tage points in and around Clontarf. The gauntlet was thrown down to O'Connell.

An emergency meeting of the Repeal executive was instantly summoned. O'Connell, telling them that nothing would justify his permitting vast masses of unarmed men to be mowed down, pronounced that there was nothing to do but submit. They of course agreed. Mounted messengers were instantly sent flying out of Dublin along every road that led to the Capital. All bodies of marching men were turned back, and the word sent everywhere far and wide over the country that no meeting would be on the

morrow.

The Government had taken a dangerous hazard and won.

And they quickly followed up their advantage. On Sunday morning they arrested O'Connell, his son John, Ray the Repeal Treasurer, Tom Steele, two priests, and the editors of three Nationalist papers, Gray of The Freeman's Journal, Barrett of The Pilot, and Duffy of The Nation. These were charged with conspiring to change the Constitution by illegal methods, and to excite disaffection.

The country stood on tip-toe awaiting "the word" from O'Connell-whatever that word might be. And tens of thousands of eager ones prayed that it might be a bold one. But, Peace was the word given by the leader.

The people implicitly obeyed. The man who disobeyed the order would be a traitor to the cause and the country. Even The Nation, which after a little while was to condemn O'Connell for lack of boldness, and lead a revolt from him, sternly commanded that the captain's word must be unquestioningly obeyed.

The Traversers were tried by a packed jury of Tories and Orangemen. No Catholic was permitted on it. A whole file of the jury list, containing names of men who could not be welcomed to the jury by the prosecution, was, before the trial, "lost" from the sheriff's complete list. The spirit that sat in the British judgment seat then, as in most Irish political trials, was well and ludicrously exemplified by the presiding Chief Justice, Pennefather, when in giving an opinion upon a disputed point, he let slip: "I speak under the correction of the gentlemen of the other side!"

The Traversers were of course found guilty. O'Connell was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment, to pay a fine of two thousand pounds, and give bail to be of good behaviour for seven years. The others were given nine months' imprisonment, fifty pounds' fine, and bail. Between the time of the verdict and the

sentence, O'Connell, weakening, re-formed the Repeal Association so as to eliminate from it things that had now been established as unlawful-including his Arbitration Courts. And he set the example of closing every meeting by calling for cheers for England's Queen! It was upon this unwise retreat that The Nation and Young Ireland, violently opposing, began to break with him.

Yet he held the unhesitating loyalty of the country at large. And every tyrannical and unjust step of the Government, from the eve of Clontarf till they put the leader in prison, seemed to strengthen the people's fight-and, moreover, brought into the ranks many of the gentry who had hitherto stood outside-including Smith O'Brien. The Repeal rent went on increasing. When the final step of imprisoning him was taken, the Repeal rent bounded up with a great bound. In the quarter of a year after O'Connell went into prison, there was taken four times as much rent as in the quarter of a year preceding. Though the movement had undoubtedly got a rude check, the spirit of the country, strange to say, was not even feazed.

Yet time proved that on the day of Clontarf was dug the grave of O'Connell's Repeal.

CHAPTER LXVIII

THE END OF O'CONNELL

BUT the movement and the man had an Indian summer.

The great criminal in prison was as a mighty prince holding court. Deputations from all parts of Ireland, led by mayors of cities, bishops, and other dignitaries daily arrived to pay him court. Every word of O'Connell's, going out from his prison walls, had now double as much weight as had formerly the weightiest pronouncement of the free O'Connell, thundered from a plat

form.

After four months they were released by decision of the Law Lords of the House of Lords, when these heard the case on appeal. Two hundred thousand people frantic with joy, on the day of his release jammed the streets along which rode the Liberator from the prison to his home, throned in state on the high deck of a specially made triumphal car. It was one of the proudest days of a life that had been enriched with a plenitude of proud ones.

And on the second day after, great crowds crammed Conciliation Hall, and the streets surrounding it, to hear the message of the liberated leader, and get, as they thought, fresh inspiration for the still further speeding of the struggle.

But Clontarf and its sequel, the trial and imprisonment, had marked a great turning point in Dan's career; and he now disappointed the nation. While the speech rang as boldly as ever with denunciations of the Government that had perverted the laws to imprison him, and with threats of what he would do to them, and to all their minions, including Pennefather and the other misJudges on the Bench-all of which won the old wild plaudits from his hearers-he did not suggest a plan or lay a line for carrying the fight to fruition. He studiously avoided any statement of future policy-only emphasised, with an emphasis that did not decrease the people's disappointment, his too-oft reiterated singledrop-of-blood theory, boasting that he was the first apostle and founder of that noble political creed whose cardinal doctrine was that no human revolution was worth the effusion of one red drop. And without giving the country a lead he went home to Derrynane to rest and recuperate-to forget politics for a period, stroll

by the white strands of Kerry, and on its mountains hunt the hare. Afterwards, it was on all sides conceded that the softening of the brain which was to end his life, had set in during the months of his imprisonment. He was nevermore the old Dan, the bold Dan, whose magnetic power had gifted him, by the lifting of a little finger, to lead a nation.

In the course of a few months he courted Federalism—which a generation later came to be called Home Rule—and he compelled the Repeal Association to admit into its ranks the Federalists, a party of Whig country gentlemen for the most part, but having in their ranks a few progressive intellectual ones like William Smith O'Brien and the young poet Davis. But he soon found that Federalism fell flat on the country, even where, as amongst the thinking ones, it did not actually call up antagonism. And when he came up to Dublin in May for the great anniversary celebration of his imprisonment, the politician Dan confided to the people, who had spurned his Federalism, that after having now given the fullest consideration to Federalism, he consideredwith a snap of the fingers-it wasn't worth that! And during the minutes of the multitude's frantic applause the astute Dan felt good reason for pluming himself that he was the peerless leader still.

The

And indeed in the hearts and thoughts of the vast body of the people he was. The homage paid him at that anniversary celebration was almost equal to anything he had before experienced. Let the bitterly antagonistic Tory Mail describe it, "While we write this," says the Mail, "Mr. O'Connell is sitting in autocratic state in the throne room of the Rotunda, surrounded by his peers, and receiving the addresses of the authorities, the corporate bodies, the nobility, clergy and gentry of his peculiar dominion. business of the city is at a standstill. Professional duties are in suspense; tradesmen have closed their shops; the handicrafts have left their callings; and, save the great thoroughfares through which the ovation of the Autocrat is to pass, the streets are deserted, and as noiseless as a wilderness. In the latter, shops lie open, but without a customer; in the former the barricaded doors and windows scarce suffice to resist the pressure of the throng. A countless multitude, crowding all the avenues leading to the autocrat's presence, forms dense alleys for the passage of the public bodies, which, headed by their appointed leaders-some in military costume, some in their civic robes of office, and all in full dressproceed to the music of the bands, with regimental uniformity, towards the chamber where their self-elected sovereign has appointed to receive their homage."

But alas, it was only in the warm hearts of a loving, worshipping people that their sovereign's greatness now lived. His old stamina gone, he could not evolve a new policy or face a fresh fight. Forgetful of his sad, sad lesson of the 'Thirties, he let himself again lean upon the Whigs-or, maybe it could be said, let the Whigs lean upon him. In '45 the Whig leader, Lord John Russell, had become so popular with the Irish leader that we find Dan threatening to transfer to his brows his own Mullaghmast crown. And a few months later, in May of '46-while Ireland staggered from the first bad blow of the '45 potato blight-we find the uncrowned king, Lord John, with his Whig following, trooping into the division lobby, shoulder to shoulder with the Tories, to vote comfort to England's suffering sister in the form of a vile Coercion Bill. This, on the Bill's first reading. Before the second reading was reached the Whigs found need for O'Connell and his fellows, enlisted again Dan's alliance to throw out the Tories-which he enabled them to do-and put their kind selves in power. And on the old, old and again implicitly believed promise of remedial measures for Ireland, O'Connell practically blotted out of his dictionary the word Repeal.

The Nation party, the Young Ireland party, which had its first serious difference with O'Connell on his Federal fad, led now by Duffy, Mitchel and Smith O'Brien, were rebelling against him and the Association (which was controlled by his son John); and, seeking an antidote to the Whigs' opiate, were preaching revolution to the country. The final split between the old and the new came when Dan ordered the Association to purge itself by passing the Peace Resolutions-which would pledge every man within the Association ranks to the single-drop-of-blood policy. The split at that meeting of the Association was immediately precipitated by young Meagher's Sword speech.

John O'Connell made immediate reply to Meagher, "These sentiments imperil the very existence of our association. Either Mr. Meagher or I must leave." Thereupon the Young Ireland leaders, Duffy, Mitchel, O'Brien and Meagher, marched out of the hall, and out of the Association.

And henceforward to the sincerely grieved Daniel O'Connell and his lieutenants in the Association, the Young Ireland party, more than England, were Ireland's enemy.1

1 Mitchel (in after years) named O'Connell, "next to the British Government, the greatest enemy Ireland ever had." It was owing to his influence, Mitchel held, that the attempted insurrection of '48 ended in failure. In his Jail Journal he, not without much of the exaggeration of prejudice, exclaims, "Poor old Dan! Won