simultaneously into the prison with the news, vociferating in such noisy rivalship that their tidings were for a long time unintelligible. At length one of them, per force of better wind, shouted his comrade out of breath, and having reached the corridor leading to O'Connell's apartments, he continued to bellow, "I'm first! I'm first! I'm first!"

"What is it all about?" demanded Mr. Barrett, who was calmly perambulating the corridor.

"Only that you're free," cried Edmond O'Hagarty (the messenger). "I'm first! I'm first! Hurrah! Where's the Liberator? I'm first!"

They rushed into a drawing-room where O'Connell was seated between two ladies, O'Hagarty in his noisy delight still shouting, "I'm first! I'm first! You're free, Liberator! Thanks be to God for that same ! The judgment's re

versed."

'Bah! not true; it can't be true," replied O'Connell coolly.

"But it is true, Liberator." And the messenger showed him the placard which had been printed in London announcing the fact. He examined it attentively, and said to Fitzpatrick: "After all, this may be true," when doubt was dispelled by the sudden appearance of the attorneys for the defence. "On the merits," were the first words of Mr. Ford, who threw his arms round O'Connell's neck and kissed him. O'Connell wore his green velvet Mullaghmast cap, and Ford wore a broad-brimmed beaver hat, oblivious in his ecstacy of the presence of the ladies. "On the merits," he triumphantly repeated; "no technicalities at all—nothing but the merits."

The news had now spread through the prison, and the other prisoners crowded to the drawing-room to learn their fate. There was a quiet sort of triumph, no boisterous joy amongst the traversers. In the course of the evening O'Connell said to my informant in a tone of deep solemnity: Fitzpatrick, the hand of man is not in this. It is the response given by Providence to the prayers of the faithful, stedfast, pious people of Ireland."

It was near twilight when O'Connell left the prison to return to his house in Merrion Square. As he walked along the streets, the people at first gazed on him in bewildered astonishment. They could scarcely believe the evidence of their eyes. Was O'Connell indeed free? They crowded round him to ascertain the fact; the crowds augmented; and

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by the time he arrived at the western end of Merrion Square, his friends were obliged to form a cordon around him to avert the inconvenient pressure of the delighted multitude. When he placed his foot on his own hall-door step, to re-enter the home from which he had for three months been iniquitously exiled, the popular ecstasy became uncontrollable. Cheer after cheer rose and swelled upon the air. The people gave vent to their wild delight in vociferous acclamations; every heart beat high with pride and triumph at the liberation of their venerated leader-not by ministerial grace or royal favour, but by the strict and stern vindication of that law which had been so nefariously outraged in the trial and conviction.

O'Connell appeared on the balcony and addressed the people briefly. He exhorted them to bear their victory with moderation. Let them, he said, demonstrate their fitness to rule themselves by the spirit of conciliation and friendliness with which they should enjoy their triumph.

On the next day (Saturday, the 7th of September) the liberated patriots passed in procession through the leading streets of the metropolis. It was a scene of indescribable excitement. When opposite the door of the old Parliament House in College Green, the cavalcade halted-O'Connell rose in his triumphal car, uncovered his head, and pointed with significant emphasis to the edifice. Then arose a mighty shout from the surrounding thousands-again and again did O'Connell, looking proudly around him, repeat his significant gesture; again and again did the myriads who thronged the broad street upraise their glad voices in deafening cheers. It was like the roar of the ocean, that proud shout of a nation's triumph and a nation's hope.

On Monday, the 9th of September, the Association met; the Lord Mayor of Dublin occupied the chair. Thousands were obliged to return from the door of Conciliation Hall from the incapacity of that building to contain them. Floor, benches, galleries, all were full. The enthusiasm of O'Connell's reception was beyond the power of imagination to exaggerate.

His speech embraced many topics. He exulted in the vindication of the Constitution and of trial by jury. He showed, in reply to the cavils of the enemy, that the favourable decision of the three law-lords was a direct decision on the merits, inasmuch as the sixth and seventh counts of the monster indictment, which expressly charged

S

the traversers with conspiracy to hold meetings to intimidate -counts which contained the very essence of the prosecution -counts on which the conviction and sentence were ostentatiously justified; these sixth and seventh counts were pronounced to be bad and invalid by the English judges and the English House of Lords; although the English judges, in condemning the counts, yet sanctioned the sentence that had been based on them, by the preposterous presumption that it was not on those counts, but on some others, that the Irish Bench had rested their judgment; a presumption notoriously contradicted by the fact, and by the charges of the Irish judges themselves.

O'Connell next complimented the Whigs for their felicitous judicial appointments. He complimented Sheil, who had been harshly censured for seeming to solicit, as a matter of favour to the traversers, some concession from the Government: "I was vexed and angry with Sheil at the time, that he should have uttered any words to which the meaning could be possibly attached of soliciting a favour on my part from Sir Robert Peel. He ought to have known that I would rather have rotted in jail than condescend to accept a favour from Peel. I said from the commencement— I announced it to the world-that, come what might, there should be no compromise or shrinking. There has been none; and there is not a man of us who would not have died in jail rather than sully our hands by receiving the slightest concession from our enemies. Sheil was wrong in that instance; but he is one of those who can afford to be wrong once, for his country owes him a deep debt of gratitude. Oh! I cannot forget his past career-his glorious career! I cannot forget how he ornamented and made interesting our struggle for Emancipation. When I was going on with my dull, prosy speech, wearying the public ear with the monotony of my tones and accents, and with the continued repetition of the same facts, Sheil used to burst forth in the dazzling effulgence of intellectual glory, irradiating our cause with the coruscations of his genius and the illumination of his powerful mind."

O'Connell appealed with great force to his Protestant countrymen; exhibiting the delusive nature of the fears of those who were still timid, by referring to his past pacific policy: "What are you afraid of? Did we threaten? Did we menace? Did we overawe? We were strong enough to commit violence; nothing save the spirit of conciliation and

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love for each other could have brought us together in such multitudinous masses without violence. In the midst of a people who love me and trust me with more power in my hands than any monarch in Europe enjoys" (here the speaker was interrupted with vehement cheering and waving of handkerchiefs), "so situated, how have I demeaned myself? But first-how did I acquire that power? I acquired it and retained it because of the conviction that every man, woman, and child feels that I would not abuse it. I have acquired it and retained it because I was congenial in opinion with the millions of my countrymen, and because they were perfectly persuaded that in the exercise of that power with which by their confidence they invested me, I would sedulously guard against the commission of any crime whatsoever. I have kept my compact, but I never could have done this without the assistance and co-operation of the Catholic clergy. They saw the jealous scrutiny with which our minutest movements were watched by our Protestant brethren; they entered unreservedly into my views-and here is all the secret of my success. They knew me—they appreciated me. They knew that I was the first apostle and founder of that sect of politicians whose cardinal doctrine is this that the greatest and most desirable of political changes may be achieved by moral means alone, and that no human revolution is worth the effusion of one single drop of human blood. Human blood is no cement for the temple of human liberty."

Such were the leading topics of O'Connell's address on that important day. His manner and appearance corresponded well with the triumphant style of his language. Never were his spirits more elate, his step more elastic, his tone more exulting. There was a fire in his eye, an eager vivacity in his voice, and a vigour of intellect in his address, that beseemed a nation's chief disenthralled from unjust bondage, and impatient to devote his unfettered energies to the renewed battle for legislative freedom.

It needs not be told that the enthusiastic joy which animated Dublin was diffused through the whole kingdom. The glad news of the liberation was immediately telegraphed all over the land by signal fires. Cresset answered cresset; mountain and valley started into light. You gazed into the dark distance, and blaze after blaze sprang up. The red flame glowed in the sheltered hollow of the rock, and streamed in the light breeze on the hill-top. The heart and soul of

the land rejoiced; the exulting shouts of the people were borne far on the night wind; glen, river, plain, and mountain were vocal with their triumph. Stirring sights-joyous sounds. I was in the country at the time, 150 Irish miles from Dublin. From the roof of my house on the banks of the Bandon river I looked on the national illumination. I omitted to reckon the number of fires, but I think it probable that from that one point not less than from sixty to seventy might have been counted.

Heretofore, our prospects looked well. O'Connell probably did not then know that his health had been fatally undermined by his imprisonment, and there were not yet any external indications that his strength was impaired. The reversal of the judgment established his "legal infallibility," as the enemy ironically styled his extensive and accurate knowledge of the law.

CHAPTER XXVII.

CAREER OF A ROMANTIC AGITATOR.

Bold and true,

In bonnet blue,

Who fear or falsehood never knew.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

BEFORE tracing any farther the progress of O'Connell's agitation, I shall give a short account of the career of O'Connell's Head Pacificator, Mr. Steele.

"Honest Tom Steele," as he was usually called, was born at Derrymore, in the County Clare, in 1788. His family came from Somersetshire in the reign of Charles II. Their name was then Champion, which they changed into the name of Steele for reasons now unknown. William Champion, the lineal ancestor of the Head Pacificator, was, I believe, an officer in Monmouth's regiment. He established himself near Nenagh, in the County Tipperary. His first experiment as a settler was inauspicious, inasmuch as the Tipperary folk three times burned his house over his head, the proprietor on each occasion narrowly escaping with life. Unwilling to incur the peril of a fourth combustion, he migrated to the more pacific county of Clare, where his posterity continued to reside.

Steele received a university education at Cambridge,