O'CONNELL 



575 



coercion acts hitherto in force was that of 1833, 

 against which O'Connell fought in the House of 

 Omniums with masterly courage and ability. The 

 disgraceful interruptions and outrageous insults of 

 his opponents somewhat excuse the violence of his 

 tone and the vulgarity of such phrases as ' beastly 

 liellowings,' till then, if not since, unfamiliar to 

 the ears of the House of Commons. Soon after 

 this he was forced against his better judgment by 

 Feargiis O'Connor, the Freeman's Journal, and his 

 more ardent followers to bring the Kepeal move- 

 ment prematurely into parliament. On April 22, 

 1834, he spoke nearly seven hours for a committee 

 to inquire into the Act of Union. The debate 

 lasted nine nights, and the motion was defeated 

 by 523 to 38. The Whigs under Lord Melbourne 

 came into power in 1835, and, Re|>eal being for the 

 time set aside as hopeh--.-. < >'< .'onncll would have 

 accepted office had not the king intervened to for- 

 bid it, and certainly for the next five years he gave 

 the Whigs a steady Mipport. His phrase 'a bloated 

 buffoon, applied to Lord Alvanley, brought a chal- 

 lenge which was refused, but his son Morgan went 

 out in his stead, and two shots were fired. D'Israeli, 

 who had solicited O'C'onnell's help in his canvass for 

 High Wyi'ombe in 1832, now attacked him fiercely 

 at the Taunton election in 1835. In a speech at 

 Dublin O'Connell retorted by calling him 'a mis- 

 creant," 'a liar,' 'a disgrace to his species,' and 

 'heir-at-law of the blasphemous thief who died 

 upon the cross." D'Israeli now sought to earn a 

 cheap reputation as a tire-eater by challenging 

 Morgan O'Connell in his father's stead, but the 

 challenge was declined. That year O'Connell 

 visited the nortli of England and Scotland, received 

 everywhere by enormous crowds full of curiosity 

 and interest. An incident in the Carlow election 

 of 1835 brought ii|>oii him from unscrupulous and 

 watchful enemies the charge of having pocketed 

 money to procure a man a seat, but the inquiry 

 only "brought out that he was grossly careless in 

 managing affairs, and left no real stigma on his 

 character. One of the most common Tory slanders 

 in". ii him was that Repeal was not so much the 

 object of ' the big Bcggarman ' as the Repeal rent ; 

 but it must be rememliered that to serve his country 

 he surrendered a very lucrative practice at the bar 

 ( worth 7000 a year, as he told the House of Com- 

 mons) and all hope of professional promotion, that 

 though as much as 10,000 of tribute Mowed yearly 

 into his hands he expended it faithfully in the 

 cause, and, in spite of the large fortune bequeathed 

 by his uncle in 1825 and a subscription of 50,000 

 in 1829, died worth scarcely a thousand pounds. 

 The vast hospitality he exercised was a necessity 

 of his position, ami, if it is true that he brought 

 his own sons into parliament, it cannot 1 said that 

 he ever set aside a really good candidate in their 

 favour. Ireland trusted him, and to the end he 

 justified her trust. 



Mulgrave and Drnmmond governed Ireland so 

 jnildly ami impartially that O'Connell was prepared 

 to abandon the Repeal agitation in the prospect of 

 at last obtaining justice for his country. In 1830 

 he was unseated on petition for Dublin his ex- 

 penses in defending were 20,000; those of the peti- 

 tioners, 40,000. He was now returned for Kilkenny, 

 nearly 8500 being at once rained for his expenses. 

 Hi- hod loyally supported the Whigs at the risk of 

 waning popularity in Ireland, but Tie liegan to feel 

 misgivings as he saw his dreams of justice to Ire- 

 land vanishing into a more and more distant future. 

 In the November of 1837 he denounced the men in 

 a Dublin strike and was hooted at in the streets, 

 and on 28th February 1838 he was severely repri- 

 manded by the Speaker for attributing perjury to 

 the Tory committees in the House of Commons. 

 That same year the Mastership of the Rolls was 



offered him but declined. In August he founded 

 his ' Precureor Society,' and on April 15, 1840, his 

 famous Repeal Association, the members of which 

 were grouped in three classes volunteers who sub- 

 scribed or collected 10 a year, members who sub- 

 scril>ed 1, and associates who robceribed one shil- 

 ling. That summer and autumn he addressed 

 meetings incessantly, but yet the agitation lan- 

 guished till the appearance of the Nation in 

 October 1842 brought him the aid of Dillon, Duffy, 

 Davis, Mangan, and Daunt. In 1841 O'Connell 

 lost his seat at Dublin, but found another at Cork, 

 and in November he was elected Lord Mayor of 

 Dublin. On February 25, 1843 he brought up the 

 question of Repeal in the Dublin corporation in a 

 splendid oration of four hours' length, and carried 

 it against Isaac Butt by 41 to 15. The agitation 

 now leaped into prominence, and the priests came 

 pouring in to swell its strength. That year's rent 

 was 48,400; Conciliation Hall was built in Dublin, 

 and a magnificent and perfect organisation arranged 

 with great enthusiasm and perfect harmony. 

 Even a Repeal police was instituted under a Head 

 Pacificator. Arbitration courts were formed, and 

 a great mass of national literature disseminated. 

 O'Connell travelled that same year 5000 miles. 

 Monster meetings, attended by hundreds of thou- 

 sands, were held in every corner of Ireland, yet 

 these were never mobs nowhere was there crime 

 or even drunkenness, thanks to Father Mathew. 

 The greatest was that held on the Hill of Tara, 

 loth August 1843, the attendance at which was 

 estimated by the Nation at three-quarters of a 

 million. O'Connell had an innate horror of re- 

 bellion and bloodshed ' he who commits a crime 

 adds strength to the enemy ' was a favourite motto ; 

 another, ' no political change whatsoever is worth 

 the shedding of a single drop of human blood." 

 Throughout a whole generation with wonderful 

 skill he had kept the public mind at a pitch of the 

 highest polit iral excitement, yet restrained it from 

 unconstitutional action, although he often skated 

 dangerously near the edge of inflammatory lan- 

 guage. But now the Young Ireland party, with 

 all the infallibility of youth and enthusiasm, began 

 to grow impatient of the old chief's tactics, and, 

 impelled by their enthusiasm and certain of the 

 speedy surrender of the government, O'Connell 

 allowed himself in his speeches to outrun his 

 better judgment. But this time Wellington was 

 resolute in liis measures, and poured 35,000 men into 

 Ireland. A great meeting was fixed at Clontarf 

 for Sunday, October 5, 1843, but it was proclaimed 

 the day l>efore. O'Connell, apprehensive of a bloody 

 scene, issued a counter-proclamation abandoning 

 the meeting. Early in 1844 he was tried with his 

 son and five of his chief supporters for a conspiracy 

 to raise sedition, and after a trial extending over 

 twenty-three days was found guilty, and ultimately 

 on May 30 sentenced to twelve months' imprison- 

 ment, a fine of 2000, and 5000 security for good 

 behaviour for seven years. The House of Lords 

 set aside the verdict as erroneous on September 4, 

 and at once bonfires blazed across Ireland from sea 

 to sea. But during the fourteen weeks the Tribune 

 lay in prison the disease seized him of which three 

 years later he was to die. And he found that in 

 his absence the Young Ireland party had taken a 

 forward step, and that his moral force policy was 

 now discredited by the more fiery young spirits of 

 his party, who 1>egan to talk in articles and songs 

 of the lawfulness of physical resistance to the 

 government. His proposed scheme of federation 

 and local parliaments found no favour, and he with- 

 drew it, alleging that it was merely a ruse to gauge 

 the Whig feeling of Ulster. He opposed Peel's 

 provincial ' godless colleges,' and soon came an open 

 split between him and Young Ireland, the members 



