LIFE AND TIMES OF DANIEL O'CONNELL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 43, 12 August 1892, Page 21

LIFE AND TIMES OF DANIEL O'CONNELL.

A LECTURE RECENTLY DELIVERED AT AUCKLAND UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE CATHOLIC LITEBABT SOCIETY BY THE HON J. A. TOLE.

Thbbb la not one of us who has not imposed on him or her some duty in relation to each other, whether id the domestic, political, or social relations of life. So I, as one of the patrons of this Society, have oast upon me some duty. What the duties of a patron may be are not Tery specially defined. Usually the chief obligations attaching to the position are to pay an annual subscription, fixed, I believe, on a scale commensurate with the dignity of the office, and distinguish* ing it from ordinary membership ; to countenance the Society, and thtw proclaim its nsefulaeßS and value to the whole community ; to encourage others to avail themselves of its advantages— in other words, to be its showman — and also occasionally to address the Society upon some appropriate topic of interest. It is in the modest exercise of this last function that, in a good-natured, bnt probably unguarded moment, lured from my ordinary avocations and retiring disposition to come forward, at the in* stance of my esteemed rsverend friend, the spiritual director of the Society (Father Hackett), I address you to-night. The subject of my remarks, also, has been chosen for me ; bat I don't find any fault with that, because, from professional and political points of view, it ought to be most congenial to myself ; and, moreover, in regard to the young men of this Society, if they, pait as they are of another generation, desire to imitate a noble life, to feel the true instincts of gratitude for the acts of a great man who devoted a life-long service and his herculean talents and labours for religion and country, and to emulate the oratory of the platform, the forensic skill of the advocate, and true character as a man, the life and times of O'Oonnell will stimulate their patriotism — should inspire them to heroic deeds for their own country, and fill them with that trne national sentiment and advocacy of the claims for the liberty of th» birth-land of their fathers, which Ireland is entitled to claim as a right from every

descendant with a drop of Irish blood in his veins. A great deal could be said upon this topic of national sentiment , in relation particularly to the apparent apatby of not only the yonng descendants of Irishmen, but of Irishmen themselves, concerning the claims of Ireland ; but this may more fittingly be reserved for some future occasion, One cannot enter on this subject of the life and times of O'Oonnell without an apologetic word. It is this— that the life of a great man, whose name has been, and always will be, a household word, is more or less so familiar to mo3t of us, that the difficulties of successful treatment with freshness is almost an impossibility. But the memory of all that is good and noble, or even sorrowful, in the past is, in its respective relations to human life, one of the most useful, interesting, and pleasurable elements in our being ; so that life is not monotonous, though it is simply the repetition of thoughts, words, and deeds. Many things that are said of one great man may be said appropriately of another by changing the natna, with here and there some other slight difference. We annually recount the glorious works of St Patrick in faith and fatherland ; periodically, indeed, also of O'Oonnell, we celebrate the achievements of his heart, mind, and vigorous tongue ; and, passing over a long interval to the present day, does not the British nation everywhere annually revitw the events in the great life of Gladstone, mingling at the same time in our congratulations of returning years, the fervent prayer that God may spare him to successfully pursue, under huge difficulties, his noble work of religious and political freedom ? So that I feel, after all, no apology is needed for presenting to you, even without freshness, a brief review of O'Connell, with his oft-repeated characteristics. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I need hardly tell you it is impossible, within the limits of an hour's talk, to present to you all the acts and triumphs of a life of 72 years — 50 eventful years of which were affectionately entwined with the sufferings and life of the Irish nation, of which O'Oonnell was the idol. The events and incidents of his life, the reference to patriots who were his contemporaries, his political victories and achievements, his eminent contemporaries at the Irish Bar, his trials-legal and and personal, his social characteristics, his political status, his own great eminence as an advocate,his eloquence,his power as a platf ormand popular orator, his wit ar>d humour— all would easily form themes sufficient

to engage our attention and interest for twenty evenings. My task being a stupendous one of compression, my treatment of the subject, oompared to its vastness, must necessarily be in the nature of a biogram in a nutshell. Daniel O'Oonnell, the great apostle of freedom, and especially Irish freedom, was born in Oahir House, the residence of his father, Morgan O'Oonnell, near the town of Oahirceveen, in the County Kerry, on the 6th of August, 1775. Oahiroeyeen was a small town, aad when many yean after a Times Commissioner derisively described it as not possessing a pane of glass, O'Oonnell replied humorously : " If the Oommissioner had as many paint in his stomach, his tongue would be more veracious, and his wanderings less erratic 1 " O'Oonnell was of pnre Oeltio blood ; his mother was an O'Mullane of an old Catholic family near Cork, and possessed of fair estates; For her he had all that unbounded love that is characteristic of the Irißh race, and used to delight in giving expression to his love and veneration for her. He proudly and fondly said : " I am the son of a Minted mother, who watched over my childhood with the most faithful care. She waa of a high order of intellsot, and what little I posses 9 has been bequeathed by her to me. In the perils of life, and the dangers to which I have been exposed through life I have regarded her blessings as an angel's shield over me, and as it has been my protection in this life. I look forward to it also as one of the means of obtaining hereafter a happiness greater than any this world can give." He spent a yew at Father Harrington's school, near the Oove of Oork (or now, Qaeenstown), and the boy's application and apparent ability struck the observation of his uncle— General Oount O'Oonnell, who determined his nephew should have— what the cruel laws would not permit him to get in his native land— a Catholic education. The land of his birth, which centuries before had been the home of religion and wiedo m— where the arts and sciences of the time and the languages of Greece and Borne were studied with passionate zeal— the nation where the Anglo-Baxon race derived so much benefit from the teaching of the Irish schools— the land where, in an Irish University, Alfred the Great of England received his education — here Ireland's bright, patriotio son would hardly oe allowed to receive rudimentary instruction, certainly not

an education. Hence he was sent to France— to Louvain, and afterwards to St Omer 'a— where he showed extreme cleverness, and burned with boyish ambition to be as distinguished as his uncle, Maurice, called " Hunting Cap." Bnt O'Oonnell was destined for greater things— for national achievements. He was born at a stirring period, when a few infant communities or States, remote, unaided, and as i were unknown, had encountered and triumphed over the power of England. He was a month old when the American people bad declared their Independence , and invoked the blessings of God on themselves and others forever. In his home he had heard the sad story of his country. He heard her varied history— the exasperating rule of centuries—the desolation of the land, and the butchery, or exile of the people, and their melancholy longiag to strike a blow ; then fortune smiling on arms, victory following victory, only to culminate in crushing defeat. He had heard the names of Ireland's brave sons down the long and gloomy path of her history ; he had heard of their great sacrifices and deeds in the struggle for liberty. The Penal Code was in full force and in the plentitude of its wickedness. Catholic peers or commoners could not sit in parliament ; Catholics could not vote, nor could they hold any office of trust ; they were liable to a fine of £60 for absence from Protestant worship ; and four J.P.s could banish a Catholic or give his property to his next of kin ; no Catholic teacher conld teach a Catholic child ; a Catholic priest coming to the country could be hanged; a Protestant suspected of holding property for a Catholic could have his estates taken from him ; and so on. This bill of fare, though not a dainty or palatable dish, was food enough for the youthful and absorbent mind of O'Connell. Moreover, living in his childhood and youth were great orators and patriots ; the intrepid patriot advocate Ourran ; Sheridan— The pride of the palace, the bower, and the hall, The orator, dramatist, minstrel, who ran Through each mode of the lyre, and was master of all ; Flood, one of Ireland's greatest orators ; Wolfe Tone, who, whilst a man of the highest talent and integrity, yet was the true father of Revolutionary Irish Nationalism ; and the " noblest Boman of them all," Henry Grattan, the great champion of Irish Independence

whom probably O'Ooanell frequently saw, and perhaps heard what Leoky, the historian, describes as the "outburst of unparalleled enthusiasm of the populace," as through the parted ranki of 60,000 Ulster volunteers, drawn up in front of the old Parliament House of Ireland, Grattan passed to move the emancipation of his country. It is said that one day, when O'Oonnell was very young, the subject of conversation at his father's table was Ireland's leading men, and Grattan's eloquence. A lady present, observing young Dan's unusual meditation asked him the cause, and the young fellow cogitating said, " I'll make a stir in the world yet I " In most oases this would be regarded as the idle boast of a child, but in his case, it was prophetic. Just before O'Oonnell left France, he hid also heard the " Equality and Sovereign rights of the people " declared in the Revolution, and he had arrived at manhood when the Irish Rebellion of '98 had risen, was suppressed, and the heroic lives of such men at Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the two Shearea, and Wolfe Tone, sacrificed in their country's causa. It will be interesting to remark that one of the chief articles of Grattan'a Declaration of Independence, was that expressive of rejoicing at the relaxation of the disabilities affecting Catholics, viz: "As Irishmen, as Christians and as Protestants," they " rejoiced in the relaxation of the penal laws against their Catholic fellow-eubjecte." One cannot pass from the subject of the Penal Code without briefly illustrating one or two of the humorous, though sad incidents of apostacy under its operation. O'Connell himself used to tell many anecdotes of the strong temptation to apostatise frequently yielded to. One he relates of a Mr Meyer, of the County of Roscommon, who.being threatened with a confiscation of his lands, instantly galloped off to the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, with the view of turning Protestant. The Archbishop, finding Meyer naturally not well versed in the differences in religions, handed him over to an old hunting companion of Meyer, the Rector of Castlerea, then in Dublin. The pious convert and tbe Rector dined together every day until the Sunday of Meyer's public recantation. The jovial Rector assured his Grace that Meyer was well up io his theology. Accordingly, the solemn abjuration of Popery was made, and to celebrate the happy event, his Grace invited Meyer and several friends to dinner. The cloth removed, his Grace thus addressed the convert :—" Mr Meyer you have this day renou ced the errors of Popery— for this you should thank God with all your heart. 1 learn with great pleasure from the worthy Hector of Castlerea, that you have acquired an excellent knowledge in a very short time of the baßie of tbe Protestant religion. Will you kindly ■tate, for the edification of the company, the ground* upon which you have cast aside Popery, and embraced the Church of England ?•' " Faith," said Meyer, " I can easily do that, your Grace. The grounds of my conversion to the Protestaut religion are 2,600 acres of the best grounds in the County of Boscommon." Another incident is related of a parishioner of Corofio, like many of other parts of Ireland in those times, who was tempted by sore need to renounce his faith, and for a weekly stipend agreed to go regularly to the Protestant church and act like a reformed sinner. On the first Sunday after his agreement, he was sorrowfully going to the new place of worship, but having to pass the old chapel on his way, his conscience emote him, and falling on bis knees before the humble little edifice of prayer, he cried : "lam going from ye, alanna ; good-bye, goodbye — till the praties grow." Upon this fervid but temporary farewell has bean founded a beautiful acd pathetic poem, from which I cannot resist quoting a couple of stanzas — Asthore, my heart is breaking' as I pass your holy door, An' tee the open porcal all invitin' to go in, An' hear the childher's voices as in sacred song they soar, The priest's subdued " Oremus" and the people's loud •' Amin" ! But, oh I I dare not enter, for a compact I have made— Like Luciter at Heaven's gate, no farther can I go 1 Don't frown on me, my darlin', nor a broken heart upbraid ; Good-bye, asthore alarma — till the praties grow I I'm phß9in' by your angels, an' I'm passin' by your saints, But, oh I the weary trouble, an 1 the bard and bitter year I An' you know, wben the flesb is weak the proudest spirit faints For while you point to Heaven we are sinnin' on down here. But sure as at your altar, I exchanged the marriage vow Aa sure as from your sanctity all streams of memy flow, As sure, acbor alanna, though I sadly lave you now, I'm back within your bosom whin the praties grow. O'ConnelPs childhood and youth were surrounded, then, with scenes and events of extraordinary national persecution, whilst at the same time tLia waa a period of national sacrifices, and of great political leaders and patriots of the hieheat order and varied eloquence, all combining to impress tis youthful heart with the wrongs of his country, and create the resolve to consecrate all bis talents and energy to their redress. Any concessions to Ireland have been prompted by fear more than by a just appreciation of right, or as O'Connell used to say, •' England's adversity is Ireland's opportunity." In 1792 and 1793, therefore, owing to a dread of the progress of the French Revolution, Borne slight concessions were made to Catholics, one at least of which enabled O'Connell to enter the arena of the Bar,

where he afterwards won tome of bit most glorious laurels. We fiod him in London (not Dublin) in 1791 keeping his terms as a law student, during which time his principal amusement was boating on the Thames. Whilst in London he wat a frequent visitor at the House of Commons, and absorbed tbe delightful speech of Fox and majestic declamation of the younger Pitt. In 1797 he attended also one or two of the meetings of what were called the " Reformers " of that period, a set of young lawyers, among them the two Bheares. O'Oonnell was only an on-looker, not yet being admitted to the (Jar. He says : "As I saw bow matters stood I soon learned to have no secrets in politics. Other leaders made their workings secret and only intended to bring out results ; they were therefore perpetually in peril of treachery. Ton saw men, on whose fidelity yon would have staked yonr existence, playing false when tempted by the magnitude of the bribe on the one hand and terrified on the other by the danger of hanging." This proclaims the text of O'Connell's whole subsequent career, and which, though subjecting him to bitter advene criticism, he maintained to the end. He was called to th« Bar in the melancholy spring of 1798, and early one morning in 1799 set oat on horseback from his father's house to go on his first circuit. He had a powerful constitution, as may be imagined from the fact that he rode sixty miles the first day, and at the end of it, being in. vited to a ball, " sat up all night dancing" (which sounds like an Irish bull) and rode on next morning to the Limerick Assizes. At Tralee Assizes he got his first brief, and undertook, though acting as a junior, the cross-examination of an important witness. O'Oonnell says : " I remember this witness stated he had his share of a pint of whisky, whereupon I asked him whether his share wasn't all except the pewter. He confessed it was, and the oddity of my mode of putting the question was very successful and created a general laugh." Jerry Keller, an eminently able but eccentric barrister who was present encouraged O'Connell by saying, "You'll do, young gentleman, you'll do." Not long after he was complimented also, but in a rather equivocal manner, by a man whose acquittal he bad Becured. " I have no way here to chow you my gratitude, your honour, but I wish to God I saw you knocked down in my own parish, and maybe I'd bring a faction to rescue yon. Whoop I long life to your honour." In the same circuit O'Connell and another barrister, Harry Grady as he was called, had to travel through the Eilworth mountains, then infested with robbers, and regarded always as such a "delicate bit" of the journey that the two legal gentlemen desired to carry their pistols loaded, but had run short of powder and ball. The inn at which they were Btaying was crowded with the judges and suite, and their yeomanry escort, so tbat O'Oonnell and his friend had to dine in the taproom, where there were a corporal of dragoons and some privates drinking. Grady, addressing tbe corporal, said : " Soldier, will you sell me some powder and ball 1" "I don't sell either," eaid the- corporal. " Well, will you have tbe good* ness to buy me some f " because, being just after '98, it was difficult to procure ammunition. "Go yourself ; lam no one's messenger bat the King's," was tbe reply. O'Connell took in the situation. Grady bad offended the corporal's rank and dignity by calling him " Soldier," and whispered the blunder to Grady, who, after an interval, diplomatically accosted the military magnate with " Sergeant, I am very glad you and your men have not to escort the judges this wet day, It's very well for these yeomanry fellows." The corporal became civil immediately he beard the newly acquired rank, and Grady adroitly followed up with the renewed request for the powder and ball, which were graciously supplied. In this same journey, daring which there was a fierce storm and torrents of rain, O'Connell's cousin. Captain Hensessy, lost his life by remaining in wet clothes, and O'Oonnell in relating the sad occurrence gives, though gratuitous, good sound sanitary advice. " Never remain an instant in wet clothes after ceasing to be in motion. On reaching your bouse throw them off, and get between the blankets at once. Thus you become warm all over in an instant. To rinse the month once or twice with spirits and water is useful." I suppose the expression " rinse "is a euphemistic term for taking a glass of whisky and water, to be repeated until the necessary glow through the system is established. O'Connell's fees for the first year of his practice amounted to 458, the second yeart> £150, tbe third £200, the fourth £300, and in tbe last year of bis practice his fees amounted to £9,000. As no period was the wit of tbe Irish Bar co famous as at the close of the eighteenth century, and Curran was tbe most brilliant of them all. O'Oonnell admitted this, though with perhaps pardonable vanity he himself said, ''As for myself, to the last hours of my practice I kept the Court alternately in tears and roars of laughter." He speaks also of Plunket's great wit, and gives an instance, where in arguing a commercial case before the Irish Chancellor, Lord Redesdalp, Plunket had frequently applied the term " kites '' to what we call bogus P.N's. At last the Chancellor said, "I don't quite understand your meaning, Mr Plunket. In England ' kites ' are paper playthings used by boys. In Ireland they seem to relate to monetary transactions." " There is another difference, my Lord," said Plunket. " In England tbe wind raises the ' kites,' but in Ireland tbe < kites' raise the wind." I have said Curran was admittedly the most brilliant wit of bis time at the Irish Bar, and though it would be too

great a digression from the limits of our present subject to present to you any adequate sketch of bia great conversational powers or his sallies of wit, I cannot, in passing, resist the desire to mention one or two of Onrran's flashes. Oq one occasion a high tide in the LLffey its way into the cellers and subterraneous rooms of the Court, and the wigs and gowns were floating about* Curian, for whom a case was waiting, seized the first wig and gown drifting within reach, and rushed into court dripping like a river-god. " Well, Mr Ourran, 1 ' asked one of the judges, " how did you leave your friends coming on balow ?" " Snimmingly, my lord," was the reply. On another occasion, in defending an attorney's bill or costs before Lord Clare, " Here now," said Lord Clare, "is a monstrous imposition. How can you defend this item, Mr Curran : 'To writing innumerable letters, £100 1 ' " " Why, my lord," said Curran, " nothing can be more reasonable ; it is not a penny a letter." And Carran'e reply to Judge Robinson is exquisite : " I'll commit you sir," eaid the Judge . " I hope yonr lordship will never commit a worse thing," retorted Ourran. O'Connell tells us himself the love romance of his life, and if we can believe him, be never proposed marriage to any woman but one, his cousin Mary. " I said to her, * Are you engaged, Miss O'Connell 1 ' " She answered "I am not." I said " then will you engage yourself to me." " I will," was the reply. Though his uncle and other relatives were opposed to the match, O'Oonnell was married in June, 1802, and the 34 years of domestic Home Bale fully justified his choice and determination. Having an unendowed bride, bis vast energies and talents, like Carran's in early poverty, were aroused to achieve fame and success and place her in tbe position she deserved. I have already referred to the rebellion of 1793, and cannot dwell on the iniquitous acts of the Government and their accomplices, and the wantonly brutal treatment of tbe Irish Catholic people. In vain did Grattan lift his voice to demand equal privileges to his Majesty's subjicte, without distinction ; in vain did Curran ask to prove to the House of Commons that 1,400 families had been driven from their homes to wander like miserable outcasts — some butchered or burned in their cabins, others dying of famine and fatigue. No wonder the United Irishmen organised the insurrection, but no wonder that owing to divided alliances, which are always the curse in the success of wbat should plainly be a common national cause, it was a failure, and resulted so disastrously in the destruction of the brave lives of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Wolfe Tone, and John and Henry Sheares, all men of the highest honour, intellect, gallant courage, and unselfish patriotism. The trial of the Sheares is now universally regarded as a judicial murder. They were convicted on the evidence of one witness, and that an informer, and though ably defended by tbe illustrious Carran, who, worn out after fifteen hours' trial, was forced to com* mence his address to the jury at midnight, but without effect, and they were executed next morning. Such barbarous administration of justice appals us now-a-days ; but should it not awaken national sentiment, and a resentment and resistance in principle to all forms of oppression ? We drink the memory of the dead , The faithful and the few, Some lie far off beyond tbe wave, Some sleep ia Ireland too ; All — all are gone — but still lives on, The fame of those who died, All true men, like you, men, Remember tbem with pride. Having destroyed temporally the revolutionary spirit of Ireland, the Government now resolved on tbe distribution of her Parliament. This wes accomplished by unblushing bribery, corruption, the lavish distribution of money, place, office, and honours (save the mark). •• The ruin of the Irish Parliament," writes Justin McCarthy, " is j one of the most shameful stories of corruption and treachery of which history holds witness." One single vote alone cost £8,000, and the total monetary amount of the corruption was between two and three millions. Grattan, who had sat by the cradle of Ireland's Independence, had to follow her hearse. The circumstances of bis last effort against tbe Union are too touching to omit, It was solemn mid-night, in the height of feverish debate and excitement, an atmosphere of eloquence inspired by the death throes of an expiring nation, when all hushed as by magic, Grattan (that morning elected for Wicklow) who had risen from a bed of sickness, tottered to his place supported by friends. At such a moment Isaac Corry rashly ventured in a speech of bitterness to crush Grattan. Too feeble to stand, be spoke sitting — his voice weak. It is described as a truly sublime and touching spectacle. As he warmed to his mighty subject, his former young spirit revived. 1 canmt withhold a portion of his answer, tbuß :—": — " My guilt or innocence has little to do with the question before us. I rose with the rising fortunes of my country. I am willing to die with her expiring liberties. To the voice of the people i' I will bow : but never shall I submit to the caprices of an individual ' hired to betray them, and slander me. The indisposition of my body has left me, perhaps, no means but that of lying down with fallen Ireland, and recoxding upon her tomb my dying testimony against the flagrant corruption that has murdered her independence. . . . The right honourable gentleman has suggested examples which I would have shunned, and examples which I should have followed, I

shall never follow his, and I have ever avoided it. I shall never be ambitions to purchase public service by private infamy ; the lighter characters of the model have as little chance of weaning me from the habits of a life spent in the cause of my native land. Am Ito renounce these habits now forever T And at the back of whom f I should rather say of what ? Half minister, half monkey— a 'prentice politician, and a master coxcomb. Ec has told you what he has said of me here he would say anywhere. 1 believe he would aay them anywhere he thought himself safe in saying so— nothing can limit his calumnies but his fears. la Parliament he has calumniated me tonight ; in the King's Court he would calaminate me to-morrow ; but bad he said or dared to insinuate one half as much elsewhere, the indignant spirit of aa honest man would hare answered the vile and venal slanderer with a blow." A duel instantly followed, and Grattan wonnded Corry in the arm. In all this sad and wretched perfidy and crime of the Union, there is some balm in the memory that there in that base assembly 100 men stood faithfully by the side cf their agonised country. Amongst them one who was known as the " Incorruptible," the ancestor of the late and nationally lamented Mr Parnell. In striking contrast was the patriotic career of Charles Stewart Parnell t with the insignificance of the descendant of the Great Liberator, who, the other day during the recent elections, degraded his name by openly denouncing Home Bule, which was in effect the fond hope and day dream in the life of his illustrious ancestor. The national feeling of anger consequent upon the Union still rankled in the hearts and minds of the Irish people, and the gifted and brave young Robert Emmet designed a rising of the people to s«ize the Castle. The project was of conne a failure, and though he might have escaped, Emmet was too fondly attached to Sarah, Curran's daughter, whom he idolized. Emmet was hurriedly tried and convicted late at night, and, like the two Sheares, was hanged next morning, leaving a sorrowing country and a lost and broken-hearted love whose grief and fate are embalmed in Moore's beautifully pathetic melody, " She is far from the land. Emmet's speech from the dock is known to you all, and is an immortal model of Irish patriotism and eloquence. Of course, O'Connell never countenanced any action in the nature of physical force, and passed many strictures on the men of '98 and Emmet's abortive rising. It possibly had, however, this good effect that the minds of the people were turned from insurrection, and prepared the way for the new gospel of moral force of which O'Connell was destined to be the apostle. At the period immediately following the Union, O'Connell applied himself with assiduity to his profession, and rapidly acquired the highest skill and reputation as an advocate ; and in the midst of bis busy avocations we find him projecting and constantly fostering the great cause of Catholic emancipation. It required the great physical strength which he possessed to supply his vast energies and the strain of his varied duties and responsibilities. His frame was tall, expanded, and muscular, such aa befitted a leader of the people. " Among ten thousand," says Lady Wilde, " a stranger's eye would have fixed on him as the true king." His commanding gait and gestures force upon you the national sentiment, " Ireland her own or the world in a blaze." So much were the rights of the people ever present in his thoughts. O'Connell made his first political speech in 1800, on the Catholic claims, and felt prond of it ever afterwards, because, as he said, " it contained all the principles of my subsequent political life." I cull one extract to show that, while he was always personally a steadfast Catholic, he politically held as firmly broad and absolutely unsectarian views, and that the chief principle is — that the Irish people setting aside all sectarian and party prejudices and differences, should combine for the good of their common country. " Let us show," he said, "to Ireland that we have nothing in view but her good, nothing in our hearts but a desire of mutual forgivenees, toleration, and mutual affection ; in fine, let every man who feels with me proclaim, that if the alternative were offered him of the Union or the re-enactment of the Penal Code in all its pristine horrors, he would prefer, without hesitation, the latter, as the lesser and more sufferable evil ; that he wonld rather confide in the justice of bis brethren, the Protestants of Ireland, who have already liberated him, than lay his country at the feet of foreigners." Ten years later (1810), what was called an Aggregate Meeting was held in Dublin, and it is a pleasing contrast of events st this present period, and at this distance of time, to note that the Orange Corporation of that great city then were the movers in the patriotic attempt to repeal the Union. I should also like to point out, in justice to the memory of O'Connell, in relation to the question of self-government of Ireland and the many claimants to the honour of originating the question of Home Bule (among them some colonial statesmen), that, since the Union, to O'Connell himself is due the hooour of first place, for 1 find that bis biographers record that during the repeal agitation he often exclaimed," Are not we able to manage our own affairs ? Would any sensible man entrust his affairs to others who was perfectly capable of managing them himself ? Here is, in a nutshell, the whole gospel of Home Bule as preached nnder that title for nearly twenty years. (Concluded in owr next,)