Page:Irish In America.djvu/70

50 CHAPTER III.

Scene in the Lords—The Irish Race despaired of—The Settlement of Johnville, New Brunswick—We enter the Settlement—The First Man and Woman—The Second Man and Woman—Celtic Energy—Jimmy M'Allister—Mr.Reilly from Ballyvourney—How the Man of no Capital gets along—One Cause of Success—Mass in the Forest—Neither Rent nor 'Gale'—Other Settlements.

ON a certain evening of March 1866, there was a more than usual attendance of peers in the House of Lords; and, attracted by the subject for discussion, many members of the Commons occupied the bar, or that portion of the gallery reserved for their accommodation. Among the strangers who were present, was the Roman Catholic Bishop of St. John, New Brunswick, an Irishman, but for nearly forty years a resident in that colony. Earl Grey had given notice of his intention to submit a series of resolutions in reference to the state of Ireland; and the largeness of the attendance was owing more to the gravity of the subject than even to the fame of the statesman by whom it was to be introduced. With that grave and impressive statement, which belongs to the Parliamentary records of the country, this work has no concern; a little incident which occurred during its delivery being the only justification for its mention in these pages.

Standing immediately near the stranger, was a gentleman who displayed marked courtesy to the American - as the Bishop simply represented himself to be pointing out to him the leading peers on either side, and explaining such of the forms and modes of procedure as were likely to be useful to one who was for the first time witness of a debate in the Lords. In the course of his statement Earl Grey necessarily referred to the Emigration movement,