infringement of the peace. Order, sobriety, respect for the laws, were the watchwords of the millions. England was stripped of the slightest chance of deceiving the world as to the nature of her relations with Ireland. The people of Israel, with one voice, besought Pharaoh to let them go free; but the heart of Pharaoh was hard as stone.

O'Connell was not prepared for the obduracy of tyrannic strength which he encountered. So completely was he impressed with the conviction that the ministry must yield to the array of an almost unanimous people, that in 1843 he committed himself to a specific promise and solemn undertaking that within "six months" repeal would be an accomplished fact.

This fatal promise—the gigantic error of his life-suggested to the minister the sure means to effect the overthrow of O'Connell and his movement. To break the spell of his magic influence over the people-to destroy their hitherto unshaken confidence in him—to publicly discredit his most solemn and formal covenant with them-(that if they would but keep the peace and obey his instructions, he would as surely as the sun shone on them, obtain repeal within six months)—it was now necessary merely to hold out for six or twelve months longer, and by some bold stroke, even at the risk of a civil war, to fall upon O'Connell and his colleagues with all the rigors of the law, and publicly degrade them.

This daring and dangerous scheme Peel carried out. First he garrisoned the country with an overwhelming force, and then, so far from yielding repeal, trampled on the constitution, challenged the people to war, prepared for a massacre at Clontarf-averted only by the utmost exertions of the popular leaders-and, finally, he had O'Connell and his colleagues publicly arraigned, tried, and convicted as conspirators, and dragged to jail as criminals.

O'Connell's promise was defeated, His spell was broken from that hour. All the worse for England.

All the worse for England, as crime is always, even where it wins present advantage, all the worse for those who avail of it. For, what had England done? Here was a man, the

corner stones of whose policy, the first principles of whose public teaching, were-loyalty, firm and fervent, to the throne; respect, strict and scrupulous, for the laws; confidence in the prevalence of reasoning force; reliance, complete and exclusive, upon the efficacy of peaceful, legal, and constitutional action.

Yet this was the man whom England prosecuted as a conspirator! These were the teachings she punished with fine and imprisonment !

The Irish people, through O'Connell, had said to England: "Let us reason this question. Let there be an end to resort to force." England answered by a flourish of the mailed hand. She would have no reasoning on the subject. She pointed to her armies and fleets, her arsenals and dock-yards, her shotted gun and whetted sabre.

In that hour a silent revolution was wrought in the popular mind of Ireland. Up to that moment a peaceable, an amicable, a friendly settlement of the question between the two countries, was easy enough. But now!

The law lords in the British house of peers, by three votes to two, decided that the conviction of O'Connell and his colleagues was wrongful. Every one knew that. There was what the minister judged to be a "state necessity" for showing that the government could and would publicly defy and degrade O'Connell by conviction and imprisonment, innocent or guilty; and as this had been triumphantly accomplished, Peer cared not a jot that the full term of punishment was thus cut short. O'Connell left his prison cell a broken man. Overwhelming demonstrations of unchanged affection and personal attachment poured in upon him from his countrymen. Their faith in his devotion to Ireland was increased a hundred fold, but their faith in the efficacy of his policy, or the surety of his promises, was gone.

He himself saw and felt it, and marking the effect the government course had wrought upon the new generation of Irishmen, he was troubled in soul. England had dared them to grapple with her power. He trembled at the thought of what the result might be in years to come. Already the young

crop of Irish manhood had become recognizable as a distinct. political element-a distinct school of thought and action. At the head of this party blazed a galaxy of genius-Poets, Orators, Scholars, Writers, and Organizers. It was the party of Youth with its generous impulses, its roseate hopes, its classic models, its glorious daring, its pure devotion. The old man feared the issue between this hot blood and the cold stern tyranny that had shown its disregard for law and conscience. Age was now heavily upon him, and, moreover, there were those around him full of jealousy against the young leaders of the Irish Gironde-full of envy of their brilliant genius, their public fame, their popular influence. The gloomiest forebodings arose to the old man's mind, or were sedulously conjured up before it by those who surrounded him.

Soon a darker shade came to deepen the gloom that was settling on the horizon of his future. Famine-terrible and merciless-fell upon the land. Or rather, one crop, out of the many grown on Irish soil-that one on which the masses of the people fed--perished; and it became plain the government would let the people perish too. In 1846 the long spell of conservative rule came to a close, and the whigs came into office. Place was once more to be had by facile Catholic agitators, and now the Castle backstairs was literally thronged with the old hacks of Irish agitation, filled with a fine glowing indignation against those "purists" of the new school who denied that it was a good thing to have friends in office. Here was a new source of division between the old and new elements in Irish popular politics. O'Connell himself was as far as ever from bending to the acceptance of personal favor from the government; but some of his near relatives and long-time colleagues or subordinates in agitation were one by one being "placed" by the Viceroy, amidst fierce invectives from the "Young Ireland" party as they were called.

All these troubles seemed to be shaking from its foundations the mind of the old Tribune, who every day sunk more and more into the hands of his personal adherents. He became at length fully persuaded of the necessity of fettering the

young party. He framed a test declaration for members of the association, repudiating, disclaiming, denouncing, and abhorring the use of physical force under any possible circumstances or in any age or country. This monstrous absurdity showed that the once glorious intellect of O'Connell was gone. In his constant brooding over the dangers of an insurrection in which the people would be slaughtered like sheep, he struck upon this resort, apparently unable to see that it was opposed to all his own past teaching and practice--nay, opposed to all law, human and divine, that it would conserve and enthrone the most iniquitous tyrannies, and render man the abject slave of power.

The young party offered to take this test as far as related to the present or the future of Ireland; but they refused to stigmatize the patriot brave of all history, who had bled and died for liberty. This would not suffice, and the painful fact became clear enough that the monstrous test resolutions were meant to drive them from the association. On the 27th of July, 1846, the Young Ireland leaders, refusing a test which was a treason against truth, justice, and liberty, quitted Conciliation Hall, and Irish Ireland was rent into bitterly hostile parties.

Not long afterwards the insidious disease, the approach of which was proclaimed clearly enough in O'Connell's recent proceedings-softening of the brain-laid the old chieftain low. He had felt the approach of dissolution, and set out on a pilgrimage that had been his lifelong dream-a visit to Rome. And assuredly a splendid welcome awaited him. there; the first Catholic Layman in Europe, the Emancipator of seven millions of Catholics, the most illustrious Christian patriot of his age. But heaven decreed otherwise. A brighter welcome in a better land awaited the toil-worn soldier of faith and fatherland. At Marseilles, on his way to Rome, it became clear that a crisis was at hand; yet he would fain push onward for the Eternal city. In Genoa the Superb he breathed his last; bequeathing, with his dying breath, his body to Ireland, his heart to Rome, his soul to God. All Christendom was plunged into mourning. The world poured its homage of respect over his bier. Ireland, the land for which

he had lived and labored, gave him a funeral nobly befitting his title of Uncrowned Monarch. But more honoring than funeral pageant, more worthy of his memory, was the abiding grief that fell upon the people who had loved him with such a deep devotion.

LXXXV. HOW THE HORRORS OF THE FAMINE HAD THEIR EFFECT ON IRISH POLITICS. HOW THE FRENCH REVOLUTION SET EUROPE IN A FLAME. HOW IRELAND MADE A VAIN ATTEMPT AT INSURRECTION.

*

MIDST the horrors of "Black Forty-seven," the reason of strong men gave way in Ireland. The people lay dead in hundreds on the highways and in the fields. There was food in abundance in the country; but the government said it should not be touched, unless in accordance with the teachings of Adam Smith and the "laws of political economy."

The mechanism of an absentee government utterly broke down, even in carrying out its own tardy and inefficient measures. The charity of the English people towards the end, generously endeavored to compensate for the inefficiency or the heartlessness of the government. But it could not be done. The people perished in thousands. Ireland was one huge charnel pit.

It is not wonderful that amid scenes like these some passionate natures burst into rash resolves. Better, they cried, the people died bravely with arms in their hands, ridding themselves of such an imbecile regime; better Ireland were reduced to a cinder, than endure the horrible physical and moral ruin being wrought before men's eyes. The daring apostle of these doctrines was John Mitchel. Men called him mad.

*The corn exported from Ireland that year would alone, it is computed, have sufficed to feed a larger population.