Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/207

 own terms.' At that moment John O'Connell entered. Hearing what had passed, he protested it should not be, and the old man had not strength to oppose his best beloved son."

But the determination had taken root, and at the next meeting of the Association O'Connell suggested that in face of the growing famine the dispute in their own ranks ought to be settled. "Let the Young Irelanders show that they give up everything contrary to law and he would concede everything that the law would permit." He would propose a conference between Smith O'Brien and himself, aided by four lawyers—O'Hagan, O'Loghlen, O'Hea, and John Dillon—and they would understand each other for the future. At succeeding meetings he returned to the subject, and intimated that he would satisfy the Young Irelanders on all points at issue. Among the seceders some angry spirits said: "This is a trick, there is a trap. O'Connell cannot possibly want reconciliation, for reconciliation would mean abandoning the Whig alliance, which yielded so liberal a crop of offices to his partisans, and the cherished hope of making John his successor. Besides, how can he on any pretence take back men represented by bishops as infidels eager to destroy religion and betray the country? That is what we were represented t6 be a week ago. How have we changed?" But the leaders of the party were determined to accept the conference, certain that if they did not they would be assailed as the enemies of reconciliation, and cherishing some faint hope that O'Connell had repented of his fatal backsliding. There was a third motive which, though it was only glanced at in debate, was fixed in all their minds; they feared that O'Connell was determined to denounce them as impediments to a reunion of the party, and this misrepresentation they resolved to make impossible. The seceders held a conference and published resolutions declaring that they accepted O'Connell's overture, and were ready to confer on all the points in dispute as soon as they had leisure to consult O'Brien and some other seceders resident in the provinces. I wrote privately to O'Brien, urging him to come immediately to town, but he could not be induced to do so. He still regarded himself as a mediator between the two sections, recommending that we should negotiate with O' Council