[Illustration: Michael Doheny]
THE FELON'S TRACK
OR
HISTORY OF THE ATTEMPTED OUTBREAK
IN
IRELAND
Embracing the Leading Events in the Irish Struggle from
the year 1843 to the close of 1848
BY
MICHAEL DOHENY
Author of "The American Revolution."
Hurrah for the mountain side!
Hurrah for the bivouac!
Hurrah for the heaving tide!
If rocking the Felon's Track!
_ORIGINAL EDITION_
WITH D'ARCY M'GEE'S NARRATIVE OF 1848, A PREFACE,
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR'S CONTEMPORARIES,
AN INDEX, AND ILLUSTRATIONS
DUBLIN
M.H. GILL & SON, LTD.
1920
_Printed and Bound in Ireland by
M.H. Gill & Son, Ltd.
50 Upper O'Connell Street
Dublin_
_First Edition_ 1914
_Second Impression_ 1916
_Third Impression_ 1918
_Fourth Impression_ 1920
[Illustration: General Shields]
_Dedication._
TO
GENERAL JAMES SHIELDS
UNITED STATES SENATOR, ETC.
DEAR SIR,--
In dedicating to you this narrative, I have been influenced by one
consideration only. I have no title to your friendship. I cannot claim
the most remote affinity with your career in arms. There is nothing
connected with this sad fragment of history, either in fact or hope, to
suggest any association with your name or achievements. But as my main
object is to show that Ireland's failure was not owing to native
recreancy or cowardice, I feel satisfied that of all living men, your
position and character will best sustain the sole aim of my present
labour and ambition.
In past history, Ireland holds a high place; but her laurels were won on
foreign fields, and the jealous literary ambition which raised adequate
monuments to these stormy times denied to her swords the distinction
they vindicated for themselves in the hour of combat. The most
brilliant, unscrupulous and daring historian of France degraded the
niggard praise he accorded them by making it the medium of a false and
contemptible sneer. "The Irish soldier," says Voltaire, "fights bravely
everywhere but in his own country."
Without pausing here to vindicate that country from such ungrateful
slander, it is enough to say that you were not placed in the same
unhappy position as the illustrious exiles from the last Irish
army--soldiers of fortune in the service of a foreign prince. You were a
citizen of this free Republic, and a volunteer in its ranks; it was
_your_ country, and you and your compatriots who followed the same
standard did no dishonour to those who were bravest among the brave on
the best debated fields in Europe.
In the wreck of every hope, all who yet cherish the ambition of
realising for Ireland an independent destiny, point to your career as an
encouraging augury, if not a complete justification for not despairing
of their country. It is because I am among those that I have claimed the
honour of inscribing your name on the first page of this, my latest
labour in her cause.
I remain, dear Sir,
Very respectfully and sincerely yours,
MICHAEL DOHENY.
_New York, Sept. 20, 1849._
PREFACE
The Irish Confederation still awaits its historian. Three of its leaders
have left narratives of its brief and momentous career, but, of the
three, Doheny alone participated in the Insurrection that dug the
political grave of Young Ireland. In "The Felon's Track," written hot on
his escape from the stricken land, he tells the story vividly and
passionately. It has morals deducible for all manner of Irishmen, and
one for those English statesmen who comfort themselves with the illusion
that Irish Nationalism, like Jacobitism, is a platonic sentiment. The
man who, roused from his bed at midnight by tapping fingers on his
window and a voice whispering that insurrection was afoot, rose and rode
away in the darkness to join himself to its desperate fortunes was no
young man ardent for adventure. Michael Doheny, when he left his home
and his career to engage in the fatal enterprise, was a sober
middle-aged barrister, a man of weight and fortune into which he had
built himself by the hard toil of twenty years. His social anchorages
were deep-cast--and no mere sentiment provokes such a man to throw aside
the hard-won harvest of his life and risk the rebel's or the felon's
fate.
In the leadership of the Young Ireland party Michael Doheny was, save
Smith O'Brien, the oldest man and, like O'Brien, his counsels while
courageous were always restrained. There was little other likeness
between the men. Doheny sprang from the poorest class of the Irish
farmers. At Brookfield, near Fethard in Tipperary, where he was born in
May, 1805, he followed the plough on his father's little holding,
earning literally his bread in the sweat of his brow, and educating
himself how he could, for his people were too poor to pay for his
schooling. His indomitable perseverance and his thirst for knowledge
overcame the formidable obstacles of fortune, and at thirty years of age
the poor peasant boy had become a barrister of reputation for ability
and fearlessness. He returned to his native county to become the most
popular and trusted of its "counsellors"--the advocate who did not fear
to face and beard Influence and Ascendancy in its courts. The city of
Cashel had had much of its property alienated and long enjoyed by local
magnates whom none were willing to offend. Doheny fought and defeated
them and regained the purloined estates for the people. He was made
Legal Adviser to the Borough of Cashel and when later the pestilence
fell upon the place, and even the men employed to carry the sick to
hospital lost courage and fled, Doheny showed the same manly example of
citizenship and duty which years later forced him "on the Felon's path,"
by carrying in his strong arms to shelter and relief the deserted
victims of the plague. Davis who marked his character, and knew that on
such men a free and self-respecting Ireland must be rebuilt induced him
to enter the Repeal movement of 1842, and in its councils he swayed the
influence of a strong, sincere, able and incorruptible man until the
Association fell into the toils of the English Whigs. Then he quitted
it and formally adhered to the Young Irelanders. To them he was
invaluable for his eloquence--less brilliant and polished than that of
Meagher, but more effective in its appeal to the heart of the peasantry
whom Doheny knew better than any of his colleagues. On a platform he
triumphed, but with the pen he was often ineffective. His admiration and
reverence for Davis misled him into laboriously imitating Davis's style,
and the result was what it must always be when one man attempts to
express his ideas not in his own way but as he thinks a greater man
would express them. Much that would have been impressive and lucid as
Doheny becomes unimpressive and clouded as Doheny-Davis. In a few of his
verses and "The Felon's Track" Doheny the writer will survive. As a man
who gave up all to help his country and served her like a gallant son,
his memory must be honoured while Ireland has virtue.
The Irish Confederation, on whose council Doheny sat, was noble in
conception, true in policy and able and honest in its membership. Never
in the leadership of the modern Nationalist movement has there been the
peer in genius and character of the men who founded and inspired that
brilliant and short-lived organisation. In its career it went nearer to
bridging the differences of class and creed in Ireland than any previous
organisation since the Volunteers at Dungannon proclaimed themselves
Irishmen and hailed their oppressed Catholic countrymen fellow-citizens.
But the Confederation was not yet six months old when it was called on
to face a situation in Ireland as terrible as that which confronted
Irishmen when Eoghan Ruadh O'Neill lay dead and Cromwell marched at the
head of his iron legions to the conquest of a distracted country. The
failure of the potato-crop which menaced Ireland with serious loss at
the birth of the Confederation in January, 1847, threatened the
destruction of the people by the middle of 1847. The Relief measures
provided by the English Whig Government set up a system under which
places, large and small, were provided for some thousands of persons of
political influence. Their tenure of employment depending upon the
ministry, they used that influence to the end of sustaining the
ministry, while the unfortunate small farmers who had hitherto kept on
the right side of the line between poverty and pauperism were forced to
the wrong side. Of all the measures passed under the guise of relieving
"the famine-stricken Irish" the most infamous was that measure which
provided that no farmer should be accorded relief if, the produce of his
farm having gone to discharge his rents, rates and taxes, he hungered
and yet strove to hold his farm. Before he was permitted to receive any
help from the public funds he was required to surrender his land and
become a pauper. Thus under pretext of relieving famine, pauperism was
propagated.
Be it remembered that all this time there was no _famine_ in Ireland.
The potato-crop, indeed, had failed as it had failed in Great Britain,
France, Germany and other countries at the same period, but the corn
crop was fat and abundant. Each year of the so-called famine, food to
maintain double the whole population was raised from the Irish soil. It
was exported to England to feed the English people. Nobody starved in
Germany. The German governments ordered the ports to be closed to the
export of food until the danger had passed. The Irish Confederation
demanded the same measure. "Close the Irish ports," it called to the
British Government, "and no man can die of hunger in Ireland." The
British Government, instead, flung the ports wide open. The great
principle of Free Trade required that the Irish should export their food
freely. Relief ships from foreign countries laden with the food
subscribed by charitable people to succour the starving Irish met
occasionally ships sailing out of the Irish ports laden with food reaped
by the starving Irish. On the quays of Galway the unhappy people wailed
as they saw their harvests borne away from them, and were admonished by
the butt-ends of British muskets, the British Government meantime
passing Relief measures which provided employment for hordes of English
officials and Irish understrappers, and pauper-relief for those who
surrendered their manhood and their property--the cost of this relief,
like the cost of the passage of the Act of Union, being debited to
Ireland--a generous loan in fact.
No doubt a union of the whole Irish people would have rendered all this
impossible. The Irish Confederation worked hard to bring about this
essential union. Directly and indirectly it achieved for a moment a
semblance of national unity. The Irish Council, composed largely of the
resident landlords--who mostly endeavoured to alleviate the
distress--came into being, reasoned with the Government and, when the
Government ignored reason, fell to pieces. George Henry Moore, a young
sporting landlord and a Tory (afterwards, as a result, to become a
Nationalist leader), conceived the design of getting all the Irish
members of the British Parliament to act together against the existing
British Government or any British Government which did not deal honestly
and effectively with the crisis. With the Marquis of Sligo, a nobleman
who did his duty to his tenantry during the Famine, Moore travelled
around Ireland and secured between sixty and seventy Irish members of
Parliament and forty-five Irish peers to subscribe to his independence
programme. They met in Dublin, resolved boldly, departed for London
cheered by the nation, and crumbled there at the Premier's frown. When
the Tory Lord George Bentinck proposed that instead of pauperising the
Irish by a vote of four or five millions for relief there should be a
vote of sixteen millions for railway construction, the Premier, Lord
John Russell, threatened the Irish members with his displeasure if they
supported Bentinck, and the majority of them thereupon opposed the
proposal of reproductive work for the people in lieu of pauper relief.
It was in these circumstances Mitchel put forward his policy in the
Confederation of arming the people and bidding them hold their harvests.
The Confederation rejected the policy, still hoping to effect a national
union. Through such a union alone, it declared, could national
independence be achieved. Doheny strongly opposed Mitchel on this
ground. Mitchel's reply was simple. He had been and was ready to follow
the aristocrats of Ireland if they would lead. They would not lead, and
meanwhile the people perished. Therefore he would urge the people to
save themselves. The policy of the Confederation in normal times would
have been nationally sound. The circumstances had become abnormal, and
Mitchel's policy was suited to the abnormal circumstances. His
conviction that the British Government was deliberately using the
potato-crop failure for the purpose of reducing the Irish
population--which then was equal to more than half the population of
England and a menace to that country, as one of its statesmen
incautiously admitted--was a conviction not shared by the bulk of his
colleagues. They shrank from it as men will shrink from a conclusion
that horrifies the human nature in them. Mitchel went outside the
Confederation to preach his policy, and he might have preached it
without result had not the French Revolution turned men's minds to the
contemplation of arms and armed opinion. The arrest, indictment and
conviction of Mitchel, Doheny has described graphically. The reasons
that prevailed against attempting Mitchel's rescue, Doheny cogently
states. There is no reason to doubt that an attempt to rescue Mitchel
would have been a failure in its object. But there are occasions when it
is wiser to attempt the impossible than to acquiesce. The unchallenged
removal of Mitchel in chains from Ireland had a moral effect on the
country that was worth 20,000 additional troops to the Government.
Thereafter, the Confederation vacillated in its policy and finally
permitted itself, in its desire for Unity as the potent weapon, to be
extinguished in favour of an Irish League which was to combine
O'Connellites and Young Irelanders. The Irish League met once, and died.
The Confederation had been hoodwinked. Doheny who opposed the
amalgamation, retired to Cashel, severing his connection with the former
Confederation. He was, therefore, free in honour to have taken no part
in the insurrection, since it was begun by men from whom he had
withdrawn. But when the voice in the night whispered through his window
that his former colleagues had crossed the Rubicon, Doheny, like the man
he was, rose and rode forth to make the fatal passage and stand or fall
with them.
From this point, Doheny's narrative may be supplemented and corrected by
information that was not at the time he wrote available to him. Meagher,
Leyne, M'Gee, O'Mahony and MacManus, have left in newspaper articles and
in MS. accounts of what happened in the light of which Doheny's
narrative must be read.
On Thursday, July 20th, 1848, the British Government issued a
proclamation ordering the people of Ireland to surrender their arms.
Thomas Francis Meagher, who was at the time in Waterford, issued a
counter-proclamation to the people of that city bidding them to hold
them fast. He then hurried to Dublin to consult with his colleagues and
he arrived in the metropolis the next day. There had been a strong
division of opinion in the Confederate clubs as to how the Government
proclamation should be treated, the general feeling of the rank-and-file
inclining to open resistance. The leaders counselled a waiting policy
until the harvest had been gathered, the arms to be concealed meanwhile.
This counsel prevailed against the remonstrance of one of the Dublin
leaders that if heaven rained down loaded rifles they would wait for
angels to pull the triggers. If the insurrection could have been
postponed until the harvest the counsel would have been sound. The
Young Ireland leaders forgot, however, that the Government had one
powerful weapon in reserve with which it might force their hands--the
Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. On July 21st Meagher and his
comrades and the Dublin leaders discussed and arranged the outline of a
contingent insurrectionary plan for the autumn. O'Brien left for Wexford
and O'Gorman for Limerick to organise those counties. The next morning
the news reached those who remained in Dublin that the Habeas Corpus Act
had been suspended, and that a warrant was on its way to Ireland for the
arrest of Smith O'Brien. The choice left was to fight, to become
fugitives, or to surrender. Dillon, M'Gee, Reilly, P.J. Smyth and
Meagher decided hurriedly on the first course. They rejected the
proposal to begin the fight in Dublin, as they believed it would be
hopeless with the resources at their disposal to contend against a
disciplined garrison of 11,000 men in a city a large proportion of whose
population was hostile. Kilkenny was regarded as a stronghold of the
Confederation, and Dillon suggested it should be the objective. Dillon
and Meagher quitted Dublin to seek O'Brien; Reilly and Smyth started for
Tipperary, and M'Gee for Scotland where it was hoped the Glasgow Irish
could be induced to rise, seize some of the Clyde steamers and effect a
landing in Sligo or Mayo which might rouse Connacht and western Ulster
to the assistance of the South.
Dillon and Meagher left Dublin on the night of the 22nd of July by the
mailcoach for Enniscorthy. Neither had the slightest hope of a
successful insurrection, but they felt that honour and its future
survival demanded that a nation must reply to the command of a foreign
power to gag its mouth and throw down its arms by drawing the sword.
They found Smith O'Brien at Enniscorthy and he joined in their views.
Father Parle and the people of Enniscorthy undertook to defend O'Brien
by force of arms if any attempt were made to arrest him there, and
agreed that if he went into Kilkenny and Tipperary and succeeded in
arousing those counties Wexford would take up arms. O'Brien and his
colleagues moved towards Kilkenny through Graiguenamanagh where the
people received them with enthusiasm, and they arrived in what they
hoped to make again the provisional capital of Ireland in the evening of
the 23rd of July.
[Illustration: Terence Bellew MacManus]
The considerations in favour of beginning the insurrection in Kilkenny
were sound. It was the one Irish city of importance inaccessible to
British naval power, it offered a convenient rallying-centre for the
counties of Tipperary, Waterford, and Wexford upon which the Young
Ireland leaders relied, the country around it was well-adapted for
defensive fighting against superior forces, and it had an historic
appeal to the Irish imagination. The arrival of the insurgent leaders
was hailed with joy by the people, and there was no doubt of the
readiness of the populace to fight. But an examination of the military
resources of the place showed that the British forces consisted of 1,000
troops in a strongly-defended position, while amongst the Irish there
were but 200 armed men and the gunsmiths' shops in the city could not
arm a hundred more. The decision not to strike the first blow at
Kilkenny in the circumstances was inevitable. It was agreed to make
for Carrick-on-Suir, another Young Ireland town, seize the place and
march at the head of the elated Tipperarymen on Kilkenny. On Monday,
July 24th, O'Brien, Meagher and Dillon left for Carrick-on-Suir, and on
the way they were received with enthusiasm at Callan, where the 8th
Hussars--mainly composed of Irishmen--manifested sympathy with the
insurrectionary propaganda. Near Carrick they were joined by John
O'Mahony, a landed proprietor of the neighbourhood, afterwards to become
famous as the founder of Fenianism. By descent, education and character
a leader of men, O'Mahony had thousands of followers among the people
ready to rally to any venture for Ireland at his call. "His square,
broad frame," wrote Meagher, "his frank, gay, fearless look; the warm
forcible headlong earnestness of his manner; the quickness and
elasticity of his movements; the rapid glances of his clear full eye;
the proud bearing of his head; everything about him struck us with a
brilliant and exciting effect, as he threw himself from his saddle and,
tossing the bridle on his arm, hastened to meet and welcome us. At a
glance we recognised in him a true leader for the generous, passionate,
intrepid peasantry of the South." O'Mahony strongly advised them to
begin the insurrection that night in Carrick, and he left to collect the
peasantry. O'Brien and his comrades proceeded to the town where the
people received them with frenzied enthusiasm, calling out to be led
immediately to the fray. "A torrent of human beings rushing through
lanes and narrow streets"--such is Meagher's description of the
scene--"surging and boiling against the white basements ... wild,
half-stifled, passionate, frantic prayers of hope ... curses on the red
flag: scornful delirious defiances of death.... It was the Revolution if
we had accepted it." But it was not accepted. The local leaders were
unworthy of the people. They persuaded O'Brien to go elsewhere. It was a
cardinal and egregious mistake which he regretted within twenty-four
hours. Had he brushed the quavering local leaders aside and given the
word to the imploring people of Carrick the insurrection of 1848 would
have become respectable. O'Mahony's followers to the number of 12,000
were on the march to Carrick when the news reached them of O'Brien's
departure. Disheartened they broke up and returned to their homes.
Doheny's account of what happened after the fatal retreat from Carrick
needs to be amplified in connection with the final error of O'Brien's
leadership. At the Council of War on the 28th of July O'Brien rejected
the proposal to seize for the use of his followers all things needful,
paying for them with drafts on the future Irish Government, and he
declined the other practical proposal to offer farms rent-free to all
who fought for Ireland. Neither would he assent to the suggestion that
he and the other leaders should go into hiding until the harvest was
reaped. Willing to fight and ready to die, he would not consent to
conduct a revolution on revolutionary lines. The departure of Doheny and
others--save Devin Reilly, who urged the abandonment of the insurrection
as hopeless--was in pursuance of their plan to await the gathering of
the harvest.
O'Brien's attitude at the Council of War destroyed the last hope of the
insurrection. He expected to get men to fight under his standard while
he essayed no adequate provision for their support in the field, and
interdicted them from interference with private property to supply them
with the necessaries of the campaign. No nobler and braver man has
appeared in modern Irish history than William Smith O'Brien, but at the
head of an insurrectionary movement he was incompetent. There was none
of his lieutenants who, in his position, could not have made the
insurrection to some extent formidable.
That it could have been successful, few will believe. Mitchel and
Meagher agreed that 1848 would not have been the year of Liberation. But
the former held very justly that the insurrection if it grew to
respectable dimensions might have forced terms from England. The
attitude of France at the time was a factor in the situation. The
pro-Irish minister, Ledru-Rollin, had been checked by the pro-English
minister, Lamartine, but General Cavaignac and Louis Napoleon were, for
divergent reasons, inclined to help Ireland against England, and
assurances had been given that if an Irish insurrection gained
considerable initial successes the French Government would exert
influence on England. A successful blow at Carrick and a subsequent
seizure of Kilkenny and proclamation of Irish independence from that
city was possible, and if realised would have probably led to the
counties of Waterford and Tipperary rising en masse. How far the
insurrection would have spread outside those counties is problematical,
but in the year 1848 they were counties which presented difficulties to
regular troops and advantages to insurgent forces. According to M'Gee,
Sligo was willing to rise if the South made a good beginning and the
Bishop of Derry, Dr. Maginn, sent a message to Gavan Duty that he was
willing to join in the insurrection at the head of his priests once the
harvest was reaped. Doheny's criticism of the action of some of the
Tipperary priests is justified. But of others it is to be remembered
that they were not in sympathy with Young Ireland, that they were not
bound to support an insurrection undertaken irrespective of them, and
that they could not be expected to take the initiative. There were at
least two priests in Tipperary prepared to lead their parishioners to
the insurgent standard if O'Brien struck at any point a successful blow.
O'Brien's indecision was the real cause why the insurrection died in its
birth.
If courage and devotion could have saved Ireland in 1848, O'Brien and
his comrades would have saved the land. No braver gentlemen could any
nation produce. They asked their countrymen to take no risks they did
not take themselves in the forefront. But courage and devotion alone can
never make an insurrection into a revolution. 1848 was a failure--in one
sense--because there was no second Mitchel in Ireland when the first
Mitchel was hurried off on a British gunboat.
But 1848 was not a failure in the true sense of failure. For years the
Irish people had submitted to any and every imposition of foreign
tyranny, taught to believe that forcible resistance to outrage on their
national liberties was in itself immoral. The sneer of the satirist
that the Irish were:--
"A nation of abortive men
Who shoot the tongue and wield the pen,"
seemed to have grown a reality. Young Ireland evoked the fighting
tradition of the nation once again. Without 1848 the spirit that freed
the Irish Catholic from being tributary to another Church and regained
the land for the farmers would have slept for a century--perhaps for
ever.
Driven from his country, Doheny with the companion of his fugitive
wanderings, James Stephens, and the chivalrous O'Mahony, founded the
Fenian brotherhood in the United States. Once more before his sudden
death in April, 1862, he saw Ireland--on the occasion of the MacManus
Funeral.
Let me, said a wise man, always be surrounded by men of sanguine
temperament. Defeat and exile could not dim the faith of Doheny in his
country. The fugitive who had wrecked his fortunes in Ireland's cause
and witnessed a failure which English statesmen believed ended for ever
the dream of Irish independent nationhood, set his foot in exile only to
begin anew to plan Ireland Independent. So long as the sanguine heart
that carried Michael Doheny undaunted along the Felon's Track beats in
the breast of his country the Irish Nation will be indestructible.
ARTHUR GRIFFITH.
_This Edition is reprinted from the Original Edition published in New
York by W.H. Holbrooke, Fulton Street, in October, 1849. The portraits
of the Young Ireland leaders are mainly from the daguerreotypes by
Professor Gluckmann, and the illustrations of Tipperary in 1848 are
reproduced from the "Illustrated London News" of that year._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. Page
RETROSPECT.--COMMENCEMENT OF THE REPEAL STRUGGLE--EARLY DAYS OF
THE ASSOCIATION 1
CHAPTER II.
THOMAS DAVIS, HIS EARLY LABOURS.--THE "NATION" NEWSPAPER--
PROGRESS OF THE ASSOCIATION.--CLONTARF MEETING.--THE STATE
TRIALS.--THE YOUNG IRELAND PARTY.--SMITH O'BRIEN.--FEDERALISM.
--THE BEQUESTS ACT 16
CHAPTER III.
FURTHER EMBARRASSMENT CAUSED BY THE RESCRIPT.--DIFFERENCES
BETWEEN MR. O'CONNELL AND THE PRIMATE.--FINANCIAL REFORMS IN
THE COMMITTEE OF THE ASSOCIATION, AND CONSEQUENT DISSENSION.--
'82 CLUB.--THE COLLEGES BILL.--DIFFERENCES AND CALUMNIES
CONSEQUENT UPON IT.--QUARREL WITH MR. DAVIS.--THE GREAT LEVEE
AT THE ROTUNDA.--DECLINE OF THE AGITATION.--CLOSING LABOURS
AND DEATH OF THOMAS DAVIS 42
CHAPTER IV.
IMPRISONMENT OF O'BRIEN FOR CONTEMPT OF THE BRITISH COMMONS.--
CONDUCT OF THE ASSOCIATION.--DEPUTATION FROM THE '82 CLUB.--
MR. O'CONNELL RETURNS TO IRELAND.--DISCUSSIONS IN THE COMMITTEE 73
CHAPTER V
DEFEAT OF PEEL.--ACCESSION OF THE WHIGS.--MR. O'CONNELL'S
COURSE.--DEBATES IN CONCILIATION HALL.--MR. O'CONNELL
DENOUNCES THE YOUNG IRELAND PARTY.--CONTINUED DEBATES.--
QUESTIONS AT ISSUE.--PHYSICAL FORCE.--THE SECESSION.--WHIG
ALLIANCE.--DUBLIN REMONSTRANCE.--FORMATION OF THE
CONFEDERATION, ITS CAREER.--MR. O'CONNELL'S DEATH.--CLOSE OF
THE YEAR 1847. 98
CHAPTER VI
THE SPLIT WITH MR. MITCHEL.--HIS TRIAL, CONVICTION, SENTENCE,
AND SPEECH.--THE "FELON" AND "TRIBUNE" ESTABLISHED.--ARREST OF
MESSRS. MARTIN, O'DOHERTY, WILLIAMS, AND DUFFY.--CONVICTION OF
MR. MARTIN.--HIS SPEECH.--CONVICTION, SENTENCE AND SPEECH OF
MR. O'DOHERTY.--DISSOLUTION OF THE CONFEDERATION.--THE LEAGUE 118
CHAPTER VII.
THE OUTBREAK.--MR. O'BRIEN IN CARRICK.--CASHEL.--KILLENAULE,
MULLINAHONE, BALLINGARRY.--AFFAIR AT KILLENAULE.--DEFEAT
OF MR. O'BRIEN'S PARTY AT THE COMMONS.--PERSONAL ADVENTURES OF
THE WRITER AND HIS COMRADE, UP TO THE DATE OF MR. O'BRIEN'S
ARREST 159
CHAPTER VIII.
ARREST OF MR. O'BRIEN, OF MESSRS. MEAGHER AND O'DONOHOE.--
ARREST OF TERENCE BELLEW M'MANUS.--CLONMEL SPECIAL
COMMISSION.--TRIAL, CONVICTION, SPEECHES AND SENTENCE OF THE
REBELS.--WRIT OF ERROR.--COMMUTATION OF SENTENCE.--
TRANSPORTATION OF THE HEROES 187
CHAPTER IX.
CONTINUATION OF PERSONAL WANDERINGS.--DUNGARVAN.--THE
COMERAGHS.--MOUNT MELLERAY.--KILWORTH.--CROSS.--
DUNMANWAY.--GOUGANE BARRA.--BANTRY BAY.--THE PRIEST'S
LEAP.--KENMARE.--THE REEKS.--KILLARNEY.--TEMPLENOE.--
DEPARTURE.--CORK.--BRISTOL.--LONDON.--PARIS 201
CONCLUSION 283
APPENDICES 289
LIST OF CONTEMPORARIES 302
INDEX 317
ILLUSTRATIONS
Facing page
MICHAEL DOHENY _frontispiece_
GENERAL JAMES SHIELDS _dedication_
TERENCE BELLEW MACMANUS xvi
WILLIAM SMITH O'BRIEN xxxii
THOMAS DAVIS 16
JOHN BLAKE DILLON 32
CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY 48
RICHARD O'GORMAN, JUNIOR 64
PATRICK O'DONOHOE 64
THOMAS DEVIN REILLY 80
JOHN MITCHEL 96
ROBERT HOLMES 112
THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER 128
JOHN MARTIN 128
KEVIN IZOD O'DOHERTY 144
BALLINGARRY, SLIEVENAMON IN THE DISTANCE (1848) 160
A STREET IN BALLINGARRY (1848) 176
THE WIDOW MCCORMACK'S HOUSE, NEAR BALLINGARRY. (1848) 192
THE KNOCKMELDOWN MOUNTAINS FROM ARDFINAN (1848) 208
DUNMANWAY PROM THE BRIDGE ON THE CORK ROAD (1848) 224
THURLES ON MARKET DAY (August, 1848) 240
JOHN O'MAHONY 256
JAMES STEPHENS 256
AHENY HILL, SHOWING THE CONSTABULARY POLICE BARRACK DESTROYED
BY THE INSURGENTS (1848) 272
JOHN SAVAGE 288
LOUIS NAPOLEON 308
LEDRU-ROLLIN, GENERAL CAVAIGNAC, LAMARTINE (1848) 316
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION
There are few facts detailed in the following pages that need
explanation here. If my motive in writing them were personal
gratification, or simply a desire to preserve a memorial of scenes in
which I took an anxious part, I might labour to make the narration more
interesting to my readers, without any care for future consequences.
But through every disaster I preserved unbroken faith in the purpose and
courage of my country. I believed, and still believe that her true heart
is faithful to liberty and hopeful for the future; and this conviction
involved me in a struggle with the apparently opposite tendency of the
facts I was bound to narrate. Had I to write for a new generation, upon
whom these facts could have made no false impressions, my task would be
easy. I am persuaded that a simple statement of all that occurred would
satisfy any candid mind that no disgrace attached to Ireland in her
recent discomfiture. But I must needs confess that it is a task of
extreme difficulty to reconcile her fall with the pre-conceived notions
or present prejudices of those who read her story through the false
medium of the press; nor do I hope for more than partial success from
the details I have been able to give of the circumstances of which she
was the victim and the dupe.
It is impossible fully to appreciate the pernicious effect of Mr.
O'Connell's teaching, without reviewing in minute detail the leading
circumstances of his wonderful career and the matchless and countless
resources with which he upheld his fatal system. In dealing with this
part of my subject my difficulties have been multiplied and enhanced by
a strong desire to do him no injustice, and to leave untouched by doubt
or suspicion a character so intertwined with my country's love. But it
became necessary to refer to those acts which chiefly tended to increase
the obstacles which beset our endeavours. In doing this, whether here or
elsewhere in my narrative, if I use phrases which would seem to imply
harshness to his memory, I wish them to be understood as applied in
reference to the attempt to effect the deliverance of Ireland by force
of arms, and establishing her entire and perfect independence. I have
avoided this question, assuming that I wrote only for those who agreed
with me in the belief that such is her true destiny, and the end for
which her children ought to strive.
In this view of her recent struggle, there can be no doubt of the
tendency of Mr. O'Connell's policy to demoralise, disgrace, enfeeble and
corrupt the Irish people, and it is in that sense, and that only, I have
always spoken of him.
Another subject, of perhaps greater delicacy and difficulty, was the
part taken by the Catholic clergy. On my arrival in America, I found a
fierce contest agitating, dividing and enfeebling the Irish-American
population. It was asserted on one side that the entire failure was
attributable to the Catholic priests, and that in opposing the
liberation of Ireland they acted in accordance with some recognised
radical principle of the Church.
I could not assent to either of these propositions. I knew several
priests who were fully prepared to take their share in an armed
conflict; in fact, the vast majority of those I met at the time. And
again, with respect to such as did interfere, and opposed the efforts of
the people's chiefs, I do not believe that one man was influenced by
considerations connected with, or emanating from the Church, in its
corporate capacity. Of Mr. O'Connell's policy, already referred to,
none were blinder victims than some of the priests. It had made such an
impression on them that they scarcely could believe anything was real,
or any sentiment was true; and when they admitted its truth it was only
to prove its madness. Of other and more questionable motives I shall say
nothing here.
But while I feel the injustice of the sweeping charge made against the
whole body of the priesthood, I would be unfaithful to my purpose and my
convictions if I concealed the acts and language of those among them,
who interposed and unhappily exercised baneful influence on the abortive
attempt of their unfortunate country. I shall only say further that what
relates to them is the only part of my narrative which gave me shame to
tell.
I have only a word to add in reference to certain proceedings in the
Committee of the Association now made public for the first time. It may
be said, and, I doubt not, will be said, that these were matters which
we were morally pledged to keep secret. I readily admit that, although
there was no obligation whatever, either expressed or implied, as to any
subject discussed in committee any more than in the public hall, still,
I should not disclose any part of its proceedings if I were not
compelled by an imperative necessity. Upon one subject, and that the
most important to the character of my illustrious friend, no other proof
was available. And the tacit understanding, in virtue of which I would
be disposed to admit any obligation of secrecy, does not and could not
extend beyond such matters as would, if divulged, endanger the safety or
impair the efficiency of the Association. What I tell of the proceedings
of the Committee, even if it yet existed, would scarcely have any such
effect. But every one knows it not only does not exist, but that is has
left no memory which it would be possible to degrade. Its physical
existence long survived the last spark of moral vitality, and its
efficiency now consists in this, if it warn all men against the species
of terrorism which finally prevailed in its councils and effected its
overthrow.
In certain circumstances which I relate, I may possibly make some
mistakes in the dates, owing to the difficulty of finding those dates in
odd numbers and broken volumes of the Journals to which alone I have had
access.
It would have given me the sincerest pleasure to add to the collection
of heads, which I have been able to procure, those of others who took an
honourable part in the Irish struggle. Foremost among them are John
Martin and Kevin Izod O'Doherty, who followed in the footsteps and
shared the fate of John Mitchel. But I am not aware that there are any
likenesses of them in existence; at all events they are not to be
obtained in this country.[1]
There are others, too, mentioned in my narrative, whose likenesses I
would feel delighted to present to my readers, and some, who although
cursorily or not at all mentioned, acted a noble and devoted part. Of
the first, are the companions of my wanderings, James Stephens and John
O'Mahony; and of the second, Doctor Antisel, Richard Dalton Williams,
James Cantwell, Richard Hartnet, Patrick O'Dea, and indeed many others,
of whose efforts and sacrifices it would be a source of pride to me to
make honourable mention.[2]
I may be permitted to take this opportunity to assure them and others of
whom I have not spoken that no name has been omitted by me from any
feelings of dislike or any desire to depreciate the services and
sacrifices of a single man among the hundreds, whose exile or ruin
attests the sincerity of their convictions and the purity of their
patriotism. Even with men who do not take the same view of last year's
history as I do, their names and characters will go far to redeem its
darkest traces from shame and obloquy. They are now scattered over the
wide earth, and there is not one among them from the highest to the
humblest, whom I do not hold in the utmost honour and esteem.
_New York, September 21, 1849._
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: I am glad it has been found easy to supply these in this
edition of the work.--Ed.]
[Footnote 2: Some of these will also be found in the present
gallery--Ed.]
[Illustration: William Smith O'Brien]
CHAPTER I
RETROSPECT--COMMENCEMENT OF THE REPEAL STRUGGLE.--EARLY DAYS OF THE
ASSOCIATION.
The appearance of this narrative will surprise no one. For apology, if
any be needed, the writer may trust to his own share in the transactions
with which it deals; and still more so perhaps to the misrepresentation
to which, during their progress, he had been personally subjected. But
personal vindication imparts neither interest nor importance to history,
while it necessarily detracts from its dignity and good faith. Besides,
time with the disastrous events marking its more recent course, have
silenced the voice of calumny; and the writer undertakes his task with
no personal feeling to gratify or even to consult. The character of
others, now unable to be heard, is far dearer to him than his own: and
while he aspires to justify, before the world, their singular career,
distinguished throughout by generous and lofty passions, surpassing
intellect and measureless love of their country and countrymen--a
career so brilliant and instructive even in the last hours of gloom--he
will endeavour to infuse into the history of their struggles and their
fate, that generous tenderness toward others, that spirit of
self-sacrifice and supreme love of truth, which were among their noblest
characteristics.
The undertaking suggests but one painful consideration--the
impossibility of treating the subject fully and fairly without
investigating facts far anterior to the late struggle, but coincident in
their effect with its progress and development, and stamping their
pernicious and fatal influence upon the spirit and conduct that led to a
final overthrow. This will necessarily involve an inquiry into the late
conduct and teaching of Mr. O'Connell, which the writer would most
willingly avoid. Mr. O'Connell's name and character fill a mighty space
in history. They are the most cherished recollections in his country's
memory; and she clings to them with loving pride in this her hour of
utter desolation. The hand that traces these recollections would be the
last to aim a blow at the object of her sacred affections; and if in
obedience to a more binding obligation, Mr. O'Connell's policy be
questioned and condemned, his influencing motive shall be unchallenged
and unarraigned. What his final purpose was, and how he had determined
to effect it, had his life been spared, and his course left unimpeded,
now rest with him in his grave. It is for others to write his history
and vindicate his career. By me even his mistakes shall be treated with
forbearance.
A brief reference to the struggle for Catholic Emancipation becomes here
imperative. That struggle has had no equal in history--nor for its moral
grandeur, nor for its triumph--but for the singular difficulties which
the position of the Irish Catholic imposed on those who engaged in it.
It is an error to call it emancipation. It was neither the first nor the
last, nor even the most important in the train of concessions, which are
entitled to the name of emancipation. The pains and penalties of the
"_penal laws_" had been long abolished, and that barbarous code had been
compressed into cold and stolid exclusiveness. But the vices which a
long and unrelenting slavery had burned into the character of the
country, remained. The lie of law, which assumed the non-existence of
the Catholic had infused itself into his nature, and while it was erased
from the statute book, it was legible on his heart. That terrible
necessity of denying his feelings, his property, his religion and his
very being, had stamped its degrading influence on his nature. In a
moral sense the law had become a truth--there was no people. The
Catholic gentry, giddy by their recent elevation, had only changed for
that semblance of liberty their old stern spirit of resistance and
revenge. Their new concessions hung gracefully around them, but they
were like grafts on an ash stock--their growth was downward, and they
wanted the stature and dignity of the native tree. Such were the means
at Mr. O'Connell's disposal. His enemies on the other hand were false,
powerful, dexterous and unscrupulous. His efforts necessarily partook of
the character both of the weapons he was obliged to wield and the foes
he struck down. As he advanced to eminence and strength, means, the most
crafty and cruel, were taken to overthrow him, every one of which he
foiled by a sagacity infinitely above that of his oppressors. So
successful had he been in deceiving the champions of intolerance, that
of all the great qualities displayed in that wonderful struggle, that
which was most prized was the cunning of evasion. It left behind it an
enduring and destructive influence. Dissimulation in political action
began to be regarded as a public virtue, and long afterwards, when men
sought to assert the dignity of truth, their candour was charged against
them as a heinous crime. It will be seen hereafter how fatally this fact
operated against their efforts.
The very character of Emancipation has assumed an exaggerated and false
guise. The joy of the nation was boundless--its gratitude immeasurable.
In the shout that hailed the deliverer, earlier deliverers were
forgotten. No one remembered the men whose stupendous exertions wrung
from the reluctant spirit of a far darker time the right of living, of
worship, of enjoying property, and exercising the franchise. All these,
and more, which were once, and not very remotely, denied to the
Catholics had been before this accorded to them. Yet the interest and
importance of winning access to Parliament, to the higher ranks of the
army, and, perhaps a stray seat at the Privy Council, acquired the name
of Emancipation, and Mr. O'Connell monopolised its entire renown. He was
styled the "Liberator," and his achievement designated as "striking the
fetters from the limbs of the slave, and liberating the altar." In
truth, the import of Emancipation was so exaggerated, and its history so
warped, that even now at a distance of more than twenty years, both the
act and the actors are so misunderstood that it requires no little
daring to approach a question involving the sensibilities, prejudices
and passions of an entire generation.
A truer appreciation might have given Mr. O'Connell a different and
higher destiny. Not alone the boundless exultation of the Catholic but
the mortified pride of the baffled Protestant also stamped its influence
on his fortunes, prospects and career. In proportion as he was to the
former an object of adulation and pride did the latter hoard up in his
heart for him enduring envy and insatiable hate. Another circumstance,
too, which Mr. O'Connell did not create and could not in the beginning
control, contributed to mar his future glory. This was the pecuniary
compensation which the emancipated Catholics kneeled to present him. It
is far from being intended here to disparage the offering or decry its
acceptance. On the contrary, if this were the proper place, both would
be vindicated with zealous pride. But the effect of the continued
collection, on Mr. O'Connell's conduct and efficiency was baneful in the
extreme. And it was among the most prominent circumstances in shaping
his career.
Mr. O'Connell entered the House of Commons under auspices more
flattering and encouraging than ever smiled on the advent to that
assembly of any other man. In whatever light he was regarded, he was far
the foremost personage of his time. How his subsequent career might
justify the hushed awe with which a proud senate received him if he had
devoted himself to the broad and comprehensive questions of imperial
jurisprudence, for which he seemed so eminently fitted, it would be idle
now to conjecture. Certain it is that no act of his after life, varied
and wonderful as it was, realised the promise of that glad and glorious
morning.
Lord Anglesea, who had been removed from the viceroyalty for suspected
treachery to the cause of intolerance, was restored to his office, by
more distinguished converts, and was received by the people with
tumultuous acclaim. His popularity was short-lived. The present Chief
Justice, Doherty, was then Attorney-General. He incurred the wrath of
Mr. O'Connell in consequence of treachery which he had exhibited in
conducting a trial at Clonmel. This led to a fierce encounter in the
House of Commons--the first great trial of Mr. O'Connell's powers--in
which Doherty's friends claimed for their champion a decisive victory.
However unjust may be that judgment, Mr. O'Connell's admirers were
compelled to admit that he failed in his impeachment and principally in
consequence of a letter written by Mr. Shiel, then second to no other
Irishman. Mr. Shiel had been associated with the Attorney-General in the
prosecution at Clonmel, and his letter boldly justified the conduct
which the great popular tribune vehemently and indignantly impugned.
This was quite unexpected, and greatly affected Mr. O'Connell's cause.
But whether Mr. Doherty failed or succeeded, he was rewarded, and almost
avowedly, by the Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas. The appointment
was a direct insult to Mr. O'Connell, and scarcely a less direct insult
to the Irish bar, and the Irish nation. Mr. Doherty was regarded as a
man of great forensic ability, but no legal attainments. He had scarcely
acquired any practice, and no distinction whatever: so that his
elevation to a post he was so inadequate to fill gave universal
dissatisfaction, and was read as evidence that the Government of Ireland
was subservient to an unscrupulous and audacious faction.
Soon after the date of this appointment the first Repeal Association
was established by Mr. O'Connell. His motives were at once bitterly
assailed. By some he was charged with being influenced by personal
mortification. By some his conduct was attributed to a love of
turbulence and money. By some it was said he only intended the agitation
as a threat, by means of which he could enforce a wiser, more liberal,
and just administration of the law and government in Ireland. Few, if
any, believed him to be in earnest and sincere. But the condition of the
country and the principles of Mr. O'Connell's early life would suggest
higher motives; and the perseverance and intensity of feeling and
purpose, with which he urged the deliverance of his country in after
times, proves that he was a stranger to the sordid considerations which
envy or fear coupled with his first labours in that direction. Certain
it is that, whatever were his motives, it could be no tempting ambition
that determined him to transfer the exercise of his abilities to the
tribune of angry agitation from that more legitimate and loftier arena
which, with unsurpassed energy, he had won.
The agitation succeeded rapidly. The Government became at once
intolerant and impotent. They proclaimed down the agitation; but this
only imparted to it activity, energy and strength. The Government gave
way to a furious storm which had been long gathering elsewhere. The
great Reform Ministry succeeded with Earl Grey at its head; and in the
struggle for Imperial parliamentary Reform, Ireland and her independence
were forgotten.
During the intellectual conflict that followed, Mr. O'Connell asserted
his pre-eminence, and won a lofty name. He made far the most successful
speech on the question of Reform. It not only exceeded the ablest
orations of the British leaders, but was, perhaps, the most triumphant
he himself had ever delivered. But his position soon changed. From being
the unanswerable champion of the ministerial majority in the House of
Commons, he took the lead of a small opposition which resisted the
Government on the Irish Bill. Although the minister was the exponent and
stern advocate of the widest liberality, in applying the reform to
England, he undertook to defend, on the very opposite principle, the
niggard liberty he was prepared in the same measure to extend to
Ireland. In this unnatural and unexpected turn of affairs, Mr. O'Connell
took a proud and bold stand, against the Government, and for his
country. The ministry succeeded, but he had more than ever acquired the
confidence and unbounded gratitude of his countrymen. Thenceforward, he
was their acknowledged chief, and his words expressed not more his own
than the public will.
His remonstrances were vehement and angry, but they were vain. The
ministry disregarded the claims of justice, as well as the voice of the
orator. The quarrel became personal and vindictive to so great an
extent, that Mr. O'Connell's support would almost ensure the defeat of
any measure at the hands of the English Whig faction.
While this was his position in the House of Commons, he was preparing
the elements of an organisation which was destined to embrace the whole
island. He started the first great Repeal Association, which was at once
attended with marvellous success. Forty-four members of Parliament were
under its control if not in its ranks. A discussion of the merits of
Repeal was forced in the House of Commons by the intemperate zeal of the
member for Cork.[3] The motion was resisted by the whole weight and
influence of the Ministry. But in a resolution proposed as an amendment,
both Houses concurred in acknowledging that Ireland's complaint was
founded in justice, and in solemnly pledging themselves to the practical
redress of her grievances. The resolution was carried to the foot of the
throne, and there received the sanction of royalty.
But that resolution remained and remains unfulfilled. The ministry which
proposed it, redeemed their promise by an Algerine measure of coercion,
which Mr. O'Connell denounced as "base, bloody and brutal." His
opposition, and their own recreancy of principle, tended rapidly to
their overthrow. Lord Stanley, in hatred to Mr. O'Connell and his
country, abandoned the Government, which he charged with truckling to
the great demagogue's will. The country, on the other hand, withdrew its
confidence from them on the ground that they truckled to their
hereditary foes, and allowed the principles of the Tories to influence
Parliament in the name and through the agency of the Whigs. Division and
weakness followed; and the result was a break-up of the administration,
which was remodelled, with Lord Melbourne for its chief, on the
understanding that more liberal views should govern its future course.
An alliance was entered into with Mr. O'Connell, whose support the Prime
Minister openly claimed and as openly boasted of. Then was formed what
was known as the "Litchfield House Compact." This compact, if such the
understanding that existed can be called, was based upon the assurance
that the most liberal measures of justice should be extended to Ireland,
and that in the administrative department, the Government should apply
itself diligently to the reform and purifying of all public functions
and functionaries. What was the nature or extent of Mr. O'Connell's
engagement, I do not pretend to know. But whether he pledged himself to
abandon for ever the struggle for independence, or only to place it in
abeyance for a season to facilitate the action of the Government in
reference to their good intentions and favourable promises, he so far
fulfilled his engagement as to dissolve the Association.
That Association was composed of various and very conflicting elements.
The motives which influenced many of its leaders were equally varied.
Many joined it merely because Mr. O'Connell was its founder and its
guide. Many among the middle ranks of society had acquired a sort of
interest in agitation they could not easily surrender. It had gained
them local distinction, and gratified a morbid vanity. Profuse votes of
thanks were their incentive and reward. To correspond with Mr. Ray, or
perhaps the Liberator, consummated their ambition, and for aught beyond
that they felt no concern. Others there were, corrupt by nature and
cunning in design, whose political exertions had personal advancement
for their sole aim; and others still who never believed Mr. O'Connell
sincere, but joined the Association and shouted their approval, because
too contemptible and feeble to acquire distinction except through the
echo of his voice or under shelter of his fame. To the false and the
sordid and the indifferent, the dissolution of the confederacy was a
welcome event: but the people, yet uncorrupted, looked on passively with
agonised hearts.
Physical contagion generally begins at the bases of society, and trails
its way slowly to the upper ranks, occasionally dealing doom to some
hard hearts that mocked, it may be, its first uncared-for victims. But
moral corruption begins with the highest, and embraces the whole circle
of society in its descent. So it was in this instance. Members of
Parliament who had solemnly pledged themselves to the disenthrallment of
their country, accepted the wages, and entered into the service of the
Government who had one and all vowed they would prevent the fulfilment
of the hustings pledge, even at the risk of a civil war. Among them was
Mr. O'Connell's son, who had taken that pledge before the assembled
people of Meath, his son-in-law, Mr. Fitzsimon, who had sworn it to the
freeholders of the metropolitan county, Mr. Carew O'Dwyer who, in virtue
of the same pledge, obtained the unanimous suffrage of Drogheda, and
several others. Many relatives and friends of Mr. O'Connell obtained
rewards adequate to their services. Agents who had been successful
against Whig candidates now retired into Whig places. The corporate
towns were made over to the Whigs, who held out the understanding that
the sons, nephews and kindred of the leading and deserving citizens
would be provided for in the departments suited to their different
capacities, and varying from the post of tide-waiter, to that of
stipendiary magistrate. Fierce was the struggle which followed, and sore
the disappointment, and many a scalding tear of baffled ambition watered
the way to the aspirant's ruin.
This is not said for the purpose of disparaging the legitimate ambition
of those who sought advancement in the altered circumstances and
sentiments of the time. But the effect of such a state of things on the
morality of the nation was incalculably injurious. The most solemn
resolution was openly violated, and that by the very men who were
foremost in recommending the national vow. Nor would its tendency be
less fatal, assuming that Mr. O'Connell was correct in supposing that
the experiment would be vain, and that its failure could not fail to
supply new and more urgent reasons for the nation's independence. The
compact, if even entered into with that view, would shake all faith in
public men; because it would only change the parties with whom a false
obligation was contracted, leaving the obligation itself and its
violation exactly where they were.
Mr. O'Connell's support was doomed to be as fatal to the Whigs as his
opposition. He unhappily assisted them during his period to carry one
measure, against which they had recorded several solemn decisions in
Parliament, namely, the Tithe Bill, without an appropriation clause,
which was a direct falsification of their own resolution, whereby they
defeated Sir Robert Peel's short-lived administration, in 1835. And what
was still more lamentable, he supported them in renewing in a modified
form the very Coercion Act for the introduction of which he designated
them as "_base, bloody and brutal_."
But other elements were secretly sapping the influences for which he
made these sacrifices. The storm of disaffection, a long while gathering
among open foes and disappointed retainers, was about to burst on the
devoted heads of the Whigs. With their accustomed fickleness and
treachery of character they prepared to sacrifice, for the sake of
power, the man whom they conciliated and deceived in the same hope of
retaining it. If he foresaw that this would be the result of his
experiment, never was augury more fully realised. Whatever may be the
exact engagements of the Whigs, he was able to allege that not one was
fulfilled, while he was in a position to prove that he more than kept
his own: unless indeed, it could be assumed that for the few places
obtained by his friends, and others, some of them honourable men, he
surrendered the lofty and nearly impregnable position he occupied in
1834, and which, in one sense at least, he never afterwards attained.
From whatever cause, his influence over the Whigs visibly declined, and
his counsels no longer swayed their Irish policy. Once more they relied
on the false expedient of yielding to their enemies and allowing them to
wield the _power_, while they were themselves content with the spoils of
the country. Again the quarrel with Mr. O'Connell became bitter and
personal, and again had he recourse to Repeal.
From the time of the first Repeal Association to that of the Precursor
Society several other associations or societies were established, which
have left behind them scarcely the memory of their very names--that of
the second association alone excepted. Yet each had an ample treasury,
and was composed of the same or nearly the same elements, and the same
members. There is many an honest man and many a fool, whose boast it is
that they contributed a pound to each of them, and had their respective
cards.
At last the late Repeal Association was formed. Its birth was received
with sneers. Mr. O'Connell's sincerity was questioned, and his motives
canvassed with vindictive vigilance. The warmest Nationalists looked on
with doubt and coldness. Not one man of rank, outside the members of the
defunct society, joined its ranks. The routine of business, the receipt
of money, the resolutions, the speeches, were exactly identical with
those of its predecessors. The Government seemed neither to dread it nor
care for it. It lingered on, unsustained by the country and despised by
its enslavers. The contributions of the members did not suffice to pay
half the ordinary expenses of its machinery. Debts accumulated, and the
revenue did not increase. While the body was thus situated, Mr.
O'Connell had recourse to an expedient at once singular and decisive. It
was to build Conciliation Hall. The Association was at the time
seriously in debt, and he proposed to multiply that debt four-fold by
engaging in this costly undertaking.
While persons who affected to be in his confidence were amazed at this
step, the Government regarded it as an evidence of purpose which it was
indispensable at once to check. They saw that their opponents had
formerly menaced and coerced in vain, and they determined to proscribe.
Accordingly the newly appointed viceroy, Lord Ebrington, being waited on
by the Dublin Corporation with some address of congratulation,
delivered them a lecture on the disloyalty of the Corn Exchange, and
announced his purpose never to employ in the service of the Government
any one who frequented that pestilent locality. The corporation returned
abashed to their council-rooms to record the viceregal threat. But from
end to end of the land rose one shout of indignant defiance. Suspicion,
doubt and hesitation gave way to the taunt involved in the insolent
challenge. The ranks of the Association were filled, and its treasury
replenished; and the viceroy soon discovered how little was to be gained
by a vulgar appeal to the meanest passion when it was addressed to the
Irish people.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: Mr. Feargus O'Connor, afterwards leader of the English
Chartists.--Ed]