they carried through a measure acknowledged by themselves to be a sacrifice to what they thought expedient, of what they ever held to be right and constitutional, and which they admitted to be heartily disliked by the country, that they claimed the merit for having given up to what they termed a sense of duty, not only all political commotions, but even the approbation and esteem of the public. Thus had Mr. O'Connell and his Association, as representing the united voice of Catholic Ireland, and of the Liberal Protestants of Ireland, changed, in one year, a majority of 44 against them to one of 105 in their favour. Fear was found to argue more powerfully in Downing Street than conscience. The friends of the cause could not pass a Relief Bill when the Catholics petitioned; but their enemies did it with alacrity, when they shewed their power. A politic effort was made to restrict the liberality of the measure, by the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders. This act proved afterwards of some advantage, in what is called "the admission of a principle." Where the interest of the poor and powerless is at stake, such "principles" are generally overlooked, and it did not occur to those who took away these small "vested rights," that they would soon have to judge on similar "rights" vested in more imporLant persons.

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30.

CHAPTER IX.

THE re-election of Mr. O'Connell for the County of Clare, was now determined, and so soon as he took the field, what was termed an "Aggregate Meeting" of the Catholics took place to consider what steps should be adopted to forward his re-election. This was nothing else than a meeting of the Catholic Association. It was held in the old Association rooms, it was held for old Association purposes. A large sum of the Catholic rent still remained on hand; this meeting was held, and was followed by others, to consider how that fund should be disposed of-and only the Catholic Association could dispose of that fund. The very first thing done by the meeting, was to vote £5000 of the rent, as an aid to Mr. O'Connell in standing for the county of Clare. This was the very thing which they had done in 1828. The one was as much an act of the Catholic Association as the other nad been--and was in the very face of that law suppressing it, with which the Relief Bill had been so pompously introduced. The vote was strongly opposed by some Members on the ground, that such a mode of appropriating the money, was not among the objects for which it had been contributed, and Mr. Eneas Macdonnell gave the Treasurers warning, that if they applied any part of these monies towards such a purpose, it would be at their own peril. Mr. Macdonnell probably acted from resentment, but the very cause of his resentment was, the actings of this, revived Catholic Association. He had put in a claim to be remunerated from the fund for what he had done, and suffered in the Catholic cause. That claim was rejected, but it was rejected only after a debate of three days, regularly adjourned from day to day, and these meetings took place under the very eye of the Government without interruption,

The election did not excite much interest, for Mr. O'Conneil was not opposed. It was preceded and accompanied, however by the usual number of "triumphant entries," as they were called, that is assemblages of large crowds of people to whom were addressed the usual number of bad speeches, in which inflammatory abuse was mixed up with low buffooning and sheer blackguardism, and we are sorry to add, in one or two instances on the part of Mr. O'Connell, with expressions strongly verging on blasphemy itself. In one of his orations, delivered on his entry into Ennis, he said. "The fortyshilling elective franchise, has been taken from you, and the £10 substituted for it, You will give me an opportunity of having that franchise, that right restored. I promised you religious freedom, and I kept my word. The Catholics are now free, and the Brunswickers are no longer their masters, and a paltry set they were to be our masters. They could turn up the white of their eyes to Heaven, but at the same time they put their hands very slily into your pockets. They would discount God Almighty for ready money. The Brunswick Clubs of Dublin, have sent down one, a miniature in flesh, poor Bumibo and his land-calf-brother, to disfranchise the brave freeholders, and crooked eyed Fitzgerald swore to it, but I call on the gentry of Clare to separate themselves from the disgraceful Dublin Blood-hounds, and join what is intended for the good of the people. The question is no longer a question between Protestant and Catholic; that is at • an end, it is now, who is a good or a bad man. If you thus decide, which will you choose, Bumbo or me? I hope you will rub off the foul stain of my connection with these Bloodhounds, and ratify the former election. What good did any Member ever before in Parliament do for the county of Clare, except to get places for their nephews and cousins &c.? What did I do? I procured for you emancipation. Does the subletting Act oppress? I shall not be six months in Parliament, until all your oppression shall be done away with."

This was language fitted to excite, but not to mitigate

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DANIEL O CONNELL, ESQ.

angry passions, used too, not in the heat of a contested election but when he was allowed to walk the course undisturbed. He did not conceal his ulterior views. Whenever he could find an opportunity, he made a speech, he announced his great object now to be a repeal of the union with England, and the means by which he was to seek it, that same organization of the people to which his Majesty's Government had lately told the empire, it was impossible for them to say no. "We shall have now," said he "at Youghall, a brighter era opened to us, and I trust that all classes of my countrymen will join together, and by forming one general firm phalanx achieve, what is still wanting, to make Ireland what it ought to be. Ireland had her 1782; she shall have another 1782. Let no man tell me it is useless to look for a repeal of that odious union, that blot upon our national character. I revere the union between England and Scotland, but the union which converted Ireland into a province, which deprived Ireland of her Parliament, it is for the repeal of that measure we must now use all the constitutional means in our power. That union which engenders absenteeism, and the thousand other evils which naturally flow in its train. We are bound to England by the golden link of the crown, and far be it from me, to weaken that connection by my present observations. want no disseveration, but I want and must have a repeal of that cursed measure which deprived Ireland of her senate, and, thereby made her a dependent upon British Aristocracy, and British intrigue and British interest. I may perhaps be told that to attempt a repeal of the Uuion would be chimerical. I pity the man who requires an argument in support of the position that Ireland wants her Parliament; and that individual who pronounces the attainment of such consummation to be Utopian, is reminded of the Catholic Question. Look at the Catholic cause; do I not remember when it was difficult to procure a meeting of five Catholics, to look for a restoration of our then withheld rights; I recollect when we agitators, were almost as much execrated by our fellow-slaves as we were by our oppressors. For the attainment of the repeal of the

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Union, I shall have the co-operation of all the classes and grades in society; the Orangeman of the north, the Methodist of the south, and the quiet unpresuming Quaker, who may think his gain shall be thereby augmented-all shall be joined in one common cause-the restoration of Ireland's Parliament." “I am now on my way to Dublin; nor shall I be there a fortnight, when a Society having for its title seventeen hundred and eightytwo," shall be formed. I dare say I shall have but a few persons enrolled in it at the first; but like the mighty oak, which spreads and overshadows the desert, resisting for centuries the most furious blasts of the elements, so shall seventeen hundred and eighty-two" extend its influence throughout Ireland, nor cease till her Parliament be restored, her sons be one creed, all joined in the common cause of seeing old Ireland great and glorious amongst the nations of Europe." In another and earlier oration delivered at Carrick-on-Suire, he had said"what was to be done for Ireland. The contentions of religion were over-freedom was obtained-they never were base enough to be contented with less-the people shall no longer be misrepresented-what was done in one county, another county can accomplish! Waterford owed it to Clare to imitate it-nor should the scions of Knockloftiness, and the paltry Prittriness of another county (Messrs. Hutchinson and Prittie, Members for Tipperary) be suffered to prevent the just representation of its feelings-No, the men of that county were too brave to be intimidated. However pure the intentions of the Duke of Wellington might be, the designs of his Ministry betrayed no symptom of improving the internal condition of Ireland; whom had they for instance, selected for the administration of justice? Serjeant Lefroy, reeking with expressions, with which he would not pollute his lips (for they savoured too closely of high treason,) was sent to decide whether Catholics are always in the wrong, and Protestants always in the right. The government of Ireland had made another change-Saurin. They had heard of Con of the hundred battles, but there was Saurin of the hundred prosecutions, Saurin the greatest enemy of the liberty of the press, and the