deprive the agitation, at the moment when it seemed to be gathering strength, of its most energetic and influential spirit. It was felt, however, by many, that a wiser use might be made of victory than the indulgence of idle vauntings. The part borne by Mr. Plunket in the affair had been resented only while the event was doubtful. He was believed to have been throughout an unwilling instrument in the hands of others. There was no disposition on the part of O'Connell to glorify in the Attorney-General's defeat ; and in moving a series of resolutions some days after in the association, Mr. Sheil endeavoured to recal the popular mind to the many eminent services Mr. Plunket had rendered to the cause, and the many he might still have it in his power to render.

"We lament that Mr. Plunket should have put his enemies to elect whether they would make a martyr of Mr. O'Connell or a victim of him. We do not forget the bonds of political cordiality which united Mr. Plunket to the Roman Catholic body. We feel as if we had snatched a poniard from the grasp of an antagonist, and beholding in his face the lineaments of an early friend, instead of turning back the dagger upon his bosom, we exclaim in the accents of mingled reproach and sorrow—'Is it thus that you requite us?' God forbid that we should indulge in the language of contumelious triumph at the failure of a measure which carries its retribution with itself. The weapon which was pointed at us with so deadly a level has burst in Mr. Plunket's hands I hope it has not shattered them. But it is fitting that

:

we should abstain from every ungenerous vaunt. We are not drunk with a base and delirious joy. In our Political Saturnalia, we do not forget the ignominy of our condition. We do not raise our arms in the attitude of triumph, for our fetters are still upon us. But we owe it at the same time to the abstract dignity of truth to record our condemnation more of the measure than of the man. . . . . When Mr. Plunket read the words attributed to Mr. O'Connell, did he ask himself —What is the provocation given to this man? Who is he, and what am I? Who is His Majesty's Attorney-General, the Right Honourable William Conyngham Plunket? I know not whether he administered that personal interrogatory to himself; but if he did, this should have been the answer. 'I raised myself from a comparatively humble station by the force of my own talents to the first eminence in the state. In my profession I am without an equal. In Parliament I had once no superior. When out of office, I kindled the popular passion-I was fierce, violent, vituperative; at last I have won the object of my life; I am Attorney-General for Ireland; I possess great wealth, great power, great dignity, and great patronage. If I had been a Roman Catholic, instead of an enfranchised Presbyterian, what should I have been?' I can tell him. He would have carried up and down a discontented and repining spirit;' he would have felt like a man with large limbs who could not stand erect; his vast faculties would have been cribbed and cabined in; and how would he have borne his political humiliation? Would he have been tame and abject, servile and sycophantic? Look at him, and say, how would that lofty forehead have borne the brand of 'popery '? How would that high demeanour have worn the stoop of the slave? No, he would have been the chief demagogue, the most angry, tumultuous, and virulent tribune of the people-he would have superadded the honest gall of his own nature to the bitterness of political resentment—he would have given utterance to ardent feelings in burning words; and in all the force of passion, he would have gnawed the chain from which he could not break.

And is this the man who prosecutes for words? If the tables were turned; if Mr. O'Connell were Attorney-General, and Mr. Plunket were the great leader of the people; if Antony were Brutus, and Brutus Antony, how would the public mind have been inflamed; what exciting matter would have been flung amongst the people? What lava would have been poured forth! The very stones would rise in mutiny.' Would to Heaven, that not only Mr. Plunket, but every other Protestant that deplores our imprudence in the spirit of a fastidious patronage, would adopt the simple test of nature, and make our case his own, and he would confess that, if similarly situated, he would give vent to his emotions in phrases as exasperated, and participate in the feelings which agitate the great and disfranchised community to which it would be his misfortune to belong."*

*Speech in Catholic Association, 8th January, 1825.

CHAPTER VII.

1825. *

Deputation to England-Archibald Hamilton Rowan-Mr. Peel and Mr. Brougham-Act suppressing association-The wings -Dinner at Mr. Brougham's-Meeting at Freemasons' Hall —Lord F. L. Gower's proposition regarding the payment of the Catholic clergy-Mr. Littleton's motion-Speech at Carlow-Duke of York's speech-Relief Bill thrown out.

THE Condition of things which existed in Ireland at the beginning of 1825 was too anomalous to last. To all who possessed, even in a moderate degree, the gifts of political insight and discernment, it was clear that either too much or too little had already been conceded to the Catholic community. Too little had been yielded to satisfy, too much to allow the hope and ambition to sleep of one day being able to extort the rest. In the progress of population, the favoured

sect had not maintained their proportion. At the Revolution their numbers were estimated as being 300,000 out of 1,100,000.* Under the operation of the penal laws, their relative strength is supposed to have become much greater. But, after the relaxations of 1783 and 1793, the Catholic population multiplied more rapidly, and at the period in question it was said to amount to upwards of 6,000,000.

"The Philistines took Samson and put out his eyes, and bound him with fetters of brass, and he did grind in the prison. Howbeit the hair of Samson began to grow after he was shaven.' They put out the eyes of Ireland; they made education illicit, and declared knowledge to be contraband; they knew that slavery and ignorance were companions; they quenched the intellectual vision of the people; they bound them in penalties that cut into the mind, and corroded the heart; they set them to grind in the prison; they declared them to be incapable of honourable occupation; they fixed a brand upon their labour, and to their industry they attached disgrace;—and yet, in despite of all this, notwithstanding the detestable ingenuity of this infernal process for the demoralization and debasement of man, the innate * Sir William Petty's Political Survey, chap. ii.