Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/149

 Meanwhile O'Connell, under the malign influence of his feeble son, was drawing closer to his old allies, the Whigs. It was beginning to be whispered that he would renew the submission of 1834, and declare the Repeal experiment at an end, and justice to Ireland substituted. And this would assuredly have befallen had there not been a second Young Ireland Party in the accustomed place as determined and inflexible as the first. The new men became members of Committee of the Association, and spoke from time to time in Conciliation Hall, where O'Connell received them with formal courtesy, recognising at a glance what a formidable impediment they constituted to his secret designs.

At the beginning of the new session of Parliament, Peel announced that he had come to the conclusion that the Corn Laws ought to be repealed. Some of his colleagues refused to support him in this precipitate change of policy, and he had resigned office and advised the Queen to send for Lord John Russell. Here was the very danger long foreseen and dreaded. The party O'Connell had supported to the eve of their downfall were once more about to assume office. I sounded an alarm bell in the Nation, and Smith O'Brien wrote to the Association declaring that if the people were not faithful to their pledge never to abandon Repeal, he would regret that he had ever announced himself a Repealer—his motto was Repeal and no surrender. O'Connell declared that it was superfluous to insert this letter on the minutes; it would be engraved on every Irish heart. His own motto also was Repeal and no surrender. After a glance at current affairs the leader came to the real purpose of his speech, the duty of the Irish party. "The new Administration will be wanting us," he said, "and they shall have us if they do good work for Ireland." The good work required of them was specified and was not onerous. "They must repeal the Corn Laws"—to repeal the Corn Laws being the precise work for which they were called to office, and in which Ireland, a granary of cereals, had not a shred of interest—"they must facilitate