Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/135

 supremely disgusting to the Americans, and to every man of honour and spirit.'

"The effect of the mispolicy was speedy and signal in America. The Repeal Associations in Baltimore, New Orleans, and other cities were dissolved, and the native Press was furious against Irish ingratitude. But the attack on individual liberty outraged Dillon more than the blunders in public policy.

"'I have just read,' he wrote to Davis, 'with inexpressible disgust, the speech of John O'Connell, and the scene which followed between himself and Scott. It behoves you to consider very seriously whether the Nation is not bound to notice this matter. &hellip; My notion is that Scott has a right to protection, and that the public will, or ought to, feel indignant if this protection be withheld. The Nation could not possibly get a better opportunity of reading a longrequired lecture to Johnny. The immediate topic is one on which public opinion is universally against him. &hellip; [Mr. Scott, who was an old man long associated with O'Connell, and having no relation with the Young Irelanders, made a slight effort to pacify America by excluding from Conciliation Hall negro slavery, Texas, Oregon, and the whole range of Transatlantic questions upon which O'Connell and Mr. John O'Connell had been haranguing.] Can anything be more evident than the puerile folly of it? When the Americans were engaged in their own struggle only fancy one of their orators coming down to the Congress with a violent invective against the abuses of the French Government of the day. It is impossible latterly to bear with the insolence of this little frog. There is no man or country safe from his venom. If there be not some protest against him, he will set the whole world against us.'

"The most respectable of the recent recruits began to waver. Grey Porter had retired, and Hely Hutchinson declined to enter Parliament, though a southern county was offered to him. This was the condition of public affairs a few weeks after the question of the provincial colleges was forced upon the Repeal Association."

The Northern tourists did not follow the ordinary track of