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 ) might be able to control it, when the leadership was bequeathed to him.

An essential part of such a scheme was to sap the influence and disparage the character of such men as would probably offer a vigorous resistance, and finally to hustle them out of the Association. That this was the design in 1845 is my conviction after having witnessed all the transactions. But I submit the case absolutely to the judgment of the reader, exhorting him again to accept no fact which is not well established, and no theory which the facts do not render irresistible. At the outset let it be remembered that the young men could have no personal object in a conflict with O'Connell; their personal interests were manifestly all the other way. O'Connell might shut them out from a public career during his lifetime, or for ever, and in my own case he might destroy a journal which conferred a large influence and a liberal income. The motives which induced us to disregard these dangers may reasonably be presumed not to have been unworthy ones. We had been accustomed from boyhood to love and reverence O'Connell, and we recoiled from a conflict with him as generous boys recoil from a dispute with their father. But the National cause was far above all sympathies and affections; the Irish people for long centuries had watered it with their blood, and in the half century which has since ensued, we know by what sufferings and sacrifices they have laboured to maintain and defend it. Only those who condemn all this long martyrdom as national folly can doubt what was the duty of the sentinels at the gate, when they discovered the intention of letting the enemy into our citadel.

The second trouble came in a manner as unexpected as the first, and it was one in which the duty of the young men seemed as peremptorily prescribed by their character and convictions. From the date when the Times advised the Prime Minister to conciliate Ireland, rather than coerce her, the Whig Opposition pressed the same counsel on him in many keys. It is probable that the last thing they expected was that he would take their advice, but at the opening of the session of 1845 Sir Robert Peel had the supreme civic courage to declare that he desired to make peace with