Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/118

 The motive and meaning of this language were not so plain then as now, but they were plain enough.

What was the duty of the leading spokesmen of the National movement before this new danger? If the Association adopted the policy suggested all the men of character and influence won since the beginning of 1843 would surely abandon it, as they did later under kindred provocation. The respect and sympathy of foreign nations would be withdrawn from a people who did not know their own mind, and suddenly discovered that there was no substantial difference between a nation enjoying legislative independence and a province possessing a dependent legislature for domestic purposes. The result that would have ensued, and which the keen intellect of O'Connell could not but foresee, was the dwindling away of the National movement till it might be swopped, as it had been in '34, for a handful of promised boons from the Whigs. What ought to be done under the circumstances? I had no doubt indeed what ought to be done, but it was autumn, and all my colleagues were away on holiday, and I might commit them to a contest with O'Connell which they would have found some honourable means of evading. But clear as my duty was to them, there was even a higher duty to the multitude of young men in the country who believed that the Nation in all difficulties would be just and fear not, and whose faith and patriotism would be fatally shaken if their confidence proved to have been ill bestowed. I solved the difficulty by making the leading article in the next Nation a letter to O'Connell in my own name. I objected to the change he favoured, which I believed would equally damage Federalism and Repeal, and insisted, with careful courtesy, that the Association had no more right to alter the constitution on which its members were recruited than the Irish Parliament had to surrender its functions without consulting its constituents. The letter was reprinted by