Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/133

 the Nation there would not now be one Repeal Club in America. Still we have a sincere and numerous people, a rising literature, an increasing staff of young, honest, trained men. Peel's splitting policy [a policy which split up the Tories], the chance of war, the chance of the Orangemen, and a great though now misused, organisation; and perhaps next autumn a rally may be made. It will require forethought, close union, indifference to personal attack, and firm measures. At this moment the attempt would utterly fail; but parties may be brought down to reason by the next four months. Again, I tell you, you have no notion of the loss sustained by John O'Connell's course. A dogged temper and a point of honour induce me to remain in the Association at every sacrifice, and will keep me there while there is a chance, even a remote one, of doing good in it."

The period of recess arrived; O'Connell and O'Brien went into country quarters; the young men in general set out on their autumn excursions, and the dangerous marplot, Mr. John O'Connell, was left in control of the Association. My holiday was taken in an excursion to our native Ulster, with John O'Hagan, John Mitchel, and John Martin. Mitchel was a young attorney living in the village of Bannbridge, whose acquaintance I made when I resided in Belfast. I had made him known to my Dublin associates. He had contributed one article, entitled " Convicted Conspirators," to the Nation during the State Trials, and one review of -a pamphlet, but I detected a capacity for writing, and invited him to contribute a volume to the Library of Ireland, which he was to bring with him on this excursion. Martin was a gentleman farmer of unusual education and culture, whom I met then for the first time. We set out in extravagant spirits, but a month which would otherwise have been a social honeymoon was overcast at every point where the Dublin newspapers brought us an account of the Young Liberator's exploits, or some fierce comment on them by our friends in the South and West. MacNevin wrote me:—

"John O'Connell is the most mischievous public man in Ireland. The Association is now merely a Catholic Association. Repeal or any high or honourable principle of Nationality is never heard there. &hellip; Look at the Corpora-