 Mayors and aldermen from most of the towns in Ireland — the 
 " Eighty-Two Club," in their green and gold — the Trades of 
 Dublin, with their bands and banners, thronged the Rotundo, 
 where O'Oonnell, surrounded by the other " conspirators," held 
 lev6e. The pledge was read, adopted, cheered (some meaning 
 to stand by it and some not) ; and then there was a vast and 
 brilliant procession; and the splendid streets of Dublin were 
 once more thronged mth marching men and waving banners. 
 
 The next morning I sat with Davis in his study in Baggot 
 Street. The very Monday before, there had been a painful and 
 acrimonious discussion in Conciliation Hall, about "godless 
 colleges" and other trash. We were intent on some exquisite 
 German engra'vdngs which he had just received. He was, or 
 appeared to be, in the gayest humour — "Did you hear," he 
 said, " Tom MacNevin's principle of action, which he lays down 
 for the Mayo electors?" — (there had long been an anxious wish 
 amongst decent people to get rid of Dillon Browne, member for 
 Mayo, a great Repealer, but a bloated bon vivanf and insolvent 
 debtor) : — " Tom says no man ought to be member for M^tj-owe, 
 but the man who can't pay!" We walked out — to the library 
 of the Royal Irish Academy — to the studio of Moore, the 
 sculptor, who was engaged on a bust of our friend Hudson. 
 All the while not a word of the demonstration of yesterday. 
 At length I said — " Davis, yesterday vv-as a great day for Ire- 
 land — ' the Pacificator never was in greater force.' " He became 
 serious instantly. " These demonstrations," he said, " are ruin- 
 ing us; they Sive jxirading the soul out of us. Why, the ]\Iayor 
 and Corporation of Kilkenny have gone hom.e, satisfied tliat 
 Kilkenny at least has done its duty; that if Ireland do not gain 
 her independence this year, it is not Kilkenny's fault; for what 
 could scarlet robes and gold cliains do more]" 
 
88 THE LAST CONQITEST 
 
 On returning to his house, he showed me a long row of small 
 volumes —copies of '-'TJie Artilloiists' r^lannaV'—gave me one 
 of them, and told me that was what wo must, all stud}' now. I 
 never saw him more. 
 
 This chapter I dedicate to the memories of that most royal 
 creature; and thousands who read it will thank me for the 
 minutest anecdote of him. For which reason I shall select, 
 out of many of his letters to myself, two or three. His letters 
 were always short, and he had no time to write long ones. 
 The following note refers to his proposed Memoir of Wolfe 
 Tone; but he was so busy in supplying information and sug- 
 gestions to his fellow-labourers, that he had no leisure to apply 
 himself to regular literary labour; and as for his editorial arti- 
 cles, he often wrote them with a pencil, using for a desk the 
 top of his hat. 
 
 "No. I.— (Postmark, July 7, 1845). 
 
 " My dear Mitchel, — James Duflfy's advertisement is 'wrong. I 
 cannot have the Toru thenj and what between the Nation, and the 
 bigots, and the quantity of exercise needed to keep me in health, there 
 is small chance of my writing at all for the series, though I would 
 greatly like to do so. 
 
 " MacNevin's ^ Volunteers' has succeeded, though I wish it were 
 more narrative and less speculative; — two thousand copies sold. The 
 series will do, whatever we like with Ireland. When printing your 
 * Aodh O'Neill,' reconsider the passage on the Eeformation. I have 
 not leisure to be accurate, much less infallible. 
 
 " The aspect of affiiirs were better without its sacerdotal Press; but 
 we must bear it. O'C, under Johnny's culture, promises to throw up 
 more bigotry. 
 
 "Yours, "T. D." 
 
 I was then living in the County Down, about seventy miles 
 (English), from Dublin, and, like many others, had frequent 
 recourse to Davis for everything I wanted. I ought to have 
 mentioned that I wa^s ensao-ed at that time on one volume of 
 the series m which he took so deep an interest — a Memoir of 
 Aodh O'Neill; and his next letter refers to some inquiries about 
 that, and to an article of mine in the Nation newspaper: — 
 
 "June 17th, 1845. 
 "My Dear Mitchel, — I have written to Petrie for answers to 
 your queries. Meantime borrow (if from no nearer person, from Charles 
 Duffy) the Battle of Magh Kath — vulgo Moira — and you will find a 
 valuable essay on Irish Flags, etc., in the Appendix. 
 
 " I entirely agree in your view of Lord Stanley's Bill, and had written 
 to that effect for last Nation — but a thick-skulled printer left my 
 article out. I wish your contributions were more frequent. 
 
 ■' Yours, " Thomas Davuv" 
 
OF lEELAND, (PERHAPS). 89 
 
 I find another sliorfc l)ut very singular note, referring to my 
 antipathy against the new coJleges, which, indeed, I detested as 
 much as the Archbishop of Tuam, but for a different reason,— 
 not that they were "godless," but that they were British:— 
 
 "67 Bagqot Street. 
 " My Dear M., — I think your title perfect in all ways. The pre- 
 fatory remarks will do good. 
 
 " We are not likely to agree on Education or Religion. I have deep 
 faith in mere Truth, and in informal humanity; and, moreover, I feel 
 that an artificial education prevents that faith from being still deeper 
 and more practical. This is a very abstract way of suggesting my 
 religious position; but 'tis enough. 
 
 " Most truly yours, 
 
 "Thomas Davis." 
 
 One more letter, written on the very day that he was struck 
 by his fatal sickness: — 
 
 "Baggot Street, Sept. 6th. 
 "Mt Dear Mitchel, — C. G. D. told me you had heard many 
 particiilars as to Wolfe Tone from the Rev. Mr Thackeray, of Dun- 
 dalk. Would you spare an hour to put them down; — especially 
 anything as to his manner and views of future events in Ireland. 
 Mr Thackeray kindly answered my note, but seems to distrust his 
 memory. 
 
 "Truly yours, 
 
 "Thomas Davis." 
 " N.B.— The sooner I hear the better." 
 
 Three years' incessant labour and excitement, operating on 
 an ardent temperament and unresting brain, had done their 
 work; and he died in his harness. Disappointment and 
 despondency, too, had their share in wearing down his frame. 
 He saw the powerful organization wherein he had trusted 
 gradually weakening, lowering its tone, and eating its words, 
 until its heart died within it : and through the gloom, even his 
 eye of faith could hardly discern an outlook to a brighter future: 
 the Green Flag of sovereign Irish nationhood, that had streamed 
 so proudly through the day-dreams of his youth, Wiis fading 
 into distance like the glories of Hy Brasil. 
 
 I cannot expect the ordinary reader to fully appreciate the 
 character I have been describing, or the labours of his life ^ 
 because, to the eye of a distant observer, his life was a defeat, 
 and his labour was utterly lost. I do not believe so. I v^'ould 
 not have dwelt upon it thus, but for a strong faitli that the seeds 
 he^ planted in that kindly soil will bear ripe fruit yet. 
 
 He was thirty-one yearej of age when he died. His figure 
 was not tail, but compact and active. He walked fast, and 
 with his head held slightly forward, as is the wont of eager and 
 
90 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 iiiipnlsive characters. But he was no mere revohitionist. In 
 iho aiitiquarlan re-unions at the Academy, none was heard with 
 more respect ; in the gay drawing-rooms of Dublin, none was a 
 more welcome guest. He laughed seldom, but heartily. He 
 had not time to marry; but he loved passionately, as such men 
 must; and over his early grave a fair woman shed bitter tears. 
 
 How felt O'Connelli Davis had been much in his way; 
 and O'Connell was somewhat of a despot. Davis had been 
 independent of him and his opinions while he gave impetus 
 to his movement ; and O'Connell saw no use in independence, 
 and abhorred impetus, unless when he could bridle it himself. 
 " Young Ireland " had been a thorn in his side, had applied 
 fire to his back, and singed his beard. Yet, withal, the heart 
 of Daniel O'Connell was large and loving : Davis had ever 
 treated him with the most reverential respect ; and he, on 
 his side, could not but do homage to the imperial genius, nor 
 fail to be won by such a gallant and gentle nature. He was, 
 that month of September, at his house of Derrynane Abbey, 
 far in the wilds of Kerry, among the cliffs of the Atlantic 
 coast, trying to freshen his worn life in the vital air of his 
 mountains, and persuading himself that he could still, when 
 the fox broke cover, listen to the ringing music of his hounds 
 with a Imnter's joy. But the massive and iron frame w^as bent; 
 the bright blue eyes had grown dim; and on that over-wearied 
 brain lay the shadow of death. And his heart was heavy, for, 
 surely, the phantom of "Eepeal" haunted him among the 
 mountains; and to his inner ear pierced a cry that the ocean 
 roar could not drown, — the passionate cry of his nine million 
 People, — Where is our Freedom? 
 
 One morning comes news of the death of Davis — and the 
 old man is shaken by a sudden tempest of wildest grief. Well 
 might he cry out, " Would God that I had died for thee, my 
 son!" From Derrynane his habit v/as to send a long weekly 
 letter, to be read at the meeting of the Association. This week 
 his letter was very short — nothing but a burst of lamentation: — 
 
 "As I stand alone in the solitude of my moimtains, many a tear shall 
 I shed in memory of the noble youth. Oh! how vain are words or 
 tears when such a national calamity afflicts the country! 
 
 "Put me down among the foremost contributors to whatever 
 monument or tribute to his memory may be voted by the national 
 Association. Never did they peru)r:;i ;;. more imperative, or, alas! so 
 sad a duty. 
 
 " I can write no more — my tears blind me — and — after all, 
 * Fungar inaui munere.' " 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPS). 91 
 
 O'Brien's sorrow was less demonstrative, but not less deep, 
 and much more lasting. Dufty, who almost idolized Thomas 
 Davis, seemed for a time bewildered and stunnei bv tlie blow. 
 The Nation was as a fortress ungarrisoned. " Tho Party' ' had 
 lost its centre; and those young men who had been held in their 
 sphere by the strong attraction of their chief, though they still 
 remained friends, comrades, and zealous nationalists, were no 
 longer a compact body informed by a single soul. To me it 
 seemed that every survivor of that band lost a part of himself, 
 of his power, purpose, capacity; part of him was buried; and in 
 some cases the better part. 
 
 Before quitting this personal topic, I shall tell you how it fared 
 with MacNevin. Brilliant, accomplished, and vivacious, with 
 a pungent dash of sarcasm, he would probably never have been 
 anything but a wit, of the sneering species, if he had not known 
 Davis. Not one of our company was more devotedly attached 
 to Davis, nor so entirely dependent on him, possessed by him. 
 Though assuredly MacNevin was no intellectual pauper, and 
 with strong literary ambition, yet he took his literary tasks 
 submissively at the hand of his friend; and almost saw and felt 
 as the more potent nature willed that he should see and feel. 
 To him Davis had assigned to write for the Library a narrative 
 of the " Plantation of Ulster;" and he was far off at Rose Park, 
 in Galway, — his father's house, — busy on his history when 
 Davis died. A few days after, on October 2d, he wrote to me, 
 inquiring about some authorities for his book; and suddenly re- 
 membering, he exclaims — 
 
 ^'- Poor Davis! how his overflowini^ treasury would have opened to iiiy 
 importunacy ! The more I think of this death — and day by day it 
 grows even more terrible — the more I am afraid to look its eftects on 
 the country and ourselves in the face. How well we could have spared 
 a million lives for that bright, pure, manly spirit!" 
 
 Thus, throughout the letter, he interrupts himself with out- 
 breaks of despair. The book was written. MacNevin seemed 
 to regard it as a sacred task, imposed on him by the dead: but 
 almost immediately after its publication his intimates perceived 
 that his tasks in this world were over. He was going mad. 
 From the moment of his friend's death, he had been drifting 
 like a ship without a helm; his compass was lost; his pole-star 
 gone out. At last he whirled into the vortex, hopelessly insane, 
 and died in a lunatic asylum. 
 
 So far I have lingered on raemorit!H ])oth sad and proud. 
 Here I wave to the dead liirewell and requiescant. 
 
 We are next to see what was destined for the living. Before 
 
92 SHE LASt CONQUEST? 
 
 the grave had yet closed on Thomas D.ivis, began to spread 
 awful rumours of approaching famine. Within the next month, 
 from all the counties of Ireland, came one cry of mortal terror. 
 Blight had fallen on the crop of potatoes — the food on which 
 five millions of the Irish people had been reduced to depend for 
 subsistence; three millions of them, wholly and exclusively. 
 We are at the >^eginning of the first year of the six years* 
 Famine. 
 
 To Sir Robert Peel it would have seemed an impious tempting 
 of Providence to neglect this weapon thus graciously placed in 
 his hand for the consummation of the conquest on which he 
 was bent. If the " Repeal" could not be cruslied out by co- 
 ercion, nor bought out by corruption, it might be starved 
 out by famine. The thing was done by a process of 
 *' relieving " and " ameliorating ; " — for, in the nineteenth 
 century, civilized governments always proceed upon the- most 
 benevolent motives ; — but it was done ; and so effectually done 
 for that time, that, a few years afterwards, the London Times 
 (perhaps prematurely) thought it might announce — "The Celts 
 are gone — gone vMh a vengeance. The Lord be praised." 
 
of IRELa:.!), (PrlCHAPS), 153 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 DUTIES OF GOVERNMENT — ALMS — PLATFAIR ASD LINDLEY — MEMORIAL 
 OF THE CORPORATION AND CITIZENS OF DUBLIN — LORD 
 HETTESBURY — o'CONNELL's PROPOSALS — o'bRIEN's — MEETING OF 
 PARLIAMENT — COERCION BILL — REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS 
 — " RELIEF." 
 
 Lord Brougham, in his iiigh-flown, classical way, described the 
 horrors of the famine in Ireland, as " surpassing anything in 
 the page of Thucydides, — on the canvas of Poussin, — in the 
 dismal chant of Dante." Such a visitation, falling suddenly 
 upon any land, certainly imposes onerous duties upon its de-facto 
 government; and the very novelty of the circumstances, driving 
 everything out of its routine course, might well excuse serious 
 mistakes in applying a remedy to so monstrous a calamity. 
 First, however, bear in mind that all the powers, revenues, and 
 resources of Ireland had been transferred to London. The 
 Imperial Parliament had dealt at its pleasure with the " sister 
 island" for forty-six years, and had brouglit us to this. Second, 
 remember that, now, for two years, a great majority of the Irish 
 people had been earnestly demanding back those powers, 
 revenues, and resources ; and tlie English people, through their 
 Executive, Parliament, and Press, had unanimously vowed this 
 must never be. They would govern us in spite of us, " under 
 the blessing of Divine Providence," as the Queen said. " Were 
 the Union gall," said the Times, "swallow it you must." 
 
 Well, then, whatsoever duties may be supposed to fall upon 
 a government, in case of such a national calamity, rested on the 
 English government. We had no legislature at home ; in the 
 Imperial legislature we had but a delusive semblance of 
 representation; and so totally useless was it, that national Irish 
 Members of Parliament preferred to stay at home. We had no 
 authoritative m.ode of even suggesting what measures might 
 (in mere Irish opinion) meet the case. 
 
 But we will see what was proposed by such public bodies in 
 Ireland as still had power of meeting together in any capacity; 
 — the city corporations, for example, and especially the Repeal 
 Association. It has been carefully inculcated upon the world 
 by the Britisli Press, tliat the moment Ireland fell into distress, 
 she became an abject beggar at England's gate ; — nay, that she 
 ©Yen craved aliip^ from all mankind. Some readers may be 
 
94 Tnv, *:,.*t^T coNQtrEst 
 
 surprised when I affirm that neiiher Ireland, nor o.nyhody in 
 Ireland, ever asked alms or favours of any hind, either from Eiig 
 land 01' any other nation or people; — but, on the contrary, tliat it 
 was England herself that begged for us, that sent round the 
 hat over all the globe, asking a penny for the love of God to 
 relieve the poor Irish ; — and further, that, constituting herself 
 the almoner and agent of all that charity, she, England, took 
 all the profit of it. 
 
 Before describing the actual process of the "Relief Measures," 
 let us conjecture what would be the natural, obvious, and in- 
 evitable course of conduct in a nation which was indeed one 
 undivided nation ; France, for example. If blight and famine 
 fell upon the South of France, the whole common revenue of 
 the kingdom would certainly be largely employed in setting the 
 people to labour upon works of public utility; in purchasing 
 and storing, for sale at a cheap rate, such quantities of foreign 
 corn as might be needed, until the season of distress should 
 pass over, and another harvest should come. If Yorkshire and 
 Lancashire had sustained a like calamity in England, there is 
 no doubt such measures as these would have been taken, 
 promptly and liberally. And we know that the English 
 Government is not slow to borrow money for great public 
 objects, when it suits their policy so to do. They borrowed 
 twenty millions sterling to give away to their slave-holding 
 colonists for a mischievous whim. In truth, they are always 
 glad of any occasion or excuse for borro\ving money and adding 
 it to the National Debt; — because, as they never intend to pay 
 that debt, and as the stock and debentures of it are in the 
 meantime their main safeguard against revolution, they would 
 be well pleased to incur a hundred millions more at any moment. 
 But the object must be popular in England; it must subserve 
 some purpose of British policy; — as in the ciu^e of the twenty 
 millions borrowed to turn negroes wild (set tliem " free " as it 
 was called) — or the loans afterwards freely taken to crush the 
 people of India, and preserve and extend the opium-trade with 
 China. To make an addition to the National Debt, in order 
 to preserve the lives of a million or two of Celts, would have 
 Beemed in England a singular application of money. To kill so 
 many would have been well worth a war that would cost forty 
 millions. 
 
 On the first appearance of the blight, the enemy sent over 
 two learned commissioners, Playfair and Lindley, to Ireland, 
 who, in conjunction witli Doctor [afterward Sir Kobert] Kane, 
 were to examine and report upon potatoes generally, their 
 
OF IRELAND, ^PEBHAPS). 95 
 
 diseases, habits, &c. This passed over the time for some weeks. 
 Parliament was prorogued, and did not meet again until January. 
 In the meantimie the Corporation of Dublin sent a memorial 
 to tiie Queen, praying her to call Parliament together at an 
 early day, and to recommend the appropriation of some public 
 money for public works, especially railways in Ireland. A 
 deputation from the citizens of Dublin, including the Duke of 
 Leinster, the Lord Mayor, Lord Oloncurry, and Daniel O'Oon- 
 nell, waited on the Lord Lieutenant (Lord Heytesbury), to 
 offer suggestions as to opening the ports to foreign corn at least, 
 for a time, stopping distillation from grain, providing public 
 works, and the like ; and to urge that there was not a moment 
 to be lost, as millions of people would shortly be without a 
 morsel of food The reply of Lord Haytesbury is a model in 
 that kind. He told them they were premature ; told them not 
 to be alarmed ; that learned men had been sent over from Eng- 
 land to enquire into all those matters ; that, in the meantime, 
 the Inspectors of Constabulary and Stipendiary Magistrates 
 were charged with making constant reports from their several 
 districts ; and there was no immediate pressure on the market ;" 
 — finally, that the case was a very important one, and it was 
 evident ''no decision could be taken without a previous reference 
 to the responsible advisers of the Crown." In truth, no other 
 answer was possible, because the Viceroy knew nothing of Sir 
 Robert Peel's intentions. To wait for the report of learned 
 men — to wait for Parliament — in short, to wait; that was the 
 sole policy of the enemy for the present. He could wait ; and 
 he knew that hunger could not wait. 
 
 The Town Council of Belfast met and made suggestions 
 similar to those of the Dublin Corporation ; hut neither body 
 asked charity. They demanded that, if Ireland was indeed an 
 integral part of the realm, the common exchequer of both islands 
 should be used — not to give alms, but to provide employment 
 on public works of general utility. 
 
 The plea of the enemy for not being ready with any remedy 
 was the suddenness of the calamity. Now, it happened that, 
 nearly eleven years before, a certain " Select Committee," com- 
 posed principally of Irish members of Parliament, had been 
 appointed by the House of Commons to inquire into the condi 
 tion of the Irish poor. They had reported even then in favour 
 of promoting the reclamation of waste lands ; had given their 
 opinion decidedly (being Irish) that there was no real surplus 
 of population, seeing that the island could easily sustain much 
 more than its actual population, and export immensely besides. 
 
9P» THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 'Nevertheless, they warn the Government that, " If the potato 
 crop were a failure, its produce would be consumed long before 
 they coulfl- acquire new means of subsistence; and then a. famine 
 ensues." * Yet, when the famine did ensue, it took " the 
 Government " as much by surprise (or they pretended that it 
 did), as if they had never been warned. 
 
 Not only the citizens of Cork and Belfast, but the Repeal 
 Association, also had suggestions to make. Indeed, this last- 
 named body was the only one that could pretend especially to 
 represent the ver}^ class of people whose lives were endangered 
 by the dearth. Let us see what tJieij had to propose: — 
 
 On the 8th of December, O'Oounell, in the Repeal Associa- 
 tion, said: " If they ask me what are my propositions for relief 
 of the distress, I answer, first, Tenant-Bight. I would propose 
 a law giving to every man his own. I would give the landlord 
 his land, and a fair rent for it ; but I vrould give the tenant 
 compensation for every shilling he might have laid out on the 
 land in permanent improvements. And what next do I pro- 
 pose? Repeal of the Union." In the latter part of his speech, 
 after detailing the means used by the Belgian legislature 
 during the same season — shutting the ports against export of 
 provisions, but opening them to import, and the like, he 
 goes on : — 
 
 "If we had a domestic Parliament, would not the ports be thrown 
 open — would not the abundant crops with which heaven has blessed 
 her be kept for the people of Ireland, — and would not the Irish 
 Parliament be more active even than the Belgian Parliament to pro- 
 vide for the people food and employment (hear, hear)? The blessings 
 that would result from Repeal — the necessity for Repeal — the im- 
 possibility of the country enduring the want of Repeal,---and the utter 
 hopelessness of any other remedy — all those things powerfully urge 
 you to join with me, and hurrah for the Repeal." 
 
 Still earlier, in November, O'Brien had used these words — 
 
 " I congratulate you, that the universal sentiment hitherto exhibited 
 upon this subject has been that we will accept no English cJmrity (loud 
 cheers). The resources of this country are stiU abundantly adequate 
 to maintain our population: and until those resources shall have been 
 utterly exhausted, I hope there is no man in Ireland who wiU so degrade 
 himself as to ask the aid of a subscription from England." 
 
 And the sentiment wai received with "loud cheers." O'Brien's 
 speech is an earnest and vehement adjuration not to suffer 
 promises of " Relief," or vague hopes of English boons, to divert 
 the country one moment from the great business of putting an 
 
 * Report of the " Select Committee," 
 
OF IRELA^rU, (PEKHAPS). 97 
 
 end to tlie Union. Take one other extract from a speech of 
 O'Oonneli's:— 
 
 " If W8 had a paternal govenii^^eat, I should be first to counsel the 
 appropriation of a portion of the revenues of Ireland to the wants of 
 the people, and this, too, without very strictly considering whether the 
 whole should be repaid or not. We have an abstract claim to such 
 application of the Irish revenues; but if we were to advocate such an 
 arrangement now, we should be mocked and insulted (hear, hear). 
 Therefore I approach the government of England on equal terras. I 
 say to the English people — You are the greatest money-lenders in 
 Europe, and I will suppose you to be as determined as Shyloch in the 
 play (hear, hear, and cheers j. During the last session of Parliament, 
 an Act was passed for the encouragement of drainage in England and 
 Ireland. According to the provisions of that Act, any money advanced 
 for the purpose of draining estates takes priority over the other charges 
 affecting those estates; so that whatever amount of money may be so 
 applied becomes the first charge on the estate of the proprietors of 
 Ireland, and thus is its repayment secured beyond all hazard (hear, hear). 
 The government can borrow as much money as they please on Exchequer 
 bills, at not more than three per cent. If they lend it out for the 
 purposes of drainage, they can charge such proprietors as may choose 
 to borrow, interest at the rate of four per cent. They, therefore, will 
 have a clear gain of one per cent., and we shall owe them nothing, but 
 they will stand indebted to us for affording them an opportunity of 
 obtaining an advantageous investment of the capital at their disposal." 
 
 All this while, until after the meeting of Parliament, there 
 was no hint as to the intentions of Government; and all this 
 while tlie new Irish harvest of 1845 (which was particularly 
 abundant), with immense herds of cattle, sheep, and hogs, quite 
 as usual, was floating off on every tide, out of every one of our 
 thirteen sea-ports, bound for England; and the landlords were 
 receiving their rents, and going to England to spend them; and 
 many hundreds of poor people had lain down and died on the 
 roadsides, for want of food, even before Christmas ; and the 
 famine not yet begun, but expected shortly.* 
 
 All eyes were turned to Parliament. The Commission of 
 learned naturalists — the inquiries and reports made by means 
 of the constabulary, and various mysterious intimations in the 
 Government newspapers — all tended to produce the belief that 
 the Imperial " government " was about to charge itself with 
 the whole care and administration of the famine. And so it 
 was— with a vengeance. 
 
 *The Census Commu«i<mers admit only 516 "roistered deaths" by starvation alone 
 up to ist January. There was, at that time, no registry for them all; thousands perishad, 
 registered by none but the recording Angel. Besides, the Commissioners do not count 
 the much greater numbers who died of typhus fever, the consequence of insufficient 
 nourishment. 
 
98 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 Late in January Parliament assembled. From the Queen'a 
 (that is Sir Eobert Peel's) speech one thing was clear, that 
 Ireland was to have a new " Coercion Bill." Extermination of 
 tenantry had been of late more extensive than ever, and there- 
 fore there had been a few murders of landlords and agents — the 
 most natural and inevitable thing in the world. The Queen 
 says : — 
 
 "My Lords and Gentlemen, 
 
 " I have observed with deep regret the very frequent instances in 
 which the crime of deliberate assassination has been of late committed 
 in Ireland. 
 
 " It will be your duty to consider whether any measure can be 
 devised calculated to give increased protection to life, and to bring to 
 justice the perpetrators of so dreadful a crime." 
 
 Whereupon the Nation commented as follows: — 
 
 " The only notice vouchsafed to this country is a hint that more gaols, 
 more transportation, and more vibbets might be useful to us. 
 
 " Or, possibly, we wrong the Minister: perhaps when her Majesty says 
 that * protection must be jifibrded to life,' she means that the people are 
 not to be allowed to die of hunger during the ensuing summer — or that 
 the lives of tenants are to be protected against the extermination of 
 clearing landlords — and that so ' deliberate assassination' may become 
 less frequent. God knows what she means; — the use of royal language 
 is to conceal ideas." 
 
 The idea, however, was clear enough. It meant more police, 
 more police-taxes, police surveillance, and a law that every one 
 should keep at home after dark. The speech goes on to refer 
 to the approaching famine, and declares that her Majesty had 
 "adopted precautions" for its alleviation. This intimation 
 served still further to make our people turn to " government " 
 for counsel and for aid. Who can blame them? " Government " 
 had seized upon all our means and resources. It was con- 
 fidently believed they intended to let us have the use of some 
 part of our money in this deadly emergency. It was even 
 fondly imagined by some sanguine persons that the government 
 had it in contemplation to stop the export of provisions from 
 Ireland — as the Belgian legislature had from Belgium, and the 
 Portuguese from Portugal, until our own people should first be 
 fed. It was not known, in short, what "government" in- 
 tended to do, or how far they would go. All was mystery ; 
 and this very mystery paralysed such private and local efforts 
 by charitable persons, as might otherwise have been attempted 
 in Ireland. 
 
 The two great leading measures proposed in this Parliament 
 
OF IRELAND, (^Sa^HAPS). 99 
 
 by the Administration were — first, a Coercion Bill for Ireland ; 
 and, second, Repeal of the Corn Laws. This Repeal of the duties 
 on foreign corn had long been demanded by the manufacturing 
 and trading interests of England, and had been steadily opposed 
 by the great landed proprietors. Sir Robert Peel, as a Conser- 
 vative statesman, had always hitherto vigorously opposed the 
 measure; but early in this Parliament he suddenly announced 
 himself a convert to free- trade in corn; and even used the pre- 
 text of the famine in Ireland to justify himself and carry his 
 measure. He further proposed to abolish the duties on foreign 
 beef, and mutton, and bacon. Shall we exclude any kind of 
 food from our ports, he said, while the Irish are starving"? 
 
 That is to say, the Premier proposed to cheapen those pro- 
 ducts which England bought, and whicii Ireland had to sell. 
 Ireland imported no corn or beef; she exported those commo- 
 dities. Hitherto she had an advantage over American and other 
 corn-growers in the English market, because there was a duty 
 on foreign, but not on Irish provisions. Henceforth the agri- 
 cultural produce of all the world was to be admitted on the 
 same terms — duty-free; and precisely to the extent that this 
 would cheapen provisions to the English consumer, it would 
 impoverish the Irish producer. The great mass of the Irish 
 people were almost unacquainted with the taste of bread and 
 meat; they laised those articles, not to eat, but to sell and pay 
 their rents with. Yet many of the Irish people, stupefied by 
 the desolation they saw around them, had cried out for " open- 
 ing the ports," instead of closing them. The Irish ports were 
 open enough; much too open; and an Irish Parliament, if there 
 had been one, would instantly have closed them in this emer- 
 gency. 
 
 In looking over the melancholy records of those famine years, 
 I find that usually the right view was seized, and the right word 
 said, by William Smith O'Brien; and as he was always moderate 
 in expression — never saying anything that he could not more 
 than substantiate — I am glad to perceive that he fully concurs 
 in this view of Peei'^? measure. He said, in the Repeal Asso- 
 ciation: — 
 
 " With respect to the proposal before us, I have to remark that it 
 professes to abrogate all protection. It is, in my opinion, a proposal 
 manifestly framed with a view to English rather than Irish interests. 
 About two-thirds of the population of England (that, I believe, is the 
 proportion) are dependent on nianutactares and commerce, directly or 
 indirectly. In this country about uiue-tenths of the population are 
 dependent on agriculture, directly or indirectly. Ifc is clearly the object 
 
100 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 of the English Minister to obtain the agricultural produce which the 
 people of this country send to England, at the lowest possible price — 
 that is to say, to give as little as possible of English manufactures and 
 of foreign commodities in return for the agricultural produce of Ireland." 
 
 If this was the Minister's design, one can appreciate the 
 spirit in which he addressed himself to the " relief measures" 
 for Ireland. The measures were to commence by depreciating 
 all our produce, say to the amount of two millions sterling per 
 annum. And observe, that this did not give the slightest chance 
 of the Irish people themselves being able to purchase and con- 
 sume one grain of corn or one ounce of meat the more — because, 
 except by the sale of those articles, Ireland had no money. So 
 accurately the British legislation of half a century had arranged 
 our affairs and fitted them to the hand of England. 
 
 Stupid and ignorant peers and landed men in England cried 
 out bitterly against the Premier's desertion of their party, and 
 declared that the "agricultural interest oi EnglandwRS betrayed." 
 Blockheads! Their Minister was caring for them better than 
 they could ask or think. 
 
 The other measure was the Coercion Bill. It authorized the 
 Viceroy to j)roclaim any district, in Ireland he might think 
 proper, commanding the people to remain within doors (whether 
 they had houses or not) from sunset to sunrise; authorised him 
 to quarter on such district any additional police force he might 
 think needful — to pay rewards to informers and detectives — to 
 pay compensation to the relatives of murdered or injured per- 
 sons — and to levy the amount of all by distress upon the goods 
 of the occupiers, as under the Poor Law; with this difference, 
 that whereas, under the Poor Law, the occupier could deduct 
 a portion of the rate from his rent, under the new law he could 
 not; and with this further difference, that whereas, under the 
 Poor Law, householders whose cabins were valued under £4 
 per annum were exempt from the rate, under this law they 
 were not exempt. Thus every man who had a house, no matter 
 how wretched, was to pay the new tax; and every man was 
 bound to have a house; for if found out of doors afler sunset, 
 and convicted of that offence, he was to be transported for 
 fifteen years, or imprisoned for three — the Court to have the 
 discretion of adding hard labour or solitary confinement. 
 
 Now, the first of these two laws, which abolished the prefer- 
 ence of Irish grain in the English markets, would, as the Pre- 
 mier well knew, give a great additional stimulus to the conso- 
 lidation of farms — that is, the ejectment of tenantry; because 
 ''High Farming" — farming on a large scale, with the aid of 
 
OF lEELANb, (perhaps). 101 
 
 norses and steam, and all the modern agricultural improvements 
 was what alone would enable Irish agriculturists to compete 
 with all mankind. 
 
 The second law would drive the survivors of the ejected 
 people (those who did not die of hunger), into the poor-houses 
 or to America; because being bound to be at home after sunset, 
 and having neither house nor home, they would be all in the 
 absolute power of the police, and in continual peril of transpor- 
 tation to the penal colonies. 
 
 By another Act of this Parliament, the police force was in- 
 creased, and taken more immediately into the service of the 
 Crown; the Irish county cess was relieved from their pay; and 
 they became in all senses a portion of the regular army. They 
 amounted to 12,000 chosen men, well armed and drilled. 
 
 That readers may understand better the nature and duties 
 of this force, I shall give a few sentences out of a manual 
 published in this same year, 1846, by David Duff, Esq., an active 
 police magistrate. It is entitled *'The Constable's Guide :" 
 
 " The great point towards eflScieucy, is, that every man should know 
 his duty and do it, and should have a thorough and perfect knowledge 
 of the neighbourhood of his station; and men should make themselves 
 not only acquainted with roads and passes, but the characters of all, 
 which, with a little trouble, could be easily accomplished. A policeman 
 cannot be considered perfect in his civil duty as a constable, who could 
 not, when required, march direct to any house at night. 
 
 '• Independent of regular night patrols, whose hours shall vary, men 
 should by day take post on hill commanding the houses of persons having 
 registered arms, or supposed to be obnoxious. The men so posted will, 
 if possible, be within view of other parties, so as to co-operate in pursuit 
 of offenders. 
 
 " Patrols hanging about ditches, plantations, and, above all, visiting 
 the houses of suspicious characters, are most essential. 
 
 " The telescope to be taken always on day patrol, and rockets and blue 
 lights used, as pointed out in the confidential memorandum." 
 
 The confidential memorandum I have not been privileged to 
 see ; but this will give an idea of the Irish police, and the 
 British method of relieving a famine. The police were always 
 at the command of Sheriffs for executing ejectments ; and if 
 they were not in sufficient force, troops of the line could be 
 had from the nearest garrison. No wonder that the London 
 Times, within less than three years after, was enabled to say — 
 " Law has ridden roughshod through Ireland : it has been 
 taught with bayonetSj and inteipreted with ruin. Townships 
 
103 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 levelled with the ground, stmggliiig columns of exiles, work- 
 houses multiplied and still crowded, express the determination 
 of the Legislature to rescue Ireland from its slovenly old bar- 
 barism, and to plant the; institutions of this more civilized 
 land " — meaning England. 
 
 These were the two principal measures for tho prudent 
 administration of the famine ; but there was also another, 
 purporting to aim more directly at Relief. 1 approach the 
 detail of these "Relief Acts" with great deliberation and 
 caution. They have always appeared to me a machinery for 
 the destruction of an enemy more fatal, by far, than batteries 
 of grape-shot, chain-shot, shells, and rockets: but many persons 
 who pass for intelligent, oven in Ireland, do believe yet that 
 they were in some sort measures of Relief, not contrivances for 
 slaughter. In dealing with them, I sliaii endeavour to exagg;'.r- 
 '.iU*. nothing ; as I shall certainly extenuate nothing 
 
OF IR£LA2<2>, (I'EEHArS). 103 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 LOSS OF THE IRISH CROPS — ACCOUNTS BETIVEEN ENGLAND AND IRE- 
 LAND — RAPID EXPORT OF IRISH HARVEST AND CATTLE — SIR 
 KOBERT peel's "REMEDIAL MEASURES" — o'bRIEN IN PARLIA- 
 MENT — ENGLISH PRESS ON " ALMS" — SIR ROBERT PEEL's TWO 
 WEAPONS — REPEAL ASSOCIATION — RESISTANCE TO TEE COERCION 
 BILL — EXTERMINATION IN CONNAUGHT — THE " NATION" AND 
 YOUNG IRELAND — ANOTHER STATE PROSECUTION — CHANGS OF 
 MINISTRY. 
 
 Mr Labouchere, in Parliament, estimated the total money 
 loss accruing by the potato-blight at sixteen millions sterling. 
 The people likely to be affected by it were always, in ordinary 
 years, on the brink of destruction by famine — that is, most of 
 them were always half starved for eight months in the year, 
 and many always starved to death. 
 
 Now, to replace that lost food by foreign corn, and to pay 
 the higher price of grain over roots (besides freight), would 
 have required an appropriation of twenty millions sterling — 
 the same amount which had been devoted, without scruple, to 
 turning West Indian negroes wild. 
 
 England had, for so many years, drawn so vast a tribute 
 from Ireland (probably eight millions per annum for forty- six 
 years*), that now when the consequence of our intercourse with 
 the sister island turned out to be that she grew riciier every 
 year, while Ireland on her side of the account had accumulated 
 a famine, we claimed that there was something surely due to us. 
 It is out of the question here to enter with me into these mul- 
 tifarious accounts. England beats all mankind in book-keeping 
 by double entry; and as she has had the keeping of the books, 
 as well as of everything else, it has been very difficult even to 
 approximate to the truth. Yet one or two salient facts are 
 easily stated. 
 
 In 1800, the year of the Union, Ireland owed twenty-one 
 millions of national debt; England four hundred and forty-six 
 millions. Even of our debt of twenty-one millions, one large 
 item was the charge for bribing members of Parliament, and 
 buying up nomination boroughs, for the purpose of carrying 
 that tJnion. Now the terms of the Union were that each 
 
 •Mr O'Brien, iu his "Address," estiaiatsd i^ •bwnte* rents alone at lire mit 
 Uou sterlins. 
 
104 THiE LASt x.uNQtl£St 
 
 country should remain liable to the annual charge upon het 
 own debt. But England, as I said, kept the books; and, seven- 
 teen years after, she found a pretext for charging herself with 
 our debt, and charging us with hers. It was called the " Con- 
 solidation Act." They made a fair exchange with us, as O'Con- 
 nell said; they gave us half of their debt and took half of ours. 
 Ever since, the annual charge upon the Irish Exchequer for 
 interest upon that consolidated debt, is nearly five millions. 
 
 Yet, with all this, Ireland remitted a surplus revenue to Eng- 
 land over and above all that they could have the face to charge 
 to her account, of about one million. Needless to say, it was 
 all expended in public works in England. When the famine 
 broke out, also, O'Connell pointed out the fact that the Quit 
 and Crown Eents drawn from Ireland, under the head of 
 "Woods and Forests," amounted to about £60,000, mostly 
 expended in beautifying Trafalgar Square in London and the 
 Castle of Windsor. 
 
 Considering all these things, it was believed not unreasonable 
 that the common exchequer of the " three kingdoms" (so liberal 
 when it was a question of turning negroes wild), ought to devote 
 at least as great a sum to the mitigation of so dreadful a calamity. 
 Accordingly, our people demanded such an appropriation, not 
 as alms, but as a right. The Committee o'i ;.he Kepeal Asso- 
 ciation, for example, said: — 
 
 " Your committee beg distinctly to discliuin auy participation in 
 appeals to the bounty of England or of Englishmen. They demand 
 as right that a portion of the revenue which Ireland contributes to the 
 State, may be rendered available for the mitigation of a great public 
 calamity." 
 
 Up to the meeting of Parliament, the enemy concealed their 
 intentions in mystery; they consulted nobody in Ireland about 
 this Irish emergency, but prepared their plans in silence. 
 
 In the meantime, the abundant and magnificent crops of 
 grain and herds of cattle were going over to England both 
 earlier in the season, and in greater quantities, than ever 
 before; for speculators were anxious to realize, and the land- 
 lords were pressing for their rents; and agents and bailififs 
 were down upon the farmers' cvo^'-i before they could even get 
 them stacked. So the farmers sold them at a disadvantage, in 
 a glutted market, or they were sold for them, by auction, and 
 with costs. The great point was to put the English Channel 
 between the people and the food whicd Trovidence had sent 
 them, at the earliest possible moment. 
 
 By New Year's Day, it was almost all swept off. Up to that 
 
OV IRELAND, (PERHAPS). 105 
 
 date, Ireland sent away and England received, of grain alone, 
 of the crop of 1845, three millions two hundred and fifty 
 thousand quarters. — besides innumerable cattle ; — making a 
 value of at least seventeen millions sterling. 
 
 Now, when Parliament met in January, the sole " remedial 
 measure " proposed by Sir Eobert Peel (besides the Coercion 
 Bill, and the Corn Bill to cheapen bread in England), was a 
 grant of £50,000 for Public Works, and another grant of as 
 much for drainage of estates ; — both these being grants, not to 
 Ireland, but to the Commissioners of Public Works ; and to be 
 administered, not as Irishmen might suggest, but as to the said 
 Commissioners might seem good. It was the two-hundredth 
 part of what might probably have sufficed to stay the famine. 
 It might have given sensible relief — if honestly administered — 
 to the smallest of the thirty-two counties. How it ivas used, 
 not for relief, but for aggravation of the misery, I have to tell 
 hereafter. For that season's famine it was, at any rate, too 
 late, and before any part of it became available, m.any thousands 
 had died of hunger. The London newspapers complacently 
 stated that the impression " in political circles " was, that two 
 millions of the people must perish before the next harvest. 
 
 January, February, and part of March 4)assed away. Nothing 
 was done for relief; but much preparation was made in the way 
 of appointing hosts of Commissioners and Commissioners' 
 clerks, and preparing voluminous stationery, schedules, specifica- 
 tions, and red-tape to tie them up neatly, which so greatly 
 embarrass all British official action * — a very injurious sort of 
 embarrassment in such a case as the Crimean war; but the very 
 thing that did best service on the present occasion. 
 
 O'Connell, O'Brien, and some other Repeal members proceeded 
 to London in March, to endeavour to stir up Ministers, or at 
 least discover what they were intending. In answer to Mr 
 O'Brien, Sir James Graham enumerated the grants and loans I 
 have above mentioned; and added something about other 
 public moneys, which, he said, were also available for relief of 
 distress, adding :■ — 
 
 *' Instructions have been given on the responsibility of the govern- 
 ment to meet every emergency. It would be expedient for iiie to de- 
 tail those instructions; but I may state generally there is no portion 
 of this distress, however wide-spread or lamentable, on which government 
 have not endeavoured on their own responsibility to take the best 
 precautions, to give the best directions of which circumstances could 
 admit." 
 
 * In April of next year, Jones, Twistlctou, &c., were enabled to report that they had 
 sent to Ireland "Ten thousand books — besides fourteen tons of paper." They 2*ve no 
 no account of the tape 
 
106 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 O'Brien had just come from Ireland, where he had anxiously 
 watched the progress of the "relief measures," and of the 
 famine; he had seen that while the latter was quick the former 
 were slow — in fact, they had not then appeared in Ireland at 
 all ; but the very announcement that government intended to 
 interpose in some decisive manner, had greatly hastened 
 collection of rents and ejectment of tenants : and both hunger 
 and its sure attendant, the Typhus, were sweeping them off 
 rapidly. British Ministers listened to all he could say with a 
 calm, incredulous smile. Have we not told you, they said, we 
 have sent persons, Englishmen, reliable men, to inquire into all 
 those matters ? Are we not going to meet every emergency 1 
 
 " Mr W. S. O'Brien was bound to say, with regard to the sums of 
 money mentioned by the right hon. baronet as having been, on a 
 former occasion, voted by the House for the relief of Ireland, that as 
 far as his own information went, not one single guinea had ever been 
 expended from those sources (hear, hear, from Mr O'Connell). He 
 was also bound to tell the right hon. baronet that 100,000 of his 
 fellow-creatures in Ireland were famishing. 
 
 And here the report adds — the hon. gentleman, who appeared 
 to labour under deep emotion, paused for a short time. Doubt- 
 less it was bitter to that haughty spirit to plead for his plundered 
 people, as it were, in formd pauperis, before the plunderers; and 
 their vulgar pride was soothed: but soon it was wounded again, 
 for he added : — 
 
 " Under such circumstances, did it not become the House to 
 consider of the way which they could deal with the crisis ? He would 
 tell them frankly — and it was a feeling participated in by the majority 
 of Irishmen — that he was not disposed to appeal to their generosity in 
 the matter. They had taken, and they had tied, the purse-strings of 
 the Irish purse ! " 
 
 Whereupon the report records that there w^ere cries of "Oh ! 
 oh!" They were scandalised at the idea of Ireland having a 
 purse. 
 
 Notwithstanding these reputed repudiations of alms, all the 
 appropriations of Parliament, purporting to be for relief, but 
 really calculated for aggravation of the Irish famine, were per- 
 sistently called alms by the English Press. These Irish, they 
 said, are never done craving alms. It is true they did not 
 answer our statement that we only demanded a small part of 
 what was due; they chose to assume that the Exchequer was 
 their Exchequer. Neither did they think fit to remember that 
 O'Brien, and such as he, were by no means suffering from famine 
 themselves, but were retrenching the expenses of their house- 
 holds at home, to relieve those who were suffering. To the 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPs). 107 
 
 common English intellect it was onougli to present this od" 
 idea: here are the starving Irish coming over to beg from yon. 
 In the inculcation of this view of the case, the Times, of course, 
 led the way: — 
 
 " There would be something highly ludicrous in the impudence with 
 which Irish legislators claim English assistance, if the circumstances by 
 which they enforce their claims were not of the most pitiable kind. The 
 contrast between insolent menace and humble supplication reminds one 
 forcibly of those types of Irish character so popular with the dramatists 
 of the last century, who represent ao O'Flanagan or an O'Shaughnessy 
 hectoring through three acts of intermittent brogue — bullying the 
 husband and making love to the wife," &c., &c. 
 
 From all this the reader may begin to appreciate the feeling 
 that then prevailed in the two islands: in Ireland a vague and 
 dim sense that they were somehow robbed ; in England, a still 
 more vague and blundering idea that an impudent beggar was 
 demanding their money with a scowl in his eye and a threat 
 upon his tongue. In truth, only a few, either in England or 
 in Ireland, fully understood the bloody game on the board. 
 The two cardinal principles of the British policy in this busi- 
 ness seem to have been these: first, strict adherence to the 
 principles of " political economy;" and, second, making the whole 
 administration of the famine a government concern. " Political 
 economy " became, about the time of the Repeal of the Corn 
 Laws, a favourite study; or, rather, indeed, the creed and 
 gospel of England. Women and young boys were learned in 
 its saving doctrines; one of the most fundamental of which 
 was^ " there must be no interference with the natural course of 
 trade." It was seen that this maxim would ensure the transfer 
 of the Irish wheat and beef to England; for that was what they 
 called the natural course of trade. Moreover, this maxim would 
 forbid the government or relief committees to sell provisions 
 in Ireland any lower than the market price; for this is an 
 interference with the enterprise of private speculators; it would 
 forbid the employment of government ships; for this troubles 
 individual ship-owners ; and, lastly, it was found (this invalu- 
 able maxim) to require that the public works to be executed by 
 labourers employed with borrowed public money should be 
 unproductive works; that is, works which would create no 
 fund to pay their own expenses. There were many railroad 
 companies at that time in Ireland that had got their charters ; 
 their roads have been made since. But it was in vain they 
 asked then for government advances, which they could have well 
 «j©cured, and soon paid off. The thing could not be done. Lead- 
 
108 TEE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 ing money to Irish railroad companies v/ould be a discrimina- 
 tion against English companies — flat interference witli private 
 enterprise. 
 
 The other great leading idea completed Sir Robert's policy. 
 It was to make the famine a strictly government concern. The 
 famine was to be administered strictly through officers of the 
 government, from High Commissioners down to policemen. 
 Even the Irish General Eelief Committee, and other local com- 
 mittees of charitable persons who were exerting themselves to 
 raise funds to give employment, were either induced to act 
 in subordination to a Government Relief Committee, whicli 
 sat in Dublin Castle, or else were deterred from importation of 
 food by the announcement in Parliament that the Government 
 had given orders somewhere for the purchase of foreign com. 
 For instance, the Mayor of Cork and some principal inhabi- 
 tants of that city, hurried to Dublin and waited on the Lord 
 Lieutenant, representing that the local committee had applied 
 for some portion of the parliamentaiy loans, but " were refused 
 assistance on some points of official form — that the people 
 of that county were already famishing ; and both food and 
 labour were urgently needed. Lord Heytesbury simply recom- 
 mended that they should communicate at once with the 
 Government Relief Committee;" — as for the rest, that they 
 should consult the Board of Works. Thus every possible delay 
 and official difficulty was interposed against the efforts of local 
 bodies — Government was to do all. These things, together 
 with the new measure for aD increase in the police force (who 
 were their main administrative agents throughout the country), 
 led many persons to the conclusion that the enemy had resolved 
 to avail themselves of the famine in order to increase govern 
 mental supervision and espionage ; so that every man, woman, 
 and child in Ireland, with all their goings out and comings in, 
 might be thoroughly known and registered — that when the 
 mass of the people began to starve, th^ir sole resource might be 
 the police barracks — that Government might be all in all; 
 omnipotent to give food or to withhold it, to relieve or to starve, 
 according to their own ideas of policy and of good behaviour 
 in the people. 
 
 It is needless to point out that Government patronage also 
 was much extended by this system ; and by the middle of the 
 next year, 1847, there were 10,000 men salaried out of the 
 Parliamentary loans and grants for relief of the poor —as 
 commissioners, inspectors, clerks, and so fortli ; and some of 
 th^m witli salaries equal to an American Secretary of State. 
 
\ 
 
 OF IHELAND, (PERHAPS). 109 
 
 So many of the middle classes had been dragged down almost 
 \to iusolveiicy by the ruin of the country, that they began to be 
 eager for the smaller places as clerktj and inspectors. For 
 those 10,000 offices, then, it was estimated there were 100,000 
 applicants and canvassers; — so much clear gain from "Repeal." 
 
 The Repeal Association continued its regular meetings, and 
 never ceased to represent that the true remedies for Irish famine 
 were Tenant-Right — the stoppage of export — and Repeal of the 
 Union ; — and as those were really the true and only remedies, 
 it was clear they were the only expedients which an English 
 Parliament would not try. The Repeal Members gained a kind 
 of Parliamentary victory, however, this Spring : — they caused 
 the defeat of the Coercion Bill, with the aid of the Whigs. Sir 
 Robert Peel had very cunningly, as he thought, made this Bill 
 precede the Corn Law Repeal Bill ; and as the English Public 
 was all now most eager for the cheapening of bread, he believed 
 that all parties would make haste to pass his favourite measure 
 first. The Irish Members went to London, and knowing they 
 could not influence legislation otherwise, organized a sort of 
 mere iiaechanical resistance against the Coercion Bill : that is, 
 they opposed first reading, second reading, third reading, 
 opposed its being referred to Committee, moved endless amend- 
 ments, made endless speeches, and insisted upon dividing the 
 House on every clause. In vain it was represented to them 
 that this was only delapng the Corn Law Repeal, which would 
 " cheapen bread." O'Brien replied that it would only cheapen 
 bread to Englishmen, and enable them to devour more and 
 more of the Irish bread and give less for it. In vain Ministers 
 told them they were stopping public business : they answered 
 that English business was no business of theirs. In vain their 
 courtesy was invoked. They could not afford to be courteous 
 in such a case ; and their sole errand in London was to resist 
 an atrocious and torturing tyranny threatened against their 
 poor countrymen. 
 
 Just before this famous debate there had been very extensive 
 clearing of tenantry in Connaught ; and. in particular, one case 
 in which a Mrs Gerrard had, with the aid of the troops and 
 police, destroyed a whole village, and thrown out two hundred 
 and seventy persons on the high road. The Nation thus improved 
 the circumstance with reference to the "Coercion Bill": — 
 
 " Some Irish Members, for instance, may point to the two hundred 
 and seventy persons thrown out of house and home the other day in 
 Galway, and in due form of law (for it was all perfectly legal), turned 
 ^ift in their desperation upon the wide world — and may ask the 
 
110 TnT5 L.4ST COXQTTEST 
 
 Minister, if any of these two hundred and seventy commit a robbery 
 (in the hi^^hway "if any of them murder the bailid', avUo (in exercise 
 of his duty) flung out their naked children to perish in the winter's 
 sleet — if any of them, maddened by wolfish famine, break into a 
 dwelling-house, and forcibly take food to keep body and soul together, 
 or arms for vengeance — what will you do ? How will you treat that 
 district ? Will you indeed proclaim it ? Will you mulct the house- 
 holders (not yet ejected) in a heavy fine to compound for the crimes of 
 those miserable outcasts, to afford food and shelter to whom they wrong 
 their own children in this hard season ? Besides sharing with those 
 wretches his last potato, is the poor cottier to be told that he is to ])ay 
 for policeman to watch them day and night — that he is to make atone- 
 ment in money (though his spade and poor bedding should be auctioned 
 to make it up) for any outrage that may be done in the neighbourhood ? 
 — but that these Gerrards are not to pay one farthing for all this — 
 for, perhaps, their property is encumbered, and, it may be, they fiad it 
 hard enough to pay their interest, and keep up such establishments in 
 town and country as befit their rank 1 And will you, indeed, issue 
 your commands that those houseless and famishing two hundred and 
 seventy — after their roof-trees are torn down, and the ploughshare is 
 run through the foundations of their miserable hovels — are to be at 
 home from sunset to sunrise ? — that if found straying, the gaols and 
 the penal colonies are ready for their reception? " 
 
 It was precisely with a view to meet such cases that the 
 Coercion Bill hadbeen devised; and were not our representatives 
 well justified in resisting such a measure, courteously or other- 
 wise*? The English Whigs, and, at length, the indignant 
 Protectionists, too, joined the Repealers in this resistance — not 
 to spare Ireland, but to defeat Sir Robert Peel, and get into his 
 place. And they did defeat Sir Robert Peel, and get into his 
 place. Whereupon, it was not long before Lord John Russell 
 and his Whigs devised a new and more murderous Coercion 
 Bill for Ireland themselves. 
 
 The NaMon still remained the most widely circulated and 
 influential journal of the Irish Nationalists, and represented the 
 extreme and most anti-English party. The " Young Ireland 
 party " still stood, and was well known to the great enemy as 
 its most unrelenting opponent. MacNevin and Doheny 
 frequently contributed to the Nation; and the writings of 
 Thomas Devin Reilly, in its columns, were greatly admired. 
 Mr Dillon went for the Winter to Madeira ; but our fraternity 
 began now to number among its members Thomas Francis 
 Meagher and Richard O'Gorman, of whom (as they are well 
 known in America), I need not now speak. The English enemy 
 heartily abhorred us, and in the Spring of this year aimed a 
 blow at the Nat'mi Office. It was a new State Prosecution. 
 Mr Duffy was indicted for au article of mine. I undertook to 
 
OP IRELAND, (perhaps). Ill 
 
 conduct his defence ; and retained old .Robert Holmes to make 
 the speech to the jury; knowing that Holmes would repeat, 
 improve, and redouble all the " sedition " which we were 
 desirous to inculcate. He did so ; and startled the Court and 
 the public by d stern and passionate denunciation of the whole 
 course of British Government in Ireland. What was more 
 wonderful, he dared this with safety to his client. The thing 
 came too quick after the " slipped lists " and packed jury in 
 O'Connell's case (which Lord Denman had said turned trial by 
 jury in Ireland iuto a " fraud, a delusion, and a snare)," and 
 they thought they could not repeat that game so soon. The 
 Crown left on the panel of twenty-four three Repealers. Those 
 three attended in court, were sworn on the jury, and refused to 
 convict. Chief-Justice Blackburne kept them confined without 
 food or drink for twenty-six hours, when they were discharged. 
 This was the first State Trial in Irish history, so far as I know, 
 in which the Crown had failed to pack the jury strictly; and 
 the first in which a conviction was missed. It gave the Nation, 
 probably, more popularity and larger influence amongst the 
 people than it would otherwise have enjoyed ; and thereafter it 
 proceeded very diligently and inveterately, exposing, from 
 week to week, the plots of the English enemy.* 
 
 I have mentioned that the Coercion BiU was defeated ; this 
 was on May 25th. Sir Robert Peel immediately resigned 
 office, and left the responsibility of dealing with the Irish affair 
 to the Whigs. He knew he might do so safely. His system 
 was inaugurated. His two great ideas — Free Trade and Police 
 Administration — were fully recognized by the Whigs; and 
 Lord John Russell was even a blind bigot about what he 
 imagined to be Political Economy. Sir Robert might retire to 
 Tamworth, and " plant his cabbages." 
 
 * The prosecuted article was one in reply to a London Ministerial journal, which, 
 in advocating Coercion for Ireland, had pointed out that the railroads then in progress of 
 construction would soon bring every part of the island within six hours of the garrison of 
 Dublin. The Nation showed how effectually railroads could be made impassable to 
 troops — how easily troops could be destroyed upon them, and how useful the iron of them 
 would be in making pikes. 
 
112 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 "relief of famine" — IMPORTATIONS OF GRAIN — IMPRISONMENT OF 
 o'bRIEN — DESTRUCTION OF THE REPEAL ASSOCIATION — THE 
 LABOUR RATE ACT — MORE POOR LAW — EXTERMINATION — RE- 
 CRUITING. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel and his Ministry resigned on the 29th of 
 June, 1846; Lord John Russell formed a new Ministry, and 
 went on -without dissolving Parliament. 
 
 I must take care that I do no injustice to Sir Robert Peel, 
 nor suppress any of his Acts which might look like an attempt 
 to stay the famine. It is true, then, that he advised and pro- 
 cured an appropriation of £100,000 by two several Acts, to be laid 
 out in giving employment in Ireland; but all this employment 
 was to be given under the order and control of English officials: 
 further, the professions of " Government," — that they had taken 
 all needful measures to guard against famine — had made people 
 rely upon them for everything, and thus turned the minds of 
 thousands upon thousands from work of their own, which they 
 might have attempted if left to themselves. This sort of govern- 
 ment spoon-feeding is highly demoralizing; and for one who de- 
 rived any relief from it, one thousand neglected their own 
 industry in the pursuit of it. In truth, the amount of relief 
 offered by these grants was infinitesimally small, when you con- 
 sider the magnitude of the calamity,* and had no other effect 
 than to unsettle the minds of the peasantry, and make them 
 more careless about holding on to their farms. 
 
 It is true, also, that the government did, to a certain small 
 extent, speculate in Indian corn for Irish use, and did send a 
 good many cargoes of it to Ireland, and form depots of it at 
 several points; but as to this also, their mysterious intimations 
 had led all the world to believe they would provide very large 
 quantities; whereas, in fact, the quantity imported by them was 
 inadequate to supply the loss of the grain exported from any one 
 county; and a government ship sailing into any harbour with 
 Indian corn was sure to meet half a dozen sailing out with Irish 
 wheat and cattle. The effect of this, therefore, was only to blind 
 the people to the fact, that England was exacting her tribute 
 as usual, famine or no famine. The effect of both combined was 
 
 * Double the sxini {£200,000) was by tlie same Parliament authorized to be borrowed 
 on the security of the crown revenue, to be laid out on Battersea Park, a surburban re- 
 Ueat for Londoners; — yet this was nevw »9okea of »& alms given by Ireland to England, 
 
OSr i&ELAND, (Perhaps). 113 
 
 to engender a dependent and pauper spirit, and to free England 
 from all anxiety about -'Repeal." A landless, hungry paujper 
 cannot afford to think of tlie honour O'f his country, and cares 
 nothing about a national flag. 
 
 I may here mention that it was the English Government that 
 invented paupers in Ireland, when they imposed on us their Poor 
 Lavr Before that time there had been plenty of poor men in 
 Ireland, but " no able-bodied paupers." It is one of the very few 
 English institutions in which they have made us full participants. 
 
 How powerfully the whole of this system and procedure con- 
 tributed to accomplish the great end of uprooting the people 
 from the soil, can be readily understood. The exhibition and 
 profession of public " relief" for the destitute stifled compunction 
 in the landlords; and agents, bailiffs, and police swept whole 
 districts with the besom of destruction. 
 
 Another act had been done by Sir Robert Peel's Ministry, 
 just before retiring, with a view of breaking up the Repeal 
 Association. This was the imprisonment of Mr Smith O'Brien 
 several weeks in the cellar of the House of Commons. It 
 grievously irritated the enemy that O'Connell, O'Brien, and the 
 Repeal members still continued to absent themselves from 
 Parliament. The House of Commons had tried various methods 
 of persuading or coercing them to London. Mr Hume had 
 written them a friendly letter, imploring them to come over to 
 their legislative duties, and he would aid them in obtaining 
 justice for Ireland. A " call of the House" was proposed; but 
 they declared beforehand that if there were a call of the House 
 they would not obey it, and the Sergeant-at-Arms must 
 come to Ireland for them; — he would find them in Conciliation 
 Hall. They were nominated on English Railroad Committees, 
 and the proper officer had intimated to them the fact. They 
 replied that they were attending to more important business. 
 Now, when they went over to oppose the Coercion Bill, it was 
 understood that this was to be their sole errand, and they were 
 not to engage themselves in the ordinary details of legislation. 
 But they were not long in London before the opportunity was 
 seized to place their names on Railway Committees. O'Connell 
 and his son both obeyed the call. O'Brien, of course, refused, 
 and was imprisoned in the cellar for "contempt." London 
 and all iiiigTand were . highly pleased and entertained : Punch 
 was brilliant upon the great " Brian Boru " in a cellar; and Mr 
 O'Brien was usually afterwards termed, — with that fine sarcasm 
 so characteristic oi English genius, — the "martyr of the cellar." 
 
 Instantly arose dissension in the Repeal Association. To 
 
114 iHK LAS'i? CONQUEST 
 
 approve and fully sustain O'Brien's action in refusing to serve, 
 would be to censure O'Conuell for serving. In that body a sort 
 of unsatisfactory compromise was made ; but the " Eighty-Two 
 Club," where the young party was stronger, voted a wann 
 Address of full approval to O'Brien (who was a member of the 
 Club), and despatched several members to present it to him in 
 his dungeon. I had the honour to be one of that deputation, 
 and the "cellar" was the only part of the Houses of Parliament 
 I ever visited. 
 
 The divisions in O'ConnelFs Association were soon brought 
 to a crisis when the Whigs came in. O'Connell instantly gave 
 up all agitation of the Repeal question, and took measures to 
 separate himself from those "juvenile members" who, as Lord 
 John Eussell had asserted, were plotting not only to Repeal 
 the Union, but to sever the connection with England ("the 
 golden link of the crown") — and that hy physical fmxe. All 
 this famous controversy seems to me now of marvellously small 
 moment; but I find a very concise narrative of it in Mr 
 O'Brien's words, which will be enough : — 
 
 " USTegotiations were opened between Mr O'Connell and the Whigs 
 at Cheshatn-place. ' Young Ireland' protested in the strongest terms 
 against an alliance with the Whigs. Mr O'Connell took offence at the 
 language used by Mr Meagher and others. When I arrived in Dublin, 
 after the resignation of Sir Robert Peel, I learnt that he contemplated 
 a rupture with the writers of the Nation. Before I went to the county 
 of Clare, I communicated, through Mr Ray, a special message to Mr 
 O'Connell, who was then absent from Dublin, to tlie effect, that though 
 I was most anxious to pressr/e a neutral position, I could not silently 
 acquiesce in any attempt to expel the Nation or its party from the 
 Association. Next came the Dungarvan election and the new * moral 
 force' resolutions. I felt it my duty to protest against both at the 
 Kilrush dinner. Upon my return to Dublin, I found a public letter 
 from Mr O'Connell, formally denouncing the Nation; and no alternative 
 was left me but to declare that, if that letter were acted upon, I could 
 not co-operate any longer with the Repeal Association. The celebrated 
 two-day debate then took place. Mr J. O'Connell opened an attack 
 upon the Nation, and upon its adherents. Mr P»Iitchel and Mr 
 Meagher defended themselves in language which, it seemed to me, did 
 not transgress the bounds of decorum or of legal safety, Mr John 
 O'Connell interrupted Mr JNIeagher in his speech, and declared that he 
 could not allow him to proceed with the hue of argument necessary to 
 sustain the principles which had been arraigned. I protested against 
 this interruption. Mr J. O'Connell then gave us to imderstand that 
 unless Mr Meagher desisted, he must leave the hall. I could not 
 acquiesce in this attempt to stifle a fair discussion, and sooner than 
 witness tne departure of Mr J. O'Connell from an association founded 
 Oy his father, I preferred to leave the ivssembly." 
 
OP IRELAND, ;^E.fTAPS). 115 
 
 When O'Brie.ii left the Assembly, he was accompanied by his 
 friends ; and there was an end of the liepeal Association, save 
 as a machinery of securing offices for O'Conneil's dependants. 
 Even for that purpose it was not efficient ; because it had too 
 clearly become impotent and hollow ; there was no danger in 
 it; and Ministers would not buy a patriot in that market unless 
 at a very low figure. 
 
 In ths meantime, the famine and the fever raged: many land- 
 lords i^gained possession without so much as an ejectment, 
 because the tenants died of hunger ; and the county Coroners, 
 before the end of this year, were beginning to strike work — 
 they were so often called to sit upon famine-slain corpses. The 
 verdict, — "Death by Starvation," — became so familiar that the 
 county newspapers sometimes omitted to record it; and 
 travellers were often appalled when they came upon some lonely 
 village by tlie western coast, with the people all skeletons upon 
 their own hearths. Irish landlords are not all monsters of cruelty. 
 Thousands of them, indeed, kept far away from the scene, col- 
 lected their rents through agents and bailiffs, and spent them in . 
 .^England or in Paris. But the resident landlords and their families 
 did, in many cases, devote themselves to the task of saving 
 their poor people alive. Many remitted their rents, or half 
 their rents ; and ladies kept their servants busy and their 
 kitchens smoking with continual prej^aratiou of food for the 
 poor. Local Committees soon purchased all the corn in the 
 government depots (at market price, however), and distributed 
 it gratuitously. Clergymen, both Protestant and Catholic, I 
 am glad to testify, generally did their dulj''; except those 
 absentee cleig^iuen, bishops, and wealthy rectors, who usually 
 reside in England, their services being not needed in the places 
 from whence they draw their wealth. But many a poor rector 
 and his curate shared their crust with their suiferinu; neisfhbours 
 and priests, after going round all day administering Extreme 
 Unction to whole villages at once, all dying of mere starvation, 
 often themselves went supperless to bed. 
 
 The Western and South-western coast, from Derry round to 
 Cork, is surely the most varied and beautiful coast in all the 
 world. Great harbours, backed by noble ranges of mountains, 
 open all around the Western coast of Munster, till you come to 
 the Shannon's mouth: there is a fine navigable river opening u}i 
 the most bounteously fertile land in the island — Limerick and 
 Tippera^3^ North of the Shannon, huge cliff-walls, rising eight 
 hundred feet sheer out of deep water, broken by chasms and 
 pierced by sea-cs^vesj " with high embowed roof," like the choir 
 
116 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 of a cathedral; then the Bay of Galway, once thronged with 
 Spanish and Irish ships, carrying wine and gold, — but now, it 
 appears, dangerous and fatal (statio mala fide carinis) to steam- 
 ships bound for America. Westward from Galway, and round 
 the circuit of Connaught, the scene becomes savage and wild, 
 with innumerable rocky islands, — deep inlets, narrow and 
 gloomy, like Norwegian fiords, — and grim steep mountains 
 hanging over them. But the most desolate region of all is found 
 in Ulster. As you travel northwards from Killybegs, by way 
 of Ardara, Glenties, and Dunglow, you pass for nearly forty 
 miles through the dreariest region of moor and mountain that 
 is to be found within the five ends of Ireland; — wide tracts of 
 quaking bog, interspersed with countless dismal lakes, intersected 
 by rocky ridges, and traversed by mountain rivers roaring in 
 tawny foam to the sea. The two or three wretched villages that 
 lie along this road give to a traveller an impression of even more 
 dreariness and desolation than the intervening country; a 
 cluster of ragged-looking, windowless hovels, whose inhabitants 
 seem to have gathered themselves from the wastes, and huddled 
 together to keep some life and heat in them; a few patches of- 
 oats and potatoes surrounding the huts, and looking such a mis- 
 erable provision for human beings against hunger in the midst 
 of those great brown moors; hardly a slated building to be seen, 
 save one or two constabulary and revenue police-stations, and a 
 court-house in Glenties, for dealing out " justice," and close by 
 that a certain new building — the grandest by far that those 
 Eosses people ever saw — rearing its accursed gables and 
 pinnacles of Tudor barbarism, and staring boldly with its 
 detestable mullioned windows, as if to mock those wretches who 
 still cling to liberty and mud cabins — seeming to them, in their 
 perennial half-starvation, like a Temple erected to the Fates, or 
 like the fortress of Giant Despair, whefeinto he draws them one 
 by one, and devours them there: — the Poor-house. 
 
 This is the estate of a certain Marquis of Conyngham: and for 
 him those desolate people, while health last, and they may still 
 keep body and soul together, outside the Poor-house, are for ever 
 employed in making up a subsidy, called rent; which that dis- 
 trict sends half-yearly to be consumed in England; or wherever 
 else it may please their noble proprietor to devour their hearts' 
 blood and the marrow of their bones. 
 
 So it is; and so it was, even before the famine, with almost 
 the whole of that coast region. The landlords were all absentees, 
 All the grain and cattle the people could raise were never enough 
 to make up the rent; it all went away, of course; it wa.^ ^11 
 
OP IRELAND, (perhaps). 117 
 
 consumed in England; but Ireland received in exchange 
 stamped rent receipts. Of course there were no improve- 
 ments, — because they would have only raised the rent; and in 
 ordinary years many thousands of those poor people lived 
 mainly on sea-weed some months of every year. But this was 
 trespass and robbery; for the sea-weed belonged to the lord of the 
 manor, who frequently made examples of the depredators.* 
 
 Can the American mind picture a race of white men reduced 
 to this condition*? White men! Yes, of the highest and purest 
 blood and breed of men. The very region I have described was 
 once — before British civilization overtook us — the abode of 
 the strongest and the richest clans in Ireland ; the Scotic 
 MacCauras; the French Clan-Gerralt, (or Geraldin, or Fitz- 
 gerald) — the Norman Mac Williams (or De Burgo, or Burke) — 
 the princely and munificent O'Briens and O'Donnells, founders 
 of many monasteries, chiefs of glittering hosts, generous patrons 
 of Ollamh, Bard, and Brehon; sea-roving Macnamaras and 
 O'Malleys, whose ships brought from Spain wine and horses, — 
 from England fair-haired, Avhite- armed Saxon slaves, "tall, 
 handsome women," as the chroniclers call them, fit to weave 
 wool or embroider mantles in the house of a king.t After a 
 struggle of six or seven centuries, after many bloody wars and 
 sweeping confiscations, English " civilization " prevailed, — and 
 had brought the clans to the condition I have related. The 
 ultimate idea of English civilization being that " the sole nexus 
 between man and man is cash payment," — and the " Union " 
 having finally determined the course and current of that 
 payment, out of Ireland into England, — it had come to pass 
 that the chiefs were exchanged for landlords, and the clansmen 
 had sunk into able-bodied paupers. 
 
 The details of this frightful famine, as it ravaged those 
 Western districts, I need not narrate ; — they are suflaciently 
 known. It is enough to say tliat in this year, 1846, not less 
 than 300,000 perished, either of mere hunger, or of typhus 
 fever caused by hunger. But as it has ever since been a main 
 object of the British Government to conceal the amount of the 
 carnage (which, indeed, they ought to do if they can), I find 
 
 * I have defended poor devils on charges of trespass by gathering sea-weed below 
 high-water mark, and remember one case in which a number of farmers near the sea 
 were indicted for robbery, on the charge of taking limestone from a rock uncovered 
 at low-water only — to bum it, for spreading on their fields. 
 
 t The monasteries still stand: tlie golden collars of chiefs are still turned up by the 
 plougli: the records may still be read, — the most authentic historic monuments iu 
 Western Europe. Yet it is customary with the Knglish to deny, or lau^h at the 
 ancient civilization of Ireland t Tliey arc bound iu policy, perliaps, to do so: but 
 auy literary man oa the Continent of Eiuopo would be ashamed to call U is questiou 
 
118 1*H« LAST CONQUEST 
 
 that the Census Commissioners, in their Report for 1851, admit 
 only 2,011 ''registered" deaths by famine alone, in 1846. 
 
 A Whig Ministry, however, was now in power; and the 
 people were led to expect great efforts on the part of government 
 to stay the progress of ruin. And I am bound to say that 
 O'Connell used all his power to make the people depend upon 
 that expectation. In August it became manifest that the 
 potato crop of '46 was also a total failure ; but the products 
 otherwise were most abundant, — much more than sufficient to 
 feed all the people. Again, therefore, it became the urgent 
 business of British policy to promise large " Relief," so as to 
 ensure that the splendid harvest should be allowed peacefully 
 to be shipped to England as before ; and the first important 
 measure of the Whigs was to propose a renewal of the Disarming 
 Act, and a farther increase in the Police force. Apparently 
 the outcry raised against this had the effect of shaming 
 Ministers, for they suddenly dropped tlie Bill for this time. 
 But the famine could not be correctly administered without a 
 Coercion Bill of some sort ; so the next year they devised a 
 machinery of this kind, the most stringent and destructive that 
 had yet been prescribed for Ireland. In the meantime, for 
 "Relief," of the famine, — they brought forward their famous 
 Labour Rate Ad. 
 
 This was, in few words, an additional poor rate, payable by 
 the same persons liable to the other poor rates ; the proceeds 
 to be applied to the execution of such public works as the 
 government might choose ; the control and superintendence to 
 be entrusted to government officers. Money was to be in the 
 meantime advanced from the Treasury, in order to set the 
 people immediately to work; and that advance was to be 
 repaid in ten years by means of the increased rate. There was 
 to be an ap^jearance of local control, inasmuch as barony sessions 
 of landlords and justices were to have power to meet, (under 
 the Lord Lieutenant's order), and suggest any works they 
 might think needful, provided they were strictly unproductive 
 works; but the control of all was to be in the government 
 alone. 
 
 Now, the class which suffered most from the potato-blight 
 consisted of those small farmers who were barely able, in 
 ordinary years, to keep themselves above starvation after paying 
 their rents. These people, by the Labour Rate Act, had an 
 additional tax laid on them; and not being able to pay it, could 
 but quit their holdings, sink to the class of able-bodied paupers, 
 and enrol themselves in a gang of government nawys, — thus 
 
OP IRKLANDj (perhaps). 119 
 
 throwing themselves for support upon those who still strove to 
 maintain themselves by their own iabour on their own land. 
 
 In addition to the proceeds of the new Poor Rate, Parlia- 
 ment appropriated a further sum of £50,000 to be applied 
 in giving work in some absolutely pauper districts, where 
 there was no hope of ever raising rates to repay it. £50,000 
 was just the sum which was that same year voted out of the 
 English and Irish revenue, to improve the buildings of the 
 British Museum. 
 
 So there was to be more Poor Law, more Commissioners (this 
 time under the title of Additional Public Works Commissioners); 
 innumerable officials in the Public Works, Commissariat, and 
 Constabulary departments ; and no end of stationery and red 
 tape ; — all to be paid out of the rates. On the whole, it was 
 hoped that provision was made for stopping the "Irish howl'* 
 this one season. 
 
 You have already been told that Irishmen of all classes had 
 almost universally condemned the Poor Law at first ; so, as they 
 did not like Poor Law, they were to have more Poor Law. 
 Society in Ireland was to be reconstructed on the basis of Poor 
 Rates, and a broad foundation of able-bodied pauperism. It 
 did not occur to the English — and it never will occur to them 
 — that the way to stop Irish destitution is to Repeal the Union, 
 so that Irishmen might make their own laws, use their own re- 
 sources, regulate their own industry. It was in vain, however, 
 that anybody in Ireland remonstrated. In vain that such 
 journals as were of the popular party condemned the whole 
 scheme. The Nation of that date treats it thus : — 
 
 "Unproductive work to be executed with borrowed money — a ten 
 years' mortgage of a new tax, to pay for cutting down hills and filling 
 them up again — a direct impost upon land proprietors in the most 
 oflfensive form, to feed all the rest of the population, impoverishing the 
 rich without benefiting the poor — not creating, not developing, but 
 merely transferring^ a)id in the transfer wasting tiie means of all; — 
 perhaps human ingenuity, sliarpened by intensest malignity, could 
 Contrive no more deadly and unerring method of arraying class against 
 class in diabolical hatred, making them look on one another with 
 wolfish eyps as if to prepare the way for ^ aristocrates d la lanterned — 
 killing individual enterprise, — discouraging private improvement, 
 dragging down employers and employed, proprietors, farmers, 
 mechanics, and cottiers, to one common and irretrievable ruin." 
 
 Whether this view was justified by the result, will be seen 
 hereafter. 
 
 It may seem astonishing that the gentry of Ireland did not 
 rouse themselves at this frightful prospect, and universally de- 
 
120 THE LAST CONQUTSSTP 
 
 mand the Repeal of the Union, They were the same class, sons 
 of the same men, who had, in 1782, wrested the independence 
 of Ireland from an English Government, and enjoyed the fruits 
 of that independence in honour, wealth, and prosperity, for 
 eighteen years. Why not nowl It is because, in 1782, the 
 Catholics of Ireland counted as nothing: now they are numerous, 
 enfranchised, exasperated, and the Irish landlords dare not trust 
 themselves in Ireland without British support. They looked 
 on tamely, therefore, and saw this deliberate scheme for the 
 pauperization of a nation. They knew it would injure them- 
 selves; but they took the injury, took insult along with it, and 
 submitted to be reproached for begging alms, when they de- 
 manded restitution of a part of their own means. 
 
 Over the whole island, for the next few months, was a scene 
 of confused and wasteful attempts at relief; bewildered barony 
 sessions striving to understand the voluminous directions, 
 schedules, and specifications under which alone they could vote 
 their own money to relieve the poor at their own doors; but 
 generally making mistakes, — for the unassisted human faculties 
 never could comprehend those ten thousand books and fourteen 
 tons of paper; insolent commissioners and inspectors, and 
 clerks snubbing them at every turn, and ordering them to study 
 the documents: efforts on the part of the proprietors to expend 
 some of the *rates at least on useful works, reclaiming land, or 
 the like; which efforts were always met ^vith flat refusal and a 
 lecture on political economy; (for political economy, it seems, 
 declared that the works must be strictly useless, — as cutting 
 down a road where there was no hill, or building a bridge where 
 there was no water, — until many good roads became impassable 
 on account of pits and trenches): — plenty of jobbing and 
 peculation all this while; and the labourers, having the example 
 of a great public fraud before their eyes, themselves defrauding 
 their fraudulent employers, — quitting agricultural pursuits and 
 crowding to the public works, where they pretended to be 
 cutting down hills and filling up hollows, and with tongue in 
 cheek received half wages for doing nothing. So the labour was 
 wasted; the labourers were demoralized, and the next year's 
 famine was ensured. 
 
 Now began to be a rage for extermination beyond any former 
 time; and many thousands of the peasants, who could still 
 scrape up the means, fled to the sea, as if pursued by wild beasts, 
 and betook themselves to America. The British army alio re- 
 ceived numberless recruits this year (for it is sound English 
 policy to keep our people so low that a shilling a day would 
 
OF IRELAND, (pERHAPS). 13* 
 
 tempt them to fight for the devil, not to say the Queen) : and 
 insane mothers began to eat their young children, who died of 
 famine before them. And still fleets of ships were sailing with 
 every tide, carrying Irish cattle and corn to England. There 
 was also a large importation of grain from England into Ireland, 
 and the speculators and ship-owners had a good time. Much of 
 the grain thus brought to Ireland had been previously exported 
 from Ireland, and came back — laden with merchants' profits and 
 double freights and insurance— to the helpless people who had 
 sowed and reaped it. This is what commerce and free trade did 
 for Ireland in those days. 
 
 Two facts, however, are essential to be borne in mind — first, 
 that the net result of all this importation, exportation, and re- 
 importation, (though many a ship-load was carried four times 
 across the Irish Sea, as prices " invited " it), was, that England 
 finally received our harvests to the same amount as before: and 
 second f that she gave Ireland — under free- trade in corn — less for 
 it than ever. In other words, it took more of the Irish produce 
 to buy a piece of cloth from a Leeds manufacturer, or to buy a 
 rent-receipt from an absentee proprietor. They could do without 
 much of the cloth; but as for the rent-receipts, these they must 
 absolutely buy ; for the bailiff, VA^itli his police, was usually at 
 the door, even before the fields were reaped; and he, and the 
 Poor-rate Collector, and the Additional Poor-rate Collector, and 
 the County-cess Collector, and the Process-server, with decrees, 
 were all to be paid out of the first proceeds. If it took the 
 farmer's whole crop to pay them, which it usually did, he had, 
 at least, a pocketful of receipts, and might see lying in the next 
 harbour the very ship that was to carry his entire harvest and 
 his last cow to England. 
 
 What wonder that so many farmers gave up the effort in 
 despair, and sunk to paupers ? Manj?" Celts were cleared off 
 this year, and the campaign was, so far, successful. 
 
13S THB L^BT OONQUlir 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 XtABOXTX BATE ACT — DXGOINO HOLES — ENGLAND BSOS FOR VB — O0T- 
 
 BXLIEF — **rA8T AND HUMILIATION" — QUARTEK>ACBK CLAUSE — THE 
 CALCULATIONS OP ** POLITICAL CIRCLES" — TWO MILLIONS OF CELTIC 
 CORPSES — AMERICA BAFFLED — PARISH COFFINS — BSPUDIATION OF 
 ALMS BY THE "NATION." 
 
 The winter of 1846-7, and the succeeding spring, were employed 
 in a series of utterly unavailing attempts to use the "Labour 
 Rate Act," so as to afford some sensible relief to the famishing 
 people. Sessions were held, as provided by the Act, and the 
 landed proprietors liberally imposed rates to repay such govern- 
 ment advances as they thought needful ; but the unintelligible 
 directions constantly interrupted them, and, in the meantime, 
 the peasantry, in the wild, blind hope of public relief, were 
 abandoning their farms and letting the land lie idle. For this 
 I shall give a few authorities out of the mouth of the Conser- 
 vative or British party. From Limerick we learn, through the 
 Dublin Evening Mail : — 
 
 " There is not a labourer employed in the county, except on public 
 works ; and there is every prospect of the lands remaining untilled and 
 unsown for the next year." 
 
 In Cork, writes the Cork Constitution : — 
 
 "The good intentions of the government are frustrated by the worst 
 regulations — regulations which, diverting labour from its legitimate 
 channels, left the fields without hands to prepare them for the harvest." 
 
 At a Presentment Session in Shanagolden, after a hopeless 
 discussion as to what possible meaning could be latent in the 
 Castle "instructions," and "supplemental instructions," the 
 Knight of Glin, a landlord of those parts, said that, "While 
 on the subject of mistakes," he might as well mention — 
 
 "On the Glin road some people are filling up the original cutting of 
 a hill with the stuff they had taken out of it. That's another slice 
 out of our £450." 
 
 Which he, poor knight, and the other proprietors of that 
 barony had to 'pmj. For you must bear in mind that all the 
 advances under this Act were to be strictly loans, repayable 
 by the rates secured by the whole value of the land — and at 
 higher interest than the government borrowed the money so 
 advanced, 
 
 Tke innocent knight of Glin ascribed the perversions of 
 
Ot IRELAND, (perhaps). x23 
 
 labour to " mistake." But there was no mistake at all; digging 
 holes and filling them up again was precisely the kind of work 
 prescribed in such case by the principles of political economy; 
 and then there were innumerable regulations to be attended to 
 before even this kind of work could be given. The Board of 
 Works would have the roads torn up with such tools as they 
 approved of, and none other — that is, with picks and short 
 shovels; and picks and short shovels were manufactured in 
 England, and sent over by ship loads for that purpose, to the 
 great profit of the hardware merchants in Birmingham. Often 
 there was no adequate supply of these on the spot; then the 
 work was to be task-work — and the poor people, delving Maca- 
 damised roads with spades and turf-cutters, could not earn as 
 much as would keep them alive, though, luckily, they were 
 thereby disabled from destroying so much good road. 
 
 That all interests in the country were swiftly rushing to ruin 
 was apparent to all. A committee of lords and gentlemen was 
 formed, called a " Eeproductive Committee," to urge upon the 
 government that, if the country was to tax itself to supply pub- 
 lic work, the labour ought, in some cases, at least, to be em- 
 ployed upon tasks that might be of use. This movement was 
 so far successful that it elicited a letter from the Castle, author- 
 izing such application, but with supplemental instructions so 
 intricate and occult that this also was fruitless. 
 
 And the people perished more rapidly than ever. The famine 
 of '47 was far more terrible and universal than that of the pre- 
 vious year. The Whig Government, bound by political economy, 
 absolutely refused to interfere witli market prices, and the 
 merchants and speculators were never so busy on both sides 
 of the Channel. In this year it was that the Irish famine be- 
 gan to be a world's wonder; and men's hearts were moved in 
 the uttermost ends of the earth by the recital of its horrors. 
 The London Illustrated Neios began to be adorned with engravings 
 of tottering, windowless hovels, in Skibbereen and elsewhere, with 
 naked wretches dying on a truss of wet straw; and the con- 
 stant language of English Ministers and Members in Parlia- 
 ment created the impression abroad that Ireland was in need 
 of alms, and nothing but alms; whereas Irishmen themselves 
 uniformly protested that what they required was Eepeal of 
 the Union, so that the English might cease to devour their 
 substance. 
 
 It may be interesting to you to know how the English people 
 were faring all this while; and whether '' that portion of the 
 United Kingdom/' us it is called, suffered much by the famin* 
 
124 tHK LAST CONQUEST 
 
 in Ireland and in Europe. Authentic data upon this point are 
 to be found in the financial statement of Sir Charles Wood, 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, in February. 1847. In that state- 
 ment he declares — and he tells it, he says, with great satisfac- 
 tion — that "the English people and working classes" are 
 steadily growing more comfortable, nay, more luxurious in their 
 style of living. He goes into particulars even, to show how 
 rapidlya taste for good things spreads amongst English labourers, 
 and bids his hearers " recollect that consumption could not be 
 accounted for by attributing it to the higher and wealthier 
 classes, but must have arisen from the consumption of the large 
 body of the people and the working classes." 
 
 And what do you think constituted the regimen of the " body 
 of the people and working classes " in that part of the world 1 
 And in what proportion had its consumption increased? Why, 
 in the matter of cojfee, they had used nearly 7,000,000 lbs. of it 
 more than they did in 1843; of butter and cheese i\\Qy devoured 
 double as much within the year as they had done three j^ears 
 before within the same period. " I will next," says the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer, " take currants " — for currants are one 
 of the necessaries of life to an English labourer, who must have 
 his pudding on Sunday at least — and we find that the quan- 
 tity of currants used by the " body of the people and working 
 classes " had increased in three years from 254,000 cwt, to 
 359,000 cwt., by the year. Omitting other things, we come to 
 the Chancellor's statement, that since 1843 the consumption of 
 tea had increased by 5,400,000 lbs. It is unnecessary to say 
 they had as much beef and bacon as they could eat, and bread 
 d> discretion — and as for beer ! 
 
 So they live in merry England. 
 
 This statement was read by Sir Charles Wood at the end of 
 a long speech, in which he announced the necessity of raising 
 an additional loan to keep life in some of the surviving Irish; 
 and he read it expressly in order " to dispel some portion of 
 the gloom which had been cast over the minds of members," 
 by being told that a portion of the surplus revenue must go to 
 pay interest on a slight addition to the national debt. And 
 the gloom was dispelled ; and honourable members comforted 
 themselves v/ith the reflection that, whatever be the nominal 
 debt of the country, after all, a man of the working classes can 
 ask no more than a good dinner every daj^, and a pudding on 
 Sundays. 
 
 One would not iJiiuUro t)ic Endish lal)Ourer his dinne 
 his tea; and 1 refer to hii; excellent table only to ren^ 
 
OF UlL-LAND, (PEHHAPS). 125 
 
 during fhose same three years, exactly as fast as the English 
 people and working classes ad^'anced to luxury, the Irish people 
 and working classes sank to starvation : and further, that the 
 Irish people were still sowing and reaping what they of the 
 sister island so contentedly devoured to the value of at least 
 £17,000,000 sterling. 
 
 As an English farmer, artizan. or labourer began to insist on 
 tea in the morning as well as in the evening, an Irish farmer, 
 artizan, or labourer, found it necessary to live on one meal a 
 day. For every Englishman who added to his domestic ex- 
 penditure by a pudding thrice a-week, an Irishman had to re- 
 trench Ms to cabbage-leaves and turnip-tops. As dyspepsia 
 creeps into England, dysentery ravages Ireland ; " and the exact 
 correlative of a Sunday dinner in England is a coroner's inquest 
 in Ireland." 
 
 Ireland, however, was to have " alms." The English would 
 not see their useful drudges perish at their very door for want 
 of a trifle of alms. So the Ministry announced, in this month 
 of February, a new loan of ten millions, to be used from time 
 to time for relief of Irish famine — the half of the advances to 
 be repaid by rates — the other half to be a grant from the 
 Treasury to feed able-bodied paupers for doing useless work or 
 no work at all. As to this latter half of the ten millions, Eng- 
 lish newspapers and members of Parliament said that it was so 
 much English money granted to Ireland. This, of course, was 
 a falseliood. It was a loan raised by t!ie Imperial Treasury, on 
 a mortgage of the taxation of the three kingdoms : the principal 
 of it, like the rest of the " National Debt," was not intended 
 to be ever repaid, and never can be; and as for the interest, Ire- 
 land would have to pay her proportion of it, as a matter of course. 
 
 This last Act was the third of the " Eelief measures " con- 
 trived by the English Parliament, and the most destructive of 
 all. It was to be put in operation as a system of out-door 
 relief; and the various local boards of Poor Law Guardians, if 
 they could only understand the documents, were to have some 
 apparent part in its administration ; but all, as usual, under the 
 absolute control of the Poor Law Commissioners, and of a new 
 Board, namely: Sir John Burgoyne, an Engineer; Sir Randolph 
 Bouth, Commissary-General; Mr Twisleton, a Poor Law Com- 
 missioner; two Colonels, called Jones and M'Gregor, Police- 
 Inspectors ; and Mr Redington, Under-Secretary. 
 
 In the administration of this system there were to be many 
 thousands of officials, great and small. The largest salaries 
 were for Englishmen; but the smaller were held up as an 
 
 £2 
 
126 ^HB iiAST CONQUEST 
 
 object of ambition to Irishmen ; and it is very humiliating to 
 remember '^'hat eager and greedy multitudes -A'-ere always 
 canvassing and petitioning for these. 
 
 In March, Lord John Russell announced in Parliament that, 
 in view of the judgments afflicting her dominions, " Her 
 Majesty had been graciously pleased to appoint a day of 
 national fast and humiliation !" It needed no appointment of 
 a day to make the Irish fast; and as for the English, the 
 reader may wonder what they should fast for. But all this was 
 to make an impression abroad. 
 
 In the new Act for the Out-door Eelief, there was one 
 significant clause. It was that if any farmer who held land 
 should be forced to apply for aid under this Act, for himself 
 and his family, he should not have it until he had first given up 
 all his land to the landlord- -except one quarter of an acre. 
 It was called the Quarter-acre Clause, and was found the most 
 efficient and the cheapest of all the Ejectment Acts. Farms 
 were thereafter daily given up without the formality of a notice 
 to quit, or Summons before Quarter Sessions. 
 
 On the 6th of March, there were 730,000 heads of families 
 on the public works. Provision was made by the last-recited 
 Act for dismissing these in batches. On the 10th of April, the 
 number was reduced to 500,723. Afterwards batches of a 
 hundred thousand or so were in like manner dismissed. Most 
 of these had now neither house nor home; and their only re- 
 source was in the out-door relief. For this they were ineligible 
 if they held but one rood of land. Under the new law it was 
 able-bodied idlers only who were to be fed : to attempt to till 
 even a rood of ground was death. 
 
 Steadily, but surely, the " (lovernment " people were working 
 out their calculation ; and the product anticipated by " political 
 circles" was likely to come out about September in round 
 numbers — two millions of Irish corpses. 
 
 That " Government " had at length got into its own hands all 
 the means and materials for working this problem, is now plain. 
 There was no longer any danger of the elements of the account 
 being disturbed by external interference of any kind. At one 
 time, indeed, there were odds against the Government sum 
 coming out right ; for charitable people in England and in 
 America, indignant at the thought of a nation perishing of 
 political economy, did contril)ute generously, and did full surely 
 believe, good, easy men, that every pound they subscribed would 
 give Irish faminr' tw.-nty nhiiling:^ vvortii of bread: thoy thought 
 80, and poured in their contributions, and their prayers and 
 
OP IKKLANB, (^Pi:P.nAPSj, 127 
 
 blessings with them. In vain! ''Government" and political 
 eruuoniy got Jiold of the contributions (of prayers and blessings 
 neither Government nor political economy takes any account), 
 and disposed of them in such fashion as to prevent their derang- 
 ing the calculations of political circles. For example : the vast 
 supplies of food purchased by the " British Eelief Association," 
 with the money of charitable Christians in England, were every- 
 where locked up in Government stores. Government, it seems, 
 contrived to influence or control the managers of that fund; and 
 thus, there were thousands of tons of food rotting within the 
 stores of Haulbowline, at Cork Harbour; and tens of thousands 
 rotting without. For the market must be followed, not led (to 
 the prejudice of our Liverpool merchants) ! — private speculation 
 must not be disappointed, nor the calculations of political circles 
 falsified ! 
 
 All the nations of the earth might be defied to feed or relieve 
 Ireland, beset by such a Government as this. Suppose America 
 tries another plan ; — the ship " Jamestown " sails into Cork 
 harbour, and discharges a large cargo, which actually begins to 
 come into consumption; when, lo ! Free Trade — another familiar 
 demon of Government — Free Trade, that carried off our own 
 golden harvests of the year before — comes in, freights another 
 ship, and carries off from Cork to Liverpool a cargo against the 
 American cargo. For the private speculators must be compen- 
 sated; the markets must not be led; if these Americans will not 
 give England their corn to lock up, why, she defeats them by 
 "the natural laws of trade!" So many Briarean hands has 
 Government; — so surely do official persons, understanding book- 
 keeping by double entry, work their account. 
 
 Private charity, one might think, in a country like Ireland, 
 would put out the calculating Government sadly; but that too, 
 was brought in great measure under control. The " Temporary 
 Belief Act," talking of eight millions of money (to he used if needed) 
 — distributing, like Cum^ean Sybil, its mystic leaves by the 
 myriad and the million, — setting charitable people everywhere 
 to con its pamphlets, and compare clause with clause, — putting 
 everybody in terror of its rates, and in horror of its inspectors.— 
 was likely to pass the summer bravely. It would begin to be 
 partly understood about August; would expire in September -— 
 and in September the '•' persons connected with Governmeul " 
 expected their round two millions of carcasses. 
 
 A furtli/*r piece of the machinery, all working to the same 
 great end, ^as the " Vagrancy Act," for the punishment of 
 vagyajits, — that is. of about four millions of the inhabitants, — 
 
J128 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 liy hard labour, ''for any time not exceeding one month." 
 Many poor people were escaping o England, as deck passen- 
 gers on board the numerous steamers, hoping to earn their 
 living by labour there ; but "Government" took alarm about 
 typhus fever — a disease not intended for England. Orders in 
 Council were suddenly issued, subjecting all vessels having deck 
 passengers to troublesome examination and quarantine, thereby 
 quite stopping up that way of escape; — and six days afterwards 
 four steamship companies betv/een England and Ii'eland, on re- 
 quest of the Government, raised the rate of passage for deck 
 passengers. Cabin passengers were not inte\/ered with in any 
 way; for, in fact, it is the cabin passengers who spend in Eng- 
 land five millions sterling per annum. 
 
 Whither now were the people to fly? Where to hide them- 
 selves? They had no money to emigrate; no food, no land, no 
 roof over them ; no hope before them. They began to envy 
 the lot of those who had died in the first year's famine. The 
 poor-houses were all full, and much more than full. Each of 
 them was an hospital for typhus fever; and it was very com- 
 mon for three fever patients to be in one bed, some dead, and 
 others not yet dead. Parishes all over the country being 
 exhausted by rates, refused to provide coflins for the dead 
 paupers, and they were thrown coffinless into holes ; but in 
 some parishes (in order to have at least the look of decent in- 
 terment) a coffin was made, with its bottom hinged at one 
 side, and closed at the other by a latch — the uses of which are 
 obvious. 
 
 It would be easy to horrify the reader with details of this 
 misery; but let it be enough to give the results in round num- 
 bers. Imagination must fill up the appalling picture. Great 
 efforts were this year made to give relief by private charity; 
 and the sums contributed in that way by Irishmen themselves 
 far exceeded all that v^^as sent from all other parts of the world 
 beside. As for the ship-loads of corn generously sent over by 
 Americans, I have already shown how the benevolent object 
 was defeated. The moment it appeared in any port, prices 
 became a shade lower; and so much the more grain was carried 
 off from Ireland by " free trade." It was not foreign corn that 
 Ireland wanted — it was the use of her own; that is to say, it 
 was Eepeal of the Union. 
 
 The arrangements and operation of the Union had been such 
 that Ireland was bleeding at every vein; her life was rushing 
 out at every pore; so that the money sent to her for charity 
 was only so much added to landlords' rents and Englishmen's 
 
OP IRELAND, (perhaps). 129 
 
 profits. American corn was only so much given as a hand- 
 some present to the merchants and speculators. That is, the 
 English got it. 
 
 But, as I have said before, no Irishman begged the world 
 for aims. The benevolence of Americans, and Australians, and 
 Turks, and negro slaves, was excited by the appeals of the 
 English press and Engli.sh members of Parliament; and in 
 Ireland many a cheek burned with shame and indignation at 
 our country being thus held up to the world, by the people 
 who were feeding on our vitals, as abject beggars of broken 
 victuals The Eepeal Association, low as it had fallen, never 
 sanctioned this mendicancy. The true nationalists of Ireland, 
 who had been forced to leave that Association, and had formed 
 another society, the "Irish Confederation," never ceased to 
 expose the true nature of these British dealings — never ceased 
 to repudiate and spit upon the British beggarly appeals; 
 although they took care to express warm gratitude for the well- 
 meant charity of foreign nations; and never ceased to proclaim 
 that the sole and all-sufficient " relief measure " for the country 
 would be, that the English should let us alone 
 
 On the 16th of March, for example, a meeting of the citizens 
 of Dublin, assembled by public requisition at the Music Hall, 
 presided over by the Lord Mayor, expressly to consider th^ 
 peril of the country, and petition Parliament for proper reme- 
 dies. It was known that the conveners of the meeting con- 
 templated nothing more than suggestions as to importing grain 
 in ships of war, stopping distillation from grain, and other 
 trifles. Kichard O'Gorman was then a prominent member of 
 the Irish Confederation; and, being a citizen of Dublin, he 
 resolved to attend this meeting, and if nobody else should say 
 the right word, say it himself. After some helpless talk about 
 the "mistakes" and "infatuation" of Parliament, and sugges- 
 tions for change in various details, O'Gorman rose, and in a 
 powerful and indignant speech, moved this resolution: — 
 
 "That for purposes of temporary relief, as well as permanent im- 
 provement, the one great want and demand of Ireland is, that foreign 
 legislators and foreign Ministers shall no longer interfere in the 
 management of her affairs." 
 
 In his speech he charged the Government with being the 
 ** murderers of the people," and said: — 
 
 " Mr Fitzf^ibbon has suggested that the measures of Government may 
 have been adopted under an infatuation. I beheve there is no infatua- 
 tion. I hold a very different opinion on the subject. I think the British 
 Qovemnient are doing wliat they intend tn dnj* 
 
130 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 The present writer, as another citizen of Dublin, seconded 
 Mr O'Gorman's resolution^ and the report of my observations 
 has these sentences:— 
 
 " I have listened with pain and disappointment to the proceedings of 
 a meeting purporting to be a meeting of the citizens of Dublin, called 
 at such a crisis, and to deliberate upon so grave a Siibject, yet at which 
 the resolutions and speakers, as with one consent, have carefully avoided 
 speaking out what nine-tenths of us feel to be the plain trutn in this 
 matter. But the truth, my lord, must be told — and the truth is, that 
 Ireland starves and perishes simply because the English have eaten us 
 out of house and home. Moreover, that all the legislation of their 
 Parliament is, and will be, directed to this one end — to enable them 
 hereafter to eat us out of house and home as heretofore. It is for that 
 sole end they have laid their grasp upon Ireland, and it is fc: that, and 
 that alone, they will try to keep her." 
 
 Greatly to the consternation of the quiet and submissive 
 gentlemen who had convened the meeting, O'Gorman's resolu- 
 tion vvas adopted by overwhelming acclamation. 
 
 Take another illustration of the spirit in which British charity 
 was received by the Irish people. The harvest of Ireland was 
 abundant and superabundant in 1347, as it had been the year 
 before. The problem was, as before, to get it quietly and 
 peacefully over to England. Therefore the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury issued a form of thanksgiving for an " abundant 
 harvest," to be read in all churches on Sunday, the 17th of 
 October. One Trevelyan, a Treasury clerk, had been sent over 
 to Ireland on some pretence of business : and the first thing he 
 did when he landed was to transmit to England an humble 
 entreaty that the Queen would deign to issue a royal "Letter/* 
 asking alms in all those churches on the day of thanksgiving. 
 The petition was complied with ; the Times grumbled against 
 these eternal Irish beggars ; and the affair was thus treated in 
 the Nation, which certainly spoke for the people more au- 
 thentically then any other journal : — 
 
 " Cordially, eagerly, thankfully we agree with the English Times in 
 this one respect: — there ougiit to be no alms for Ireland. 
 
 " It is an impudent proposal, and ought to be rejected with scorn and 
 contumely. We are sick of this eternal begging. If but one voice in 
 Ireland should be raised against it, that voice shall be ours. To-morrow, 
 to-morrow, over broad England, Scotland, and Wales, the people who 
 devour our substance from year to year, are to offer up their canting 
 thanksgivings for our * abundant harvest,' and to fling us certain crumbs 
 and crusts of it for charity. Now, if nny church-going Englishman will 
 hearken to us; if we may be supposed iii any degree to speak for our 
 countrymen, we put up our petition thus. Keep your alms, ye canting 
 robbers;— button your pockets upon the Irish plunder that is in them; 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPs). 131 
 
 — and let the begging-box pass on. Neither as loatig nor as alms will 
 we take that which is our owu. We spit upon the benevolence that 
 robs us of a pound, and flings back a penny in charity. Contribute, 
 now, if you will — these will be your thanks! 
 
 " But who has craved this charityl Why, the Queen of England, 
 and her Privy Council, and two officers of her government, named 
 Trevelyan and Burgoyue! No Irishman that we know of has begged 
 alms from England. 
 
 " But the English insist on our remaining beggars. Charitable souls 
 that they are, they like better to give us charity than to let us earn our 
 bread! And consider the time when this talk of almsgiving begins: — 
 our ' abundant harvest,' for which they are to thank God to-morrow, is 
 still here; and there has been talk of keeping it here. So they say to 
 one another — ^ Go to; let us promise them charity and church-subscrip- 
 tions : they are a nation of beggars ; they would rather have alms than 
 honest earnings; let us talk of alms, and they will send us the bread 
 from their tables, the cattle from their pastures, the coats from their 
 backs !' 
 
 " We charge the ' Government,' we charge the Cabinet Council at 
 Osborne House, with this base plot. We tell our countrymen that 
 a man named Trevelyan, a Treasury Clerk — the man who advised 
 and administered the Labour Act — that this Trevelyan has been sent 
 to Ireland, that he, an Englishman, may send over, from this side the 
 Channel, a petition to the charitable in England. We are to be made 
 to beg, whether we will or no. The Queen begs for us; the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury begs for us: and they actually send a man to Ireland that 
 a veritable Irish begging-petition may not be a- wanting. 
 
 "From Salt-hill Hotel, at Kingstown, this piteous cry goes forth to 
 England. ' In justice,' Trevelyan says, ^ to those who have appointed a 
 general collection in the churches on the 17th, and still more in pity to 
 the unhappy people in the western districts of Ireland,' he implores his 
 countrymen to have mercy; and gets his letter published in the London 
 papers (along with another from Sir John Burgoyne), to stimulate the 
 charity of those good and well-fed Christians who will enjoy the luxury 
 of benevolence to-morrow. 
 
 "Once more, then, vve scorn, we repulse, we curse, all English alms: 
 and only wish these sentiments of ours could reach before noon to-morrow 
 every sanctimonious thauksgiver in England, Scotland, Wales, and 
 Berwick-upon-Tweed." 
 
 In the same number, the Nation took the pains to collect and 
 present statistics, by which it appeared that every day, one day 
 with another, twenty large steamships, not counting sailing 
 vessels, left Ireland for England, all laden with that " abundant 
 harvest" — for which the English, indeed, might well give 
 thanks in their churches. 
 
 Another example will finish the subject of alms. At a meet- 
 ing of the Irish Confederation, it was determined to pass a 
 resolution of thanks to those foreign nations, especially the 
 Americans, who would have fed our people if they could 
 
132 tHE LAST COHQUEST 
 
 only have reached them through the English Government. 
 As many English people had also contributed largely, it was 
 thought right to pass a vote of thanks even to them also; and 
 to me was assigned by the Committee the duty of moving this 
 latter resohition; a delicate task, which was discharged in these 
 words, as they appear in tlie nev/spaper report : — 
 
 " I have to move, sir, another vote of thanks for alms. We have 
 thanked the kind citizens of that friendly country beyond the At- 
 lantic; we have now to thank, heartily and unfeignedly to thank, those 
 benevolent individuals who have sent us relief from the hostile country 
 of Great Britain. There is many a generous heart and many an open 
 hand in England; and if you look into the lists of contributors to our 
 relief funds you will find large remittances, both from individuals and 
 from congregations of every sect in England, which may put to shame 
 the exertions of Irishmen themselves. There are amongst these, you 
 may be sure, innumerable kind-hearted people, charitable women, and 
 hard-working tradesmen, who have contributed according to their 
 means, and without a thought of self-interest, to feed the hungry and 
 reprieve the dying. Shall these people not be thanked ? Shall we not 
 discriminate betv/een the rulers who have conspired to keep from us 
 the use of our own resources, and these good people who have ministered 
 to us out of theirs ? In an assembly of Irishmen such questions need, 
 not be asked. Cordially, heartily, and unreservedly, we thank them. 
 IsTow, sir, I wish I could stop here — I Avish our thanks could be dis- 
 encumbered of all ungracious restrictions, as in the case of America; 
 but here is a very obvious distinction to be taken; and it is necessary 
 there should be no mistake. Americans give us the produce of their 
 own industry and energy. We have no claim upon them; — America 
 never wronged us, never robbed us; — no American ever sought, save by 
 fair competition, to ruin our trade that his might flourish; — America 
 has not the spending of our rents and revenues;— Americans do not 
 thrive by virtue of our beggary, and live by our death; — Americans 
 do not impose upon us laws that breed famine and pestilence, nor 
 locust swarms of officials that exasperate famine and pestilence. In 
 your thanks to the Americans let your whole hearts go with them. 
 Let your acknowledgments be as ample and unconditional as their 
 generosity (hear, and loud cheers). They have laid us under an ob- 
 ligation; and if Heaven be good to us it shall be discharged (loud 
 cheers). But EnglishmeLi, sir, can well afford to give Ireland alms out 
 of the spoils of Ireland. They are rich, and may well be generous, 
 because we have been such fools as to let them have our bread to eat 
 and our money to spend for generations; — because we have consented 
 to use everything they can make, and to make little or nothing for 
 ourselves; — because we have sacrificed our tradesmen's wages, and our 
 peasant's lives to the insatiable spirit of English — commerce, let me call 
 it; beggars must keep a civil tongue in their heads. Let me not be 
 told that it is ungracious upon such an occasion to speak of the wrongs 
 that England has done us. Sir, it is just upon such an occasion that 
 it is needed most. Irishmen have been taught to look so long to Eng- 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPS). 133 
 
 land as the ruler and disposer and owner of all things Irish, that we 
 al.srl'.itply scarce Iviiow our owja plunder when the phmdcrcr?; send a 
 siii;iii |)ittance of it back to us in the form of alms. And let us be 
 just; if we, in the depth of our distress, in the warmth of our gratitude, 
 are almost forced to foro^et out of what funds these English alms are 
 drawn, can we wonder if Englishmen forget it too, or even if they 
 never knew it? — simple, exemplary country clergyman, benevolent 
 women, ever prompt to do good; honest, industrious tradesmen, who 
 have learned their own handicraft, and little else, — can we believe that 
 these people so much as know how their Government cared for them in 
 times long past, at our expense; how provision was made to bring them 
 over the rental of Ireland, to flow through the channels of English 
 trade, enriching everybody as it passed; how Irish manufacturers were 
 broken down by systematic laws, in order that Englishmen might 
 weave our wool into cloth, might clothe us from head to foot, yes, to 
 the very buttons, in fabrics of their making, and keep us raising food 
 wherewithal to pay them ? Do you imagine oar kind benefactors knew, 
 or thought of all this? No: let it not be supposed that I mean to 
 derogate from their merits, or to limit our thanks, when I tell them 
 that, whether they know it or not, they are living upon Irish plunder, 
 that, although the loss of one crop be a visitation from Heaven, Irish 
 famine is a visitation from England — that the reason why we want 
 relief, and they can give it, is just that our substance has been carried 
 away, and that they have it. For every well-paid tradesman of 
 Birmingham and Leeds there is a broken tradesman pining in the 
 garrets of Dublin, or begging his bread in the streets of Cork. Tiie 
 well-fed labourer who sits down to his dinner in England never thinks 
 that he is devouring whole families in Ireland. Ay, the very charitable 
 spinster, annuitant or fundholder, who hastens to send her mite to 
 Ireland, little dreams, as she draws her quarter's dividend, that she is 
 drawing the marrow from the bones of starving wretches in Kerry or 
 Donegal. Hereafter, if Englishmen desire to benefit Ireland, let them 
 know that the greatest charity they can do us, is to make their Govern- 
 ment take its hand out of our pockets — its harpy claws off our tables. 
 Let them compel it to draw off its commissioners, and its tens of 
 thousands of gentlemanly officials, who swarm over the land, and eat 
 up every green thing. Finally, let them make it restore that protecting 
 legislature out of which it foully and fraudulently swindled us for 
 their advantage. Let them do that, and we shall not need their alms 
 for the future. But, my friends, you cannot expect that Englishmen 
 will do all that for us. We must ourselves rescue our industry and 
 redeem our lives from foreign oppression; we must banish the officials 
 — we, we must Eepeal the Union. We must repay their charity by 
 raising ourselves above their charity — repay their charity by refusing 
 them our food, and refusing them our custom — repay their charity by 
 burning everything that comes from England, except coals — repay 
 their charity by enabling ourselves to give them charity when they 
 eome to need it (loud cheers)." 
 
 I will only add that, during this year, coroners* juries in 
 Ifver^l counties repeatedly, on inquests over famine-slain corpses. 
 
134 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 found upon their oatli verdicts of " Wailful murder against John 
 Russell, commonly called Lord John Russell." 
 
 Let no xlmericau ever believe, therefore, for the future, (what 
 the English Press has dilig(;ntl/ inculcated), that our people, 
 Vv'hen smitten by famine, fell a-begging from England, or from 
 America either ; or wonder when h(? meets -with Irishmen un- 
 grateful for the " relief measures :" — and, above all, if Ireland 
 should again starve, (as she is most likely to do), and should 
 still be under British dominion— let America never, never cer.d 
 her a bushel of corn or a dollar of money. Neither bushel A^ur 
 •ioUar will ever reach her. 
 
Ol- IEELA>JD, (PEllHAPS). 135 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 DEATH OF O'CONNBLL — HIS CHARACTER — ARRANGEMENTS FOR THJl 
 NEXT year's famine — EMIGRATION— REPORT OF A ''SELECT 
 committee" — A NEW COERCION ACT — THE CRISIS APPROACHES. 
 
 In February, 1847, and amidst the deepest gloom and horror 
 of the famine, O'Connell, old, sick, and heavy-laden, left Ire- 
 land, and left it for ever. Physicians in London recommended 
 a journey to the South of Europe; and O'Connell himself desired 
 to see the Pope before he died, and to breathe out his soul at 
 Eoine in the choicest odour of sanctity. By slow and painful 
 stages he proceeded only as far as Genoa, and thero died on 
 the loth of May. 
 
 For those who were not close witnesses of Irish politics in 
 that day — who did not see how vast this giant figure loomed in 
 Ireland and in England for a generation and a half — it is not 
 easy to understand the strong emotion caused by his death, both 
 in friends and enemies. Yet, for a whole year before, he had 
 sunk low, indeed. His power had departed from him; and in 
 presence of the terrible apparition of his perishing country, he 
 had seemed to shrink and wither. Nothing can be conceived 
 more helpless than his speeches in Conciliation Hall, and his 
 appeals to the British Parhament during that time: yet, as I 
 said before, he never begged alms for Ireland: he never fell so 
 low as that; and I find that the last sentences of the very last 
 letter he ever penned to the Association still proclaim the true 
 doctrine: — 
 
 " It will not be until after the deaths of hundreds of thousands, that 
 the regret will arise that more was not dono to save a sinking nation. 
 
 " How difierent would the scene he if we had our own Parliament — 
 taking care of our own people— of our own resources. But, alas! alas! 
 it is scarcely permitted to think of these, the only sure preventatives of 
 misery, and the only sure instruments of Irish prosperity." 
 
 Let me do O'Connell justice; bitter and virulent as may 
 have been the hatred he bo)'e to me in his last days of public 
 life. To no Irishman can that wonderful life fail to be im- 
 pressive, — from the day when, a fiery and thoughtful boy, he 
 sought the cloisters of St Omers for the education which penal 
 laws denied him in his own land, on through the manifold 
 struggles and victories of his earlier career, as he broke and 
 flung off, with a kind of haughty impatience, link after link of 
 
136 THE LAST CONQUEST. 
 
 the social and political cliaiti that six hundred years of steady 
 British policy had woven around every limb and muscle of his 
 country, — down to that supreme moment of the blackness of 
 darkness for himself and for Ireland, when he laid down his 
 burden and closed his eyes among the palaces of the superb city, 
 throned on her blue bay. Beyond a doubt, his death was 
 hastened by the misery of seeing his proud hopes dashed to the 
 earth, and his well-beloved people perishing; for there dwelt in 
 that brawny frame tenderness and pity soft as woman's To 
 the last he laboured on the " Relief Committees " of Dublin, 
 and thought every hour lost unless employed in rescuing some 
 of the doomed. The last time I saw him, he was in the Relief 
 Committee Rooms, in Dame Street, sitting, closely muffled, in 
 a chair, as I entered and found myself opposite to him and 
 close by. Many months had gone by since we had spoken ; 
 and he had never mentioned me or any of my friends in that 
 time without bitter reproache?. To my lowly inclination, I 
 received in reply a chilling, stately bow, but no word. 
 
 Readers already know my estimate of his public character 
 and labours. He had used all his art and eloquence to emasculate 
 a bold and chivalrous nation: and the very gratitude, love, and. 
 admiration which his early services had won, enabled him so to 
 pervert the ideas of right and wrong in Ireland, that they 
 believed him when he told them that Constitutional "Agitation" 
 was Moral Force — that bloodshed was immoral — that- to set at 
 naught and defy the London " laws " was a crime — that, to 
 cheer and parade, and pay Repeal subscriptions, is to do one's 
 duly — and that a people patient and quiet under wrong and 
 insult is a virtuous and noble people, and the finest peasantry 
 in the univei'se. He had helped the disarming policy of the 
 English by his continual denunciations of arms, and had thereby 
 degraded the manhood of his nation to such a point that to 
 rouse them to resistance in their own cause was impossible, 
 although still eager to fight for a shilling a day. To him and 
 to his teaching, then, without scruple, I ascribe our utter failure 
 to make, I do not say a revolution, but so much as an insurrec- 
 tion, two years after, when all the nations were in revolt, from 
 Sicily to Prussia, and when a successful uprising in Ireland 
 would have certainly destroyed the British Empire, and every 
 monarchy in Europe along with it. O'Connell was, therefore, 
 next to the British Government, the vrorst enemy that Ireland 
 ever had,— or rather the most fatal frien 1. For the rest, no 
 character of which I have heard or read was i \er of so wide a 
 compass; so capable at once of the highest virtues and the 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPs). 137 
 
 lowest vices — of the deepest pathos and the broadest humour — 
 of the noblest generosity and most spiteful malignity. Like 
 Virgil's oak-tree, his roots stretched down towards Tartarus, as 
 far as his head soared towards the heavens ; and I warn the 
 reader, that whoso adventures to measure O'Oonnell must use a 
 long rule, must apply a mighty standard, and raise himself up, by 
 a ladder or otherwise, much above his own natural stature. 
 The clan O'Connell was an ancient sept in Kerry: — 
 
 " O'Connell of the battahons of Minister, 
 Mighty are his mustering forces; 
 A Fenian armed warrior, frequent in the fight, 
 Commands the hosts of Hy Cuilein." 
 
 So the O'Connells of the twelth century are described in the 
 ancient topographical poem of O'Heerin. They did not keep a 
 " Head Pacificator," nor would they have understood the modern 
 O'Conneil's method of using his mustering forces, in carrying 
 out the " ethical experiment " of moral force. So much the 
 better for them ; the experiment proved a failure. 
 
 In the very same glens of Kerry, the clan O'Connell have dwelt 
 for a thousand years; and a fragment of the ancient domain, which 
 somehow escaped confiscation, remains in the family till this day. 
 Many of the O'Connells had left Ireland in the time of the penal 
 laws, and had taken service in Austria and in France. Count 
 Daniel O'Connell was a General in the French service at the 
 period of the great Eevolution ; wherein, like most of the Irish 
 officers, he proved himself a staunch royalist. His cousin Daniel, 
 of Irish fame, was always a monarchist also ; and I have heard 
 him .say that he never could forget the shudder of horror 
 that came upon him, when a student of St Omers, because a 
 young Irishman of the Mountain party displayed with triumph 
 a handkerchief, which he had dipped in the blood of Louis, as 
 it flowed fresh in the Place de la Concorde. In the Irish Re- 
 bellion of 1798, also, he had enrolled himself, not in the in- 
 surgent force, but in the lawyer's corps, to put the insurgents 
 down; and never spoke of the gallant rebels of that era without 
 execration. 
 
 O'Conneil's body rests in Ireland; but without his heart. 
 He gave orders that the heart should be removed from his body 
 and sent to Home. The funeral was a great and mournful pro- 
 cession through the streets of Dublin,, and it will show how 
 wide was the alienation which divided him from his former 
 confederates, that wlion O'Brien signified a wish to attend the ob- 
 sequies, a public letter from John O'Connell sullenly forbade him. 
 
 So long as John O'Connell continued to administer the 
 
138 *HE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 dilapidated " agitation," liis mode of persuading his followers 
 to support him in any given measare^ ^.vas, to threaten that he 
 would raise his father's bones, and -Mixry them away to the land 
 where his heart is treasured. 
 
 In the year 1847, great and g^'^ccessful f^xertions were used 
 to make sure that the next year should be a year of famine too. 
 This was effected mainly by holding out the prospect of " out- 
 door relief" — to obtain which tenants must abandon their lands 
 and leave them untilled. A paragraph from a letter of Rev. 
 Mr Fitzpatrick, parish priest of Skibbereen, contains within it 
 an epitome of the history of that year. It was published in the 
 Freeman, March 12: — 
 
 " The ground continues unsown and uncultivated. There is a mutual 
 distrust between the landlord and the tenant. The landlord would wish, 
 if possible, to get up his land; and the unfortunate tenant is anxious to 
 stick to it as long as he can. A good many, however, are giving it up, 
 and preparing for America; and these are tiie substantial farmers who 
 have still a Uttle means left." 
 
 A gentleman travelling from Borris-in-Ossory to Kilkenny, 
 one bright spring morning, counts at both sides of the road, in 
 a distance of twenty-four miles, " nine men and four ploughs" 
 occupied in the fields; but sees multitudes of wan labourers, 
 " beyond the power of computation by a mail-car passenger," 
 labouring to destroy the road he was travelling upon. It was a 
 "public work." — (Dublin Evening Mail). 
 
 In the same month of March — " Tlie land," says the Mayo 
 Constitution, " is one vast waste: a soul is not to be seen working 
 on the holdings of the poor farmers throughout the country; 
 and those who have had the prudence to plough or dig the 
 ground are in fear of throwing in the seed." 
 
 When the new "Outdoor Relief" Act began to be applied, 
 with its memorable Quarter-acre Clause, all this process went 
 on with wonderful velocity, and millions of people were soon left 
 landless and homeless. That they should be left landless and 
 homeless was strictly in accordance with British policy; but 
 then there was danger of the millions of outcasts becoming 
 robbers and murderers. Accordingly, the next point was to 
 clear the country of them, and diminish the poor-rates, by 
 emigration. This is a matter somewhat interesting to Americans, 
 so that I must give a clear account of it. If one should narrate 
 how the cause of his country was stricken down in open battle, 
 and blasted to pieces with shot and shell, there might be a 
 certain mournful pride in dwelling upon the gallant resistance, 
 as in the case of our Irish wars against Cromwell, against King 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPS). 130 
 
 William the Third, and agjiiiisfc tlse jiower of Brilaiii in *98;— 
 
 but to describe how the spirit of a country lias been broken and 
 
 subdued by beggarly famine; — how her national aspirations 
 
 have been, not choked in her own blood, nobly shed on the field, 
 
 but strangled by red tape; — how her life and soul have been 
 
 an eliorated and civilized out of her; — how she died of political 
 
 economy, and was buried under tons of official stationery; — 
 
 tl is is a dreary task, which I wish some one else had undertaken. 
 
 As it has been commenced, however, let the world hear the 
 
 end. There began to be an eager desire in England to get rid 
 
 of the Celts by emigration; for though they were perishing 
 
 fast of hunger and typhus, they were not perishing fast enough.. 
 
 It was inculcated by the English Press that the temperament 
 
 and disposition of the Irish people fitted them peculiarly for 
 
 some remote country in the East, or in the West, — in fact, for 
 
 any country but their own; — that Providence had committed 
 
 some mistake in causing them to be born in Ireland. As usual, 
 
 the Times was foremost in finding out this singular freak of 
 
 nature! Says the Times (Feb. 22, 1847):-— 
 
 " Eemove Irishmen to the banks of the Granges, or the Indus — to 
 - Delhi, Benares, or Trincomalee,~and they would be far more ia their 
 element there than in th^e country to which an inexorable fate has con- 
 fined themy 
 
 Again, a Mr Murray, a Scotch banker, writes a pamphlet 
 upon the proper measures for Ireland. " The surplus popula- 
 tion of Ireland," says Mr Murray, " have been trained precisely 
 for those pursuits which the unoccupied regions of North 
 America require." Which might appear strange to anybody 
 but a respectable banker — a population expressly trained, and 
 that yrecisely, to suit any country except their own. 
 
 But these are comparatively private and individual sugges- 
 tions. In April of this year, however, six Peers and twelve 
 Commoners, who called themselves Irish, but who included 
 amongst them such "Irishmen" as Dr Whately and Mr Godley, 
 laid a scheme before Lord John Eussell for the transportation 
 of one million and a-half of Irishmen to Canada, at a cost of 
 nine millions sterling, to be charged on " Irish property," and 
 to be paid by an income-tax. 
 
 Again, within the same year, a few months later, a " Select 
 Committee " — and a very select one — of the Housti of Lords, 
 brings up a report on " Colonization from Ireland." Their lord- 
 ships report that all former committees on the state of Ireland 
 (with one exception) had agreed at least on this point— that it 
 was necessary to remove the " excess of labour." They say-^ 
 
140 THE LAST CO :•• QUEST 
 
 " They have taken evidence respecting the state of Ireland, of the 
 British North American colonies (including Canada, New Brunswick, 
 Nova Scotia, Newfoundland), the West Indian islands, New South 
 Wales, Port Philip, South Australia, Van Diemen's Land, and New 
 Zealand. On sonie of these points it will be found that their inquiries 
 have little more than commenced; on others, that those inquiries have 
 been carrieii somewhat nearer to completion; but in no case can it be 
 considered that the subject is as yet exhausted." 
 
 Far from it, indeed. In a later passage of the Keport they 
 say:— 
 
 *' The committee are fully aware that they have as yet examined into 
 many points but superficially, and that some, as, for example, the state 
 of the British possessions in Southern Africa and in the territory 0/ 
 Natal, have not yet been considered at all. Neither have they 
 obtained adequate information respecting what we sincerely hope may 
 hereafter be considered as the prospering settlement of New Zealand. 
 The important discoveries of Sir T. I^iitchell in Australia have also 
 been but slightly noticed." 
 
 Observe that any inquiry into the state of Ireland naturally 
 called their Lordships to a consideration of very distant lati- 
 tudes and longitudes. They could not conceive how Ireland 
 was to be effectually ameliorated, without a full investigation. 
 of Nova Zembla, Terra del Fuego, and the Terra Australis 
 Incognita. 
 
 Their Lordships further declare that the emigration which 
 they recommend must be " voluntary," and also that " there was 
 a deep and pervading anxiety for emigration exhibited by the 
 people themselves." 
 
 A deep and pervadin > anxiety to fly, to escape any whither ! 
 From whomi Men pursued by wild beasts will show a per- 
 vading anxiety to go anywhere out of reach. If a country be 
 made too hot to hold its inhabitants, they will be willing even 
 to throw themselves into the sea. If men clear estates, and 
 chase the human surplus from pillar to post, in such sort that 
 outdoor relief becomes the national v/ay of living, you may be 
 sure there will be a deep an : ; rvading anxiety to get away; 
 and then the ext( , mi:iators may form themselves into a "com- 
 mittee " (select), and say to the public, " Help us, you, to indulge 
 the wish of our poor brethren; you perceive they loant to be off. 
 God forbid we should ship them away, save with their cordial 
 concurrence!" 
 
 Remember all this while that there are from four to five mil- 
 lions of acres of improvable waste lands in Ireland; and that, 
 even from the land in cultivation, Ireland was exporting food 
 enough, every year, to sustain eight millioris of people in England. 
 
OP IRELAND, (perhaps). 141 
 
 Tlieir Lordships speak of one, exception to the uniform testi- 
 mony of Parli.uuciil.uy r/Oimiiitfcccs. ] liavo already mentioii.:^ 
 that Report (jf a Conimittee of the Commons, brought up in 
 1836, wherein their select lordships say they find with surpribe 
 the following sentiments — 
 
 "It may be doubted whether the country does contain a suficient 
 quantity of labour to develop its resources; and while the empire is 
 loaded with taxoMoii to defray the charges of its wars, it appears most 
 politic to use its internal resources for improving the condition of its 
 population, by which the revenue of the exchequer must be increased, 
 rather than encouratje emigration, by which the revenue would suffer 
 diminution, or than leave the labouring classes in their present state, by 
 which poverty, crime, and the charges of government must be extended." 
 
 The same anomalous Report had expressed the strongest 
 opinion against Poor Laws, especially in the form of " out-door 
 relief," — had reported, in short, directly against the whole system 
 of British policy in Ireland. You may have a curiosity to know 
 who were the members of so perverse a committee. They were 
 twenty-four Irishmen to nine Englishmen ; so no wonder they 
 fell into so cursed a mistake. Among the Irish names, I find 
 men of all parties; — Col. ConoUy and Mr O'Connell, Mr Lefroy 
 and Mr Smith O'Brien, Lord Castlereagh and Feargus O'Connor: 
 even Whigs,— Mr Wyse, Mr Shiel, and The O'Oonor Don. This 
 explains the Report, and explains further why the Imperial 
 Parliament took care, afterwards, in all inquiries into Irish affairs, 
 to employ Englishmen, on whom they could depend. 
 
 None of these vast public schemes of emigration were adopted 
 by Parliament in their full extent, though aid was from time to 
 time given to minor projects for that end : and landlords con- 
 tinued very busy all this year, and the next, shipping off their 
 " surplus tenantry," by their own private resources, thinking it 
 cheaper than to maintain them by rates. The Irish Press, and 
 especially the Nation, took up each of the schemes as it was 
 propounded, and vehemently denounced it as part of the plan 
 to clear our island of its own people, and confirm England in 
 the peaceable possession of her farm. 
 
 There has been now, I think, laid before the reader a com- 
 plete sketch, at least in outline, of the British famine policy : — 
 expectation of Government spoon-feeding at the point of police 
 bayonets; shaking the farmers loose from their lands; employing 
 them for a time on strictly useless public works; then disgorging 
 them, in crowds of one hundred thousand at a time, to beg, or 
 rob, or perish; then " out-door relief," administered in quan- 
 tities altogether infinitesimal in proportion to the need; then 
 that universal ejectment, the Quarter-acre lawj thea the cor- 
 
U2 
 
 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 ruption of tlie middle class, by holding out tlie prize of ten 
 tjiuusaiid new government situations; tlien tiie Viigrancy Act, to 
 make criminals of all houseless wanderers; then the ''volunliiry" 
 emigration schemes; then the omnipresent police, hanging like 
 a cloud over the houses of all "suspected persons," that is, all 
 persons who still kept a house over their heads; then the quar- 
 antine regulations and increased fare for deck passengers to Eng- 
 land, thus debarring the d^jmed race from all escape at that 
 side, and leaving them the sole alternative, America or th« 
 grave; — this, I believe, gives something like a map or plan ol 
 the field, as laid out and surveyed for the Last Conquest. 
 
 What had become of the Eepeal and our Parliament in College 
 Green 1 Alas ! alas ! the proud national aspirations that had 
 stirred our people three years before had sunk into a dismal 
 and despairing cry for food, or an impotent litany of execration 
 upon our enemies. Yet the Eepeal of the Union, — a Parliament 
 in College Green, — this was still as ever the sole and single 
 remedy for all our evils; and so it was still proclaimed by the 
 Irish Confederation and by Smith O'Brien to the very last. For 
 this the Repeal members were taunted viciously in Parliament, 
 with complainin.9;of everything, but ha\dug nothing to propose: — 
 ' nothing but what they knew the House would not adopt," said 
 Mr Roebuck. Indeed, they had nothing to propose but Repeal. 
 
 This same Roebuck, making a speech in Parliament during 
 this year, in presence of Mr O'Brien, reproached the Irish mem- 
 bers (falsely) with only asking almSj but suggesting no practical 
 measures of manful self-help. " I pledge my faith," said the 
 orator, " for the people of England, that they will give their im- 
 mediate assent to any proposition which has a fair and honour- 
 able regard to the real interests of Ireland." There was one 
 loud cry of ''hear/" "Ah!" continued the speaker, "the 
 honourable member opposite, the honourable member for 
 Limerick, says hear; — s.iid I know exactly what he means: he is 
 going to propose Repeal : / see it in his eye." Whereupon there 
 was " laughter " and " renewed laughter." * 
 
 The Irish landlords were in dire perplexity. Many of 
 tliem were good and just men ; but the vast majority were 
 fully identified in interest with the British Government, and 
 desired nothing so much as to destroy the population. They 
 would not consent to Tenant - Right ; they dared not trust 
 themselves in Ireland without a British army. They may 
 have felt, indeed, that they were themselves both injured 
 and insulted by the whole system of English legislation ^ but 
 
 * Pebat« of March S^h. 
 
Of IRELAND, (PEKIIAPS). 143 
 
 they would submit to anything ratlier than fraternize with 
 the injured Catholic Celts. A lew landlords and other gentle- 
 men met and foimed an " Irish Council ;" but these were soon 
 frightened into private life again by certain revolutionary pro- 
 posals of some members, and especially by the very name of 
 Tenant-E-ight. At last, about the end of this year, seeing that 
 another season's famine was approaching, and knowing that 
 violent counsels began to prevail amongst the extreme section 
 of the national party, the landlords, in guilty and cowardly 
 rage and fear, called on Parliament for a new Coercion Act. 
 
 From this moment, all hope that the landed gentry would 
 stand on the side of Ireland against England, utterly vanished. 
 
 In ray next chapter, I shall have to tell how this deadly 
 alliance between the landlords and the government brought 
 Irish affairs to a crisis, — how it broke up the " Confederation " 
 — led to an attempt at insurrection — and a series of State 
 trials — and the end of the hopeless struggle against British 
 civilization for that time. 
 
 Before going further, however, I shall mention : — First, that 
 by a careful census of the Agricultural produce of Ireland for 
 this year, 1847, made by Captain Larcom, as a Government 
 Commissioner, the total value of that produce was £44,958,120 
 sterling ; which would have amply sustained double the entire 
 people of the island.* This return is given in detail, and 
 agrees generally with another estimate of the same, prepared 
 by John Martin, of Loughorn, in the County Down, — a gentle- 
 man whose name will be mentioned again in this narrative. 
 Second: that at least 500,000 human beings perished this year 
 of famine, and of famine typhust : and 200,000 more fled be- 
 yond the sea to escape famine and fever. Third: that the 
 loans for relief given to the Public Works and Public Com- 
 missariat departments, to be laid out as they should think 
 proper, and to be repaid by rates on Irish property, went in the 
 first place to maintain ten thousand greedy officials ; and that 
 the greater part of these funds never reached the people at all, 
 or reached them in such a way as to ruin and exterminate them. 
 
 A kind of sacred wrath took possession of a few Irishmen at 
 this period. They could endure the horrible scene no longer, 
 and resolved to cross the path of the British car of conquest, 
 though it should crush them to atoms. 
 
 * I do not possess this Return, as ordered by Parliament to be printed, but take an 
 abstract of it given at the time in the London vS'faffaVr/v/. In Thorn's Official Almanac and 
 Directory, Government has taken care to suppress ihe statement of the gross amount. 
 
 t The deaths by famine of the year before i set down at 300,000. Tiiere is no possibiiity 
 of ascertaining the numbers; and when the Government Commissioners pretend to do svi, 
 A«y intend deceptioB 
 
UJ: THE LAST CONQtTESt 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 LORD CLARENDON, VICEROY — SUBTEP.RANEAN AGENCIES OF GOVERNMENT 
 — MONAHAN, ATTORNEY-GENERAL — GALWAY ELECTION. 
 
 In the summer of this year (1847) Lord Clarendon was sent 
 over, as Lord-Lieutenant, to finish the Conquest of Ireland — 
 just as Lord Mountjoy had been sent to bring to an end the 
 wars of Queen Elizabeth's reign; and by the same means sub- 
 stantially — that is, by corruption of the rich and starvation of 
 the poor. The form of procedure, indeed, was somewhat 
 different; for English statesmen of the sixteenth century had 
 not learned to use the weapons of "amelioration" and "political 
 economy ;" neither had they then established the policy of 
 keeping Ireland as a store-farm to raise wealth for England. 
 Lord Mountjoy's system, then, had somewhat of a rude charac- 
 ter; and he could think of nothing better than sending large 
 bodies of troops to cut down the green corn and burn the 
 houses. In one expedition into Leinster, his biographer, Mory- 
 son, estimates that he destroyed "£10,000 worth of corn" — 
 that is, wheat; an amount which might now be stated at .£200,000 
 worth. In O'Cahan's country, in Ulster, as the same Morj^son 
 tells us, after a ra,zzia of Mountjoy — " We have none left to 
 give us opposition, nor of late have seen any but dead carcases, 
 merely starved for want of meat." So that Mountjoy could 
 boast he had given Ireland to Elizabeth, "nothing but carcases 
 and ashes." 
 
 Lord Clarendon's method was more in the spirit of the nine- 
 teenth century, though his slaughters were more terrible in the 
 end than Mountjoy's. Again there was growing upon Irish 
 soil a noble harvest; but it had been found more economical to 
 carry it over to England by help of free trade, than to burn it 
 on the ground. The problem then was, as it had been the last 
 year and the year before, how to ensure its speedy and peace- 
 ful transmission. Accordingly, Lord Clarendon came over with 
 conciliatory speeches, and large professions of the desire of 
 " government," now at last to stay the famine. Sullen mur- 
 murs had been heard, and even open threats and urgent recom- 
 mendations, that the Irish harvest must not be suffered to go 
 anotlier year; and there were rumours of risings to l)reak up the 
 roads, to pull down the bridges, in every way to stop the tracks 
 of this fatal "commerce;" rumours, in short, of an insurrection. 
 
OP IRELAND, (perhaps). 145 
 
 Some new method, then, had to be adopted to turn the thoughts 
 aud hopes of that too-credulous people once more towards the 
 "government." Lord Clarendon recommended a tour of 
 agricultural " lecturers," the expense to be provided for by the 
 itoyal Agricultural Society, aided by public money. The lec- 
 turers were to go upon every estate, call the people together, 
 talk to them of the benevolent intentions of his Excellency, 
 and give them good advice. Their report was published in the 
 following April; and irksome as are these details of one uniform 
 Find chronic misery, the due understanding of Lord Clarendon's 
 policy will require some attention to this Report. 
 
 One lecturer (one Thomas Martin) travelled in Western 
 Mayo. He writes — " It was almost impossible to produce any 
 impression in this wasted and neglected district." For whyl 
 The lecturer tells us — " For, from Bangor to Crossmolina, all 
 was desolate and waste." Driving along "with the Rev. Mr 
 Stock, in his gig, he pointed out to me," says Martin, " L 
 number of farm-houses in the Mullet, all deserted, and the land, 
 too. Nothing possibly could be done there, for the tenants 
 were gone/" 
 
 The grand object of all the lecturers was to get the people, 
 those of them who remained, to till the land, instead of leaving 
 it waste, to run to public works and out-door relief; for in 
 truth it began to be feared in England that the process was 
 going too far, and that the sister country might even be de- 
 frauded of her usual tribute, if the Lush people all became 
 able-bodied paupers. But when Mr Fitzgerald, another of 
 those lecturers, urged this upon a meeting of tenants in 
 Connemara, he tells us, " They all agreed that what I said was 
 just; but they always had some excuse (the good-for-nothing 
 Celts!); that they could not get seed, or had nothing to live 
 on in the meantime." 
 
 These extracts are only samples of what the lecturers did, 
 heard, and said, in all the districts. *^' I saw," says Mr 
 Fitzgerald, " whole villages of roofless houses, and all I met told 
 me they intended to give up their land, for they had neither 
 food nor strength to till it." A certain Mr Goode, lecturing in 
 Connaught, informs us that : — 
 
 " The poor people here appeared to be in a most desponding state: 
 they always met rue with the argument that there was no use in their 
 'worhing there, for they ivere going to he turned outinsjyring, and would 
 have their houses pnUed doivn over them. I used to tell them that I had 
 nothing to do with that; that I was sent among them by some kind, iu- 
 teliigent gentleman, barely to lell them what course to jjursue," 
 
146 THE LAST COIiQtTEST 
 
 That was all. Lord Clarendon had not sent Mr Goode down 
 to lecture on Tenant-Right;— what business had they to obtrude 
 their Jacobin principles on a Government lecturer 'I What had 
 he to do with all that? They might as well have prated to 
 him about the Repeal of the Union ! 
 
 Anotlier measure of my Lord Clarendon was to buy support 
 at the Press with secret-service money. To the honour of the 
 Dublin Press, this was a somewhat difficult matter. The 
 government had at that time only one leading journal in the 
 metropolis on which it could surely rely; — the Evening Post. 
 Lord Clarendon vvanted another organ, and of a lower species ; 
 for he had work to do which the comparatively respectable 
 Post misrht shrink from. He sondit out a creature named 
 Birch, editor of the World, a paper v/hicli was never named nor 
 alluded to by any reputable journal in the city. This Birch 
 lived by hush money, or black mail of the most infamous kind ; 
 — that is, extorting money from private persons, m'en and 
 women, by threats of inventing and publishing scandalous 
 stories of their domestic circles. He had been tried more than 
 once and convicted of this species of swindling. ''I then ofTered 
 him c£100, if I remember rightly," says my Lord Clarendon-,* 
 " for it did not make any great impression on me at the time. 
 He said that v/ould not be sufficient for his purpose, and I think 
 it was then extended to about c£350." On further examination 
 his lordship confessed that he had paid Birch ''further sums" 
 — in short, kept him regularly in pay; and finally, on Birch 
 bringing suit against him for the balance due for " work and 
 labour," had paid him in one sum £2,000, at the same time 
 taking up all the papers and letters, (as he thought), which 
 might bring the transaction to light. One can guess the nature 
 of Birch's work and labour, and quantum meruit. His duty 
 was to make weekly attacks, of a private and revolting nature, 
 upon Smith O'Brien, upon Mr Meagher, upon myself, and 
 every one else who was prominent in resisting and exposing 
 the Government measures. Further, the public money was 
 employed in the gratuitous distribution of the World, for 
 otherwise decent persons would never have seen it. At the 
 time, I was myself unaware of the man's attacks upon me, and 
 did not even know him at all. It was during my exile in Van 
 Diemen's Land that I learned, through the newspapers, how all 
 this subterranean agency had come to light on the trial of one 
 of the suits which Birch was forced to institute for recovery of 
 bis wages. 
 
 * Sec evidence on the 'rial of BIrcli against Sir T. Redington. 
 
OF IRELAND, (riLfniAPs). 147 
 
 Couccriiiiig this Birch, I wllJ only add, iliixt lio was siihsc- 
 CjUriitly employed and paid by Lord [Vtliiiercilon al.;<>, (Vsr tho 
 same sort of services. 
 
 A third measure of the Viceroy was, — extreme liberality 
 towards Catholic lawyers and gentlemen in the distribution of 
 patronage ; that so they might be the more effectually bought 
 off from all common interest and sympathy with the " lower 
 orders," and might stand patiently by and see their countrymen 
 slain or banished. Amongst others, Mr Monahan, an industrious 
 and successful Catholic barrister, was made Attorney-General 
 for Ireland, — from which the next step was to the Bench. Mr 
 Monahan became a grateful and useful servant. 
 
 Next came the Galway election. It was essential that Mr 
 Monahan, being Attorney-General, should be also a Member of 
 Parliament ; and there was a vacancy in Galway city. The 
 Eepealers resolved to contest it ; and Mr Anthony O'Flaherty, 
 a gentleman of Galway county, addressed the electors. It was 
 resolved not only to contest this election with the Whig 
 Attorney-General, but to fight it with the utmost vehemence 
 and bitterness, in order to show the world how the "amelioration" 
 Whig Government was appreciated in Ireland. But though 
 nine-tenths of the people of Galway were Repealers, we Imew 
 that the enemy had great advantages in the struggle : because, 
 in the first place, any amount of money would be at their com- 
 mand for bribery; and next, the landloi'ds of the city and of the 
 rural districts around were principally of the sort called "Catholic 
 gentry," — the very worst class, p.::rhaps, of the Irish aristocracy. 
 
 The" Irish Confederation" sent down a number of its mem- 
 bers to give gratuitous aid to Mr O'Flaherty's law-agents and 
 Committee. These were Dillon, Mealier, O'Gorman, Doheny, 
 Barry, O'Donoghue, Martin O'Flaherty, and John Mitchel. In 
 the depth of winter we travelled to Galway, through the very 
 centre of that fertile island, and saw sights that will never 
 wholly leave the eyes that beheld them : — cowering wretches, 
 almost naked in the savage weather, prowling in turnip-fields, 
 and endeavouring to grub up roots which had been left, but 
 running to hide as the mail coach roiled by: very large fields, 
 where small farms had been " consolidated," showing dark bars 
 of fresh mould running through them, where the ditches had 
 been levelled : — groups and families, sitting or wandering on 
 the high-road, with failing stej^s and dim, patient eyes, gazing 
 hopelessly into infinite darkness ; before them, around them, 
 above them, nothing but darkness and despair: parties of tall, 
 brawny men, once the flower of Meath and Galway, stalking 
 
148 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 by with a fierce but vacant scowl ; as if they knew that all this 
 ought not to be, but knew not \vhoui to blame, saw none whom 
 they could rend in theu* wrath ; for Lord John Russell sat safe 
 in Chesham Place; and Trevelyan, the grand commissioner 
 and factotum of the pauper-system, wove his webs of red tape 
 around them from afar. So cunningly does civilization work ! 
 Around those farm-houses which were still inhabited were to 
 be seen hardly any stacks of grain ; it was all gone ; the poor- 
 rate collector, the rent agent, the county-cess collector, had 
 carried it off: and sometimes, I could see, in front of the cot- 
 tages, little children leaning against a fence when the sun shone 
 out, — for they could not stand, — their limbs fleshless, their 
 bodies half-naked, their faces bloated yet wrinkled, and of a 
 pale, greenish hue, — children who would never, it was too plain, 
 grow up to be men and women. I saw Trevelyan's claw in 
 the vitals of those children : his red tape would draw them to 
 death : in his Government laboratory he had prepared for them 
 the typhus poison. 
 
 Galway is a very ancient but decayed city, with many houses 
 yet standing, built in the old Spanish style, with high walls of 
 solid stone, and an interior court-yard, entered by a low-browed 
 arch. Foaming and whirling down from Loch Corrib, a noble- 
 river flows through many bridges into the broad bay; and the 
 streets are winding and narrow, like the streets of Havana. 
 When we arrived, the city, besides its usual garrison, was 
 occupied by parties of cavalry and all the rural police from 
 the country around ; — they were to suppress rioters of 
 O'Flaherty's party, and help those of Monahan's, cover their 
 retreat, or follow up their charge. The landlords and gentry, 
 Catholic and Protestant, were almost unanimous for Moiialian, 
 and highly indignant at strangers coming from Dublin to inter- 
 fere with the election. A.ccordingly, in the Court-house, on 
 the day of nomination, a young gentleman of spirit insulted 
 O'Gorman, who forthwith went out and sent him a challenge. 
 This was beginning a Galway election in regular form. The 
 meeting, however, was prevented by some relative of the 
 aggressor who discovered the challenge ; and they were both 
 arrested. There was no further disposition to insult any of us. 
 The tenantry of the rural district of the borough (which 
 happened to be unusually large), were well watched by the 
 agents and bailiffs ; who, in fact, had possession of all their 
 certificates of registry; and when the poor creatures came up 
 to give their reluctant vote for the ftimine candidate, it was in 
 gangs guarded by bailiffs. A bailiff produced the certifieates 
 
OF IRELAND, (perhaps). 149 
 
 of the gangs whicli were under his care, in a sheaf, and stood 
 ready to put forward eacli in his turn. If the voter dared to 
 say, O'Flaheriij, the agent scowled on him, and in that scowl 
 he read his fate; — but he was sure to be greeted with a roaring 
 cheer that shook the Court-house, and was repeated by the 
 multitudes outside. Magistrates and police inspectors, pale 
 with ferocious excitement, stood ready, eagerly watching for 
 some excuse to precipitate the troops upon the people ; and 
 when the multitudes swayed and surged, as they bore upon 
 their shoulders some poor farmer who had given the right vote, 
 the ranks of infantry clashed the butts of their muskets on 
 the pavement with a menacing clang, and the dragoons gathered 
 up their bridles, and made hoofs clatter, and spurs and scabbards 
 jingle, as if preparing for a charge. 
 
 I took charge of one of the polling booths as OTlaherty's 
 agent. A gang of peasants came up, led or driven by the 
 bailiffs. One man, when the oath was administered to him, 
 that he had not been bribed, showed pitiable agitation. He 
 spoke only Gaelic, and the oath was repeated, sentence by sen- 
 tence, by an interpreter. He affected to be deaf, to be stupid, 
 and made continual mistakes. Ten times at least the interpreter 
 began the oath, and as often failed to have it correctly repeated 
 after him. The unfortunate creature looked round wildly as if 
 he meditated breaking away; but the thought, perhaps, of 
 famishing little ones at home still restrained him. Large drops 
 broke out on his forehead; and it was not stupidity that was in 
 his eye, but mortal horror. Mr Monahan himself happened to 
 be in that booth at the time, and he stood close by his soli- 
 citor, still urging him to attempt once more to get the oath out 
 of the voter. Murmurs began to arise, and at last I said to Mr 
 Monahan : " You cannot, and you dare not, take that man's 
 vote. You know, or your solicitor knows, that the man was 
 bribed. I warn you to give up this vote and turn the man out." 
 In reply, he shrugged his shoulders, and went out himself. The 
 vote was rejected; and, with a savage whisper, the bailiff who had 
 marshalled him to the poll turned the poor fellow away. I have 
 no doubt that man is long since dead, he and all his children. 
 
 The election lasted four or five days, and was a very close 
 contest. The decent burghers of the town stood by us, and our 
 friends were enabled to rescue some bands of voters out of the 
 custody of the agents and bailiffs, whose practice it was to collect 
 those of the several estates in large houses, set a guard over 
 them, and help them to stifle thought and conscience with drinlc 
 Monahan had a mob hii-ed* — the Claddagh lishermea, — so that 
 
1§0 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 we were obliged to organize a mob to counteract it. Of course 
 there was much skirmishing in the streets. Monahan was run 
 very close, and in the last two days his party spent much money 
 in bribery; a kind of contest into which Mr O'Flaherty did not 
 enter with him. The AUorney-Grenercil won his election by four 
 votes, out of a very large constituency ; but his escape was 
 narrow. If he had lost, he would have been thrown aside like 
 any broken tool; but, as it chanced, he is now Chief Justice of 
 the Common Pleas. More than this; he had the satisfaction, 
 not many months after, of hunting into exile, or prosecuting 
 (with packed juries) to conviction, every Irish Confederate who 
 went down to hold out Galway against him — with a single ex- 
 ception. Ministers gave him carte blanche in the matter of those 
 prosecutions, and he used it with much energy and legal learning. 
 
 The summer of '47 wore through wearily and hopelessly. All 
 endeavours to rouse the landlord class to exertion entirely failed, 
 through their coward fear of an outraged and plundered people: 
 and at last, when out of the vast multitudes of men thrown 
 from public works, houseless and famishing, a few committed 
 murders and robberies, or shot a bailiff or an incoming tenant, 
 the landlords in several counties besought for a new Coercion 
 and Arms Act, so as to make that code more stringent and in- 
 evitable. Lord John Russell was but too happy to comply with 
 the demand ; but the landlords Vv^ere to give something in ex- 
 change for this security. Addresses of confidence were voted 
 by grand juries and county meetings of landlords. The Irish 
 gentry almost unanimously volunteered addresses denouncing 
 Repeal and Repealers, and pledged themselves to maintain the 
 Union. At the same time ejectment was more active than ever; 
 and it is not to be denied that, amongst the myriads of desperate 
 men who then wandered houseless, there were some who would 
 not die tamely. Before taking their last look at the sun, they 
 could at least lie in wait for the agent who had pulled down 
 their houses and turned their weeping children adrift : him, at 
 least, they could send to perdition before them. 
 
 The crisis was come. The people no longer trusted the ame- 
 liorative professions of their enemies; and there were some who 
 zealously strove to rouse them now at last, to stand up for their 
 own lives; to keep the harvest of '47 within the four seas of Ire- 
 land; and by this one blow to prostrate Irish landlordism and 
 the British empire along with it. 
 
 How we felt ourselves justified in urging so despenito. a mea- 
 sure, and how practically wl- nioant to carry it out, must bd 
 explained iri another chapter. 
 
OF I?^ET.A^'DJ (PEHnAPS). 152 
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 DUBLIx^ DURING THE FAMINE — " Y'.UNG IRELAND" — ALAEII OF TCB 
 MONETED CLASSES — " S. G. O/' — S'JDDEN MEETING OF PARLIAMENT 
 — NEW COERCION ACT — DIFFERENCES IN THE IRISH CONFEDERA- 
 TION — BREAK-UP IN THE " NxITION" OFFICE — o'bRIEN — THE 
 "UNITED IRISHMAN." 
 
 After two years' frightful famine, — and when it was already 
 apparent that the next famine, of 1847-48, would be even more 
 desolating, — it may be imagined that Dublin city would show 
 some effects or symptoms of such a national calamity. Singular 
 to relate, that city liad never before been so gay and luxurious; 
 S})lendid equipages had never before so crowded the streets; and 
 the theatres and concerfc-rooms had never been filled with such 
 brilliant throngs. In truth, the rural gentry resorted in greater 
 numbers to the metropolis at this time; some to avoid the sight 
 and sound of the misery that surrounded their country-seats, 
 and which British laws almost expressly enacted they should 
 not relieve; — some to get out of reach of an exasperated and houise- 
 less peasantry. Any stranger, arriving in those days, guided 
 by judicious friends only through fashionable streets and squares, 
 introduced only to proper circles, would have said that Dublin 
 must be the prosperous capital of some wealthy and happy 
 country. ' 
 
 Tlie band of friends, known to the outside world as " Young 
 Ireland," now all scattered, exiled, or dead, at that time, over 
 and above all the crdinary appliances of pleasure offered by a 
 great city, met weekly at the house of one or the other; and 
 there were nights and suppers of the gods, when the reckless 
 gaiety of Irish temperament bore fullest sway. Like the 
 Florentines in plague-time, they would at least live while it was 
 yet day; and that fiery life, if it must soon burn out, should 
 burn brightly to the last. And here, I desire to say, once for all, 
 that I have never heard or read of, neither do I expect to hear 
 or to read of, any political party so thoroughly pure and disin 
 terestcd, with aspirations so lofty, and effort and endeavour ^o 
 single-hearted, as this same "Young Ireland." Those nigijt>, 
 wino-ed witli ^'enial wit and cordial friendship, fade now, purple- 
 hued, in the distance, and a veil of blackness is drawn over thtm: 
 but I avow myself much more proud of my association with 
 
152 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 that genial and generous brotncrliood, than if I were a member 
 even of the Atlantic Telegraph Company! 
 
 The new Poor Law was now on all liands admitted to be a 
 failure; — that is, a failure as to its ostensible purpose. For its 
 real purpose, — reducing the body of the people to " able-bodied 
 pauperism," — it had been no failure at all, but a complete 
 success. Nearly ten millions sterling had now been expended 
 under the several Relief Acts; — expended, mostly, in salaries to 
 officials; the rest laid out in useless work, or in providing rations 
 for a short time, to induce small farmers to give up their land; 
 which was the condition of such relief. Instead of ten millions 
 in three years, if twenty millions had been advanced in the first 
 year, and expended on useful labour (that being the sum which 
 had been devoted promptly to turning wild the West India 
 negroes,) the whole famine-slaughter might have been averted, 
 and the whole advance would have been easily repaid to the 
 Treasury. * 
 
 Long before the Government Commissioners had proclaimed 
 their law a failure, the writers in the Nation had been 
 endeavoiiiing to turn the minds of the people towards the only 
 real remedy for all their evils, — that is, a combined movement 
 to prevent the export of provisions, and to resist process of 
 ejectment. This involved a denial of rent and refusal of rates; 
 involved, in other words, a root and branch revolution, socially 
 and politically. 
 
 Such revolutionary ideas could only be justified by a desperate 
 necessity, and by the unnatural and fatal sort of connection between 
 Irish landlords and Irish tenants. The peasantry of England, of 
 Scotland, and of Ireland, stand in three several relations towards 
 the lords of their soil, "^j England they are simply the emancipated 
 serfs and villeins of tl^e feudal system: never knew any other form 
 of social polity, nor any other lords of the soil, since the Norman 
 conquest. As England, however, prosecuted her conquests 
 by degrees in the other two kingdoms, she found the free Celtic 
 system of clanship; and, as rebellion after rebellion was crushed, 
 her statesmen insisted upon regarding the chiefs of clans as 
 feudal lords, and their clansmen as their vassals or tenants. 
 In Scotland, the chiefs gladly assented to this view of the case; 
 and the MacCallum More became, nothing loath, Duke of 
 Argyle, and owner of the territory which had been the tribe- 
 lands of his clan. Owing mainly to the fact that estates in 
 Scotland were not so tempting a prey as the rich tracts of 
 
 • Of these ten millions, about three have been repaid. In the case of th« *wenty millions 
 for turning negroes wild, there was no expectation of repayment at all. 
 
OF IRRLAND, (PERIIAPS}. 153 
 
 Ireland — and partly Aving also to the Scottisli people having 
 generally become Protestants on the change of religion— there 
 was but little change in the ruling families; and the Scottish 
 clansmen, now become " tenantry," paid their duties to the 
 heads of their own kindred, as before. So it has happened, 
 that to this day there is no alienation of feeling, or distinc- 
 tion of r^ce, to exasperate the lot of the poor cultivators of 
 the soil. 
 
 In Ireland, wherever the chiefs turned Protestant, and chose 
 to accept " grants " of their tribe-lands at the hands of British 
 kings (as the De Burghs and O'Briens), much the same state of 
 things took place for a while. But Ireland never submitted to 
 English dominion, as Scotland has done; and there were con- 
 tinual "rebellions" (so the English termed our national resis- 
 tance), followed by extensive confiscations. Many hundreds of 
 great estates in Ireland have thus been confiscated twice and 
 three times; and the new proprietors were Englishmen, and, in 
 in a portion of Ulster, Scotchmen. These, of course, had no 
 common interest or sympathy with the people, whom they con- 
 sidered, and called, " the Irish enemy." Still, while Ireland 
 had her own Parliament, and the landlords resided at home, 
 the state of affairs was tolerable; but when the Act of "Union," 
 in 1800, concentrated the pride and splendour of the empire 
 at London, and made England the great field of ambition and 
 distinction, most of our grandees resided out of Ireland, kept 
 agents and bailifi's tliere, wrung the uttermost farthing out of 
 the defenceless people, and spent it elsewhere. 
 
 Now, it never would have entered the mind of any rational 
 just man, at this late date, to call in question the title to long- 
 ago confiscated estates; nor, supposing those titles proved bad, 
 would it have been possible to find the right owners. But 
 when the system was found to work so fatally — when hundreds 
 of thousands of people were lying down and perishing in the 
 midst of abundance and superabundance which their own hands 
 had created — I maintain that society itself stood dissolved. 
 That form of society was not only a failure, but an intolerable 
 oppression; and cried aloud to be cut up by the roots and swept 
 away. 
 
 Those who thought thus, had reconciled their minds to the 
 needful means, that is, a revolution as fundamental as the 
 French Revolution, and to the wars and ii errors incident to that. 
 The horrors of war, they knew, v/ere by no means so terrible as 
 the horrors of peace which their own eyes had seen; they were 
 ashamed to see their kinsmen Dntientlv submitting to be starved 
 
15-1 TITE LAST COXQTTEST 
 
 to death, and longed to see blood flow, if it were only to show 
 that blood still fl.owed in Irish veins. 
 
 The enemy began to taJce genuine alarm at these violent doc- 
 trines, especially as they found that the people were taking 
 them to heart; and already in Clare county, mobs were stopping 
 the transport of grain towards the seaports. If rents should 
 cease to be levied, it was clear that not only would England 
 lose her £5,000,000 sterling per annum of absentee rents, but 
 mortgagees, fund-holders, insurance companies, and the like, 
 would lose dividends, interest, bonus, and profits. 
 
 There was then in England a gentleman who was in the habit 
 of writing able but sanguinary exhortations to Ministers, with 
 the signature " S. G. 0." His addresses appeared in the Times, 
 and were believed to influence considerably the counsels of 
 Government. In November, '47, this " S. G. 0." raised the 
 alarm, and called for prompt coercion in Ireland. Here is one 
 sentence from a letter of his reverence; for " S.G.O." was a 
 clergyman: — 
 
 "Lord John may safely believe me, when I say that the prosperity, 
 nay, almost the very existence, of many insurance societies, the positive 
 salvation from utter ruin of many, very many mortgagees, depends on 
 some instant steps to make life ordinarily secure in Ireland; of course I 
 only mean life in that class of it in wliich individuals effect insurances 
 and give mortgages." 
 
 In short, his reverence meant high-life. Lord Clarendon, as 
 Parliament was not then sitting, issued an admonitory address, 
 wherein he announced that — 
 
 " The constabulary will be increased in all disturbed districts (where- 
 by an additional burden will be thrown upon the rates), military 
 detachments will be stationed v/herever necessary, and efficient patrols 
 maintained; liberal rewards will be given for information," &c. 
 
 In the meantime, large forces were concentrated at points 
 where the spirit of resistance showed itself; for a sample of which 
 I take a paragraph from a Tipperary paper : — 
 
 " A large military force, under the civil autliority, has seized upon the 
 produce of such farms in Boytonrath, as owned rent and arrears to the 
 late landlord, Mr Roe, and the same will be removed to Dublin, and 
 sold there, if not redeemed within fourteen days. There are two hundred 
 soldiers and their officers garrisoned in the mansion-house at Rockwell." 
 — Tipperary Fret Press. 
 
 Whereupon, in the Nation, I urged the people to begin calcu- 
 lating whether ten times the whole British army would be enough 
 to act as bailiffs and drivers, everywhere at once; or whether, if 
 they did, the proceeds of the distress might ansv/er expectation. 
 In fact, it was ob^dous that if the enemy should be forced to 
 
0£' IRELAND, (perhaps). l55 
 
 employ their forces in this way all over the island, — to lift and 
 carry the whole harvest of Ireland, and that over roads broken 
 up, and bridges broken down to obstruct them, and with the 
 daily risk of meeting bands of able-bodied paupers to dispute 
 their passage, — the service would soon have been wholly de- 
 moralized, and after three months of such employment, the 
 remnant of the army might have been destroyed. 
 
 Parliament was called hastily together. Her Majesty told 
 the Houses "that there were atrocious crimes in Ireland, — a 
 spirit of insubordination, an organized resistance to legal rights;" 
 and of course, that she required " additional powers " for the 
 protection of life, — that is, high life. 
 
 The meaning of this was a new Coercion Bill. It was carried 
 without delay, and with unusual unanimity; and it is instructive 
 here to note the difference between a Whig in power and a Whig 
 out. When Sir Robert Peel had proposed his Coercion Bill, 
 the year before, it had been vehemently opposed by Lord John 
 Russell and Lord Grey. It was time to have done with coer- 
 cion, they had said; Ireland had been " misgoverned;" there had 
 been too many Arms Acts and Curfew Acts; it was "justice " 
 that was wanted now, and they, the Whigs, were the men to 
 dispense it. Earl Grey, speaking of the last Coercion Bill (it 
 was brought in by the other party), said emphatically (sef 
 delate in the Lords, March 23rd, 1846), "that measures ot 
 severity had been tried long enough;" and repeated with 
 abhorrence, the list of coercive measures passed since 1800, 
 all without effect; now, since 1800, the Habeas Corpus Act 
 was suspended, the Act for the Suppression of the Rebellion 
 being still in force; how they were continued in 1801; continued 
 in 1804; how the Insurrection Act was passed in 1807, which 
 gave the Lord Lieutenant full and legal power to place any dis- 
 trict under martial law, to suspend trial by jury, and make it 
 a transportable offence to be out of doors from sunset to sunrise; — 
 how this Act remained in force till 1810; — how it was renewed 
 in 1814 — continued in '15, '16, '17 — revived in '22, and con- 
 tinued through '23, '24, and '25; — how another Insurrection Act 
 was nv'j^ded in 1833 — was renewed in '34, — and expired but five 
 years ago. "And again," continued this Whig, "again in 1846, 
 we are called on to renew it 1" Horrible ! — revolting to a 
 Liberal out of place ! " We must look farther," continued Earl 
 Grey^-vociferating from the Opposition bench — " we must look 
 to the root of the evil; the state of the law and the habits of the 
 people, in respect to the occupation of land, are almost at the roots 
 of tad disorder; — it was undeniable that the clearance system pre- 
 
156 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 vailed to a great extent in Ireland; and that such things could 
 take place, he cared not how larp;e a population might be 
 suffered to grow up in a particular district, was a cUsarace to a 
 civilized country J' 
 
 And Lord John Russell, in the Commons, said: "If they were 
 to deal with the question of the crimes, they were bound to con- 
 sider also whether there were not measures that might be intro- 
 duced which would reach the ca?ms of those crimes :" — and lie 
 horrified the House by an account he gave them of " a whole 
 village, containing 270 persons, razed to the ground, and the 
 entire of that large number of individuals sent adrift on the 
 high-road, to sleep under the hedges, without even being per- 
 mitted the privilege of boiling their potatoes : or obtaining 
 shelter among the walls of the houses." Disgusting! — to a Whig 
 statesman in Opposition ! 
 
 Now these very same men had had the entire control and 
 government of Ireland for a year and a half. Not a, single 
 measure had been proposed by them in that time to reach "the 
 causes of those crimes ;" not a single security had been given 
 "in respect of the occupation of land;" not one check to that 
 terrible " clearance system," which was " a disgrace to . a 
 civilized country.^' On the contrary, every measure was care- 
 fully calculated to accelerate the clearance system ; and the 
 government had helped that system ruthlessly by the employ- 
 ment of their troops and police. They had literally swept the 
 people off the land by myraids upon rayraids ; and now, when 
 their Relief Acts were admittedly n failure, and when multitudes 
 of homeless peasants, transformed into paupers, were at length 
 making the landed men and mortgagee?, and Jews, and insur- 
 ance officers tremble for their gams, — the Liberal Whig Ministry 
 had nothing to propose but more jails, more handcuffs, more 
 transportation. 
 
 The new Coercion Bill was in every respect like the rest of 
 the series ; in Ireland, these Bills are ail as much like one 
 another as one policeman's carbine is like another. Disturbed 
 districts were to be proclaimed by the Lord Lieutenant. He 
 might proclaim a whole county, or the whole thirty-two 
 counties. Once proclaimed, every body in that district was to 
 be within doors (whether he had a house or not), from dark 
 till morning. Any one found not at home, to be arrested or 
 transported. If arms were found about any man's premises, 
 and he could not prove that they were put there without his 
 knowledge, — arrest, imprisonment, transportation. All the 
 arms in the district to be brought in, on proclamation to that 
 
OP IRELAND, (perhaps). 157 
 
 effect, and piled in the police-offices. The Lord Lieutenant to 
 quarter on the district as many additional police, inspectors, 
 detectives, and sub-inspectors, as he might think fit; — offer 
 such rewards to informers as he might think fit ; — and charge 
 all the expense upon the tenantry, to be levied by rates, — no 
 part of these rates to be charged to the landlords ; — con- 
 stabulary to collect them at the point of the bayonet ; — and 
 these rates to be in addition to poor-rates, cess, titLes, rent, 
 and imperial taxes. 
 
 The story is now brought down to the point at which the 
 " Irish Confederation," — the only body in Ireland which gave 
 the enemy the slightest apprehension, — became divided. And 
 here it is needful that I speak somewhat more particularly of 
 myself. I had been one of the founders of that Confederation, 
 and had for two years written nearly aU the political articles 
 in the Nation. I had watched the progress of the Famine- 
 policy of the Government, and could see nothing in it but a 
 machinery, deliberately devised and skilfully worked, for the 
 entire subjugation of the island,— the slaughter of a portion of 
 its people, and the pauperization of the rest. Therefore, I had 
 come to the conclusion that the whole system oaght to be met 
 with resistance at every point ; and the means for this would 
 be extremely simple; namely, a combination amongst the 
 people to obstruct and render impossible the transport and 
 shipment of Irish provisions ; to refuse all aid in its removal ; 
 to destroy the highways ; to prevent every one, by intimidation, 
 from daring to bid for grain or cattle if brought to auction 
 under ''distress" (a method of obstruction which had put an 
 end to church tithes before); in short, to offer a passive resist- 
 ance universally; but occasionally, when opportunity served, to 
 try the steel. To recommend such a course would be extremely 
 hazardous, .and was, besides, in advance of the revolutionary 
 progress made up to that time by Mr Duffy, proprietor of the 
 Nation. Therefore, in the beginning of December, I announced 
 that I would write in the Nation no more. My friend, Devin 
 Eeilly, abandoned it also on the same day. 
 
 We still remained connected with the Confederation ; and in 
 the Clubs and Committee made no scruple to promulgate our 
 views, and to recommend that the people should be advised 
 not to give up their arms, but, on the contrary, provide more, 
 especially pikes, for any contingency; seeing they might well 
 be assured the Government sought to disarm them for the same 
 reason that a highway robber disarms his victim. 
 
 Mr Smith O'Brien earnestly remonstrated against this course, 
 
 1? 
 
168 THS, LAST CONQITESI 
 
 It would amount almost to a declaration of war ; and he urged 
 that the country was not " prepared " for war. Moreover, he 
 honestly believed that the rents were justly due ; and that the 
 poor-rates, though a grievous blunder, were really a machinery 
 for relief, not for slaughter. He came hastily up to Dublin, 
 and introduced resolutions into the Confederation, disavowing 
 certain letters written by Eeilly and by myself, condemning 
 our sentiments, and protesting against the club organization 
 being made the medium of promulgating them. 
 
 I maintained that no law of the Confederation was violated by 
 what we had done; that there was no use in an Irish Confedera- 
 tion at all, unless it was prepared in so deadly an emergency to 
 advise the general arming of the people, and to make them look 
 for redress of their wrongs to this one agency— the edge of the 
 sword; that if they were not prepared to fight pitched battles 
 with the Queen's troops, they were as well prepared as they 
 ever would be; that if they were mowed down by shot and 
 sabre, they would die a better death than was usual at that 
 period; for no carnage could be so hideous as the British 
 famine. 
 
 There was a two days' debate on O'Brien's resolutions, John 
 Martin occupying the chair. It was conducted with perfect 
 courtesy and mutual respect; and it ended in the adoption of 
 the resolutions, by no very great majority. The Aveight and 
 authority which O'Brien's character deservedly gave him, in- 
 fluenced many; others were moved by the same considerations 
 which acted upon him; and if I had not felt myself to be most 
 exclusively and extremely right, I might have well doubted my 
 position when Dillon, Meagher, and O'Gorman successively 
 rose up and spoke, and voted for the resolutions. The other 
 side was maintained by Eugene O'Reilly, who has since been 
 colonel of a Turkish cavalry regiment in the Russian war ; and 
 by Devin Reilly, now in his grave at Washington. 
 
 We, therefore, and some two hundred other Confederates, who 
 voted with us, retired from the meetings of the Confederation; 
 and I resigned my place on the committee, and my office of 
 Inspector of Clubs for the province of Ulster. Revolution, then, 
 was ruled out; and I was cut off from the Confederation, as I 
 had been from the Repeal Association before, and on the same 
 question — physical force. This division took place on the 5th 
 of February, 1848. Three weeks after, Louis Philippe fled from 
 before the face of an outraged people; and the tocsin was sounded 
 for a Revolntion all (>v<t Enrope. 
 
 On the 12tli of Febniary appeared the first number of the 
 
OF IKELAKD, (PERHAPS). 159 
 
 Vmted Irishman, a weekly po^per established and owned by me. 
 1 or contributors 1 had not only Eeilly, but Father Kenyon (a 
 good Tipperary priest, and one of the most accomplished scholars 
 in Ireland); John Martin, and James Clarence Mangan: Catho- 
 lics, Protestants, and Pagans, but all resolute Eevolutionists. 
 
 The British Government had watched all these proceedings 
 in the Confederation with some interes They feared nothing 
 in the world but pikes and rifles, and knt/VT that so long as the 
 Confederates confined themselves to "constitutional" operations, 
 British dominion was safe. The first number of the United 
 Irishman startled them a little; especially when they learned 
 that the press, working night and day, could not keep pace 
 with the demand; and that single copies were freely purchased 
 at five times their cost. Lord Stanley (Earl Derby) brought 
 up the first number into the House of Lords; and I may be 
 pardoned for extracting a passage from his lordship's speech. 
 After reading large extracts, he continues — 
 
 " This paper was published at 5d, bat, as I am informed, when the 
 first number appeared, so much was it sought after, that, on its first 
 appearance, it was eagerly bought in the streets of Dublin at Is 6d and 
 2s a number. With the people of Ireland, my lords, this language 
 will tell — (hear) — and I say it is not safe for you to disregard it. 
 These men are honest; they are not the kind of men who make their 
 patriotism the means of barter for place or pension. They are not to 
 be bought off by the government of the day for a colonial place, or by 
 a snug situation in the customs or excise. (Hear, hear). No; they 
 honestly repudiate this course; they are rebels at heart; and they are 
 rebels avowed, who are in earnest in what they say and propose to do. 
 My lords, this is not a fit subject, at all events, for contempt. My 
 belief is, that these men are dangerous; — my belief is, that they are 
 traitors in intent already, and if occasion offers, that they will be 
 traitors in fact.'' 
 
 In calling us " rebels," his lordship was right; but traitors we 
 were not. 
 
160 THE LAST CX)NQUESX 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE " UNITED IRISHMAN" NEWSPAPER — NATURE OF T'RE ENTERPRISE 
 — EFFECT OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1848 — SITUATION OF 
 THE GOVERNMENT — EXAMPLES. 
 
 The enterprise to which the conductors of the United Irishman 
 had committed themselves and their fortunes, may well be 
 deemed hazardous and even desperate. No one could more 
 fully appreciate its perils than they who undertook it. To 
 rouse to armed resistance a poor and carefully disarmed people, 
 whose country was occupied at every point by a numerous army, 
 and whose " upper classes " were generally altogetlier devoted 
 to British rule,— not for love of British rule, indeed, but for 
 fear of their own countrymen, — and to attempt this in open 
 day, and in defiance of the well-understood principle and 
 practice of Irish law-courts, all in the full power and possession 
 of the enemy, — was an undertaking which perhaps could end 
 only in one way. But what then 1 Ireland was our country. 
 The Irish race was our flesh and blood. The alternative was, 
 either to see a foreign enemy scourge our people from the face 
 of their own land, by famine and pestilence, "law," political 
 economy, and red tape, or to set our backs to the wall and 
 fight to the death. 
 
 As to our slender chances of success, they consisted mainly in 
 this : The leading members of the Whig Administration, then 
 in power, had uniformly, and with apparent sincerity, protested 
 against the practice of packing juries in Ireland : and we were 
 well aware that it would be with extreme reluctance they would 
 prosecute the United Irishman, seeing they could hope for 
 nothing but defeat if they gave a fair trial. Then if, through 
 irresolution, or regard for " consistency," — it would be 
 too strong to say conscience, — they should forbear to prosecute 
 for even a few months, until another harvest should be ripe 
 and gathered, we made no doubt that we could in that time 
 have the people as ripe as the harvest. 
 
 We knew, indeed, that they were Whigs, " Liberals,*' and 
 therefore treacherous as the wind, and false as tha Father of 
 
OP IRELAND, (PElinAPs). 161 
 
 Lies ; but counted somev/Iiat on tlieir cov/ardice. We had yet 
 to learn that every Englishman, even a Whig, could be brave 
 in such a cause. 
 
 Here, I am not solicitous to avoid the appearance of egotism; 
 and seeing the ignominioas defeat of all our efforts, it is no 
 great boast, heaven knows, to have had " the carriage of the 
 cause " in those days. But the mere fact is, that the English 
 Government was fully conscious that the enemy they had now 
 to deal with was the United Irishman, and the spirit and purpose 
 which it excited and represented. This became more manifest 
 when news burst in upon us of the February revolution in Paris, 
 and the flight of King Louis Philippe ; for between the French 
 people and the Irish there has always been an electric telegraph, 
 whose signals never fail ; and British statesmen had not for- 
 gotten that it was the first great French llevolution which cost 
 them the Irish w^ar of '98, The February revolution, also, at 
 once obliterated the feuds of the Irish Confederation. Nobody 
 would now be listened to there, who proposed any other mode 
 of redress for Irish grievances than the sword. Reilly and 
 myself, without ceremony, walked back into its meetings ; and 
 a resolution was passed with enthusiastic acclamation, that the 
 Confederate clubs should become armed and ofiicered, so that 
 each man should know his right hand and his left-hand comrade, 
 and the man whose word he should obey. All the second-rate 
 cities, as well as Dublin, and all the country towns, were now 
 full of clubs, which assumed military and revolutionary names, 
 —the "Sarsfield Club," the "Emmet Club," and so forth ; £ind 
 the business of arming proceeded with commendable activity. 
 Such young men as could afford it, provided themselves with 
 rifles and bayonete ; those who had not the means for this got 
 pikeheads made ; and there was much request for ash poles. 
 What was still more alarming to the enemy, the soldiers 
 in several garrisons were giving unmistakable symptoms of 
 sharing in the general excitement; not Irish soldiers alone, 
 but even English and Scottish, who had Chartist ideas. A 
 large part of the circulation of the United Irishman, in spite 
 of all the efforts and exertions made by the officers, was in 
 mUitary barracks. 
 
 What was the " G-overnment " to do? It was very plain 
 that the island would not long hold both the " Government and 
 me. Which, then, was to gol It is easy now to say that could 
 hardly be doubted; but it was not easy then. New regiments 
 were poured into Ireland, of course; and Dublin held an army 
 of 10,000 men — infantry, cavalry, artillery, and engineers. The 
 
16iJ THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 barrack accommodations being insufficient, manj'' large buildings 
 were t-nken as temporary baiTacks; the deserted palaces of the 
 Irish aristocracy,— as Aldborough House, on the north-east; the 
 deserted halls of nianuractures and trade, in " The Liberty;" 
 and the Linen Hall, were occupied by detachments. The Bank 
 of Ireland, — our old Parliament House, — had cannon mounted 
 over the entablatures of its stately Ionic colonnades; and the 
 vast and splendid Custom House, net being now needed for 
 trade (our imports being all from the " sister country," and our 
 exports all to the same), was quite commodious as a barrack and 
 arsenal. The quiet quadrangles of Trinity College were the 
 scene of daily parades; and the loyal board of that institution 
 gave up the wing which commands Westmoreland Street, 
 College Street, and Dame Street, to be occupied by troops. 
 Superb squadrons of hussars, of lancers, and of dragoons rode 
 continually through and around the city; infantry practised 
 platoon firing in the squares; heavy guns, strongly gmarded, 
 were for ever rolling along the pavements; and parties of horse 
 artillery showed all mankind how quickly and dexterously they 
 could wheel and aim, and load and fire at the crossings of the 
 streets. These military demonstrations, and the courts of 
 " Law," constituted the open and avowed povv'ers and agencies 
 of the enemy. 
 
 But there was a secret and subterranean machinery. The 
 editor of the Wmid was now on full pay, and on terms of close 
 intimacy at the Castle and Vice-regal Lodge — that is, private 
 and back-door intimacy; for such a creature could by no means 
 be admitted to decent society. His paper was gratuitously 
 furnished to all hotels and public-houses by means of secret- 
 service money. Dublin swarmed with detectives; they went 
 at night to get their instructions at the Castle, from Colonel 
 Brown, head of the police department; and it was well knov/n 
 to be one of their regular duties to gain admittance to the 
 Clubs of the Confederation, where it afterwards appeared 
 that they had been the most daring counsellors of treason 
 and riot 
 
 A man named Kirwan went to a blacksmith in the city, and 
 gave him an order for some pikes, intimating mysteriously that 
 they were wanted for the " revolution." The smith made the 
 pikes, and Kirwan immediately brought them to the Castle. 
 He was a paid detective and informer; but on this occasion, 
 the detective was detected, through the vigilance of Mr Arkins, 
 who had him before a bench of magistrates. A note-book was 
 found Id his possession full of memoranda connected with hia 
 
0? IRELAND, (perhaps). 168 
 
 pursuit, amongst wliicli I saw several jottings concerning my- 
 self. In fact, for several months, I found myself haunted by 
 detectives in various disguises, and never went into my own 
 house, w out of it, without being watched. We have all 
 heard much of the espionage prevailing in France and in 
 Austria. iS^either of them, however, is furnished with a police 
 so omnipresent, so inevitable, — above all, so treacherous, — 
 as Ireland. 
 
164 tHE LASt COS'QtJESt 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 MARCH, 1848 — THE FRENCH REVOLUTION— TV ATBRFORD ELECTION — 
 AGGREGATE MEETING IN DUBLIN — PROSECUTION OF o'BRIEN, 
 MEAGHER, AND MITCHEL — o'bRIEN IN THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT 
 — THE " treason-felony" ACT — TRIAL OF O'BRIEN AND MEAGHER 
 FOR " SEDITION " — THE " UNITED IRISHMAN " — TRIALS FOR 
 ILLEGAL DRILLLINQ — PROSECUTION FOR " SEDITION " ABANDONED 
 — ARREST OF MITCHEL FOR " TREASON-FELONT," 
 
 March '48 was a season of nervous tremour to the British Empire. 
 The exciting news that came in every week from France, Ger- 
 many, and Italy, intoxicated our people like wine : and the 
 enemy knew that men's minds were entirely turned away from 
 wliat used to be called "moral" agitation, — which had, indeed, 
 been discovered to be extremely immoral. The structure of the 
 British Parliament, and the delusive semblance of representation 
 ^v^hich Ireland possessed there, had been carefully calculated for 
 the purposes of our enemy. That was a field expressly laid out 
 and surveyed to ensure our eternal defeat. At the very moment 
 that Europe shook with the crashing downfall of the Orleans 
 throne, the Irish Confederation was using all its efforts, in 
 prosecution of the policy deliberately adopted, to procure the 
 return of Thomas Frances Meagher as representative of his 
 native city, Waterford. He was opposed by a Repealer of the 
 O'Connellite school. 
 
 You may ask what was the difference between the constitution- 
 ally agitating Repeal Association, and the constitutionally agitat- 
 ing Confederation 1 Why should they oppose one another in 
 Waterford % Understand this distinction : the policy of the Repeal 
 Association was to put men into Parliament who would crave 
 office for themselves and their constituents at the hands of the 
 enemy's government, professing all the while to be seeking for 
 the Repeal. The Confederation was for returning men who 
 would stand on terms of utter defiance towards the " Govern- 
 ment," and use their position only to expose and frustrate, as 
 far as possible, all British legislation for Ireland. With reluc- 
 tance I opposed in the United Irishman the return of my friend, 
 Mr Meagher. To explain both his position and mine, I sliall 
 extract from the article in the United Irishman;-^ 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPS). 166 
 
 " If Ireland had one single chance in contending with her ancient 
 eneiny upon his own chosen ground, — if Ireland had any right to send 
 rej)resentative<=i to a British Parliament, — if Irishmen, there were indeed 
 members of an Imperial senate, and not captives dragged at the chariot 
 wheels of an imperial ovation in the enemy's capital city, — if that 
 Parliament were not a lie, an imposture, an outrage, a game in which 
 our part and lot nmst be disgrace and defeat for ever, a shield and strong 
 tower for its masters, but against us a two-edged sword,— if it were any- 
 thing to Ireland besides a conduit of corruption, a workshop of coercion, a 
 storehouse of starvation, a machinery of cheating, and a perpetual 
 memento of slavery, — then we should congratulate the * electors 'of 
 Waterford on this opportunity of doing honour to themselves, and con- 
 ferring a trust on their most distinguished citizen. 
 
 " Mr Thomas F. Meagher has offered himself as their representative. 
 We give an extract from his address. 
 
 "The grounds upon which I seek your trust are these: I shall not 
 meddle with English affairs. I shall take no part in the strife of parties: 
 all factions are alike to me. I shall go to the English House of Com- 
 mons to insist upon the right of this country to be held, governed, and 
 defended by its own citizens, and by them alone. Whilst I live, I 
 shall never rest satisfied until the kingdom of Ireland has won a 
 parliament, an army, and a navy of her own. 
 
 " ' Of other things I shall not speak: — petty ameliorations — instal- 
 ments of justice — scraps of government patronage; — if these things 
 mingle in the burning hopes of the nation, the day for Ireland has not 
 yet arrived, and I shall wait for other men and other times. 
 
 " ' But if your thirst be, what I hope it is, for the pure and living 
 waters; — and if you think that my youth and strength, my glory here 
 and hope hereafter, would inspire my efforts to realize your wishes, — 
 every personal objection to me will disappear. You will pledge your 
 trust to iny truth, and that obligation will, by its own holiness, compel 
 me to fulfil it.* 
 
 " They are noble sentiments; and if there be faith in man, here is a 
 man who will redeem his pledges. What glorious genius, indomitable 
 courage, and passionate devotion to a sacred cause can dOf we might 
 expect to see done by Mr Meagher. 
 
 ** Yet we pray for his defeat. If Mr Meagher were in parliament, 
 men's eyes would be attracted thither once more; some hope of 'justice' 
 might again revive in this too easily deluded people. The nobler his 
 genius, the more earnest his zeal, the more conspicuous his patriotism, 
 just the more mischief would he do in propping up, through another 
 session, perhaps through another famine, the miserable delusion of a 
 * parliamentary party.' '* 
 
 Mr Meagher's opponents were, first, one Pat, Costello, a 
 placeman already, and one who desired to be a higher placeman, 
 and to make as many as possible of his constituents placemen 
 too — that is, hired servants of the enemy ; second. Sir Henry 
 Wwston Barron, a Whi^. A nunaber of our princiival Couff 
 
166 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 derates went down to Waterford, to conduct ^leagher's election, 
 as they had gone to Gal way before, to oppose Monahan's; and 
 again they were defeated more signally tlian in Gal way. In 
 vain the candidate, in vehement and impassioned language, 
 appealed to the national spirit and patriotism of the people. 
 The people ardently responded to his appeal. They would have 
 given their blood for him; but they had no votes. The electoral 
 body of Waterford was very limited — was, in fact, small enough 
 to be reached and penetrated by the touch and the savour of 
 official gold; and Barro:; was returned by a large majority. 
 
 Frankly, ana at once, the Confederation accepted the only 
 j^olicy thereafter possible, and acknowledged the meaning of 
 the European revolutions. On the loth of March, O'Brien 
 moved an address of congratulation to the victorious French 
 people, and ended his speech with these words — 
 
 "It would be recollected that a short time ago he thought it his duty 
 to deprecate all attempts to turn the attention of the people to military 
 affairs, because it seemed to him that, in the then condition of the 
 coimtry, the only effect of leading the peopla's mind to what was called 
 * a guerilla warfare ' would be to encourage some of the misguided 
 peasantry to the commission of murder (hear, hear). Therefore it was 
 that he declared he should not be a party to giving such a recom- 
 mendation; but the state of affi.iirs Avas totally different now, and he 
 had no hesitation in declaring that he thought the minds of intelligent 
 young men should be turned to the consideration of such questions as: how 
 strong places can be captured, and weak ones defended; — how supplies 
 of food and ammunition can be cut off from an enemy; — and how they 
 can be secured to a friendly force (loud cries of hear). The time has 
 also come when every lover of his country should come forward openly, 
 and proclaim his willingness to be enrolled as a member of a national 
 guard (hear, and loud cheers). No man, however, should tender his 
 name as a member of that national guard unless he was prepared to do 
 two things — one, to preserve the state from anarchy; the other, to be 
 ready to die for the defence of his country." 
 
 Two days after this meeting was St Patrick s Day. A meet- 
 ing of the citizens of Dublin was announced for that anniverary, 
 to adopt a similar address, from Dublin to Paris, but was 
 adjourned for two or three days, to allow time for negotiations 
 to unite all Repealers of the two parties in the demonstration. 
 Lord Clarendon, doubtless under the advice of his privy-councillor 
 of the World, thought it would be a good opportunity to strike 
 terror by a military display. He pretended to apprehend that 
 St Patrick's Day wouhl be selected for the first day of Dublin 
 barricades; and the troops were kept under arms — the cavalry 
 with horsei? r^ady saddled )\\ all the barracks, waiting for the 
 
OJf IHELAND, (perhaps). 167 
 
 moment to crush the first movement in the blood of our 
 citizens. 
 
 The meeting, as I said, was adjourned ; but there was no 
 intention of abandoning it. O'Brien had offered, even in case 
 of a Proclamation forbidding it, to attend and take the chair ; 
 and what he promised, the enemy well knew he would perform. 
 In a letter to Lord Clarendon, I felt myself warranted in appris- 
 ing him that the meeting would assuredly take place on the 
 following Monday, whatever he might do or say to the contrary'. 
 It was held in a vacant space near the river, below the Custom 
 House, and was multitudinous and enthusiastic. No parade of 
 troops was attempted ; but we knew that the public buildings 
 and some private houses were filled with detachments under 
 anns. These addresses, both from the Confederation and from 
 the city, were to be presented in Paris to the President of the 
 Provisional Government, M. de Lamartine ; and O'Brien, 
 Meagher, and an intelligent tradesman of high character and 
 independence of mind, named Hollywood, were appointed a 
 deputation to Paris. 
 
 All this, it was evident, could not go on long. Tlie Clubs 
 were, in the meantime, rapidly arming themselves with rifles; 
 and blacksmiths' forges were prolific of pikeheads. We 
 hoped, and the Government feared, that no armed collision 
 would be made necessary until September, when the harvest 
 would be all cut, and when the commissariat of the people's 
 war, the cause of the war, and the prize of the war, would 
 be all bound up in a sheaf together. But the foe w^e had to 
 deal with was no weak fool. The Government understood 
 our views thoroughly, and resolved to precipitate the issue 
 somehow or other. On the morning after that meeting of 
 Dublin citizens, three of us — Smith O'Brien, Mr Meagher, 
 and myself, were politely waited on by a police magistrate, 
 and requested to give bail that we would stand our trial on 
 a charge of sedition. The ground of prosecution in the two 
 former cases was the language held at the meeting of the Irish 
 Confederation (quoted above in part); — in my case, there were 
 two distinct indictments, for two articles in the United Irishman. 
 I was to have two trials, so that if one should fail another 
 might happily succeed. Trials for sedition we regarded as 
 child's play, and showed that we so regarded them. O'Brien 
 and Meagher proceeded to France and presented their address.* 
 
 * These were mere addresses of congratulation and of sympathy. De Lamartine made 
 a highly poetic but rather unmeaning reply to them. He afterwards, in his History, 
 violently misrepresented them; being, in fact, a mere Anglo- Frenchman. Mr O'Briea 
 convicted hira of these misrepresentations, i eontent myself here with pronouficiog thtt 
 
168 *HE LAST CONQtJEST 
 
 On their return, O'Brien walked into the British Parliament, 
 and found that august body engaged in discussing a new Bill 
 " for the further security of her Majesty's crown," Ministers, 
 in fact, had determined to meet the difficulty by a new " law," 
 the Treason-felony law, by which the writing and printing, or 
 open and advised speaking, of incitements to insurrection in 
 Ireland should be deemed " felony," punishable by transporta- 
 tion. The Bill was introduced by the Whigs, and was warmly 
 supported by the Tories ; Sir Robert Peel declaring that, what 
 Ireland needed, was to make her national aspirations not only 
 a crime, but an ignominious crime ; so as to put this species of 
 offence on a footing with arson, or forgery, or waylaying with 
 intent to murder. O'Brien rose to address the House, and 
 never, since first Parliament met in Westminster, was heard 
 such a chorus of frantic and obscene outcries. Honourable 
 members crowed like cocks, lowed like cows, and brayed like 
 jackasses, according to the custom of the Honourable House ; 
 but O'Brien, quite unmoved, persisted until he obtained a hear- 
 ing ; and I wish that my limits permitted me to present the 
 whole of that manly and noble speech, in which he took care 
 to reiterate all his " treasons," and " seditions." Take two or 
 three extracts, with the interruptions, as recorded in the 
 London papers of the time : — 
 
 " Charges have been brought aj]fainst me as an individual, and against 
 the party with whom I act (*oh!' and ironical cheers). I am here to 
 answer those charges, both for myself and for the party with which I 
 act; and I will say this with regard to my companions in the noble 
 struggle in which we are engaged — (loud laughter) — that, though I 
 have had an opportunity of seeing the most distinguished men of all 
 parties in this House, I never met a number of men, acting for a great 
 political object, who appeared to me, at least, to be animated by such 
 pure and disinterested motives — (loud langhter) — as those with whom 
 it is my pride to act. Now, sir, with regard to myself. I have been 
 called a traitor (a tremendous burst of cheers followed this sentence, 
 twice renewed before silence was restored). I do not profess disloyalty 
 to the Queen of England — (ironical applause). But if it be treason 
 to profess disloyalty to this House, and to the government of Ireland 
 
 two following sentences, poetic fictions: " Les Irlandais, unix aux Chartistes Anglais, 
 se precipitaient sur le continent et cherchaient des complicit<fs insurrcctionnelles en 
 France, a la fois parnii les demagogues au nom de la liberte, et panni les chefs du 
 parti Catholique au nom du Catholicisme." And again, " L'Angleterre n'attendait pas 
 avec moins de solicitude la reception que ferait Lamartine aux insurges Irlandais, 
 
 f>artis, de Dublin pour vcnir dcmander des encouragt'ttents et des amies i la R^pub- 
 ique Frangaise." If the poor feeble Lamartine had confined himself all his life to 
 poetry,— I mean that species of composition in metre which lipids itself out for poetry, 
 and is intended to be called poetry, — himself and his France mij,'!;t have been spared 
 the absurdities of that Provisional Government. Let no nation make a confinced 
 wul iav«t«ratc poet its chief utagistrat*. 
 
OP IRELAND (PL>UHAPS). 169 
 
 by the Parliament of Great Britain — if that be treason, I avow 
 the treason ('oh!' and great excitement!. Nay, more, I say it 
 shall be the study of wj life to overthrow the dominion of this 
 Parliament over Irelanu — (hear, hear, and cries of 'ohP). , , 
 It has been stated I went to France for the purpose of enHsting French 
 aid — (hear, hear) — that is to say, armed aid and succour for my country- 
 men in the strnprgle in which they are engaged. This is a misappre- 
 hension — (oh! oh! oh !) If I had gone to France asking for aid of an 
 armed kimd, belio"«'e me I should have come back accompanied by a 
 tolerably large legion of troops — (some lausbter, and oh! oh ! ') You 
 may believe what I say. I only wish you had been in France — (a laugh). 
 The language I have held in Ireland and in France to my countrymen 
 has been this — that Irish freedom must be won by Irish courage and 
 Irish firmness. I had no desire to impose upon my country one descrip- 
 tion of servitude in the place of another — (hear, hea,r) — for I believe 
 that the liberty of Ireland, and its redemption from its present position^ 
 were they won by foreign bayonets, could only be retained by foreign 
 bayonets;aud it is not my desire or intention to place my country under 
 foreign dominion. ..... I trust 
 
 that the Repealers of Ireland will accept that aid which the Chartists 
 are universally prepared to give them. Now, I avow the fact, — I know 
 not whether it be illegal or not, — twat I have been instrumental in 
 asking my countrymen to arm (marks of surprise and sensation). I 
 conceive that under the present circumstances of all nations, it is the 
 dnty of every man to obtain the possession and learn the use of arms. 
 There is not a nation, I believe, in Europe which does not make it 
 part of its duty to instruct its citizens in the use of arms; and I con- 
 ceive that it is the peculiar duty of the Irish people to obtain the 
 possession of arms at a time when you tell them you are prepared to 
 crush their expression of opinion, not by argument, but by brute force 
 (loud cries of 'oh! oh!' and expressions of disapprobation)." 
 
 The Bill was passed into "Law," of course, by immense 
 majorities ; and thereafter an Irish Eepealer of the Union 
 was to be a felon.'' O'Brien returned to Dublin. The 
 deputies were received by a multitudinous and enthusiastic 
 meeting in the Dublin Music Hall ; and Meagher presented to 
 the citizens of Dublin, with glowing words, a magnificent flag, 
 the. Irish Tri-colour, of Green, White, and Orange, surmounted 
 by a pikehead. Of all the Confederates, Meagher was the sole 
 orator, in the highest sense of that term; and those who have 
 only heard him, in America, where his addresses were but rhe- 
 torical exercitations, and -^vhere the central fire of a great passion 
 was v/anting to lift him into a sublime self-abandonment, can 
 ill conceive the effect of his speeches there, poured forth, bright 
 and burning, upon ten thousand hearts whose fuel was so prompt 
 to kindle. 
 
 Events hurried on; every day bringing in more and more de- 
 
170 THE LAST CONQtTEST 
 
 plorable accounts of wide-spread starvation and extermination 
 of tenantry; and Dublin, as well as all the other sea-ports, saw 
 pale and haggard crowds of emigrants trooping to the quays, to 
 take shipping for America. Be generous to these ill-fated 
 refugees ! Oh, ye happy Americans, despise them not ! ^^riven 
 like noxious vermin, from their hearths and the graves of their 
 forefathers, let the great heart of your country open to embrace 
 them, — to warm them to vitality, and illumine their darkened 
 souls with hope. 
 
 Our trials approached. The}^ were to be before special juries, 
 struck by the process I have before described. O'Brien and 
 Meagher were first tried; and as their " sedition " had been so 
 open and avowed, — and as the Whig government was extremely 
 reluctant to pack juries if they could help it, — the Crown officers 
 left on each of the two juries one Repealer. It was enough. A 
 true Repealer knew that no Irishman could commit any 
 offence against a foreign Queen; and in each case the one Re- 
 pealer stood out, refused to convict, though he should be starved 
 to death; and the traversers, amidst cheering multitudes, were 
 escorted triumphantly from the Four Courts to the Confederate 
 Committee Rooms, where they addressed the people, and pro- 
 mised to repeat and improve upon all their seditions. The 
 excitement of the country was intense. The defeat of the 
 " Government " was celebrated all over the country by bonfires 
 and illuminations, and the clubs became more diligent in arming 
 themselves ; but Mr Monahan, the Attorney-General, foamed 
 and raged. Not only the British Empire and the cause of 
 general civilization, but (what was more important) the great 
 cause of Monahan against the world was in danger. 
 
 My two trials were still to take place. It was plain to the 
 enemy that there must be no failure here. The United Irishman 
 was, by this time, by far the most widely circulated paper in 
 Ireland. It was read in all military and police-barracks, — was 
 clubbed for in all parishes, — and duly read on Sundays to 
 eager crowds in all chapel yards. It was in vain our enemy 
 attempted to frighten the agents who sold it. One of them, in 
 Enniskillen, had writen that the police of that town had come 
 into his shop and threatened him. I had published his letter, 
 and taunted the " Government " with trying to intimidate mere 
 tradesmen, while they suffered the principal offender to go un- 
 punished. They caused club-men to be arrested and marched 
 through the streets to gaol, on charges of practising with rifles, 
 or giving or receiving military instruction; — and I demanded to 
 know why those humble men had been treated as (Mammon felons, 
 
07 IRE AND, (PERHAPS). 171 
 
 while O'Brien, J\Icag]i(>r, and myself had been politely visited 
 hy a magistrate, and blandly requested to come and give bail. 
 The policy of the " Government " at this time I would charac- 
 terize, — if I had not set out with the determination of narrating 
 facts only, and using no abusive epithets, — as mean beyond all 
 description. Police magistrates were ordered to arrest parties 
 of young men practising at targets in the neighbourhood of 
 country towns, and march them into custody through the 
 streets. Men in Dublin were seized upon and dragged to gaol 
 on the charge of saying *' halt " to the club-men marching to a 
 public meeting; — it was " training in military evolutions " under 
 the Act; — and one young man was actually brought to trial and 
 transported for seven years, on an indictment charging him, for 
 that he had, in a private room in Dublin (not ha\'ing the fear 
 of God before his eyes, but being moved by the instigation of 
 the devil), said to thirteen other young men, then and there 
 ranged in line, these fatal words, " Right shoulders forward," — 
 contrary to the peace of our lady the Queen; and so forth. 
 
 On the dth of May, at Thurles Quarter Sessions, in Tip- 
 perary, one Michael Gilfoyle was tried before the county judge 
 (appointed by the Crown, of course), for having a pike in 
 his possession, contrary to an Act just passed prohibiting such 
 articles. The "pike" was produced: it was a hay-fork with two 
 prongs, such as is generally used in Ireland, but rather longer, 
 stronger, and sharper in the prongs, than the police thought it 
 prudent to let men turn hay withal. In fact, it was made upon 
 a plan recommended by the United Irishman, as an improved 
 kind of fork for saving the crop, — inasmuch as it would turn 
 over, not only a truss of hay, but a policeman, bailiff, or dragoon. 
 Mr Howley, the county judge, in passing sentence of one year's 
 imprisonment for this offence, took occasion to remark that the 
 instrument was manifestly not intended for agricultural 
 operations, but for civil war, and " was originated by the wicked 
 adAdces of the United Irishman." He further expressed a hope 
 that, when the finding of his Thurles jury (that a fork is a pike), 
 should come to the ears of the writers in that incendiary 
 publication, " perhaps it would have the effect of checking their 
 insane career." In short, it was absolutely necessary to crush 
 the incendiary publication, and that without delay. 
 
 The day arrived for striking the special juries for my two 
 trials, on the charge of sedition ; and I attended in the CrowD 
 ofiice with my counsel. The Sheriff's clerk brought in the box 
 purporting to contain cards having the names of aU the special 
 jurors of the city of Dublin; from which forty-eight names were 
 
172 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 to be drawn. The Crown officer blandly asked us whether we 
 were satisfied that the box contained all the names, — a question 
 which had never been answered in that office otherwise than in 
 the affirmative. The Crown lawyers, therefore, and officials 
 were surprised when I answered "No: I am not satisfied : I 
 admit nothing: juries are packed here: I must see all the cards." 
 The Queen's lawyers strongly objected to this course, and urged 
 the officer to proceed to draw the names. After some time, he 
 announced to me that such a question had never been raised 
 before, — that he could not go out of the usual course, — that he 
 would proceed with the business. Then I put on my hat, and 
 said to Sir Colman O'Loghlen and Mr O'Hagan, my counsel, 
 *' Come, then ; — we cannot, even by our presence, countenance 
 such a transaction as this: let us go; and they may make much 
 of their jury." We went away. The matter was immediately 
 reported to tlie Judges, then sitting in the Queen's Bench; 
 and Judge Perrin (the same who had been so scandalized at 
 the packing of juries before), instantly ordered the officer to 
 send for me, and count and compare the cards before me, 
 though it should occupy all night. This was accordingly done. 
 Jf there had been any villany practised in the SherifiTs cfece,. it 
 had been rectified in the meantime. The two juries were struck; 
 and it was instantly evident that on each of them would be men 
 who would never convict me of any offence whatever against a 
 foreign sovereign. The juries, in fact, were more favourable 
 than those which had failed to do the Queen's business in the 
 cases of O'Brien and Meagher; inasmuch as it was sure there 
 would be two or three on each who desired the independence of 
 their country. The enemy dared not go to trial with me before 
 these juries. But what to do"? Every week was heightening 
 the spirit of the people, and increasing the number of pikes and 
 rifles in the hands of the peasantry. The United Irishman had 
 also forced the Nation to adopt the insurrectionary policy, and 
 to publish plain instructions on pike-exercise, and the like, — or 
 else go unread. Lord Clarendon was impatient; Birch, doubt- 
 less, was alarmed for "Law and Order;" and Mouahan trembled 
 for his due promotion. So they cut the mc,tter short. 
 
 The scene at the Crown Office was on the 12th of May. The 
 next day the " Government " abandoned the two prosecutions 
 for sedition ; and, about five o'clock in tlie evening, certain 
 members of the detective police beset my house ; — one of them 
 entered and arrested me on a charge of Felony under the new 
 Act. There was no difficulty in finding overt acts ; for every 
 week's United Irishman contained as much of that saving 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPS). 173 
 
 doctiliie which they called treason, as its sixteen pages would 
 hold. 
 
 The arrest did not surprise me. It would have been easy for 
 me to keep out of the way, or fly the country; but I was resolved 
 to try conclusions with the " Whig " government in the matter 
 of juries ; knowing that they must eitlier pack their jury so 
 stringently as never was jury in this world, or I would obtain 
 such a victory as would soon make the island untenable to them. 
 Do not forget the speeches of Lord John Russell and Ml 
 Macaulay, denouncing all jury-packing, which I quoted before. 
 Both these men were now Ministers of the Queen. 
 
 For the next two weeks, awaiting the result of t^iis trial, all 
 things stood still in Ireland, except the famine, and the " Ad 
 dresses of Confidence " from landlords, and the typhus fever, 
 and the clearing of estates, and the wail of the Banshee. 
 
174 THE ULSl^ CONQUEST 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 RAGE OP THE BRITISH PRESS — PROTESTANT REPEAL ASSOCIATIO 
 — LORD clarendon's MANCEUVRES AMONG THE ORANGEMEW 
 PROCLAMATIONS "AGAINST COMMUNISTS" — THE CHARTISTS AH 
 IRISH IN ENGL4ND — LETTER TO THE PROTESTANTS OF THE NORT 
 — PROSECUTION. 
 
 It was May, '48; and, in the opinion of our London enemies, 
 the time had come to put an end to treason and sedition in 
 Ireland by all or any means. They knew we would not com- 
 mence an actual insurrection until Novemberj and they feared 
 that by that time Ireland might be too strong for them.- They 
 betrayed their apprehensions in various ways. The Morning 
 Chronicle, then a ministerial organ, to rouse the fear and rage 
 of ignorant English readers, discoursed in this manner: — 
 
 " Let us suppose an Irish Eepublic established on the most demo- 
 cratic basis, and ;i government formed of the present heads of the 
 Eepeal party, Messrs O'Brien, Meagher, and Mitchei, with, perhaps, 
 an infusion of O'Connells and MacHales. Their avowed ' mission' is to 
 break up the 'old British Empire;' their appetites would have been 
 whetted by Saxon blood, and their ambition flushed by success over 
 Englishmen. An unemployed and desperate population would be on 
 their hands; and their only chance of existence would consist in ex- 
 pending its energies on foreign war. Let us proceed to reflect that they 
 would then, as now, possess in every town of Great Britain an Irish 
 garrison, and that then, as now, they would command the sympathies 
 and assistance of all the disaff'ected part of our working population. 
 
 "Let any sensible man calmly ask himself what possiblechaneesall these 
 contingencies combined would leave for preserving peace. Well, then, 
 say our opponents, let war come; we will reconquer Ireland. If you 
 do, you will be exactly where you are now; but will you be able to 
 conquer her 1 Recollect that if England would be the ' natural enemy' 
 of an Irish Eepublic, France and America would be her ' natural allies.' 
 
 "... We have great faith in the star of Eng- 
 land, but — under these circumstances — we fear we should have to 
 confess that Mr Mitchel's sinister prophecies were on the point of 
 accomplishment, and that the last hour of the ' old British Empire' had 
 struck. That would, indeed, be a glorious day for Ireland! The tables 
 would be turned with a vengeance, when an Irish army of occupation 
 should give the law in the British metropolis." 
 
 The whole British Press ran wild with furious imprecatioug 
 
against these irish '* tss^tjrs aii<l " rebels." The Morning Post 
 suggested that — 
 
 " A Bill might be passed, enabling two or more magistrates, upon 
 satisfactory proof of treasonable language having been spoken or 
 written by any person, to commit that person forthwith to prison and 
 hard labour for three months. Or a summar}'" power to flog the persons 
 guilty of the infamy of exciting the people to attack the government." 
 
 The British people were thoroughly aroused to their danger. 
 Their organ (Punch) duly represented, for them, the Irish cut- 
 throats, with every infamy of outrage that wood-engraving and 
 types could express; and even the grave Spectator offered some 
 receipts for settling matters with us, of which I shall give one 
 as a sample: — 
 
 "how to roast an IRISH PATRIOT. 
 
 " Pick out a young one; speakers or editors are very good. Tie the 
 arms behind the back, or close to the sides; but not too tight, or the 
 patriot will be prevented from moving, and the ribs will not be done. 
 Skewer down to the pile. You will want a strong, steady fire. Dry 
 pine makes a very good blaze. When the fire gets low, throw in a 
 little oil or fat. When nearly done, a little gunpowder thrown in wili 
 make the patriot skip: some cooks consider this important.'* 
 
 This is evidently a joke, and intended to be amusing; but 
 such things show what was the temper of the British people. 
 They had learned, as they believed, the real character of Irish 
 agitators, through the articles which Lord Clarendon hired Birch 
 to write about us, and were impatient to destroy such a gang. 
 The Treason-Felony Act had been supported eagerly in Parlia- 
 ment by both parties; it instantly passed through the House of 
 Peers ; and the Illustrated News had a large engraving, repre- 
 senting the Queen signing her name to it with an air of vixenish 
 spite, stamping her foot as she did it. 
 
 In Ireland, Lord Clarendon was getting up, through the 
 Grand Masters of the Orangemen, loyal addresses, and de- 
 clarations against "rebels" and "traitors." In fact, the 
 Orange farmers and burghers of the North were fast becoming 
 diligent students of the United Irishman; and although they 
 and their Order had been treated mth some neglect of 
 late, both by England and by the Irish aristocracy, they were 
 now taken into high favour ; and arms were secretly issued to 
 some of their lodges, from Dublin Castle.* 
 
 * This was quite unknown to the public at tha time: one case of it only (so far as 
 I know) ever came to light. It was a shipment of 500 stand of arms to the Belfast 
 Orangemea. 
 
176 THE LAST CONQUESt 
 
 But this needed prudence ; for Protestant Repeal Associa- 
 tions had been formed in Dublin, in Drogheda, and even in 
 Lurgan, a great centre of Orangeism. To counteract the pro- 
 gress we had made in this direction, the aristocracy and the 
 clergy were incessant in their efforts, and the Protest-ants were 
 assured that if Ireland should throw off the dominion of Queen 
 Victoria, we would all instantly become vassals to the Woman 
 who sitteth upon Seven Hills. 
 
 The Viceroy, at the same time, took care to frighten the 
 moneyed citizens of Dublin and other towns by placards warn- 
 ing them against the atrocious designs of " Communists " and 
 "Jacobins," whose only object, his lordship intimated, was 
 plunder.* Lord Clarendon seemed to deliberate for some days 
 whether he would proclaim and disarm Dublin, under the late 
 Arms Act; or whether he would make one last desperate 
 plunge into the "Law." The first course would ha\''e drenched 
 the city in blood. Our Club-men had not gone to so much 
 trouble and expense in supplying themselves with arms, v.>nly 
 to give them up to the enemy , The Chartists and Irish in 
 England, too, were in dangerous humour ; and if troops had 
 once been let loose on the people in Ireland, many a city and 
 factory would blaze high in England. On the whole, he 
 resolved to begin with me. If I were once removed, he thought 
 the difficulty would be more manageable. 
 
 A speech, a letter, a short article, all published in the United 
 Irishman, formed the corpus delicti of the crime which the 
 enemy undertook to prosecute. Of th«^se it is enough to pre- 
 sent the letter ; a letter which any candid reader vnlX admit 
 to have been at least provoking, if not illegal. It was 
 addressed to the Protestants of the North: — 
 
 " My friends, — Since I wrote ray first letter to yon, many kind and 
 flattering addresses have been made to you by exceedingly genteel and 
 very rich noblemen and gentlemen. Those of you, especially, who are 
 Orangemen, seem to have somehow got into high favour with this gen- 
 teel class, which must make you feel rather strange, I think; — you 
 have not been used to much recognition and encouragement, of late 
 years, from British Viceroys, or the noble and right worshipful Grand 
 Masters. They rather avoided you; seemed, indeed, as many thought, 
 somewhat ashamed of you and your old anniversaries. Onoe upon a 
 time, no Irish nobleman or British Minister dared make light of the 
 
 * I attribute these placards to Lord Clarendon without scruple. They were printed 
 by the Government printer, and paid for out of our taxes. But it is quite possible that 
 the Viceroy, if charged with these things, would deny them, because they were done 
 through a third party— perhaps Birch. In like manner he denied all knowledge of the 
 shipment of muskets to the Belfast Orangemen: they were sent, however, from his 
 Castie, and through a subordinate official of his houschola. 
 
OF IRELAND, (pErvHAPs). 177 
 
 colours of Ar.o;brim. and the Boyne. But cau you divine any cause for 
 the Rudden change of late ? Do you understand why the Whig Lord 
 Clarendon calls you so many nanjes of endearment, and the Earl of 
 Enniskillen tenderly entreats you as a father his only child ? Can these 
 men wayit anything from you ? 
 
 " Let U3 see what the drift of their addresses generally is. Lord 
 Clarendon, the English governor, congratulates you on your ' loyalty,' 
 and your * attachment to the Constitution,' and seems to calculate, 
 though I know not why, upon a continuance of those exalted sentiments 
 in the North. Lord Enniskillen, the Irish nobleman, for his part, 
 cautions you earnestly against Popery and Papists, and points out how 
 completely you would be overborne and swamped by Catholic majorities 
 in all public affairs. 
 
 " My Lord Enniskillen does not say a word to you about what is, 
 after all, the main concern, the tenure of your farms; not one word. 
 It is about your Protestant interest he is uneasy. He is apprehensive, 
 not lest you should be evicted by landlords, and sent to the poor-house, 
 but lest Purgatory and Seven vSacraments should be thrust down your 
 throats. This is simply a Protestant pious fraud of his lordship's; 
 merely a right worshipful humbug. Lord Enniskillen, and every other 
 commonly informed man, knows that there is now no Protestant in- 
 terest at all; that there is absolutely nothing left for Protestant and 
 Catholic to quarrel for; even the Church Establishment is not a 
 Catholic and Protestant question, inasmuch as all Disseuters, and all 
 plebeian churchmen, are as much concerned to put an end to that 
 nuisance as Catholics are. Lord Enniskillen knows, too, (or if he do 
 not, he is the very stupidest Grand Master in Ulster), that an ascen- 
 dancy of one sect over another is from henceforth impossible: the fierce 
 religious zeal that animated our Withers on both sides is utterly dead 
 and gone. I do not know whether this is for our advantage or not: 
 but, at any rate, it is gone; nobody in all Europe would now so much 
 as understand it; and if any man talks to you now of religious 
 sects, when the matter in hand relates to civil and political rights, to 
 administration of government, or distribution of property, — depend 
 on it, though he wear a coronet on his head, he means to 
 cheat you. 
 
 " In fact, religious hatred has been kept alive in Ireland longer than 
 anywhere else in Christendom, just for the simple reason that Irish 
 landlords and British statesmen found their own account in it; and so 
 soon as Irish landlordism and British dominion are finally rooted out 
 of the country, it will be heard of no longer in Ireland, any more than 
 it is in France or Belgium now. 
 
 " If you have any doubt whether Lord Enniskillen means to cheat 
 you, I only ask you to remember: Jirst, that he has written you a long 
 and parental letter, upon the state of the country, and has not once 
 alluded to your Tenant-right; and, second, that he belongs to that class 
 of persons from whom alone can come any danger to your Tenant-right, 
 — which is your life and property. 
 
 " As for Lord Clarendon and his friendly addresses, exhorting to 
 'loyalty' and attachment to the institutions of the country, I ifeed 
 
1^8 THE LASl CONQtrEST 
 
 hardly tell you Jie is a cheat. What institutions of the country are 
 there to be attached to ? That all who pay taxes should have a voice in the 
 outlay of those taxes, is not one of our institutions; — that those who 
 create the whole wealth of the State by their labour, should get leave 
 to live, like Christians, on the fruits of that labour, tJiis is not amongst 
 the institutions of the country. Tenant-right is not an institution of 
 the country. No; out-door relief is our main institution at present — 
 our Magna Charia—onT Bill of Rights. A high-paid church and a 
 low-fed people are institutions; stipendiary clergyman, packed juries, a 
 monstrous army and navy, which we pay, not to defend, but to coerce 
 us; — these are institutions of the country. Indian meal, too, strange 
 to say, though it grows four thousand miles off, has come to be an insti- 
 tution of this country. Are these the ' venerable institutions ' you are 
 expected to shoulder muskets to defend ? 
 
 " But, then, ' Protestants have always been loyal men. ' Have they ? 
 And what do they mean by ' loyalty ' f I have never found that, in the 
 north of Ireland, this word had any meaning at all, except that we, 
 Protestants, hated the Papists, and despised the French. This; I think, 
 if you will examine it, is the true; theory of ' loyalty ' in Ulster. I 
 can hardly fancy any of my countrymen so totally stupid as to really 
 prefer high taxes to low taxes — to be really proud of the honour of 
 supporting ' the Prince Albert ' and his Lady, and their children, and 
 all the endless list of cousins and uncles that they have, in magnificent 
 idleness, at the sole expense of half-starved labouring people. I should 
 like to meet the northern farmer, or labouring man, who would tell me, 
 in so many words, that he prefers dear government to cheap government; 
 that he likes the House of Brunswick better than his own house; that 
 he would rather have the affairs of the country managed by foreign 
 noblemen and gentlemen than by himself and his neighbours; that he 
 is content to pay, equip, and arm an enormous army, and give the 
 command of it to those foreign noblemen, and to be disarmed himself, 
 or liable to be disarmed, as you are, my friends, at any moment. I 
 should like to see the face of the Ulsterman who would say plainly 
 that he deems himself unfit to have a voice in the management of his 
 own affairs, the outlay of his own taxes, or the government of his own 
 country. If any of you will admit this, I own he is a ' loyal ' man, and 
 'attached to our venerable institutions;' and I wish him joy of his 
 loyalty, and a good appetite for his yellow meal. 
 
 " Now, Lord Clarendon and Lord Enniskillen want you to say all 
 this. The Irish noble and the British statesman want the very same thing; 
 they are both in a tale. The Grand Master knows that if you stick 
 by your loyalty, and uphold British connection, you secure to him his 
 coronet, his influence, and his rental — discharged of Tenant-right, and 
 all plebeian claims. And Lord Clarendon knows, on his side, that if 
 you uphold landlordism, and abandon Tenant-right, and bend all your 
 energies to resisting the 'encroachments of Popery,' you thereby 
 perpetuate British dominion in Ireland, and keep the ' Empire ' going, 
 yet a little while. Irish landlordism has made a covenant with British 
 government, in these termp.: - ' Keep down for mo my tenantry, my 
 peasantry, my vtassea, in due submission, witli your troops and lavYs; — 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPs). 179 
 
 aud I will garrison the island for you, and hold it, as your Iie;4em;in and 
 vassal for ever.' 
 
 " Do you not know in your very hearts, that this is true ? and still 
 you are 'loyal' and attached to the institutions of the country! 
 
 " I tell you, frankly, that I, for one, am not ' loyal. ' I am not 
 wedded to the Queen of England, nor unalterably attached to the 
 House of Brunswick. In fact, I love my own barn better than I love 
 that House. The time is long past when Jehovah anointed kings. 
 The thing has long since grown a monstrous imposture^ and has been 
 already, in some civilized countries, detected as such, and drummed 
 out accordingly. A modern king, my friends, is no more like an 
 ancient anointed shepherd of the people than an archbishop's apron 
 is like the TJrim and Thummin. There is no divine right now but 
 in the sovereign people. 
 
 " And, for the * institutions of the country, ' I loathe and despise 
 them; we are sickening and dying of these institutions, fast; they are 
 consuming us like a plague, degrading us to paupers in mind, body, and 
 estate, — yes, making our very souls beggarly and cowardly. They are 
 a failure and a fraud, these institutions; — from the topmost crown-jewel 
 to the meanest detective's note-book, there is no soundness in them. 
 God and man are weary of them. Their last hour is at hand; and I 
 thank God that I live in the days when I shall witness the utter down- 
 fall, and trample upon the grave, of the most portentous, the grandest, 
 meanest, falsest, and cruellest tyranny that ever deformed this world. 
 
 " These, you think, are S'trong words : but they are not one whit 
 stronger than the feelings that prompt them — that glows this moment 
 deep ID the souls of moving and awakening millions of our fellow- 
 count''/men of Ireland; ay, and in your souls, too, Protestants of 
 Uls^dr, if you would acknowledge it to yourselves. I smile at the 
 formal resolution about ' loyalty to Queen Victoria, ' so eagerly passed 
 and hurried over as a dubious kind of form at Tenant-right meetings 
 and * Protestant Eepeal ' meetings. I laughed outright, here, on 
 Tuesday night last, at the suspicious warmth with which Dublin 
 merchants, as if half-afraid of themselves, protested so anxiously that 
 they would yield in loyalty to none. They, democrats by nature and 
 position, meeting there, without a nobleman to countenance them, — 
 with the Queen's representative scowling black upon them from his 
 castle, — are, they declare it with most nervous solemnity, loyal men. 
 Indeed, it was easy to see that a vague feeling was upon them of the 
 real meaning and tendency of all these meetings, — of what aU this 
 must end in, and to what haven they, and you, and we, are all, in a 
 happy hour, inevitably drifting together. 
 
 " My friends, the people's sovereignty, the land and sea and air of 
 Ireland for the people of Ireland: this is the gospel that the heavens 
 and the earth are preaching, and that all hearts are secretly burning to 
 embrace. Give up for ever that old interpretation you put upon the 
 word ' Eepeal. ' Eepeal is no priest-movement; it is no sectarian 
 movement; it is no money swindle, nor 'Eighty-two' delusion, nor 
 puffery, nor O'Connellism, nor Mulu.ghmast 'green-cap' ?^a:;e-play, 
 por ioud-sounding inanity of any sort, got up for any ina;; > i-totit <j? 
 
180 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 praise. It is the mighty, passionate struggle of a nation hastening to 
 be born into new national life; in which unspeakable throes all the 
 parts, and powers, and elements of our Irish existence, — our Confeder- 
 ations, our Protestant Eepeal Associations, our Tenant-right Societies, 
 our Clubs, Cliques, and Committees, — amidst confusions enough and 
 the saddest jostling and jumbling, — are all inevitably tending to one 
 and the same illustrious goal — not a local legislature — not a return to 
 * our ancient Constitution,' not a golden link or a patchwork Parliament, 
 or a College Green chapel-of-ease to Saint Stephen's — but an Irish 
 Republic, one and indivisible. 
 
 "And how are we to meet that day? In arms, my countrymen, 
 in arms. Thus, and not otherwise, have ever nations of men sprung to 
 liberty and power. But why do I reason thus with you, — with you, the 
 Irish of Ulster, who never have denied the noble creed and sacraments 
 of manhood ? You have not been schooled for forty years in the fatal 
 cant of moral force; you have not been utterly debauched and emas- 
 culated by the clap-trap platitudes of public meetings, and the empty 
 glare of • imposing demonstrations. ' You have not yet learned the 
 litany of slaves, and the whine of beaten hounds, and the way to die 
 a coward's death. No; let once the great idea of our country's destiny 
 seize on you, my kinsmen, and the way will be plain before you as a 
 pike-staff twelve feet long. 
 
 " Yet there is one lesson you must learn: — fraternal respect for your 
 countrymen of the South, and that sympathy with them, and faith in 
 them, without which there can be no vital nationality in Ireland. You 
 little know the history and sore trials and humiliations of this ancient 
 Irish race; ground and trampled first for long ages in the very earth, and 
 then taught — expressly taught — in solemn harangues, and even in ser- 
 mons, that it was their duty to die, and see their children die before their 
 faces, rather than resist their tyrants as men ought. You can hardly 
 believe that creatures with the gait and aspect of men could have been 
 brought to this. And you cannot wonder that they should have been 
 slow, slow, in struggling upward out of such darkness and desolation. 
 But I tell you, the light has at length come to them: the flowery spring 
 of this year is the dawning of their day; and before the corn fields of 
 Ireland are white for the reaper, our eyes shall see the sun flashing 
 gloriously, if the heavens be kind to us, on a hundred thousand pikes. 
 
 " I will speak plainly. There are now growing on the soil of Ireland 
 a wealth of grain, and roots, and cattle, far more than enough to sustain 
 in life and in comfort all the inhabitants of the island. That wealth 
 must not Uawt us another yea/r, — not until every grain of it is fought for 
 in every stage, from the binding of the sheaf to the loading of the ship. 
 And the effort necessary to that simple act of self-preservation will at 
 one and the same blow prostrate British dominion and landlordism 
 together. 'Tis but the one act of volition; — if we resolve but to im, 
 we make our country a free and sovereign State. 
 
 " Will you not gird up your loins for this p^reat national struggle, and 
 stand with your countrymen for life and land 1 Will you, the sons 
 of a warlike race, the inheritors of conquering memories, with the arms 
 at freemen in aU your homes, and relics of the gallant Bepublicans pf 
 
Ot IRELAND, (PEKHAPS). ISI 
 
 'Ninety-eight for ever before your eyes, — will you stand folding your 
 hands in helpless ' loyalty, ' and while every nation in Christendom is 
 seizing on its birthright with armed hand, will you take patiently your 
 rations of yellow meal, and your inevitable portion of eternal contempt ? 
 " If this be your determination, Protestants of Ulster, then make 
 haste, sign addresses of loyalty and confidence in Lord Clarendon, and 
 protest with that other Lord your unalterable attachment to *our 
 venerable institutions.' 
 
 "John Mitchel." 
 
 All this was open and outrageous " treason," of course; 
 admitting that Queen Victoria was then the Queen of Ireland, 
 and not a foreign tyrant. Yet, nine-tenths of the citizens 
 of Dublin would have, on their oath, found the writer not guilty; 
 and the liberal Whig Government were bound, by all their pro- 
 fessions, m)t to pack juries. But they were still more strongly 
 bound to crush the Press, and break the types, and fetter the 
 hand which sent forth weekly addresses of this sort, to be re-ad 
 and laid to heart by at least a hundred thousand men. 
 
 How they solv'ul this difficulty is to be told. 
 
]83 XHS LASX OONQUBSX 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 JURIES IN IRELAND — WHIG PROFESSIONS OF IMPARTIALITY — IN THK 
 DOCK — HOLMES CHALLENGING THE ARRAY — CLOSING SCENE — THE 
 CLUBS RESTRAINED — MY LAST WEEK IN IRELAND. 
 
 In this chapter I shall gladly take leave of myself ; for the moment 
 has arrived when I drop out of the history of Ireland, and disappear. 
 
 In provoking this legal contest with the enemy, my calculation 
 was that I should obtain over them an easy, signal, and most perilous 
 victory — provided they did not pack the jury. But, if they should 
 pack the jury, and snatch what they call a conviction by the usual 
 methods of British Government in Ireland, then I hoped the 
 people were now too thoroughly roused to submit peaceably to 
 such an outrage. 
 
 The matter oi juries had always been a knotty one in Ireland, 
 since the days of Edmund Spenser. The poet of the "Faery 
 Queene," being himself an English " undertaker," and the grantee 
 of forfeited estates, and being, therefore, the natural enemy of all 
 Irishmen, in his famous " View of the State of Ireland/' observes, 
 through the mouth of Irenceus: — 
 
 " Yet is the law of itself goode; and the first institution thereof being 
 given to all Englishmen very rightfully; but now that the Irish have 
 stepped into the very rooraes of our English, wee are now to become 
 heedful and provident in iuryes" * 
 
 In fact, the difficulty was, that with Irishmen on juries, the 
 English Sovereign never could obtain a verdict, either on inquisi- 
 tion into forfeited estates, or on criminal trials. Spenser, of course, 
 attributes this to a natural turn for perjury among the Irish : — 
 " they make no conscience to perjure themselves in the-f verdicts, 
 and damne their soules." Yet Sir John Davies, Attorney-General 
 of King James the First in Ireland, another very hostile authority, 
 bears testimony to the loyalty and love of law and justice which 
 prevailed in that island : " there being no nation under the sun 
 that did love equal and inditferent justice better than the Irish, or 
 that would rest better satisfied with the execution thereof, although 
 it were against themselves, so as they might have the protection 
 and benefit of the law, when upon a just cause they did de- 
 sire it." t 
 
 These discrepancies are only to be explained by recollecting that 
 
 • Speaser's View, p. 34. t Sir John D«vies His. Rel. 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPS). 183 
 
 the Irish never believed English "law" to be justice; but invari- 
 ably found that "law" was at one side and justice at the other; 
 which indeed they experience until this day. For some genera- 
 tions after Spenser's time, and during the whole period of the 
 penal laws, the British Government solved the difficulty by simply 
 excluding Irish Catholics from juries. But Catholic Emancipation 
 came; and liberal professions (especially from the Whigs) of a 
 desire to administer law impartially. You have already had occa- 
 sion to see how these professions were carried out on the trial of 
 O'Connell. In the cases of O'Brien and Meagher, the Crown offi- 
 cers had admitted one Irish Repealer on each jury, and failed. 
 
 It was manifest that the Whig theory would not work; and in 
 my case it was resolved that there must be no risk even of possible 
 failure. Yet the Whig Ministers were extremely reluctant to part 
 with their reputation for impartiality (which reputation, however, 
 was false); and, accordingly, only two days before my "pretended 
 trial," Lord John Russell, in answer to questions in the House of 
 Commons, declared that he had written to " his noble friend" (Lord 
 Clarendon), that "he trusted there would not arise any charge of 
 any kind of unfairness as to the composition of the juries; as, for 
 his own part, he would rather see those parties acquitted, than that 
 there should be any such unfairness/' 
 
 Lord Clarendon, however, informed him thai, for this once, he 
 could not afford to adhere to the Whig maxims, — that a conviction 
 must be had, ;per fas aut nefas. Not that the liberal and concili- 
 atory Whigs would openly renounce their honest policy; on the 
 contrary, they would pursue it more steadfastly than ever ; but I 
 must be out of the way first. His lordship counselled his colleagues 
 in this matter, as Ulysses counselled Neoptolemus, when the business 
 was to procure the arms from Philoctetes under false pretences : — 
 
 " I know, indeed, that it is not your natural disposition 
 To speak falsely, or to contrive injustice; 
 But — it is sweet to be the winner — 
 Do it this once, and aftervxirds we will be honest." 
 
 During the two weeks that I awaited my trial, it became well 
 known that the "Government" would pack my jury most carefully; 
 and our Dublin Confederate Clubs were becoming violently excited. 
 The boldest of them were for making an attack on Newgate prison : 
 letting the struggle commence there and then; cutting the gati- 
 pipes on some dark night; precipitating the clubs on Castlf, 
 barracks, and prisons; and either clearing out our metropolis of 
 the English enemy, or perishing amidst its ruins and cindens. 
 This was the right counsel I thought so then; and, after many 
 
184 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 years, I deliberately think so still. The English Government had 
 procured an "Act of Parliament" avowedly to make it felony to 
 say what nine- tenths of our people thought and felt; and was now 
 about to shut out those nine-tenths of our people from the exercise 
 of the common civic office of jurors, to crush one man (no matter 
 what man) under a notoriously false pretence. When I say false 
 pretence, it is not that I deny the matter charged to me, but that 
 I deny having ever been tried at alL The false pretence was 
 the "trial." 
 
 The Attorney-General resolved that the trial should take place 
 at the regular Commission Court, or City Assizes; and that the 
 jury should not be a special, but a common one. On the striking 
 of special juries, he had discovered that I was fully able to expose, 
 at least, if not defeat, the secret machinations of the Crown Officer; 
 so I was to be arraigned before a common jury of Dublin citizens, 
 selected by the Sheriff to serve on the pending Commission. 
 
 The Juror's Book, containing a list of all the qualified house- 
 holders of Dublin, whose property entitled them to serve as jurors, 
 had 4,570 names, of ^Lom 3,000 were Catholics. Before my 
 arrest, the Sheriff had designated one hundred and fifty of these 
 jurors, and summoned them to attend on the Commission: but 
 after my arrest, the Sheriff, knowing that important business was 
 to be done — and being, as I have before explained, a creature of 
 the Crown, — altered that panel of one hundred and fifty names, 
 removed from it most of the Catholic names, and filled their places 
 not only with Protestants (that would not suffice), but with 
 Orangemen, Englishmen, tradesmen to the Lord Lieutenant, in 
 short, with people who were well known to be ready " to do the 
 Queen's business," as that sort of transaction is called in Ireland. 
 But it was not enough to pack the panel, — the jury was next to 
 be carefully packed out of that panel; a thing which was easy 
 enough; because the " Crown " in Ireland exercises the power of 
 unlimited challenge, in making up common juries. 
 
 Matters being thus prepared, on the 25th of May, I was brought 
 up from Newgate prison, by an underground passage, into the 
 Court House, on Green Street. Outside, the streets were occupied 
 by troops; and but few of my friends could gain admittance as 
 spectators. 
 
 The imagination of every reader must help me out here. Let 
 any high-spirited Irishman try to conceive himself in my place on 
 that day: confronting that coarse mimicry of law and justice; on the 
 brink of a fate worse than a thousand deaths; stationed in a dock 
 between two thieves, for having dared to aspire to the privilege of 
 freedom and manhood for myself and for my children; with all 
 
OF lEELAXD, (PERHAPS). 185 
 
 the hiirrible sufferings and high aspirations of my country crowding 
 on memory and imagination, and the moan of our perishing nation 
 seeming to penetrate even there, and to load the air I breathed; 
 beholding the cause of our ancient nationhood brought to be 
 decided, not, as I had hoped, by the proud array of our people in 
 the field, but by the ignominious parchments of a dastard lawyer 
 and the packed jury of a perjured Sheriff. Scorn almost overcame 
 indiejnation, as I saw the exquisitely elaborated preparations of 
 the enemy: and I felt that I would respect Lord Clarendon far 
 more if he had hired one of his detectives to stab me in the dark. 
 That would have been a crime; but surely not so vile and hideous 
 a crime as this prostitution of the Courts and the name and forms 
 of Justice. 
 
 The trial proceeded. The leading counsel for the defence was 
 old Robert Holmes, — the brother-in-law of Robert Emmet, — the 
 most eminent barrister in Ireland ; — who had always refused 
 the honour of a silk gown, and all other honours and promo- 
 tions, at the hands of a government which he believed 
 to be the mortal enemy of his country. Of course, he challenged 
 the array of jurors on the ground of fraud; but the Attorney- 
 General's brother, Stephen Monahan, clerk in the Attorney- 
 General's office, and also one Wheeler, clerk in the Sheriff's office, 
 had been carefully sent out of the city to a distant part of Ireland; 
 and Baron Lefroy was most happy to avail himself of the defect of 
 evidence to give his opinion that the panel was a good and honest 
 panel. The Crown used its privilege of peremptory challenge to 
 the very uttermost; every Catholic, and most Protestants, who 
 answered to their names, were ordered to " stand by." There 
 were thirty-nine challenges: nineteen Catholics, — all the Catholics 
 who answered to their names were peremptorily set aside, and 
 twenty other gentlemen, who, though Protestants, were suspected 
 of some national feeling, were also set aside: — that is to say, the 
 Crown dared not go to trial with me before the people, Catholic 
 or Protestant. The twelve men finally obtained by the sifting pro- 
 cess had amongst them two or three Englishmen ; the rest were 
 faithful slaves of the Castle; and all Protestants of the most 
 Orange dye. 
 
 Of course there was a " verdict " of guilty; and a sentence of 
 fourteen years' transportation. The facts charged were easily 
 proved; they were patent, notorious, often repeated, and ostenta- 
 tiously deliberate; insomuch that jurymen who felt themselves to 
 be subjects of the Queen of England could not do otherwise than 
 convict. On the other hand, any Irish Nationalist must acquit. 
 Never before had the government of the foreign enemy and th« 
 
186 THT? LAST CONQUEST 
 
 Irish people met in so plain an issue. Never before was it made 
 so manifest that the enemy's government maintains its supremacy 
 over Ireland by systematically breaking the "law," — even its own 
 law; by turning its judicial trials into solemn farces, its ermined 
 judges into bad actors, and its fountain of justice into an obscene 
 " mother of dead dogs." 
 
 Of course, both Mr Holmes, and the prisoner on trial, took good 
 care to manifest their sense of all this. Holmes informed the jury 
 that they knew themselves to be well and truly packed; and when 
 I was asked if I had anything to say why sentence should not be 
 passed upon me, I remarked that I had not been tried. Baron 
 Lefroy chose to interpret this as an impeachment of the jury for 
 perjury: but I took care to contradict the judge. I could not, in 
 that last moment of my life, afford to suffer any misrepresentation 
 of the true issue : so I interrupted him to declare that I did not 
 charge the jurors with perjury; but charged the sheriff (that is, 
 another name for the Queen), with empanelling only those who 
 were well known to be my mortal enemies. When the sentence 
 was passed, and every human being in court, friends and enemies, 
 stood aghast at its murderous severity, I addressed the judges in 
 a few sentences, wherein I concentrated all the disdain and defiance 
 that had been gathering in my heart for two days:— 
 
 " * The law has now done its part, and the Queen of England, her 
 crown and government in Ireland, are now secure, pursuant to Act of 
 Parliament. I have done my part also. Three mouths ago I promised 
 Lord Clarendon and his government, who hold this country for the 
 English, that I would provoke him into his courts of justice, as places 
 of this kind are called, and that I would force him, publicly and notori- 
 ously, to pack a jury against me to convict me, or else that I would 
 walk a free man out of this court, and provoke him to a contest in 
 another field. My lords, I knew I was setting my life on that cast; 
 but I knew that, in either event, victory should be with me; and it is 
 with me. Neither the jury, nor the judges, nor any other man in this 
 court presumes to imagine that it is a crimiaal who stands in this dock. 
 (Murmurs of applause, which the police endeavoured to repress). I 
 have shown what the law is made of in Ireland. I have shown that 
 her Majesty's government sustains itself in Ireland by packed juries — 
 by partizan judges— by perjured sheriffs ' 
 
 " After an interruption from Baron Lefroy — who * could not sit 
 there,' to suffer the prisoner at that bar to utter very nearly a repeti- 
 tion of the offence for which he had been sentenced — Mitchel pro- 
 ceeded — 
 
 " * What I have now to add is simply this : I have acted all through 
 this business, from the first, under a strong sense of duty. I do not 
 repent anything I have done; and I believe that the course which I 
 have opened is only commenced. The Koman, who saw his hand bum- 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPS). iSt 
 
 ing to ashes before the tyrant, promised that three hundred should 
 follow out his enterprise. Can I not promise for one, for two, for 
 three?' 
 
 " Indicating, as he spoke, Keilly, Martin, and Meagher. * Promise 
 for me ' — ' and me ' — ' and me, Mitchel,' rose around him in commingled 
 tones of earnest solemnity, passionate defiance, and fearless derotion, 
 from his friends and followers ; and, embracing the exciting scene in a 
 glance, he cried with proud eagerness — 
 
 " 'For one, for two, for three? Ay, for hundreds! ' 
 
 " A scene of immense excitement followed, in the midst of which 
 the judges fled from the bench, the prisoner was huddled off, waving 
 his hand to his friends; two of whom, Meagher and Doheuey, were 
 arrested for giving vent to the feeling impossible to suppress at such a 
 moment. 
 
 "After they had been discharged, and when order was restored, 
 Holmes rose to add his defiance to that of the prisoner. He said: — 
 
 " ' My lords : — I think I had a perfect right to use the language I 
 did yesterday. I wish now to state that what I said yesterday, as an 
 advocate, I adopt to-day as my own opinion. I here avow all I have 
 said; and, perhaps, under the late Act of Parliament, her Majesty's 
 Attorney-General, if I have violated the law, may think it his duty to 
 proceed against me in that way. I now say, with deliberation, that the 
 sentiments I expressed with regard to England, and her treatment of 
 this country, are my sentiments; and I here avow them openly. The 
 Attorney-General is present — I retract nothing. These are my well- 
 judged sentiments — these are my opinions as to the relative position of 
 England or Ireland, and I have, as you seem to insinuate, violated the 
 law by stating these opinions. I now deliberately do so again. Let 
 her Majesty's Attorney-General do his duty to his government: I have 
 done mine to my country.* '* 
 
 Before dismissing mysdf from the scene for ever, I will add that 
 if anything had been wanted to justify me, in my own eyes, for all 
 that I had done and meditated, the earnest and impassioned 
 advocacy of the brave old Republican of '98 would have contented 
 me well. It caused me to feel that my defeated life was at least 
 one link in the unbroken chain of testimony borne by my country 
 against foreign dominion; and with this consciousness I knew that 
 my chains would weigh light. " In this island," exclaimed 
 Meagher, " the English never, never shall have rest. The work 
 begun by the Norman never shall be completed." 
 
 An armed steamer waited in the river on the day of my sentence; 
 the whole garrison of Dublin was under arms, on pretence of a 
 review in the Park; a place was secretly designated for my 
 embarkation, below the city, where bridges over a canal, and over 
 the entrance to the Custom House docks could be raised, to pre- 
 vent any concourse of the people in that direction; and, two or 
 three bo^irs after the sentence^ I was hurried off in a close omnibai 
 
188 THE LAST CONQtJESl 
 
 filled with police, and carried by a circuit ou>. route to the river, 
 escorted by a force of cavalry and niountod police. 
 
 For two days before, the leaders of the Confederation had been 
 earnestly engaged in restraining the natural impulse of our Clubs to 
 attempt a rescue. Meagher and Reilly had been at first enger for this 
 desperate enterprise "I have but one life to give," exclaimed Reilly 
 to his Club, "and I give it: let others swear the same." Meagher 
 had declared that before the enemy should embark me in a con- 
 vict-ship, Kingstown harbour would be one pool of blood. But 
 O'Brien was absent from Dublin: some others of our Confederates 
 sincerely believed it would be criminal to expose the citizens, not 
 half-armed and not disciplined at all, to the hazard of so horrible 
 a carnage: others still have been charged with opposing all move- 
 ment out of personal hostility to me, or out of mere cowardice. I 
 have no care to scrutinize motives: and it is enough to know that 
 the most trusted men in the Confederation finally determined to 
 restrain the Clubs, and sufi'er the last act of this elaborate national 
 insult and outrage to be transacted in quiet. They came to me, 
 the day before the trial, in my prison, entreating me to issue an 
 Address to the Clubs under my own hand, that they should suffer 
 me to be carried away peacefully: I refused utterly; and perhaps 
 too bitterly. 
 
 Reilly fumed in silent rage. Meagher, being reluctantly coerced 
 by the majority of his comrades to check the fierce impulse of his 
 passion, laboured like the rest to calm the indignation of the 
 Clubs; and it is just to give his own account of his own coKduct. 
 In a speech to the Confederation, a few days after my removal, 
 he said : — 
 
 " In those feelings of depression and shame I deeply share; and from 
 the mistrust with which some of you, at least, may regard the members 
 of the late Council, I shall not hold myself exempt. If they are to 
 blame, so am I. Between the hearts of the people and thf bayonets 
 of the government, I took my stand, with the members of the Council, 
 and warned back the precipitate devotion which scoffed at prudence as 
 a crime. I am here to answer for that act. If you believe it to have 
 been the act of a dastard, treat me with no delicacy, — treat me with no 
 respect. Vindicate yoi^j* courage in the impeachment of the coward. 
 The necessities and perils of the cause forbid the interchange of courtesies. 
 Civilities are out of place in the whirl and tumult of the tempest. 
 
 "The address of the Council to the people of Ireland — the address 
 signed by William Smith O'Brien — bears witness to your determination. 
 It states that thousands of Confederates had pleged themselves that 
 John Mitchel should not leave these shores but through their blood. We 
 were bound to make this statement — bound in justice to you — bound 
 in honour to the country. Whatever odium may flow from that scene 
 of victorious defiance, in which the govomment played its part without 
 
OF IRELAND^ (PESHAJPs). 189 
 
 a stammer or a check, nonfi falls on you. You woula nave fought, 
 had we not seized your hands, and bound them. 
 
 " Let no foul tongue, then, spit its sarcasm upon the people. They 
 were ready for the sacrifice; and, had the word been given, the stars 
 would burn this night above a thousand crimsoned graves. The guilt 
 is ours; let the sarcasms fall upon our heads. 
 
 •' We told you in the clubs, four days previous to the trial, the reasons 
 that compelled us to oppose the project of a rescue. The concentration 
 of 10,000 troops upon the city — the incomplete organization of the people 
 — the insufficiency of food, in case of a sustained resistance — the uncer- 
 tainty as to how far the country districts were prepared to support 
 us; these were the chief reasons that forced us into an antagonism with 
 your generosity, your devotion, your intrepidity. Night after night we 
 visited the clubs, to know your sentiments, your determination; and to 
 the course wc instructed you to adopt, you gave, at length, a reluctant 
 sanction. 
 
 "Now, I do not think it would be candid in me to conceal the fact, 
 that the day subsequent to the arrest of John Mitchel, I gave expres- 
 sion to sentiments having a tendency quite opposite to the advice I have 
 mentioned. At a meeting of the ' Grattan Club,' I said that the Con- 
 federation ought to come to the resolution to resist by force the trans- 
 portation of John Mitchel; and, if the worst befel us, the ship that 
 carried him away should sail upon a sea of blood. I said this, and I 
 shall not now conceal it. I said this, and I shall not shrink from the 
 reproach of having acted otherwise. Upon consideration^ I became 
 convinced they were sentiments which, if acted upon, would associate 
 my name with the ruin of the cause. I felt it my duty, therefore, 
 to retract them— not to disown, but to co&denin them; not to shrink 
 from the respousibilit}' wliich the avowal of theiu might entail, but to 
 avert the disaster which the enforcement of them would ensure. 
 
 " You have now heard all T have to say on that point; and Avith a 
 conscience happy in the thought that it has concealed nothing, I shall 
 exi^tingly look forward to an event — the shadow of which already encom- 
 passes us— for the vindication of my conduct, and the attestation of my 
 truth. Call me coward — call me renegade; I will accept these titles as 
 the penalties which a fidelity to my convictions has imposed. It will 
 be so for a short time only. To the end I see the path I have been 
 ordained to walk; and upon the grave which closes in that path, I can 
 read no coward's epitaph." 
 
 The enemy were themselve?. somewhat surprised at the ease 
 with Vv'hich they had borne me out of the heart of Dublin, at 
 noonday, in chains ; and evidently thought they would have but 
 small trouble in crushing any attempts at insurrection afterwards. 
 The Confederates waited until ^'the time" should come; and 
 some of them, indeed, were fully resolved to make an insurrectiou 
 in the harvest : yet, as might have been expected, " the time " 
 never came. The individual desperation of Dillon, Meagher. 
 O'Gorman, Leyne, Reilly, could achieve nothing while the people 
 were dispirited both by famine and by long submission to insolent 
 
 G 
 
190 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 oppression. "When will the time come ?" exclaimed Martin, "the 
 time about which your orators so boldly vaunt, amid the fierce 
 shouts of your applause? If it come not when one of you, 
 selected by your enemies as your champion, is sent to perish 
 among thieves and murderers, for the crime of loving and defend- 
 ing his native land, — then it will never come — never!" 
 
 Two or three other incidents of my last week on Irish ground 
 will help to fill up the picture of the time. Reilly was arrested 
 on the charge of saying to the members of his Club, when turn- 
 ing into their place of meeting — " Left wheel." It was a terra 
 of military drilling, though the Club-men were without weapons. 
 He was kept in a station-house all night ; and bail was refused in 
 the morning. In the course of the day he was fully committed 
 for trial, and bail was taken. During the whole week, the large 
 force of the city police had orders to stop all processions, to arrest 
 citizens, on any or on no charges ; and generally to "strike terror." 
 In the meantime, every day was bringing in more terrible news of 
 the devastation of the famine, and evictions of the tenantry. 
 "On Friday," says the Tipperary Vindicator, "the landlord 
 appeared upon the ground, attended by the sheriff and a body of 
 policemen, and commenced the process of ejectment," &c. On 
 that morning, and at that spot, thirty persons were dragged out 
 of their houses, and the houses pulled down. One of the evicted 
 tenants was a widow — " a solvent tenant comes and offers to pay 
 the arrears due by the widow ; but a desire on Mr Scully's part 
 to consolidate prevented the arrangement." 
 
 The same week a writer in the CorJc Examiner, writing from 
 Skibbereen, says: — 
 
 "Our town presents nothing but a moving mass of military imd 
 police, conveying to and from the court-house crowds of famine culprits. 
 I attended the court for a few hours this day. The dock was crowded 
 with the prisoners, not one of whom, when called up for trial, was able 
 to support himself in front of the dock. The sentence of the court was 
 received by each prisoner with apparent satisfaction. Even transporta- 
 tion appeared to many to be a relaxation from their sufferings." 
 
 " One of the jurors," it is added, " proposed a resolution that 
 the government were the authors of the misery, and hoped 
 his brother jurors would mark their disapprobation of such a 
 government." But his brother jurors would do nothing of the kind: 
 too many of his brother jurors, no doubt, expected some small 
 place about the great government "relief works:" they could not- 
 afford to " mark their disapprobation." 
 
 On Tuer^day of the samr^ wfpk,--it Wmrt then well known that 
 the Crown vvouiil pack their jury,— a meeting of the citizens of 
 
OP IRELAND, (perhaps). 191 
 
 DubHTv was held at the Royal Exchange to protest; and Mr John 
 O'Conuell went so far as to move this resolution:— 
 
 " Resolved — ^-f hat we consider the right of trial by a jury as a most 
 sacred inheritance — in the security of person, property, and character.'* 
 
 The meeting then proceeded to protest against " the practice of 
 arranging juries to obtain convictions." During the same week 
 the poor-houses, hospitals, gaols, and many buildings, taken tem- 
 porarily for the purpose, were overflowing with starving wretches; 
 and fevered patients were occupying the same bed with famished 
 corpses : but on every day of the same week large cargoes of grain 
 and cattle were leaving every port for England. The Orangemen 
 of the North were holding meetings to avow hostility to Repealers 
 and to " Jezebel," and eagerly crying, *' To hell with the Pope ! " 
 Thus British policy was in full and successful operation at every 
 point) on the day when I left my country in the fetters of the 
 enemy. 
 
 Henceforth, I know nothing of Irish affairs from personal obser- 
 vation; and must content myself with epitomizing the rest of the 
 dreary story from other authorities. 
 
192 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 TRIUMPH OF THE ENEMY— THE "IRISH TRIBUNE" — THE EDITORS — 
 HABEAS CORPUS SUSPENDED —NUMEROUS ARRESTS — o'bRIEN TAKES 
 TO THE COUNTRY — CARRICK — KILLENAULE — BALLINGARRY — 
 DISPERSION OF THE PEOPLE — NO INSURRECTION. 
 
 The whole British Press, which never strikes so viciously at an 
 enemy as when he is down and in chains, sent after me on my 
 dark voyage one continuous shriek of execration and triumph that 
 came to my ear even in my Bermuda prison. The "government" 
 was to have no trouble, as they fondly flattered themselves, thence- 
 forth. Ireland, once cleared of we, was to be manageable. There 
 was to be no more jury-packing if possible, and conciliatofy govern- 
 ment was to commence with Habeas Corpus, Trial by Jury, and 
 other Palladia of the British Constitution. 
 
 But the enemy was somewhat too sanguine. The profound passion 
 of wrath and shame, kindled throughout Ireland by the incidents of 
 my pretended trial, could not sink down and allay itself so speedily 
 as the ameliorative enemy hoped. At the next meeting of the 
 Confederation j Meagher, in a most noble and intensely passionate 
 speech which I have already cited, said : — 
 
 " We are no longer masters of our lives. They belong to our country 
 — to liberty — to vengeance ! Upon the walls of Newgate a fettered 
 hand has inscribed this destiny. We shall be the martyrs or the rulers 
 of a revolution. . . . Once again they shall have to pack their jury- 
 box; once again exhibit to the world the frauds and mockeries, the 
 tricks and perjuries, upon which their power is based.'' 
 
 Once again ! Yes, indeed, and more than once, they were to 
 pack their jury. True, they felt reluctant to do it; but the alter- 
 native was, — to pack juries, or give up Ireland. This, indeed, had 
 become too apparent. The open and audacious proceedings which 
 had taken place on my trial made it clear that the enemy would, 
 without scruple, " exhibit to the world fraud and mockeries, tricks 
 and perjuries " — but that they could not bear to think of exhibiting 
 to the world the spectacle of Ireland wrested out of the clutches 
 of England. 
 
 The fierce enthusiasm of our Confederates was redoubled after 
 my removal. They hoped, at least, that if they were restrained 
 from action then, it was to some good end, with some sure and 
 well-defined purpose, and there were many thousands of men then 
 
OF IRELAND, (PEEHAPS). 193 
 
 In Ireland, wLo longed y.nd 'Dunied, for that end and that purpose, 
 to earn an honourable deatJi. How tlie British system disappointed 
 them even of an honourable death, remains still to be told. A 
 man can die in Ireland of hunger, or of famine-typhus, or of a 
 broken heart, or of delirium tremens; but to die for your country, 
 —the death dulce et decorum, — to die on a fair field, fighting for 
 freedom and honour, — to die the death even of a defeated soldier, 
 as Hofer died; or so much as to mount the gallows like Robert 
 Emmet, to pay the penalty of a glorious " treason," — even this was 
 an euthanasia which British policy could no longer afford to an Irish 
 Nationalist. 
 
 Yet with all odds against them, — with the Irish gentry 
 thoroughly corrupted or frightened out of their senses, and with 
 the " government" enemy obviously bent on treating our national 
 aspiration as an ignominious crime, worthy to be ranked only with 
 the offences of burglars or pickpockets, — still there were men re- 
 solved to dare the worst and uttermost for but one chance of 
 rousing that down-trodden people to one manful effort of resistance 
 against so base and cruel a tyranny. The Irish Confederation re- 
 constituted its Council, and set itself more diligently than ever to 
 the task of inducing the people to procure arms, with a view to a 
 final struggle in the harvest. And as it was clear that there was 
 nothing the enemy dreaded so much as a bold and honest news- 
 paper which would expose their plots of slaughter and turn their 
 liberal professions inside out, it was before all things necessary 
 to establish a newspaper to take the place of the United Irishman. 
 
 It was a breach as deadly and imminent as ever yawned in a 
 beleaguered wall; but men were found prompt to stand in it. 
 Within two weeks after my trial, the Irish Tribune was issued, 
 edited by O'Doherty, Williams, and Antisell. In two weeks more, 
 on the 24th of June, came forth another and perhaps the ablest of 
 our revolutionary organs, — the Irish Felon. Its editor and pro- 
 prietor was John Martin; a quiet country gentleman of the county 
 Down, who had been for years connected with all national movements 
 in Ireland, — the Repeal Association, the Irish Confederation, — 
 but who had never been roused to the pitch of desperate resistance 
 till he saw the bold and dashing atrocity of the enemy on the occasion 
 of my pretended "trial." He came calmly to the conviction that 
 the nation must now at last set its back to the wall; and that if 
 no other would lead in this, he would. From the opening article, 
 signed with Martin's name, I extract a paragraph or two, as 
 sufficient indication of his position and purpose: — 
 
 ** At the time when John Mitchel lay in Newgate prison expecting 
 
lOi 
 
 TUlC J.AST C0NQITi;3T 
 
 Avhiit fate Lord Olarenaon's * loaded dioe' i.nifliiljm,?, I atnted iiaSTny 
 opinion that if the Irish people periiuttod the F^nrrlish Mini.-iry to con- 
 summate his legal murder, the national cause ^vonld be rained for tlii'i 
 generation. The transportation of a man as a felon for uttering senti- 
 ments held and professed by at least five-sixths of his countrymen, 
 seemed to me so violent and so insulting a national wrong, that submis- 
 sion to it must be taken to signify incurable slavishness. The English 
 Government, the proclaimed enemy of our nationality, had deliberately 
 selected John Mitchel to wreak their vengeance upon him as represen- 
 tative of the Irish nation. By indicting him for ' felony ' they virtually 
 indicted five-sixths of the Irish people for ' felony.' By sentencing him 
 to fourteen years' transportation to a penal settlement, they pronounced 
 five-sixths of the Irish people guilty of a crime worthy of such punish- 
 ment; and they declare that every individual of the six millions of Irish 
 Eepealers who escapes a similar doom, escapes it not through right and 
 law, but through the mercy or at the discretion of the English Minister. 
 The audacity of our tyrants must be acknowledged. They occupy our 
 country with military force, in our despite, making barracks of our very 
 marts and colleges, as if to defy and to challenge any manly pride that 
 might linger among our youth. They i^ervertour police force into an 
 organization of street bullies, as if to drive all peace-loving, industrious 
 citizens into the ranks of disaffection. They insult the poor dupes of 
 * legal and constitutional ' agitation, and rudely open their eyes to the 
 real nature of foreign rule, by such an outrage on public decency and 
 justice as this 'trial/ aggravated as it must be by the official meanness, 
 brutality, hypocrisy, and perjury, requisite for effecting their object. 
 They took measures to provoke the active hostility of all Irishmen who 
 loved justice, or respected religion. They defied and challenged all 
 parties of the Irish people; and I did think that such a challenge could 
 not honourably or prudently be refused, and that the abject submission 
 of the Irish people in that matter might destroy the national cause for 
 this generation. 
 
 " I must frankly say that I still disapprove of the policy pursued by 
 the Repeal leaders on that occasion; but I believe that their motives, 
 whether mistaken or not, were honourable; and I am satisfied that there 
 is a strong and growing spirit of resistance among Repealers of all 
 parties, as well as a spreading disafiection to the foreign tyranny among 
 those Irishmen who have not yet pronounced for Ireland. And, on the 
 whole, I perceive sufficient reasons for expecting the success of the 
 national cause. 
 
 " That I do not now exile myself, is a proof that I hope to witness the 
 overthrow, and assist in the overthrow of that most abominable tyranny 
 the world now groans under — the British imperial system. 
 
 " To gain permission for the Irish people to care for their own lives, 
 their own happiness and dignity; to abolish Jhe political conditions 
 which compel the classes of our people to hate and to murder each other, 
 and which compel the Irish people to hate the very name of the Eng- 
 lish — to end the reign of fraud, perjury, corruption, and * government* 
 butchery, and to make law, order, and peace possible in Ireland — The 
 Irish Felon takes its place among the combatants in the holy war now 
 
OK irMXAXD, (fi'^^ijaps). 105 
 
 waging in this island against foreign tyranny. In conducting it, my 
 weapons shall be — th6 truths the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 
 «o help me God/ * John Martin." 
 
 Reilly was an ardent fellow-labourer with Slartin; and James 
 Finton Lalor, of Kildare county, came up to Dublin and threw 
 himself into the work. Lalor was the most powerful political 
 writer that our cause had yet called forth, if I except Davis only. 
 These two journals established themselves in Trinity Street; one 
 in my office, and the other next door to it: so that instead of one 
 regular avowed organ of insurrection, the enemy had to deal with 
 two. Mr Duffy, also, in the Nation, became now as urgent and 
 vehement in exciting the people to resistance as I had been, or as 
 the Tribune or Felon themselves. For five weeks thereafter truth 
 and manhood, that is, " treason-felony," were openly taught and 
 enforced; but six weeks would have been too much. The police 
 were ordered to forcibly stop the sale of papers by vendors in the 
 streets; and warrants were issued for the arrest of all the Editors, 
 — Martin, Duffy, O'Doherty, and Williams. The country was 
 beginning to bristle with pikes; men were praying for the whiten- 
 ing of the harvest; and it was plain that, before the reign of 
 " Law and Order " should begin, other terrible examples must be 
 made; other juries must be packed; then, after that, a Whig 
 "government" would surely begin to deal with Ireland in a 
 conciliatory spirit ! 
 
 Throughout all these scenes, the horrible famine was raging as 
 it had never raged before; — and the police and military, both in 
 towns and the country, were busily employed in the service of 
 ejecting' tenants, — pulling down their houses, — searching out and 
 seizing hidden weapons, — and escorting convoys of grain and 
 provisions to the seaside, as through an enemy's country. Yet 
 rumours began to grow and spread (much exaggerated rumours, as 
 I fear), of a very general arming amongst the peasantry and the 
 Club-men of the towns; and the police had but small success in 
 their searches for arms; for, in fact, these were carefully built into 
 stone walls, or carried to the graveyards, with a mourning funeral 
 escort, and buried in cofHns, shrouded in well-oiled flannel, " in 
 hope of a happy resurrection." 
 
 The enemy thought it wisest not to wait for the harvest; and 
 resolved to bring matters to a head at once. According!}'', they 
 asked Parliament to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland, so 
 as to enable them to seize upon any person or number of persons 
 whom they might think dangerous, and throw them into prison 
 without any charge against them. Parliament passed the Bill at 
 onc«; and in truth it is an ordinary procedure for Ireland. 1\ 
 
196 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 may occur as a curious reflection, that, whereas the British 
 Constitution, that wonder and envy of surrounding nations, is said 
 to hold out as its bulwark and paladiura, those two immortal 
 rights of Britons, — Trial by Jury, and the Habeas Corpus Act, — 
 the same Constitution has never been able to maintain itself in 
 Ireland, save by subverting Trial by Jury, and suspending the 
 Habeas Corpus Act. 
 
 Instantly numerous warrants were placed in the hands of the 
 omnipresent police; and in every town and village in Ireland 
 sudden arrests were made. The enemy had taken care to inform 
 themselves who were the leading: and active Confederates all over 
 the island, — the Presidents and Secretaries of Clubs, and zealous 
 organizers of drilling and pike-exercise. These were seized from 
 day to day, sometimes with circumstances of brutality, (which was 
 useful to the enemy in "striking terror,") and thrust into dungeons, 
 or paraded before their feliovv^-citizens in chains. Martin and the 
 other editors were in Newgate prison, awaiting transportation as 
 felons. Warrants were out against O'Brien and Meagher. 
 
 Well, the time had come at last. If Ireland had one blow to 
 strike, now was her day. Queen Victoria would not wait till 
 the autumn should place in tha people's hands the ample commis- 
 sariat of their war; and decreed that if they would fight, they 
 should, at least, fight fasting. O'Brien was at the house of a 
 friend in Wexford county, when he heard of the suspension of the 
 Habeas Corpus, and that a warrant had issued for his own arrest. 
 He was quickly joined by Dillon and Meagher. Doheny and 
 MacManus, with some others, betook themselves to the Tip- 
 perary hills, and "put themselves upon the country." O'Gor- 
 man hurried to Limerick and Clare, to see what preparation 
 existed there for the struggle, and to give it a direction. Keilly 
 and Smith ranged over Kilkenny and Tipperary, eagerly seeking 
 for insurrectionary fuel ready to be kindled; sometimes in com- 
 munication with O'Brien and his party, at other times alone. To 
 O'Brien, on account of his character, his services, and his value to the 
 cause, the leadership seemed to be assigned by common consent. 
 
 It comes very easy to men who sat at home in those days, and 
 did and attempted to do nothing, to criticise the proceedings of 
 O'Brien and those brave men who sought in his company for an 
 honourable chance of throwing their lives away. But it must be 
 obvious, from the narrative of the three years' previous famine, 
 what a hopeless sort of material for spirited national resistance was 
 then to be found in the rural districts of Ireland. Bands of exter- 
 minated peasants, trooping to the already too full poor-houses; 
 straggling columns of hunted wretches, with their old people, 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPS;. 197 
 
 wives, and little ones, wending their way to Cork or Waterford, to 
 take shipping for America; the people not yet ejected, frightened 
 and desponding; with no interest in the lands they tilled, no pro- 
 perty in the house above their heads; no food, no arms, with the 
 slavish habits bred by long ages of oppression ground into their 
 souls, and that momentary proud flush of passionate hope kindled 
 by O'ConnelFs agitation, long since dimmed and darkened by bitter 
 hunger and hardship, — Ah ! how could the storm-voice of Demos- 
 thenes, and the burning song of Tyrtseus rouse such a people as this! 
 A whole Pentecost of fiery tongues, if they descended upon such a 
 dull material, would fall extinguished in smoke and 8l:-3nch like a 
 lamp blown out. 
 
 So one might well anticipate : and so it would assuredly be 
 amongst any other peasantry on earth, who had been so long sub- 
 jected to a similar treatment. But there is in the Irish nature a 
 wonderful spring and an intense vitality: insomuch that I believe, 
 even now, the chances of a successful insurrection in' 48 to have 
 been by no means desperate. At any rate, O'Brien and his com- 
 rades were resolute to give the people a chance; knowing full well 
 that though they should be mown down in myriads by shot and 
 steel, it would be a better lot than poor-houses and famine graves. 
 
 It is needful, here, to speak of the Irish priesthood and the part 
 which they taok in that last agony of our country. Hitherto I 
 have not had occasion to say much of the Catholic Church, though 
 it makes so potent an element in Irish life, for the reason that in 
 all vehement popular movements it always follows the people, and 
 never leads: unless the movement be strong and sweeping enough, 
 to command and coerce the clergy, the clergy keep aloof from it 
 altogether. Instinctively, the Church adheres to what is estab- 
 lished, opposes violent action, sympathizes only with success. 
 Thus, in O'Connell's Repeal Agitation, several bishops held them- 
 selves neutral; and hundreds of priests, as was well known, were 
 zealous Repealers against their will; only because the popular pas- 
 sion was too strong for them to resist. About the time of my 
 imprisonment, and before the "government" had shown themselves 
 thoroughly resolved to put forth all their resources both of force 
 and fraud to crush us, many of the Catholic clergy had come over 
 to the " Young Ireland " party, which then promised to be strong 
 enough to command the services of the Church. Some of them, I 
 am happy to acknowledge, being more Irishmen than Romans, did 
 from the first fully sympathize with the national aspirations of 
 their island, — did profoundly feel her wrongs, and burn to redress 
 or avenge them. When the final scene opened, however, and the 
 yflioh mi^ht of the empire was gathering itself to crush us, tl^e 
 
198 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 clergy, as a body, were found on the .side of the enemy. They 
 hoped more /or their Church in a utiioii with monrirchial and aristo- 
 cratic England than in an Ireland revolutionized and republican; 
 and having taken tlieir part, they certainly did the enemy's busi- 
 ness well. 
 
 It i« plain, then, against what desperate odds O'Brien and 
 his friends took the field. The utter failure to make, I do not 
 say a revolution, but even insurrection, cannot be understood 
 without explaining all these elements of the problem which had 
 arisen to be solved. On tlie 24th of July, O'Brien and Meagher 
 came to the small tov/n of Callan ; marched to the Market-house ; 
 found it occupied by a party of the 8th Hussars. 
 
 " At the moment we entered, they were busy cleaninf; their bridles, 
 saddles, carbines, sword-belrs, and other accoutren^.ents. Seeint,' the 
 crowd approach the Market-hoase, some of them were for starting off, 
 at first, and leavinii the position in the hands of the ' enemy. ' 
 
 " I told them there was no necessity for their leaving the building; 
 that no advantage would be taken of them; that their arms were just 
 as safe there as they would be in Dublin Castle; perhaps more so. 
 
 " ' We know that, sir,' replied the young corporal, ' we know well 
 you wouldn't take an unfair advantage of the poor soldiers; at any rate 
 you wouldn't do it to the Irish Huzzars.' 
 
 " ' Three cheers,' I cried out, going to the door, and calling upon the 
 people, * three cheers, boys, for the 8th Eoyal Irish Huzzars ! " 
 
 The Hussars would probably have loved them much better if 
 they had at once taken the arms and horses of the first troops 
 they encountered, and proceeded to the next town. 
 
 A day or two afterwards, at Carrick-on-Suir: — 
 
 " A torrent of human beings, rushing through lanes and narrow 
 streets; surging and boiling against the white basements that hemmed 
 it in ; whirling in dizzy circles, and tossing up its dark waves, with 
 sounds of wrath, vengeance, and defiance; clenched hands, darting 
 high above the black and broken surface^ and waving to and fro, with 
 the wildest confusion, in the air; eyes, red with rage and desperation, 
 starting and flashing upwards through the billows of the flood; long 
 tresses of hair — disordered, drenched and t;nigled — streaming in the 
 roaring wind of voices, and, as in a shipv/reck, rising and falling with 
 the foam; wild, half-stifled, passionate, frantic prayers of "^pe; invo- 
 cations, in sobs, and thrilling wailings, and piercing crie^ j) the God 
 of heaven, His Saints, and the Virgin Mary; challenges to the foe; 
 curses on the Red Flag; scornful, exulting, delirious defiance of death; 
 all wild as the winter gusts at sea, yet as black and fearful too; this is 
 what I then beheld— these the sounds I heard—such the dream which 
 passed before me! 
 
 "It was the Revolc tion, if we had accepted it. 
 
 " Why it was not accepted, I fear, I cannot witli srfTicient accuracy 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPS). 199 
 
 The explanation is various. With what passionate enthusiasm 
 soever this devoted band was at first welcomed, whether in citj or 
 country, the Catholic clergy (for which may God forgive them !) 
 if they had recommended but a few hours before any decisive 
 action, took care to cool it off, and succeeded in frightening the 
 simple people. Then the people themselves were unprovided 
 generally with arms and food ; there was neither chest nor com- 
 missariat. Then, O'Brien resolutely refused to supply this want 
 by the only resource in his power ; refused to commence a struggle 
 which he felt to be for man's dearest rights by attacking and 
 plundering the estates and mansions of the gentry, — who, how- 
 ever, were then generally fortified and barricaded in their own 
 houses, to hold the country for the enemy. 
 
 For several days he went from place to place, attended by his 
 friends, followed sometimes by two or three hundred people, half- 
 armed, always expecting to meet a party with a w;i.rrant for his 
 arrest, in which case it would be war, both defensive and offensive, 
 to the last extremity. All around bim were country mansions of 
 nobles and gentlemen who had openly avowed themselves (in their 
 "Addresses of Confidence") for the English, and against their own 
 people, and who had publicly branded hmi as a rebel, and offered 
 their lives and fortunes for the work of crushing him : and he, an 
 outlaw, with arms in his hands, and a force gathering around him 
 burning to begin the work — would not molest a single enemy, nor 
 even exact contributions from them to feed his followers and hold 
 them together. All this was resolved and done from the purest 
 and most conscientious motives, undoubtedly; but it would have 
 been much purer and more conscientious to make the people dip 
 their hands deep at once in British blood, and beckon the nation 
 to arms by the light of the blazing castles of Tipperary's extermi- 
 nating landlords. 
 
 Another day we find them at the village of Killenaule. O'Brien 
 and his few followers being then quartered in the place, news was 
 brought that a party of dragoons was approaching. A primitive 
 barricade was hastily thrown up across the village street, made of 
 carts and rubbish ; and Dillon commanded at the barricade. Mr 
 O'Brien's order was absolute — to let the dragoons pass on unless 
 they carried a warrant to arrest some of the party. The oj05cer 
 rode up, and demanded passage. Dillon replied that he com- 
 manded there for O'Brien ; and, if the officer would give his 
 word of honour that he had no warrants for arrest, he might 
 paar-:. As the officer imperiously demanded passage, Stephens 
 suddenly rai^^ed bis rifle and covered him: his finger was on the 
 trigger: one aiotaent, and Ireland was in insurrection. But Dillon 
 
200 iHE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 stern! J' ordered him to lower liis rifle, and, having removed some 
 carts, he himself led the officer's horse through the barricade, as a 
 sign to the people that the soldiers were not to be molested. The 
 dragoons went on their way. O'Brien was not yet at war; and 
 the villagers of Killenaul wondered what it meant. 
 
 All this while, from day to day, crowds of stout men, many of 
 them armed, flocked to O'Brien's company; but they uniformly 
 melted off, as usual, partly compelled by want of provisions, partly 
 under the influence of the clergy. The last time he had any con- 
 siderable party together was at Ballingarry, where forty-five armed 
 police had barricaded themselves in a strong stone house, under 
 the command of a certain Captain Trant, who certainly had the 
 long-expected warrant to arrest O'Brien, but who was afraid to 
 execute it until after the arrival of some further reinforcements. 
 O'Brien went to one of the front windows and called on 
 Captain Trant to surrender. Trant demanded half an hour 
 to consider, and got it. During this half hour, some of the crowd 
 had thrown a few stones through the windows; and Captain Trant, 
 seeing that the people could not be controlled much longer by 
 O'Brien, gave orders to fire. O'Brien rushed between the people 
 and the window, climhed upon the window, and once more called 
 on the police to srrrender. At the first volley from the house two 
 men fell dead, and others were wounded; and the crowd on that 
 side fell back, leaving O'Brien almost alone in the garden before 
 the house. [For a garden there certainly was; though whether 
 the celebrated "cabbage" grew there, I shall not certainly avouch]. 
 At the other side, Stephens and MacManus had been collecting 
 some straw and piling it against the door, with the intention o\ 
 burning the place and forcing the police out. But when O'Brien 
 leaiTied what they were about, he peremptorily forbade them to 
 set fire to it. Why, I have never learned; but MacManus has 
 since assured me that he almost kneeled to O'Brien for permission 
 to go and fire his pistol into that straw; in vain. In the meantime, 
 some priests made their appearance, and exhorted the people to 
 go home and leave O'Brien to his fate: then, shortly after, sixty 
 additional police marched up and relieved Captain Trant. " His 
 friends, then," says Mr Doheny, " pressed Mr O'Brien to retreat, 
 which he refused. By long and passionate entreaty they induced 
 him to mount the police officer's horse and retire." 
 
 Through all these scenes, O'Brien preserved the same calm and 
 impassive demeanour, exposing himself over foremost where there 
 was danger, as he was always wont to «io; l-nt mere bravery is 
 only one, and a quite minor one, of the qualities which fit a man 
 to kindle an insurrection under such discouraging circumstances, 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPS). 201 
 
 Nor is it rery clear that a Garibaldi could have gained victory, 
 though he might have made, at least, a fight. Of course, the 
 British were in high delight; and their Press, with its usual delicate 
 irony, named O'Brien the " hero of the cabbage garden." 
 
 In fact, there was no insurrection. The people in those two 
 or three counties did not believe that O'Brien meant to fight; and 
 nothing would now persuade them of that but some desperate 
 enterprise. Yet they were all ready and willing; and, indeed, are 
 at all times ready and willing to fight against English dominion. The 
 English ought to be grateful to O'Brien, that his extreme punctilio 
 about not striking the first blow, and his tender regard for human 
 life, suffered the passion of the people to cool, and enabled the 
 enemy to draw their toils around him. If he had at once raised 
 the green banner, with the Lamh Laidhir* on its folds, proclaimed 
 Tenant-Right, disarmed all the neighbouring police stations, and 
 precipitated himself upon some garrison town, all Munster, Leinstsr, 
 Connaught, and the half of Ulster, would have been in resistless 
 insurrection within one week. The enemy might have overpowered 
 a population, unarmed and half-starved, liko ours; but at least 
 the Last Conquest (Perhaps) would not have been consummated 
 without one stalwart blow. 
 
 * The strong hand ; the cognizance of the O'Briens. 
 
!202 THB 'uAS'r CONQUiiST 
 
 CHAPTEil XXIi. 
 
 ABREST OP O'BRIKN; OF MEAGHER; OF MACM iMUS. STC. — :SXGUSB 
 FOR MORE JURY-PACKING— EXCITEMENT IN ENGLAND — TRIAL O? 
 CHARTISTS — SPECIAL COMMISSION IN CLONMEL — TRIAL OF 
 O'BRIEN FOR HIGH TREASON — SENTENCE OF DEATH — TRIALS OF 
 MACMANUS, o'dONOGHUE, AND MEAGHER — COMMUTATION OF THE 
 SENTENCES OF DEATH — PLAN FOR A NEW " PLANTATION OF 
 IRELAND" — SYSTEMATIC VILIFICATION OF THE CELTIC IRISH BY 
 ENGLISH WRITERS. 
 
 From the first moment that the Repeal of the Habeas Corpus Act 
 placed the liberties of all Irishmen at the disposal of Lord 
 Clarendon, the police received secret orders to arrest all leading 
 Confederates, both in town and country. A return was, in the 
 beginning of the next year, 1849, made to Parliament of the num- 
 ber of persons, and their names, who were imprisoned under that 
 law. There were 118 of them; including most of the very men on 
 whom O'Brien might reasonably have relied to sustain his move- 
 ment. They were ail imprisoned in various gaols, without any 
 charge, or one word of explanation; removed in batches from one 
 prison to some other in a distant part of the island, with no other 
 object, apparently, but to exhibit them in chains and strike a whole- 
 some terror into all spectators. 
 
 After O'Brien's party had dispersed at Ballingarry, he seemed 
 no longer to value his life, and used no means to escape or conceal 
 himself. He went openly to the railroad station at Thurles, where 
 he was immediately pointed out to the police — pointed out, as he 
 himself believes, by a member of the Committee of the Confeder- 
 ation, a creature who appears to have some time before sold him- 
 self to the enemy.* Meagher, Leyne and O'Donoghue were soon 
 captured also ; MacManus, after having almost escaped in an 
 American ship, was at length taken. Dillon, O'Gorman, Reilly 
 and Doheny, all escaped out of the island, though long and closely 
 pursued. I was, for months before, safe in my cell at Bermuda; 
 Martin, Dufify, Williams, and O'Doherty, were all in their Newgate 
 dungeon awaiting trial. Nobody was left, at large over all the 
 island, capable of initiating a bold movement ; and indeed, the 
 
 * His name is John Donnellan Balfe. His reward was a colonial appointment 
 under the government, in the very dis.tant colony of Van Dienien's Land, where the 
 evil odour of ins crime could not annoy tlie more reputable servants of the govermacnt 
 by too close a^>sociatiou. 
 
Of lEELiND, (PIRHAPS). 20.". 
 
 IM^risantry were by this time so dispirited, so fc-ble, and so poor, 
 that no 8ach movement could have been attempted tliroiigh their 
 i'lciius. The priests were signiiiiziug their royalty by calming dowi; 
 all indignant feeling, and heartily abutiug the defeated rebels: 
 the middle classes were frightened and corrupted; — and the Con- 
 quest was consummated. 
 
 There remained for the enemy now only to confirm that conquest, 
 and then to make a profitable use of it for England. First, the 
 editors must be brought to trial under the new " Treason-Felony" 
 Act; and O'Brien and his immediate comrades, under the Common 
 Law, for the crime of " High Treason," having appeared in arms 
 against the " government." Our enemies wimid gladly have dis- 
 pensed with these trials, and removed their captives out of the 
 way by a more summary process. But they were not to forget 
 that they were a " liberal " government, and had a reputation to 
 support before the world. Ireland was not Naples, (would to God 
 she had been)! and political ojBfenders could by no means be suflFered 
 to perish by long confinement, in subterranean dungeons, without 
 trial. But then arose the question of juries; and the "govern- 
 ment " knew lull well that no jury in Ireland impartially empanelled 
 according to law, and really representing the nation, would con- 
 vict one of those men for any ofi^ence whatever against a foreign 
 government. 
 
 They could not refuse a trial; but one thing they could do, which 
 the King ox Naples had never learned, — they could pack the juries. 
 No doubt, it was painful to have to pack juries again: how could 
 Whig reputation endure it ? But they hoped this would be the last 
 time. They knew that in the eyes of Englishmen, the extreme 
 urgency ot the occasion would justify this one last tremendous 
 fraud ; and, like UJysses, they could be honest afterwards. When 
 I say, '* in the eyes of Englishmen,'' I mean the ruling classes 
 of Englishmen, namely, the landed interests and the monied 
 and mercantile interests; — I mean, in short, those English- 
 men whose opinions and interests are alone consulted in the 
 government of that country. To them it was an absolute necessity 
 of their existence that Irish national movements should be crushed 
 down by any means and all means — but it would be unjust to 
 charge the mass of Englishmen with approving of the system of 
 British Government in Ireland, Most of them know nothing 
 about it. Those people of the industrious classes, who do interest 
 themselves somewhat in public afiairs — that is, the Chartists- 
 were utterly powerless, and were held in the profoundest contempt 
 by those who own them, and own their industry and their lives. 
 to truth, of the three peoples whom our eneinies pretend to goyenii 
 
204 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 they fear none but tlie Irish. The government, accordingly, gave 
 the Chartists a significant hint, immediately after n)y "trial," that 
 they were to mind their own business, and leave the settlement of 
 Irish affairs to their betters. A large Chartist meeting was held 
 in London, and indignant speeches were made, protesting against 
 the packing of the "jury." Amongst others, Mr Ernest Jones 
 had said (and the detective police had taken down his words), that 
 the people would triumph yet, — that a day would come when John 
 Mitchel would return in triumph to his country, and Lord John 
 Eussell and Lord Clarendon would be transported in his place ! 
 He was immediately brought to trial, convicted for sedition, and 
 expiated his rash words by two years in a dungeon. 
 
 The Whig Government, in short, felt that if they satisfied the 
 men of rank and money in England, they did the whole duty of 
 Whigs: and the men of rank and money were eagerly crying out 
 to have the last embers of that long national struggle stamped out. 
 
 O'Brien, Meagher, MacManus, and O'Donoghue were to have 
 their trial before a special commission in Glonmel, the capital of 
 Tipperary. On the details of these trials I need not dwell ; 
 because they were on the same pattern with other scenes of this 
 Lame kind w^hich I have narrated. The cfHcials of the Crown 
 showed a stern, dogged determination to disregard every remon* 
 strance, to refuse every application, and to do the work intrusted 
 to them in the most coarse, insolent, and thorough-going style. 
 Eor example, Mr Whiteside, O'Brien's couns'^1, reminded the court 
 '•'that, in England, persons charged with high treason are allowed 
 a copy of the Jurors' panel, and a list of the witnesses to be 
 examined on the part of the Crown," Take one extract from the 
 report of the "trial:" — 
 
 " The learned counsel put it to the court whether ]Mr O'Brien, under 
 trial in a country said to be under the same government and laws as 
 England, should not have the same privilege which he would enjoy as 
 a matter of right, if he happened to be tried on the other side of the 
 Channel. 
 
 "The Court decided that the prisoner axis not entitled to the 
 privilege.*' 
 
 When the clerk read the names of the jury-panel, Mr O'Brien 
 of course challenged the array, on the ground of fraud ; and, of 
 course, the Court ruled against him. 
 
 "Mr Whiteside skited that it made little difference whether fais 
 client would be tried by a jury selected froui a ]» inel thus constituted, 
 or taken and shot through the head on the high-vond. No less than 
 one hundred Catholics had been struck off the panel, and so xew left 
 on, that Mr O'Brien's right to challenge was no little better than a farce. 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPS). 205 
 
 Thr, nhjoction was also overruled; Chief-Justice Blackhurne having de- 
 cided that the panel was properly made out." 
 
 O'Brien, whose mind was made up to meet any fate, stood in 
 the dock daring this nine days' trial, with a haughty calmness. 
 What thoughts passed through that proud heart, as the odious 
 game proceeded, no human eye will ever read: but of one thing I 
 am sure, — his grief, shame, and indignation were not for himself, 
 but for the down-trodden country, where such a scene could be 
 enacted in the open day and against the will of nine-tenths of its 
 inhabitants. 
 
 There was a verdict of guilty: and O'Brien slightly bowed to 
 the Jury. He was re-conducted to his prison, where he met 
 Meagher, who eagerly sought to read the result in his face. But 
 nothing is to be read there: it wears the same steady, cheerful 
 smile as ever, — so cheerful that Meagher hopes for a moment that 
 he brings good news. O'Brien presses his hand, merely saying, 
 " Guilty, Meagher — guilty! as we all are, of not having sold our 
 country." The next morning he stands before the Judge; is asked 
 if he has anything to say why senteneo should not pass; replies 
 that he has nothing to say, save that his conscience is clear; that 
 he has done only what was the duty of every Irishman; "and 
 now^," he adds, " proceed with your seutGiice." 
 
 Chief Justice Blackburne puts on his black cap, which becomes 
 him well. I give the precise words of the sentence : — 
 
 "That sentence is, that you, William Smith O'Brien, be taken from 
 hence to the place from whence you came, and be thence drawn on a 
 hurdle to the place of execution, and be there hanged by the neck 
 until you are dead; and that afterwards your head shall be severed from 
 your body, and your body divided into four quarters, to be disposed of 
 as her Majesty shall think fit. And may the Lord have mercy on your 
 soul." 
 
 O'Brien hears it unmoved as a statue: again inclines his head 
 in a stately.bow; politely t:ikes leave of his counsel, and returns to 
 his prison. 
 
 Again, and again, and again, the same process was performed 
 in all its parts. MacManus was next tried, then O'Donohoe, then 
 Meagher: their juries were all carefully packed; they were all 
 sentenced to be hanged; and they all met the announcement of 
 their fate as men ought. For more than a month these trials went 
 on, from day to day; and it was the 23d of October when the last 
 sentence was pronounced. A strong garrison of cavalry, infantry, 
 and artillery occupied the town, and enclosed the scene with a 
 hedge of steel. Outside, the people muttered deep curses, and 
 chafed with impotent r&ge. A few daring spirits, headed bv 
 
206 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 O'Maliony, once contemplated an attack and n . < n"; i.ut the people 
 had been too grievously frightened by the prieolo (uii account of 
 their miserable pauper souls), and too effectually starved by the 
 government, to be equal to so dashing an exploit: and so that 
 solemn and elaborate insult vvas once more put upon our name and 
 nation; and the four men who had sought to save their people 
 from so abject a condition lay undisturbed in Clonmel gaol, 
 sentenced to death. Considering which humiliating picture, one 
 might be tempted to repeat the bitter words of Don Juan D'Aguila 
 — " Surely Christ never died for this people!" Yet whosoever has 
 studied even the imperfect sketch which I have given of the potent 
 and minutely elaborated system of oppression that pressed upon 
 that nation at every point, and tied down every limb, watching 
 over every man, woman, and child, at their uprising and down- 
 lying, so as to be enabled to foresee and to baffle even the slightest 
 approach to combination for a national purpose* — will assuredly 
 forbear to taunt us, and will bless God that he was born" in a land 
 where men are free to will and to act. 
 
 The newspaper editors were still to be " tried," — that is, to be 
 transported. In the months of October and November, 1848, 
 Duify of the Nation, Williams and O'Doherty of the Tribune, and 
 Martin of the Ft'on^ were successively brought up for trial in the 
 City Court House, of Green Street. Their newspapers had been 
 suppressed weeks before, their offices broken into, their types and 
 presses and books seized. 
 
 O'Doherty and Martin were " convicted" by well-packed juries, 
 containing not a single Catholic. In the cases of Duffy and 
 Williams, the enemy ventured to leave one or two Catholics on 
 the juries. Williams was acquitted: Duffy's jury disagreed, and 
 he was retained in prison till a more tractable jury could be 
 manufactured. Again he was brought to trial, and again the jury 
 disagreed. Still he was kept in custody, though his health was 
 rapidly failing; and, at last, when all apprehension of trouble 
 seemed to be over, and the more dangerous conspirators were dis- 
 posed of, the "government" yielded to a memorial on his behalf, 
 and abandoned the prosecution. 
 
 In the, matter of those who were sentenced to death, the enemy 
 after much deliberation decided on sparing their lives and 
 commuting their punishment to transportation for life. This, I 
 believe, was done under the false pretence of clemency; but it was 
 in truth the most refined cruelty; it was, moreover, illegal, — there 
 
 * So far back as 1602, Attorney-General Davies thus described that espionage, which 
 is one principal arm of British power: " Notice is taken of every person that is able to do 
 either good or hurt. It is known not only how they live and what they do, bu^ it is foro- 
 ipsn what they purpose or intend to do." 
 
Of IRELANL, (^EEIIAPS). 207 
 
 being no law to autboriza such a coinuiutation. The prisoners, 
 therefore, objected through their counsel: they had no use for life 
 under such circumstances; and demanded to have the extreme 
 benefit of the law. Ministers, however, were resolved to be 
 merciful, — introduced an Act into Parliament, empowering the 
 Queen to transport them, — had it passed at once, — and immediately 
 shipped them off to herd with felons in the penal colony of Van 
 Diemen's Land. O'Doherty and Martin, having been originally 
 sentenced to ten years' transportation, were sent away at the same 
 time, but in another ship; and for more than five years, in the 
 most degrading bondage, they expiated the crime of " not having 
 sold their country." If they had prudently sold that commodity, 
 there were no Irishmen in our ds^ who could have made so 
 profitable a bargain. 
 
 What to do now with this Ireland, thus fallen under the 
 full and peaceful possession of her " sister island," was the subject 
 of serious thought in England. The famine was still slaying its 
 tens of thousands ; and the government emigration scheme was 
 drawing away many thousands more, and shooting them out 
 naked and destitute on the shores of the St Lawrence : so that it 
 was hoped the " Celts " would soon be thinned out to the proper 
 point. The very danger so lately escaped, however, brought home 
 to the British Government, and to the Irish landlords, the stern 
 necessity of continued extermination. It wa« better, they felt, to 
 have too few hands to till the ground, than too many for the 
 security of law and order. 
 
 A plan was promulgated by Sir Robert Peel for a new 
 " Plantation of Ireland " — that is, for replacing the Irish with good 
 Anglo-Saxons ; and this idea was warmly advocated by no less a 
 person than Thomas Carlyle. Vce Victis! was the word. " Ire- 
 land," said Carlyle, "is a starved rat that crosses the path of an 
 elephant : what is the elephant to do? — squelch it, by heaven ! 
 squelch it!" From this time commenced that most virulent 
 vilification of the Celtic Irish, in all the journals, books, and 
 periodicals of the " sister island," which has been so faithfully 
 reproduced (like all other British cant) in America, and which 
 gave such venom to the Know-Nothing agitation. Then, more than 
 ever, English writers were diligent in pointing out and illustrating 
 the difference of " race " between Celt and Saxon ; which proved 
 to their own satisfaction that the former were born to be ruled by 
 the latter. A peculiar feature in this species of literature, is, that 
 the most zealous apostles and preachers of it have been themselves 
 Celts of the Celts: Carlyle himself, for example, a Scotchman of 
 Dumfriesshire^ and with a name that convicts him of kindred 
 
208 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 with tlie Celtic people of Cumbria; and still more manifestly 
 Macaulay, who was, by his father's side, at least, of the Mac- 
 Amhlaidhs of the Highlands; but who wrote of the whole Celtic 
 family — pandering to the ignorant pride of the English — with a 
 real venom and affected contempt, which one might explain upon 
 the theory that early in his life some Celt had crossed him in love, 
 or pulled his nose, or done both the one and the other, — but 
 which I am inclined to account for on a more commercial principle: 
 he wrote his books /or Anglo-Saxons and for those who ignorantly 
 believe they are Anglo-Saxons. 
 
 The bitterness and spite exhibited against the Irish Celt in all 
 British literature, especially since '48, has, however, a parallel. It 
 is precisely the same kind of animosity and founded on the same 
 reasons, as that which appears against the Scottish nation in all 
 English books of the last century — that is, while Scotland remained 
 disaffected against English rule, and discontented with the Scottish 
 Union. Nothing so much pleased the magnanimous British at 
 that time, as ridicule and denunciation of the Scotch. The Lord 
 Macaulay himself informs us that "when the English condescended 
 to think of him (the Highlander) at all — and it was seldom that 
 they did so, they considered him as a filthy, abject savage, a 
 slave, a Papist, a cut-throat, and a thief." And further, he says: — 
 
 " This contemptuous loathing lasted till the year 1745 (that is, until 
 the last outrising of the Highlanders against the English) and was then 
 for a moment succeeded by intense fear and ra^'e. England, thoroughly 
 alarmed, put forth her whole strength. The Highlanders were subju- 
 gated rapidly, completely, and for ever. During a short time the 
 English nation, still heated by the recent conflict, breathed nothing but 
 vengeance. The slaughter on the field of battle, and on the scaffold, 
 was not sufficient to slake the public thirst for blood. The sight of th« 
 tartan inflamed the populace of London with hatred, which showed itself 
 by unmanly outrages to defenceless captives." 
 
 This writer, however, takes care to justify, and so far as in him 
 lies, to perpetuate, this horror and hatred of the Celt. He en- 
 larges upon the filth of the dwellings and the persons of the Gael, 
 in a manner which would have delighted Doctor Johnson himself; 
 and, with a singular sort of filial piety, likens his own fathers to 
 the Esquimaux and the Samoyedes. 
 
 Now, those volumes of Macaulay were written since '48. They 
 are, in all their matter and scope, not a history, but a political 
 pamphlet; and the zealous and diligent depreciation of Celts, 
 both in his accounts of Scottish and Irish transactions, has a 
 manifest bearing upon our Last Conquest. It is intended not only 
 to soothe and flatter the English with the belief that they are the 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPS). 209 
 
 " superior race,** but also to turn aside and make ridiculous the 
 sympathy of all civilized mankind, if peradventure mankind should 
 be so misguided as to throw away its sympathies upon so abject a 
 race as these starved-out Celts. But, in truth, the calculated care 
 and diligence of the British literary class in defaming all Celts, has 
 had ©f late years a far more urgent motive than it ever had in the 
 case of the Scottish people, for they are painfully aware that 
 myriads upon myriads of the exterminated Irish, having found 
 refuge here in America, have filled this continent with cursing and 
 bitterness against the English name; and a strong political neces- 
 sity is upon them to make Americans hate us, and, if possible, 
 despise us, as heartily as they do themselves. As for us, expatriated 
 and exterminated Irish, we have every day occasion to feel that 
 our enemy pursues us into all lands with unrelenting vengeance; 
 and though we take the wings of the morning, we can never escape 
 it — never until Ireland shall become, as Scotland is, a contented 
 province of the British Empire, thoroughly subdued, civilized, 
 emasculated, and " ameliorated " to the very heart's core. 
 
 To return from this slight digression, the plan of Sir Kobert Peel 
 for a new " Plantation " in Ireland was anxiously revolved in the 
 councils (of our enemy. It began to be believed that the peasant 
 class being now almost sufficiently thinned out — and the claim of 
 tenants to some sort of right or title to the land they tilled, hav- 
 ing been successfully resisted and defeated; — that the structure of 
 society in Ireland having been well and firmly planted upon a 
 basis of able-bodied pauperism (which the English, however, called 
 *' independent labour "), the time was come to eflfect a transfer of 
 the real estate of the island from Irish to English hands. This 
 grand idea afterwards elaborated itself into the fanw«us " Incum- 
 bered Estates Act*" 
 
210 THE LA Sic CONQUEST 
 
 CHAPTER XXrV. 
 
 CONSUMMATION OF THE " CONQUEST " — THE QUEEN's SPEECH IN 1849 
 — MORE COERCION — MORE POOR-LAW — DEPOPULATION — CONDITION 
 OF THE PEOPLE, AS DESCRIBED BY MR DUFFY IN 1849 — LORD 
 
 JOHN Russell's " rate-in-aid " — the "incumbered estates 
 
 ACT " — result of incumbered ESTATES COURT — QUEEN's VISIT 
 TO IRELAND IN 1849 — POPULAR FEELING IN DUBLIN SUPPRESSED 
 BY THE POLICE — IRELAND " TRANQUIL, " " IMPROVING, " AND 
 " PROSPEROUS " — STATISTICS, RECAPITULATION^ CONCLUSION. 
 
 The Conquest was now consummated — England, great, populous, 
 and wealthy, with all the resources and vast patronage of an exist- 
 ing government in her hands — with a magnificent army and, navy 
 — with the established course and current of commerce steadily 
 flowing in the precise direction that suited her interests — with a 
 powerful party on her si^de in Ireland itself, bound to her by line- 
 age and by interest — and, above all, with her vast brute mass lying 
 between us and the rest of Europe, enabling her to intercept the " 
 natural sympathies of other struggling nations, to interpret between 
 us and the rest of mankind, and represent the troublesome sister 
 island, exactly in the light that she wished us to be regarded — 
 England prosperous, potent, and at peace with all the earth besides 
 — had succeeded (to her immortal honour and glory) in anticipating 
 and crushing out of sight the last agonies of resistance in a small, 
 poor, and divided island, which she had herself made poor and 
 divided, carefully disarmed, almost totally defranchised, and 
 totally deprived of the benefits of that verj' British "law" against 
 which we revolted with such loathing and horror. England 
 had done this; and whatsoever credit and prestige, whatsoever pro- 
 fit and power could be gained by such a feat, she has them all. 
 " Now, for the first time these six hundred years," said the London 
 Times, '* England has Ireland at her mercy, and can deal with her 
 as she pleases." 
 
 It was an opportunity not to be lost for the interests of 
 British civilization. Parliament met late in January, 1849. 
 The Queen, in her " speech," lamented that " another failure of 
 the potato crop had caused severe distress in Ireland : and there- 
 upon asked Parliament to continuej " for a limited period," the 
 extraordinary power; that is, the power of proclaiming any district 
 under martial law, and of throwing suspected persons into 
 
OF IRELAND, (PERHAPS). 211 
 
 prison, without any charge against them. The Act was paased, 
 of course. 
 
 Then, as the famine of 1848 was fully as grievous and 
 destructive as any of the previous famines ; — as the rate-payers 
 were impoverished, and in most of the " unions," could not pay 
 the rates already due — and were thus r.ipidly sinking into the 
 condition of paupers ; giving up the hopeless effort to maintain 
 themselves by honest industry, and throwing themselves on the 
 earnings of others ; as the poor-houses were all filled to overflow- 
 ing, and the exterminated people were either lying down to die or 
 crowding into the emigrant-ships ; — as, in short, the Poor Law, 
 and the New Poor Law, and the Improved Poor Law, and 
 the Supplementary Poor Law, had all manifestly proved a 
 " failure," Lord John Russell's next step was to give Ireland more 
 Poor Law, 
 
 When I say that the whole code of poor laws was a failure, I 
 must qualify that expression, as before. They were a failure for 
 their professed purpose — that of relieving the famine ; but were 
 a complete success for their real purpose — that of uprooting the 
 people from the land, and casting them forth to perish. I have 
 not much faith in the "government" statistics of that country, 
 but as some may wish to see how much our enemies were willing 
 to admit, I shall give some details from a report furnished in '48 
 by Captain Larcom, under the orders of the government, and 
 founded on local reports of police inspectors. I find the main 
 facts epitomized thus, for one year : — 
 
 '- In the number of farms, of from one to jive acres, the decrease has 
 been 24,147; from five to fifteen acres, 27,379; from fifteen to thirty 
 acres, 4,274; whilst of farms above thirty acres the increase has been 
 3,670. Seventy thousand occupiers, with their families, numbering 
 about three hundred thousand, were rooted out of the land. 
 
 " In Leinster, the decrease in the number of holdings not exceeding 
 one acre, as compared with the decrease of '47, was 3,749; above one, 
 and not exceeding five, was 4,026; of five, and not exceeding fifteen, 
 was 2,546; of fifteen to thirty, 891; making a total of 10,617. 
 
 " In Munster, the decrease in the holdinos, under thirty acres, is 
 stated at 18,814; the increase over thirty acres, 1,399. 
 
 " In Ulster, the decrease was 1,502; the increase, 1,134. 
 
 '* In Connaught, where the labour of extermination was least, the 
 clearance has been most extensive. There, in particular, the roots of 
 holders of the soil were never planted deep beneath the surface, and, 
 consequently, were exposed to every exterminator's hand. There were 
 in 1847, 35,634 holders of from one to five acres. In the following year 
 there were less by 9,703; there were 76,707 holders of from five to fifteen 
 acres, less in one year by 12,891; those of frojn fifteen to thirty acres 
 were reduced by 2,121; a total depopulation of 26,499 holders qf 
 
212 THE LAST CONQtTEST 
 
 land, exclusive of their families, was effected in Connaught in 
 one year." 
 
 On this report it may be remarked that it was a list of killed 
 and wounded in one year of carnage only — and of one class of 
 people only. It takes no account of the dead in that multitudinous 
 class thinned the most by famine, who had no land at all, but 
 lived by the labour of their hands, and who were exposed before 
 others, as having nothing but life to lose. As for the landlords, 
 already encumbered by debt, the pressure of the poor-rates was 
 fast breaking them down. In most cases, they were not so much 
 as the receivers of their own rents, and had no more control over 
 the bailiffs, sheriffs, and police, who plundered and chased away 
 the people, than one of the pillars of their own grand entrance 
 gates. 
 
 Take one paragraph now from amongst the commercial reports 
 of the Irish piipers, which will suggest more than any laboured 
 narrative could inculcate : — 
 
 " Upwards of 150 ass hides have been delivered in Dublin from the 
 county Mayo, for exportation to Liverpool. The carcasses, owing to the 
 scarcity of provisions, had been used as food/" 
 
 But those who could afford to dine upon famished jackasses 
 were few, indeed. During this winter of '48-9, hundreds of 
 thousands perished of hunger. During this same winter the herds 
 and harvests raised on Irish ground were floating off to England 
 on every tide: and, during this same winter, almost every steam- 
 ship from England daily carried Irish paupers, men, women, and 
 children, away from Liverpool and Bristol, to share the good 
 cheer of their kinsmen at home. 
 
 It was in this state of things that Lord John Kussell, 
 having first secured a continued suspension of the Habeas 
 Corpus Act, Proposed an additional and novel sort of poor-rate 
 for Ireland. It was called the " Eate-in-aid." That is to say, 
 poor-law unions, which were still solvent, and could still in some 
 measure maintain their own local poor, were to be rkted for relief 
 of such unions as had sunk under the pressure. Assuming that 
 Ireland and England are two integral parts of an "United 
 Kingdom," (as we are assured they are), it seems hard to under- 
 stand why a district in Leinster should be rated to relieve a pauper 
 territory in Mayo — and a district in Yorkshire not. Or to 
 comprehend why old and spent Irish labourers, who had given 
 the best of their health and strength to the service of England, 
 aliould be shipped off to Ireland to ijxcrease ?ind intensify th^ 
 
OP -*^ELANt>, (PEliHAPS). 213 
 
 pauperism and despair. But so it was: the maxim was 
 that "the property of Ireland must support the poverty of 
 Ireland ;" without the least consideration of the fact that the 
 property of Ireland was all this time supporting the luxury of 
 Englaiid. 
 
 The next measure passed in the same session of Parliament was 
 the "Incumbered Estates Act:" the Act of 12th and 13th 
 Victoria, c. 77. Under this, a royal commission was issued, 
 constituting a new court " for the sale of Incumbered Estates;" 
 and the scope and intent of it were to give a short and summary 
 method of bringing such estates to sale, on petition either of 
 creditors or of owners. Before that time the only mode of doing 
 this was through the slow and expensive proceedings of the Court 
 of Chancery; and the number of incumbered landlords had grown 
 so very large since the famine began, their debts so overwhelming, 
 and their rental so curtailed, that the London Jews, money-brokers, 
 and insurance offices, required a speedier and cheaper method of 
 bringing their propertj to the hammer. What I wish to be fully 
 understood is, that this Act was not intended to relieve, and did 
 not relieve, anybody in Ireland; but that, under pretence of 
 facilitating legal proceedings, it contemplated a sweeping confisca- 
 tion and new " Plantation " of the island. The English press was 
 already complacently anticipating a peaceable transfer of Irish land 
 to English and Scotch capitalists; and took pains to encourage 
 them to invest their money under the new Act. Ireland, it was 
 now declared, had become tranquil: *'the Celts were gone:" and 
 if any trouble should arise, there was the Habeas Corpus Suspension 
 Act;' and the horse, foot, and artillery, and the juries. Singular 
 to relate, however, the new Act did not operate satisfactorily in 
 that direction. English capitalists had a wholesome terror of 
 Tipperary, and of the precarious tenure by which an Irish landlord 
 holds his life ; insomuch that the great bulk of the sales made by 
 the Commissioners were made to Irishmen : — and in the official 
 return of the operations of the court, up to Oct., 1851, 1 find that 
 while the gross amount produced by the sales had been more 
 than three and a half millions sterling, there had been only 
 fifty-two English and Scottish purchasers, to the amount of 
 ^319,486. 
 
 Down to the 25th May, 1857, there had been given orders for 
 sale to the number of 3,197: the property had been sold to 7,216 
 purchasers, of whom 6,902 were Irish — the rest English, Scotch, 
 or other foreigners. The estates already sold brought upwards of 
 twenty millions sterling, which was almost all distributed to 
 
214 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 creditors and other parties interested. The result to Ireland is 
 simply this — about one-fifteenth part of the island has changed 
 hands; has gone from one landlord and come to another landlord: 
 the result to the great tenant class is simply nil. The new landlord 
 comes over them armed with the power of life and death, like his 
 predecessor: but he has no local or personal attachment which in 
 some cases used to mitigate the severity of landlord rule; — and he 
 is bound to make interest on his investment. The estates have 
 been broken up, on an average, into one-half their former size: 
 and this has been much dwelt upon as an ''amelioration:" 
 but I have yet to learn that small landlords are more mild and 
 merciful than great ones. On the whole, I maintain that the 
 " Incumbered Estates Act " has benefited only the money-lenders 
 of England. 
 
 As to " Tenant-Right," the salutary custom which I explained 
 before, and which did once practically secure to the tenantry in some 
 portions of Ulster a permanency of tenure on payment of their rent, 
 our Parliamentary patriots have been agitating for it, begging for it, 
 conferring with Ministers about it, eating public dinners, making 
 speeches and soliciting votes on account of it; but they have never 
 made, and never will make, an approach by one hair's-breadth to 
 its attainment.'^^ It is absolutely essential to the existence 
 of the British Empire, that the Irish peasant class be kept in a 
 condition which will make them entirely manageable — easy to be 
 thinned out when they grow too numerous, and an available 
 materiel for armies. This, I say, is necessary to the British 
 commercial and social governmental system — but I do not say it 
 by way of complaint. Those who are of opinion that British 
 civilization is a blessing and a light to lighten the world, will 
 easily reconcile themselves to the needful condition. Those 
 who deem, it the most base and horrible tyranny that has ever 
 scandalized the earth, will probably wish that its indispensable 
 prop — Ireland — were knocked from under it. 
 
 In the meantime, neither the Incumbered Estates Act, nor any 
 other Act, made or to be made by an English Parliament, has done 
 or aimed to do anything towards giving the Irish tenant-at-will 
 the smallest interest in the land he tills; but, on the contrary, the 
 whole course of the famine legislation was directed to the one end 
 of shaking small lease-holders loose from the soil, and converting 
 them into tenants-at-will, or into " independent labourers," or able- 
 bodied paupers, or lean corpses. Let it be understood further, 
 
 * Mr Gladstone's Law, iireti^ndin^ to •secure something like a Tenant right, is, in fact, 
 only 411 cx.vmi)Ic amt a c'iliIh iii.uiitn uf the jiulgincut given in the tc\~ 
 
OP IRELAND, (perhaps). 215 
 
 that tlie condition of an Trish " Tcnant-n,t-wi!]" ir, nuiqno on tlm 
 C,i,ce of the globe,* is utterly unintelligible lu niubt civilized 
 Europeans, and is only to be found within the sway of that Con- 
 stitution which is the envy of surrounding nations. The German, 
 Von Raumer, making a tour in Ireland, thus tries to explain the 
 thing: — 
 
 " How shall I translate tenants-at-will ? Wegjaghare f Expellable ? 
 Serfs ? But in the ancient days of vassalage, it consisted rather in 
 keeping the vassals attached to the soil, and by no means in driving 
 them away. An ancient vassal is a lord compared with the present 
 tenant-at-will, to whom the law affords no defence. Why not call them 
 Jagdhare {chaseable)? But this difference lessens the analogy — that for 
 hares, stags, and deer there is a season during which no one is allowed 
 to hunt them; whereas tenants-at-will are hunied all the year round. 
 And if any one would defend his farm (as badgers and foxes are allowed 
 to do), it is here denominated rebellion." 
 
 In 1849, it was still believed that the depopulation had not 
 proceeded far enough; and the English Government was fully 
 determined, having so gracious an opportunity, to make a clean 
 sweep. One of the provisions of Lord John Russell's Rate-in- Aid 
 Bill was for imposing an additional rate of two shillings and sis- 
 pence in the pound, to promote emigration. During the two years, 
 1848-9, the Government Census Commissioners admit 9,395 
 deaths by famine alone; a number which would be about true 
 if multiplied by twenty-five. In the year 1850 there were 
 nearly 7,000, as admitted by the same authorities; and in 
 the first quarter of 1851, 652 deaths by hunger, they say, 
 " are recorded." 
 
 In the very midst of all this havoc, in August, 1849, her 
 Majesty's Ministers thought the coast was clear for a Royal Visit. 
 The Queen had long wished, it was said, to visit her people of 
 Ireland; and the great army of persons, who, in Ireland, are paid 
 to be loyal, were expected to get up the appearance of rejoicing. 
 Of course there were crowds in the streets; and the natural courtesy 
 of the people prevented almost everything which could grate upon 
 the lady's ear or offend her eye. One Mr O'Reilly, indeed, of 
 South Great George's Street, hoisted on the top of his house a 
 large black banner, displaying the crownless Harp; and draped 
 his windows with black curtains, showing the words Famine 
 and Pestilence: but the police burst into his house, viciously 
 
 • Paralleled in some sort only by the ryois of India — ^another peopl* privileged to enjoy 
 tko blessings of British rule. 
 
216 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 tore clown the flag and the curtains, and rudely thrust the 
 proprietor into gaol. One other incident of the royal visit will 
 be enough :— - 
 
 "The i'Ve^?nan says, that on passing through Parkgate Street, Mr 
 James Nugent, one of the Guardians of the North Union, approached 
 the royal carriage, which was moving rather slowly, and, addressing the 
 Queen, said: 'Mighty Monarch, pardon Smith O'Brien.' Before, 
 however, he had time to get an answer, or even to see how her 
 Majesty received the application, Lord Clarendon rode up and 
 put him aside; and the cortege again set out at a dashing pace, 
 which it maintained until it drew up opposite the Vice-regal Lodge 
 in the Park." 
 
 On the whole, however, the Viceroy's precautions against any 
 show of disaffection, were, I take shame to say it, complete and 
 successful. Nine out of ten citizens of Dublin eagerly hoped that 
 her Majesty would make this visit the occasion of a "pardon" to 
 O'Brien and his comrades. Lord Clarendon's organs, therefore, and 
 his thousand placemen and agents of every grade, diligently 
 whispered into the public ear that the Queen would certainly pardon 
 the State prisoners, if she were not insulted by Repeal demonstra- 
 tions — in short, if there was not one word said about those pris- 
 oners. The consequence was, that no whisper was heard about 
 Repeal, nor about the State prisoners — except only the exclama- 
 tion of silly Mr Nugent to his " Mighty Monarch." 
 
 Although there was no chance of Tenant-Right, no chance of 
 Ireland being allowed to manage her own affairs — yet towards 
 Catholics of the educated classes there was much liberality. Mr 
 Wyse was sent ambassador to Greece: Mr More O'Ferrall was made 
 Governor of Malta : many barristers, once loud in their patriotic 
 devotion at Conciliation Hall, were appointed to Commissioner- 
 ships and other minor offices; and Ireland became " tranquil " 
 enough. For result of the whole long struggle, England was left, 
 for a time, more securely in possession than ever of the property, 
 lives, and industry of the Irish nation. She had not parted with 
 a single atom of her plunder, nor in the slightest degree weakened 
 any of her garrisons, either ^nilitary, civil, or ecclesiastical. He? 
 ''Established Church" remained in full force — the wealthiest 
 church in the world, quartered upon the poorest people, who abhoi 
 its doctrine, and regard its pastors as ravening wolves. It had, 
 indeed, often been denounced in the London Parliament, by Whigs 
 out of place: Mr Roebuck had called it "the greatest ecclesiastical 
 enormity in Europe;" Mr Macaulay had termed it "the most 
 
OF IRELAND, (PEEHAPS). 217 
 
 utterly absurd and indefensible of all the institutions now existing 
 in the civilised world." But every one knows what value there is 
 in the liberal declarations of Whigs out of place. Once in place 
 and power, they felt that the "enormity" of the Established 
 Church, absurd and indefensible as it was, constituted one of their 
 greatest and surest holds upon the Irish aristocracy, to whose 
 younger sons and dependants it afforded a handsome and not too 
 laborious livelihood. The Archbishop of Armagh alone continued 
 yearly to receive his .£14,664— almost thrice the salary of the 
 President of the United States ; and the Bishop of Derry nearly 
 double as much as the President — and ten other bishops, emolu- 
 ments varying from £7,600 down to the lowest, j£2,310. Then 
 every parish must have its "rector," though in a great many 
 parishes there are no congregations; and the poor Catholic people, 
 over and above rents, rates, and taxes, must pay these sinecure 
 pastors out of their poor stackyards — the remedy for non-payment 
 being distress by the landlord.'^ The Orangemen, also, have been 
 maintained in full force. They are all armed : for no bench of 
 magistrates will refuse a good Protestant the liberty of keeping a 
 gun; and lest they might not have enough, the Government 
 sometimes supplies arms for distribution among the lodges. 
 The police and detective system is more highly organized than 
 ever; and the Government Board of "National" Education, 
 more diligently than ever in ulcates the folly and vice of national 
 aspirations. 
 
 Yet Ireland, we are told, is *' improving " and " prosperous." 
 Yes; it cannot be denied that three millions of the people have been 
 slain or driven to seek safety by flight, the survivors begin to live 
 better for the present. There is a smaller supply of labour, with 
 the same demand for it — therefore wages are higher. There is more 
 cattle and grain for export to England, because there are fewer 
 mouths to be fed; and England (in whose hands are the issues of 
 life and death for Ireland) can afford to let so many live. Upper 
 classes, and lower classes, merchants, lawyers, state-officials, civil 
 and military, are indebted for all that they have, for all that they 
 are or hope for, to the sufferance and forbearance of a foreign and 
 hostile nation. This being the case, e^yery one must see that the 
 prosperity of Ireland, even such ignominious prosperity as it is, 
 has no guarantee or security. Whenever Irishmen grow numerous 
 again (as they surely will), and whenever " that ancient swelling 
 
 _ * In the matter of the Established Church, also, the late Gladstone law ("Disestab- 
 lishment and Disendowment ") is a mere subterfuge and imposture. It has diminished 
 the emoluments of some of the bishops, but has not relieved ihe people of any part 
 of this burden on account of that church; no, not to the amount of a single farthing. 
 
218 THE LAST CONQUEST 
 
 and desire of liberty," as Lord Mountjoy expressed it, shall once 
 more stir their souls (as once more it certainly will), why, the 
 British Government can crush them again, with greater ease than 
 ever; for the small farmers are destroyed; the middle classes are 
 extensively corrupted; and neither stipendiary officials nor able- 
 bodied paupers ever make revolutions. 
 
 This very dismal and humiliating narrative draws to a close. It 
 is the story of an ancient nation stricken down by a war more ruth- 
 less and sanguinary than any seven years' war, or thirty years* 
 war, that Europe ever saw. No sack of Madgeburg, or ravage of 
 the Palatinate, ever approached in horror and desolation to the 
 slaughters done in Ireland by mere official red tape and stationery, 
 and the principles of political economy. A few statistics may 
 fitly conclude this dreary subject. 
 
 The Census of Ireland, in 1841, gave a population of 8,175,125. 
 At the usual rate of increase, there must have been, 'in 1846, 
 when the famine commenced, at least eight and a half millions; 
 at the same rate of increase, there ought to have been, in 1851 
 (according to the estimate of the Census Commissioners), 9,018,799. 
 But in that year, after five seasons of artificial famine, there 
 were found alive only 6,552,385 — a deficit of about two 
 millions and a half. Now, what became of those two million 
 and a half ? 
 
 The "government" Census Commissioners, and compilers of 
 returns of all sorts, whose principal duty it has been, since that fatal 
 time, to conceal the amount of the havoc, attempt to account for 
 nearly the whole deficiency by emigration. In Thom's Official 
 Almanac, I find set down on one side the actual decrease from 1841 
 to 1851 (that is, without taking into account the increase by births 
 in that period), 1,623,154. Against this, they place their own 
 estimate of the emigration during those same ten years, which 
 they put down at 1,589,133. But^in the first place, the decrease 
 did not hegin till 1846 — there had been till then a rapid increase 
 in the population : the government returns, then, not only ignore 
 the increase, but set the emigration of ten years against the de- 
 population of y^r^j This will not do : we must reduce their emi- 
 grants by one-half, say to six hundred thousand — and add to the 
 depopulation the estimated increase up to 1846, say half a million. 
 This will give upwards of two millions whose disappearance is to 
 be accounted for — and six hundred thousand emigrants in the 
 (>ther column. Balance unaccounted for, a million and a 
 half. 
 
 This is without computing those who were born in the fiya 
 
OP IRELAND, (perhaps). 219 
 
 famine years, whom we may leave to be balanced by the deaths 
 from natural causes in the same period. 
 
 Now, that million and a half of men, women, and children, 
 were carefully, prudently, and peacefully shin by the English 
 government. They died of hunger in the midst of abundance, 
 which their own hands created ; and it is quite immaterial to 
 distinguish those who perish in the agonies of famine itself from 
 those who died of typhus fever, which in Ireland is always caused 
 by famine. 
 
 Further, I have called it an artificial famine: that is to say, it 
 was a famine which desolated a rich and fertile island, that 
 produced every year abundance and superabundance to sustain all 
 iier people and many more. The English, indeed, call that famine 
 a '"dispensation of Providence;" and ascribe it entirely to the 
 blight of the potatoes. But potatoes failed in like manner all over 
 Europe; yet there was no famine save in Ireland. The British 
 account of the matter^ then, is first, a fraud — second, a blasphemy. 
 The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English 
 created the famine. 
 
 And lastly, I have shown, in the course of this narrative, that 
 the depopulation of the country was not only encouraged by 
 artificial means, namely, the Out-door Relief Act, the Labour- 
 Rate Act, and the emigration schemes, but that extreme care 
 and diligence were used to prevent relief coming to the doomed 
 island from abroad ; and that the benevolent contributions of 
 Americans and other foreigners were turned aside from their 
 destined objects — not, let us say, in order that none should be 
 saved' alive, but that no interference should be made with the 
 principles of political economy. 
 
 The Census Commissioners close their last Report with these 
 words : — 
 
 " In conclusion, we feel it will be gratifying to your Excellency, to 
 find, that, although the population has been diminished in so remarkable 
 a manner, by famine, disease, and emigration, and has been since 
 decreasing, the results of the Irish census are, on the whole, satis- 
 factory." 
 
 The Commissioners mean that the Census exhibits an increase 
 in sheep and cattle for the English market — and that while men 
 are lean, hogs are fat. "The good of this," said Dean Swift — 
 more than a century ago — " the good of this is, that the more 
 sheep we have, the fewer human creatures are left to wear the 
 wool or eat the flesh. Ajax was mad when he mistook a fl(>> !. uf 
 
220 THE LAST CONQUIibT OF IJIELAND, (pElUJAPs). 
 
 sheep for his enemies ; but we shall never be sober until we have 
 the same way of thinking." 
 
 The subjection of Ireland is now probably assured until 
 some external shock shall break up that monstrous commer- 
 cial firm, the British Empire ; which, indeed, is a bankrupt 
 firm, and trading on false credit, and embezzling the goods 
 of others, or robbing on the highway, from Pole to Pole , 
 but its doors are not yet shut; its cup of abomination is not yet 
 running over. If any American has read this narrative, however, 
 he will never wonder hereafter when he hears an Irishman in America 
 fervently curse the British Empire. So long as this hatred and 
 horror shall last — so long as our island refuses to become, liko 
 Scotland, a contented province of her enemy, Ireland is not finally 
 subdued. The passionate aspiration for Irish nationhood will out- 
 live the British Empire. 
 
 THB END. 
 

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