366 HOW ENGLAND REPELS OUR ATTACHMENT. ments of all that can exalt and dignify the human race; rich with the memories of martial valour and pacific wisdom; famed for the splendid pre-eminence in arts and arms of her mighty sons; covered over with her stately old ancestral dwellings; adorned with majestic churches and cathedrals-the venerable records of the piety which once distinguished her inhabitants. Even an Irish Repealer may experience a momentary thrill of pride when he thinks of his remote connexion with a country possessing such claims on the world's admiration; but the sentiment is quickly banished by the wrongs that England's crimes have inflicted upon that far dearer land in which his first breath was drawn, with which his fondest affections are identified, and of which God's providence has made him a citizen! England-England! why will you compel our reluctant detestation? Kilcascan, Co. Cork, December, 1844. PEEL AND MAYNOOTH. 367 POSTSCRIPT. The Repeal agitation has bid defiance to coercive measures, prosecutions, imprisonments. The next step to undermine our strength will come in the shape of concession and conciliation. Peel tries now to put a golden hook in the nose of the Irish Catholic Church by the endowment of Maynooth. As Maynooth will pocket the grant, I trust Maynooth will have the grace to laugh at the donor. There is no doubt that the grant has been most frankly and graciously made; there is as little doubt that had it been otherwise--had it professed in any way to invade the perfect freedom of Catholic instruction, it would have too palpably defeated its own object. That object is to buy off the clergy from Repeal. There is much speculation, too, on another event-the promised visit of Her Majesty to Ireland. Hopes are expressed that the smiles of royalty may thaw the rigour of our Irish patriotism. The Queen likes travelling; she has visited Scotland, France, and Belgium. It is natural 368 THE QUEEN'S RUMOURED VISIT. she should wish to amuse herself with a few weeks' tour through Ireland. Let her come, and welcome! Peel will try to turn her visit to an anti-national account. But those speculators will find themselves mistaken who imagine that the Irish people are such children as to be amused with idle pageantry, or that the glittering paraphernalia of royalty can divert them for a single moment from the stern pursuit of their own independence. The motto I have chosen for this book is the echo of their settled purposes "We know our duty to our Sovereign, and are loyal; we also know our duty to ourselves, and are resolved to be free." We are not going to forget our duty to ourselves. I trust, should crowds greet the advent of our amiable young monarch, that the air may ring again with lusty shouts for THE REPEAL! She will learn to respect a people who respect themselves. There is, in our present position, everything to encourage, everything to stimulate to augmented energy. Review with me, for a single moment, the progress of the present movement from the day of its commencement, the 15th of April, 1840. 1. There was a small gathering of earnest men-thinly scattered on the benches of the REVIEW OF OUR PAST PROGRESS. 369 Corn Exchange room-I doubt if they amounted to seventy. I bless God that I was one of them. The leader had convened them, I verily believe, with a conviction that the immediate answer to his call would have given a much larger attend ance. 2. The leader and his little band worked on. Their work was met at first with silence by the English press, who believed that the tiny spark would soon die out if not fanned into a flame by opposition. At home our exertions were honoured with an occasional Whig sneer, or a Tory growl of hatred. The prevalent tactics of hostility, however, appeared both at home and in England, to be neglect. 3. The Repealers still worked on. Our numbers received some accessions. A few true hearts who could not allow the green standard to be hoisted, in storm or in sunshine, without gathering under its shadow, rallied round us. Some demonstrations-feeble as yet-in the provinces, cheered us onward, and gave earnest of better things for the future. We soon became sufficiently important to be laughed at. The London press found the silent game would no longer answer. If it was silent, the Association was not. It made itself heard, and the organs of public opinion in England amused their rea 370 REVIEW OF OUR PAST PROGRESS. ders with vapid witticisms at our expense. The Irish Repealers were so divertingly "absurd!" "insane!" "ridiculous!" and so forth. 4. The absurd Repealers still worked on, gathering strength as they advanced. They soon passed the laughing ordeal, as they previously had passed the silent stage. Their antagonists found that silence and ridicule alike failed to check their career. Open and ferocious hostility was at length adopted; their purposes were indefatigably misrepresented; they were stigmatized as rebels and traitors; their objects were alleged to be the dismemberment of the empire; the exaltation of rampant Popery on the ruins of Protestantism, and the expulsion of the present proprietary from the forfeited estates. 5. Despite opposition, the Repealers continued their peaceful and constitutional labours. The period for domestic missions arrived in 1842; the seed was widely scattered, and speedily began to germinate. 6. A prodigious impetus was given to the movement by O'Connell's introduction of the question into the Corporation of Dublin. All the Irish municipal bodies save one, immediately identified themselves with the cause of self-government. 7. The monster meetings were held in 1843. |