THE 
 
 LEAGUE OF NOKTH AND SOUTH. 
 
THE LEAGUE OF 
 
 NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 1850—1854. 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR C. GAYAN DUFFY, K.C.M.G. 
 
 " And let the Orange li]y be 
 
 Thy badge, my patriot brother ; 
 The everlasting Green for me, 
 And we for one another." — Davis. 
 
 LONDON : CHAPMAN AND HALL, 
 
 Limited, 
 1886. 
 
RrcHARn Clay & Sons, 
 
 BKEAD STREET HILL, LONDON, 
 Bungay, Suffolk. 
 
 40953 
 
DEDICATION BY WAY OF PEEFACE, 
 
 My dear Mr. Justin McCarthy, 
 
 I propose to dedicate this book to you from 
 a motive which probably never begot a dedication 
 since dedications were invented — because I have a 
 grave complaint to make against you. It contains 
 the history of a period which you have seriously 
 misunderstood and hence greatly misrepresented ; and 
 I desire to call your attention to the circumstance 
 by way of friendly remonstrance rather than by 
 refutation or controversy. I find in your speeches, 
 and in the speeches of some of your colleagues, 
 allusion to the Tenant Right party of 1852 as the 
 " party of Sadleir and Keogh." It was no more the 
 party of Sadleir and Keogh than you and your friends 
 are the party of James Carey and Patrick Tynan. 
 
vi DEDICATION BY WAY OF PEEFACE. 
 
 Neither Sadleir nor Keogh were ever members of the 
 Tenant League, They were sent to Parliament by 
 Irish constituencies against the remonstrance of the 
 League, and when they arrived there and made haste 
 to betray the country, they only did what we always 
 foretold they would do. For a time indeed they figured 
 in the same division lists with the honest Irish 
 members ; but you are not unfamiliar with an identical 
 experience in your own time, I think. Would you 
 consider it quite fair to name the present Irish party 
 not after its accredited leaders, but after the scabby 
 sheep of the flock ? Bat this is just what you have 
 done in the case I have cited. 
 
 I know too well the difficulty of maintaining an 
 Irish party in the House of Commons not to be 
 patient with mistakes. But public men can scarcely 
 commit a more wanton or gratuitous blunder in pohcy 
 than to be unjust to their predecessors. You have 
 fallen upon pleasant times. Electors are protected 
 by the ballot, they have no occasion to fear ruin as 
 the penalty of voting honestly ; and young priests 
 who fought in the meUe during the movement of 
 1850-5, and fought unsuccessfully, are now arch- 
 deacons, canons, bishops, and archbishops, and lend 
 
DEDICATION BY WAY OF PREFACR vii 
 
 you decisive assistance. You travel by rail, moh 
 ami, fifty miles an hour just now ; but, pray, who 
 survej^ed the untrodden country, laid down the lines 
 over quaking morasses at times, or through moun- 
 tains of granite which might have dismayed a 
 Stephenson, and so made this progress possible ? If 
 a member betrays his party at present he is denounced 
 and discarded ; in our time he returned to his con- 
 stituents leaning on tne arm of a bishop. The 
 inevitable expenses of a political contest are plenti- 
 fully furnished to you by the Irish race, we had to 
 draw them in a large degree from our personal 
 resources. We spent and were spent in that contest. 
 An injustice commonly provokes a counter and com- 
 pensating injustice ; and when I took up my pen I 
 was tempted to declare that the present Irish party 
 in more prosperous days have simply administered 
 the principles, and executed the designs, devised by 
 their predecessors in the midst of famine and disaster ; 
 that a single concession has not been won for the 
 Irish people, or sought on their behalf, which may 
 not be traced back to the labours of the men sent 
 to Parliament in 1852. 
 
 It cannot be denied that you taught the people 
 
viii DEDICATION BY WAY OF PREFACE. 
 
 to rise in sterner wrath against their oppressors than 
 the men of 1850 excited, and that you moved more 
 effectually the Ireland in exile to co-operate with 
 the mother country. But on the other hand, you 
 failed to win the ear of the North — you failed to 
 unite the four provinces on a common platform as 
 your predecessors did. What signal results it might 
 produce at this hour had you been able to emulate 
 that memorable work ? 
 
 If you do me the honour of reading this little 
 book you will judge how much might be said on 
 this thesis. But I can well believe that the men of to- 
 day have often re-discovered for themselves principles 
 and policy which were not new indeed, but had 
 become forgotten. One of their shortcomings, I 
 think, is to know imperfectly the unwritten history 
 of the last thirty years — a history which concerns 
 them so nearly. Mr. Parnell, as far as I have observed, 
 never mentions the leaders of the Tenant League 
 except with the respect and gratitude to which they 
 are entitled, but he is strangely unfamiliar with the 
 incidents of the period in which they lived. He 
 recently spoke of Mr. Butt, for example, as the founder 
 of Independent Opposition. Mr. Butt was not merely 
 
DEDICATION BY WAY OF PEEFACE. ix 
 
 not its founder, but he was its steadfast enemy from 
 the time it was first put into action in the House 
 of Commons down to his dying day. He repudiated 
 it as scornfully as he repudiated Parliamentary ob- 
 struction at a later period. Independent Opposition 
 was formulated by the Young Ireland ers in contrast 
 to the place-begging policy defended in Conciliation 
 Hall ; and was propounded anew in 1847 as a more 
 hopeful resource than Mr. Mitchel's proposal of refus- 
 ing to pay poor rate. I have written the history 
 of that transaction, and as I believe I may assume 
 that you have read it, I will only ask you to note 
 this fact; that the theory maintained by the majority 
 of the Irish Confederates (embodied in the Report on 
 Organization) insists on the principle upon which 
 every success, great or small, gained for Ireland from 
 that time to this has been won. A few years later 
 George Henry Moore made a gallant attempt to 
 induce the Irish party who opposed the Ecclesiastical 
 Titles Bill to accept the same cardinal doctrine, but 
 they had other ends in view, and it was adopted as 
 a governing principle for the first time by the Tenant 
 League members of 1852. 
 
 It used to be the habit of Irish Nationalists — of 
 
X DEDICATION BY WAY OF PREFACE. 
 
 that school, at any rate, with which I was connected 
 and where you yourself matriculated, — to guard the 
 reputation of their predecessors as a priceless posses- 
 sion of the Irish race. I do not think this spirit 
 prevails universally at present. But such a spirit 
 is not only just and generous, but on lower grounds 
 it is prudent. You, in your turn, will have successors 
 some day. I remember a story I heard at my mother s 
 knee and have never forgotten, which I commend to 
 you as a sample of the wisdom of our ancestors. In 
 a famine year — so the legend ran — a comfortable farmer 
 was persuaded by his wife to send out his aged 
 father to beg. The old man was equipped with a 
 staff, a bag, and half a blanket, and turned on the 
 highway. After he was gone his frugal daughter-in- 
 law inquired what had become of the second half 
 of the blanket ? After a long search it was discovered 
 under the bed of her little boy. "Why, Mick astor, 
 what did you want with a blanket ? " his father de- 
 manded. " Father," says the boy, " I thought I'd 
 keep it by me till I grew up to be a big man, 
 and then it'll do for you when I send you out to 
 beg." You are very far in the present hour of triumph 
 from fearing that the blanket will ever fall to your 
 
DEDICATION BY WAY OF PEEFACE. xi 
 
 lot. But it has fallen to the lot of men with whom 
 the best living Irishman might be proud to be named. 
 When we remember that Roger 'Moore was denied 
 all control in the Confederation of Kilkenny, which 
 his daring and inventive genius created — that Wolfe 
 Tone fell into disrepute, for moderation, with the 
 United Irish Societies which he founded — that Grattan 
 was in the end denounced by the Volunteers whom 
 he had led to one of the most memorable victories 
 in history — that Smith O'Brien, Dillon, Meagher, 
 Mitchel, and their friends were expelled from the 
 Repeal Association, of which they were the most 
 sincere and unselfish members, and that O'Connell 
 lost his marvellous popularity in a few months after 
 his last alliance with the Whigs — it may teach us 
 all to be modest. 
 
 Let me cite a letter from your own pen, in which 
 the same Independent Opposition which Mr. Parnell 
 attributes to Mr. Butt, you in your turn attribute 
 to Mr. Parnell: — 
 
 " I may say that the Irish members of Parliament stand aloof 
 from the social influences of London, which used at one time to 
 have such a softening and enervating effect on tlieir political 
 character. This isolation, for so I may call it, was distinctly the 
 work of Mr. Parnell. It was not the way of O'Connell ; it was 
 
xii DEDICATION BY WAY OF PREFACE. 
 
 not the way of Mr. Butt. O'Connell's relations of friendship 
 witli some of tlie Whigs of his day were often injurious to his 
 influence over political movements ; and similar relationships 
 with English public men made Mr. Butt far too anxious to please 
 
 or at least not to displease the House of Commons It is a 
 
 part of that policy of Independence which Mr. Parnell has come 
 to carry out, and which is now tried in action for the first time." 
 
 You will learn from the narrative in tins volume 
 
 that "the policy of independence" was not tried in 
 
 action for the first time by Mr, Parnell. And standing 
 
 aloof from social influences is just as little a novelty. 
 
 The Tenant League party had their own whip, and 
 
 permitted no other to communicate with them ; and 
 
 not a man of them ever entered the salon of any 
 
 political potentate of either sex. The necessity for this 
 
 abstinence Avas preached in the Nation, and I will 
 
 cite a few lines from a letter of Patrick McMahon, 
 
 one of the honest members of the period, in answer 
 
 to the exhortation : — 
 
 " Very, very glad that you have already enunciated the 
 doctrine that we are to leave to our 'betters the duties of dancing 
 and dining out,' Unless we act on a system that leaves us on 
 terms of perfect equality with our richer fellow senators we will 
 do no good. We must imitate the French emigres who earned 
 their bread by every humble lawful calling, and so maintained 
 their self-respect." ^ 
 
 T make allowance, of course, for the fact that none 
 
 1 August 14, 1852. McMahon to Duffy. 
 
DEDICATION BY WAY OF PREFACE. xiii 
 
 of your party, none of its leaders at any rate, were 
 politically born at the period in question ; that the 
 history of that era has been hitherto unwritten, and 
 that men rarely read old newspapers. I entirely 
 disbelieve that you were wilfully unjust, but you had 
 something to learn, which in your position it is almost 
 criminal not to know ; and with great respect and 
 regard I have endeavoured to bring it under your 
 notice. If I may cite so humble an example as my 
 own, I have refrained from criticism on transactions 
 of the Irish party which I could not approve, because 
 I thought their enemies in front ought never to be 
 supplemented by auxiliaries from behind; a similar 
 tenderness is due, I think, to the men who bore the 
 heat and toil of a contest which it has been your 
 good fortune in a more favourable day to carry to 
 successful issues. 
 
 Believe me. 
 
 My dear Mr. McCarthy, 
 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 C. GAVAN DUFFY. 
 
 CiMiEz, Alpes Maritimes, 
 June, 1886. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PA OF. 
 
 Ieeland in 1850 ........... 1 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 Prepaeations foe a IS'ational Confeeence 38 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Confeeence 48 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 Reception of the League by the Cottntet 64 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 The Council and its Fiest Teoubles 105 
 
 CHAPTER Y.— (Continued). 
 The League Council and its Teoubles 163 
 
xvi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 PAOE 
 
 The General Election 181 
 
 CHAPTER VIT. 
 The League in Parliament 215 
 
 CHAPTEPt VIII. 
 Another Pally of the League 274 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Dr. Cullen and the Whig Bishops 301 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 The Mission to Rome and its Results 330 
 
 APPENDICES. 
 
 I. Tour with Thomas Carlyle in 1849 385 
 
 IL John Mitchel, the League, and Gavan Duffy . . . 387 
 
4i 
 
 THE 
 
 LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 1850—1854. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 lEELAND IN 185 0, 
 
 Whether Irish Catholics and Protestants can trans- 
 act pnbhc business together in good temper and good 
 faith, as Catholics and Protestants in Switzerland, 
 Belgium, and Hungary habitually do, is a problem 
 which greatly perplexes sober Englishmen at present. 
 The negative has been asserted so frequently, and with 
 such emphasis, especially by eminent British critics 
 who knew nothing of the matter, that many worthy 
 persons have come to regard it as a truth which it is 
 idle or temerarious to dispute. A generation ago the 
 same question was equally a problem, and there w^ere 
 not wanting then, any more than now, men who 
 
 B 
 
2 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 answered authoritatively that such an alliance was 
 impossible. But the experiment was made at that 
 time ; it lasted through four trying years ; it was sub- 
 jected to many critical tests; and it furnishes, I think, 
 better materials for forming a safe opinion than any 
 quantity of predictions and speculations. 
 
 I propose to write the history of that experiment. 
 Many of the actors in it are still living to correct me if 
 I fall into error, or to confirm my statements if they 
 be accurate, as they certainly shall be to the best of my 
 knowledge and judgment. There is nothing of which 
 men commonly know so little as the unwritten history 
 of the period when they were boys ; and the facts will 
 be new, not only to Englishmen, but to the genera- 
 tion entering on active life on both sides of the 
 Channel. 
 
 When the nineteenth century had reached its mid- 
 way no crux in the tangle of Irish troubles seemed 
 more hopeless than to combine the North and South 
 for any public end whatever. It had not been always 
 so. Sixty years earlier, when Grattan was exhorting 
 the Parliament in Dublin to concede Catholic Emanci- 
 pation, he found his warmest supporters in Belfast ; 
 and when Wolfe Tone conspired for kindred and larger 
 objects, he had more Presbyterian Ministers than notable 
 Catholics, lay or clerical, among his adherents. But 
 after the Union the sentiment out of which this 
 
lEELAND IN 1850. 3 
 
 fraternity sprang gradually died out in the North. 
 During O'Connell's long struggle for Emancipation, few 
 Presbyterian laymen, and not one Presbyterian minister, 
 entered the Catholic Association. In 1842, when he 
 accepted an invitation to a public dinner at Belfast, the 
 Orange Lodges threatened his life ; they wrecked the 
 building in which he was about to be entertained, and 
 he had to be escorted by police on board a Scotch 
 steamer to escape their violence. Four years later 
 some change had taken place, for Smith O'Brien and 
 a deputation of Young Irelanders had a courteous 
 reception in the same town, and a patient hearing 
 for their opinions. But the change was not deep 
 or wide, for in 1848 the Orange leaders demanded 
 arms from the Government that they might be led 
 against the Confederates. In 1850 it was still ac- 
 cepted as a truism in Irish politics that, whatever 
 else might happen, Ulster and Munster would not 
 join hands for any purpose that could be devised 
 by man. 
 
 This was the state of public feeling when a rumour 
 got abroad, early in 1850, that a Conference on the 
 Land Question was projected in Dublin, at which 
 authentic and accredited representatives of North and 
 South were expected to meet and confer together. To the 
 best-disposed the promise seemed too good to be true ; 
 
 the ordinary impression was that two or three stray 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 ^Northerns of no accouDt would probably figure as 
 mock plenipotentiaries of Ulster. 
 
 The condition of Ireland at that moment justified a 
 truce in hereditary quarrels, had there never been one 
 before. For nearly four years a famine following the 
 potato blight had been in constant operation, and 
 more than a fourth of the Irish race had perished of 
 starvation, or fled in a panic to escape that calamity. 
 Too often they fled in vain ; emigrant vessels, as over- 
 crowded as the slave ships of Sierra Leone, and the 
 stifling hospitals into which those who escaped the 
 dangers of the voyage were transferred, killed as surely 
 as starvation, and the dead bodies of upwards of twenty 
 thousand Irish exiles were dropped into the Atlantic or 
 sown in the desolate wastes of Canada. The flight to 
 the United States had been less calamitous, and it still 
 continued unabated. Energetic young men and women, 
 the seed of the future, fled from the country as fast as 
 they could 'gather the essential passage money, and 
 their first earnings were still remitted to enable their 
 kindred to escape from the workhouse and the exter- 
 minating landlord. It was noted as a fact full of painful 
 significance that it was no longer the wail of the exile 
 which was heard at the ports of departure, but the 
 cheerful bustle of a pleasant enterprise. 
 
 The construction of railways with the co-operation of 
 the State, the reclamation of waste lands, reproductive 
 
IRELAND IN 1850. 5 
 
 public works and industrial enterprises, had all been 
 successively proposed to Parliament as remedies for this 
 tremendous national calamity, and always rejected. A 
 Poor-law was substituted by official wisdom, which gave 
 alms, but no employment. In addition to the aged and 
 infirm, the youth of both sexes were shut up in 
 Poor-houses. A native government would have made 
 such institutions, if necessary at all, centres of industry 
 the cradle of new manufactures ; at lowest, training 
 schools of agricultural education ; but as it was, there 
 were among the inmates a hundred and fifty thousand 
 young men and women able and willing to work, who 
 were rottino- in idleness and demoralization, from which 
 there seemed no escape but the pauper emigrant ships 
 or the pauper grave. In a few cases guardians insisted 
 upon trying spinning, weaving, and other industries for 
 the immediate use of the paupers, but they received no 
 encouragement from the authorities, and nothing effec- 
 tual was accomplished. It is proper to note that when 
 a famine threatened the artisans of Lancashire twenty 
 years later a directly opposite method was adopted ; 
 they were employed on reproductive works, which 
 yielded a substantial return for their labour. At the 
 outset of the Irish famine there was generous sympathy 
 in England with the suffering people. But it was the 
 business of the Government to face the difficulty, and 
 they were left in the end to deal with it at their 
 
6 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 discretion. The task fell on Lord John Russell and a 
 Whig Administration. No man has ever appeared at the 
 head of a great party less fit to be entrusted with duties 
 which appealed to the imagination and the heart. He 
 was of a cold, feeble nature and a limited intelligence, 
 skilled in nothing but the arts by which office is won 
 and kept ; and he sacrificed the lives of the Irish 
 peasantry mercilessly to preserve the votes of English 
 ship-owners and corn-factors. 
 
 The bulk of the small tenantry and labourers who 
 still struggled to escape the Poor-house were steeped 
 in poverty. It was truly said that they were " clad like 
 beggars, housed like beggars, and fed like beggars." 
 Agricultural wages were lower than in any civilized 
 country. A man, where there was still employment, 
 could earn about sixpence a day, a woman scarce half 
 that amount. A few benevolent ladies and clergymen 
 had got embroidery, lace work, and other domestic 
 industries established here and there among girls, and 
 the support of a family often depended on this new 
 resource. In 1850 the famine had not ceased, but had 
 come to be regarded as a familiar phenomenon ; it was 
 computed that a hundred persons still died of hunger, 
 or of the diseases begotten of hunger, every week, and 
 were shovelled into pauper graves. In Connaught, 
 where the soil is poorest, the distress was necessarily 
 most intense ; in Connemara it was alleged that some 
 
IRELAND IN 1850. 7 
 
 of the people only preserved life by eating the putrid 
 flesh of dogs. There were districts where the land, or 
 the tenure, being exceptionally good, the tenantry were 
 still able to live, but when they met at market town or 
 church, there were such huge gaps visible in the 
 familiar muster that even in these districts the 
 population looked like the remnant escaped from a 
 shipwreck. 
 
 At a time when public alms were the only alterna- 
 tive of immediate starvation, an Act was passed 
 forfeiting the possession of any small holder who 
 accepted such relief, and under this inhuman law the 
 country had been systematically depopulated. The 
 Exterminators, as the landlords who cleared their 
 estates came to be called, after a pitiless war extending 
 over half-a-dozen years, were still busy at their accursed 
 work. A traveller in any southern or western county 
 saw the ruins of human habitations from morning till 
 night. In 1841 there had been in Ireland 310,375 
 farms, from one to five acres, from which more than 
 two-thirds of the cultivators had now disappeared. 
 And the system was still in such vigour that within 
 the two years then terminating, 21,000 small holders 
 had been expelled. When an estate came into the 
 market the first question an intending purchaser asked 
 was whether it had been cleared of its paupers, 
 cottiers, and small tenants ? These wholesale evic- 
 
8 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 tions were justified to Ed gland by the invention that 
 the over-crowding of the people had produced all the 
 calamities of the country. Mr. Sharman Crawford 
 demonstrated that farms were smaller and population 
 thicker in the prosperous county of Down than in 
 the most distressed districts in Munster or Connaught. 
 Seventy-six thousand landholders, amounting with 
 their families to over a hundred thousand persons, 
 had been evicted in a single year. But sums total 
 escape the imagination which can only fasten on 
 details. In the Union of Kilrush, not larger than an 
 average English estate, the habitations of fifteen 
 thousand persons had been plucked down. Other 
 proprietors proceeded more slyly and systematically. 
 On the estate of Mr. Shirley, an English Member of 
 Parliament, whose ancestors got a district in Ulster 
 under Elizabeth, where the native chiefs had been 
 murdered, and whose rental had gradually been 
 raised in the progress of time from £500 a year to 
 £20,000, another system prevailed. The original 
 owners of property under the Brehon laws were ex- 
 pelled at the rate of three hundred tenants a year. A 
 troop of bailiffs, grown skilful by practice, set out of 
 a morning supplied with food and whiskey, crowbars 
 and pickaxes, and, striking down the support of the 
 couples on which the roof rested, brought house after 
 house .to ruin. There was not a county in the island 
 
IRELAND IN 1850. 9 
 
 where this practice did not sooner or later find 
 imitators. 
 
 In Ulster, prosperous by its tenant-right chiefly, 
 3 per cent, of the population were receiving relief; 
 in Leinster 7 per cent., in Munster 20 per cent., in 
 Connaught, with the worst land and worst landlords 
 in the island, 22 per cent. There were four million 
 acres of reclaimable waste, and the half a million of 
 able-bodied men who were competent to turn them 
 into corn-fields were walled up in compulsory idleness, 
 and fed at the expense of a class rapidly sinking into 
 similar ruin. Men who had been elected Poor-law 
 guardians when the system commenced were now 
 receiving outdoor relief, and men who had been 
 ex-ofiicio guardians were administering it as paid 
 officers.^ 
 
 Depopulation had not, as its agents contended, 
 diminished poverty. The country from end to end 
 was poorer as well as less populous. Every kind of 
 national wealth had decreased. The ordinary stock of 
 
 •■■ A recent Parliamentary return gave the number receiving 
 relief in tlie four provinces : — 
 
 Indoor. Outdoor. 
 
 Ulster 42,249 . . . 19,335 
 
 Munster 98,019 . . . 397,429 
 
 Leinster 54,075 . . . 86,310 
 
 Connaught ..... 43,481 . . . 255,131 
 
 Total 237,824 758,205 
 
10 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 a farm, cows, pigs, poultry and the like had dwindled 
 away. The money in circulation was ascertained to be 
 less by a million and a half than before the famine. 
 A series of bad harvests, the decreased price of wheat, 
 and the enormous increase of poor rates left a balance 
 of farm produce which was often not equal to the 
 landlord's claim, reserving nothing for the tiller of the 
 soil. The consolidation of farms had not always worked 
 well for the landlord ; poor rates had to be paid, 
 and the system had only begun which has since gained 
 so prodigious an expansion, of growing beef as a more 
 profitable pursuit than growing corn. The town 
 population sank along with the peasantry ; the bread 
 they ate was dear; the goods they offered for sale 
 faded on their shelves, or mouldered in their drawers 
 without customers. Their savings were eaten up by 
 poor rates levied to support in the mis-called work- 
 houses tenants ejected from the neighbouring estates. 
 
 With the physical decline of the country the moral 
 decline kept pace. The great temperance movement, 
 a social revolution without example in the history of 
 the world, died out. The political training of O'Con- 
 nell and the Young Irelanders which "brought back 
 a soul into Eire," was in a great degree forgotten. 
 The education in the National Schools had been 
 stealthily altered in this time of calamity, till it 
 became expressly such a training as might rear useful 
 
lEELAND IN 1850. 11 
 
 servants and dependents, not citizens. The national 
 pride and sympathy which feed the spirit of youth in 
 other countries were denied all nutriment. Mere book- 
 learning is good for much, but it does not make 
 men. The Chinese, after ample training in philosophy, 
 permit themselves to be knocked on the head like 
 swine ; and if the Irish race was to be preserved 
 from permanent vassalage, it was an urgent need 
 to revive the discipline of soul and spirit which had 
 been lost. 
 
 Old wrongs were forgotten in the throes of such a 
 calamity as the famine, but it was a sensible aggrava- 
 tion of the public distress that the impoverished tenant- 
 farmers had to bear the burthen of a Church Establish- 
 ment from which they accepted no service, and which 
 was endowed and officered out of all proportion with 
 its duties. To pay the clergy and build the churches 
 of the gentry, while their own clergy and churches 
 were sharing the decay of the time, was a hard trial. 
 The churches built by their ancestors for Catholic 
 worship had been transferred to the minority by law, 
 and under another law, Catholic rate-payers had been 
 compelled to erect whatever additional churches the 
 minority considered necessary for their accommodation, 
 while they had not themselves in the whole island as 
 many edifices suitable for the ritual of the Catholic 
 religion as often exist in one town on the Continent of 
 
12 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 Europe. The extreme cases of hardship which con- 
 tinued even after Catholic Emancipation, will scarcely 
 seem possible to the present generation. When I was a 
 boy the only place of Catholic worship in the chief town 
 of my native county was a barn, long used as a rustic 
 theatre. And after I was a man, I have knelt in the 
 rain to hear mass outside of a cow-shed in one of the 
 show-places of Wicklow, because the proprietor not 
 only refused to sell a site for a Catholic chapel, but for- 
 bade his tenants to permit the temporary use of any 
 building on his estate for that purpose. 
 
 The root of all these wrongs and disasters was a land 
 code unparallelled on the earth. Great estates, like 
 principalities, which subsist at present only in England 
 and Russia, were created in Ireland by the Norman 
 conquerors, with a calamitous condition, which they 
 strictly prohibited in England, that the new proprietor 
 might habitually reside out of the country from which 
 he derived his income. The best land was enjoyed by 
 powerful nobles who lived in London and governed 
 Ireland by open or secret influence. The resident 
 proprietors for the most part were their clients and 
 dependents, and between the visit of Henry II. and 
 the era which we had now reached, the policy pursued 
 towards Ireland on any cardinal question was a policy 
 dictated by these Absentee proprietors. 
 
 But a more fatal enemy to national prosperity than 
 
IRELAND IN 1850. 13 
 
 the Absentee was the black stranger who lived in 
 Ireland half the year that he might levy his tribute 
 effectually to be spent in London or Paris. He was 
 commonly too straitened in circumstances and too self- 
 indulgent to be considerate of his tenantry, and he had 
 grown accustomed to regard their whole earnings, and any 
 surplus savings created by their frugality and enterprise, 
 as his natural property. When the potato blight began, 
 landlords of this class hurried the cereal crop out of 
 the country to secure their rents, in disregard of the 
 just claims of their tenants to a subsistence out of the 
 food they had raised. When the danger became uni- 
 versal they began to eject the small farmers — sometimes 
 for rents barely due, often for arrears which were 
 fraudulent in amount and character. The nominal 
 rents in a number of cases were impossible to be paid, 
 and were retained at an obsolete standard only to 
 ensure the political subjection of the tenantry. In the 
 war with Napoleon the prices of cattle and corn had 
 risen prodigiously, with peace they fell thirty per cent. ; 
 but the rent, secured by lease, and if not by lease, by 
 competition, did not fall. When Free Trade was 
 established in 1846, the wheat of Dantzic, Belgian 
 corn, and French flour competed successfully with the 
 products of Irish farms in Mark Lane, and the cattle of 
 Spain and Holland in Smithfield,but the rents remained 
 unabated. The famine came and destroyed twenty 
 
14 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 millions worth of the people's property. They could 
 no longer count on the potato for subsistence, and had 
 to purchase Indian corn as the cheapest substitute ; 
 they were loaded with the moiety of an exorbitant poor 
 rate, with a county cess which ought to have fallen 
 exclusively on property, and with a rent charge in lieu 
 of tithes, which was collected by the landlord. When 
 they paid over the sum total of their earnings to the 
 agent, they commonly got a receipt on account, which 
 kept the claim for arrears alive for any happy windfall 
 on which it could be levied ; and in former famines, 
 where relief in money was granted to the tenantry, a 
 substantial part of it, by this device, found its way into 
 the pockets of the landlords. The fall of agricultural 
 prices was pressed on the Treasury by landowners as a 
 reason for remitting a portion of a loan made them by 
 the State, and their claim was allowed ; but in the 
 majority of cases they gave their own debtors the 
 benefit of this consideration no more than the unjust 
 steward of the Parable gave his. If a reduction was 
 demanded, the ordinary answer was a notice to quit. 
 Some provident agents were said to have a notice to 
 quit printed on the back of their receipts on account. 
 It is needless to say that there were exceptions, that 
 some of the gentry strove to do their duty, and that, 
 among those who did not, there were better and worse ; 
 but a class takes its character from the disposition and 
 
IRELAND IN 1850. 15 
 
 action of the majority, and the majority were cruel 
 and unjust. 
 
 The history of the Irish working people has yet to 
 be written. It is a history of astonishing courage, 
 perseverance, and industry. Under native law they 
 were joint owners with the chiefs of the soil of the 
 country, of which they could not be dispossessed ; 
 but English statesmen, shortly after the Reformation, 
 substituted feudal law which enabled the king to con- 
 fiscate the land on any real or imaginary offence of the 
 chief. They had been expelled from the best counties 
 of Ulster by James I., and driven to the mountains, 
 in order to make way for settlers from Scotland and 
 England. Under Cromwell the mass of the nation 
 were transported into Connaught, because the soil of 
 Connaught was the worst in the island. But they 
 maintained their courage and constancy. Under the 
 penal laws the native gentry who did not fly to the 
 Continent, sank gradually into the condition of peasants 
 and labourers, and probably fortified the class into 
 which they descended with new intelligence and intre- 
 pidity ; their devotion to their faith, which was heroic 
 in its constancy, purified and elevated them, and they 
 emerged from long persecution, ignorant indeed, but 
 morally sound and sane. When, in modern times, 
 O'Connell led the movement for Emancipation, the 
 most effectual stroke was struck, at immense risk to 
 
16 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 their own interests, by the small farmers of Louth, 
 Monaghan, and Clare. 
 
 Their industry was a greater marvel than their 
 courage, for they toiled without any security that they 
 would enjoy the fruit of their labour. They turned the 
 heathy hill and the rushy bog into arable land, and 
 their recompense in the end was often an increased 
 rent or an ejectment from the farms which they had 
 re-created. Down to the middle of the nineteenth 
 century (the period with which we have to do here) a 
 great proprietor living in London could pluck down a 
 village or depopulate a town-land with the same 
 supreme indifference to the interests of the inhabitants 
 as a INorman king who wanted a hunting ground six 
 hundred years earlier. The petty proprietor was less 
 of a tyrant, but often more of an extortioner. He took, 
 in the language of an indignant priest, " the cow which 
 gave milk to the poor man's family, the horse which 
 tilled his land, the bed on which he slept, the pot that 
 cooked his food, and sold them to meet demands which 
 were inordinate and extortionate." 
 
 This system necessarily produced resistance and 
 retaliation. There has never existed a community of 
 God's creatures who would have endured it with 
 submission. But the resistance was isolated and 
 immethodic; Secret Societies were formed consisting 
 solely of peasants • their retaliation was commonly the 
 
IRELAND IN 1850. 17 
 
 murder of other peasants who had served processes of 
 ejectment, or executed harsh orders for the agent; it 
 was rarely they presumed to strike at the landlord in 
 person. When a people are reduced to a condition 
 bordering on starvation, it is impossible to restrain 
 disorder. " Hunger," says the national proverb, " will 
 break through stone walls," and it will assuredly 
 break through the laws of God and man. But the 
 peasantry were fighting for existence, and, to borrow 
 the language of a Protestant clergyman, "what 
 strangers regarded as rapine and disorder, to the 
 peasantry were only ambuscade and military strategy." 
 A benevolent Englishman said it was undoubtedly a 
 war of Thugs, but he was not quite clear whether the 
 true Thug w^as the tenant or the landlord. 
 
 From the earliest existence of a Press in Ireland, 
 newspapers had been maintained to slander the native 
 race to England, and whenever agrarian disturbances 
 broke out, the peasants were described as '' rebels " in 
 concert with some foreign power levying war against 
 the Crown; and judges and soldiers were despatched 
 to reduce them to submission. During fifty years 
 there had not been three in which Coercion Acts were 
 not in operation to strengthen the hands of the gentry 
 against the people. 
 
 When the famine was four or five years in operation 
 the contest between the owners and tillers of the soil 
 
 Q 
 
18 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 had become so manifestly a struggle for life that the 
 ingenuity of resistance was sharpened. Adventurous 
 farmers of late had hit on the device of cutting their 
 crop on Sunday, when it could not be seized, and 
 carrying it out of reach of the landlord. It was a 
 miserable spectacle to see an honest and generous 
 people driven to such a stratagem ; but let the moralist, 
 before he is too vehement in his condemnation, con- 
 sider whether a proprietary who refused to regulate 
 rents by any reference to the standard of prices, who, 
 after they got hold of the harvest which the peasant 
 had reared, made no scruple of ejecting him from the 
 farm he had fenced, and the house he had built, were 
 quite spotless in the eyes of abstract justice. The 
 device had only a limited success ; lawyers professed 
 to have discovered a statute which rendered any person 
 aiding in the removal of property of this nature liable 
 to a penalty of double its value, and as this was not 
 deemed sufficient protection, a bill was before Parlia- 
 ment at the time our narrative opens, which pro- 
 hibited the practice altogether. 
 
 This was the condition of an island rich in soil, in 
 position, in climate, in a circling sea which united it 
 with two continents, and in a manly and pious popu- 
 lation, when the century which is now drawing to a 
 close was at its mid-point. And let it be noted that 
 while Ireland was sunk in this abject misery England 
 
IRELAND IN 1850. 19 
 
 was as prosperous as ever she had been since Liverpool 
 rose from amid her marshes or Manchester from her 
 coal-pits. And the prosperous island kept on foot 
 in the unprosperous one an army nearly as large as 
 she is able to bring into the field in a great European 
 emergency — an array of thirty thousand veteran troops 
 — to maintain the system which wrought these cala- 
 mities. 
 
 It would be a perpetual reproach to the Irish race 
 if they had not made persistent attempts to protect 
 themselves. In the House of Commons projects which 
 a native Parliament would have adopted with enthu- 
 siasm were proposed by Irish gentlemen and con- 
 temptuously rejected. The remonstrance of public 
 meetings, of boards of guardians, and even of grand 
 juries against ignorant mismanagement which was 
 killing the people faster than plague or guillotine, 
 were ignored. A courageous journalist, to whom the 
 universal misery made life intolerable, exhorted the 
 people to save themselves as other people in sore 
 emergency had saved themselves, by force and arms ; 
 and the law seized him and carried him into penal 
 exile. A country gentleman of long descent, whose 
 family had been hereditary leaders of the nation since 
 before the English invasion, and many associates of 
 undisputed honour and ability staked their heads in 
 the attempt to overthrow a system which was anni- 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 hilating their race ; but they failed to awaken the 
 stricken people. " Young Ireland," in the gracious 
 language of the Times, was now " picking oakum in 
 the convict settlements " ; and public feeling fell more 
 prostrate because such an experiment had been made 
 in vain. 
 
 It was at this lowest point of despondency that a 
 local attempt to arrest the tide of ruin was made which 
 had notable consequences. Callan, a populous town 
 in the county of Kilkenny, is the centre of a purely 
 agricultural country. The principal proprietor is the 
 Earl of Desart, and the Earl of that day was an active 
 exterminator. Between four and five hundred persons 
 had been expelled from his estate since the commence- 
 ment of the famine. In the autumn of 1849, the 
 Catholic curates of Callan determined to found a 
 society to give confidence to the disheartened people 
 in their struggle for existence, by bringing a class less 
 dependent on the landlord — the local shopkeepers and 
 professional men — to their aid. On the 29th of October 
 in. that year the " Callan Tenant Protection Society " was 
 established. Its objects were specified to be "Fair Rents, 
 Tenant Hight, and Employment " ; and the mem- 
 ber's card bore as motto the famous dictum of Thomas 
 Drummond, " Property has its duties as well as its 
 rights," and the principle recognised in Holy Writ as 
 the basis of agricultural contracts — that " the husband- 
 
IRELAND IN 1850. 21 
 
 man wlio labours must be the first partaker of the 
 fruits." The senior curate, the Rev. Thomas O'Shea, 
 whom popular affection distinguished by the endearing 
 name of " Father Tom," belonged to the class who find 
 a straight road to the popular heart. Masculine in 
 frame, frank and prompt in utterance, genial and 
 cordial in expression, of dauntless intrepidity, and 
 moved by a sympathy and sincerity which were mes- 
 meric, the people would have followed him anywhere 
 and at any risk. His comrade, Father Matthew Keefe, 
 possessed gifts which were the complement of these 
 qualities for a popular tribunate. Thoughtful, circum- 
 spect, forecasting, he estimated the difficulties to be 
 encountered, and pondered on the next step in advance. 
 The " Callan Protection Society," which was reported 
 in the Kilkenny newspapers, soon attracted attention. 
 Local oppression was exposed, the principles of a per- 
 manent remedy were debated, and a constant reliance 
 in the invincible justice of their cause taught to the 
 trampled multitude. The example was contagious. 
 Tenant Protection Societies were formed in other dis- 
 tricts of Kilkenny, and soon afterwards in Tipperary, 
 Limerick, and Waterford. After a little time, they 
 began to be heard of in Connaught — generally the 
 last province to move, but where the need was great- 
 est ; and in Meath, Westmeath, and Wexford, where a 
 still prosperous population were in a better condition 
 
22 THE LEAGUE OF NOHTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 to maintain a contest with the landlords. At length it 
 was noted that the movement spread to the North, 
 and, in the spring of 1850, there were Tenant Protec- 
 tion Societies at work at Strabane, Banbridge, New- 
 townlimavaddy, Newtonards, and other towns in Ulster. 
 It was a galla,nt struggle, but necessarily desultory and 
 immethodic, as it wanted not only a common centre 
 and system, but the confidence which springs from 
 wide-spread union and co-operation. They all de- 
 manded an alteration in the law of landlord and tenant, 
 but there was no agreement as to the precise altera- 
 tions which would be effectual, or on the best method 
 of obtaining them.^ 
 
 Neither the Parliament in Dublin nor the Parlia- 
 ment in London had ever grauted any relief to the 
 Irish tenantry. The Land Code, as an Ascendency 
 Judge boasted, was framed solely in the interest of the 
 proprietors, and was modified from time to .time only 
 to increase their power. Complaints and disorder had 
 indeed led to inquiry. Select Committees every dozen 
 
 ^ The Nation newspaper, revived in 1849 after having been 
 suppressed in 1848, claimed to Lave first suggested such an 
 organisation. " In our sixth number (of the revived Nation), 
 published on October 6th, 1849, the formation of Local Tenant 
 Protection Societies was demanded. At that time there was not 
 a single Tenant Society in Leinster, Ulster, Munster, or Con- 
 naught." — Nation^ Sept. 7, 1856. But the man who accomplishes 
 a work is its true author, rather than the man who projects it, 
 and the Callan Curates were the authors of the Local Societies. 
 
lEELAND IN 1850. 23 
 
 years heard evidence, and sometimes made useful sug- 
 gestions, but they were never acted on. From the time 
 of Swift, Berkeley, and Burke to the time of De Beau- 
 mont, Michael Sadler, and Poulet Scroj^e, there had 
 been moving exposures of the condition of the peoj)le. 
 Grattan, and after him O'Connell, told a tale to move 
 the coldest hearts ; but to obtain any remedy proved 
 impossible. The great Absentees forbade legislation 
 on a question raising so many dangerous collateral 
 issues. Sharman Crawford, a large proprietor in Ulster, 
 is memorable as the man who first dealt with the ques- 
 tion in a practical spirit. He attempted so early as 
 1836 to secure ejected tenants compensation for im- 
 provements made with the landlord's consent, or which 
 the condition of the farm manifestly required ; but the 
 Bill embodying this modest project never obtained a 
 second reading. In 1843 Sir Robert Peel appointed a 
 Eoyal Commission (known by the name of its chair- 
 man as the Devon Commission) to inquire into the 
 occupation of land in Ireland. It reported two years 
 later, and a Bill was framed by the Government granting 
 compensation for future improvements in certain cases, 
 but taking no notice of the millions' worth of improve- 
 ments already in existence ; it contented neither land- 
 lord nor tenant, and it was finally abandoned. In the 
 summer of 1846 the Wbigs came into office, and 
 O'Connell supported them on the promise (which he 
 
24 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 alleged they had made) to propose eleven important 
 reforms in Ireland, one of which was the establishment 
 of tenant-right on an equitable footing, O'Connell was 
 now dead, and neither the Tenant-Right Bill nor any 
 other of the promised measures was forthcoming. An 
 opportunity of making an effectual reform without 
 wrong to any one had presented itself, and had been 
 deliberately thrown away. In 1849, an Encumbered 
 Estates Act was passed, giving creditors a prompt 
 remedy against embarrassed landowners. In the six 
 months which had already elapsed, thirteen millions 
 worth of property had come under the operation of the 
 new law, but none of the land was sold to tenants, and 
 no conditions favourable to tenants were imposed on 
 the purchasers. Such a policy had been urged in Par- 
 liament and in the Press, but the English Government 
 at that time was under the direction of the feeble, self- 
 ish old man already specified — a man of the dimensions 
 and demeanour of Quilp in the popular story — who had 
 no higher purpose in public life than to make his place 
 secure, and who understood that low art imperfectly. 
 He refused to listen to a proposal that the new pro- 
 prietors, in return for a Parliamentary title, should be 
 required to grant the tenants a tenure under which 
 they could live and thrive. Never was a fairer oppor- 
 tunity thrown away of effecting a great public good. 
 Since that time land to the value of nearly fifty 
 
IRELAND IN 1850. 25 
 
 millions sterling has changed owners, with the result of 
 giving the peasantry more absolute and more pitiless 
 masters. 
 
 In 1848, and in a succeeding session, the government 
 had proposed a Tenant-right Bill, without pressing it 
 seriously on Parliament; and now in 1850, when the 
 measure was renewed, it was discovered that one of its 
 consequences would be to destroy the tenant-right of 
 the North. It provided that certain specified improve- 
 ments, if made with the consent of the landlord, should 
 entitle the tenant to a limited compensation in case of 
 ejectment ; and lawyers were of opinion that all rights 
 not included in this formula were i]JSO facto forfeited. 
 
 The Ulster tenants who had been organized into a 
 Tenants' Association since 1848, took alarm at this 
 danger and despatched a deputation to London to oppose 
 the Bill. The Whig concessions, they affirmed, would 
 be their ruin. From the period of the Plantation of 
 Ulster by James I., the English and Scotch planters 
 had allowed their tenants a special tenure, which came 
 to be known as the Ulster tenant-rifdit. It consisted 
 of continued occupancy at a fair rent, and the right of 
 selling possession to a hona fide purchaser at its market 
 value. But in recent times, many Northern landlords 
 had come to impose unfair rents, a practice which cur- 
 tailed or extinguished the hereditary tenure of the 
 province. A Northern poet at this time expressed the 
 
26 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 historic origin of the tenants' claim in vigorous ballad 
 rhetoric : 
 
 "We have been kinsmen of yonr blood, and clansmen to your 
 
 name ; 
 Ko bond we asked but nobles' words when to this land we 
 
 came ; 
 And now our rights, but favours none, we're seeking at your 
 
 hands ; 
 We gave our Yeomen services — we'll keep our Yeomen lands. 
 
 Was it for fate like this, my lords, our people crossed the sea. 
 From ISTiall's and O'Donnell's swords your race's guard to be '? 
 Did for such serfdom many a year our yoemen fathers strive 
 From wolf, from woodkerne, and from ivant to save your souls 
 alive ? 
 
 Bethink ye well before ye try to grind us down to earth, 
 
 The hands that kept a hostile land can keep a yeoman's 
 
 hearth. 
 We look around our hills and vales — are recollections there 
 Of failure or defeat to bid our fathers' sons despair ? " 
 
 This right did not exist in the Southern provinces, but 
 there was the root and foundation of a still clearer right. 
 For the Southern tenants were the descendants of the 
 clans who had owned the land in common with the 
 chiefs under native law, and who had been tricked out 
 of their property without their knowledge or consent 
 by the substitution of the feudal for the patriarchal 
 system. They understood their claim imperfectly indeed, 
 but they knew that their fatliers and their fathers' 
 fathers had tilled the same soil, had fenced it and 
 erected whatever farm buildings it possessed at their 
 
IRELAND IN 1850. 27 
 
 own cost, and that the landlord's sole share in the 
 enterprize had been to draw the rent. 
 
 The discontent of the North furnished an opportunity 
 for national concert on the land question, but Ireland 
 seemed never less prepared to turn an opportunity to 
 account. The members of Parliament on whom the 
 duty properly lay were the despair of honest Irishmen. 
 They were lower in character and personal influence 
 than Irish members had been at any time since the 
 Union. A general election took place in 1847, shortly 
 after O'Connell's death, and many of the constitueucies, 
 as a tribute of respect to his memory, had allowed his 
 sons to nominate candidates, and persons got elected 
 under their patronage who had made the name of 
 Repeal member a target for contempt and curses. 
 They had been all duly pledged to fidelity to Mr. John 
 O'Connell, but by this time they regarded his wishes 
 less than the wishes of the doorkeeper of the House of 
 Commons. They were in general, indeed, men whom 
 you might as profitably send to Westminster pledged 
 to resist temptation as cast flax into the furnace with 
 an exhortation not to burn. It was an exaggeration of 
 course, but an exaggeration with a strong savour of 
 truth, to say, as some one did, that the Irishmen fittest 
 to enlighten and persuade senates had been sent into 
 penal servitude, while men selected to enlighten and 
 persuade Parliament would have been more at home 
 
28 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 in the hulks. A well-known writer, in a satire on the 
 
 era, describes the House of Commons at this time as a 
 
 place 
 
 "Where Irisli members make a holy show, 
 And ruffian R blackguards Billy K ," 
 
 The capacity of the people to help themselves was at 
 the lowest. The peasantry were broken by famine, 
 pestilence, and extermination, and their hopes turned 
 towards the emigrant ship rather than to agitation or 
 resistance. A substantial minority of the middle class 
 were Unionists, and those who were Nationalists took 
 slight interest in any measure which did not aim to 
 restore self-government to the country. Their principles 
 had been subjected to a hard trial, but " faith," says the 
 apothegm, " cannot be drowned in water or burned in 
 fire." A considerable body of students and artisans 
 still conspired for an insurrection to explode within a 
 given number of months. Anything short of an 
 immediate revival of the struggle with England, these 
 honest Hotspurs rejected with contempt. There was 
 unselfishness, sincerity, and genuine passion among 
 them, but it was a passion so mixed with folly and 
 gasconade, so little accustomed to take the ways and 
 means of its enterprises into account that it drove 
 reasonable men to despair. A year earlier, during the 
 Queen's visit to Dublin, a plot had been framed to seize 
 her person and carry her into the Dublin mountains as 
 
IRELAND IN 1850. 29 
 
 a hostage ; and less than two hundred persons mustered 
 at the appointed rendezvous for this prodigious service. 
 A httle later, a day was fixed for a rising in Munster, 
 and it ended in an unsuccessful attack on a single police 
 barrack. But these examples did not cool the ardour 
 of these young men, and they treated the attempt to 
 procure any change by peaceful agitation, or through 
 Parliament, as hopeless and criminal.^ But in politics 
 you have to choose not what yoii would prefer but what 
 you can accomplish. Though the Irish people had 
 exhibited a constancy of purpose which has few 
 parallels in history, it was certain that they were now 
 sunk in a torpor from which it was hopeless to lead them 
 to heroic enterprises. And there is profound truth in 
 the saying of Burke that "All patriotism which is 
 impracticable is spurious" — or at any rate it is un- 
 fruitful. 
 
 The more mature and far-seeing of the National 
 Party did not believe that the edifice of Irish liberty 
 could be built on the quagmire on which we found 
 ourselves, like Aladdin's palace, in a single night. 
 On the contrary, they saw that they must exercise 
 infinite patience and work for a future which was 
 
 1 There were some notable exceptions ; among the earliest 
 contributions to the League was a sum sent to me from Mulliu- 
 ahone by Charles Kickham, afterwards one of the Fenian 
 
 Directory. 
 
30 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 painfully distant. National revolutions have every- 
 where been the ultimate result of a longf train of 
 antecedent causes ; and if Irishmen could regain their 
 forfeited rights in the end it was plain that they 
 must be content to do what was possible at this 
 moment. It was by preliminary successes, piled like 
 granite upon granite, that the lost path might be 
 re-constructed. What could be attempted at the 
 time with some probability of success was to shelter 
 the peasants from being cut off in detail by extermina- 
 tion. The tenure of land had become the main Irish 
 question. Sensible men attempt one thing at a time, 
 and not more than one ; for the national proverb warns 
 us that " those who hunt two hares catch neither." 
 All that could be done directly for Nationality was 
 to re-commence teaching its principles and duties to 
 the young. The mind of a country, like the skin of 
 the chameleon, is of the colour of what it feeds on ; 
 and the future of Ireland was in its schools and 
 colleges, and the teaching of the national Press.^ 
 After the state trials of 1849, an unhappy destiny 
 
 1 " The green acres have not rotted with the blight, the ' fish- 
 ful rivers ' have not fled in a panic into exile. Nowhere east of 
 the Atlantic is the raw material of national prosperity plentier 
 than in this island at this hour. Like the magic castle in the 
 fairy tale, it stands with its door ever open, and stored with all 
 imaginable wealth, if we but knew how to enter and take 
 possession." — Nation^ 1850. 
 
lUELAND IN 1850. 31 
 
 left me almost alone to vindicate the practical capacity 
 and generous aims of the Young Ireland party ; and 
 this was the course I recommended and insisted upon. 
 If the priests and the Nationalists could be reconciled, 
 if the North and South could be induced to act together 
 even for a time, it would be possible to stop the 
 destruction of the people. This was a result I coidd 
 by no means hope to accomplish, as the representa- 
 tive of a lost cause on whom the cowardly and selfish 
 looked with alarm or derision ; but I had personal 
 relations with men who were better situated to 
 attempt it. 
 
 At the commencement of 1850, Frederick Lucas, 
 who for nearly a dozen years had edited the Tccblet 
 in London, as the chief organ of Catholic opinion in 
 the Empire, transferred it to Dublin, with my active 
 sympathy and co-operation. Lucas, who had been 
 born a Quaker and educated as a barrister, became a 
 Catholic in his twenty-seventh year, and shortly after- 
 wards relinquished his profession to become a journalist. 
 Of the laymen who have written on Catholic politics 
 and theological questions in recent times there are 
 only two, Veuillot and Brownson, who in my judgment 
 can be compared to him for power, originality of 
 genius, and profound integrity of purpose. He was 
 at this time forty years of age, of a reserved demean- 
 our, which did not solicit, but seemed to shun atten- 
 
32 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 tion. But it was difficult not to be struck hy his 
 shapely head, well-poised manly figure, and lucid blue 
 eyes. When he talked confidentially his thoughts 
 were sometimes like electric shocks, for his subdued 
 demeanour covered a powerful will, prodigious energy, 
 and a courage which, when it was tried in the end by 
 the fiercest test, no difficulties could repress. He had 
 come to Ireland to defend the interests of the Catholic 
 Church and to serve the interests of the poor, with 
 whom he had a tender sympathy. He acknowledged 
 the right of the Irish people to manage their own 
 affairs, and was an advocate of local government from 
 the parish to the Parliament. But these were the 
 decisions of his judgment ; the passions of his heart 
 were given to the Church and the poor. To be 
 educated a Quaker, one of his admirers said, and turn 
 Catholic was memorable ; but he did a more notable 
 thing than that — he was educated an Englishman and 
 he had turned Irishman. More than any contemporary 
 publicist, he enjoyed the confidence of the bishops and 
 clergy of the Catholic Church, and any course he 
 recommended was sure of favourable consideration at 
 their hands. 
 
 In the Summer of 1846, the Northern farmers had 
 founded a Tenant-Bight Association, which was still 
 in existence in 1850. The honorary secretary of the 
 organization and the leader of the movement for the 
 
IRELAND IN 1850. 33 
 
 defence of their local rights was Dr. M'Knight. Like 
 Lucas he was a journalist, and somewhat of a theo- 
 logian, for his newspaper, the Banner of Ulster, was 
 the official organ of the General Assembly of the 
 Presbyterian Church. By birth he was descended 
 from the Ulster settlers with a strain of native blood, 
 of which he was proud ; in opinion he was a Nationalist 
 of the Scotch pattern, eager to foster the native music^ 
 manners, and literature of the country, but disposed 
 to leave its politics to the Imperial Parliament. With 
 him too I had long^ maintained intimate relations, and 
 he was not indisposed to a closer union for any purpose 
 on which we were agreed. He was the leader of the 
 deputation sent to London to remonstrate against the 
 Government Land Bill at this time, and was ex- 
 asperated at the apathy of Lord John Russell. 
 
 For the purpose in view he was a factor of still more 
 importance than Lucas, for it was hoped that he could 
 move the hitherto immovable North. Dr. Gray, editor 
 of the only daily paper in the popular interest, when 
 he was consulted, entered warmly into the project of 
 organizing the tenants' cause. The Tenants' Protection 
 Societies must necessarily be the foundation of any 
 such attempt, and Father Tom O'Shea, with whom 
 they originated, knew how infinitely reformers strug- 
 gling for a difficult object multiply their strength 
 bv union, and he threw himself into the movement 
 
 D 
 
34 THE LEAGUE OF NOHTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 with all the enthusiasm of his nature. When these 
 men were brought together the basis of a powerful 
 confederacy was laid. After consultation and corre- 
 spondence, we agreed upon a programme. To give the 
 proposal a broader basis, the assent of several persons 
 who had not been consulted in the first instance was 
 obtained, and then an invitation to a Conference on 
 the Land Question was issued, signed by men who 
 would have influence in all the provinces. It was 
 designed to hold it in June or July; but when it 
 became necessary to postpone it till August, in order 
 to enable Presbyterian ministers, who were pre-engaged 
 by the General Assembly of their Church, to attend, 
 the country began to understand that there was to be 
 a genuine union between North and South. The 
 majority in the Northern province belonged to the 
 Church of Scotland. They had clung to the faith of 
 the early planters, not only from natural preference, 
 but because it had long been repressed and insulted by 
 the State. In modern times however they had been 
 courted by the landlords and invited to make common 
 , cause against the growing power of the Catholics. 
 The Northern proprietors had run serious risk of losing 
 their estates in 1798 by revolution, and as a safeguard 
 against a recurrence of this danger, they systemati- 
 cally fostered religious bigotry among their Protestant 
 tenantry. They founded the Orange Lodges from 
 
IKELAND IN 1850. 35 
 
 the same motive which induced the planters in the 
 Southern States of America to encourag^e the Mean 
 Whites, that they might have a retinue who would 
 need no other pay than impunity for party excesses. 
 The farm labourers, many of whom were Presbyteriar s, 
 were delighted to be admitted to the same lodge 
 with the squire, and joyfully pledged themselves in 
 return to abjure " Pope and Popery, brass money, 
 and wooden shoes " — four hobgfoblins equally danger- 
 ous to their peace at that time. The Presbyterian 
 clergy, who had been the soul of political action in 
 the North up to the Union, were placated by another 
 device. The savage insolence with which they had 
 been treated by the Established Church was greatly 
 mitigated, and for two generations they had received 
 a subsidy from the Treasury which was not without 
 effect in reconcilino: them to the State. 
 
 D 2 
 
3fi THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 NOTE ON CHAPTER I. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE TENANT CONFERENCE. 
 
 This was the original summons to the Conference : — 
 " We, the undersigned, being strongly impressed with the con- 
 viction that in order to secure speedy and good legislation on the 
 tenant question, it is essential to frame a measure which, in its 
 principles and details, may unite the suffrages of the nation, and 
 present a definite object of agitation until it be granted, respect- 
 fully request you will attend at a Conference to be held in Dublin 
 (about the second week in June) to devise some specific measure 
 of legislation to be sought for, and some plan of united action 
 for its accomplishment : — 
 
 "John Reynolds, M.P., Lord Mayor, Dublin. 
 "J. M. Cantwell. 
 " C. Gavan Duffy. 
 " William Forde. 
 " John Gray. 
 " S. M. Greer. 
 " Frederick Lucas. 
 "James M'Knight, LL.D. 
 "John O'Connell, M.P. 
 '' Mmj llth:' 
 
 Mr. Reynolds headed the list ex officio as Lord Mayor of Dublin, 
 and Mr. Forde as Town Clerk ; Dr. Gray, and Mr. Cantwell, a 
 solicitor, were proprietors of the Freeman^ s Journal ; Mr. Greer 
 was a Northern gentleman who had written effectively on the 
 Tenant question, and had been one of the deputation to London ; 
 Dr. M'Knight was the founder of the Ulster Tenant-Right 
 Association. The two members of Parliament, Mr. Reynolds and 
 Mr. John O'Connell, never took any part in the Conference or in 
 
IRELAND IN 1850. 37 
 
 the subsequent proceedings of the Tenant League ; Mr. Greer 
 (afterwards M.P. for Londonderry) could not concur in the 
 principles adopted by the Conference when it met, and retired 
 immediately. The other signers, with the exception of Mr. Forde^ 
 prepared agenda for the Conference, and framed the rules of the 
 Tenant Leacjue, and afterwards conducted the movement in union 
 with the ablest men elected on the Council of the League from 
 the provinces. As respects the origin of this confederacy (which 
 has sometimes been a subject of inquiry) I will quote a single 
 sentence from an article in the Nation (August 1855), while all 
 the leaders of the League were still living and busy in its ranks, 
 which may throw some light on the point : — " Before I was three 
 months out of prison (in 1849) I had personally visited Mr. Lucas 
 in London, Dr. M'Knight in Derry, Mr. Maguire in Cork, Dr. 
 Cane and Father O'Shea in Kilkenny, Mr. Shine Lalor and Mr. 
 Shea Lalor in Kerry, Mr. Godkin in England, Mr. Thomas Dillon 
 (brother of John Dillon, then a political exile) in Mayo, and 
 other friends elsewhere, to debate the feasibility of a Tenant 
 Eight movement." Some account of this journey, which I made 
 in company with Thomas Carlyle, will be found in a note in the 
 Appendix. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR A NATIONAL CONFERENCE. 
 
 The interval was not wasted. The men who pro- 
 jected the Conference employed it in preparing the 
 necessary agenda, and the Press was busy debating the 
 principles on which the Land Question ought to be 
 settled, and the method by which these principles could 
 best be established. Plans and projects were nearly as 
 plentiful as in Paris between the summons and the 
 assembly of the Tiers Etat in '89. I naturally took 
 occasion to specify the policy of the Nation in the 
 premisses, all the more because the claim of the tenants 
 for complete justice had been first formulated by the 
 Nation eight years earlier. There ought to be a plan, I 
 contended, so just and adequate that it could be 
 accepted by North and South, and might become 
 the Tenants' Charter. It must provide, once for all, 
 perpetuity of tenure. 
 
 " Over three-fourths of Europe (I said) the tenant is as im- 
 movable as the landlord, where landlords are not unknown. 
 
PREPARATIONS FOR A NATIONAL CONFERENCE. bJ 
 
 From the British Channel to the Sea of Azof the tiller of the 
 soil sits firm. Even under the British flag in Guernsey and the 
 Channel Islands no one can divorce him from the land. This 
 fixed tenure turned the rocks of Switzerland and the harsh sands 
 of Belgium into cornfields. It would turn the spectral graveyard 
 of Skibbereen into the cheerful and prosperous home of men. It 
 is the custom of the civilised world on both sides of the equator. 
 Here, then, the Irish tenant is entitled to take his stand. ' Give 
 us the custom of the civilised world ; jowv boasted freedom surely 
 cannot deny us this.'" 
 
 The second essential point in a tenants' charter was 
 a just rent. To fix a just rent it was necessary that the 
 land should be valued. The proposal had been scoffed 
 at as something new and monstrous, but this was a 
 mistake ; it was neither new nor monstrous. 
 
 " Every estate, and every farm upon it, is valued by order of 
 the proprietor to ascertain the rent it can pay. The demand of 
 the tenant is only that this process shall he fairly performed ; that 
 such valuation, instead of being private or partial, shall be a 
 public one, made upon established principles a:id by competen'. 
 persons. The County Cess and the Poor-rate, levied by the 
 direct authority of the State, cannot be assessed arbitrarily, like 
 rent, so much on this man and so much on that. The law 
 provides that there shall be a careful valuation of the land before- 
 hand, and that the rate assessed shall correspond with the value. 
 The tenant only asks to put upon the private landlord (insatiable 
 in the pursuit of his own interest) that restraint which the State 
 puts upon itself." -^ 
 
 To obtain the recognition of these rights it was 
 necessary to have a popular organisation and a Parlia- 
 mentary Party representing it. An organisation which 
 
 ^ Nation, May 11th. 
 
40 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 could appoint and cashier members of Parliament would 
 become more formidable in the House of Commons 
 than if its principles were specifically approved of in 
 the decalogue. 
 
 The time was come when a settlement must be made 
 if the Irish race were not to be extirpated, and I warned 
 landlords that if they would not accept a fair rent they 
 might evoke a spirit which would strike against rent 
 altogether till a settlement was accomplished. 
 
 " In the front, like a dwarf, stands the just and 
 moderate demand of the people soliciting a just and 
 moderate arrangement, and willing to be content with 
 it if, haply, it can be obtained. Behind is the giant 
 who will settle the battle at a blow, if in any perilous 
 extremity it becomes necessary to call in his aid. For 
 it is to be noted that the whole system which grinds the 
 people to death is supported by a subsidy ' paid in two 
 equal half-yearly payments, at May and November,' by 
 the people themselves ; wanting which subsidy the 
 system could not keep itself together for a year. And it 
 is to be further noted that there is a ofreat constitutional 
 remedy known to her Majesty's Commons in Parlia- 
 ment assembled, and also to her Majesty's Commons 
 not in Parliament assembled, reserved for great exi- 
 gencies of State, called ' stopping the supplies.' The 
 specific difference between this agitation and all that 
 have preceded it is the existence of this resource. It is 
 not one to be used — not to be so much as named lightly 
 — but which, nevertheless, will act as a potent mediator 
 between a Tenant League and the ' lords of the 
 &oil.' " 1 
 
 1 Nation, May 11th, 1850. 
 
PREPARATIONS FOR A NATIONAL CONFERENCE. 41 
 
 Correspondents and contributors were also busy on 
 the subject, and two or three writers made them- 
 selves heard above the hurly-burly. Michael Macoboy, 
 a barrister of wide reading, but in whom knowledge had 
 not extinguished enthusiasm, specified the principles 
 which lay at the bottom of the great land codes of 
 Europe, and applied them to the case in hand.-^ The 
 other was a cultivated young priest, who had been 
 educated in France, and was able to look at Irish 
 questions from the outside. The object which the 
 Conference had in view, he said, was the only purpose 
 to which agitation could profitably address itself at that 
 period. To be successful one object must be taken in 
 hand at a time, and it must be an object not sectional 
 or sectarian, but genuinely national. It must, moreover, 
 have a fixed plan and policy. The great Repeal move- 
 ment, after a boastful and unprofitable existence, died 
 an ignoble death, because it had neither. The plan he 
 would suggest was this. Let there be established in 
 each parish a Tenant Society including, if possible, 
 every- tenant farmer in the parish, whose members would 
 take a pledge in these terms — " We promise God, our 
 country, and each other never to bid for any farm of 
 land from which any industrious farmer in this district 
 
 ^ Mr. Macoboy's letters appeared with the signature of " Agri- 
 cola " in the Nation and in the Weekly Chronicle of London. 
 He died a County Court Judge in Victoria, Australia. 
 
42 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 has been ' ejected.' " Should any person violate this 
 pledge, his name must be struck off the registry, as 
 unworthy to associate with honest men. To sustain 
 the tenantry there should be established at the same 
 time in the chief town of the district a Tenant Pro- 
 tection Society, consisting of shop-keepers, professional 
 men, and artisans, which would collect a fund for the 
 sustenance of tenants unjustly evicted. If any member 
 bid for land from which a tenant-farmer had been 
 ejected, he must forfeit his membership, and, at the 
 same time, " the call and patronage of his townsfolk and 
 the district." ^ 
 
 Here was a practical proposal ; but it is the mis- 
 fortune of Ireland that she is seldom ready to adopt any 
 project till the opportunity of using it effectually has 
 vanished. Some months earlier Father Tom O'Shea 
 suggested a nearly identical pledge to the Callan 
 Protection Society, and printed it on the back of 
 members' cards, but the lawyer to whom he submitted 
 the formula declared it to be illegal. Mr. Lucas, on the 
 other hand, was of opinion that he could bring it within 
 the law for the protection of trade combinations ; in 
 short, that a farmers' strike was as legitimate as an 
 artizans' strike, and both he and I, in our respective 
 
 ^ The young priest who made this proposal in the Nation 
 signed it "J. W. Croke, CO., Charleville." He is now Arch- 
 bishop of Cashel. 
 
PREPARATIONS FOR A NATIONAL CONFERENCE. 43 
 
 newspapers, recommended it for the consideration of the 
 country.^ But there was a marplot prompt to raise an 
 alarm. The great name of O'Connell was at this time 
 represented by his son John. Four years earlier, on 
 his father's death, he had been conducted to the tribune 
 of Conciliation Hall as hereditary leader of the Irish 
 people, as solemnly as Richard Cromwell, two centuries 
 earlier, was proclaimed Lord Protector in Westminster 
 Hall. But a leader is one who can and will lead, and 
 neither of these pretenders could lead anywhere. 
 ' During the troubles of Forty-eight Mr. John O'Counell 
 fled to France, and when they were over returned in 
 the uniform of a captain of Militia to reopen Conciliation 
 Hall in the interest of the Whigs, from whom he was 
 expecting an office, which he finally obtained. But a 
 few bishops and priests still sent him a little money for 
 his father's sake, and when this supply was supple- 
 mented by the sale of the Hall, which was the property 
 of the Irish people, it enabled him to keep up a de- 
 lusive show of agitation. His meetings were not 
 attended by a dozen persons; he had nothing to propose 
 
 1 *' The compositor who sets these lines, the proof-reader 
 who revises them, and the mechanic who prints them, belong 
 to a society which by its own act fixes their rate of wages, 
 and they will not accept employment at a lower one. The 
 law protects them in these proceedings as a necessary defence 
 against extortionate employers. Why not the farmers ? " — 
 Natio7i. 
 
44 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 which any rational creature would listen to ; no person 
 of name or weight ever appeared on his platform, but 
 he was still worth something as a mischief-maker. 
 This tribune of the people raised a clamour that the 
 pledge in question would deliver over the tenant 
 societies to the toils of the law. The peasantry were 
 dying at the rate of a hundred a-week from starvation, 
 and it might well seem that they could afford to run a 
 little risk for their own protection : but the prudent 
 shook their heads portentously, and the timid and 
 iofnorant took alarm, for Conciliation Hall was still a 
 word of significance in a few rural districts. There was 
 another difficulty to be taken into account at the date 
 of this suggestion. An indispensable condition of 
 success for any cardinal proposal was that our new 
 allies, the Northerns, should accept it, and this proposal 
 was one which it might be feared they would not accept. 
 Nevertheless, I answered on my own behalf that the 
 scheme was a reasonable one, and might be carried out 
 successfully, if the people had the necessary pluck and 
 perseverance. This system is what is now known as 
 " Boycotting," and there was a quite recent case in 
 point, which I cited. 
 
 ''The Cape of Good Hope furnishes a pregnant 
 example of the magnetism of indomitable will. The 
 English Goverument commanded the Colonists to open 
 their country to convicts. They refused. The Govern- 
 ment entreated them to receive even one shipload, 
 
PREPAEATIONS FOR A NATIONAL CONFERENCE. 45 
 
 and no more. They refused. The Government per- 
 sisted, and ordered the convict ships to sail for St. 
 Simon's Bay. The Capemen did not fly to arms. 
 They were too few, rather fewer, for example, than the 
 men of Tipperary or Limerick. But they stood still. 
 They declined to buy or sell, or barter or traffic with the 
 English authorities. They refused to furnish them with 
 bread or meat, or service of any kind. They refused, 
 and they were faithful to their refusal. They stood 
 together, and sustained each other. The result was 
 inevitable. In six months the British Empire struck to 
 the little handful of Colonists on the verge of the world, 
 who knew their rights, and, what was better, knew how 
 to maintain them. The Tithe Agitation has left another 
 memorable lesson behind it. All the power of England 
 was pledged and committed to the collection of tithe. 
 A speech from the Throne commanded its immediate 
 payment. The army in Ireland was doubled to enforce 
 it — the police were turned into tithe collectors. But 
 not one shilling of tithe could be drawn from the people. 
 Royal speeches, and Royal army, and Royal Constabulary 
 were all in vain. It was a war, with all the expense 
 and danger and weary toil of war to the army ; but 
 without plunder or victory. The people stood still, and 
 paid nothing. Their cattle and crops were seized and 
 set up for auction. The whole country-side attended, 
 but among the multitude there was not one buyer. 
 Tithes were dead and buried, if one fatal mistake had 
 not brought them back to life. " 
 
 But to get such an experiment tried with the assent 
 of the Conference proved impossible. The preparatory 
 committee could not agree upon it. The Northerns 
 thought it would alarm and, perhaps, alienate Ulster ; 
 and Dr. Gray and his friends were persuaded that it 
 
46 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 could not be attempted without exciting agrarian 
 outrages against pledge-breakers. 
 
 In the mean time the landlords were not idle. They 
 also had remedies to propose. Lord Lucan submitted a 
 bill to his peers providing increased powers of eviction, 
 and facilitating distress for rent, which he conceived 
 would meet the real difficulties of the case. Lord 
 Westmeath introduced another bill inflicting severe 
 penalties on tenants who cut their crops after sundown 
 to the peril of the landlord's claims on the entire cereal 
 harvest. Some more politic proprietors, advised ap- 
 parently by Mr. Isaac Butt, who was the leading 
 spokesman of their opinions, declared that the true 
 specific for the public distress was a revival of the Corn 
 Laws. This simple reform would enable the tenants 
 to pay both current rent and arrears, and restore 
 general harmony and prosperity to the agricultural 
 classes. Meetings to advocate protection were called 
 in various parts of the country, but the popular Press 
 spoiled this device ; and the tenants, who generally 
 attended in great numbers, declared that the protection 
 they wanted was protection against aggressive landlords 
 and exorbitant rents. In the clumsy fashion in which 
 popular dissent is commonly expressed, they refused a 
 hearing to Protectionist orators, and even Mr. Butt^ 
 who was still popular as counsel for Smith O'Brien, 
 Meagher, and other political prisoners — was shouted 
 
PREPAKATIONS FOR A NATIONAL CONFERENCE. 47 
 
 down. The Free Traders in England took alarm ; Mr. 
 Cobden denounced this new panacea for Irish distress 
 as a " mixture of shallow cunning and base hypocrisy ; " 
 and after a little it was heard of no more. 
 
 The men who had the management of the pre- 
 liminary business by constant consultations, extensive 
 correspondence, and the practice of printing and 
 distributing the agenda among leading men, laid the 
 basis of unanimity. In the three or four months 
 between the issue of the invitation and the assembly 
 of the Conference they were as assiduous as the 
 ministers of a great State, and it was during that time 
 that the seed of all future success was sown. 
 
 There was work indeed to make the brain ache and 
 the heart quail, when they brooded over the social chaos 
 that needed to be restored to order, and measured the 
 formidable diffi-culties in front, or listened to the groans 
 of the perishing multitude behind. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CONFERENCE. 
 
 At length, on Tuesday, the 6th of August, at nine in 
 the morning, the Conference of Tenant Farmers and 
 their friends met at the Royal Exchange. There were 
 nearly three hundred delegates in attendance, mostly 
 representative men, carrying the proxies of a district. 
 There were Presbyterian Ministers, afterwards to be 
 Moderators of Synods, and professors in colleges, 
 farmers who had manned the local societies, and some 
 of whom were to ripen into members of Parliament, 
 priests, destined to be Archdeacons and Bishops, and 
 nearly a dozen professional men who afterwards entered 
 the House of Commons or were legislators in some of 
 the great colonies. I have seen deliberative assemblies 
 in free countries from the Thames to the Arno, and 
 from the German to the Pacific Ocean, but 1 am 
 persuaded that the picked men of the Tenants' 
 Conference would match any of them in practical 
 
THE CONFEEENCE. 49 
 
 ability and debating power. It was an authentic 
 Parliament of Ireland as far as the assent of the 
 people can make one, and in the fundamental fact 
 of representing the whole nation. Reserved stern 
 Covenanters from the North, ministers and their 
 elders for the most part, with a group of brighter 
 recruits of a new generation, who came afterwards to 
 be known as Young Ulster, sat beside priests who had 
 lived through the horrors of a famine which left their 
 churches empty and their grave-yards overflowing ; 
 flanked by farmers who survived that evil time like the 
 veterans of a hard campaign; while citizens, pro- 
 fessional men, the popular journalists from the four 
 provinces, and the founders and officers of the Tenant 
 Protection Societies completed the assembly. 
 
 As the names were called over each delegate rose in 
 his place, that the members might come to recognise 
 each other; and whenever the name of a man who 
 had done good service in the past, or whose character 
 and position were guarantees of good service in the 
 future, was announced, it was welcomed with ringing 
 cheers. Dr. M'Knight, who had founded the Ulster 
 Tenant-Right Association ; Father Tom O'Shea, who 
 had founded the first Tenant Protection Society ; Pat 
 Lalor, of Tinakill, who had organised the anti-tithe 
 agitation of 1833 ; Rev. John Rogers, the orator of the 
 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church ; j^oung 
 
 E 
 
50 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 Girdwood, who had induced his Northern society, crowded 
 Avith Lurgan Orangemen, to recognise the justice of the 
 movement for Nationality ; William Connor, who had 
 been imprisoned for the cause, and was known as the 
 '' Tenant's Friend ; " ^ Michael Banim, the survivor of 
 the famous authors of the Talcs of the O'Hara Family, 
 as dear to Ireland as the Tales of my Landlord are to 
 Scotland ; Henry Fitzgibbon, a milder type of the 
 Church of England ]3atriots led by Charles Lucas three 
 generations earlier ; Dr. Spratt, second in command to 
 Father Mathew in the Temperance movement; Rev. 
 David Bell, who had proclaimed a truce of the Lord in 
 the Orange town of Ballibay ; John Martin, who had 
 laboured to keep the Dublin Corporation pure and 
 public-spirited ; noted priests or presbyters, whose 
 names had a significance from events then fresh in the 
 public mind, but now forgotten, and men destined to 
 be eminent in the future in the legislature and justi- 
 ciary of free States, and others of whom it was enough 
 
 1 William Counor, of Inch, a gentleman farmer, who was a 
 Protestant entitled to carry the arms of General Arthur Conclorcet 
 O'Connor of 1798, with a bar sinister, was prosecuted in 1841 for 
 alleged sedition, found in a speech delivered to the farmers of the 
 Queen's County. He advised the adoption of valued rents and 
 permanent holdings. O'Connell expelled him from the Eepeal 
 Association in 1843 for recommending a strike against rent till 
 the claims of the tenants were fairly adjusted. He had sincere 
 sympathy with the people, but it was not supplemented by 
 adequate capacity and judgment, and he accomplished nothing. 
 
THE CONFERENCE. 51 
 
 to say that they represented Derry, Limerick, Ballibay, 
 and Clonmel — names as significant and symbolical to 
 Irish ears as Rome, Geneva, or Rochelle. 
 
 Among the men of the future were Robert Stirling 
 Anderson, afterwards Minister of Justice in the Colony 
 of Victoria; Edward Butler, afterwards Attorney- 
 General in New South Wales ; and Wilson Gray, a 
 distinguished member of Parliament in Victoria and a 
 Judge in New Zealand. Before the Conference Michael 
 Macoboy, afterwards a County Court Judge in Victoria, 
 helped to shape the programme, and Samuel Bindon, 
 afterwards Minister of Justice in the same Colony, 
 became Secretary of the Tenant League. Young 
 Ulster included a few dashing Ministers like David 
 Bell, a few generous cultivated professional men like 
 William Girdwood, and a few enthusiasts who inherited 
 the historic blood of '82 or '98. The tone and temper 
 of these men justified us in believing that there was a 
 new Ulster famihar with the history of the Volunteers 
 and the United Irishmen, who still sang the song's of 
 Drennan and "remembered William Orr." Thomas 
 Neilson Underwood, Secretary of the Strabane Tenant 
 Protection Society, was in appearance a sickly senti- 
 mental boy, but with a manifest reserve of passion and 
 will. He was known to be a lineal descendant of 
 Samuel Neilson, one of the founders of the United 
 Irishmen and Editor of the Northern Star in '98, and 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 he was himself in the fulness of time destined to found 
 the organisation known as the Brotherhood of St. 
 Patrick, the forerunner of the Fenian Societies. 
 
 Sharman Crawford, who would naturally have pre- 
 sided, was detained in Parliament, and his place was 
 filled by Dr. M'Knight. The secretaries were Father 
 Tom O'Shea, Rev. William Dobbin, P.M., and William 
 Girdwoud. Two classes of great social importance were 
 alone unrepresented. The gentry, with the exception 
 of Mr. Crawford and one or two small proprietors of 
 recent growth, held quite aloof, and with them the 
 clergy of the Established Church. Many of the 
 clergy had taken a warm interest in measures for the 
 protection of the poor in the early years of the famine, 
 but remedial legislation Vv^as necessarily political, and 
 in politics their traditional place was with the Govern- 
 ment and the gentry. Among the Irish parsons, 
 numbering nearly three thousand, those who supported 
 Catholic Emancipation, Parliamentary Reform, or Free 
 Trade, might be counted on the fingers, and among the 
 friends of Tenant Right there were none to count. 
 
 The risk run by an assembly consisting of such 
 various elements was not that it would go too far, 
 but that it would flounder into some feeble compromise. 
 The work of the Preliminary Committee in fram- 
 ing specific proposals minimised this danger, and it 
 disappeared altogether when it was seen that the 
 
THE CONFEKENCE. 53 
 
 bulk of the Conference manifestly longed for strong 
 food. 
 
 It sat for three days, having a morning and evening 
 meeting each day, with an interval for refreshment 
 which served also for private consultation among the 
 leaders. The gravity and urgency of the business to 
 be dealt with was great, but no greater than the gravity 
 and dignity of the Assembly. Day by day capable 
 and energetic Presbyterian ministers worked side by 
 side with Catholic priests of the same calibre in perfect 
 harmony and good faith. When difference of opinion, 
 which is inevitable among honest and intelligent men, 
 arose, it was never a difference between North and South. 
 The debates were free and full, but invariably courteous. 
 There was no attempt to stifle dissent, a weak device 
 very common in Irish counsels ; and the result was a 
 definite plan framed on principles which have since 
 been recognised as just, and which, after long resistance 
 and delay, have all got established by law. 
 
 Rents, it was declared, must be fixed by valuation of 
 the land ; and the power of raising them at will or 
 recovering a higher rent than the one so established 
 taken away from landlords. 
 
 The tenant must have a fixed tenure, and not be 
 liable to disturbance so long as he paid the rent settled 
 by the proposed valuation. If he chose to quit, or if 
 he could not pay his rent, he must have the right to 
 
54 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 sell his interest, with all its incidents, for the highest 
 market value; neither the landlord nor any other 
 person being entitled to enter on possession, except on 
 condition of buying it at a just price. The tenant's 
 property, and his improvements, past and future, must 
 be sacred ; his to hold or to sell as freely as the landlord 
 could sell his estate. One principle which has since 
 been recognised by law, but evaded in practice, is 
 worthy of being set out in the ipsissima verha of the 
 Conference — 
 
 " Nothing shall be included in the valuation, or be paid under 
 the valuation, to the landlord on account of improvements made 
 by the tenant in possession, or those under whom he claims, 
 unless these have been j)aid for by the landlord in reduced rent, 
 or in some other way." ^ 
 
 ^ This is the principle known in the present day as " Healy's 
 Clause." The local societies sometimes gave their delegates to 
 the Conference precise instructions ; the Strabane society in their 
 instructions declared that "in estimating a fair rent the tenant's 
 investments should not be made a subject of rent ; and that in 
 any periodical revision any subsequent improvements should 
 not be taken into account, these being the tenant's property." On 
 the subject of labourers, their instructions would form the basis 
 of a just settlement at present. Labourers, they declared, in 
 proportion to the size of a farm, ought to be provided each with 
 a rent-free house, and a rent-free field, and have his wages paid 
 in money, not on the truck system ; and be released from the 
 practice of " conacre," which imposed an endless burthen on 
 him ; and in case of lengthened possession, or when improve- 
 ments were made, have the right of sale. 
 
 The political and non-sectarian character of the debates is 
 illustrated by one that took place on the valuation of rents. Mr. 
 
THE CONFERENCE. 55 
 
 There were a million of agricultural labourers wliose 
 bread was put in peril by the consolidation of farms. 
 Specific measures of relief for this class were still 
 imperfectly understood, but the Conference ordered — 
 
 " That it be an instruction to the League (which it proposed to 
 call into existence) to take into consideration at the earliest 
 possible period the condition of the farm labourers, and to suggest 
 some measure for their permanent protection and improvement, 
 in connection with the arrangement of the question between 
 landlord and tenant." 
 
 These principles have since blazed like beacon- fires 
 in Ireland, sometimes obscured and apparently extin- 
 guished, but only to revive again. Sir Robert Peel 
 thought it his duty when he passed the Catholic 
 Emancipation Act to recognise that it was not to 
 him, but to agitators in Ireland and to Whig statesmen 
 in England, the success of the cause was due ; and 
 
 Lucas wished the valuation to be made in each case by arbitrators 
 appointed by landlord and tenant respectively, with an umpire 
 chosen by the arbitrators. Mr. Gavan Duffy contended that a 
 public general valuation of all the lands of Ireland ought to be 
 made as the future basis of rent. Mr. Lucas's views were sup- 
 ported in debate by Dr. M'Knight, Rev. Mr. Dobbin, P.M. ; 
 Mr. Girdwood, Mr. Wilson Gray, Mr. Cantwell, Dr. Gray, Father 
 Tom O'Shea, C.C. ; Mr. Cody, Rev. Mr. Maloney, P.P., and 
 Mr. Henry Fitzgibbon. Mr. Duffy's views by Rev. David Bell , 
 P.M. ; Rev. Dr. Kearney, P.P. ; Rev. James Godkin, I.M. ; Rev. 
 John Rintoul, P. M. ; Mr. Connor, of Inch ; John F. Maguire, 
 M'Carthy Downing, Shea Lalor, and Mr. Underwood. A com- 
 promise was finally agreed to, leaving the method of valuation 
 open for future consideration. 
 
56 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 when he repealed the Corn Laws he attributed to the 
 labours of the anti-Corn Law League and the un- 
 adorned eloquence of Richard Cobden, the triumph 
 of which he was the agent. I do not remember 
 that either Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Parnell, or Mr. Davitt 
 has thought it necessary to acknowledge where the 
 principles of the Land Act of 1881 were first suc- 
 cessfully formulated and made articles of popular 
 belief. 
 
 There had been too much speechifying and harangu- 
 ing in Ireland, and the Conference marked the opening 
 of a new era by furnishing the newspapers with a mere 
 skeleton of the debate, but with a full and exact 
 statement of the principles adopted. It closed its 
 labours by establishing the Tenant League at a public 
 meeting at which Catholic priests and Presbyterian 
 ministers succeeded each other in the tribune in 
 support of each resolution. A Council was appointed 
 fairly representing the entire country, and it was 
 agreed to raise a fund of ten thousand pounds, for the 
 purposes of the movement, by assessing the counties 
 in proportion to their capacity. They asked for money 
 that many things might be attempted, which, without 
 money, would be impossible — deputations, tracts, and 
 contested elections being the most familiar. The meet- 
 ings of the Council were ordered to be held successively 
 in different parts of the country, each to be followed 
 
THE CONFERENCE. 57 
 
 by a county meeting, which should be invited to adopt 
 the principles of the League. 
 
 The feeling of the country at these proceedings was 
 divided between satisfaction at the cordial union of the 
 provinces and alarm at the startling programme. But 
 satisfaction greatly predominated. The journals friendly 
 to Tenant Right were jubilant. The Fermanagh Mail, 
 a strictly Protestant journal, circulating in one of the 
 most Orange districts in the North, broke into poetic 
 prose, which represented characteristically the delirium 
 of the hour — 
 
 " It was a grand, an ennobling sight to see the 
 children of the Covenant from the far North, the 
 Elizabethan settlers from the Ards of Ulster, the 
 Cromwellians of the centre, the Normans of the Pale, 
 the Milesians of Connaught, the Danes of Kerry, the 
 sons of Ith from Corca's southern valleys, the followers 
 of Strongbow from Waterford and Wexford, and the 
 Williamites from Fermanagh and Meath — all, all unit- 
 ing in harmonious concert to struggle for the dear old 
 land." 
 
 And a young poet of the Nation sung the event in 
 authentic verse, of which one couplet passed from 
 mouth to mouth — 
 
 " The news was blazed from every hill, and rung from every 
 
 steeple ; 
 And all the land, with gladness filled, We're one united people." 
 
 The right word spoken at the right moment is often 
 magical in its effects, and there was a ring of sincerity 
 
58 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 and reality about these decisions wliicli arrested im- 
 mediate attention. Bat did tliey lie within the region 
 of possibility — of practical politics, as the phrase now 
 runs ? This was the difficulty to be first encountered. 
 An aristocracy trained from boyhood to command and 
 to obey, and knit together by a common interest as by 
 ribs of steel, and who could count on all the power of 
 the State to sustain them in the last resource, seemed 
 nearly impregnable. It was waste of time to assail 
 them except on principles so just that they would 
 command the assent of reasonable men everywhere, 
 and so adequate that they would content the people. 
 The new party must not only know what they wanted, 
 but be ready to justify it before the world. They 
 performed this duty with notable success. Valuation, 
 they insisted, was not a fantastic novelty, but the 
 natural remedy for a distinct wrong. Less than a 
 century earlier rents did not average ten shillings an 
 acre over the whole island ; in many counties they did 
 not exceed four shillings, but they had shot up to 
 thirty or forty shillings. This enormous change had 
 to justify itself, and valuation was the natural and 
 legitimate test. The Court of Chancery ordered a 
 valuation before fixing rents, so did the Dublin 
 University in dealing with its tenants, and even the 
 London Companies. The State did the same thing 
 before fixing the amount of its rent called Poor-rate ; 
 
THE CONFERENCE. 59 
 
 the landlord invariably obtained a valuation for his 
 own guidance, and it was only sought to insure that 
 this essential process should be publicly and fairly 
 performed. Neither was it a novelty to make the 
 valuation compulsory. A railway company could 
 insist on a valuation to protect themselves from extor- 
 tion by landowners, and the same protection was 
 manifestly more necessary in the case of tenants than 
 of a public company. Three-fourths of the property 
 of Dublin had been compulsorily valued under the 
 powers conferred on the Wide Street Commissioners. 
 Landed property was a public trust ; when the trust 
 was abused the State was entitled, and bound, to 
 restrain the abuse. It was on this principle alone that 
 the Encumbered Estates Act (passed to make insolvent 
 landlords yield up their property to their creditors) 
 could be justified. The Irish landlords got their 
 estates through their predecessors in title on specific 
 conditions which had been universally evaded. Their 
 legitimate position was that of stewards between the 
 State and the people, and Parliament was entitled to 
 inquire and ascertain whether they had been just 
 stewards. This inquiry was, for simplicity, called 
 Valuation. 
 
 As to perpetuity, it was the common custom 
 throughout Europe, and the condition without which 
 agricultural prosperity was impossible. It was one of 
 
60 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 the incidents of Tenant-Right in the North, and in 
 the remainder of Ireland the tenants' right to posses- 
 sion was older than the landlords'. They had inherited 
 the land from their ancestors, and they had bought it 
 over again by their labour, for confessedly all the 
 improvements were made by them. It had been 
 suggested that a certain number of years' enjoyment 
 exhausted the tenant's right to improvements ; but 
 if he put his savings in a bank he got the annual 
 product, and afterwards the entire capital was returned 
 to him. Why should he be content with the annual 
 product alone in the case of investment in a farm ? 
 The landlord who declared that the law must not 
 presume to regulate the tenure of land was in a strange 
 dilemma, for there was scarcely an Irish estate which 
 had not been taken from the original owner by Act of 
 Parliament ; and the present proprietors were the 
 very creatures of law. It was known, indeed, that 
 scarce one in twenty had a title with which he could 
 go into the market, though it was always good enough 
 to exterminate his tenantry with. The farmer in 
 Ireland, as everywhere else in Europe, except Great 
 Britain, must have perpetuity. 
 
 The popular journals and their correspondents 
 carried the defence of the fundamental principles 
 farther than it would have been discreet for the 
 Council to go. The reforms proposed, they insisted, 
 
THE CONFERENCE. 61 
 
 were the most moderate with which an injured people 
 had ever been satisfied. When the existence of an 
 aristocracy living on exorbitant rents became in- 
 compatible with the existence of the people on the 
 Continent, landlords and rents were either abolished 
 by revolution or strictly regulated by law. This 
 change has happened throughout all Europe irre- 
 spective of race, government, or religion. In Austria 
 the farmer enjoyed a perpetuity of tenure and a fixed 
 rent. In France the farmers were generally pro- 
 prietors, and paid no rent. In Prussia the country 
 was in the hands of peasant proprietors, who either 
 paid no rent or only a quasi rent as instalments of 
 the purchase money of their farms. In Switzerland 
 and the Alpine Valleys there were neither landlords 
 nor large proprietors. In Norway every fifth man was 
 a proprietor, and the agricultural labourers had secure 
 farms for life at a fixed moderate rent, paid in labour. 
 In Belgium the mass of the farmers were owners in 
 fee, and had created a garden on a sandbank. In 
 Holland the same system prevailed. In Tuscany, 
 Piedmont, and most of the States of Italy, the farmer 
 paid the landlord a certain proportion of the produce, 
 usually one half, after deducting what was necessary to 
 keep up the stock. And in the Channel Islands, 
 within an hour's sail of England, which are a paradise 
 of prosperity, farmers had perpetuity of tenure. On 
 
62 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 the Continent, wherever the Code Napoleon was in 
 force, the landlord, when there were landlords, must 
 let his land supplied with every iinj^rovement necessary 
 for its profitable enjoyment ; if he fail to do so the 
 tenant has an action against him. If the crop was 
 destroyed by such a visitation as the late famine, 
 instead of the food which should support the occupier 
 being carried away, the farmer has a legal right to 
 a proportional deduction of his rent. 
 
 The enormous leap opinion had made on this question 
 may be gauged by a significant fact. A few years 
 before, O'Connell suggested a tribunal consisting of a 
 competent judge and jury to fix a fair rent. The 
 tribunal was to ascertain the expenditure of the tenant 
 on useful and valuable improvements on the premises ; 
 and after a reasonable deduction for the 23rofits derived 
 by the tenant from his own expenditure one-third of 
 the surplus should be attributed to him, and only 
 two-thirds of the improved value charged by way of 
 rent for the new tenure. The principles of agrarian 
 reform were so ill understood that even O'Connell 
 admitted the vicious practice of charging the tenant 
 rent on his own improvements, and counting the 
 enjoyment of them as a gradual compensation. 
 
 The landlord Press at first declined to debate these 
 abominable propositions — they shrieked in hideous 
 chorus that the principles of the League were sedition 
 
THE CONFEEENCE. 63 
 
 and communism. The outcry was as loud as it is 
 against Mr. Gladstone's bills to-day. Even the Times, 
 ignoring the courtesy and mutual forbearance exhibited 
 in the debates, represented them to be as rude in form 
 as they were unreasonable and im23racticable in 
 purpose. 
 
 '' Never were fatal mistakes so eagerly insisted on — 
 never was dissent more rudely treated — never was 
 worldly wisdom more completely set at nought, than 
 during the debates of the delegates sent to discuss the 
 question of what is termed Tenant-right in Ireland. 
 Amidst this vast farrago, the mind vainly seeks for 
 some resting-place afforded by common sense and 
 ordinary prudence." ^ 
 
 Mr. John O'Connell, whom the support of two or 
 three bishops still kept in some degree alive as an 
 agitator, solemnly announced his conviction that the 
 main principle, rents regulated by valuation, was a 
 ridiculous impossibility. 
 
 '' Any man who pretends to have the least idea of 
 agricultural affairs, who would say it was practicable 
 to settle the rents of the country by a system of 
 valuation, I would not argue with him, for it is evident 
 he knows nothing of what he is speaking of" 
 
 To those who could interpret the signs of the times, 
 this furious opposition was almost as solacing and hope- 
 ful as the enthusiasm and applause of the people. 
 
 ^ Times, August 31. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 RECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTRY. 
 
 The preparations for county meetings began in 
 several districts, and the Council set to work on the 
 instant to turn them to the best account. It took up 
 the business in a practical spirit and by practical 
 methods. As Parliament was still sitting, Mr. Shea 
 Lalor was despatched to London on the part of the 
 League to induce the Irish members to obtain, if pos- 
 sible, an act protecting tenants from eviction for exor- 
 bitant arrears durinsc the recess, and he was furnished 
 with a draft bill to give effect to this purpose. Mr. 
 Lucas was appointed chairman of a sub-committee to 
 answer the dangerous misrepresentations of the Times ; 
 and Mr. Gavan Duffy, chairman of a sub-committee on 
 Organisation, was authorised to prepare a plan for con- 
 ducting the local meetings and preliminary conferences, 
 and to frame model resolutions for the county meetings 
 and rules for the local societies. The report of this com- 
 
■ RECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTRY. 65 
 
 mittee recommended that county meetings should be 
 held in quick succession, that the temporary Council 
 should be replaced by one consisting of a hundred and 
 twenty members, elected by ballot ; and that, in addi- 
 tion to its weekly meetings in Dublin, it should meet 
 at least once in each province during the year. It was 
 agreed to send deputations of Presbyterian ministers 
 and laymen to the South and West, and of Catholic 
 priests and laymen to the North. Ecclesiastics could 
 speak with an authority of individual cases of injustice, 
 and would represent in the most intelligible and 
 significant way the new union which was our strength. 
 It is a penalty which a subject country never escapes 
 that its complaints are treated as unreasonable, and its 
 demands as extravagant. The principles of the League 
 were met in England with contemptuous scorn. The 
 philosophical Spectator, then edited by Mr. Rintoul, 
 affirmed that the League, in seeking fixity of tenure 
 and rents founded on valuation, was seeking impossible 
 ends, and ends which, if attained, would prove not a 
 blessing, but a curse. The Times, whose immense in- 
 fluence made it a power to be reckoned with, declared 
 that the exposition of our case, sent by Mr. Lucas, 
 though courteous " in phrase and rational in manner, 
 was wholly without value, either as evidence or argu- 
 ment " ; a death-blow would be given to every hope 
 for Ireland if such principles prevailed. The Law 
 
 F 
 
66 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 Review, as a specialist, was pained to see such ignorance 
 of common law as the League displayed, and '' the ex- 
 istence of such an organisation for the accomplishment 
 of a ruinous impossibility." The Standard described 
 the Presbyterian clergy as '' freed from the proper re- 
 straints of morality and decency " ; and its confederate, 
 the 3IoTning Herald, spoke of the " hungry, half-fed, 
 and wholly untaught dogs of Maynooth, who longed 
 not only for power and predominance, but for the 
 pleasant enjoyments of a material and sensual life." 
 
 The Daily News, on the other hand, recognised the 
 substantial union which had been effected. 
 
 " Hereditary feuds and recent squabbles are alike 
 forgotten in the common feeling and universal impulse 
 of the hour. Sects that have lonof been at variance, 
 and parties that have long looked upon each other as 
 enemies, mingle cheerfully in the same multitudinous 
 assemblages, and learn to act cordially together in the 
 same Tenant League." 
 
 Their appeal to Parliament was signally unsuccessful. 
 Mr. Lalor held a consultation with Mr. Cobden, Mr. 
 Bright, and a number of the Irish members, and laid 
 before them the bill to prohibit eviction for arrears till 
 the amount necessary to cultivate the farm and to fur- 
 nish a reasonable subsistence to the farmer and his 
 family bad been deducted from the value of the harvest. 
 The Lish members consented to introduce him to Lord 
 John Eussell, but declined to sanction the Bill, and took 
 
EECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTRY. C7 
 
 occasion to assure the Premier that their presence must 
 not be construed into any approval of it. Under these 
 circumstances the Premier did all that could be expected 
 when he took a copy of the document and bowed them 
 out without prolonged parley.-^ But it was a cause 
 which could afford reverses. " It is as just a cause," 
 some one said to Father Tom O'Shea, " as that which 
 was preached by Peter the Hermit." "Yes," he replied, 
 " as just a cause as that which was preached by Peter 
 the Apostle ; for it is the lives of the people we protect, 
 which are the seed of the Church." One of the Northern 
 deputies cited the Russian proverb, "With God's aid 
 one may go safely over the sea ; without Him not over 
 the threshold." 
 
 But when they turned their faces from treacherous 
 members of Parliament and scornful newspapers to the 
 people whom they desired to serve, they met a success, 
 which for promptitude and enthusiasm had no parallel 
 in Irish history. 
 
 The first meeting was held at Enniscorthy on Sat- 
 urday, September 21st,^ among a population who 
 
 1 The Irish members who accompanied Mr, Shea Lalor to 
 Lord Jolin Russell were Messrs. Frank Scully, Ousley Higgins, 
 O'Gorman Mahon, Morgan John O'Connell, J. P. Somers, E. B. 
 Roche, T. C. Anstey, Torrens M'Cullagh, and John Thomas 
 Devereux. It is proper to say that the two latter in the end gave 
 valuable assistance to the League. 
 
 2 1850. 
 
68 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 inherited the blood of the invaders under Strongbow, 
 but which had long been as Irish in spirit and temper 
 as the clans of Connaught. The farmers of the county 
 Wexford within twenty miles of the place of meeting 
 attended on foot and on horseback, and there were said 
 to be voters enough present to control the county elec- 
 tion. A correspondent, for whose accuracy I am par- 
 ticularly bound to vouch, described the scene in the 
 next Nation — 
 
 " It was a monster meeting. An immense area was 
 covered with men on foot computed at twenty or thirty 
 thousand. The horsemen formed a belt round this 
 huge semicircle, and, as of old, bands sent up cheerful 
 music to the sky. There is a subtle electricity in a mass 
 of men of one mind — courage and hope passed from 
 breast to breast, and it was plain every man felt that 
 this cause must win. Be assured, the heart of the 
 South is kindled anew." 
 
 The shire and borough members who had been in- 
 vited to attend sent excuses, but there was no lack of 
 more important recruits. Priests from nearly every 
 district and citizens from the chief towns were present 
 in force. The Northern deputation consisted of Dr. 
 M'Knight, Rev. John Kogers, of Cumber, and Rev. 
 David Bell, in whose person Ballibay had come to 
 Vinegar Hill. Mr. Lucas, Mr. Lalor, and Mr. Duffy 
 attended from the Council in Dublin. 
 
 Mr. Rogers explained and justified the principles of 
 the movement. They met, he said, not to spoliate 
 
EECEPTIOX OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTRY. 69 
 
 others, but to protect themselves — not to touch the fee- 
 simple of the landlord, but to prevent him from appro- 
 priating the property of the tenant. He had been taught 
 in the Word of God to " do good unto all men," but the 
 Church of which he was a member had never been 
 the sycophant of power, and he was in no mood to pay 
 unmanly court to the landocracy. Valuation he re- 
 garded as indispensable, because the failure of the 
 potato had rendered the payment of present rents 
 impossible. 
 
 " I have never met any one (he said) who thoroughly 
 understood the loss of the potato. It is a loss which 
 every living thing about a house, down to the very 
 mice, concur in deploring. For whether you consider 
 the want of potatoes at the table, or to horses and 
 black cattle, or whether you consider the privation of 
 the pig, which Phelim O'Toole said was the gentleman 
 that paid the rent, or the poultry, or the honest watch- 
 dog, which bays a deep-mouthed welcome at his master's 
 return — you must feel that the failure of the potato is 
 an irreparable loss. On the ground, then, of the potato 
 failure, I hold a fair valuation of land indispensable. In 
 the North there had been an unfair valuation because 
 the valuator was generally an Englishman unacquainted 
 with the country ; but whether English or Irish he was 
 invariably in the interest of the landlord. When a 
 tenancy terminated, no matter from what cause, the 
 improvements effected by the tenant went as an addition 
 to the fee-simple of the landlord. He would not refer 
 to cases where the tenancy had been made to terminate 
 before in equity it ought, or to districts where the land- 
 lords had driven their carriages and four through the 
 leases of a whole tenantry, and then clutched their 
 
70 . THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 beneficial interests. He would not recall tlie harrowing 
 scenes of eviction where the population of entire villages 
 had been turned out onto the road-side to weep and die, 
 and deprived of the Christian sepulture, except it could 
 be called Christian to leave the evicted dead to the 
 wild dogs' carnival, growling and gorging over carcase 
 and limb. But he would notice an equally effective 
 but less repulsive system, by which the aristocracy ac- 
 complish their purposes — the power of arbitrarily in- 
 creasing rent. He expressed his satisfaction at the 
 union of North and South in one glorious brotherhood 
 for the regeneration of their common country. The 
 Irish peoj^le had suffered too much and too long already 
 to wish to perpetuate their own misery by needless 
 agitation ; but, whereas, hitherto North and South had 
 allowed themselves to be played off against one another 
 to further the designs of political charlatans who fat- 
 tened on faction and waded to place and power through 
 the blood of their country, this game was now to cease. 
 We will not allow ourselves (he said in conclusion) 
 to be put into a wrong position. We love our Queen 
 as well as our country ; we respect constituted authority; 
 we will keep within the Constitution ; we will honour 
 the law ; but, by the blessing of the Most High, we will 
 labour energetically and determinedly, till by legal and 
 constitutional means we obtain the victory which the 
 Irish Tenant League is destined, I trust, soon to win." 
 
 Mr. Bell followed in the same spirit. The omnipo- 
 tent power of truth, justice, and humanity were the 
 weapons on which the League relied — 
 
 "By these, and by these alone, they would conquer; 
 and ere lono^ men would see the black ensiofn of the 
 pirates, who have long scourged this beautiful land, 
 hauled down, and the Union flag, which bore upon its 
 
RECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTRY. 71 
 
 folds the Catholic green and the Protestant orange and 
 the Presbyterian blue,, unfurled to the breeze, to float 
 over a prosperous, a free, and a happy people." 
 
 Like his colleagues, he insisted that the agitation 
 which the League had begun was forced upon them 
 by the aggressions of landlords. The property of the 
 working farmer was being systematically confiscated. 
 Extortion and eviction had rendered the right of the 
 Ulster tenant, which was supposed to be an inex- 
 haustible treasure, practically valueless. He instanced 
 a significant case : a Presbyterian clergyman held a 
 large farm under one of the members for a northern 
 county which he had purchased from a previous tenant. 
 Notwithstanding the potato failure, free trade, ex- 
 cessive poor rates, and the sinking of everything by 
 which farmers were formerly enabled to pay high rents, 
 he was kept up to the old figure. The consequence 
 was, that he was losing largely every year, and last 
 season was obliged to leave it without a penny of com- 
 pensation for his purchase of the Tenant-right. But 
 this system must end, for the earth is the Lord's, not 
 the landlord's. 
 
 Dr. M' Knight declared that the men of Wexford 
 were far in advance of anything he had previously 
 conceived. Wexford was a model county in every 
 sense of the word, and he trusted that the admirable 
 habits of regularity and the high order of intelligence 
 
72 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 they bad seen would have a beneficial influence, in the 
 way of example, on the members of the Ulster deputa- 
 tion. If their movement was conducted with caution 
 and a determination to be always in the right, Heaven 
 would smile on their labours and success would 
 crown them. But to succeed they must be united. 
 Among many of the Orangemen in Ulster Tenant- 
 right had extinguished joarty animosities ; let the 
 same spirit spread throughout the island till there 
 was no longer Young Irelander or Old Irelander, Con- 
 servative or Repealer, Orangeman or Ribbonman, but 
 only one great and united brotherhood. 
 
 The priests of Wexford reciprocated the cordial 
 sentiments of the Northerns, and confirmed their state- 
 ment that it was not an aggressive, but a defensive, 
 contest in which they were engaged. The landlords, 
 indeed, declared that they were the natural protectors 
 of the people. But the people had no confidence in 
 men who took advantage of the famine to fall upon 
 them with more ferocity than they had ever experienced 
 from a foreign foe — who, instead of consoling and 
 assisting their unfortunate tenantry, extracted the 
 last penny from them by rack-rents, and then 
 demolished their humble dwellings, casting them 
 forth to die on the road sides. 
 
 Resolutions were adopted accepting the priuciples 
 of the League, and undertaking on behalf of Wexford 
 
EECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTRY. 73 
 
 to contribute 500/. towards the 10,000/. fund, and 
 dividing the county into districts, in each of which 
 a local society would be established, answerable for a 
 fixed proportion of the amount. It is a fact worth 
 noting that before the public meeting a County 
 Conference was held, at which the resolutions were 
 considered in committee, with the aid of the best local 
 men. The correspondent of the Bation already quoted 
 describes the scenes behind the curtain like one who 
 had mixed in them — 
 
 '' The social arrangements were made on a munificent 
 scale. One enthusiastic priest carried off the two 
 ministers as his guests ; a young attorney seized upon 
 a brawny editor ; a hospitable doctor captured a meagre 
 one, and a contest arose over the body of Dr. M'Knight, 
 of which some Wexford poet might make a striking 
 episode in the epic which in the fulness of time this 
 invasion must beget. Mr. Shea Lalor (who acted as 
 hon. secretary) was to be separated by no entreaty 
 from his beloved tin box (containing the documents 
 of the League), and he sat in perpetual committee at 
 the hotel, giving and taking counsel like a general on 
 the eve of battle." 
 
 A public dinner to the deputation closed the pro- 
 ceedings.-^ 
 
 1 The Committee of the County Wexford Tenant Protection 
 Society, a week before the Enniscorthy meeting, issued, an address 
 calling on every parish to send representatives to the county 
 meeting and conference, and reminding them that if out of the 
 present crop the rents, cesses, and rates to which they were liable 
 were enforced, no adequate surplus would remain for the support 
 
74 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 After two days spent at Enniscorthy the deputation 
 proceeded to the county Kilkenny, where the first 
 Tenant Protection Society had been planted. To 
 receive them eisrht thousand farmers flocked into the 
 city from the neighbouring districts, and the priests of 
 Ossory were present in great force. The chair at the 
 county meeting was occupied by Sergeant Shee, one 
 of the leaders of the Common Law Bar in Ens^land, 
 but an Irishman with local relations by property and 
 family with Kilkenny. To bring the weight of his 
 professional and personal character to bear on public 
 opinion in England was a happy stroke of policy. The 
 Sergeant defended the principles of the League — 
 
 " In England, if a landlord lost a tenant he found it hard to 
 replace him, there were so many other paths open to energy and 
 capital. But in Ireland, if the tenant did not accept the land- 
 lord' s terms he might lie down in a ditch and die. Hence there 
 was unnatural competition, and to regulate it valuation of rents 
 was essential. The condition in which the land was let was a 
 scandal ; he had recently travelled through the most prosperous 
 counties of the south, and he did not, except in the vicinities of 
 the great cities, or the resort of fashionahle recreation, see any 
 building which would deserve the name of a farmhouse in 
 England, Scotland, or in the north of Ireland. He did not see 
 one single cottage which would bear comparison with the dwellings 
 
 of their families, the cultivation of their farms, and the purchase 
 of seed for next year. Mr. John O'Connell warned all concerned 
 that this was an illegal address, and would deliver those who 
 attended the meeting into the hands of the Attorney-General ; 
 hut by this time he had arrived at the point that no one took the 
 slightest notice of his vaticinations. 
 
KECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTRY. 75 
 
 of the labouring poor in any of the counties he was acquainted 
 with in England. As regards fixity of tenure, it was ridiculous 
 to describe it as a new principle. It was perfectly well known to 
 civil law, and it was established in England by the system of 
 copyhold, and was introduced into many countries of Europe by 
 aid of the sovereign power. The death of Sir Robert Peel would 
 give rise to new political combinations, and if the Tenant League 
 was ready to throw in its influence with the party who proposed 
 a good Land Act they would soon get one." 
 
 Dr. M'Knight reminded the people how they had 
 been divided and dekided hitherto. The landed 
 aristocracy connived at party dissensions — they set 
 Irishman against Irishman, and succeeded in crushing 
 and oppressing them all. Let them give up, and at 
 once, all aimless and meaningless distinctions of party, 
 and establish a community of brotherly feeling, a 
 community open to Irishmen of the Presbyterian faith, 
 such as he was, as well as to Irishmen of the Catholic 
 community, and of every other persuasion. Let each, 
 with singleness of heart, take the hand of his brother- 
 Irishman, even as he now did. He suited the action 
 to the word, by grasping the hand of Father O'Shea, 
 an incident which raised the popular enthusiasm to 
 a tempest. 
 
 Father O'Shea, in his turn, described from local 
 experience why the principles of the League were 
 necessar3^ *' The people were compelled at present, as 
 when Swift wrote against oppressive landlords, to coin 
 * their very vitals into rent — to starve themselves and 
 
76 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 their children to satisfy the excessive demands of their 
 rapacious taskmasters/ Within a circuit of six miles 
 around Callan, 280 houses have been levelled with the 
 ground, though, with one notable exception, the 
 local landlords could lay claim to a fair share of cle- 
 mency and humanity." 
 
 Rev. Mr. Rogers told them good tidings from 
 Ulster — 
 
 " Presbyterian Ulster (he said) is not Orange. 
 Presbyterianism is incompatible with, and destructive 
 of, Orangeism. Orangeism is Toryism, and the genius 
 of Presbyterianism is utterly antagonistic to such a 
 despotic creed. Orangeism is intolerance, and Presby- 
 terianism has ever been foremost to rebuke intolerance, 
 and to vindicate and defend civil and religious liberty. 
 I know little of Orangeism, except this, that those 
 who are baptised with its baptism bind themselves 
 to uphold the present Constitution in Church and 
 State. Presbyterians could not do this without 
 denying their own principles. No one but an ignorant 
 and apostate Presbyterian could be an Orangeman. 
 The Orangemen of the North are landlords and agents, 
 at one extreme — bailiffs and the tag-rag-and-bob-tail 
 of society at the other." 
 
 Dr. Cane, Father Keeffe, and others well known 
 to local men applauded and confirmed the union of 
 North and South. 
 
 " We hold in our hands (said Father Keeffe) a weapon 
 sheathed for three hundred years — a weapon never yet 
 tried against England, keen, sure, and unerring — a 
 weapon whose strength, because untried, can scarcely 
 
RECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTRY. 77 
 
 be estimated — a weapon before whose dazzling sheen 
 the eye of the Viceroy blinked in the ISTorth — that 
 weapon which shall achieve our victory is the union 
 of all Irishmen. The landlords pursued the policy of 
 ' divide and conquer/ and they succeeded ; but that 
 cry is hushed for ever. The people of Ireland have 
 raised the holier cry of ' Unite and Conquer.' " 
 
 The second week the League crossed the Boyne, 
 and made its formal entry into Ulster. A dozen 
 counties were competing for the distinction of taking 
 an early part in the movement, but it was determined 
 to alternate provinces, and the chief question was 
 where the most significant beginning could be made 
 in the North. Mr. Bell was persuaded that we ought 
 to begin in a stronghold of Orangeism, to make plain 
 to friends and enemies that the Leaofue had none of 
 the old parties opposed to it. Monaghan was known 
 as the " Gap of the North/' and Ballibay since before 
 Catholic Emancipation was a headquarter of the 
 Orangemen of three counties. Being a resident 
 minister there he understood the state of opinion 
 and he advised that we should plant the tricolour of 
 the League where civil war was threatened a genera- 
 tion earlier. 
 
 " The ' bad eminence ' which we have until lately 
 occupied in consequence of our political feuds (he 
 wrote to me) will render a united manifestation of 
 our principles and purposes infinitely more telling here 
 than it could possibly be in either Monaghan or 
 
78 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 Carrickmacross (which were substantially Catholic 
 towns). Besides, the landlord party might attempt to 
 create disturbance in Monaghan — lure they dare not 
 show their faces." 
 
 When the meeting was announced the landlord Press 
 warned us that we would have to meet the historic 
 men of Ballibay, as Jack Lawless had of old ; ^ and we 
 did meet them, but with a difference. Masters of 
 Orange Lodges moved resolutions, tylers of Orange 
 Lodges helped to keep order, and one of the managing 
 committee was son of the once famous Sam Gray. 
 On the other hand, the "Farney freeholders," whose 
 predecessors had opened the county in 1826 by electing 
 an Emancipator, came in procession, extending, it was 
 said, for nearly two miles ; and a few veterans among 
 their leaders who had elected a Dublin barrister against 
 a combination of the Whig and Tory gentry, were on 
 the platform with their old antagonists, where a flag of 
 green, orange, and blue, typified the new union. 
 Letters from Eichard Cobden and Poulett Scrope were 
 read, giving guarded sanction to proceedings in which 
 they had still probably only imperfect confidence. 
 
 Mr. Bell recalled the threats of the landlord Press, 
 and asked the Presbyterians of Ballibay to disavow 
 them, which they did with ringing cheers for the 
 
 1 In the era of O'Connell's agitation for Catholic Emancipation 
 a civil war was nearly provoked by the mission of John Lawless 
 to Ballibay. His opponent was Sam Gray. 
 
KECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTEY. 79 
 
 League. John Francis Maguire, one of the deputation 
 from the Council, asked them whether, as a Munster 
 Catholic, he was welcome amongst them to help to 
 regain for the people the rights in the soil which they 
 had lost, and was answered with enthusiastic assent. 
 Rev. Mr. Godkin, editor of the Berry Standard, invited 
 the deputation to visit the Maiden City, and have the 
 welcome of the North confirmed under the historic 
 walls of Derry. He described the wrongs which had 
 forced humane men to unite — 
 
 " I declare, before heaven (he said), my firm con- 
 viction that it would be more humane and merciful 
 in the law, when the levelling brigade goes forward to 
 destroy a village, to pull down houses over the heads 
 of families, the frantic mother instinctively clinging to 
 the roof- tree as for life — I declare, solemnly, that I 
 think it would be more merciful to order out the police, 
 to make them surround the village, and shoot dead on 
 the spot every one of the men, women, and children, 
 than doom them to the moral death and physical 
 degradation of those pesthouses — the overcrowded 
 and disorderly poorhouses." 
 
 Priest and minister followed each other on the 
 platform, and were equally well received by the re- 
 conciled audience. In the evenins: there was a soiree 
 to the deputation, Eev. Gunn Browne, P.M., presiding. 
 Mr. Lucas, whose speech consisted of an exhortation to 
 perpetual union, read letters which he had received 
 from the Archbishop of Tuam and the Bishop of 
 
80 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 Meath, encouraging and applauding what had already 
 been accomplished by the League. They were wel- 
 comed by Orange cheers. Mr. Duffy answered some of 
 the objections directed against their principles. 
 
 The deputation left Ballibay escorted by Catholics 
 and Orangemen in fraternal union. It was such a sight 
 as Thomas Davis had predicted — 
 
 " Tories and Whigs grow pale with dismay, 
 When from the North bursts the cry forth 
 Orange and Green shall carry the day." ^ 
 
 •^ Our first embarrassment arose in connection with this meet- 
 ing. Lucas and I (who agreed to take little part in the public 
 meetings as long as we could get competent new men to speak, 
 but who always attended to assist at the preliminary conference 
 and watch over the proceedings) were met as we approached 
 Ballibay by a local shopkeeper, or perhaps innkeeper, named 
 J. J. Hughes, to say that the Catholics understood we had been 
 advised by Mr. Bell to put up at the York Hotel, the famous 
 Orange house, kept by the family of Sam Gray, from which 
 a Catholic had been shot, and that they felt insulted by such 
 an arrangement, and sent us an invitation to go elsewhere. We 
 told him that our consent to the proposal was the sign and seal of 
 the union we had accomplished, and that if we shrank from it 
 the fact might prove disastrous. Some of the ol)jections he 
 stated, however, finally induced Lucas to accept the invitation, of 
 which he was the bearer, while I kept our appointment with 
 Mr. Bell at the York Hotel. It is easy in Ulster to move party 
 passions. Next day I found the amiable Mr. Hughes had 
 whispered about that I preferred the society of bitter Orangemen 
 to my own relations in my native country ; and on the other 
 hand a distrust of Lucas was sown in the micds of the Northerns 
 which, as we shall see, bore evil fruit. Before many weeks the 
 Council found it necessary to publish a notice in relation to this 
 
RECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTEY. 81 
 
 The next county meeting was summoned at Navan 
 on the banks of the Boyne. Much was expected from 
 Meath, the site of the greatest of the monster meetings 
 held by O'Connell in 1843 ; and expectation was not 
 disappointed. The solid farmers and graziers of the 
 county and the whole body of the Catholic clergy were 
 present. The meeting was held in the market square, 
 which proved insufficient to supply standing-place for 
 the immense attendance. Mr. Henry Fitzgibbon, Mr. 
 Lucas, and Mr. Duffy, represented the Council of the 
 League, and the occasion was signalised by the presence 
 of Sharman Crawford. The county members declined 
 to attend. Mr. Henry Grattan was willing to consider 
 the land question, but "could not with propriety pledge 
 himself to any particular body of men or any set of 
 principles they might think fit to adopt." Mr. Corbally 
 was more emphatic in his refusal ; he believed the 
 proceedings of the Tenant Conference " had materially 
 injured a good and just cause, and therefore it was 
 impossible for him to identify himself with them." 
 But the men destined to represent great Irish con- 
 stituencies in the near future were of a different 
 
 Ballibay Leaguer which it may be desirable to recall — " That 
 the Council having read statements put forward by Mr. J. J. 
 Hughes, of Ballibay, relative to certain proceedings at the League 
 we have no hesitation in declaring that in all their essential parts 
 those statements are utterly false." — (Signed) Frederick Lucas, 
 Hon. Sec. 
 
 G 
 
82 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 opinion. Sergeant Shee sent his warm sympathy in a 
 letter to the Secretaries, and vindicated the necessity 
 of the movement. It was amply justified, he insisted, 
 by facts stated by Sir Robert Peel in the House of 
 Commons — 
 
 " More than half the houses in ten Irish counties, 
 containing a population of 3,350,000 souls, and one- 
 fourth of the houses in all the other counties, were," 
 he said, "mud cabins, having but one room, inhabited 
 by rack-rented tenants-at-will ; and in the yeax 1849, 
 50,000 families were cleared out of such houses, to die 
 in lanes or ditches, or part like strangers at the work- 
 house door." 
 
 Mr. McCarthy Downing, afterwards member for the 
 county of Cork, in a similar letter urged that a pledge 
 to support the League programme should be every- 
 where obtained from members and candidates. With- 
 out exercising this duty in every county and borough 
 in Ireland, regardless of jjolitical feeling or friendly 
 ties, the agitation had better cease, for in that case 
 he predicted it would end in discomfiture and disgrace. 
 It was excellent advice, but the difficulty of complying 
 with it was curiously illustrated by the fact that in a 
 county Cork election four years later, where the 
 candidate was a Whig lawyer, who frankly admitted 
 his intention of supporting the Whig Government 
 instead of the League, Mr. McCarthy Downing suc- 
 ceeded in sending him to Parliament (as we shall see) 
 
EECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTRY. 83 
 
 to the " discomfiture and disgrace " of the cause to 
 which he was pledged. 
 
 The speech of the occasion was Mr. Crawford's. 
 He insisted on the principle of Valuation. The inter- 
 vention of the State was necessary, because tenants 
 could not protect themselves. Landed proprietors 
 were protected by the usury laws from paying 
 exorbitant interest on mortgages; and if the State 
 protected the landlord from the claims of the usurer, 
 why was it not to protect the tenant from the usurious 
 claims of the landlord ? The practice of defending 
 the weak from the strong by law was a common one. 
 
 " The workers in manufactories had been compelled 
 to work a greater number of hours than it was right 
 they should work. A law was passed that women and 
 children, and young persons should not work more 
 than a certain number of hours; and when protection 
 is given in that case, why should it not be given to 
 the tenant, who is under greater power of compulsion 
 — the alternative of life or death ? We know (he 
 said) that in other countries extreme remedies were 
 used. We know what was done by an arbitrary 
 monarch in Prussia. We know also that in India — 
 our own territory — Lord Corn wall is, seeing the power 
 exercised over the Indian tenant, altered that system 
 and fixed the rents by valuation, and established 
 perpetual tenure. That was done by one of our own 
 officers ; and if ever there was a case which justifies 
 extreme measures it was the case of the Irish tenant ; 
 and it was right and just that measures should be taken 
 to afford an adequate remedy for the evil." 
 
 G 2 
 
84 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AXD SOUTH. . 
 
 Language like this from a great proprietor was equal 
 to a battle won ; it put to shame the objections of 
 newspaper and platform critics. 
 
 Mr. Crawford justified Valuation, but he was un- 
 favourable to the other cardinal principle of the League 
 — Perpetuity. His limit was " a holding on the soil 
 equivalent to the value which the tenant's labour and 
 capital created " — a principle which neither covered the 
 Tenant-right of the North, springing from original 
 contract between the planters and their clients, nor the 
 joint ownership which had existed in the South before 
 the introduction of feudal law. Mr. Duffy, in defending 
 Perpetuity, however, had to beware of alienating the 
 indispensable Northern leader. 
 
 " Take up the map of Europe (he said) arid you 
 will find but a single State where it does not prevail in 
 one shape or another. Our next neighbours in France 
 have perpetuity. Their next neighbours in Belgium 
 and in Italy have perpetuity. Cross the Adriatic and 
 you find it in Austria and Prussia. Cross the Baltic, 
 and you will find it in Norway and Sweden. Cross the 
 White Sea, and you vvill still find perpetuity of a base 
 kind in the vast dominions of the Czar. Take up the 
 map of the whole world, and you will find that the 
 practice of arbitrary ejectment — or, as we have learned 
 to call it, ' extermination ' — exists only in two small 
 islands on the western rim of Europe, called England 
 and Ireland. In the dominions of Great Britain herself 
 — in every latitude beyond these seas — the practice of 
 perpetuity exists. If a farmer from Meath emigrates 
 to Canada, to Australia, to Newfoundland, the English 
 
EECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUXTEY. 85 
 
 Government will give him the land for ever. Who 
 ventures to assert that there is any just reason why he 
 should not get the same tenure of the land which he 
 and his father and their father before them have 
 moistened with the sweat of their brows ? Some of you, 
 my friends, may have been in Jersey or Guernsey. 
 They are flourishing and happy little islands in the 
 British Channel, and under the British Crown, over- 
 flowing with comfort and plenty. What tenure of his 
 lands do you think the farmer possesses ? Nothing less 
 than this daring novelty of the Tenant League, this 
 invention of the Dublin Conference — Perpetuity." 
 
 Mr. Godkin renewed the welcome theme of the new 
 union, and illustrated it by instances which had fallen 
 under his notice — 
 
 " At the Monaghan meeting the band played ' Garry- 
 owen,' and the Orangemen listened to it with respect. 
 There was another playing up the ' Protestant Boys,' and 
 the men of Farney had nothing to say against it. The 
 men of Farney marched into Ballibay in thousands, and, 
 instead of being repelled by the Orangemen, were 
 welcomed. Some of the most zealous people of Farney 
 dined in the York Hotel, which was kept by the son of 
 Sam Gray ; and in the room where they dined was 
 suspended the document that conveyed the freedom of 
 the city of Dublin to Sam, for resisting the invasion of 
 Jack Lawless. All the old animosities of the people 
 were forgotten, buried in oblivion ; and whoever at- 
 tempted to disinter them ought to be considered as the 
 most infamous of resurrectionists." 
 
 Mr. Fitzgibbon insisted that the League was fighting 
 the battle of landlords as well as tenants. It had risen 
 against a system which was pulling the whole community 
 
86 THE LEAGUE OF ^NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 down to ruin ; a system wliicli lived on the plunder of 
 industry, dried up the springs of employment, palsied 
 the national strength, and tended to general anarchy. 
 The leaders of the League were men who lived by in- 
 dustry, and understood the interests of industry ; they 
 knew well that its interests were never promoted by 
 violence or crime. Mr. Lucas defended the League from 
 some newspaper imputations, which, though they were 
 a trouble at the moment, are now quite forgotten. The 
 county was assessed towards the Ten Thousand Pounds 
 Fund, divided into districts for local societies, and the 
 electors pledged themselves to vote for no candidate who 
 did not adopt the principles of the League. 
 
 The week following, the county Tipperary assembled 
 at Cashel. The extent of the population and its repute 
 for public spirit drew universal attention to this meeting. 
 The " matchless men of Tipperary," as the poet named 
 them, were in fact generous and public-spirited, though 
 they had been befooled into electing as county members 
 some of the most contemptible party hacks Ireland ever 
 sent to Westminster, and the boroughs were long the 
 refuge of Whig placemen. The honest freeholders 
 attended in great numbers, and seem^ed to understand 
 that this was a work in which they had a direct and 
 special interest. The clergy were also largely repre- 
 sented, and among these were some new men in no way 
 responsible for past elections, who proved the most 
 
RECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTRY. 87 
 
 steadfast friends of the League. Three of the district 
 members attended, Mr. Frank Scully, M.P., taking the 
 chair.i It was an evidence of progress, doubtless, that 
 members of Parliament considered it necessary to com- 
 mit themselves to the movement ; but it was a doubtful 
 advantage ; for to put the new wine of the League into 
 these cracked utensils would be wanton waste of public 
 power. It was a case where, in the language of the 
 national proverb, their places would have been better 
 than their company. Dr. M'Knight opened on behalf 
 of the Leag-ue.^ He told them that Ireland had been 
 apathetic hitherto, and he read them a fearful catalogue 
 of results — 
 
 "Within the last few days there has appeared the 
 official report of the Board of Works, by Captain Larcom, 
 for the year 1849, and it states the number of evictions 
 that year to be — In Leinster, 8,253 holdings were 
 made vacant; in Munster, 14,500; in Ulster, 5,357 ; in 
 Connaught, 17,931 ; making a total of 46,041. In 1848 
 the total number amounted to 71,147, making, in 1848, 
 and 1849, 117,178 holdings from which poor people 
 were evicted. Those farmers were turned out to perish 
 on the roadside or to die some lingering deatn in the 
 workhouse, or to take care of themselves as best they 
 could. The usual number of a family amounted to five 
 individuals, and if they multiplied 117,178 by 5, they 
 would have 585,890 poor Irish men, women, and 
 
 1 The others were Sir Timothy O'Brien and Mr. Cecil Lav.'less. 
 
 2 The deputation consisted of Dr. M'Knight, Mr. Bell, and 
 Mr. Girdwood from the North, and Mr. Lucas and Mr. Lalor 
 from the League. 
 
88 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 children, who were turned out on the world in a state 
 of starvation. Was there (he asked) a countr}^ on the 
 face of God's earth in which that could occur but in 
 Ireland ? " 
 
 Father Cahill, a young priest who possessed many of 
 the gifts of a popular tribune, described the sufferings, 
 struggles, and rights of the people in language of 
 passionate conviction. At the dinner which followed 
 the meeting, Shea Lalor made a telling appeal to 
 national feeling. He described a boy learning geo- 
 o-raphy from his father over a school map then in use — 
 
 " In the mai'gin there were drawings representing 
 characteristic scenes in the different countries. England 
 had its happy harvest home, Scotland its prosperous 
 manufactures and well-cared-for fishermen, France its 
 vintage, Prussia and Switzerland comfortable peasant 
 proprietors ; Holland, Belgium, Russia, Poland — all and 
 each of them something emblematic of prosperity. But 
 how was wretched Ireland figured forth ? On a car, 
 drawn by a jaded horse, driven by a ragged peasant, sat 
 a half-starved woman and her naked children. ' Oh, 
 father dear,' said the child, ' look at Ireland.' They 
 might all look at Ireland, and ponder on the moral the 
 picture conveyed." 
 
 At the County Conference Tipperary was divided 
 into districts for local societies, and undertook to con- 
 tribute £600 to the League Fund. A few days later ^ 
 the League, fresh from Tipperary, was welcomed into 
 
 1 Thursday, October 24tli. 
 
EECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTRY. 89 
 
 Orange Tyrone. The meeting was held at Omagh, 
 within half an hour's drive of the Protestant church, 
 where, two generations earlier, the Volunteers of '82 
 declared for Catholic Emancipation and the indepen- 
 dence of Parliament. 
 
 At an early hour mounted men began to throng into 
 Omagh. Every part of the county was represented 
 from as far north as Donagheady and as far south as 
 Dungannon, from Ardboe on the east and on the west 
 from the borders of Donegal. At the front of the 
 platform ornamental banners were placed with appro- 
 priate devices, and over all waved a giant tri-coloured 
 flag of orange, blue, and green — colours which had not 
 met in Tyrone in the memory of man except in open 
 conflict. An excellent band struck up in succession 
 " St. Patrick's Day " and the " Protestant Boys." 
 Thomas Montgomery, a Presbyterian Nationalist, of 
 advanced years and solid position, who had belonged 
 to the Young Ireland Party in '48, presided.^ 
 
 Dr. M'Nally, the Catholic Bishop of Clogher, sent 
 his good wishes, and expressed his conviction that there 
 was urgent necessity for the immediate interference of 
 the State for the protection of the lives of the tenants. 
 The principles of the League would be fully explained 
 
 1 The League deputation consisted of Mr. Lalor, Mr, George 
 Fuller, who brought for a short time brilliant abilities and great 
 information to the cause, and Mr. Duffy. 
 
90 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 and powerfully advocated by the able men who took the 
 lead ; he only felt it necessary to urge that all in- 
 temperate language and all topics tending to exasperate 
 ought to be studiously avoided. 
 
 Mr. Poulett Scrope, who had been invited to attend, 
 sent congratulations on the union of creeds which the 
 League had effected — • 
 
 "The unhappy divisions created by religious differ- 
 ences have alone (he said) permitted the Government 
 to neglect so long the material interests of the Irish 
 people. I rejoice, too, to see the cause of the tenant- 
 farmers supported at their meetings in a peaceful, 
 constitutional manner, and by able and temperate 
 argument, which tlieir opponents appear to me to meet 
 only by unreasonable abuse and invective, in which the 
 whole question at issue is begged." 
 
 Mr. Scrope formulated a principle which lay at the 
 root of the entire movement. " Property," he said, 
 " can have no rights inconsistent with the welfare of 
 the people." 
 
 Eev. Mr. Chambers, P.M., rejoiced that union and 
 peace prevailed. Sectarian rancour had vanished be- 
 fore the doctrines of the League ; and the assembly of 
 Tyrone, under the flag of Orange, Green, and Blue, 
 would make the day an historic one in Ireland. The 
 Rev. Mr. Gordon, P.P., warned the people that if they 
 did not free themselves from the burthens of the 
 present system the land would become a desert. When 
 
RECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTEY. 91 
 
 hereafter it was asked what had become of Ireland, 
 it would be told that it was once inhabited by a brave, 
 athletic, and courageous race, who served God and 
 were faithful and honest citizens ; but all they produced 
 was devoured by two-legged monsters, who left them to 
 perish of starvation. Mr. Underwood reminded them 
 that the landlords claimed to have immutable titles. 
 Immutable titles ! Why, Cromwell made titles, 
 Charles IT. made titles, William III. made titles ; 
 surely Parliament was equally competent to make 
 them to-day ! Rev. Mr. Ferguson, P.M., justified the 
 popular organisation. Tyrants met to consult together 
 how they might oppress the people. Why should not 
 the League meet to consult how they might give them 
 liberty and prosperity ? Bad landlords (for there were 
 good landlords) had put their heads together to see 
 how they could hunt from their estates the poor and 
 desolate ; but the Leaguers were putting tlieir heads 
 and hearts together, that they might preserve their 
 homes to the fatherless, and secure to hoary-headed age 
 the fruits of that labour which the old man had 
 wrought in his youth. The Rev. Mr. Doherty, PP., 
 said the League admitted that the land was the land- 
 lords', but they utterly denied that the buildings, 
 fences, and improvements were theirs. He had always 
 been the friend of moderation, and he said now, " Let 
 the landlords, even at the eleventh hour, grant valuation 
 
92 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 and perpetuity, and there would be peace once more." 
 The arrangements for local societies and a contribu- 
 tion to the League Fund having been made, a banquet to 
 the deputation closed the proceedings. 
 
 So many districts now competed for a place in the 
 movement that a weekly meeting no longer sufficed. 
 County Conferences were fixed for North and South 
 on almost the same day, and the Council divided its 
 available men to supply the essential deputation. On 
 Monday, the 29th October, the farmers of Donegal and 
 their friends met at Letterkenny. They desired to 
 meet at the Courthoase, but the High Sheriff refused it, 
 as the requisition did not contain the names of the class 
 whom he regarded as entitled to that concession. The 
 first fifty-five names, he remarked, consisted only of 
 Presbyterian ministers and Catholic priests. It was 
 true they were only priests and ministers, but a better 
 jadge of political forces would understand that this 
 was a fact of more significance than if the requisition 
 had been signed by the whole ])osse comitatus. 
 
 Again there was the pleasant evidence of union and 
 harmony; parties which had long stood as jealously 
 apart as castes in India mingled at every stage of the 
 proceedings. A priest and a Presbyterian minister 
 acted as joint secretaries. The Rev. Dr. Rintoul, P.M., 
 who opened the business, rejoiced in their blended 
 hearts and blended colours. 
 
EECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTRY. 93 
 
 " What is there (he asked) in the strain of a musical 
 air or in the colour of a piece of ribbon that should 
 alienate the hearts of Irishmen from each other ? 
 Though he was as staunch a Protestant as any man 
 in the community, he could admire the sweet music 
 of ' Patrick's Day ' as well as that of the '■ Protestant 
 Boys.' There floated above the platform a flag blended 
 of orange and green ; and he trusted orange and green 
 would ever combine, and that no rude hand would rend 
 them asunder." 
 
 He reminded the farmers that there was another 
 class besides themselves who needed protection. 
 
 " Every farmer should be bound not only to provide 
 neat cottages on their farms, but to provide also plots 
 of ground for the labourers and their families whom 
 he employed in the cultivation of his land." 
 
 Kev. John Kinnear, D.D., the Presbyterian minister 
 of the town, applauded the career of the League. It 
 had been founded by men of large intellect, and its 
 bases were laid on the principles of justice. Its first 
 success must be sought in Parliament ; and the result 
 lay with the electors ; let them catechise candidates 
 strictly ; if they answered to their satisfaction on the 
 catechism of Tenant-right let them bid them God- 
 speed, but not otherwise.^ 
 
 The Kev. Edward Glacken, P.P., also promised suc- 
 cess, on condition that their union was maintained ; 
 
 1 Mr. Kinnear was afterwards one of the members of Parlia- 
 ment for the county Donegal, and has helped to secure the victory 
 which he predicted. 
 
94 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 and the Very Eev. William Brown described the 
 urgent need of straining every sinew for success. On 
 his way to Letterkenny that day he had seen 1,000 
 acres of waste land which could be profitably cultivated 
 by men squandering away their lives in poorhouses. 
 
 " In 1846 lie had invited the farmers to pay a small snm weekly 
 to employ the poor ; but what was their answer ? That if they 
 expended their money in improvements the landlords would 
 come, in a year or two, and charge them an additional rent in 
 consequence. He suggested the propriety of asking leases ; but 
 they replied that leases were of no value, as the land was not 
 worth the present rent. This state of things in his own parish 
 taught him the necessity of the two great points contended for by 
 the League — Valuation and Fixity of Tenure." 
 
 Mr. Duffy explained and vindicated the creed of the 
 League. The tenants' property in work done on their 
 farms by their own hands or at their own cost was 
 denied ; but their claim did not stop there. 
 
 " That great Courthouse on the hill (he said), from 
 which the High Sheriff has shut us out to-day, is a 
 tenant's improvement. That bridge over the Struel, 
 behind our back ; those roads on which you marched 
 to the meeting to-day, are tenants' improvements. 
 Your money made them, and they are part of your 
 stake in the country. They are part of the purchase 
 money you have paid for perpetuity of tenure. Against 
 perpetuity a new objection has been started by the 
 Times, and echoed by every enemy of the League. * If 
 we give the tenant farmer perpetuity (they exclaim) we 
 will next be bound to cons der the condition of the 
 labourer.' Why, sir, I rejoice in the necessity. There 
 are still nearly a million of labourers in Ireland ; and 
 
RECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTRY. 95 
 
 any arrangement that left them helpless beggars in the 
 land no honest man would accept as a settlement of the 
 land question." 
 
 He warned them that the cause for which they were 
 fighting was in effect their existence as a people — - 
 
 " As I passed through the titular capital of Donegal 
 the other day, the withered town of Lifford, dead as 
 Herculaneum or Pompeii, I thought it was a significant 
 type of what the exterminators would make of all 
 Ireland if we failed to arrest them. There Avas the 
 enormous jail, the stately courthouse, a palace for the 
 police, lodgings for my lords the judges, the messroom 
 of their worships the grand jury ; but not a human 
 creature on the streets, not a pulse of industry — nothing 
 but the grim, silent castles of authority and the miser- 
 able cabins of the poor. And this is our fate — to have 
 nothing left of this ancient nation but a herd of miser- 
 able peasants and their hard taskmasters, if we cannot 
 save ourselves." 
 
 The freeholders of Clare played a decisive part in 
 the establishment of religious liberty in 1829, but in 
 recent years they had been scourged by famine and by 
 the more deadly plague of exterminating landlords, 
 till public spirit was nearly extinguished. It had 
 fallen so low that Colonel Vandeleur, the worst ex- 
 terminator, got elected to Parliament for the county 
 which he had helped to lay waste. It was not a pro- 
 mising task to move such a population to self-assertion, 
 but the Leaorue undertook it. While Doneg^al met at 
 Letterkenny, Clare was meeting at Ennis. The Council 
 
96 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 sent the Rev. Mr. Black, P.M., and Rev. William Rintoul, 
 P.M., as delegates from the North ; and Mr. Lucas, Mr. 
 Lalor, and Mr. Connor from the headquarters of the 
 League. The attendance was considerable, the peas- 
 antry marching into the town by parishes, led by their 
 local clergy, as at the historic election of 1828; and 
 the traders of Ennis swelled the popular muster. 
 
 Mr. Black described the principles on which he and 
 his class had joined the movement. They did not 
 desire to deny any of the landlords' legitimate rights. 
 They held and taught that he was entitled to a fair rent, 
 but they insisted that the same legal security should 
 be spread over the property created by the tenant's toil 
 and industry as over the mansion of the pampered 
 lord who is clothed in purple, and fares sumptuously 
 every day. 
 
 " I was asked (he said) by a landlord what business 
 have the clergy with all this. I could give an answer, 
 which, like an arrow, would pierce his conscience. What 
 business had Elijah the Tishbite with Ahab when he 
 took by violence Naboth's vineyard ? Ahab was the 
 king of Israel ; he coveted the vineyard of Naboth ; he 
 took it by violence, and the prophet of the Lord was 
 sent to tell the oppressor of his sin and coming 
 punishment." 
 
 Rev. Mr. Rintoul followed in the same strain. 
 Religion required him not only to love his neighbour 
 but also to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to 
 visit the widow and the fatherless in their affliction ; 
 
EECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTRY. 97 
 
 and it required him to do good to all men without dis- 
 tinction ; and in coming to the South, in place of 
 bartering his convictions, as the Dioblin Evening Mail 
 suggested, he was carrying out the religious principles 
 that should influence all Christians. 
 
 Mr. Lucas spoke a language which came still closer 
 to the bosoms and business of the people — 
 
 "We have now (he said) come to the extreme south- 
 west of Ireland — to that country which may be freely 
 called the Golgotha of Ireland, the place of skulls and 
 skeletons— the classic land of famine and fever-sheds 
 — the county in which starvation-deaths are regarded 
 as natural deaths ; in which the crowbar brigade assist 
 at many a ghastly tragedy ; in which the population of 
 two or three moderately-sized towns are shut up within 
 the walls of the Ennis Workhouse and its auxiliaries ; 
 and in which every possible persecution is committed 
 against the tenant, on whom the law bestows no pro- 
 tection. ... I think I have a right to say that there 
 are twelve thousand adults in the workhouses of this 
 country, who, if landlord cruelty and inhumanity had 
 not driven them from their farms and made them the 
 miserable recipients of alms, would be here to-day to 
 swell this meeting." 
 
 Some of the local clergy, who had striven hard to 
 keep public spirit from extinction, rejoiced in the hope 
 of effectual help, and exhorted the people to second the 
 efforts of the League.^ The customary local arrange- 
 
 1 Notably Father Vanghan, P.P., of Ruan and Dysart ; Father 
 Quaed, P.P., of Callaghan's Mills; and Father Sheehy. The 
 contribution to the League was fixed at £300. 
 
 H 
 
98 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 ments were made, and the deputation proceeded to the 
 county of Waterford, which met on the 1st of November. 
 It is unnecessary to follow the march of the League in 
 detail. Ten thousand farmers of Waterford, which, 
 like Monaghan and Clare, had struck an effectual blow 
 in the contest for Catholic Emancipation, assembled on 
 the hill of Ballybracken, overlooking the city, declared 
 for valuation and perpetuity, and pledged the county to 
 contribute £600 to the League Fund. Westmeath 
 mustered immediately afterwards at Mullingar, and 
 the entire county, from the Bridge of Athlone to the 
 Bog of Allen, was represented by competent local men. 
 The High Sheriff granted the Courthouse for the 
 meeting, but it proved too small for the immense 
 attendance, and the county Members were present, and, 
 failing to satisfy the people, were warned that they 
 must make room for better men. Dr. Kearney, a suave 
 dignified parish priest, and Father Mullen, a vigorous 
 young curate, explained the wants and feelings of the 
 district in plain popular language, and Mr. Lucas and 
 Mr. Fitzgibbon expounded the principles of the League. 
 The work of local organisation was performed in 
 the manner which had now become familiar to the 
 people. 
 
 It was no longer possible to furnish deputations as 
 quickly as they were demanded. Carlow, Longford, 
 Kildare, Mayo, and Cork announced that they were 
 
RECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTRY. 99 
 
 ready to move as soon as the League could meet them. 
 But the available missionaries did not exceed a dozen. 
 The movement could not now be arrested, however, and 
 the East Kidinsr of Cork met at Mallow without a 
 deputation. The chair was taken by Dr. Power, M P., 
 who, in the absence of the founders of the League, 
 thought it safe to affirm that however good their 
 principles might be. Parliament would never accept 
 them. Dr. Power was one of the impostors smuggled 
 into Parliament by Mr. John O'Connell after his 
 father's death, who declined to take a pledge against 
 place-beggiog as an insult. While he was disparaging 
 the principles of the League from the chair of a League 
 meeting this adroit gentleman was negotiating with 
 the Whig Government to exchange his county seat 
 for the government of a crown colony. 
 
 The Rev. Justin M'Carthy^ defended the funda- 
 mental principles of Valuation and Perpetuity, and 
 Father Corkran indicated the motif of the movement — 
 
 "I am asked by the landlords (he said) 'Why do 
 you interfere ? ' Because my Master who is in Heaven 
 told me to bind up the wounds of the bruised and 
 bleedinsf man on the roadside, and pour oil into them. 
 Great God ! how many of them have I seen ! And if 
 it be mercy to save one man from the danger of death, 
 what exalted mercy must it be to save thousands from 
 the slow death of starvation ! " 
 
 1 Uncle of Mr. Justin M'Cartli}^, M.P. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 The Bishop of Cloyne wrote to express his sympathy 
 and concurrence ; ^ but the country missed what was 
 now the supreme charm of public demonstrations, the 
 union of Orange and Green. It was the first at which 
 no Northern had appeared. 
 
 The time had nearly come to hold the first general 
 meeting^ of the Leao^ue, at which the Council would 
 report progress. The}^ had marvellous progress to 
 report. The greatest counties of Ireland had promptly 
 declared for their programme, half the fund they de- 
 manded was already voted, and new districts, North and 
 South, were preparing to be enrolled. They were about to 
 knock at the gates of Derr}^, and the gates of Limerick, 
 once the citadels of contending armies, and they were 
 assured of a cordial welcome in both. Hope, which 
 had died out of the hearts of the people, rekindled like 
 a torch ; money, which had been long refused for all 
 political purposes, came in a golden tide. They had 
 commenced in autumn, and when the winter was half 
 over local societies were planted in nineteen counties 
 
 1 " Surely no man — I shall not say with a Christian, but even 
 with a heart of flesh in his bosom — can contemplate unmoved such 
 harrowing scenes, unless all the kindlier feelings and sensibilities 
 of our common nature be extinguished within Mm. Under those 
 circumstances, I deem it the bounden duty of every man, no 
 matter what his rank or order, who values the existence of order 
 among us, to aid and assist in every legal and constitutional effort 
 to introduce and establish fair and equitable relations between 
 our landlords and tenants." — Letter of the Right Rev. Dr. Murphy. 
 
EECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTEY. 101 
 
 out of thirty-two : an agency which gave the Council 
 more eyes than Argus and more hands than Briareus ; 
 and, above all, the bases for obtaining a Parliamentary 
 party were being silently laid. More than thirty con- 
 stituencies had pledged themselves to elect only 
 Leaguers, prepared to work in and out of Parliament 
 for the establishment of our principles. Other signs of 
 success were not wanting. Abatements of rent were 
 constantly reported in the newspapers. The Marquis 
 of Ormond, the Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord Ashburton, 
 and other proprietors, had adopted the practice of 
 public valuation. In England one of the Protectionist 
 leaders, the Marquis of Granby, told his tenantry that 
 he would select two men acquainted with their feelings 
 and their wants to consider what their rents ought in 
 reason and justice to be. The work accomplished was 
 estimated alike by men of widely different politics. A 
 hard-working barrister declared that it had struck a blow 
 which, in the words of Grattan, would " resound through 
 history " in asserting the great principle that the rights 
 of humanity were paramount to the rights of property. 
 And a journalist living in a focus of factions recognised 
 that it stood high above all party feeling. " No petty 
 intolerance," he affirmed, " no rivalry for leadership, no 
 partisan bigotry, intruded on its peaceful course " ; and 
 he pronounced that the independent yeomen of Fer- 
 managh " would give the southern brogue as hearty a 
 
102 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 reception in Enniskillen as the old Scottish twang of 
 the Covenant was greeted with beyond the Boyne." 
 The survivors of the Young Ireland poets brought to 
 the movement the inspiration of song. An English 
 poet^ foreshadowed the new Ireland which the League 
 might create — 
 
 " Studded with cheerful homesteads fair to see, 
 With garden grace and household symmetry, 
 How grand the wide-browed peasant's manly mien ! 
 How sweet the matron's smile serene ! 
 Oh happy, happy land ! " 
 
 The common sentiment of the time was " Each for 
 all, and all for each;" and it was with genuine and 
 touching piety an eminent ecclesiastical Leaguer ex- 
 claimed, when the result was laid before him, " Glory 
 be to God on High, and on Earth peace to men of 
 goodwill." 
 
 1 W. J. Linton, the artist, who wrote in the Nation under the 
 nom de plume of "Spartacus." 
 
KECEPTION OF THE LEAGUE BY THE COUNTEY. 103 
 
 NOTES ON CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DEPUTATIONS. 
 
 Comic incidents sometimes befell tlie depntationists. On one 
 occasion I was tlie guest of a young poet ; when dinner was over 
 he locked his study door to secure an uninterrupted tete-a-tete, 
 and then produced — literally — a tragedy and two epic poems, on 
 which I was to favour him with my candid opinion. In another 
 district a hospitable country priest insisted on providing shelter 
 for an entire deputation. Next morning the supply of towels 
 ran short, and a Dublin dandy rang for more. Lucas, returning 
 from an early walk, came into the bedroom (which had more 
 than one occupant) in time to hear the gentleman's Avants. 
 " More towels," he said with the profound gravity which is the 
 basis of Saxon humour, " Oh, certainly ; is there anything else 
 you would like to mention ? It was very negligent of our host 
 (a country curate) not to assign a body servant to each of us to 
 look after his special requirements." 
 
 It is a common experience of life that if every pleasure com- 
 prises unexpected pain, almost every labour has unexpected com- 
 pensations. Many of the journeys to the country were as 
 refreshing as open air, agreeable society, and exciting conversation 
 could make them to dusty citizens. Some of the talks on the 
 business in hand, on experience of life, on books and men, were 
 memorable. I can recall the surprise of his associates when Lucas 
 illustrated his opinion of Thackeray's ballads by reciting from 
 memory the story of Jacob Omnium's " Lost Hoss," as narrated 
 by Policeman X. And we were becoming more familiar with 
 the attractions of the country and the habits of the people — a 
 study which a lifetime does not exhaust. Here is a scrap from 
 the private letter of one deputationist in a prosperous district — 
 
 " Heavens ! but I have had such delicious days. This is a 
 country for demigods to dwell in — men to make love in, or 
 
104 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 worship God. Such trees, siicli grass, such skies, siicli air, and 
 the river, and the old holy mounts ! And the friendly people. 
 And here there is actually no appearance of poverty, and the 
 crops look well and the people hopeful." 
 
 Another philosophised in a different vein — 
 
 " A great physiognomist of nature might write a book on the 
 character of races, as exhibited in their agricultural fences ; and 
 tell us, perhaps, why the Galwayman erects miles of loose, ragged 
 stone walls, so feeble and rickety that a vigorous brogue might 
 kick them down of a morning, and often does ; while the 
 Wexfordian raises a fence that would shut out the waters of the 
 Ehine around every patch of his little holding. ' Ah,' exclaimed 
 an impetuous friend, ^what incomparable peasant proprietors 
 these fellows would make, when they foster the landlord's acres so 
 tenderly ! '" i 
 
 ^ Nation Correspondence. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TROUBLES. 
 
 In popular movements the control has a tendency 
 to fall into the hands of an informal Cabinet. The 
 men who take most pains naturally obtain most power. 
 There is rarely any special appointment to such an 
 office, it springs from the nature of things ; a good 
 deal probably from a silent concurrence in the national 
 proverb that where all are captains the ship sinks, but 
 most of all from the fact that there are not many men 
 who will undertake constant and onerous labour when 
 there is not a stiver of pay. The duties of one of 
 the leaders in such a movement are not confined to 
 the council room, still less to the platform : his essen- 
 tial and governing power is exercised in correspondence 
 and consultations which correct misapprehensions and 
 smooth away difficulties. The office requires constant 
 attention to details, patience with folly in all its forms, 
 
106 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 and a decision of character which can act promptly in 
 emergencies. 
 
 The most indispensable element in the new organi- 
 sation was the Northern contingent. Dr. M'Knight 
 was their undisputed leader. He had won the confi- 
 dence of Ulster, and deserved it by a genuine devotion 
 to the interest of the tenant-farmers. For their sake 
 he transformed himself in middle-age from a dreamer 
 loitering in the flowered fields of literature and philo- 
 sophy, into a practical man, armed with Blue Books and 
 Acts of Parliament. He had, indeed, always a lean- 
 ing to metaphysics, which gave a speculative character 
 to his thinking, but he corrected it by constant atten- 
 tion to details. He was earnest, acute, well-informed, 
 and on the social side as free from bigotry or distrust 
 as any man with his discipline and experience could 
 be expected to be. He was the incarnation of cautious 
 good sense, little disturbed by passion or prejudice, 
 and he entered into the League fixedly determined 
 that it should never fail from any fault of his. He 
 could rarely attend the preparatory meetings, but I 
 was in constant correspondence with him in relation 
 to whatever was done or projected, and we had always 
 the advantage of his advice, which was sound and 
 generous, but cautious and discreet. 
 
 The confidence of the Catholic clergy was chiefly 
 given to Frederick Lucas. He was a man of pro- 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TROUBLES. 107 
 
 digious industry, and could always be counted on to 
 be at his post. Though he was easily moved by the 
 moral indignation which is never wanting in a pro- 
 found and generous nature, it was held in check by 
 patience and an imperturbable composure. In discourse 
 he was close and vigorous, rarely lifted by imagination 
 or passion above the lively, lucid, common sense fittest 
 for the transaction of business in popular assemblies. 
 Those who saw him indefatigable in committees and 
 conferences knew imperfectly the constant and ex- 
 hausting labours he undertook elsewhere. His posi- 
 tion imposed a wide correspondence and constant in- 
 terviews with persons from all parts of the country ; 
 he not only edited, but in great part wrote, a weekly 
 paper, and he watched over the business of the League 
 with minute attention. He had little sympathy with 
 the Nationalists who scorned any project falling short 
 of self-government ; and still less with the Whigs who 
 scorned any project which had not received the pre- 
 liminary sanction of English statesmen. But he ful- 
 filled the condition which Pascal considers the evi- 
 dence of a nature fit to control and reconcile, which 
 does not go to either extreme, but touches both, and 
 fills the space between. He was not alone a writer 
 and thinker ; he possessed the fundamental condition 
 of success in politics — the capacity for action ; and he 
 had, besides, the physical equipment all but indispen- 
 
108 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 sable to public success — a massive head, a deep chest, 
 a full and flexible voice, and the general robustness 
 which belongs to such an organisation.-^ 
 
 Mr. Henry Fitzgibbon was a draper, with a good 
 deal of the public spirit with which Swift endowed 
 an imaginary " drapier " a century earlier. One of his 
 brothers was a successful barrister; another is still 
 remembered in London as a man with a grievance. He 
 had been an officer of militia in Upper Canada, and was 
 persuaded that his promptitude saved that colony to the 
 British Crown in the troubles of 1837 — a belief which 
 the British Crown apparently did not share. Henry 
 Fitzgibbon had intelligence and generous sympathies, 
 and represented adequately the Protestant shopkeepers 
 of Dublin, both in their interests and their prejudices. 
 
 ^ Lucas had a simple manliness in transacting business which 
 was a lesson to Irish pride. There were several writers of the 
 Nation^ Freeman, and other Irish journals on the League Council 
 from time to time, and there was probably not one of them who 
 would not have been insulted at the proposal of taking a sub- 
 scription for his ]3aper, and transacting business in a place where 
 he attended for public ends. They saw with amazement, and not 
 without scorn I fear, Lucas counting the shillings paid by some 
 country priest for his subscription to the Tahlet, and giving him 
 a receipt with as little sense of incongruity as if it were the 
 coupon of a national loan. His journal addressed itself to 
 clerical readers mainly, and, as I learned from himself, yielded 
 an income on an Apostolic scale. He accepted "holy poverty " 
 cheerfully as one of the conditions of the task which he had 
 undertaken. 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TROUBLES. 109 
 
 He felt keenly the wrongs inflicted on tenant-farmers; 
 but in other respects accepted the British connection 
 with all its penalties rather than face the perils sup- 
 posed to reside in a native Parliament. 
 
 John Shea Lalor had been a lawyer and a landed 
 proprietor — both on a limited scale ; but the disorders 
 of the time broke up his relations, not only with his 
 profession but with . his estate, which fell into the 
 hands of the new Land Court. He was a man of 
 popular talents, had long experience of the country, 
 and possessed in an extraordinary degree the power 
 of recalling it with dramatic effect. He was an actor 
 in the sense that Demosthenes considered acting" 
 an essential part of oratory, and could make the 
 commonplaces of politics shine with unexpected light. 
 He entered on his duties of honorary secretary with 
 the zeal of a new Minister of State. 
 
 I have already named in connection with public 
 meetings the most energetic of the ecclesiastical 
 Leaguers; but some of the most laborious and influ- 
 ential never mounted a platform. I can still recall 
 Father Ennis, from the diocese of Meath, a man of 
 sweet and gentle disposition, which, when it is united 
 to honesty of purpose, wins confidence more than 
 great ability ; Father Dowling, from the same diocese, 
 who gave to the details and the accounts the care a 
 selfish man bestows upon his own ledger and day book ; 
 
110 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 Father Aylward, from Ossory, ex-President of the 
 College of Kilkenny, silent and retiring, but with the 
 courage of a lion ; Father Bernard Daly, a handsome 
 young priest from Dublin, who had been a Young Ire- 
 lander in '48 — a man of fertile and cultivated intellect, 
 and an apostolic love of the suffering people ; the 
 two Dobbins, Presbyterian clergymen, and brothers, I 
 believe, but who only resembled each other in zeal 
 for the common cause. 
 
 The condition of Ireland was not favourable to the 
 growth of trained capacity. The primary and inter- 
 mediate schools were bad, and there were no public 
 functions to discipline men in the transaction of busi- 
 ness. The insight which flashes a sudden light upon 
 a point at issue belongs to the national genius, but 
 the practice of collecting knowledge patiently, and 
 pondering over it till guiding principles are attained, 
 was rare, and the movement at its outset depended 
 on the men I have indicated and one or two others. 
 
 The unbroken and unexampled success which had 
 attended the League for three months furnishes an 
 adequate measure of their silent labours. The process 
 by which the convictions of the ideaful few become 
 the common opinion of a community has seldom 
 worked more decisively. But it is rarely the fortune 
 of human affairs to long resemble a triumphal march 
 The inevitable check may be expected ; and political 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TROUBLES. Ill 
 
 sagacity consists in a larger degree in the habit of 
 anticipating and providing against it. 
 
 Their first serious embarrassment was the with- 
 drawal from the Council of John and Wilson Gray, 
 who had brought a fund of practical sagacity to its 
 deliberations.^ They desired to disconnect the local 
 societies from the League, under the apprehension that 
 the peasantry would be sure to run into illegal excesses 
 for which the Council would be responsible. The 
 leading members, lay and clerical, were of a different 
 opinion ; they considered the local societies the strength 
 of the League, and that, exactly in proportion as they 
 spread, illegality would diminish. For the League 
 would have what no Government possessed — two or 
 more officers in every parish. North or South, enjoying 
 the confidence of the people and bound by their 
 profession to watch over the public safety. The Grays 
 replied that to insist on their opinions, which they were 
 bound to do if they remained, must create dissension 
 and to avoid this evil they would retire. We next 
 heard from the North that our friends there were paying 
 some of the penalties of patriotism. Certain professors 
 of the Queen's College, Belfast, complained that the 
 organ of the General Assembly was edited by a man 
 committed to dangerous opinions, and they demanded 
 
 1 The Messrs. Gray were the principal proprietors of the 
 Freemari's Journal. 
 
112 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 to have Dr. M'Knight ousted from that office. The 
 landlord Press in Ulster kept up a lively cannonade on 
 Mr. E-ogers, Mr. Bell, and the other Presbyterian 
 Leaguers, and a few of their brethren lost no oppor- 
 tunity of expressing their displeasure with the new 
 movement. And Mr. John O'Connell announced once 
 a week that Mr. Duffy had proved a dangerous leader 
 in 1848, and would be sure to tempt the people into 
 illegal courses. These were troubles which might have 
 been anticipated ; but a more alarming danger sprang 
 up in a quarter where nothing was foreseen. It was 
 Lord John Russell who gave the League its first 
 serious check. 
 
 Towards the close of 1850 the Pope placed the 
 control of ecclesiastical affairs among the Catholics of 
 England on a new footing. The Bishops since the 
 seventeenth century had been named Yicars- Apostolic, 
 and, after a long eclipse, he revived the titles, organisa- 
 tion, and jurisdiction of the Hierarchy as they originally 
 existed. The Court of Rome is not accustomed to act 
 rashly, and it had taken unusual precautions in this 
 business. A year earlier Lord John Russell, then 
 Prime Minister, presented a scheme to Parliament with 
 a view to revive diplomatic relations with the Holy See, 
 and his father-in-law, the Earl of Minto, who was in 
 Rome on this business at the time, was shown the 
 proposed arrangement for the new Hierarchy, to which 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIEST TROUBLES. 113 
 
 he made no objection. Under ordinary circumstances 
 the transaction would have scarcely attracted attention 
 in England, for the Catholics, in organising their 
 Church, did no more than Methodists, Presbyterians, 
 Independents, and other sects of Protestant Dissenters 
 Avere in the habit of doing^. But there had been 
 numerous conversions to Catholicity among the pro- 
 pertied and cultivated class, and especially among the 
 clergy of the Established Church, and the middle and 
 lower orders were amazed and angry. The Whig 
 Government at this time, as always happened under 
 the feeble lead of Lord John Russell, had lost public 
 confidence, and he suddenly bethought him that he 
 might regain it by making himself the mouthpiece of 
 resistance to this Papal aggression. Without consulting 
 his colleagues, he wrote a letter to the Bishop of 
 Durham on the transaction, which was an appeal to 
 the most sectarian passions. The sudden zeal for the 
 Church of a man who pendulated in his own religious 
 attendance between a Dissenting Chapel and a gor- 
 geous Puseyite Church, and who had clambered to 
 office by demanding the appropriation to secular 
 purposes of Church property in Ireland, was well 
 understood to be a party device. But his precise 
 motive was anxiously scrutinised. In England the 
 desire to make his position in the Treasury more 
 secure was considered motive enough ; in Ireland there 
 
 I 
 
114 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AXD SOUTH. 
 
 was a suspicion that he aimed to break up a con- 
 federacy which he hated and feared. For "the first 
 time for generations the Irish people were united. 
 They were laying the foundations of a Parliamentary 
 Party which might hold the Whig Ministry and all 
 succeeding Ministries at its mercy, and to counteract 
 this danger they were persuaded he had had recourse 
 to the traditional weapon, sharpened in succeeding 
 generations by the skill of Bacon, Strafford, Boulter, 
 and Saurin, and which often struck as silently and 
 surely as death — religious bigotry. The Northerns had 
 entered the League with the most generous intentions, 
 and had pacified, if they had not converted, the Orange- 
 men ; but to raise religious questions was to carry a 
 torch among gunpowder. The business did not pro- 
 perly concern Ireland, and we hoped for a time that it 
 might be dealt with as an English question, in which, 
 while we insisted upon the right of Christian com- 
 munities to manao^e their own ecclesiastical afiairs 
 according to their own will and conscience, we were 
 not called upon to take a more active part in the 
 contest than the English Catholic community took in 
 Irish affairs. Some marplots demanded a series of 
 county meetings in Ireland to protest against the 
 Durham letters, insisting that no reasonable Protest- 
 ant could object to such a defensive movement. But 
 the LeaoTie wanted the assistance of unreasonable 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TEOUBLES. 115 
 
 Protestants, of Orangemen, and of bigots. Its strength 
 a,nd success sprang from this unprecedented combina- 
 tion; and if it were dissolved by any mischance, the 
 exterminator would be unchecked, and another million 
 of the Irish race would die in torture and ignominy. 
 Meantime England took fire ; passionate denunciations 
 of Pope and Popery were heard on all sides, and every 
 post brought exhortations to Irish Protestants to join 
 their brethren against the common enemy. The 
 problem whether the North and South could act 
 together could scarcely have been subjected to a more 
 sudden and crucial test. 
 
 Immediately after this difficulty arose, the county of 
 Louth met at Dundalk, and both parties to the new 
 union behaved admirably. The Chairman an aged 
 clergyman,^ announced that the county would be won 
 for the League, and by the League, against all com- 
 petitors — 
 
 " I know this county well (he said). I have served 
 in all parts of it, from the bar of the Boyne to the 
 borders of Monaghan. I have taken an active j^art in 
 establishing and sustaining the registry. If I, joined by 
 all the priests of the county, and all the Protestant 
 rectors of the county, and all the landlords of the 
 county, put forward candidates opposed to Tenant 
 Bight, we would inevitably be defeated.' 
 
 Letters from the county and borough members were 
 read. Mr. Bellew, head of a Catholic family which 
 1 Rev. Mr. Bannon, P.P. 
 
 I 2 
 
116 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 had ugly traditional relations witli the Castle, under- 
 stood that the Government were about to take up the 
 question, and considered a county meeting premature ; 
 Mr. Torrens M'Cullagh/ though unable to attend, 
 heartily concurred in the object of the movement; 
 but Mr. Chichester Fortescue was of a widely different 
 opinion. He was for reasonable reforms ; but the 
 proposals of the League were manifestly not reasonable. 
 He was quite willing to support a measure acknow- 
 ledging the right of the tenant to be reimbursed for 
 hona fide, unexhausted, improvements executed by him 
 upon his farm, either by a continued occupancy at the 
 same rent, or, in case he was dispossessed, by compen- 
 sation in money. But what the League desired he 
 unequivocally repudiated — 
 
 " A right of occupancy beyond the term of the 
 contract made between owner and occupier (he said) 
 is a right which I cannot acknowledge ; and the prin- 
 ciple of regulating rents by public authority, is a prin- 
 ciple, in my opinion, so unsound, that no legislature 
 would entertain it for a moment. Men misfht as well 
 ask to be protected against the exactions of the retail 
 dealer, or to have their wages fixed, by some legislative 
 enactment." 
 
 His elder brother, Mr. Thomas Fortescue, after- 
 wards created a peer — not in recognition of his wisdom 
 and foresight, it may be hoped — was still more 
 emphatic in his condemnation — 
 
 ^ The present Mr. M'Ciillagli Torrens. 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIEST TROUBLES. 117 
 
 "I look U230I1 the so-called tenant-right movement 
 {he said) as mischievous in its immediate effects, and 
 its avowed objects of fixety of tenure and compulsory 
 valuation of land as more suited to those American 
 States which repudiated their liabilities than to the 
 British Islands, where a respect for mutual agreements 
 and vested rights has always characterised our legis- 
 lation." 
 
 These stroncr declarations furnish a convenient 
 instrument for measuring the work done by the 
 League in sowing new opinions ; for Mr„ Chichester 
 Fortescue is now Lord Carlingford, having been sent 
 to the Upper House by Mr. Gladstone for the specific 
 purpose I of defending a Land Bill which embodied, 
 and has since carried into law, the precise principles 
 which he so unreservedly condemned. 
 
 The Durham letter was in all men's minds, and 
 Mr. Girdwood, on behalf of Ulster, took his stand 
 against it on the moment. He warned the meeting 
 that this stroke was probably devised and would 
 certainly be employed by the landlords, to sow 
 dissension between North and South. To create 
 division was probably Lord John Russell's motive, 
 and the Grand Orange Lodge had already seconded 
 this purpose. In an address on their behalf, signed 
 by Lord Enniskillen, as Bight Worshipful Grand 
 Master, there was no allusion to the kicks and cuffs 
 given by Bussell and his colleagues to the Orange 
 body. On the contrary, true to his class interest, 
 
118 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 he hastened to confederate with the Whig Minister 
 in his attempt to disunite the Irish people.^ 
 
 The Eev. JuHus M'Cullagh, P.M., cited the admoni- 
 tions of Luther to the German aristocracy as ver}^ 
 suitable to the existing condition of Ireland — Luther, 
 who, it might be presumed, was a better Protestant 
 than Lord John Russell — 
 
 " Ye princes, ye men of power (Luther says), you 
 lavish in fine clothes, fine castles, fine eating and 
 drinking, the peasant's hard-won produce, and what 
 you must do first and foremost is, to put a stop to all 
 this vain luxury of yours, to close up the holes through 
 which this money runs, so that you may leave some 
 little part in the peasant's pocket." 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Lennon, a priest of wide popular 
 influence, warned the men of Louth that it was a 
 known and proved enemy did this thiug, and for an 
 evil purpose — 
 
 " Let no Whig Minister cajole the people into the 
 belief that it is about their faith or religion he is 
 concerned. He has heard of your organisation in this 
 great cj^uestion, and he would like to disunite you 
 according to the accursed policy of our rulers, 'Divide 
 and govern.' But the advocates of the Tenant League 
 are quite wide awake, and will not be caught in the 
 net. Union is strens^th — division is weakness and 
 rum. 
 
 1 The suspicion that the jdIous zeal of the WHgs concealed 
 some pohtical aim was greatly strengthened by a declaration of 
 Joseph Hume that its true object was to turn away the attention 
 of the people from indispensable political and financial reforms. 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TROUBLES. 119 
 
 Mr. Duffy reminded them how much the League had 
 accomplished, and how important it was to their 
 enemies to break up the organisation which stood like 
 a guardian angel between the people and their op- 
 pressors. The great Catholic Association had made 
 little progress for the first year of its existence. The 
 Anti-Corn-law League, as one of its leaders assured 
 him, had lost two years in making mistakes. He 
 trusted the Tenant League had not made any serious 
 mistakes ; it certainly had not lost any time — 
 
 " Its progress looked like necromancy ; it looked like 
 a miracle ; it looked like — and was it not ? — the special 
 providence of God to unite the North and South. 
 Swift, Grattan, and O'Connell had tried it in vain ; but, 
 in the fulness of time, and by infinitely weaker hands, 
 the work was done. Before a month from the founda- 
 tion of the League every journal in the British 
 dominions was debating the Land question in L^eland. 
 The League had effected a great union — the Union 
 with the North ; but a greater remained to be 
 accomplished — a union with the manufacturers of 
 Manchester and the artisans of Birmingham ; a union 
 with the Free Church party in Scotland, plundered by 
 landlords; a union with the Colonial interest in the 
 British Parliament, who are steadily forming an organ- 
 ised power in the House of Commons. But if all this 
 were done, the crowning work still remained — to create 
 a Parliamentary Party pledged to disregard all party 
 considerations in the pursuit of tenant-right." 
 
 The general meeting of the League, which was 
 attended by the same representative men from North 
 
120 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 and South, encountered the risk of sectarian quarrels 
 with courage and frankness. They adopted a resolu- 
 tion declarinof that no artifices or intricrue of our 
 enemies should be allowed to interrupt that long- 
 desired union of creeds and classes which the present 
 movement had induced, and on which its ultimate suc- 
 cess so mainly depended. The Rev. Mr. Cahill ilhistrated 
 the need of union in a spirit of passionate conviction. 
 Lord John Russell's remedy for landlord wrongs was 
 to renew the cry of " Down with the Pope ! " — 
 
 "Down with the Pope (he said), but will that revive 
 the six hundred victims that were flung coffinless into 
 one monster grave at Skibbereen ? Yes, clown with the 
 Pope ! but will that raise up from their crumbled ruins 
 the 17,865 houses which the exterminators in two short 
 years have levelled in the dust ? Down with the Pope ! 
 but will that give food or drink or raiment to those 
 wretched outcasts of landlord barbarism who are sucking 
 subsistence from the rotten turnip — who are burning 
 with fever in some roofless shed — without a drop to 
 cool their parched lips, or who are wet with the dew 
 and rains of Heaven — as they crouch without shelter or 
 covering amid the scattered fragments of their once 
 loved homes ? Down with the Pope ! but will that 
 clear our roadstead of those ships which are sweeping 
 away the strength, and bone, and wealth of our country, 
 or bring back those hapless exiles who roam by the 
 stagnant swamps, and over the horrid plains and desolate 
 prairies of a distant land, cursing the laws that drove 
 them from the green fields they never again will see ? " 
 
 He warned the Whisc intrigjuers that their device 
 would fail — 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TROUBLES. 121 
 
 " We have drawn around it tlie circle of charity 
 which discord cannot enter. In this blessed union we 
 have found our cure and our remedy. It will force you 
 and your successors to treat us with respect and govern 
 us with justice — it will muzzle the bloody jaws of 
 ravening landlords. It will not revive the dead, but it 
 will save the living ; and in the words of Davis, by its 
 magic influence, in spite of landlords and Government, 
 we will win the rights which we seek — 
 
 " Landlords fooled ns, 
 
 England ruled ns, 
 Hounding us on to make us tkeir prey ; 
 But in their despite the Irish unite, 
 
 And Orange and Green 
 
 Will carry the day." 
 
 The landlords held a No-Popery meeting in the 
 Rotunda, led by the Earl of Enniskillen and a following 
 of the smaller gentry ; and their journals enumerated 
 the dangers by which the Church of the Empire was 
 menaced by the intrigues of Rome. But they made 
 little real progress ; a League meeting was held in 
 Armagh, the seat of the Primacy, with a Presbyterian 
 Minister in the chair,^ and an attempt to induce the 
 local Orangemen to break it up altogether failed. 
 
 The Northern leaders continued on the alert, and 
 gave forth no uncertain sound — 
 
 " In the present state of public matters (Dr. M'Knight 
 wrote), when sectarian bitterness is organised and 
 
 •^ Rev. Gunn Browne. While this volume is passing through 
 the press I read with satisfaction a declaration of Mr. Browne in 
 favour of Home Rule as proposed by Mr. Gladstone. 
 
122 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 encouraged under the auspices of Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment itself, I felt anxious, as a Northern Presbyterian, 
 to prove to my Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen of 
 the South that this most contemptible, wretched policy 
 has in no degree affected the right-hearted tenant-right 
 men of the North, who are as earnest and as cordial as 
 ever in the maintenance of fraternal union with the 
 South." 
 
 Mr. Bell was equally emphatic — 
 
 " No man (he said) could condemn more than he did 
 the letter of Lord John Russell ; as an Irishman, as an 
 Ulsterman, as a friend to civil and religious liberty, he 
 repudiated and denounced it." 
 
 The danger of Ireland being diverted from her real 
 and urgent business seemed effectually overcome. 
 
 But when Parliament met, a new peril disclosed 
 itself. The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, introduced by 
 the Whig Government, extended not merely to England, 
 but to Ireland, where no ground of complaint had been 
 given. If public acts and professions were any security 
 for public conduct, no party were more committed 
 against such a policy than the Whigs. They had 
 recently appointed Irish Catholic Bishops to honorary 
 offices by their titles, and gave them precedence in 
 official documents over secular peers. And in India, 
 Canada, and the West Indies bishops appointed by the 
 Pope were recognised in Acts of Parliament and by the 
 practice of the courts of law. But it was now proposed 
 to make penal the assumption of the title of archbishop. 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TROUBLES. 123 
 
 bishop, or dean of any existing diocese in the United 
 Kingdom, or of any city, town, place, territory or 
 district whatever within the United Kingdom, even 
 thouo-h the same were not the title of an existing 
 
 o 
 
 Protestant bishopric or deanery. And any deed 
 executed by a Catholic bishop, or under his authority, 
 was declared void if the name of his see should be 
 used in the signature or the body of the instrument ; 
 and any bequest of real or personal property devised 
 to a bishop or dean, or for the maintenance of 
 any bishopric or deanery ; and also any property for 
 charitable or other purposes devised in trust to a 
 bishop or dean by the title of his see or deanery, 
 or by any deed in which he was referred to " as 
 claiming to be, or being called or known, or reputed 
 to be bishop or dean," or devised to any " chaplain or 
 any subordinate of the person so designated," was 
 ordered to pass to the Crown, to be disposed of at the 
 Queen's pleasure, either for the purpose of the devisor 
 or any other purpose. 
 
 The suspicion was widespread that this extension of the 
 measure was designed to break up the union of parties 
 in Ireland, but with so direct and wanton an attack on 
 Catholic rights in the country it was no longer possible 
 to avoid a Catholic agitation. All that the friends of 
 the League could hope for was to prevent it becoming 
 offensive to Protestants. Defence meetinsfs were held in 
 
124 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 various southern counties, and the bishops met in con- 
 ference and petitioned Parliament against the proposed 
 measure, as one contrary to the essential discipline of the 
 Catholic Church and to the spirit of divine laws which 
 they were obliged to obey. 
 
 While the religious trouble was still new one of the 
 seats for the County Limerick fell vacant by the death 
 of the sitting member. To contest it in the interest 
 of the League was a duty not to be evaded. Seats are 
 now easily won in the same interest, and those who 
 recognise in the fact the superior skill and strategy of 
 the leaders of to-day may study the Limerick election 
 of 1850 with advantagje. 
 
 The first question was of a candidate. Dr. Croke -^ 
 wrote to me to suggest an intelligent miller, Michael 
 Ryan, of Bruree. He w^as a Tenant Leaguer, he said, 
 and an honourable, honest, and independent man, and 
 tw^enty such as he would give a good guarantee of 
 success for the cause. I submitted the proposal to the 
 Council, and he was adopted. A strong deputation was 
 despatched to the constituency, and an appeal made to 
 the country for funds to fight effectually. Lucas and 
 Lalor went from Dublin, Mr. Rogers and Mr. Bell from 
 the North, and Father Tom O'Shea from Ossory. 
 Many influential local men proffered their assistance. 
 Archdeacon Fitzgerald, Robert Potter (afterwards 
 
 ^ The present Archbisliop of Casliel. 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TROUBLES. 125 
 
 member for the city), Dr. Griffin and John O'Donnell, 
 men of '48, and Dr. Croke, who was responsible for the 
 selection of the candidate. A county meeting was 
 summoned, which adopted the principles of the League 
 and promised to support its candidate. A vigorous 
 canvass was commenced through local meetings, and 
 Mr. Ryan was everywhere well received. It was said 
 that he would go to the House of Commons dressed in 
 frieze woven in his own looms as a typical representative 
 of the interests and opinions of the people. The 
 deputation made their duties very plain to the con- 
 stituency — 
 
 " Give me (said Dr. Croke) but twenty such as he. 
 Let them oppose every Government hostile to Tenant 
 Right. Let such opposition be continuous and unre- 
 lenting, and then I, for one, relieved from doubts 
 which still, I must say, press heavily upon me with 
 regard to the successful issue of this great movement, 
 would account defeat almost impossible, victory all but 
 certain." 
 
 This doctrine, which had been first taught by the 
 Confederates in 1847, and again by the journals friendly 
 to the League since its foundation, was now for the first 
 time brought home to the minds of the people. The 
 road to success they were told lay through Independent 
 Opposition in Parliament. 
 
 The contest excited the keenest interest ; it rivalled 
 the Durham letter for a time as the inevitable topic in 
 
126 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 clubs and over dinner tables. The landlords knew how 
 much they had at stake in preventing the League from 
 grasping the great political weaj)on — a Parliamentary 
 Party. But after surveying their resources, thej^ were 
 so confident of success that they brought two candidates 
 into the field, a Whig and a Tory.^ 
 
 On the day of nomination a company of carbineers, a 
 large body of infantry, and 800 armed constabulary made 
 a garrison of the city. The polling under the law then 
 in operation lasted three days, and at its close the Whig 
 landlord was elected by a majority of forty over the 
 Tory landlord, and of eleven over the candidate of the 
 League. 
 
 The circumstances which produced this result all 
 belong to a past time. The constituency which even 
 under the franchise then existing ought to have reached 
 ten thousand, had been permitted by apathy to fall 
 under six hundred ; and among this small number there 
 was a considerable proportion of £50 freeholders manu- 
 factured at will by the landlords. The Catholic Bishop, 
 under the influence of the senior member, Mr. Monsell, 
 it was said, supported the Whig candidate, and many 
 electors who were still unprotected by the ballot found 
 the landlords and the bishop too strong a combination 
 to be resisted. Perliaps it counted for something, too, 
 that the little handful of partisans who adhered to 
 
 1 Mr. Wyndham Gould and Captain Dickson. 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TROUBLES. 127 
 
 Mr. John O'Connell made themselves disagreeable. Mr. 
 Rogers stated at a public meeting that in supporting the 
 Tenant-Riofht candidate he must not be taken as 
 approving of his declaration in favour of the Repeal of 
 the Union. Such a statement he was clearly entitled 
 to make, for the very foundation on which the League 
 rested, without which it could never have come into 
 existence, and wanting which it would immediately die, 
 was that members joining it were bound to nothing but 
 its fundamental principles. Two priests ^ wrote a public 
 letter to ask the advice of their leader how they were 
 to act under these alarming circumstances. " Here it 
 is implied," said these skilful logicians, "that the 
 principles of the League and the Repeal Association are 
 diametrically opposed, and therefore either must be 
 illegal 1 " 
 
 To utilise this fatuous controversy the local paper 
 containing it was sent from Limerick to Belfast, and 
 distributed among the ill-wishers of the League. The 
 Northern leaders found themselves described among 
 their neighbours as abettors of Rejoeal and allies of 
 sedition. At the outset M'Knight wrote to me in grave 
 alarm for the cause — 
 
 " I wish that Cardinal Wiseman and Lord John Russell had 
 been both in Heaven three months ago, as thev have thrown 
 
 ^ Rev. John Madden, P.P., and Rev. John Meagher, C.C. 
 Kilteely. 
 
128 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 national progress a wliole quarter of a century hack, and Omnis- 
 cience alone can tell wliat is to be tlie issue. I have been doing 
 all in my power to divert this cursed excitement into a neutral 
 channel, but Dr. Cooke is now coming out, and he will gather 
 around him all the old bigotry of Orange Toryism, while it must 
 be confessed that the grandiloquent bombast, with which the new 
 Hierarchy was originally ushered into publicit}^, was too well 
 calculated to provoke the reaction which lias taken place. 
 Fortunately, Cooke has been so long in coming out that I have 
 ' taken the wind out of his sails ' to a considerable extent, though 
 I am still very uneasy about his movements. Considerable 
 numbers of the Liiiurich and Clare Examiner have been circulated 
 here within the last few days, and there is some danger of a new 
 element of mischief being got up, if prudential measures be not 
 taken to stop it. The Address of Ryan to the electors of 
 Limerick is a furious Repeal manifesto, while that of the Tenant 
 League Deputation, in the very same paper, adopts him as the 
 League Candidate, without the slightest hint or qualification ; so 
 that, so far as outward appearances go, the League in this case is 
 formally and openly identified with Repeal, as well as with several 
 other matters contained in Ryan's Address. Now, in the North, 
 any impression of this kind would destroy us, and you will 
 consequently see the necessity of getting the League out of this 
 predicament." 
 
 The " Young Liberator," as Mr. John O'Connell was 
 sometimes called in scorn, found another befitting 
 topic. It was understood that the motive pleaded by 
 the bishop, and some of the priests who followed him, 
 for supporting the Whig candidate was that Mr. Monsell 
 and his friend Lord Dunraven were about to become 
 Catholics ; and Lucas, the most devoted of Catholics, 
 scoffed at the preference of two aristocratic converts 
 over the interests of thousands of the faithful people. 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TROUBLES. 129 
 
 Mr. John O'Connell seized on the fact to invite the 
 universe to note the spectacle of an " English news- 
 paper speculator, a man who had come to Ireland 
 merely to sell his newspaper, presuming to criticise the 
 bishop and venerated clergy of Limerick." Un- 
 fortunately for the appellant, the most upright and 
 public-spirited of the clergy were of quite a different 
 opinion from the venerated bishop, both as to the cause 
 and its exponents. It seemed like the moral of this sad 
 story that when the election was over 190 ejectments 
 were served on a single estate in the county which had 
 flinched from its duty. 
 
 Immediately after the lost election the county 
 meetings were resumed. The great county of Down, 
 where the population in a former generation had met 
 in fratricidal conflict at Dollysbrae, now met in cordial 
 union. One division assembled at Newtownards, where 
 Archdeacon Fitzgerald, Father O'Shea, and Mr. Lucas 
 represented the Council, sustained by leading Ulster- 
 men. Dr. M'Knight addressed himself directly to the 
 danger of the hour. He feared that to break up the 
 League was one of the objects of the No-Popery 
 movement — 
 
 " I freely confess (he said) that in matters of a purely 
 religious character I would not give much for that man's 
 moral integrity who would compromise the smallest 
 religious obligation for any merely secular object; but, 
 
130 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 on the otlier hand, I have no language sufficientlj 
 strong to convey my reprobation and contempt for that 
 policy which, under the hypocrisy of theological pro- 
 fession, degrades Christianity into an engine of State 
 intrigue, and which, if it cannot directly employ the 
 sanctity of Heaven in the work of Heaven's first enemy, 
 at all events makes it subordinate to the interests of 
 the second — namely, to the 'World' and its unprin- 
 cipled debasements. Whether high personages intended 
 it or not I may not affirm, but humbler parties have 
 tried to break us up by arraying Protestants against 
 Roman Catholics, and Orangemen against the industrial 
 rights of both classes of their countrymen, in order that 
 rackrenting and oppression and the extermination of the 
 universal people may be still carried on through the 
 agency of the people's own criminal divisions. In the 
 North this base policy has been utterly unsuccessful, 
 and the present glorious meeting in one of the most 
 Presbyterian districts of Ulster is a triumphant demon- 
 stration of its failure." 
 
 Mr. Rogers spoke in the same spirit — 
 
 " Does my Presbyterianism (he demanded) forbid me 
 to be a patriot ? Is it because I am a follower of John 
 Calvin that I am not to be a Christian ? Will the 
 farmers of Ireland — because they may conscientiously 
 differ in their religious opinions — look on one another 
 with distrust, and jealousy, and hatred, while landlords 
 and the legislature, that differ in religion as widely as 
 you do, are combined, heart and soul, to carry on against 
 you the old familiar work of robbery, extermination, 
 and death ? 
 
 " ' While your tyrants join in hate, 
 Will you not join in love ? ' 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIEST TEOUBLES. 131 
 
 '' In tliis matter I beseech yon 
 
 " ' Leave points of belief 
 To simpleton sages and reasoning fools.' " 
 
 The deputation from Dublin echoed these wise 
 counsels. The second division of Down met at Down- 
 patrick. The requisition was signed by upwards of 
 twelve hundred persons of all creeds and parties in the 
 county, and the meeting was on the same scale. The 
 county Antrim met immediately afterwards at Brough- 
 shane, attended by the same deputation which had visited 
 Down. Lucas taught the doctrines of the League 
 with fresh illustrations. He cited the comparatively 
 recent case of Ecclesiastical lands, in which the holdings 
 were converted by Act of Parliament into free tenures, 
 and the rent fixed by valuation. He specified a class 
 of tenants, very numerous in almost all the English 
 counties, whose tenancy was, strictly speaking, at will ; 
 but the English judges without a statute, and by the 
 mere force of their decisions, had prevented the landlord 
 from rendering the tenure of no value by the imposition 
 of heavy fines, which would deprive tenants of the fruits 
 of their industry. Hence it would be seen that there 
 was nothing new, nothing unjust, nothing anarchical, as 
 was alleged, in what the League demanded. 
 
 Archdeacon Fitzgerald renewed the always welcome 
 theme of union. He reminded the county Antrim 
 Presbyterians that they were descendants of the men 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 who made a solemn League and Covenant against the 
 arbitrary and cruel tyranny of the Stuart kings, and 
 succeeded in establishing the religion which they loved. 
 He trusted that the covenant which had been entered 
 into between North and South would never be broken ; 
 that common sufferings and a common hope would 
 cement that union still closer ; and that as landlords 
 united to crush and to oppress, so tenants would bind 
 themselves together for self-defence, in a bond which 
 would be indissoluble. 
 
 It was fortunate, doubtless, for the League that the 
 contest was not one between Geneva and Rome, but 
 between Prelacy and Popery, for the Presbyterians of 
 Ulster had as little sympathy at bottom with the 
 lawn sleeves and silk apron of the episcopacy in 
 possession in England as with the biretta and pectoral 
 cross of the new bishops. 
 
 The League was now nearly five months in existence, 
 and the first general meeting was summoned. It was 
 preceded by a long conference from which Select 
 Committees on Organisation and Finance, and one to 
 consider the bill which the Council desired to submit 
 to Parliament, were appointed, reported and had their 
 proposals taken into consideration. The election of 
 League guardians instead of Landlord guardians in the 
 Poor-law Unions was recommended, and arrangements 
 for the general election commenced. It was at most 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TROUBLES. 133 
 
 eighteen months distant, and it might come much 
 sooner. To get trustworthy candidates possessing a 
 legal estate of £600 or £300 a year in land, or its 
 equivalent in chattels, to assail and revise the Land 
 Code, was a hard problem, but Patrick M'Mahon, a 
 barrister, living in London by the daily labour of 
 his profession, solved it effectually. He advised a 
 course which will be described later when it came to 
 be contested before a Parliamentary Committee. The 
 Council recommended that the selection of candidates 
 should take place in the district to be represented, in 
 order that local opinion might be fully expressed ; and 
 that it should take place also in the presence and with 
 the assistance of delegates from the Council, in order 
 that the body charged with the heavy responsibility of 
 conducting the cause to success might be ensured 
 against having all their labour lost by the selection of 
 incompetent or untrustworthy men. 
 
 The people sitting in sober council discharging their 
 own business was an inspiring sight. Their opponents 
 were conferring together at the Carlton Club, at the 
 Stephen's-green and Kildare-street Clubs, in every 
 Foxhunting Club in Ireland ; and perhaps in the 
 Cabinet in London. But here it might be hoped was 
 a counterpoise. Some of the Free Trade leaders 
 assured me that while they made speeches alone they 
 made no calculable progress; it was when they sat 
 
134 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 down to their work round a table, like the directors of 
 a public company, that they began to prosper, for 
 success in such designs is never the birth of accident 
 or blind chance, but the growth of busy days and 
 anxious nights. 
 
 It was in the House of Commons the contest had 
 to be conducted, and the Irish members never were 
 more discredited and distrusted than at this time. The 
 few honest men among them were too feeble to count 
 for much ; the majority were habitual jobbers, and 
 some were accused of selling for hard cash the petty 
 local patronage placed at their disposal by the Treasury. 
 It was confidently believed that the League might 
 replace the bulk of them at the General Election. 
 But one of them, a man of remarkable ability, and 
 embarrassed by no scruples, saw in these religious 
 troubles an opportunity of winning political influence 
 and popularity. William Keogh, member for Athlone, 
 had bought his way into Parliament at the expense of 
 Mr. Attwood, a Birmingham banker with a financial 
 craze for which he recruited supporters at his personal 
 cost. At the Irish bar Mr. Keogh was known as a 
 man of considerable brains and no knowledge of law, 
 but who had unbounded reliance on his resources as a 
 political strategist to win the prizes of his profession, 
 without the ordinary equipment or service. He was a 
 ready and vigorous speaker, and Parliament estimated 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TEOUBLES. 135 
 
 his ability and his character at their respective value. 
 He was by birth a Catholic, but had scoffed so 
 systematically at Catholic feeling that his new zeal 
 for the Church was a marvel of audacity. From an 
 early period he had formed an alliance with a person 
 never heard in debate, but who was extremely skilful 
 in the wiles and devices by which weak men are 
 governed. John Sadleir had been a prosperous 
 attorney in Ireland, and since his admission to Par- 
 liament had become a banker and speculator in 
 London, and was supposed to be prodigiously rich. 
 The jobbers naturally gathered round Messrs. Sadleir 
 and Keogh, and the honest men, who scarcely under- 
 stood how competent a leader they had of their own 
 class, fell into the rear. George Henry Moore was 
 an Irish proprietor of fine intellect, which was highly 
 cultivated, rhetorical gifts, little inferior to those which 
 had made Richard Shell a Parliament ar}'- personage, 
 and had a gentleman's disdain of shabbiness and sub- 
 serviency. But he was abrupt and impatient, had an 
 intellectual contempt for dulness which he did not 
 always conceal, and was somewhat soured by having 
 missed in Parliament the recognition he deserved. 
 Under these leaders the bulk of the Irish members 
 organised themselves into a party of defence. As the 
 Peelites, of whom Sir James Graham and Mr. Gladstone 
 were the most conspicuous representatives, and the 
 
136 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 Manchester party, under Messrs. Cobden and Bright, 
 disapproved of the new penal law, there was promise 
 of a protracted, if not an effectual resistance. The 
 danger to Ireland was that she w^ould forget her 
 nearest and dearest interests in this new contest. To 
 me the question of questions was the protection of the 
 people. They were dying out at the rate of a hundred 
 a week in the sweltering wards of workhouses, in the 
 poisonous emigrant ship, in the crowded jail, in the 
 cellars and garrets of our cities, and in the dykes and 
 ditches adjoining their ruined homesteads. The Irish 
 Question and the Catholic Question was how to save 
 them from destruction. 
 
 The chance that the dishonest members would 
 reinstate themselves in popular favour was greatly 
 aided by the circumstance that the Primate of the 
 Catholic Church at this time was a man ignorant of 
 their antecedents, ill-informed on Irish affairs, and dis- 
 posed to regard them at best as altogether secondary to 
 ecclesiastical interests. Half a year earlier, the Arch- 
 bishopric of Armagh having fallen vacant was con- 
 ferred by the Pope, with the added power of Apostolic 
 Delegate, on Dr. Cullen, President of the Irish College 
 at Eome, The new Primate bore no resemblance 
 in manners, demeanour, or capacity, to the great 
 ecclesiastics to whom Rome has ordinarily entrusted 
 national missions. He was plain, clumsy, slow of 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIEST TROUBLES. 137 
 
 speech, and intellectually narrow, and ill-informed. 
 But he was a devoted churchman and a man of 
 prodigious zeal and steadfastness of purpose. He 
 paid no regard to the character or aim of the Irish 
 members ; they were fighting the battle of the Church, 
 and he gave them his whole sympathy. Those who 
 knew them better were confident that sooner or later 
 they would use any power conferred upon them for 
 their own advantage alone ; and perhaps the more 
 experienced foresaw that in the end they would avenge 
 the bitter slavery of professing opinions which they 
 did not hold, by running into unexampled extremes of 
 hostility and treachery ; which in due time occurred. 
 
 This trouble did not leave the League quite unshaken. 
 Lucas's difiiculties were trying. He was essentially a 
 Catholic journalist, and it was in that character rather 
 than as leader of opinion in Ireland that he was best 
 known. He comprehended as clearly as any one the 
 danger of setting two conflicting ideas before the 
 country, and the primary importance of saving the 
 lives of the people. But it had become the habit of his 
 life to act with the Episcopacy. When the claims of 
 the Church conflicted with secular interests he did not 
 admit that there was any choice. The Church spoke 
 to him with the same authority from the Vatican as 
 from Mount Sinai. But he was persuaded that it was 
 a mistaken policy of Irish bishops to endanger the 
 
138 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 success of the League by ignoring its interests and 
 claims in favour of the new movement. He used his 
 influence in private counsels and, perhaps, expostula- 
 tions, but in his journal he kept in as close relation 
 with their public action as his judgment and con- 
 science permitted. My position was different. I was 
 not a theologian. I had no taste for studies in this 
 field, and consequently no solid knowledge of them. 
 I hoped to aid in winning back for Ireland the right 
 of self-government; and was willing to apply myself 
 to any honourable task likely to promote this end. 
 To save the Irish peasantry from imminent danger of 
 destruction was an indispensable preliminary to such 
 a hope ; and I would not for any end whatever have 
 jeopardised the chance of their safety. I escaped the 
 dilemma which embarrassed Lucas by standing aloof 
 from the new movement. In all that concerned the 
 discipline of the Catholic Church I listened to the 
 bishops with deference and submission, but in politics 
 I must follow my own judgment and conscience, and 
 I declined to seek counsel which I miofht not be able 
 to follow. These sentiments found expression in the 
 Tablet and Nation, but we made allowance for the 
 exigencies of individual opinion, and preserved our per- 
 sonal relations undisturbed. His task was to keep the 
 bishops and clergy, mine to keep the Northerns and 
 the Nationalists, from taking undue offence or break- 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TROUBLES. 139 
 
 ing away from tlie Union. It was not always an 
 easy task ; Dr. M'Knight was pained, and finally exas- 
 perated, by Lucas's articles at this time, and sent 
 his complaints to me. But there was no immediate 
 remedy possible. 
 
 The contest over the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill in 
 Parliament was stubborn, and the leader of the Op- 
 position, though the prejudice of his supporters for- 
 bade him to resist the measure, was ready to take 
 advantage of the discord which it occasioned in the 
 Liberal ranks. In the thick of the battle Mr. Disraeli, 
 by a well-directed motion on Colonial policy, supported 
 by the Irish members, put Lord John Bussell in a 
 minority, and the Government resigned. Here w^as 
 the penal law effectually destroyed if a government 
 could be constituted from the majority. During the 
 interregnum, while the country was in anxious suspense, 
 the division list was published, and the weak policy, 
 which, out of gratitude to O'Connell, had allowed his 
 incapable and untrustworthy sons to nominate can- 
 didates for Parliament in 1846, was followed by the 
 inexorable Nemesis. Two of his sons, his nephew, and 
 the men they had taken most pains to impose on the 
 people, voted to maintain Lord John Russell in power 
 at the very crisis of the contest for religious liberty. It 
 afterwards became public, by the evidence of Dr. Gray 
 before a Parliamentary Committee, that he and others 
 
140 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 had employed earnest personal remonstrance to keep 
 Mr. John O'Connell from committing this mean action, 
 but utterly in vain. The public indignation at this 
 discovery was intense. The Corporation of Limerick^ 
 the city which he represented, promptly censured him ; 
 a blow under which he staggered, and which brought 
 his mischievous career to a sadden collapse. 
 
 Lord Derby, who was sent for in the first instance, 
 failed to form a Government, and the Whigs, conscious 
 of their weakness and unpopularity, sought the assist- 
 ance of the Peelites, to obtain which they proposed to 
 modify the Penal measure. Lord Aberdeen and Sir 
 James Graham replied that no modification would be 
 sufficient ; it must be abandoned altogether, as it 
 reversed the policy of the last thirty years. Agree- 
 ment proved impossible, and in the end the old 
 Government was recalled without any coalition, but 
 with the bill which they were willing to modify fatally 
 damaged by their proposed compromise. 
 
 We have now reached a point in the narrative when the 
 League of North and South was assailed by dangers, not 
 from without but from within. The camp-followers of 
 both parties, and sometimes their pledged adherents, 
 committed offences which would have produced certain 
 disruption if the leaders had not been determined to 
 allow nothing to divide them which did not violate 
 honour or conscience. The fidelity of the Northerns, 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIEST TROUBLES. 141 
 
 whicli had outlived the No Popery agitation, was put 
 to a more disheartening test. 
 
 Early in April the county Longford became vacant 
 by the appointment of Major Blackball to a Colonial 
 Governorship. It was only a month since the county 
 had met and declared for the principles of the League. 
 As the Council had not been able to send a deputation, 
 Major Blackball on that occasion had taken courage to 
 assail the principle of valuation ; but it was immedi- 
 ately vindicated by local men and adopted by the 
 meeting. Here was an occasion to redeem and reverse 
 the defeat at Limerick. The County Club opened 
 communications with Sergeant Shee, who was first on 
 the list of League candidates. He was willing to 
 stand, but desired to limit the election expenses to a 
 fixed sum. Before the negotiations had closed, as he 
 conceived, the club suddenly adopted another candidate, 
 as bad in every respect as it is possible to conceive. It 
 was Mr. More O'Farrell, a landlord who might be 
 assumed, in the absence of evidence, to be opposed 
 to the League principles, an ancient colleague of Lord 
 John Russell's, just returning from an office to which he 
 had nominated him, and unlikely to go into embar- 
 rassing opposition. And a man who distributed among 
 his former constituents the employments and donations 
 which corrupt the people and their leaders. The County 
 Club consisted in a large degree of the clergy of the 
 
142 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 diocese of Ardagli. The bishop was Dr. Higgins, Avho 
 was a fierce agitator in 1843, but in 1846 applauded 
 O'Connell's compact with the Whigs, and made against 
 the Young Ireland ers, who opposed that compact, the 
 shamefully unjust charge that they were enemies of 
 religion, and there was no doubt that he was chiefly 
 responsible for the result. 
 
 All the sacrifices of the people, all the labours of the 
 League, the hopes and the lives of the peasant were 
 bartered away in a private cabal by a handful of men 
 who thought only of their own interest. It was worse 
 than Limerick, for there was no contest ; the club 
 candidate had a walk over. Major Blackball, selected 
 in the same fashion, had just sold his seat for a 
 Colonial Governorship, and one party hack was re- 
 placed by another more experienced in the arts of 
 intrigue and corruption. Longford, in the language 
 of the time, had " sold the pass," and if this was an 
 example of what might be expected in future elections 
 the cause was lost beyond hope. The worst motives 
 were ascribed to the transaction by those who were 
 best informed. In the penal times the Irish priests 
 had performed their duty with the fidelity of martyrs ; 
 in the long struggle for religious liberty they were 
 leaders as generous and self-sacrificing as any nation 
 has produced ; but since 1834, when O'Connell's first 
 compact with the Whigs brought them into relation 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIEST TROUBLES. 143 
 
 with English political parties, some of them had learnt 
 the evil lesson of employing their public influence no 
 longer for public ends, but in huxtering bargains for 
 personal advantages for themselves or their kin. This 
 was the way the Longford surrender was interpreted. 
 The League priests spoke on the subject with scorn 
 and indignation which was pleasant to hear. 
 Father Bernard Daly wrote to the Nation that the 
 conduct of the clerical club was enough to disg^ust 
 and crimson with shame all men of their own creed 
 and politics, and to tear up from the heart of Presby- 
 terians every fibre of confidence in the union so lately 
 cemented. They seized the opportunity from which so 
 much was expected to hand back again to their old 
 taskmasters the poor people who had begun to hope 
 once more, to smite them down before they were quite 
 erect ; and to close, so far as the political infamy of one 
 county could do so, every vista of expectation of good 
 which God, through the instrumentality of the Tenant 
 League, had opened up — 
 
 " Well indeed (he said) might we hang our heads in 
 the presence of the Northern members, if we dis- 
 sembled the sentiments with which we resfard so 
 disastrous and fatal a proceeding, or if we failed to 
 denounce it to the country with all our might, and 
 in language not to be mistaken, as not only offensive 
 to the League, but intrinsically vicious and scandalous." 
 
144 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 The League sent a deputation to the first Northern 
 meeting which occurred, and it was a peculiarly fit 
 occasion, as it met in the capital of the North, to 
 justify themselves. Rev. Dr. Kearney, P.P., declared 
 that the Longford transactions must be ascribed to 
 corruption or treachery. He was almost ashamed to 
 go to Belfast after that foul surrender ; but the people 
 were true ; the disaster sprung from want of courage 
 and honesty in those who ought to be their teachers. 
 The Longford Club, he feared, had tasted some of the 
 crumbs of the Treasury. If corruption did not exist 
 there was plainly treachery, because, instead of giving 
 the county to the men to whom they had pledged 
 themselves to give it, they had handed it over to a 
 rejected implement of the Whigs. 
 
 Father Daly said shame affected men differently; 
 for his part he would have been ashamed to stay away 
 from Belfast. He bade the North remember that the 
 traitors were few — 
 
 " There are about three thousand priests in Ireland 
 (he said) ; of those it must be a small section that 
 belong to the Longford Club, and depend upon it that 
 the indignation and the shame felt by the remainder 
 of that body at the result of the late election in 
 Longford was as strong and as little concealed as it 
 possibly could have been in the very heart of Ulster." 
 
 In conclusion, he quoted from a recent number of 
 the Times a notice to quit to the whole Irish race, 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TROUBLES. 145 
 
 , which was a significant comment on these trans- 
 actions. 
 
 "The abstraction of the Celtic race at the rate of a quarter of 
 a million a year is a surer remedy for the inveterate Irish disease 
 than any human wit could have imagined." ^ 
 
 The League journals North and South dealt frankly 
 with the disaster. The Berry Standard declared that 
 if the corruption could not be checked it would be 
 fatal to the union of parties and to the public cause. 
 
 " For our own part (the Editor ^ vv^rote) we will cleave 
 to the union — the last hope of Ireland — while a wreck 
 of it remains ; till the Northern and Southern priests 
 have, as a body, approved of the Limerick and Long- 
 ford treachery ; till the Roman Catholic laity have 
 acquiesced slavishly in this base and cruel betrayal of 
 the country; till the Roman Catholic Press becomes 
 the apologist of sacerdotal recreancy ; till a general elec- 
 tion, under the new constituency, shall have proved that 
 Longford venality was the first-fruits of a harvest of 
 ecclesiastical treason. Then, indeed, we shall begin to 
 think that the sooner the Irish race transfers itself to 
 another land, where there are no 'old holy wells,' the 
 better for the honour of humanity." 
 
 The Tablet and Nation named the offending priests, 
 and held them up to public scorn ; and at the monthly 
 meeting of the Council, Father O'Shea moved a resolu- 
 tion calling on the electors to reject these untrustworthy 
 counsellors and take the business into their own hands 
 at the approaching general election. 
 
 1 Times, Feb. 15, 1851. ^ -^^^ -^^^ Godkin, I.M. 
 
 L 
 
146 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 While this transaction was still recent, another fol- 
 lowed more lamentable and disastrous. Mr. Fagan, 
 one of the members for the City of Cork, had incurred 
 the censure of his constituents by not voting against 
 Lord John Russell on Mr. Disraeli's motion, and 
 promptly resigned his seat. Here, surely, it seemed 
 was at last the opportunity which the League had 
 awaited. Cork could dispose of the seat at the abso- 
 lute discretion of the popular party ; a man of respect- 
 able character had been ejected for subserviency to 
 the Whig Government, and his successor, it might be 
 assumed, would be a model of independence and public 
 spirit. What tribune, glowing with holy zeal against 
 the damnable system under which the country perished, 
 did the capital of Munster select to speak in its name 
 to the English Parliament ? There is a predominant 
 family of Catholic merchants in Cork who had won 
 wide influence by the integrity and liberality of their 
 commercial career. To found charities, to build 
 churches, to augment the O'Connell tribute, their 
 purses were always open ; but patriotism in any large 
 or national sense was little known amonsf them. Of 
 all the connection the least Irish was a barrister in 
 London, who was skilled to write squibs in the periodi- 
 cals and to enliven supper-tables by his drollery; a 
 man about town who cared no more for Ireland than 
 for Ultima Thule. This was the candidate chosen. 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TROUBLES 147 
 
 and Mr. Sergeant Murphy re-entered Parliament, where 
 he had already sat for a short period, unpledged to the 
 principles of the League, unpledged to resist the 
 Government for supporting which his predecessor had 
 been displaced ; free to dispose of his talents and his 
 votes to the best bidder, and in good time to exchange 
 his seat for a pleasant commissionership within hail of 
 Pall Mall ; which he duly did. He made no pretence of 
 serving Ireland, and soon after, when on some fall from 
 duty, he was threatened by his constituents, he re- 
 plied, as he was well entitled to do, that " he did not 
 
 care a for his constituents." The treachery of Cork 
 
 was worse than the treachery of Longford. Cork was 
 the capital of Celtic Ireland ; it was the centre of the 
 bitterest wrongs and sufferings which the League was 
 created to arrest. The graves of Skull and Skibbereen 
 sweltered within the bounds of the county : the desolate 
 wastes of Bantry lay close beyond it. Ennistymon and 
 Kilrush, murdering their hundred paupers a week w^ith 
 strange and fearful diseases, were not far away ; and 
 the emigrant ships that packed up the strong men of 
 the country for foreign consumption lay at Cove. The 
 annihilation of Ireland was going on visibly day by day 
 under its eyes. If Cork were not moved to resistance, 
 where would resistance come from ? 
 
 The disaster fell on the public mind like the news of 
 a great battle lost by the surrender of a trusted citadel. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THE LEAGUE OF XOKTll AND SOUTH. 
 
 But the leaders of the League did not despair or flinch. 
 Tlie courage which they maintained among the stricken 
 people, and their merciless exposure of tlie treason, laid 
 the basis for a great victory near at hand, and helped 
 to create the public opinion which makes treason hide 
 its head in later times. If Longford, Limerick, and 
 Cork are no longer difficult to win fur independent can- 
 didates, to what is the change attributable ? To wiser 
 and abler leaders ? Not altogether, perhaps. Many of 
 the priests who were then Leaguers aie now bishops, 
 deans, archdeacons, or canons, and have not forgotten 
 their old principles; the voters are sheltered by the 
 ballot, and can vote without risk of consequences ; the 
 League journals and leaders, at their personal risk and 
 peril, exposed the motives of these repeated betrayals, 
 and finally the Fenian organisation, which rose on the 
 ruins of the League, whatever were its errors and short- 
 comings, taught the peasantry the essential lesson not 
 to permit their interests to be jobbed away by any 
 leader, lay or clerical.^ 
 
 The agitation against the Penal Law grew in force ; 
 the requisition for a meeting in Dublin was signed by 
 
 ^ The most unslirinking and merciless of all the exposures to 
 which the transactions of 1851 were subjected was made somewhat 
 later in a Statement submitted to the Pope by Lucas. He detailed 
 many cases of the most painful treachery not touched on in this 
 narrative. Large extracts are given in the second volume of his 
 Life by his brother ; but the worst cases are omitted. 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIEST TROUBLES. 149 
 
 the Catholic gentr}^ of all political opinions. The entire 
 body of Catholic Queen's Counsel, for example, with 
 two exceptions, were among the requisitionists, and the 
 meeting was remarkable for rank, authority, and popular 
 enthusiasm. The resistance in Parliament was con- 
 tinued ; it wearied and embarrassed the Government, 
 and helped to bring the measure into contempt, but 
 there was no probability of directly defeating it. But 
 another opportunity of indirectly defeating it offered. 
 The Government were again endangered by a hostile 
 motion on their financial scheme, the resistance this 
 time being led by Joseph Hume, one of their ordinary 
 supporters ; but when the division came, the latest 
 members sent from Ireland went into the ministerial 
 lobby. A little later another vote on the policy of the 
 Government in Ceylon commanded the sympathy of 
 generous men outside party connections. The House 
 of Commons was asked to declare that the execution 
 of eighteen persons and the transportation or corporal 
 punishment of a hundred and forty others, which liad 
 been ordered in local troubles, were excessive; but the 
 new members for Cork, Longford, and Limerick, and 
 with them Morgan John O'Connell, O'Gorman Mahon, 
 Mr. Fox, the second member for Longford, and other 
 representatives of Irish constituencies, came to their 
 succour and sanctioned these excesses. 
 
 To brace up public opinion in face of these damaging 
 
150 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 transactions, the League determined to hold pubUc 
 
 ineetiogs weekly in Dublin up to the period of the 
 
 general election. Lucas seized the occasion to teach 
 
 townsmen the special interest they had in the cause. 
 
 " There was in Ireland (he said) a million of agricul- 
 tural families, and if in each of those families only one 
 more shirt was got in the year, it would be an increased 
 custom to the shopkeepers of Ireland of £100,000. 
 Was trade in this country in such a prosi3erous con- 
 dition that the expenditure of £100,000 was of no 
 consequence ? Suppose these families were able to get 
 each a hat, a pair of trousers, or pair of shoes in the 
 year more, or a gown, or petticoat, that little addition 
 would give an expenditure of two millions a year to the 
 tradesmen and shopkeepers of Ireland. He reminded 
 his audience that in Prussia, within the last century, 
 tenant farmers were in the same condition as in Ireland 
 at present. In England sixteen to twenty out of every 
 hundred individuals on the face of the soil were paupers ; 
 in Ireland twenty to twenty-five out of every hundred 
 were paupers ; but in Prussia, since the great change 
 had taken place, only three and a half out of every 
 hundred of the pojDulation were in a state of pauperism." 
 
 But there was a pause of consternation and despair, 
 and the attendance of country members at the weekly 
 meetings was not satisfactory. At the Catholic meet- 
 ings which still continued there was a prodigious quan- 
 tity of Avhat is called " tall talk," which had ceased to 
 have auy definite meaning. One priest announced that 
 for his part he was prepared to raise a battalion of two 
 thousand men to resist any further aggressions on re- 
 ligious liberty. Archdeacon Fitzgerald advised him 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TROUBLES. 151 
 
 instead of levying an army for an imaginary service, 
 in which no one had the least notion of taking the 
 field, to consider whether he could fight the battle of 
 the perishing people at the hustings to somewhat more 
 purpose than had been done at Limerick and Longford. 
 For his own part, he confessed he was disabled from 
 heroic enterprises by the fact that one-half of his 
 congregation had perished by famine or fled into 
 exile. The public attention was monopolised by a 
 measure which was a dead-letter, and which, whether 
 dead or alive, would not withdraw a single member 
 from the Church or a single soul from Heaven. It 
 was time to turn from wailing over the Ecclesiastical 
 Titles Act to the more serious business of saving the 
 people. 
 
 Mr. Keogh's Irish party were voting as the country 
 desired, and were gradually gaining a confidence which 
 they ill deserved. To improve the occasion they re- 
 solved to found a Catholic Defence Association as soon 
 as Parliament rose, which might, among other duties, 
 recommend candidates at the general election; and, 
 as they were little trusted by the popular Press, to 
 found an organ of their own. They had recourse to 
 the further device of employing T. M. Kay, who as 
 the "dear Ray "of O'Connell's public correspondence 
 was a familiar name to the people, as one of their 
 agents. These were not cheerful tidings for the 
 
152 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 League, and we soon learned tliat Mr. Sharman 
 Crawford, probabl}^ under the influence of men he 
 met daily in Parliament, complained that the League 
 was not promoting his opinions, but opinions of their 
 own, one of which — Perpetuity of Tenure — he could 
 not support. Mr. Crawford was an honest and un- 
 selfish man, and the League could not afford to lose 
 him. A deputation ' was sent to London to communi- 
 cate with him, and to ascertain at the same time what 
 length the best of the existing members would go on 
 the Land question if a bill were introduced in the coming 
 session. 
 
 To me it seemed that founding a Catholic Defence 
 Association after the penal act had become law, was 
 in the popular language locking the stable door when 
 the steed was stolen. That a second agitation would 
 distract and divide the popular mind, and that it 
 was cruel to talk of defending from future problem- 
 atical attacks a people who at that moment were 
 flvin,2^ from every port, hunted from their shelter like 
 wild beasts, or starved like vermin at home, nearly 
 three millions out of the six millions being candidates 
 for outdoor relief, and half a million already paupers 
 in the workhouse. The worthlessness of a standing 
 Association which had no specific work to do was 
 illustrated at the moment by a significant incident. 
 
 ^ The deputation consisted of Mr. Lucas and Mr. Duffy. 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIEST TROUBLES. 153 
 
 The Repeal Association was originally founded to enrol 
 all Nationalists of whatever creed or class, and its sole 
 business was to promote the Repeal of the Union. But 
 Mr. John O'Connellhad been able to induce his father, 
 in faihno; health and wanins^ intellect, to turn it into 
 a sectarian organisation, to the complete ruin of its 
 original purpose. No secular interest, he insisted, 
 could be permitted to interfere with the constant 
 guardianship of Catholic rights. And now, when 
 Catholic rights had been at last seriously assailed, Mr. 
 John O'Connell, stricken by the remonstrance of his 
 constituents against his Whig votes, suddenly dissolved 
 the Repeal Association, and retired from public life. 
 He had kept the pretence of an army on foot till the 
 day of battle arrived, and then precipitately disbanded 
 it. Were the people to be permitted to enrol them- 
 selves anew under another pretender, of more brains, 
 indeed, but whose integrity and fidelit}^ were still more 
 doubtful ? But distracting the popular attention by 
 two agitations was a trifle compared to the danger of 
 committing the selection of condidates at the general 
 election to dishonest counsellors. Mr. Sadleir was still 
 little known, but that Mr. Keogh or Mr. John Reynolds 
 would be safely entrusted with such a duty I entirely 
 disbelieved. They had obtained the support of a great 
 body of bishops, however, and if an Association 
 having authority with the country was created, the 
 
154 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 constituencies, it might be feared, would be delivered 
 over to tliem. I naturally wrote in this spirit, but 
 with the caution and reserve wdiich a great danger 
 justified. Lucas was by this time of a different opinion. 
 He insisted that the two movements need not seriously 
 interfere with each other, that we must not separate 
 from the bishops, and that as twenty Irish members 
 had broken loose from English parties, they ought to 
 be accepted as the nucleus of a League party. I 
 knew these men better than he did, having seen them 
 tested by previous experiments, and I told him that 
 however many constituencies declared for them, what- 
 ever support they might receive from bishops, I 
 could not recosfnise them as men in whom it was safe 
 to put any confidence. We must endure them if we 
 had no choice, but to accept and acknowledge them 
 was to share the responsibility. When men are ex- 
 pressing their sincere convictions, difference of opinion 
 need not interfere with their cordial relations ; but on 
 each side we had numerous friends to satisfy, and the 
 controversy slipped into the newspapers. That Lucas 
 was connected with the League was an offence to some 
 of his ecclesiastical supporters, who thought his sole 
 mission was to defend Catholic interests at home and 
 abroad, and many of them were still full of rage at 
 the exposure of the Longford priests. He was pressed, 
 I have no doubt, from many sides to break openly from 
 
THE COUKCJL AND ITS FIRST TROUBLES. 155 
 
 such unpractical and temerarious opinions.^ He wrote a 
 still stronger article in defence of the proposed organisa- 
 tion, and complained that I was throwing cold water on 
 a necessary and salutary project which had been de- 
 termined upon with the assent of many prelates and 
 members of Parliament, and could not be abandoned. 
 I replied that there was no pubhc evidence that it 
 had been considered by any one else than certain 
 distrusted politicians in London, that only three or 
 four bishops were cited as having approved, that its 
 having "been determined" had been received as the 
 justification of too many folhes in Ireland within my 
 own experience to make that formula an authority 
 with me, and that if there were not better rea- 
 sons forthcoming I would not spare cold water or hot.^ 
 
 ^ " He (Dr. CuUen) always tried to set me against Moore and 
 Duffy, wliile he set every one against me himself." — Lucas to Dr. 
 MacHale. 
 
 ^ " If we are not to throw cold water upon a proposal calculated 
 to imperil the most serious interests, we must be satisfied either 
 that it tends to practical good (which in this case we entirely dis- 
 believe), or that it was adopted by men entitled by personal fit- 
 ness and public confidence to decide for the country. Otherwise 
 we shall spare neither cold water nor hot. Ireland has had a 
 warning already, as memorable as if a prophet cried out on the 
 highways. Another Catholic organisation which professed the 
 most boisterous zeal — which undertook to determine, on behalf 
 of the Church and the country, on all possible occasions, and to 
 cry down, in their name, whoever interposed a word of common- 
 sense in the path of its figments — has left us an example which it 
 is too soon to forget." — Nation, June 28. 
 
156 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 He returned to the question fiercely and offensively. 
 
 The deduction from Lucas's fine character was that 
 
 in controversy he was sometimes passionately and 
 
 blindly unreasonable ; and fought for his own will, 
 
 or what Avas worse, for opinions accepted from some 
 
 one in ecclesiastical authority, as determinedly as for 
 
 truth and justice. I liked and trusted him too well, 
 
 and had too long acted in strict friendship with him 
 
 to let a single incident interrupt our relations, and I 
 
 treated it as being what I entirely believed it to be 
 
 — the inspiration of some bishop or priest to whom the 
 
 Nation was a stumbling-block.^ But the Northern 
 
 ^ "The Tahlefhfi9, fallen into an alarming fit of epilepsy over 
 
 onr paragraph on the Catholic movement List week. The cause 
 
 of these unaccountable convulsions escapes our most careful 
 
 diagnosis. It is true ive think a second aggregate meeting in 
 
 Dublin an impolitic method of inaugurating the Catholic Defence 
 
 Association, and the Tablet thinks otherwise ; but if you differ 
 
 from a man on the shortest road to a given point, he does not 
 
 commonly bellow like a bull of Bashan, or foam in the mouth on 
 
 the occasion. If he does, you are compelled to cast about for the 
 
 motive of such superfluous gymnastics — to inquire who bespoke 
 
 them, or what design on the credulity of the bystanders they 
 
 are intended to cover. As we are not inclined to raise such 
 
 nice issues, we leave this part of the case as a riddle for the 
 
 curious : — 
 
 ' Eiddle me, riddle me, ree, 
 
 "Was it a Connaught D.D., 
 
 Or only a Longford P.P., 
 
 Bespoke us tins beautiful spree 1 ' " 
 
 — Nation, Jiilv 5. 
 
 ['■'Riddle me, 7^''ddle me, rer, fiettlerl that business well (wrote a 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIRST TIIOUBLES. 157 
 
 members were not edified by tlie encouragement of a 
 second asfitation, and one wliich was certain to distuib 
 uneasy spirits whom tliey laboured to keep in check, 
 and tiiey were wroth with Lucas.^ 
 
 Early in July a League meeting was held on 
 the banks of the Boyne on the anniversary of the 
 historical battle, to re-animate the spirit of the country 
 and renew the pledges of union. The sitting of the 
 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, which 
 was unexpectedly protracted, kept away the leading 
 ministers. Lucas was in London on the deputation 
 to Sharman Crawford, on which he and I had been 
 sent, but Dr. M'Knight, Mr. Underwood, and Arch- 
 deacon Fitzgerald, John Fiancis Maguire, and Father 
 
 Leaguer). There is nothing like a flash of truth after all — stage 
 thunder being a very small substitute."] 
 
 1 " Protestants are universaUy enraged at the style in which 
 their faith is habitually spoken of, and this, too, without excuse i.r 
 necessity, while liberal Roman Catholics are asliamed and vexed to 
 see all their liberal professions falsified on a sort of organic autho- 
 rity. Between ourselves tlie advocacy of the Tablet is utterly 
 ruining the Roman Catholic cause amongst all classes of the 
 community here, and if the clergy do not either disclaim it or put 
 an end to this insane rant and gasconade nothing can save them 
 from its destructive consequences. You took the right course in 
 the last Nation by recalling public attention to the legal conae- 
 quences of the late act, and you ought to press it, as the public 
 are forgetting the injuries inflicted upon the Roman Catholic 
 community amidst the outcry that is raised against the ex- 
 travagances of the Tablet."' — Nation Correspondence, Dr. M'Kjiigft 
 to Duffy. 
 
158 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 O'Shea represented North and South ; and the 
 Moderator of the General Assembly ; and the Cathohc 
 Primate sent good wishes and sympathy. The meet- 
 ing, which was held on a hill overlooking the battle- 
 field, was a suitable site for the proclamation of social 
 peace ; and, though the weather was tempestuous, the 
 attendance was considerable. It was announced that 
 the deputation to London had come to an understand- 
 ingf with Mr. Crawford on a bill to be introduced next 
 session, and that a conference between him and the 
 League to settle details would take place immediately 
 in Dublin. As the Boyne meeting was contemporaneous 
 with the Orange commemoration of the battle, it was 
 recognised as one of its results that in this year there 
 were no Orange riots in the North. ^ 
 
 Mr. Keogh also pushed on his policy vigorously. 
 The meeting to found the Defence Association was 
 skilfully managed. The concurrence of Cardinal 
 Wiseman and the new English bishops had been 
 obtained, the great bulk of the L^ish bishops were 
 zealous supporters, and a committee was appointed to 
 organise and govern the movement, which left nothing 
 
 1 Another result may be noticed. At the Synod of Armagh 
 some ministers took exception to the conduct of their brethren 
 who had joined the League. But in the face of this protest, Mr. 
 Bell was chosen Moderator, and it was a fact which could not be 
 misunderstood as a gauge of public opinion, that every Elder, 
 without exception, voted for him. 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIKST TROUBLES. L59 
 
 to be desired on the part of tlie projectors. It con- 
 sisted of certain English bishops who could never 
 attend, certain Irish bishops who could rarely attend 
 and Mr. Keogh and his aides-de-camp, who would be 
 always on the spot. Not one man connected with the 
 Tenant League, not even Frederick Lucas, who had 
 been so vehement for the project, was admitted into 
 this committee. 
 
 Immediately after the Catholic meeting the con- 
 ference between Mr. Crawford and the League took 
 place. Mr. Keogh scored another success. To oust 
 the dishonest members from control of the elections 
 we needed the Northerns ; and the Northerns could 
 not separate from Mr. Crawford. That gentleman 
 went to the conference, attended by John Sadleir, 
 William Keogh, John Reynolds, and their ordinary 
 tail, and made their acceptance along wdth him 
 inevitable. After four hours anxious debate the 
 basis of a bill to be introduced in the coming Session 
 was agreed upon. But he had imposed a gang 
 of shameless jobbers on the people by allying himself 
 with them, and to this mistake the loss of a whole 
 generation in the progress of the principles he repre- 
 sented may be traced. It may seem marvellous that 
 an honest man not deficient in judgment and insight 
 should commit such a mistake ; but they were 
 the chosen representatives of popular constituencies, 
 
160 THE LEAGUE OF XORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 supported by eminent ecclesiastics, and the Leaguers 
 were in his eyes simply agitators for extreme 
 measures. 
 
 Mr. Crawford attended a League meeting the same 
 evening, and he was again accompanied by the 
 Brigadiers, as they came to be called from having 
 assumed the title of the L'ish Brigade, who were 
 whitewashed in the face of the people by this alliance. 
 The bill agreed on was not the bill of the League, as 
 it did not include perpetuity of tenure ; but we had 
 not one man in Parhament to introduce our own bill, 
 and we had been beaten at every election in which we 
 endeavoured to obtain such a representative. We did 
 all that was possible. We reserved the right to submit 
 our measure to the constituencies at the general elec- 
 tion, and to obtain, if it proved possible, a League 
 party in Parliament. It was a painful choice, but 
 
 " if we refused 
 The means so Hmited, the tools so rude, 
 To execute our purpose, life would fleet, 
 And we should fade, and nothing would be done." 
 
 There is one more election to record to complete a 
 history of shameful treason to the interests of the 
 suffering people. The resignation of Mr. John 
 O'Connell gave the electors of Limerick City an 
 opportunity of retrieving the disastrous error com- 
 mitted in the county. But their leaders were not 
 
THE COUNCIL AND ITS FIEST TEOUBLES. 161 
 
 disposed to avail themselves of it. To mark distinctly 
 that it was a Catholic contest rather than an agrarian 
 or national one which concerned them, an English 
 Catholic, the Marquis of Arundel, heir of the Duke of 
 Norfolk, was selected as their candidate. At the 
 nomination Father Kenyon, of Templederry, proposed 
 General O'Donnell, an Irishman, as a protest against 
 this policy, and was with difficulty saved from being 
 torn to pieces by a furious mob. The result was 
 pronounced to be another great day for Ireland, and 
 the new member was invited to a banquet to celebrate 
 his triumph. There was a large attendance of eccle- 
 siastics and Brigade members, but the hero of the day 
 did not make his appearance, and after a little time 
 he announced his intention to accept the Chiltern 
 Hundreds, and retire from Parliament.^ 
 
 If this painful story be worth telling, it is primarily 
 as a lesson in conduct. The people have gained courage 
 and public spirit since that time ; but the kindred 
 virtues of prudence, foresight, tolerance, and judgment 
 only come from the practice of thinking and acting 
 for themselves; never from the most beneficent state 
 of pupilage. It is worth telling moreover as an evidence 
 
 1 One of tlie League priests celebrated the event in the Nation 
 by a parody on " O'Rourke's Noble Feast," beginning — 
 
 " The Arundel feast will never be forgot 
 By tlie priests who were there, or the peer — who was not." 
 
 M 
 
162 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 that North and South can trust each other, for these 
 defections raised no doubt in Ulster of the fidelity of 
 the men who had founded the League.^ 
 
 ^ Mr. Fitzgibbon was not a Northern, bnt lie was an intense 
 Protestant, and lie stood firm in this crisis. An extract from a 
 letter to me on the occasion will illustrate the great need there 
 was that the Nation should not go with the fury of the hour, if 
 the union with Protestants was to be preserved— 
 
 " I agree with Rogers in thinking that the Anti-papist cry will 
 fail in the North, and I also think it will fail everywhere else. 
 It would indeed be a prodigy if it had not some curs to yelp for it in 
 the old haunts of religious and factious intolerance, but the fact 
 I now believe is beyond doubt that intelligence is too much 
 diffused amongst the middle class to suffer it to gain a victory or 
 to fling the honest workers into conflict and strife again. They 
 will not battle now except against their wily plunderers, be they 
 Papist or Protestant, and their true friends must do all they can 
 to keep them in their right ranks, facing their hereditary 
 oppressors and not turning aside to skirmish with each other. I 
 heartily congratulate and thank you for the good work you are 
 doing in the Nation in guarding against this danger, and I rejoice 
 to see the sound views and honest independence of our excellent 
 friends in the North, whose talents and noble bearing are above 
 all praise." 
 
CHAPTER v.— (CONTINUED.) 
 
 THE LEAGUE COUNCIL AND ITS TKOUBLES. 
 
 When the Defence Association was organised and 
 its standing committees named, John Francis Maguire 
 and Maurice Leyne, representing important organs of 
 opinion, were looked for there, and to shut out 
 Frederick Lucas seemed a moral impossibility. But 
 the Brigadiers did not lack courage, and they caused a 
 resolution to be passed excluding all newspaper pro- 
 prietors and editors together. It gave a sardonic 
 character to the device that Messrs. Keogh, Sadleir, 
 and Ousley Higgins were at the moment engaged in 
 bringing out a newspaper of their own, intended to be 
 the organ of the Association. As I was not a member 
 
 1 They founded a newspaper called the Telegraphy and proposed 
 to sell it at half the ordinary price — a rate which, as the newspaper 
 stamp and paper duty were still unrepealed, experts declared 
 could not pay the cost. But it might pay politically by influencing 
 the constituencies. It was announced in the prospectus that "it 
 was called into existence mainly at the desire of the founder of 
 
 M 2 
 
164 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 of the Association, and had no personal ground of 
 complaint, I was free to point out how ignorant and 
 calamitous a mistake such a prohibition was in a 
 country like Ireland, which had to depend upon 
 journalists for the defence of its interests — 
 
 "After the Battle of the Boyne the first resistance 
 offered to England was by Swift, who united Catholic 
 and Protestant against their common enemy. What 
 raised the Irish vicar to be the associate of Cabinet 
 Ministers — the maker of peers and bishops, and to be 
 himself a new power in the State ? Notoriously his 
 writings as editor of the Political Examiner. The 
 successor of Swift was Charles Lucas, whose statue 
 stands between those of Grattan and O'Connell in the 
 Royal Exchange, and he was founder of the Freeman s 
 Journal. Henry Grattan, who succeeded him, was not 
 properly a journalist, but what Irish scholar had not 
 placed in his library the Barratariana, containing his 
 newspaper contributions ? A little later Arthur O'Connor 
 abandoned the succession to a peerage to become a 
 journalist and leader of the people, and Daniel 
 O'Connell's most efficient colleagues in the Catholic 
 struggle were journalists. Bichard Shiel commenced 
 his career as a reporter in the office of the Morning 
 Chronicle. Dr. England, the great enemy of the Veto, 
 and afterwards the distinguished Bishop of Charleston, 
 was editor of the Cork Chronicle. The Irish Con- 
 federation and the Tenant League furnished later 
 instances when the battle of the people was fought by 
 journalists.' 
 
 the Catholic Defence Association," but as some of the bishops 
 objected to the responsibility involved this passage had to be 
 cancelled. 
 
THE LEAGUE COUNCIL AND ITS TROUBLES. 165 
 
 Mr. Keogli was warned that his stroke was at any 
 rate premature — 
 
 " It is a familiar truth that great men do not like 
 the Press. Cromwell set it in the pillory and clipped 
 off its ears. Louis le Grand sent it to the Bastile ; 
 Napoleon put a gag between its teeth, and, where it 
 could not be gagged, banished it. Pitt proffered a 
 pension or a prison, and compelled it to choose. Even 
 O'Connell occasionally denounced it to the people, and 
 cut off the supplies. The tradition is to remain un- 
 broken, it seems, but the forthcoming great man has 
 made a blunder in point of time ; he should have 
 waited till he actually grasped the rod of empire before 
 employing it to bar the passage. At present he is, 
 perhaps (in the language of the national pro verb j, 
 bolting the door with a boiled carrot." ^ 
 
 But an unexpected difficulty interrupted the pros- 
 perous course of the Brigadiers. A Secretary was 
 required for the general committee, and they had a 
 
 ^ It is proper to place on record that Mr. Keogh, in a private 
 note to me, declared that in the committee he had opposed the 
 exclusion of journalists — a statement which I leave to the reader's 
 judgment. " Although nothing is more grateful to my mind than 
 the applause of my fellow-countrymen (he wrote), yet no power 
 on earth could induce me to purchase it by unworthy compliance. 
 You will understand, therefore, that I have no motive of a per- 
 sonal or political nature to accomplish when I inform you that I 
 raised my voice and gave my opinion from first to last against 
 the proposal to exclude newspaper proprietors and editors from 
 the committee of the Defence Association. I don't think that 
 you are capable of representing that I was in favour of this pro- 
 position after you are informed that I was against it. This infamy 
 has been monopolised by the editor of a journal who is well 
 aware of the truth." — Nation Correspondence, Keogh to Duffy. 
 
166 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 young Connaughtman ready who could be relied on 
 for obedience and discretion. He was recommended by 
 the Archbishop of Tuam, who, it was afterwards 
 announced, would regard the selection of a foreigner 
 as fatal. But the Primate, who thought selections of 
 this character belonged to him, quietly recommended 
 an English convert, Mr. Henry Wilberforce, son of the 
 famous anti-slavery leader, and brother of the Bishop 
 of Oxford, who was elected accordingly. The Briga- 
 diers were incensed at having the chief executive office 
 given to a man not devoted to their interests, and they 
 rashly appealed from the committee to the community. 
 As the Catholic congregation issued from church on 
 Sunday morning they were amazed to read a placard 
 on the walls signed by Keogh, Sadleir, and their 
 adherents, which announced that in opposition to five 
 bishops who were present, and to the almost unani- 
 mous wish of the faithful Irish members, a stranger, 
 wholly ignorant of the opinions and wishes of the 
 people, had been chosen Secretary of the Defence 
 Association. On the eve of a general election they 
 regarded such a choice as an act of ignoble folly and 
 national degradation, and it was made, they declared, in 
 open defiance of the noble nationality which had hither- 
 to been the life and inspiration of the Irish cause.-^ 
 
 ^ The most prominent of tlie Irish members, it was said, 
 sustained by the most Irish of bishops, directly raised the question 
 
THE LEAGUE COUNCIL AND ITS TEOUBLES. 167 
 
 After a pause of wonder at the rashness and unwisdom 
 of the appeal, the controversy was taken up warmly by 
 Catholics outside the Association. 
 
 Lucas, who by this time had lost confidence in the 
 new organisation, vehemently condemned the pro- 
 ceeding. He scoffed at their affectation of patriotism, 
 and quoted a pamphlet of Mr. Keogh's written before 
 he entered Parliament, in which he had turned Irish 
 nationality into contempt.^ The allegations in the 
 Address were contradicted seriatim; one of the five 
 bishops present had declined to vote, not approving 
 of any of the candidates, and some of the others 
 supported Mr. Wilberforce. The Brigadiers, he in- 
 sisted, wanted a creature of their own, a totally incom- 
 petent person, and would not consent to postpone 
 their appeal for a single day, as they had been 
 entreated to do, that some accommodation might be 
 arrived at. 
 
 I took a different view of the transaction. I had 
 
 whether Ireland is to be offered as a sacrifice to the interests and 
 feelings of a handful of English Catholics, who, but for their 
 connection with this country, would be " an enslaved sect, without 
 rank, privilege, or position in the State, and subjects only in their 
 subjection." — Address of the Irish Members on the election of 
 Mr. Wilberforce. The document was written by G. H. JMoore. 
 
 1 Mr. Keogh's pamphlet was entitled Ireland Imperialised , and 
 was an appeal to Lord Clarendon to efface the National party 
 by a judicious distribution of places among safe men — like him- 
 self. 
 
16S THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 no confidence in the Irish members, but I thought 
 there were good grounds to disappiove of the choice 
 made. " Ireland for the Enghsh " had been the rule 
 in too many places already to welcome it in the 
 Catholic Defence Association. An illustrious English- 
 man was to be Rector of the Catholic University, and 
 would have the training of the next generation of 
 our young men, and Mr. Lucas would teach them 
 through a powerful journal. These were justifiable 
 and even salutary circumstances ; but there were 
 others which suggested the necessity of caution. 
 Limerick had recently selected Lord Arundel to repre- 
 sent it in a great national eraergency, and several 
 English candidates were notoriously negotiating for 
 Irish constituencies ; an English squire had, it was 
 alleged, found the capital for a journal to teach the 
 Irish people their public duties, and English eccle- 
 siastics, educated at Oxford, were giving a tone to 
 Catholic society in Ireland which assuredly was not 
 national. The Court of Wards had been the most 
 successful stroke of policy in denationalising the ancient 
 Irish families, and education was so powerful a solvent 
 of opinions that the new policy might prove as 
 disastrous.^ 
 
 1 " The bitterest enemies of Ireland for eight generations have 
 been Anghcised Irishmen. Some Anglo-Irish Earl of Antrim 
 some Anglo-Irish Clanricarde or Preston, some Anglo-Irish 
 
THE LEAGUE COUNCIL AND ITS TROUBLES. 169 
 
 The Primate, who had taken no pubhc part in the 
 election, at length interfered with a letter insisting 
 that, as the Defence Association represented the 
 Cathohcs of the United Kingdom, the choice of Mr. 
 Wilberforce was reasonable and proper. To placate 
 the Archbishop of Tuam the committee selected an 
 Irish Assistant-Secretary in the person of Mr. Martin 
 Crean, and the struggle ended in a compromise. 
 During this controversy Mr. Keogh was entertained at 
 a public dinner in Athlone, at which Dr. MacHale 
 attended. The committee sent an invitation to Lucas, 
 who committed the mistake of accepting it after his 
 recent exposure of the guest of the evening. No toast 
 was assigned to him, but when " the Press " was 
 proposed, his friends called upon him and he rose to 
 reply. Mr. Keogh' s partisans shouted him down, and 
 insisted on hearing the editor of a local newspaper in 
 preference to one of the greatest publicists in Europe. 
 When he was at length heard, Lucas, in the course of 
 his speech, suggested that if the Opposition came into 
 office Mr. Keogh would be offered the post of Solicitor- 
 General, and one of the dangers to be foreseen was 
 
 Kenmare or Bellew, some Anglo-Irish Wyse or More O'Farrell, 
 some Castle bishop or Castle hack who had learned to lisp like a 
 Cockney and reason like a Jacobite, is always the man to betray 
 the Irish interest in its last emergency. This is the liistory of 
 Ireland since the Keformation." — Nation, on Mr. Wilberforce's 
 appointment. 
 
170 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 that he might accept it. Keogh, in a rage, replied 
 that his assailant was a person who would plant a 
 dagger in a man's back if he found a convenient 
 opportunity. Next morning the Archbishop attempted 
 to make peace where peace was impossible, and even 
 disastrous, because the confidence on which it must 
 rest was wholly wanting. He told Lucas that Mr. 
 Keogh was the appointed Catholic leader, and that 
 it was his duty to support him ; and, in the end, he 
 caused honesty and dishonesty to clasp hands. Here 
 was a man who stood nearly alone in grasp of intellect 
 and devotion to Catholic interests, and in the supreme 
 gift of judging men, and the melancholy use the 
 Archbishop made of his influence over him was to 
 force him to embrace a person whom his conscience 
 and judgment repudiated as a dishonest schemer. 
 Dr. MacHale afterwards made such amends as were 
 possible, but taking sides decisively at a later period; 
 many of the bishops continued to uphold Mr. 
 Keogh till half a generation later, when, from the 
 safe asylum of the judicial bench, he covered them 
 and all he had pretended to love with his scorn and 
 contumely. One of the commonest errors committed 
 in Irish affairs down to this day is the desire to hide 
 away difference of opinion in a pretence of unanimity. 
 Absolute unanimity is impossible among men who 
 use their judgment and conscience; reasonable and 
 
THE LEAGUE COUNCIL AND ITS TROUBLES. 171 
 
 honest difference of opinion is a public gain, as it helps 
 to discipline opinion; and a popular leader has no 
 more reason to fear a legitimate opposition than the 
 leader of the House of Commons. But this is a truth 
 which Ireland has never learned. 
 
 At this time a circumstance happened which proved 
 to be of signal importance to the League. Dr. Murray, 
 the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, died, and the duty 
 fell on the clergy of the ecclesiastical province to 
 recommend three persons to Rome from whom a 
 successor mio^ht be selected. It was intimated that 
 the Propaganda desired to transfer the Primate from 
 Armagh to the metropolis, and he obtained a majority 
 of votes, and was declared dignissimus. The Arch- 
 bishopric of Dublin had always been a post of political 
 importance. Between the Invasion and the Reformation 
 it had habitually been conferred on an Englishman. 
 After the ecclesiastical property got transferred to the 
 new Establishment by Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, 
 there were two archbishops, an Englishman sent to 
 watch over the King's interest, and an Irishman 
 nominated by the Holy See. At the time of the Union, 
 when the Catholic prelacy first got a grudging recog- 
 nition from the Castle, the Archbishop was more of a 
 courtier and diplomatist than any of his class in 
 Ireland, and his successor had followed in his foot- 
 steps. In the long list of metropolitans, indeed, there 
 
172 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 is but one wlio has left a name cherished by the nation, 
 Laurence O' Toole, properly Lorcan Tuatheill, and 
 since canonised as St. Lorcan, held the office in the 
 era of Strongbow, and died in exile contending for the 
 rights of his race against the invader. It was hoped 
 that the Propaganda, in transferring the Primate to 
 Dublin, meant to give Ireland a successor to the patriot 
 prelate of the twelfth century. While he remained 
 at Armagh all parties regarded Dr. Cullen as a Nation- 
 alist,! but in truth no man ever held the office who was 
 
 ^ A private letter from the Lord-Lieutenant, Lord Clarendon, 
 to Lord Shrewsbury, a Catholic peer, got published at this 
 time, and sufficiently exhibits the opinion which the Government 
 held of the Archbishop of Armagh — ■ 
 
 " All good men in Ireland, of whatever creed or politics, are 
 agreed in reverencing Dr. Murray as the heau ideal of a Christian 
 pastor, and yet your Lordship found his Holiness irritated against 
 him alone. All agree in considering Dr. MacHale as an ill-dis- 
 posed demagogue, who does nothing but afford an example of all 
 that a bishop ought not to do ; and yet when your Lordship blamed 
 him you were told that you had a strange animosity to the Irish. 
 Dr. Cullen, moreover, published a synodical address, in which he 
 did not stop at condemning the colleges, but sought to set class 
 against class, and to represent every poor man as a martyr, and 
 every rich man as a tyrant. ■ There is more rank communism in 
 that address than could be chemically distilled from M. de Veri- 
 cour's whole book. Mr. Lucas, editor of the Tablet — one of the 
 most virulent and offensive newspapers in Europe — was in con- 
 stant communication with Dr. Cullen, and is, moreover, the chief 
 instigator, as his paper is the organ of the Tenant League, the 
 object of which is to abolish the rights of property, and to shake 
 to its very foundation everything on which society depends. He 
 is ably assisted in this work of regeneration by the priests, who, 
 
THE LEAGUE COUNCIL AND ITS TROUBLES. 173 
 
 more essentially a foreigner. He was not an English- 
 man, but an Italian, who only regarded Ireland as a 
 convenient fulcrum for the foreign policy of the Vatican. 
 Shortly after his arrival at Armagh a keen observer 
 who saw him close at hand, wrote to me : — " He has 
 not genius, but he has great acquirements in divinity, 
 great shrewdness, considerable knowledge of men and 
 their motives, and great graces from God." It may be 
 that he was a good bishop, but assuredly he was a 
 bad Irishman. His ideal, as we can now discern it 
 in his action, was to transfer the government of 
 Ireland to bishops, and a few laymen prepared to 
 accept their lead without question or criticism. It 
 was a narrow and impossible policy ; and after more 
 than a generation has passed away, we can safely 
 pronounce that it has proved in the end a disastrous 
 failure. His fundamental fault was that he mistook 
 his own imperfect acquaintance with facts for profound 
 knowledge, and acted on his prejudices as if they were 
 inspiration. The leaders of the Italian Nationalists 
 (Mazzini and Garibaldi) mingled with their laudable 
 desire to drive the Austrians out of Italy a fanatical 
 
 with this end in view, have fraternised with the Presbyterian 
 clergy. But not a word of counsel or reprimand has been uttered 
 by the Primate, On the contrary, his journal applauds, and the 
 editor acts in the League with Mr. Duffy, of the JVation, who 
 would have been at this hour a deported felon if one of the jury 
 had not perjured himself." 
 
174 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 antipatliy to the Catholic Church, and Dr. Cullen saw 
 in the Nationalists of Ireland only a reproduction of 
 the Italian party. But in Ireland the Church had 
 been the ally and confederate of the Nationalists, and 
 religion was one of the main sources of the fidelity of 
 the people to their public duties. The Irish Repealers 
 no more represented the Carbonari than the Irish 
 priests who were successively Repealers, Confederates, 
 and Tenant-Righters, resembled the ecclesiastics who 
 were allies of the House of Hapsburg. Some of the 
 Meath Leaguers whispered that his original prejudice 
 was fomented by bad advisers. His relatives in that 
 county were graziers and " bull farmers " who had 
 no sympathy with the struggling peasantry, and had 
 no hesitation in adding held to field at the cost of 
 their neighbours. His uncle. Father Maher, was a 
 servile Whig, and party hack, and when the transfer 
 to Dublin took place the Whig Catholics who had 
 formed Dr. Murray's cabinet soon surrounded his 
 successor. 
 
 After a time I discovered that he regarded me with 
 particular disfavour as an "Irish Mazzini " — that 
 was his phrase. Whenever I met him, which was 
 rarely, and only at the table of some priest or layman 
 of his diocese, he smiled affably, and I had no sort of 
 notice of his real sentiments. But subterranean mur- 
 murs reached me from time to time through friendly 
 
THE LEAGUE COUNCIL AND ITS TROUBLES. 175 
 
 ecclesiastics, and at length Lucas assured me that he 
 urged him to separate from so dangerous a connection. 
 Lucas was not the man to be ear-wigged into a policy 
 which his judgment rejected, but to retain our alliance 
 unbroken was not always easy. He was reminded 
 from time to time by ecclesiastics of various ranks who 
 had adhered to O'Connell in 1846, that the Younof 
 Irelanders had been accused by bishops of want of 
 Catholic faith and zeal, and when he rejoined that the 
 bishops who assailed the Young Irelanders in 1846 
 were the identical men who now supported Messrs. 
 Sadleir and Keogh, the answer was pronounced in- 
 sufficient. 
 
 On my side I was warned that while we were seek- 
 ing concessions from the English Parliament which 
 would never be obtained, the national spirit was dying 
 out. My friends were suspicious of certain London 
 Irishmen who were posing as candidates, and whom 
 they insisted on regarding as proteges of Lucas. 
 Maurice Leyne, at the League Council, one day in 
 Lucas's presence, cited the case of one of these gentle- 
 men who had been ostentatiously praying at O'Connell's 
 grave, and inquired whether he was praying for a 
 county constituency ? The Catholic Colleges, the Press, 
 the Pulpit, he insisted, were falling under English 
 influence, and even the constituencies. An English 
 nobleman, notable for nothing but, like Beaumarchais's 
 
176 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 hero, " having taken the trouble to be born," met with a 
 reception in Limerick which rivalled O'Connell's at 
 the Clare election. ''We know and do not fear," he 
 said, " the English who came in with Strongbow, the 
 English who came in with Cromwell, the English who 
 came in with William of Nassau ; but how are we to 
 guard against the new invaders to whom our strong 
 places are given up — the Enghsh who came in with 
 Lucas ? " 
 
 When Parliament met, Sharman Crawford introduced 
 his bill, and the value of the new alliance was tested. 
 The Brigade supported the measure feebly, the Govern- 
 ment opposed it, and it was lost by a majority of three 
 to one. Mr. Crawford was of opinion that his measure 
 was lost by the additions which were made to it at the 
 Conference ; but his most moderate proposals had 
 never been better received. Happily the hope of aid 
 through a general election visibly increased. Lord 
 John Russell, who seems never to have understood what 
 fidelity to a colleague meant, pushed Lord Palmer- 
 ston out of the Government to satisfy a punctilio of 
 Prince Albert ; and those who knew the parties to the 
 transaction predicted that the coup would be speedily 
 avenged. In a few weeks the Whigs fell, on the motion 
 of their late colleague, and Lord Derby was called to 
 office, with a Cabinet of new men, of whom the most 
 conspicuous was Mr. Disraeli. The fall of the Whigs 
 
THE LEAGUE COUNCIL AND ITS TROUBLES. 177 
 
 was received with universal satisfaction in Ireland. 
 Their weak and cruel policy during the famine, their 
 Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, and a recent exposure before 
 the courts of law of Lord Clarendon's connection, in 
 1848, with an infamous newspaper called the World, 
 rendered them odious and detestable. 
 
 The Whigs, before turning out, had rewarded one of 
 the Cork members — Dr. Power- — for a long career of 
 subserviency by the governorship of a Crown Colony. 
 Several candidates more or less suitable were named 
 for the vacancy, but the Brigadiers wanted Vincent 
 Scully, a barrister without practice, but a landholder 
 and a director of John Sadleir's Tipperary Bank. The 
 Tablet and Nation warned the constituency that he was 
 a confederate and relative of Sadleir's, and that it was 
 dangerous to create a family party. Mr. Keogh at- 
 tended the nomination in his character of leader of the 
 Irish Brigade, and made a remarkable demonstration. 
 The County Club, in the first instance, selected Mr. 
 Alexander McCarthy, but the leader induced the Bishop 
 of Cloyne, Dr. Mur]Dhy, to support Mr. Scully, and he 
 overcame resistance at the Club by pledges so plain and 
 specific that it seemed captious and unreasonable to 
 doubt them. He repudiated the idea of place-begging 
 with scorn, and sealed his fidelity with an oath — 
 
 "I declared myself (Mr. Keogh said) in the pre- 
 sence of the bishops of Ireland and of my colleagues 
 
178 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 in Parliament, that let tlie Minister of the day be whom 
 he may — let him be the Earl of Derby, let him be Sir 
 James Graham, or Lord John Russell — it was all the 
 same to us; and, SO HELP ME GOD, no matter 
 who the Minister may be, no matter who the party in 
 power may be, I will neither support that Minister nor 
 that party unless he comes into power prepared to 
 carry the measures which universal popular Ireland 
 demands." ^ 
 
 Mr. Sadleir answered for the honour and patriotism 
 of his relation, as for his own.^ The Rev. Mr. Cor- 
 coran proposed Mr. Scully, he said, *' because of his 
 thorough and perfect identification with the Tenant 
 League, and opposition to any Government not favour- 
 able to Irish rights." But the candidate sustained this 
 role imperfectly. He had to admit that he had made a 
 lease enabling him to distrain for rent three days after 
 
 ^ He described liis intentions more specifically on a further 
 occasion — " If all the Peelites in the House joined the Whig 
 Administration, I would be their unmitigated, their untiring, their 
 indefatigable opponent till we got justice. And what is that 
 justice ? I can state the terms of it well. I will not support any 
 party which will not make it the first ingredient of their political 
 existence to repeal the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. I will have 
 nothing to do with any party which, without interfering with the 
 religious belief of the Protestant population, will not consent to 
 remove from off the Catholics of this country the burthen of sus- 
 taining a I Church Establishment with which they are not in 
 communion." 
 
 ^ " His mother's brother (we'll ax no other), 
 Tis he'll go bail for his father's son." 
 
 — Squib in the Nation^ by a young Cork Priest. 
 
• THE LEAGUE COUNCIL AND ITS TROUBLES. 179 
 
 it was due. He would vote for the second reading of 
 Mr. Crawford's bill, but not pledge himself to details. 
 With this manifest sham the great county of Cork was 
 content, and Mr. Scully was elected. 
 
 The Times was confident, after the fate of Crawford's 
 bill and the issue of the contested election, that the 
 Irish Question was not likely to be a further embarrass- 
 ment. It announced, with cynical plainness, that what 
 was odious in Ireland — its population — would be got 
 rid of, but what Avas pleasant and convenient for the 
 employment of English capital still remained — 
 
 " Ireland's fertile soil, its rivers and lakes, its water- 
 power, its minerals, and other materials for the wants 
 and luxuries of man, may one day be developed ; but 
 all appearances are against the belief that this will 
 ever happen in the days of the Celt. That tribe will 
 soon fulfil the great law of Providence, which seems to 
 enjoin and reward the union of races. It will mix 
 with the Anglo-American, and be known no more as a 
 jealous and separate people.'^ 
 
 Th.Q Nation announced a counter-project, ivhich, after 
 a generation, has, under God's mercy to a struggling 
 people, had a larger measure of success— 
 
 " To colonise Ireland, not with strangers, but with 
 the Irish race ; to plant the people, who are flying 
 away in a panic, among their kith and kin ; to substi- 
 tute the industry and integrity of the country as 
 owners of the soil, in lieu of bankruptcy and profligacy ; 
 to create a small proprietary, constituted of the best 
 of the existing farmers, of the most skilful workmen, 
 
 N 2 
 
180 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 whom Mr. Dargan and bis colleagues, the Board of 
 Works and the Ordnance Survey, have trained in 
 Ireland ; of the picked teetotallers, who have learned 
 thrift and foresight as well as temperance ; and of the 
 most enterprising and successful of the Irish in Eng- 
 land ; and to stop the growth of pauperism by giving 
 
 the people a motive for exertion." 
 
 • 
 
 That the incidents narrated in this chapter should 
 have left the League unbroken is creditable to the 
 Northern leaders, who were sorely tried. But is it not 
 credita.ble to the Catholic leaders also, a confidence in 
 whose fidelity and integrity was the essential condition 
 of its existence ? 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GENERAL ELECTION. 
 
 From the beginning, the hopes of the League had 
 been set on the enthusiasm and elan of a general 
 election, and now this coveted opportunity was near 
 at hand. If it were wasted, all would be lost. 
 
 Those who saw the organisation from the outside 
 could imperfectly estimate the difficulties which beset 
 its leaders. The funds had fallen low, the attendance 
 of country members slackened, and as the general 
 election approached, the ambition of wealthy nincom- 
 poops, who had joined the League in the vague hope of 
 getting into Parliament, became troublesome. The pro- 
 mise of contributions to the ten thousand pounds fund 
 had been imperfectly fulfilled. Leinster contributed 
 £810; Ulster, £132; Munster, £117; and Connaught 
 nothing. A systematic canvass of towns was com- 
 menced by deputations, and of rural districts by the 
 local societies, and the means were with difficulty 
 obtained of- continuing the ao^itation with the strictest 
 economy. The office of Secretary had been performed 
 
182 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 in turn by various members of the Council, owing to 
 the difficulty of finding a man acceptable both to 
 North and South as a permanent officer. The South- 
 erns were willing and anxious to accept an Ulsterman, 
 but the Ulstermen who offered themselves were not 
 approved of by the Northern leaders ; at length Mr. 
 Bindon, a Munster Protestant, was selected as a com- 
 promise. A weekly periodical, entitled the Irish 
 Tenant League, was established, not only for the pur- 
 pose of spreading the League principles but as a 
 measure of economy. The printing and postage of 
 the circulars summoning the Council amounted to 
 nearly £20 a month, for which a notice in the periodi- 
 cal might be substituted ; and in another direction it 
 might be made equivalent to a monthly tract without 
 incurring new expenditure. 
 
 The first Conference and the unexampled union of 
 North and South were not gains more marvellous 
 than the success now won against a legion of impedi- 
 ments and discouragements. Since Catholic Eman- 
 cipation only one dissolution of Parliament had been 
 turned to adequate account in Ireland. A fatal 
 weakness had uniformly betrayed the Irish cause ; the 
 people and their trusted counsellors, whenever they 
 were offered the choice between integrity and plausible 
 dishonesty, did not know how to choose. They could 
 struggle and suffer for a just cause, but they could 
 
THE GENERAL ELECTION. 183 
 
 not, it seemed, protect it from systematic betrayal. 
 That fatal weakness was as plain to the Leaguers then 
 as it is to the mass of Irishmen at this hour; and 
 they pressed upon the people in every tone of sym- 
 pathy and remonstrance the supreme duty of contend- 
 ing only for honest men and honest principles. Lucas 
 stated once more the wrongs and the remedy in lan- 
 guage of singular vigour and clearness. Several of 
 the League priests exhorted their own districts to set 
 an example of vigilant preparation ; and Archdeacon 
 Fitzgerald, with all the authority derived from his age 
 and his office, appealed directly to the bishops, who 
 had been the chief offenders hitherto, to take a lead 
 in this work. He bade them remember the examples 
 of sainted prelates of old who came to the rescue of 
 their faithful people to save them from pillage and 
 extirpation ; though there was not a single instance 
 where the calamity sought to be averted could 
 bear comparison with the wholesale devastation in- 
 flicted on Ireland by the landlords. St. Leo went 
 forth to arrest the destroying hand of Attila. St. 
 Flavian, of Antioch, travelled eight hundred miles to 
 protect his people from impending destruction. The 
 Bishop of Chiappa (Las Casas) crossed the Atlantic, 
 to and from Spain, at six different times to save his 
 unhappy flock from the murderous oppression inflicted 
 under the pretence of rights of 23roperty. 
 
184 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 He warned them not to |)ermit the exterminator to 
 assume religious zeal as a cloak for greed and malice ; 
 nor under any pretence to countenance any man who 
 killed, banished, or shut up in workhouse dungeons 
 those who would not pay impossible rents. " The man 
 who made a desert around him — who looked from his 
 hall-door on ruins of farmhouses, once the scenes of 
 peace, innocence, and honest toil ; who made of Ire- 
 land an anticipated hell, should not find in the favour 
 of an abused and deluded people a sort of game 
 licence to hunt them down like wolves or hares ! " 
 Let the candidate be an Irish Brigademan, but let it 
 be also a sine qud non that he shall be pledged to 
 support a Land Bill which, while it inflicts no real 
 wrong upon any human being, would keep our people 
 at home, and perhaps reclaim those who were banished. 
 
 " A Tipperary Priest " painted the desolation of the 
 country in language of plain sense and natural feeling — 
 
 " Two-thirds of my own congregation (he said) have 
 departed to the workhouse or gone to America. I was, 
 God help me, very proud of my flock seven or eight 
 years ago. I rejoiced — I felt, perhaps, an unbecoming 
 pride — when they crowded around my chapel in their 
 holiday finery on a Sunday, and I used to point to 
 them as the decentest and best conducted people in 
 the country. My chapel always overflowed. There is 
 hardly a third of it occupied at present — and the showy 
 gowns and ribbons, and the bright kerchiefs have almost 
 disappeared. There is instead squalor and rags, tottering 
 old atye, and no children." 
 
THE GENEEAL ELECTIOK 185 
 
 The same theme was expanded in the Nation — 
 
 " Ireland was fast dissolving before the landlord, as 
 the Jewish nation dissolved before the curse of God, as 
 the Carthagenian nation dissolved before the sword of 
 Kome, as the Red Indian silently dissolved before the 
 face of the white man. A hospitable and pious people, 
 whose doors w^ere wide open to the stranger — an in- 
 dustrious and thrifty race who produced abundantly 
 and lived frugally, were given over to slow extinction. 
 They perish cruelly, shivering in rags, cowering under 
 dripping roofs, fed on chance alms, rotting in workhouses 
 or stifling in emigrant ships, and flung out of them to 
 mix with the polluted dregs of great cities, and forget 
 the God that made them and the country that bore 
 them. And the landlord comes behind, and plucks 
 down their dwellings as the ratcatcher destroys the 
 nests to stop the propagation of the vermin." 
 
 Another writer in the same journal described, in 
 words of penetrating force, the sham policy presented 
 for the support of the people by the Brigadiers — 
 
 " Priests and people, wakening from the ecstatic ex- 
 citement of a religious war, look round the country to 
 see the tenant-farmers trooping out of it in thousands, 
 and what remedy did the Brigade propose ? Bead their 
 answer in Mr. Moore's speech at Ballina. Tenant-right 
 will be proposed, but it is quite impossible to carry it 
 next session, or in a cycle of sessions. So Mr. Moore 
 says boldly and bluntly. It is quite possible, neverthe- 
 less, we are assured, to repeal the Ecclesiastical Titles 
 Bill, get vote by ballot, create a score of new Irish con- 
 stituencies, turn out the Whigs, and turn in any party 
 else ! Oh, orood and all seeino; God ! the mortal blind- 
 ness of this most unhappy and sore-stricken people ! 
 
186 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 Father Daly detailed the method and agencies by 
 which an honest Parliamentary Party might be created. 
 At present unsound members were selected by local 
 prejudice or by private negotiation with influential 
 persons, and when they were chosen it was next to 
 impossible to get rid of them. By aid of the League, 
 candidates might be obtained who w^ould not flinch 
 from their duty. 
 
 Mr. Underwood exhorted the Northern electors to 
 put aside party feeling during this struggle; they 
 might hate the Pope, but let them remember that his 
 name was never seen in a process of ejectment; and 
 George Henry Moore recommended, as ^^ledges were 
 everywhere in England exacted from candidates to 
 vote for the abolition of the Maynooth grant, that 
 Irish candidates should be pledged to the disestablish- 
 ment of the Protestant Church in Ireland. 
 
 In the Nation I strove to familiarise the people with 
 the policy by which alone the cause might be carried 
 to success — the policy of Independent Opposition; a 
 policy which meant union with no English party, and 
 hostility to none which was prepared to advance our 
 cause. It is necessary to quote the language employed, 
 that it may be understood, if the people were foully 
 betrayed in the end, they were fully forewarned of the 
 danger. 
 
 The balance of English parties, it was said, afforded 
 
THE GENEEAL ELECTION. 187 
 
 a rare opportunity to an Independent Irish minority. 
 Free Trade and Protection were going to fight their 
 last battle ; the Anti-Corn Law League was already re- 
 vived, and Protection was in force in Downing Street — 
 
 "Ireland held the key of the position. She was 
 able to say to them — ' Debate and divide, gentlemen, 
 it is your right ; but Ireland must decide who shall 
 have the majority/ This was the talismanic sentence 
 which would open the ears of English parties to the 
 Irish question." 
 
 If Ireland must support the party which proved 
 
 most friendly, it was necessary to have plain evidence 
 
 which party answered this description. Neither showed 
 
 such a disposition at present — 
 
 "The Free Traders had a fanatical hatred to the 
 principles of the League, and a cold immovable con- 
 tempt for everything beyond the narrow range of 
 their circumscribed horizon. They were not men of 
 imagination or sympathy. The slaughter of Skibbe- 
 reen affected them no more than the murder of the 
 Innocents. It was cast into the perspective of vast dis- 
 tance by their little scientific spyglasses. Moral indig- 
 nation that kindles at injustice, instinctive sympathies 
 with a chivalrous people, were little known in Manchester. 
 They had, indeed, a desire to do what they considered 
 reasonable and just. But what was reasonable and just 
 in their eyes ? They would sacrifice an Irish province 
 to a theory if it had the Manchester stamp on it." 
 
 The modus operaiidi was described over and over 
 again — 
 
 "Whatever party can attain the control of the House 
 of Commons rules the empire. For ten years no 
 
188 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 English Minister has had an effective working majority 
 of more than a hundred for an entire session. More than 
 a third of his majority was always Irish. Deducting 
 the Irish, it has never exceeded sixty. Whenever the 
 League can send into the House of Commons fifty 
 members prepared to insist upon the tenants' charter 
 in supreme disregard of party interests, it will be carried. 
 They will be able to overturn any Minister by walking 
 across the floor of the house." 
 
 But this result was to be attained only by men who 
 
 to integrity and capacity added the strictest discipline — 
 
 " Against a Government bound together with ribs of 
 iron, against a disciplined aristocrac}^ accustomed from 
 boyhood to command and obey, the naked people had to 
 fight this battle. It was fatuity to hope they would do 
 it by choosing an indiscriminate herd of members, and 
 leaving each to follow his individual will and pleasure. 
 The people must establish a discipline and erect an 
 authority of their own equal to those of their an- 
 tagonists. What discij^line and what authority, the 
 League must determine." 
 
 This was the position Ireland would hold in the new 
 
 Parliament, and its value would altogether depend on 
 
 the class of men to whom the duty was intrusted — 
 
 "If the leaders of English j^arties had to consider 
 not what they must yield to Ireland, but what they 
 must offer to individual ambitions and cupidities to 
 secure Irish votes, the opportunity would be fatally lost. 
 Mr. A would be supplied by the Treasury with a purse 
 to pay his 'debts of honour,' Mr. B promised a colonia 
 appointment; Mr. C, who has money, would get a baron- 
 etcy ; and Messrs. E and F, who managed the business,-'- 
 
 ^ The men who " managed tlie business," Messrs. Keogii and 
 Sadleir, strictly fulfilled this prediction. 
 
THE GENERAL ELECTION". 189 
 
 might aspire to become Irish Secretary and Solicitor- 
 General respectively. 'Ireland's opportunity ' would be 
 bought and paid for by a mess of pottage." 
 
 One of these exhortations closed with language which 
 
 proved prophetic — 
 
 " God sends opportunities ; it is man's privilege to 
 use or abuse them. Another opportunity is sent to 
 Ireland ; let Irishmen bethink themselves in time 
 whether it will be wisely used, idly lost, or treacher- 
 ously sold to the enemy. The men they send to the 
 next Parliament will determine the result." ^ 
 
 General expostulation was followed by specific action. 
 In the counties Avhere the League principles were 
 strongest the selection of candidates immediately com- 
 menced. The Council advised that the choice should 
 be made by a conference representing the constituency, 
 and be afterwards confirmed or rejected by the people 
 in public assembly. To transform opinion from a proto- 
 plasm to a vertebrate and sinewy power, it must act for 
 itself; there is no other method under heaven for turn- 
 ing serfs into citizens. To find in a country so ]30or 
 and so derided as Ireland fifty or sixty candidates able 
 to live six months of the year in London and willing to 
 maintain a constant struggle for a cause disparaged 
 even by the middle class was not easy. But the 
 Council sought them assiduously. Their aim was to 
 create a party not of their own adherents, but in the first 
 instance of men who would impress Parliament by their 
 1 Xation, March 6, 1852. 
 
190 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 character and ability. In the AutoMography of John 
 Stuart Hill, and the Selected Speeches of Lord O'Hagan, 
 evidence will be found that both these distinguished 
 persons were applied to to become candidates of the 
 League, with whose principles they were in sub- 
 stantial harmony.^ The Leaguers of Meath desired 
 to choose Lucas and Sergeant Shee ; but the project 
 met a strong opponent in the bishop, who was unwilling 
 to displace Mr. Corbally, a Catholic squire — personally 
 respectable and politically a nonentity. Finally Lucas 
 and Corbally were selected. But the Brigadiers were 
 determined to keep Lucas out of Parliament ; and the 
 Parliamentary Committee of the Defence Association 
 promptly passed a resolution declaring that they would 
 see a contest in Meath with great pain, and exhorting 
 the constituency not to turn their back on representa- 
 tives who had served them faithfully. Mr. Grattan, in 
 
 ^ In liis Autobiography Mr, Mill states that fourteen years 
 before Westminster sent him to Parliament, Mr, Lucas and 
 Mr, DiifFy were authorised by the Tenant League to offer him a 
 county constituency in Ireland ; which, concurring Tvith the 
 fundamental principles of the League, he would have accepted 
 but for his relations to the East India Company at that time. 
 Lord O'Hagan, who afterwards defended the League principles in 
 the House of Lords as embodied in the Land Act of 1880, was 
 also invited to become a candidate. In a note on the recently 
 published volume of his Select Speeches (p. 520) he says — "In 
 1882 Frederick Lucas intreated me to accept a constituency with- 
 out adopting the peculiar views of the party of which he and my 
 friend Sir Charles Duffy were the most influential leaders." 
 
THE GENERAL ELECTION. 191 
 
 whose interest this declaration was made, had hereditar}^ 
 claims on Irish sympathy, till he had effaced them by 
 his own conduct. In the contest between O'Connell 
 and the Young Irelanders he had not taken a side, but 
 sheltered himself in abject silence. During the famine 
 he had voted for Coercion when relief was denied ; and 
 he now repudiated the principles by which it was hoped 
 the people might be saved. He was a man not indis- 
 posed to act generously if he found generous sentiments 
 acceptable to his ordinary associates ; but he was not 
 strong enough to stand alone, and in Parliament he had 
 drifted with the current. It is strange that in an 
 association of which eminent prelates of the three 
 nations were members no one repudiated this intrigue 
 against a man who had served them so faithfully as 
 Frederick Lucas. But the priests and people of Meath 
 could take care of themselves. They replied to this 
 exhortation by a resolution declaring that some of the 
 Committee (of the Catholic Defence Association) which 
 undertook to recommend candidates to Irish constitu- 
 encies were exterminating landlords, and other un- 
 trustworthy politicians, and that they disdained their 
 guidance. The Nation w^elcomed their nomination in 
 terms which time amply justified— 
 
 '' Meath has chosen wisely for its own interests ; 
 Lucas will be an incomparable Leaguer and a whole 
 Catholic Defence Association in himself It is sur- 
 prising that Parliament was not opened to him lono- 
 
192 THE LEAGUE OF ^^OKTH AKD SOUTH. 
 
 ago, for his capacity is peculiarly adapted for that field. 
 He is an eminent journalist, but he will be a more 
 eminent debater. His success, we are convinced, will be 
 immediate and remarkable. After a few sessions he 
 will hold a place in the House as individual and notable 
 as any man's who has not sat in a Cabinet Council. 
 His impregnable coolness and masculine vigour, his 
 resources, and the reserve of vehement passion which 
 great occasions call out, will make him a master of 
 that practical eloquence which sways the House of 
 Commons." 
 
 In Kilkenny the bishop desired no change, but the 
 League priests were of a different mind, and in the 
 end Sergeant Shee and Captain Greene, one of the 
 sitting members, were nominated as the popular can- 
 didates. Louth selected Tristram Kennedy, a barrister, 
 who had been agent for the Marquis of Bath's property 
 in an adjoining county, and had distinguished himself 
 by fair and considerate dealing with the tenantry. In 
 Sligo and Leitrim it was necessary to have candidates 
 w^ho would spend largely to bring up voters to the poll, 
 and probably for local churches and charities, which 
 the constituency had grown accustomed to expect ; as 
 if a seat in Parliament, instead of being a public trust, 
 was a personal prize. The League recommended two 
 Irishmen resident in London, Mr. Swift, recently sheriff 
 of Middlesex, and Dr. Brady, a medical man in good 
 practice. 
 
 In Ireland the boroughs were much more under the 
 influence of patrons and cabals than the counties, and 
 
THE GENERAL ELECTION. 193 
 
 it was considered a great gain when Dungannon nomin- 
 ated John Francis Maguire, and New Boss requested 
 the Leag^ue to name one or more candidates for the 
 consideration of a local committee. The story of the 
 contest in the latter borough is worthy, on several 
 grounds, chiefly from the universal interest it excited 
 and the example it set, of being told in detail. 
 
 The Council named three candidates — Charles Gavan 
 Duffy, Patrick Lalor of Tinakill, and Patrick M'Mahon, 
 of the Temple, London, who were immediately com- 
 municated with. A deputation, consisting of Father 
 Tom O'Shea and Mr. Bindon, the secretary, was ap- 
 pointed to visit the constituency, and I was requested 
 to accompany them as the first candidate on the list. 
 On a dull morning in spring, the sky overcast and 
 threatening, and rain falling at intervals, Mr. Bindon 
 and I arrived at Callan, and made our way to the 
 Curates' cottage. We found Father O'Shea disabled 
 by bronchitis, which had kept him indoors for several 
 days. When we told our errand Father Keefe shook 
 his head at the rash project of an invalid facing the 
 unfriendly sky, and suggested an appeal to the doctor. 
 But the indomitable Leaguer would listen to no re- 
 monstrance where public duty and private friendship 
 were concerned, and before an hour we were on the 
 road to New Ross. Many a time since there has risen 
 to my memory the picture of the stalwart priest on an 
 
 o 
 
]9i THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 open car, and muffled to the chin, but constantly for- 
 getful of his temporary ailment in eager debate on the 
 mission he had undertaken. When we reached New 
 Koss he set out alone for a personal visit to his fellow- 
 student in former days. Father Doyle, the senior curate, 
 who was understood to exercise a decisive influence over 
 the election committee. After considerable delay he 
 returned to announce that his mission had failed. Father 
 Doyle expressed personal respect and sympathy with the 
 candidate, but he was confident from the feeling of the 
 committee, who were most vehement Old Irelanders, 
 that they would not accept him, and he declined to 
 moot a project which must necessarily fail. I deter- 
 mined on the instant to see Father Doyle personally, 
 and we all set out for his residence. He received us 
 courteously, and while we were sharing his evening 
 meal, repeated what he had already said to Father 
 O'Shea. I requested him to summon the committee 
 for next morning, and allow me to face their prejudice, 
 and see how far it could justify itself in my presence. 
 He thought the attempt useless for any practical end, 
 but at length consented, as a courtesy, to issue the 
 necessary summons. He required, however, as a pre- 
 liminary condition, that we should consult the wishes 
 of his parish priest ; without whose concurrence he 
 would not move a step. We called upon that gentleman, 
 who made no objection to the experiment. He was not 
 
THE GENERAL ELECTION. 195 
 
 a politician, he said, and was prepared to accept the 
 decision of the people, whatever it might be. Next 
 morning the committee, which consisted of about two 
 dozen persons, mustered eighteen or twenty, and Father 
 Doyle, who was suffering from influenza, arrived, wrapped 
 in a heavy cloak and muffler, to look on, he said, but not 
 prepared to take part in the proceedings. Three or four 
 members who would not consent to pay me the courtesy 
 of listening to me came to the door and stared in for a 
 minute or two as at some strange animal, and then took 
 their departure. I had formed a resolution during a 
 sleepless night to make that day a cardinal one in my 
 life ; it might be one of discomfiture and disaster ; but 
 at any rate it should be signal and decisive. I told the 
 committee I had been forewarned of their prejudice 
 against me because I was associated with men whom I 
 believed to be the most enlightened and disinterested 
 whom Ireland had known in this century, but they had 
 probably only heard one side of the case, and should 
 now" hear the other. A committee who were all Irish- 
 men, who were probably all Repealers, and who had 
 the additional ground of sympathy that they were all 
 Catholics, afforded as fair a tribunal as I could ever 
 hope to appeal to on my past career and my present 
 designs, and I had come to the fixed resolution of ac- 
 cepting their verdict as final, whatever it might be. 
 If after hearing my defence of the conduct of the Young 
 
 o 2 
 
198 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 Ireland ers, and my aims in entering Parliament, they 
 declared that I was not a fit candidate for New Ross, I 
 would abandon my candidature, resign my seat on the 
 Council of the League, discontinue the Nation, and 
 retire from Irish affairs for ever. This was my fixed 
 determination, and I spoke for an hour under the strong 
 feeling created by the belief that it was perhaps my 
 last appeal to an Irish audience. 
 
 I do not know, and I can never know, to what 
 extent I won the sympathy of the committee, for a 
 factor came into play which baffled all calculation. As 
 soon as I sat down Father Doyle stripped off his cloak 
 and muffler, and plunged into the business. He de- 
 clared he would give me his unequivocal support, and 
 made a passionate appeal for fair play, before which 
 opposition seemed gradually to melt away. There 
 were thrilling cheers, as he urged point after point, 
 which were not for the orator solely, and when I with- 
 drew I believed that a majority of the committee were 
 prepared to support me. 
 
 But prejudice gives way slowly. After I had re- 
 turned to Dublin a letter came from a friend in the 
 committee,^ informing me that either Mr. Lalor or 
 Mr. M'Mahon would unite the whole committee, which 
 
 1 Mr. William Power, who, with his brother, Mr. Michael 
 Power, supported me from the outset. The latter was a man of 
 remarkable ability and decision of character. 
 
THE GENERAL ELECTION. 197 
 
 I sTioulcl certainly not do, and recommending tliat I 
 would allow the name of one of them to be substituted 
 for mine, and select some other constituency. But in 
 the meantime Mr. Lalor had answered to the com- 
 munication of the Council, that he would not re-enter 
 Parliament, bat would gladly support me ; and Mr. 
 M'Mahon wrote to me that he would only become a 
 candidate for any constituency if the men who had 
 created the League were chosen before him, without 
 whom he would be useless in Parliament.^ The 
 League felt that the contest was a decisive one ; the 
 more so that I was resolved to accept the verdict as 
 final. An address to the electors of Ross, signed by 
 fifty of the leading Leaguers, North and South, lay 
 and clerical, was issued, and a deputation, consisting 
 of Pat Lalor, Father Daly, Father O'Shea, Rev. David 
 Bell, and others, set out to address the constituency 
 in a public meeting.^ Meantime two candidates with 
 
 1 " You should know tliat unless you, and Lucas, and Pat 
 Lalor, and Sergeant Sliee and such men get in, I have not the 
 remotest wish for a seat. It would be disheartening and disgust- 
 ing to me to be thrust in among a mob of fools, knaves, cheats, 
 sots, hypocrites, and cowards. With these notions you will tliere- 
 fore understand that I would not spend £5 to get in for any 
 borough or county in the island, unless I was to go in as one of 
 a party prepared honestly to stand by the people, and sufficiently 
 numerous to serve them in some way." — Nation Correspondence, 
 M'Mahonto Duffy, March 25, 1852. 
 
 2 By this time Mr. Fitzgibbon had retired, discontented with 
 
198 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 local connections entered the field — Sir Thomas 
 E-edington, late Under-Secretary for Ireland, whose 
 father-in-law was the sitting member ; and Mr. Henry 
 Lambert, who had represented the county Wexford 
 twenty years earlier. The parish priest, it was hinted, 
 supported Redington, and Mr. Tottenham, the proprietor 
 of the town, supported Mr. Lambert. With the parish 
 priest the Bishop of Ferns was understood to sym- 
 pathise, and there could be no doubt that the Arch- 
 bishop of the Province, Dr. Cullen, the Apostolic 
 Delegate, would not be sorry to see me defeated. 
 The parish priest who had received me so graciously 
 suddenly became hostile. On my second visit to 
 the borough, I had the solace of hearing his estimate 
 of the three candidates communicated to his congrega- 
 tion on a Sunday morning after Mass. Henry Lambert 
 was objectionable, he said, as having been tried in 
 Parliament already, and found wanting; whereas Sir 
 Thomas Redington was a Catholic gentleman who had 
 already served his country with distinction. As for the 
 stranger from Dublin, he would not conceal his opinion 
 that that gentleman was aiming at a position which 
 
 the Tablet articles, I think. He became secretary of a Native 
 Manufacture movement, and, after a little time, died. Mr. Lalor 
 had also left the League in disgust with the perversity of some of 
 the Council, who were too critical, he considered, on his adminis- 
 tration of affairs as hon. secretary. 
 
THE GENEKAL ELECTION. 199 
 
 neither God nor man had intended for him, or intended 
 him for. 
 
 The landlord was equally decisive. His tenants 
 were forewarned of the wrath with which he would 
 regard the selection of an enemy of the rights of 
 property as representative of his town. Against the 
 ecclesiastical influence it would have been as impossible 
 to prevail in Ross as it had proved elsewhere, but for 
 the dauntless courage of Father Doyle. He had 
 romised his support, he said, and he did not feel 
 relieved from his pledge because his respected pastor 
 had changed his mind. Those who know what are 
 the relations of a curate to a parish priest — to a 
 bishop — to an archbishop, will alone be able to 
 estimate the fortitude of the stand he made. In 
 a political contest, he declared, he had to consider 
 political motives and consequences, and that no array 
 of authorities on the other side could induce him to 
 prefer Redington or Lambert as a representative of 
 the people's interests to the other candidate. In face 
 of this testimony the secret wishes of his ecclesiastical 
 superiors counted for nothing in the minds of a people 
 familiar with his daily life of unsleeping services to 
 the poor. The territorial influence was counter- 
 balanced, and in the end effaced, by the popular and 
 national feeling which the contest speedily excited. 
 It occupied the Press everywhere ; it was the chief 
 
200 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 topic wherever political issues were debated, and the 
 interest constantly increased. 
 
 I was fortunate in my antagonists ; Mr. Lambert 
 had been elected as a Repealer in O'Connell's first 
 Repeal movement in 1832, but had deserted the 
 party in the House of Commons, and was known to 
 the joeople as " Luttrell Lambert." ^ Sir Thomas 
 Redington had been Under-Secretary for Ireland 
 when Lord John Russell was Premier. He and his 
 colleagues had armed the Orangemen against the 
 Repealers in '48, had packed juries against the 
 political prisoners by excluding Catholics, had suborned 
 Birch and Conway to malign the Young Irelanders, 
 and he continued to serve under the Government 
 which passed the Ecclesiastical Titles Act. As a 
 landlord, he had expelled a hundred and eighty persons 
 from his Galway property since the famine. It was 
 felt throughout Ireland that in a contest between the 
 Castle Catholic and the country Catholic — the jury- 
 packer and the prisoner against whom juries were 
 packed, it was impossible to be neutral. Mr. Keogh 
 and his colleagues on the Committee of the Defence 
 
 ■^ It may be necessary to tell English readers that Luttrell, the 
 progenitor of the house of Carhampton, held a command at the 
 battle of Aughrim under James II., and sold to the enemy a pass 
 which exposed the flank of the Irish army ; hence the phrase 
 " sold the pass," to signify political treachery, and a "Luttrell " to 
 signify a traitor. 
 
THE GENEEAL ELECTION. 201 
 
 Association said not a word in my favour, but the 
 TaUet dared them to support the Catholic official who 
 had been a party to the penal law against bishops. 
 
 Redington commenced to canvass the borough, and 
 he was formidable in a military point of view, for his 
 coming was preceded by a troop of dragoons, a company 
 of infantry, and three detachments of police. But he 
 made no way with the electors, and was only followed 
 throughout the borough by a hired retinue of dis- 
 orderly and disreputable persons. Intimidation and 
 bribery were tried ; prosperous shopkeepers were 
 warned that they would lose the custom of the 
 gentry, and more than one humble elector brought 
 to Father Doyle the half notes given to secure his 
 vote at a specific price. To restore the courage of the 
 shopkeepers threatened with loss of custom we resolved 
 to parade before their ej^es the greater mass of 
 customers on whom they could rely. A day was fixed 
 for canvassing the borough on my behalf. New Ross 
 is on the verge of Wexford and Kilkenny, and many 
 thousand farmers from these counties attended to give 
 their assistance, headed by teetotal bands. The young 
 priests throughout the diocese of Ferns, some of whom 
 had been Young Irelanders, and all of whom were 
 friends of Father Doyle, came to Ross to aid the 
 popular cause, and the result of two days' canvass 
 v/as that a majority of the electors were pledged to 
 
202 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 support Duffy. The names were immediately printed, 
 and it was declared that for all honest purposes the 
 contest was at an end. But Redington's friends in 
 Dublin insisted that when it cam.e to votinsf he 
 Avas still certain to be elected. " Sa Thomas is 
 pe'fectly secua" became one of the popular by-words 
 of the day. In fact bribery and secret influence were 
 so extensively employed that if the contest had not 
 raised popular feeling to a fever height he might have 
 been successful. There is an Augustinian monastery 
 in Ross ; the Prior went with Duffy, but all the friars 
 were supporters of Redington, and with them half a 
 score of shopkeepers or professional men to whom the 
 county families allied with Redington were prodigious 
 personages. If he had remained in office while the 
 Penal Law was passed, these electors were of opinion 
 that it was not for any personal profit or advantage 
 but because he could be more useful, that he had 
 adhered to the enemy. But to any one who recalled 
 the price at which Catholic liberty was purchased in 
 Ireland, how many victims went to the block to 
 maintain it, how many left home and kindred to die 
 in exile rather than relinquish an iota of it, and the 
 noble sacrifices which poor electors in our own day 
 had made, and the seductions they had often spurned 
 to record a single vote on the right side, these excuses 
 sounded mean and sordid. 
 
THE GENERAL ELECTION. 203 
 
 The Freeman s Journal announced that the Reform 
 Club in London had granted funds to tamper with 
 New Ross, and then, as a counter m.ove, a pubHc fund 
 was immediately opened to bear the entire expenses 
 of the election. The design spread from Dublin to 
 London, and from London to New York. Enough 
 funds, and more than enough, were supplied for the 
 lono; contest, and the election did not cost me a 
 shilling. I have many times before and since refused 
 to accept tribute or testimonial for public services to 
 the L^ish people, but to relieve a man from the 
 necessity of buying a seat wdiich he does not intend 
 to sell is a wise national policy, and a good public 
 investment. That the Council of the League should 
 fight the battle stubbornly was natural, but it warms 
 my heart still at this distant day to remember how 
 many friends, who had no special duty, took part in 
 it. John Dillon and Richard O'Gorman in New York, 
 Colonel French and Michael O'Grady ^ in London, 
 promoted the election fund. William O'Hara, uncle 
 of Mrs. John Dillon, when my intention of entering 
 Parliament became public, offered me a qualification 
 by a rent-charge on his estate in the county Dublin ; 
 and when a report got abroad that Redington hoped 
 to defeat me on some supposed informality in this 
 
 ^ Afterwards Minister of Public Works in the Colony of 
 Victoria. 
 
204 THE LEAGUE OF NQETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 instrument, William Eliot Hudson, living apart from 
 politics, engrossed in the cultivation of national art 
 and literature, sent me a rent-charge on his estate 
 in Cork to make assurance doubly sure.^ Our 
 opponents were equally active. Sir Thomas continued 
 his canvass with limited success ; but the only news- 
 paper in the county at that time, existing by favour 
 of the gentry, came to his aid by assailing my prominent 
 supporters by name as revolutionists and Carbonari, 
 
 ^ It is pleasant to recall timely aid in such a fierce contest with 
 ignorance and prejudice, and I cannot refrain from quoting one 
 or two notable instances. Father Matliew interposed effectively 
 in a letter to the popular candidate — 
 
 " New Eoss shone as a gem of the brightest lustre in the tem- 
 perance crown, therefore I exult in the prospect of such a con- 
 sistent and faithful advocate of teetotalism as my friend, Charles 
 Gavan Duff j, being the chosen representative in Parliament of 
 New Eoss. From my heart earnestly wishing the accomplish- 
 ment of an event so honourable to them and to you, I am, my 
 dearest friend, your ever affectionate 
 
 " Theobald Mathew." 
 
 Another ecclesiastic, who was destined to stand in the front of 
 the Irish Church in aftertime, in sending his contribution to the 
 election fund, sent sympathy, which was more precious than 
 material help — 
 
 " Of that man and his principles — his love of justice and his 
 hatred of oppression — his eagerness to exalt the character while 
 improving the social condition of our prostrated, yet not unpains- 
 taking people, I have happily no need to speak. His name falls 
 at length like a household word upon Irish ears ; his repute 
 becomes greater as he himself grows more mature ; and the heroic 
 devotion to the cause of nationality of which he has already given 
 the most unequivocal proofs is his best security for future services, 
 and his best title to the senatorial honours with which I hope to 
 see him soon surrounded. 
 
 "T. VV, Croke, D.D." 
 
• THE GENERAL ELECTION. 205 
 
 and Mr. Francis Wyse, brother to the Whig official, 
 wrote a pamphlet, in the character of an ardent 
 Nationalist, denouncing me for postponing Repeal to 
 the Land Question. The young priests, two of whom 
 afterwards entered religious orders tO' devote themselves 
 exclusively to good works, and a third who died on 
 mission duty in Australia, met the assault gallantly 
 by taking in sport the title of " Carbonari Curates." 
 A farmer, indignant at Mr. Wyse's dissimulation, wrote 
 to the Nation denouncing him as a bad landlord, who 
 was only solicitous for the interest of his class.^ The 
 Castle journal, which lived on Secret Service money 
 when the Whigs were in office, assailed me in every 
 number. I am of a clan which had been memorable 
 in Irish history before the landing of the first English- 
 man in the island ; I had lived my whole life in public 
 duties which were not at any rate obscure or discredit- 
 able ; but the Castle critic was of opinion that I was 
 an " adventurer," and when he remembered that I 
 had been tried for treason-felony he proclaimed it 
 
 ^ Mr. Wyse rejoined by an action for libel against the Nation, 
 and, after a fierce contest, obtained a farthing damages. One of 
 my friends, who was present on the occasion, produced a half- 
 penny, and offered to settle his claim on the instant if he would 
 favour him with the balance. But the jester made too little 
 account of the tragic ingenuity of penal laws against the Press 
 in Ireland. Though the jury assessed Mr. Wyse's damages at a 
 farthing, the law levied his costs off the defendant, and they 
 amounted to .£120. 
 
206 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 preposterous to compare my claims with those of the 
 eminent official against whom I had the presumption 
 to appear. I joined issue in a letter, not to the 
 libellers, but to their employer — 
 
 " I am ' an adventurer ' (it seems) ' without stake or 
 fortune in the country.' Well, be it so. I have no 
 more stake in the country than Henry Grattan had 
 when he entered the Irish Parliament. I am not 
 much richer than Andrew Marvell when he sat in the 
 English Commons. But let it be noted that whatever 
 I have, great or small, was honestly earned. Not a 
 penny of it was won by denying the country or the 
 creed of my fathers. There is no blood-money in it, Mr. 
 Under-Secretary. Dublin Castle stood open for me 
 also if I could walk in the miry footsteps of a Monahan 
 or a Redington. The mart where Irish Catholics are 
 ' bought, sold, or exchanged at the highest market- 
 price ' would not have refused even such humble ca|)a- 
 cities as mine, when it finds it answers to buy up 
 squires from Gal way, and 'fat cattle from the banks of 
 the Barrow.' ... I am ' an adventurer ' ! ' Thank 
 Heaven, I am independent,' Robert Burns wrote, ' for I 
 have learned to hold a plough.' If I may venture to 
 parody so noble a sentiment, I would say, ' Thank 
 Heaven, I am independent, for I have learned to hold 
 a pen i 
 
 The contest, I reminded my adversary, had begun in 
 the Court in Green-street. In their own dens of law I 
 had defied him and his patron, Lord Clarendon, and now 
 the case was set down for a re-hearing at New Ross. — 
 
 " There we shall have fair play at last. Mr. Justice 
 Perrin shall not close the door against the people. Mr. 
 
THE GENERAL ELECTION. 207 
 
 Sheriff French shall not pack the panel. Mr. Solicitor 
 Hatchell shall not pick and choose the jury. Mr. Baron 
 Lefroy shall not harangue the audience in 'double- 
 barrelled ' charges. We shall have untainted justice, 
 and you shall remember it to your dying day." 
 
 The prediction was justified. In the end Redington 
 withdrew from the contest in despair. Lambert, how- 
 ever, aided by the owner of the town, and a small, 
 compact, Tory party, went to the poll. The night 
 before the polling, the bulk of the electors assembled 
 for the last time, and so high had the enthusiasm 
 risen, that they resolved not to separate till the booths 
 opened next morning. Father Doyle reminded them 
 that to avoid the perils of an election petition they 
 must be at the cost individually of whatever refresh- 
 ments they required. In the morning they marched to 
 the booths in tallies of three, and before ten o'clock 
 all our doubtful votes were polled. By twelve the 
 contest was over, and I had won by a majority of more 
 than two to one. Even my bitterest Old Ireland oppo- 
 nents in the committee voted for me in the end. That 
 nio-ht the town was illuminated, and the neiofhbourinor 
 hills blazed with bonfires to celebrate an event which a 
 dozen weeks before seemed impossible. National enthu- 
 siasm, deputations of popular men from distant places, 
 and the other agencies employed proved effective ; but, 
 in truth, they would have been in vain but for the in- 
 domitable courage of Father Doyle. If the constitu- 
 
208 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 ency of New Ross made a bad choice on that occasion 
 there is no freeing him from the main responsibihty. 
 The contest, indeed, rendered intelhgible a perplexing 
 difficulty in Irish affairs. It enabled ns to understand 
 that the Young Irelanders failed in '48 because they 
 had so solid a mass of prejudice to encounter ; but they 
 did not hope vainly in hoping to overcome it if only 
 there were time to make themselves known to the 
 priests and people. 
 
 During the canvass in Hoss, the county took fire 
 from the borough. It seemed certain at first that two 
 respectable Whigs vfould be elected, but the young 
 priests, headed by Father Doyle, insisted on having a 
 candidate on whom the tenants could rely for effectual 
 help. As a testimony of goodwill to the North, they 
 proposed to elect Sharman Crawford, or failing him. 
 Dr. M'Knight. When I transmitted this proposal to 
 Belfast, M'Knight replied that the Northerns con- 
 sidered it indispensable to win Down, and that it would 
 only be won with Crawford's name and assistance ; 
 otherwise the tenants would not resist their landlords. 
 As for himself, his duty as a journalist fixing him in 
 Belfast, a career in Parliament was out of the ques- 
 tion. Patrick M'Mahon, who had served the League 
 efficiently from his chambers in the Temple, was invited 
 to stand, but he replied that he could not afford the 
 expense of a contest. It was agreed to renew the 
 
THE GENEEAL ELECTION. 209 
 
 invitation, with an assurance that the election would 
 cost him nothing. He was named candidate in his 
 absence, and a vigorous canvass commenced. There 
 was no pretence that he belonged to the class from 
 whom Wexford had selected members up to that time ; 
 on the contrary, the plain fact was insisted upon as the 
 sign of a beneficent revolution that he was merely an 
 honest man, of good ability, who had no ties, except to 
 the people from whom he sprang. " He has no estate (it 
 was said), no aristocratic connections, no private fortune ; 
 but he is a man of known ability and known honour, 
 who is gradually mounting the heights of his profession 
 by honourable labour, and who at every step of his 
 career found leisure to give silent and unostentatious 
 help to the Irish cause." That such a man, Avithout any 
 personal solicitation, should be selected by a great 
 county was the promise of a new era in Irish affairs. 
 Even the Council of the League were alarmed at so 
 strong a measure, and Lucas wrote to warn me that we 
 were going too fast.-*- But the Carbonari Curates per- 
 sisted, and carried him in at the head of the poll. 
 
 1 " I take it for granted M'Mahon has about as much chance in 
 Wexford as I liave in the city of London, and the temptation is 
 strong upon me to disconnect the Tablet altogether from an un- 
 wise move — as I, in my ignorance of the facts, imagine it to be — 
 which will re-act perniciously upon the League and upon the 
 country. Perhaps, if I knew more, I should think differently ; 
 but at present all my information is on one side, and I have no 
 
 P 
 
210 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 For the second seat a Conservative defeated the 
 Whigs by the narrow majority of five. When M'Mahon's 
 success was certain, his friends offered to bring in one 
 of the Whigs who was a good landlord, if the other 
 would retire, but neither would give wa}^, and they 
 destroyed each other. The expenses incurred in a 
 long contest did not reach £200, and the candidate's 
 share was the price of a return ticket from London. 
 
 The county elections went largely in favour of 
 the League. In Meath, Lucas defeated Grattan by 
 nearly four to one, and was permitted to pay no part 
 of the expenses. In Louth, Tristram Kennedy was 
 elected at a moderate cost. And it is a fact of great 
 significance that all these men justified exceptional 
 treatment by remaining steadfast in their fidelity to 
 the popular cause. In Leitrim and Sligo, the League 
 candidates, Dr. Brady and Mr. Swift, were also elected ; 
 but after serious expenditure. They were wealthy men, 
 however, and notwithstanding the penalty imposed on 
 them, remained true to their pledges.^ Everywhere 
 
 notion of appearing connected in Wexford with a hopeless defeat, 
 whicli, if suffered at all, will be suffered against my judgment. 
 Your own affairs, I imagine, go on well — so do mine.'' — Lucas to 
 Duffy. 
 
 ^ Edward Butler, afterwards distinguished as Attorney-General 
 for New South Wales, accompanied Dr. Brady on his canvass 
 as representative of the League, and largely contributed to his 
 success. 
 
THE GENERAL ELECTION. 211 
 
 either the principles of the League or of Crawford's 
 bill had been accepted by popular candidates, and more 
 than half the members elected were pledged to a settle- 
 ment of the Land Question on these bases. There 
 were only two drawbacks to the national success. In 
 the Clare contest a calamitous loss of life occurred at 
 Sixmilc Bridge. Six peasants were shot by the soldiers 
 in an election riot, and it embittered this tragedy that 
 they fell not in the defence of rights in which they had 
 any interest, but to promote the election of two of the 
 most selfish and worthless men sent to the new Parlia- 
 ment. The other was the success of the Brigadiers 
 Mr. Keoo^h brouo:ht in several men of his own class, 
 and Mr. Sadleir had succeeded in forming a family 
 party. His brother, who was associated with him in the 
 Tipperary Bank, and his cousin, Frank Scully, sat for 
 Tipperary. Another cousin, Mr. Keating, sat for Water- 
 ford, and a third, Vincent Scully, for Cork County. The 
 Queen's County elected a tenant-farmer supposed to 
 represent the interests of his class, but he proved in 
 the end to be a creature of Sadleir.^ 
 
 ^ This farmer was named Michael Dunne. Vincent Scully was 
 not without ability and information, but his manners were 
 eccentric and his pronunciation ridiculous from a sort of puerile 
 lisp. Francis Scully was merely feeble and commonplace. An 
 English member asked Sergeant Murphy how he contrived to 
 distinguish between the two wonderful Scullys. " Oh, easily," 
 said the Sergeant ; " we call Vincent Rum-Scnlly and Francis 
 Num-Scully." 
 
 p 2 
 
212 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 When the borough elections finished Magnire was 
 member for Duugarvan, which in 1847 and in 1851 he 
 had solicited in vain. In Limerick City, Robert Potter, 
 a respectable local solicitor, was chosen. In Gal way, 
 Anthony O'Flaherty, who had a good reputation till he 
 became the confidant of Mr. Keogh, defeated the son of 
 the Whig magnate, Lord Clanricarde. In Cork City, 
 Fagan was re-elected. In Youghal, Mr. Butt, who, 
 thouofh he was still a Conservative and a Protectionist, 
 had Irish instincts, defeated the nominee of the Duke 
 of Devonshire. In Waterford, Thomas Meagher, father 
 of the Young Ireland orator, an honest, unobtrusive 
 man, was re-elected. In Drogheda, Mr. James M'Cann, 
 a respectable miller, replaced Sir William Somerville, 
 the late Whig Chief Secretary. The City of Dublin 
 fell to the Tories through the venal votes of freemen of 
 the Old Corporation, but it was counted a full equiva- 
 lent for the loss of the capital that John Reynolds was 
 relegated to private life, and with him Patrick Somers 
 and 0' Gorman Mahon, Sir Henry Winston Barron and 
 Morgan John O'Connell. Two English Catholics, Mr. 
 Charles Townley and Sir George Bowyer, got in for 
 Sligo and Dundalk under the wing of the Defence 
 Association, and by definite pledges on the Land 
 Question. 
 
 The Northerners had much to bear before the general 
 election, in the defection of Southern constituencies, 
 
THE GENERAL ELECTION. 213 
 
 and they bore it well. It was now the turn of the 
 Southerners to be magnanimous. Tenant-right had 
 been successful everywhere except in the Tenant-right 
 province. There it accomplished nothing. In the 
 county Down, it was determined to elect Sharman 
 Crawford free of expense, and he had such claims 
 upon the tenant-farmers that it was not too much 
 to expect ; but he was defeated by over a thousand 
 votes. He attributed the result to the systematic 
 coercion of tenants; but if the prosperous farmers of 
 Down had been willing to make the sacrifices common 
 in the South his success was easy and certain. In 
 Monaghan an immense rally was made for Dr. Gray. 
 He got the support of the Catholic electors universally ; 
 but although he was a Protestant, and had connections 
 in the county of orthodox Orange politics, the Presby- 
 terian farmers voted with their landlords, and he was 
 defeated. In Cavan, where the League was strong, a 
 future Minister and a ministerialist were chosen ; and 
 every other constituency in Ulster elected enemies of 
 the League, except Newry, which chose Mr. Kirk, a 
 linen bleacher, whose professions promised well, though 
 they proved of limited value in the end. The Northern 
 leaders, I am persuaded, did their best, and in the day 
 of defeat they proclaimed that they would try again 
 and again till their object was accomplished ; but their 
 rout by the landlords was not the less decisive for the 
 
214 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 present. Not a murmur was heard in the League; 
 their failure was recognised only as a national calamity. 
 In the other provinces the result was unexampled — a 
 majority of the members for Ireland for the first time 
 since the Union were pledged to the interest of the 
 people, and among them the only ultimate deceivers 
 were some whose bad faith had been foreseen and pre- 
 dicted from the beginning. Nothing like this had ever 
 been accomplished in Ireland before. Considering the 
 difficulties to be encountered, it may be questioned if 
 anything like it has been accomplished since. After 
 Columbus had taught his audience how eggs can be 
 made to stand on end that feat was no longer an exploit 
 or a marvel. 
 
 •^^* See Note on p. 190. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 
 
 When the elections were over the Government and 
 the Opposition each claimed a majority in the new 
 Parliament. This was the precise result we had hoped 
 and predicted ; for now, plainly, Irish votes would prove 
 decisive. The League had got the instrument it de- 
 manded — a Parliamentary Party, and, wisely and 
 honestly employed, all the successes promised might be 
 accomplished. While the public mind was elated by 
 a sense of triumph and the new members were still 
 under the spell of the hustings, a Conference of the 
 friends of Tenant-right was summoned by the League, to 
 which all the members pledged to Crawford's bill were 
 invited. It met on September 8th in the City Assembly 
 House at Dublin. Three Whig members elected for 
 Munster counties excused themselves,-^ and Mr. Kirk, the 
 
 1 Mr. Monsell and Mr. Gould, members for County Limerick , 
 and Mr. Power, member for County Waterford. These gentlemen 
 were supported by the respective local bishops. 
 
216 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 sole Tenant-right member whom Ulster had sent to 
 Parliament, refused to attend. Upwards of forty 
 members of Parliament — a quorum of the House of 
 Commons — about two hundred Catholics and Presby- 
 terian clergymen, and gentlemen farmers, traders, and 
 professional men from every district in the country, 
 assembled in the virtual Irish Parliament, which under- 
 took the future responsibility of the Tenant cause. 
 Sharman Crawford presided; the Council deliberated 
 from ten o'clock in the morning till ten o'clock at night, 
 and the debates were conducted with uninterrupted 
 temper and courtesy. 
 
 The object of the men who had founded the League 
 and who in that day's proceedings might recognise a 
 marvellous evidence of success, was to obtain the ad- 
 hesion of the whole body of members to the principle 
 of Independent Opposition. It was no longer the time 
 for being hypercritical on the pretensions of this man 
 or that ; the people had chosen, and with the recruits 
 they had furnished we must succeed or fail. Agenda 
 prepared by the Council were submitted for the pleasure 
 of the Conference as a convenient programme ; and 
 George Henry Moore, who, up to this time, never had 
 been in good relations with the League, declared on 
 behalf of himself and certain others that they had come 
 to listen with attention and deference to an}'- proposals 
 submitted to the Conference, but they could not under- 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 217 
 
 take to be bound by them. This was a procedure which 
 would have rendered the meeting abortive, and Mr. 
 Lucas, Dr. Gray, and Mr. Dujffy contended that there 
 were not two parties present, but only one. It was a 
 Conference of the friends of Sharman Crawford's bill 
 whether in or out of Parliament, and the ordinary 
 practice of deliberative assemblies was that gentlemen 
 should hold themselves bound by any proposition from 
 which they did not publicly dissent. After debate this 
 course was unanimously adopted. 
 
 Mr. Keogh grasped the situation, and made a vigorous 
 attempt to become leader of the entire party. He 
 proposed a resolution, which was first in the League 
 agenda, declaring that no measure which fell short of 
 the general principles of Crawford's bill would be 
 satisfactory to the country. And he announced it to 
 be the intention of the gentlemen with whom he acted 
 to press these principles on the attention of the Legis- 
 lature at every suitable opportunity. After a debate, 
 in which the old and new members took part, the 
 motion was unanimously adopted. Mr. Sadleir pro- 
 posed another of the League resolutions, declaring that 
 in case of a Land Bill being introduced into Parliament 
 on which the country had not already pronounced, 
 it would be the duty of the Lish members to cause 
 the opinion of the people to be elicited upon it before 
 determining to accept or reject it. Mr. Sadleir was as 
 
218 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 diplomatic as his leader. From what he had seen and 
 heard at the Conference, he declared he could discern 
 nothing to justify the assumption outside that there were 
 two parties among the popular members. It seemed to 
 him that they were all animated by the same spirit. 
 
 As Mr. Crawford had no longer a seat in Parliament 
 it was necessary to provide for the management of the 
 bill and of the party pledged to it, and it was directed 
 by a unanimous vote that Mr. Sergeant Shee, Mr. 
 Keogh, Mr. Lucas, and Mr. Gavan Duffy should be 
 requested to place their names on the back of the bill 
 and take charge of it. Mr. Potter, the newly-elected 
 member for Limerick, proposed the testing resolution 
 that the Irish members should hold themselves in- 
 dependent of, and in opposition to, any Government 
 which did not make it a part of their policy, and a 
 Cabinet question, to give the tenant-farmers of Ireland 
 the measure of justice provided bySharman Crawford's 
 bill. Colonel Fulke Greville,^ on the part of the new 
 members, cordially assented to this proposal, and Mr. 
 Moore, on behalf of the old members, admitted that it 
 embodied the whole question of policy — • 
 
 " If they were to go back to the old system of duly in- 
 troducing certain bills, and getting them duly negatived, 
 and then go on in support of the Ministry by whose 
 
 ^ Afterwards Lord Greville. 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 219 
 
 sanction these bills were lost, then such a conference or 
 such a bill as Mr. Crawford's would be a delusion, a 
 mockery, and a snare : " 
 
 but he considered the wording objectionable. He could 
 not pledge himself to give a pertinacious opposition to 
 every Government which did not include in a bill every 
 syllable of a scheme of reform laid before them for the 
 first time that day. Mr. J. D. Fitzgerald ^ agreed with 
 Mr. Moore that to pledge the members to a policy of 
 indiscriminate obstruction was in the highest degree 
 injudicious. 
 
 " But at the same time he felt it to be his solemn 
 duty to declare, in the presence of that vast and in- 
 fluential assemblage, that he should never be found 
 supporting any Government which would not consent 
 to make a Cabinet question — a question to be sup- 
 ported by the ministerial aid and influence — of a 
 measure embodying provisions for the real and tangible 
 relief of the outraged and injured land tenantry of this 
 countr}^ — real and permanent relief in its fullest 
 meaning, acceptance and extent." 
 
 After a' considerable debate, the resolution was 
 adopted in the following form : — 
 
 '' That, in the unanimous opinion of this Conference, 
 it is essential to the proper management of this cause 
 that the members of Parliament who have been returned 
 on Tenant-right principles should hold themselves per- 
 fectly independent of and in opposition to all Govern- 
 
 ^ The present Lord Fitzgerald. 
 
220 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 ments which do not make it a part of their policy, and 
 a Cabinet question, to give to the tenantry of Ireland 
 a measure fully embodying the principles of Sharman 
 Crawford's bill." 
 
 On a second day the Conference considered proposals 
 for improving the efficiency of the League and for 
 organising the Parliamentary Party. New adhesions 
 raised the number of members of Parliament accepting 
 the decisions of the Conference to upwards of fifty, and 
 no opposition from any quarter disturbed its unanimity.^ 
 Since John Forster vacated the chair of the Irish Com- 
 mons half a century before, so effectual and practical a 
 work for Ireland was not accomplished as at these two 
 sittings. A banquet to Sharman Crawford closed the 
 proceedings, and the members separated to prepare for 
 a winter's session in Parliament.^ 
 
 1 An exposition of the principles of the bill, written in plain, 
 nntechnical language, was adopted and issued for public informa- 
 tion. It is only necessary to cite one important provision respect- 
 ing arrears : — " That by the changes in the law already alluded 
 to, the calamitous failure of the potato crop, and the increase of 
 local taxation consequent on these and other causes, great arrears 
 OF RENT have accumulated on tenants ; which arrears discourage 
 their industry and oppress their energies ; that from the peculiar 
 causes which have led to the accumulation of these arrears, it is 
 just and politic that tenants in this special case should be enabled 
 to compound for these arrears by means of the same tribunals 
 as may be provided for other cases arising under a tenant-right 
 law." 
 
 2 A little later another Conference was held, at the instance 
 of Mr. Moore, on the question of Religious Equality. As many 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 221 
 
 The press which supported the Brigade saw in the 
 unanimity of the Conference a prospect of the entire 
 party being led by Mr. Keogh in whatever direction 
 might suit him, and overflowed with compliments to 
 the new members. But those who watched the signs 
 of the times thought it a significant fact that in the 
 list which these official organs published of "Mem- 
 bers who might be relied on to vote for Religious 
 Liberty " the names of Mr. Lucas and Mr. Duffy were 
 omitted. They were persons, it might be assumed, 
 who could not be relied on for this purpose. A little 
 later the Morning Chronicle, the organ of the Peelites, 
 with whom the Brigade were known to be more 
 intimate than was safe for their political indepen- 
 dence, assailed these members along with Mr. Maguire, 
 as the probable allies in secret of the Tories.^ 
 
 English members were pledged to refuse the Maynooth grant, it 
 was resolved as a natural and justifiable retaliation to demand 
 the abolition of the Irish Establishment. 
 
 1 " Mr. Lucas, Mr. Duffy, and Mr. Maguire contrived to force 
 down the throats of their colleagues the pledge of opposition to 
 every Government and party which should withhold its support 
 from all the principles of Mr. Crawford's bill." And again — " It 
 may seem extravagant to suspect Mr. Lucas, Mr. Duffy, or Mr. 
 Maguire of any good-will to Lord Derby ; but when two parties 
 have an obvious sinister motive in contracting a tacit alliance, it 
 is impossible to disregard rumours which assure us that such a 
 compact has been actually entered into." — Morning Chronicle. 
 
 Mr. Maguire's inclusion in this anathema was accounted for 
 by knowing persons on the hypothesis that the writer in the 
 
222 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 The Nation stated the principle of independent 
 opposition, as it was understood by the new party : — 
 
 " The Irish members, we believe, will keep themselves 
 apart as an independent party and a distinct power." 
 Precisely as the Pitt party, the Peel party, and the 
 Protectionist party did, when they were small minorities 
 and in hopeless opposition. They will act together; 
 and in order to do so submit individual opinion, within 
 the limits of conscience, to the common sense of the 
 majority. They will vote for every measure of benefit 
 to Ireland, no matter from whom it may proceed. 
 They will vote against Ministers opposed to the Irish 
 measures, not, as the Chronicle alleges, on every question, 
 but on any question (not involving the serious interest 
 of Ireland) on which they can be turned out of office." ^ 
 
 These are the principles which in the end carried the 
 Irish question to success. 
 
 Parliament met on the 4th November. The Queen's 
 speech announced that her advisers meditated a liberal 
 and generous policy towards Ireland ; and at an un- 
 usually early period four bills, designed to regulate the 
 Land question in all its branches, were submitted to the 
 House of Commons. It was plain that the Irish party,^ 
 mustering more than fifty votes, were worth conciliating. 
 The new men arrived in London with an eager desire to 
 begin work, there was so much to do, and such urgent 
 
 Chronicle was the Brigade Candidate for Dungarvan — whom 
 Mr. Magiiire had defeated— and a man who was Mr. Keogli's most 
 efficient partisan in the press and in diplomacy. 
 1 Nation, QQ,i. 2, 1852. 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 223 
 
 need that it should be done quickly ; but tliey were 
 reminded good bumouredly that a sailor is of little use 
 till he has learned to know the ropes, and that to succeed 
 in Parliament they must study Parliamentary methods 
 clinically. Some of the seniors were not indisposed to 
 teach them the art of enjoying London, if that would 
 content them ; but as regards political action, they were 
 o opinion that it must be left to men accustomed to 
 the ways of the House. This diplomacy had probably 
 often proved sufficient to bewilder and stifle new 
 members, but to the Leaguers it was simply a subject 
 of merriment. They understood how infinitely strength 
 is multiplied by association, and what prodigious results 
 a few resolate men bound together by love of a common 
 cause have accomplished, and they insisted upon 
 organisation and action. Mr. Keogh manifestly desired 
 to keep them quiet till his personal plans were ripe for 
 execution. But to the Leaguers a seat in Parliament 
 was only valuable as furnishing an opportunity of 
 pushing forward the business they had in hand, and 
 before their determined will these impediments proved 
 only cobwebs. A party consultation was held, attended 
 by nearly all the members pledged to Crawford's bill. 
 Unanimity and discipline are important, but there would 
 have been slight value in a unanimity which was only 
 an agreement to do nothing ; and the business of the 
 Session, after much debate and difficulty, got organised. 
 
224 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 Sub-committees were appointed, charged with special 
 duties, on which men who took little part in debate 
 employed themselves. Parliamentary capacity does not 
 necessarily mean the power of talking. Franklin and 
 Jefferson rarely spoke in Congress, and Andrew Marvel 
 never uttered a sentence in the House of Commons. But 
 the Irish Party did not want capacity of any sort to be 
 formidable or to accomplish anything within the range 
 of Parliamentary action, on one condition — that they 
 retained the support of the country. Sergeant Shee, 
 who was regarded as the leader of both wings, had 
 acquired by long practice at the Bar an easy and fluent 
 elocution and an imperturbable temper. He had 
 mastered the Land question like a brief in a leading 
 case, and was well equipped for debate. He desired to 
 help the League by all prudent and legitimate methods, 
 but he was not overmastered by any great conviction or 
 prepared to make any disagreeable sacrifice. He was 
 what is called a man of the world, determined to stand 
 well with Sergeants' Inn and Westminster Hall. But 
 his reputation was extremely useful to the party at the 
 outset, and his massive head and stately carriage made 
 him a notable figure in the House. Mr. Keogh had 
 more political ability, but far less weight. As he was 
 an important agent in these transactions the reader 
 should be able to form some picture of him at that 
 period. He was a man of middle size, well made, and 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 225 
 
 with a head and figure which his admirers were 
 accustomed to tell him resembled those of the first 
 Napoleon. His manners were so insinuating that it 
 was hard to resist them if one did not start with a 
 lively distrust, for he belonged to the gay, exuberant 
 class of Irish adventurers, who are fatal to weak women 
 and credulous men. Among his intimates, until fortune 
 dazzled him with a chance of leadership, he scoffed 
 at the belief that political professions were anything 
 more than a convenient mask for ambition. But in later 
 days he sometimes played the part of a patriot with con- 
 siderable skill. On some public occasion he declared 
 that his aim in life was " to raise himself and his coun- 
 try together." Practical people thought this was a very 
 sensible formula of political faith, while men of more 
 generous disposition condemned it as grovelling and 
 sordid. But the controversy was a waste of time, 
 for the proposition did not in the least represent his 
 intentions. He was determined to raise himself, and 
 was as profoundly indifferent to what became of his 
 country as any adventurer on record. In his profession 
 he had been a successful advocate, but he knew as little 
 law as a man of vigorous capacity who had passed his 
 life in circuit courts could manage to carry away. 
 
 Of the men who had no sinister ambition to promote, 
 but went into Parliament purely for public ends, the 
 most notable were Lucas and Moore. The one was a 
 
 Q 
 
226 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 type of the bourgeoisie, refined by culture and a high 
 sense of duty, the other a type of the gentry spiritualised 
 by patriotism and courage. New men who desire to win 
 sympathy for an unpopular cause in an assembly so 
 cynical and critical as the House of Commons have need 
 of much discretion. Lucas, who possessed self-control in 
 an eminent degree in debate, though he was vehement 
 and sometimes violent in his journal, was soon recognised 
 as a skilled debater. He had serenity and temper, and 
 was habitually deferential to the House, but under these 
 graces there lay, as no one could fail to see, " genuine, 
 solid, old Teutonic pluck." With time he would have 
 become much more than a great debater : of the 
 qualities which constitute an orator, he possessed pro- 
 found conviction and wide' knowledge. His lucid 
 narrative arrested attention by the mesmeric feeling 
 that he was uttering well-weighed convictions. He had 
 mastered the case of Ireland not only with his intellect 
 but with his sympathy, and his audience felt that he 
 was telling them what lie entirely believed to be 
 true. It was usual to compare him with his kinsman, 
 Mr. Bright, whom he resembled in appearance and in 
 some of his most notable gifts. Whatever Mr. Bright 
 has since accomplished I am persuaded Lucas might 
 have done, if he had not sacrificed personal ambition to 
 the claims of conscience. To sympathetic eyes he was 
 then and ahvays a figure of ideal dignity and worth. 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PAELIAMENT. 227 
 
 He was poor because he devoted his great abilities to 
 the interests of a suffering people instead of to his own 
 advancement. He had English prejudice to face, 
 because he had become a Catholic. All this was in the 
 nature of things; but I do not doubt that if he had 
 remained a Protestant, and hardened into a prosperous 
 lawyer or manufacturer, he would have been a more 
 important personage, not only in the eyes of England, 
 but in the eyes of those for whom he made so man}^ 
 sacrifices. For there are few thino:s the mass of man- 
 kind recognise so imperfectly as a man in whom there 
 are no elements of the commonplace.-"- 
 
 Moore was more agile and lively than Lucas, had 
 greater skill and address in social controversy, and 
 understood the temper of the House better, for he 
 belonged to the predominant class by birth, and had 
 been their associate from an early age in studies and 
 sports. It was a serious drawback to his usefulness 
 that he was impatient of labour, impatient of dulness, 
 and impatient of contradiction. Among men whom 
 he esteemed and who were his intellectual peers, he 
 was a charming companion — frank, cordial, and 
 winning. In an Irish Parliament, or even in an 
 
 ^ Sergeant Murphy was credited with a mot which was hailed 
 with the laughter that awaits a sarcasm if it be grotesquely un- 
 true, almost as certainly as if it be apt and felicitous. " Mr. 
 Lucas," said the Sergeant, " is Lucus a non lucendo, which I venture 
 to translate Lucas — not Bright." 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 English one witli a powerful party behind him, he 
 would have uttered speeches almost as full of high 
 passion and as glittering wdth brilliant conceits as 
 Grattan's. But he was discontented ; and the patience, 
 moderation of statement, and dignity of character 
 necessary to counterbalance prejudice, were wanting. 
 He was entirely sincere in desiring the success of the 
 Irish cause, but he had seen much of life on its seamy 
 side, and had only limited confidence in its speedy 
 attainment. His abilities were brilliant; he could 
 condense opinion into axioms easy to be remembered 
 almost as successfully as Mr. Disraeli, and, like that 
 orator, possessed the art of constructing epigrams 
 which stung too keenly to be forgiven. But he did 
 not give the impression of a man who brings the force 
 of a strong character to promote an end which he 
 passionately desires ; and though he pleased or pro- 
 voked an audience almost at will, he rarely controlled 
 or persuaded it in any considerable degree. 
 
 Colonel Greville was not an orator, scarcely a debater, 
 but he was a man of good sense and honour, who never 
 interposed in debate without producing a solid effect 
 as the result of character and position. Patrick 
 M'Mahon had none of the graces or arts by which a 
 hostile audience is sometimes won. He could not 
 arrest the attention of the indifferent, and his physical 
 impediments were so many that he could scarcely 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PAELIAMENT. 229 
 
 retain the attention of the well-disposed. But he had 
 a safe judgment, a penetrating intellect, indomitable 
 industry, and so complete devotion to the interests of 
 the Irish people, that he was of more value than a 
 dozen men of more showy gifts. All these men were 
 in the vigour of manhood; Keogh at five-and-thirty 
 being the youngest by a year, and Shee, the eldest, by 
 several years. Sergeant Murphy was the type of Irish 
 member loved by political clubs in London. He never 
 embarrassed them by inconvenient proposals or alarm- 
 ing theories, and was ready to jest upon all subjects, 
 bis own nation being no exception; and nothing is 
 pleasanter to Cockney ears than an Irishman who 
 is ready to banter Irish patriotism or mock at 
 Irish misery. The Sergeant was a Bohemian — a jolly 
 good fellow, which nobody could deny, pleasant in 
 smoking-rooms, and irresistible over a broiled bone at 
 midnight. It was he who pronounced Bellamy's a 
 better night house than Evans's, for he was always 
 sure of a sympathetic audience up stairs. It would be 
 injustice not to note that he was neither a hypocrite 
 nor an impostor; he made no pretence of using his 
 political position for any other purpose than his own 
 advancement. 
 
 The League members did not permit the party 
 Whips on either side to communicate with them, and 
 did not ask even information from the Government, 
 
230 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 except across the House. Sergeant Shee was an 
 exception, to a limited and justifiable extent. It was 
 necessary to ask facilities for his bill, and, as he had 
 no notion of making enemies unnecessarily, he took an 
 early opportunity of telling Mr. Hayter that he would 
 gladly support the Government when he agreed with 
 them. " You are very obliging," rejoined the Whip^ 
 " but we want men who will be glad to support the 
 Government when they don't agree with them." 
 
 Election petitions rained on the new Parliament. 
 More than a fourth of the House had their seats called 
 in question, so that it became doubtful if committees 
 to try them could be constituted, as no member against 
 whom a petition is lodged can sit on a committee. More 
 than twenty of the Irish party were assailed in this 
 way, including nearly all the leaders of both branches. 
 
 When political parties were carefully scrutinised, 
 it became plain that the Government were in a mino- 
 rity, unless they could obtain support from some 
 section of the Opposition. In the third week Mr. 
 Villiers launched a party vote against them ; but the 
 immediate danger was postponed by an adroit amend- 
 ment, framed by Lord Palmerston, who had not yet 
 come to an understanding with his late colleagues, and 
 was resolved that a political crisis should not precede 
 that event. A little later Mr. Napier's bills came 
 on for consideration, and proved better than we had 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 231 
 
 expected, the vital principle of compensation for past 
 improvement being distinctly recognised. Sergeant 
 Shee obtained permission to introduce the League bill, 
 and it was set down for reading as early as the Govern- 
 ment measures. To dangle their bills before the eyes 
 of Irish members, but not to press any of them to 
 a division till the contest with the Free Traders had 
 terminated, was the ministerial strategy. Mr. Disraeli, 
 with easy nonchalance, announced that the whole 
 question must stand over until after the Christmas 
 recess. But the Irish party were present in force, and 
 not disposed to be trifled with. They contended that 
 the Government bills ought to be read a second time, 
 and Sergeant Shee's also, and referred together to a 
 select committee fairly chosen from the landlord and 
 tenant parties. The Government gave no answer to 
 this audacious proposal. The Whig party, the Peelite 
 section, Cobden, Bright, and the Free Traders, even 
 Joseph Hume, Sir Joshua Walmsley, and the small 
 knot of Eadicals, had left the Irishmen without aid or 
 countenance ; but they stood firm, and renewed their 
 proposal again and again. As the Government were 
 not prepared to yield, the Irishmen moved the adjourn- 
 ment of the debate, and were supported by Lord 
 Godrich,^ Lord Monck, the son of Lord Normanby, 
 
 ^ Lord Godericli is the present Marquis of Ripon, who main- 
 tained in India the wise and courageous policy of righting wrongs, 
 
232 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 whose name was still popular in Ireland, the son of 
 William Cobbett, and a few newly elected Radicals, 
 and mustered j&fty-nine votes. It was plain there 
 would be a protracted and unflinching contest, and 
 after much parley the Government gave way, and 
 consented to read all the bills a second time, and send 
 them to a committee of the character suggested. To 
 the consternation of the Irish landlords, the measure 
 which they had derided for twenty years as " Crawford's 
 Craze " received the second reading, which affirms the 
 leading principles of a bill, and was to be referred to a 
 committee, nominated by Mr. Napier and Sergeant 
 Shee, to settle the details. Next day the Times was 
 furious and the Tory Press dumbfoundered by this 
 concession. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli then introduced his first budget. It 
 was not Protectionist after all, and the Whigs became 
 alarmed with the idea that he would reconcile himself 
 with the House. " Give Dizzy six months," they 
 whispered, "and he'll wheedle a majority." A motion 
 was privately handed about, sanctioned by Whigs, 
 Peelites, and Free Traders, which must bring down the 
 Government, and the Irish party were invited to 
 support it. The Leaguers made anwser that the 
 
 with which he commenced public life. Lord Monck is the late 
 Commissioner for the Irish Land Court, and the Marquis of 
 Normanby is the late Governor of Victoria, Australia. 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 233 
 
 question which interested them was not Free Trade 
 but Tenant Right, and that they had been deserted by 
 Free Traders of all sections when they were pressing 
 for a settlement of that question. To the Brigadiers, 
 however, it was clear that they must support a motion 
 which satisfied Mr. Sidney Herbert and Sir James 
 Graham ; and as Mr. Keogh had objected since Parlia- 
 ment met to place his name on the League Bill, the other 
 oentlemen to whom it was entrusted had to consider 
 the crisis for themselves. There were, we estimated, 
 at least twenty members who would take whatever 
 course was best for the interest of the Irish cause. 
 
 At this moment Sergeant Shee invited Lucas and 
 me to a consultation at his chambers in Sergeants' 
 Inn, on an overture which was private at the 
 moment, but the lapse of a generation has rendered 
 it historical. A Cabinet Minister still living requested 
 him to ascertain on what conditions the independent 
 Irish party would support the Government on the 
 coming division. We set down in writing the con- 
 cessions which would justify our support, of which the 
 chief was that a Land Bill providing compensation 
 for past improvements should be made a measure on 
 which the Government would stake its existence. 
 Others related to a Catholic University, and Catholic 
 chaplains in the army and navy, prisons, and work- 
 houses. We received back our paper after a day or 
 
234 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 two with the propositions noted. Some were rejected, 
 others postponed for future consideration : but enough 
 was conceded on the main question to justify us in 
 taking the responsibihty of advising our friends to vote 
 against the Whig amendment. Tiie Conservative party 
 at that time distrusted nobody so rooted ly as Mr. 
 Disraeli. They were always ready to believe stories 
 of Machiavellian subtlety and bad faith against their 
 brilliant leader. The solemn and circumspect Peel had 
 betrayed Conservative interests, and what was to be 
 expected of a middle-aged dandy who wore a plum- 
 coloured velvet waistcoat and a goatee, and had written 
 tragedies and romances ? Some official, to whom rent 
 was dearer than office, whispered among the Irish peers 
 that Dizzy had sold them for the League vote, and a 
 deputation was immediately sent to Lord Derby to 
 demand explanations and guarantees. Lord E,oden, 
 Grand Master of the Orangemen, was put forward in 
 the House of Lords to question him on the subject. 
 He inquired whether the fact of reading for the second 
 time a bill identical with Mr. Sharman Crawford's 
 indicated any intention of adopting the principles of 
 that measure if they should be approved of by the 
 select committee to whom it was about to be referred. 
 Lord Derby assured him that whatever might be the 
 decision of the committee, the Government would not 
 under any circumstances accept the principles of Craw- 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 235 
 
 ford's bill. The discontented landlords were apjDeased, 
 but the Irish party, who were pledged to support no 
 Government which did not accept these identical prin- 
 ciples, could no longer vote with Mr. Disraeli without 
 violating their pledges and setting a fatal example. 
 On the division they voted against the Government, 
 and it fell by a majority of nineteen in a very full 
 House. Ten votes transferred from the " ayes " to the 
 '-' noes " would have saved them, and they would have 
 had twenty such votes but for Lord Derby's declaration. 
 The peers obtained delay by this sudden cotcj^, but they 
 made the final settlement more stringent. All the 
 principles which the landlords resisted at that time are 
 now the law of the land, but a crop of new demands 
 has sprung up from the exasperation of hope deferred. 
 
 The Derby Government resigned, and the main 
 sections of the Opposition having coalesced, there was 
 no difficulty in forming a new administration. The 
 trouble between Lord John Russell and Lord Palmer- 
 ston was composed, by reducing the former from the 
 leadership of the Government to the leadership of 
 the House. Lord Aberdeen became Prime Minister, 
 supported by his political friends, Mr. Gladstone, Sir 
 James Graham, Mr. Sidney Herbert, and Mr. Cardwell. 
 The Whigs, in addition to the placated rivals, and Sir 
 Charles Wood in the Commons, had the Duke of Argyll 
 and Lord Granville in the other House. The Free 
 
236 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 Traders were represented by Sir William Moleswortli 
 and Mr. Milner Gibson. If the Government was strong' 
 it was only strong through the dangerous expedient of 
 open questions. It included the authors of the Eccle- 
 siastical Titles Bill, and its most pronounced opponents 
 — the guardians of the Established Church in Ireland, 
 and its vowed destroyers — the known champions of 
 Radical Reform, and its habitual impugners — men who 
 had rarely voted in the same lobby except to secure 
 the vacancy which had made them Ministers. It was 
 noted that the Peelites got the lion's share of power. A 
 hundred Radicals had two places in the Cabinet, a 
 hundred and fifty Whigs six offices, and thirty-five 
 Peelites as many as the hundred and fifty Whigs, and 
 three times as many as the hundred Radicals. Another 
 incongruity much noted at the time Avas that the 
 leaders got relegated to places for which they were 
 peculiarly unfit. Lord John Russell, who, in the 
 phrase of Peel, was a home-spun Minister, with ex- 
 perience ranging from Downing Street to the Isle of 
 Wight, was made Foreign Secretary, with the super- 
 vision of two hemispheres. Lord Palmerston, who had 
 long held the threads of foreign intrigue in his fingers, 
 was restricted to the management of domestic police in 
 the Home Office. Sir William Molesworth, who had 
 made colonial affairs his special study, and was an 
 authority upon them, as far as an amiable literary 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PAELIAMENT. 237 
 
 epicurean could be an authority on anything, was set 
 over the making of roads and the draining of fens. 
 And Mr. Gladstone, who had a pet theory in finance 
 that the precarious incomes of professional men (liable 
 to be ruined by sickness or death) ought to be taxed at 
 the same annual rate as the fixed property of land- 
 owners and fund-owners, was placed in the ofiice 
 where this unpopular doctrine could not be long put 
 in abeyance. 
 
 But when the minor offices came to be filled all 
 other criticism was swallowed up in the indignation 
 they created. Mr. John Sadleir was a Lord of the 
 Treasury, and Mr. William Keogh Solicitor-General. 
 Up to the last minute, in the most express and 
 emphatic manner, Messrs. Keogh and Sadleir had 
 pledged themselves never to take office from, never 
 to support, always to act in opposition to, any Ministry 
 not pledged to repeal the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, to 
 abolish the Church Establishment, and to make a Land 
 Bill, framed on the principles of Sharman Crawford's, 
 a Cabinet question. And here was a Government to 
 whom these things were plainly impossible. The 
 Whigs had passed the obnoxious penal law, the Peelites 
 were the bulwark of the Established Church, and Lord 
 Palmerston was notoriously the enemy of Tenant-right. 
 So open a disregard of honour and principle had never 
 been seen even in the career of Castle politicians. The 
 
238 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 Leaguers were not surprised at a perfidy which they 
 had predicted, but they were outraged by its audacious 
 cynicism and alarmed at its evil example. No one 
 could tell how far the treason would spread. Mr. 
 Anthony O'Flaherty was spoken of as Irish Secretary, 
 and Mr. Vincent Scully for some legal sinecure. It 
 was plain that the military law, which, to prevent 
 desertion, prescribes the flogging of deserters, was 
 applicable to the case, and the leaders and journals 
 of the League applied it vigorously. The provincial 
 Press put the new officials in a pillory, and George 
 Henry Moore separated himself from them peremp- 
 torily, warning the country that a question which 
 demanded instant attention from the constituencies 
 was how many followers they could carry with them 
 across the House ? But though at the outset the 
 desertion seemed to be condemned by a verdict that 
 was universal, it soon became plain that under various 
 decent disguises there were men ready to applaud and 
 justify this " free trade in political profligacy." 
 
 At the beginning, the friends of the deserters hazarded 
 a suggestion that they had got private assurances from 
 the Cabinet which saved their honour. But before the 
 adjournment for the ministerial elections Lord Aberdeen 
 explained the policy and intentions of the Government, 
 and did not say a syllable respecting Tenant-right or 
 Heligious Equality. Preparations to contest the Irish 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 239 
 
 elections immediately commenced, but the League 
 concentrated the contest on the seats of those who 
 had violated their pledges.^ 
 
 One of the Conferences by which the Council kept 
 itself in harmony with the country was summoned to 
 consider the crisis. It met early in January, and the 
 attendance was large and representative. There seemed 
 at first but one feelino^ of wrath and indisfnation. 
 Every speaker denounced the treason. The policy was 
 plain, and the facts lay in a nutshell. It was therefore 
 with pain and astonishment that we found a different 
 feeling prevail among the Northerns. Dr. M'Knight 
 interposed to complain that the Council had condemned 
 the new officials without waiting for a general meeting. 
 Was it not, he asked, one of the grievances of the 
 Irish people that so many offices were filled by their 
 enemies ? The evil in his opinion was not that two 
 
 1 Their just wrath did not prevent them discriminating. Mr. 
 Monsell, the present Lord Emly, accepted office nnder Lord 
 Aberdeen ; but as he had not attended the Conference, nor received 
 the support of the League at his election, the Nation acquitted 
 him of all breach of faith, 
 
 " Mr. William Monsell (it said) has broken no pledge, belied 
 no antecedents, forfeited no principles, that we are aware of. His 
 friends may feel hurt, and if his constituency have a spark of 
 spirit they will reject him ; but he has only done what he might 
 be expected to do— what he never undertook not to do — and we 
 may freely acquit him of any stain in the transaction. Not so 
 Limerick, if it submit to be further misrepresented by her Majesty's 
 Clerk of the Ordnance." 
 
240 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 members had got places, but that twenty had not 
 obtained that additional power of being useful. It 
 was not certain what would be the land policy of the 
 new" Government, against whom it Avas proposed to go 
 into opposition, and Messrs. Sadleir and Keogh were 
 condemned upon evidence which would not satisfy an 
 impartial tribunal. 
 
 He was asked by one of the League members ^ what 
 impediment forbade the land policy of the Government 
 being made public. They had disclosed their policy on 
 Parliamentary Reform and Free Trade, why not on the 
 Land question, if there was any policy to disclose ? 
 The new officials were addressing their constituents, 
 and had the ordinary opportunity of justifying them- 
 selves. In truth, the issue which the Conference had 
 to consider was, whether members elected at immense 
 sacrifice, by an impoverished people, were to make 
 conditions for the country or only conditions for them- 
 selves ? Who would have the courage to counsel an 
 unfortunate tenant to defy his task-master at the 
 hustings, if the member elected might postpone the 
 tenant's interest to his own ? He asked the Conference 
 to declare that it was an unpardonable sin to betray 
 the trusting people. If not, he would like to receive 
 instructions which should suffice for the future as well 
 as for the past. When a Government was next in need 
 ^ Mr. Gavan Duffy. 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PAELIAMENT. 241 
 
 of Irish votes, were the League merabers to say with 
 Dr. M'Knight that the canse would be greatly advanced 
 by having good men in office, and they would like 
 something worth having for themselves ? Or were 
 they to say in the spirit of the Conference of 1852 — 
 You must introduce a Cabinet measure embodying the 
 principles of Crawford's bill or you shall have no votes 
 from us ? If the League betrayed the confidence of 
 the people, all hope of maintaining an Irish party was 
 at an end. Though Grattan or O'Connell rose from 
 the grave, the constituencies would not make a sacrifice 
 for him if their present hopes were betrayed. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Rogers, P.M., admitted that the new officials 
 were bound by the Conference pledge, but he was not 
 yet clear that they had violated it. If they were 
 proved guilty of baseness he was ready to condemn 
 them, but he asked delay to ascertain the policy of 
 the Government, and to request explanations from 
 Mr. Keogh and Mr. Sadleir. 
 
 Mr, Lucas demanded how long this dilatory plea was 
 to run. Must they delay till the deserters were re- 
 elected, and the new Government and the people of 
 England assured that the constituents approved of their 
 conduct ? If the Government could buy Irish support 
 in Parliament by their distribution of places they would 
 pay ihat easy price for it, and there would be an end to 
 the hope of public concessions. In truth, there was no 
 
242 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 uncertainty about their land policy. He had himself 
 attended a private meeting of electors at Carlow, to 
 whom Mr. Sadleir admitted that he had got no terms 
 from the Government, but he was confident that Lord 
 Aberdeen must do something, the question was so 
 advanced in Parliament. 
 
 Dr. Gray asked those who were doubtful of the 
 intentions of the Government respecting Tenant-right 
 to note that the Irish officials were silent in their 
 public addresses on the subject. But at Cavan the 
 Chief Secretary's ^ proposer was not silent. Arch- 
 deacon Beresford promised on his behalf and in 
 his presence that he would uphold the Established 
 Church and protect the landed interest from wild and 
 visionary schemes of confiscation ; the Church being 
 the one which Messrs. Sadleir and Keogh were pledged 
 to disestablish, and the visionary schemes being beyond 
 question the principles of the League. 
 
 One of the Northern members, the Rev. Mr. Bintoul, 
 P.M., considered that a damaging case had been made 
 out against the new officials ; and another, Mr. Thomas 
 Montgomery, acquiesced, in this view. Mr. Rogers then 
 said that he had been warned at Belfast not to condemn 
 men for accepting office at the instigation of others who 
 had sought office themselves and were disappointed at 
 
 ^ Sir John Young, an Irish Peelite, was Chief Secretary of the 
 new Government in Ireland. 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 243 
 
 not obtaining it. He was invited and pressed to name 
 any one to whom this description would apply ; after 
 some difficulty he said that the report had no reference 
 to Mr. Lucas or Mr. Duffy, but it was certainly cir- 
 culated with respect to Mr. Moore. Moore promptly 
 denied the imputation, and challenged the new officials, 
 who must be acquainted with the facts, to state any 
 circumstance which lent the smallest justification to it.^ 
 A Mr. Fitzpatrick, who was not a member of the 
 League, and who was afterwards identified as a valuator 
 in the employment of the Government, was permitted 
 as a favour to address the Conference, and pronounced 
 Messrs. Sadleir and Keogh impeccable. A division was 
 finally taken on a motion condemning them, and was 
 supported by the entire meeting excepting Mr. Michael 
 Dunne, M.P., Dr. M'Knight, Mr. Rogers, and the Mr. 
 Fitzpatrick aforesaid. Before the Conference separated 
 a deputation, consisting of two members of Parliament 
 and three Catholic clergymen, was despatched to Carlow 
 to exhort the electors to reject Mr. Sadleir. 
 
 This controversy with the Northerners came on the 
 Council as a profound surprise. Hitherto our unanimity 
 had been cordial and unbroken. Nobody doubted that 
 devotion to the cause was as strong in the North as in 
 the South. There was sometimes difference of opinion 
 
 ^ This challenge never elicited any fact injurious to Mr. Moore 
 and I have no donbt the story was entirely untrue. 
 
 R 2 
 
244 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 respecting the best method and agencies for promoting 
 our common purpose, but it was sincere and open, and 
 left no bitterness behind. In this case we were confident 
 that a week or two would convince our allies that we 
 knew the deserters better than they did, and that we 
 should be speedily in accord again. 
 
 The day after the League Conference, a meeting of 
 the friends of Keligious Equality reaffirmed the principles 
 of Independent Opposition, and condemned the deserters. 
 Here also they found a single defender — a Mr. Sharkey, 
 an attorney, who was not a member of the association, 
 and who turned out to be one of Mr. Keos^h's election 
 agents at Athlone. 
 
 The Archbishop of Tuam, who had given Mr. Keogh 
 effective support while he believed in his honesty, was 
 asked to express an opinion on his recent action, and in 
 a public letter to Mr. Moore condemned it unequivocally 
 as an undoubted breach of morality. 
 
 The deputation to Carlow produced a decisive effect. 
 The election resulted in the rout of the deserters. Mr. 
 Sadleir lost his seat by the refusal of the voters who 
 had previously supported him to continue their con- 
 fidence. It was a just and signal punishment, and was 
 the more notable that the bishop of the diocese. Father 
 Maher, uncle to the Archbishop of Dublin, and several 
 priests resident in the borough, supported him enthu- 
 siastically. A further humiliation, almost equivalent to 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 245 
 
 the loss of his seat, awaited him. During his canvass 
 he ventured to suggest that Lord John Russell had 
 proffered to the Brigadiers a practical retractation of the 
 course he had taken on the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill ; 
 and when Lord John was questioned on the subject in 
 Parliament he repudiated it with unconcealed scorn. 
 No explanation, he affirmed, had been given, nor had 
 any been asked. 
 
 But the chief offender remained to be dealt with. 
 Mr. Keogh's seat having been the subject of an election 
 petition, he could not under the law of Parliament go 
 to a new election till the petition was tried, and when 
 the House resumed its sittings, both the deserters 
 were without seats. Mr, Anthony O'Flaherty had been 
 spoken of for the Chief Secretaryship of Ireland, and 
 later for the Under-Secretaryship ; but the example 
 of Carlo w was not encouraging, and in the end he 
 got nothing ; in good time, however, his much abler 
 brother, Mr. Edmond O'Flaherty, was inducted into 
 public employment. 
 
 In Meath and Mayo the members of the Indepen- 
 dent Opposition w^ere entertained at public banquets, 
 and the provincial press nearly universally pronounced 
 for the opinions which they represented. But the battle 
 was only begun. Dr. Cullen, whose office of Apostolic 
 Delegate conferred on him an authority which could 
 not be measured by any standard theretofore existing 
 
246 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 in Ireland, had gradually become more and more of 
 what is known as a Castle bishop. By this time he 
 was secretly at work on the side of the Government, 
 and some of his suffragan bishops were ready, in concert 
 with him, to discourage and repress priests who 
 were zealous for the League. Father Doyle, of Ross, 
 was the first victim. Before the Ross election was 
 over he had been threatened by his enemies with 
 removal to some penal parish, and now it was announced 
 that he must quit the town, where for seven years he 
 had performed apostolic labours, and betake himself 
 to a country curacy. Nobody doubted that he was 
 a victim to the intrigues of Whig Catholics who had 
 the ear of the bishop and archbishop. The trans- 
 action raised a serious question for honest men in 
 Parliament, whether a seat was worth the price exacted 
 from the poor people, if, in addition, generous young 
 priests who took the people's side must be subject to 
 the penalty of banishment, and perhaps ruin. There 
 was widespread indignation, which found vent in the 
 newspapers. In Ross, the rage of the people threatened 
 dangerous extremities. A deputation of the most re- 
 spectable inhabitants went to the Bishop at Enniscorthy 
 to urge the recall of Father Doyle : a deputation of 
 Catholic ladies followed them next day on the same 
 mission. When it was found that there was no present 
 hope of his remaining among them, a public mourning 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 247 
 
 was decreed by common consent, and on the day of 
 his departure business was suspended, and the shops 
 shut up as for an overwhelming public calamity. On 
 Sunday he was already at his new mission, but the 
 people would not be separated from him. The parish 
 chapel of Ross was literally empty, and twenty cars 
 started for Dungannon, ten miles off, with the prin- 
 cipal parishioners, to attend his Mass. A multitude of 
 the poor people, young and old, of both sexes, who 
 could not afford this conveyance, walked the entire 
 way. " It was a touching sight," says a correspondent 
 of the Nation, "to see men and women, toilworn, on 
 the winter day, and many of them in tears, flocking 
 round the altar of their banished priest." 
 
 This transaction was only the first in a long series 
 which had for their purpose to extinguish political 
 independence among the priests.-^ 
 
 ^ No one bore the event with so much equanimity as the 
 victim. " My removal," he wrote to me, " to any mission on the 
 face of the globe would cause me no pain beyond that of being 
 separated from a people, the most unselfish and affectionate within 
 the four seas which encompass us. I am quite ashamed and con- 
 founded at the simple unstudied manifestations of gratitude and 
 love which surround me on every side, and of which I feel my- 
 self totally unworthy. My dear friend, what torture or death is 
 too cruel for the traitors who would betray such a people, and 
 barter their interests for a mess of Government pottage, or some 
 paltry personal advantage ! After all, his Lordship — though one 
 would not suspect him of it — has played a great trick on the 
 Whigs — ten miles from Ross ! just a convenient distance to drive 
 in to one of our evening meetings at the Tolsel." 
 
248 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 When Parliament re-assembled in February the first 
 point to be considered was how many members would 
 remain true to the pledge and party of Independent 
 Opposition. A meeting was called in one of the 
 committee-rooms of the House to consider the question. 
 Thirty-eight members attended, and in the debate 
 which ensued one-and-twenty expressed themselves 
 prepared to sit and act as before the appointment of 
 Keosrh and Sadleir. The others were determined to 
 support the Government, and in the House the party 
 was divided in this proportion. 
 
 An Election Committee having considered the 
 petition against Mr. Keogh, and declared him duly 
 elected, his acceptance of office vacated his seat, and a 
 contest for Athlone commenced. Mr. Norton, an ex- 
 judge, from British Guiana, who had opposed Mr. 
 Keogh on a former occasion, stood again, and to prevent 
 division, was accepted by all the opponents of the 
 Solicitor-General. At the same time Mr. Keogh was 
 able to announce that the Catholic bishop expressed 
 the most anxious wishes for his success. This bishop 
 was the celebrated " Dove of Elphin," who went to 
 Conciliation Hall to denounce the Young Irelanders 
 as bad Catholics ; but he had at last, it seemed, found 
 a Catholic to his mind in the person of Mr. Keogh. 
 As the contest proceeded one of Mr. Norton's agents 
 was detected in a case of palpable bribery ; so that if 
 the electors chose him he was made a harmless 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 249 
 
 opponent. But the majority, under tlie exhortation of 
 the bishop and local clergy, supported Mr. Keogh ; and 
 it was long afterwards before it was discovered that 
 Mr. Norton was his ally in secret, and had been 
 brought on the scene by a stroke of subtle strategy 
 to prevent the appearance of a genuine opponent. 
 
 It was now possible to estimate more exactly the 
 results of the treason. So loud a clamour over the 
 lapse of one or two apostates was declared by some 
 respectable blockheads to be quite extravagant and 
 incommensurate. But the new Government had bought 
 more than a brace of deserters. They had bought 
 the power of lowering fatally the position and influence 
 of the Irish party ; they had driven a wedge right 
 through it, dividing it into two sections, and English 
 opinion scarcely took the pains of discriminating 
 between them.-^ In the House which is reputed to be 
 
 " It was a subject of eager curiosity in the House (and, I pre- 
 sume, will be none the less so in Ireland) to ascertain where each 
 newcomer would take up his place. In their accustomed seats 
 below the gangway of the Opposition benches I observed Colonel 
 Greville, Mr. IVtoore, Sergeant Shee, Mr. Tristram Kennedy, Mr. 
 Lucas, Mr. Swift, Dr. Brady, Captain Bellew, Mr. Urquhart, Mr. 
 Bowyer, Mr. Fitzstephen French, Mr. O'Connor Henchy, Mr. 
 Potter, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. M'Mahon, Captain Greene, Mr. Heard 
 (Kinsale), Mr. Duffy, and perhaps one or two more. On the 
 Ministerial benches, in addition to Mr. Monsell, I observed Ser- 
 geant Murphy, Mr. Townely (Sligo), Sir John J. Fitzgerald 
 (representative of Sixmile Bridge), Mr. Anthony O'Flaherty, Mr. 
 Kirk, Mr. J. D. Fitzgerald, and Mr. William Fagan. There were 
 nearly a dozen other members about the House who avoided taking 
 
250 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 the first assembly of gentlemen in the world, the men 
 who had violated their pledged honour, and some of 
 them their plighted oaths, did not meet visible con- 
 tempt or repudiation. There have always been men 
 of high aims and a keen sense of duty in the House 
 of Commons ; but it is far from being a select school 
 of patriotism or probity. It consists in a large degree 
 of men who are Uase from experien ce of the worst side 
 of life, of aged and wealthy capitalists who have made 
 money by stringent competition, and of younger sons 
 in the army and navy, who no more ask a reason for 
 their side on a division than in a battle. But above 
 all, the transaction was in Ireland. Had English 
 members been guilty of desertion so cynical, they would 
 have been punished, if only by party zeal ; but with 
 respect to Ireland, if the result were convenient and 
 satisfactory, no troublesome questions were asked. 
 
 When one section coalesced with the Whio^s and 
 Peelites, it was assumed, indeed, as a necessary se- 
 quence, that the other would coalesce with the Tories. 
 The House did not in the least understand, and would 
 have treated with scorn the sug^Q^estion, that these men 
 had no personal aims, did not expect office or profit of 
 
 their side ; and a meeting of the Irish party has been called by 
 requisition for Monday next — mainly, I am told, on the motion 
 of these gentlemen — to consider its future course — to consider, in 
 fact, whether it will keep or violate the pledge taken in the City 
 Assembly House in last September." — Parliamentary Corre- 
 sx3ondence of the Nation. 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 
 
 251 
 
 any sort, and had no alliance or understanding with 
 either of the only parties whom it recognised. 
 
 The earliest labour of the Leaguers was to get the 
 select committee appointed to whom the late Govern- 
 ment had consented to refer all the Land Bills. After 
 much negotiation a committee of twenty-nine members 
 was chosen, which was a nearer approximation to a 
 fair one than ever had been before granted on an Irish 
 question.^ 
 
 ^ In the Nation of the period the members of it are thus 
 discriminated, with much too favourable an estimate of some of the 
 
 members — 
 
 FEIENDS OF THE IRISH 
 
 TENANTS. 
 
 Sergeant Shee 
 
 Mr. Lucas 
 
 Mr. Kirk (the only Ulster 
 Tenant-righter in Parlia- 
 ment) 
 
 Mr. J. D. Fitzgerald 
 
 Mr. Fag;an 
 
 Mr. James Sadleir (brother to 
 the Lord of the Treasury) 
 
 Colonel Greville 
 
 Mr. Gavan Dufty 
 
 Mr. Urquhart 
 
 ENGLISH LIBERALS. 
 
 Mr. Bright 
 
 Mr. Phillimore, Q.C. 
 
 Mr. Dunlop (Law Adviser 
 
 to Free Church of Scotland) 
 Mr. Bouverie (Chairman of the 
 
 Committee) 
 
 FRIENDS OF THE IRISH 
 LANDLORDS. 
 
 Sir John Young 
 
 Lord Palmerston 
 
 Lord Naas 
 
 Sir R. Ferguson 
 
 Mr. Herbert 
 
 Lord Monck 
 
 Mr. Walpole 
 
 Mr. Napier 
 
 Mr. Davison 
 
 Mr. Chichester Fortescue 
 
 Mr. Hamilton 
 
 Mr. Whiteside 
 
 Mr. Grogan 
 
 ENGLISH TORIES. 
 
 Mr. Henry Drummond 
 Mr. Mackenzie 
 Mr. Vernon 
 
252 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 But a Parliamentary party has rarely had to main- 
 tain itself against circumstances so discouraging as 
 surrounded the Leaguers. The work was incessant 
 and exhausting. On days when the Select Committee 
 sat they attended the House at noon and only left it 
 after midnight. Every Irish or Catholic interest in 
 any part of the empire was referred to some of them ; 
 and most of them had to work at their profession as 
 barristers or journalists on penalty of personal disaster. 
 When they took their seats in the House they were 
 surrounded by enemies. Not only the stolid squires 
 and military dandies who constituted the bulk of the 
 Tory party, but a section of the Irish Tories, the agents 
 of the landlords, who outnumbered the small and 
 diminishing group who represented the sufferings and 
 wants of the people. And if they looked across the 
 chamber, they saw not alone the Whig majority, led 
 by Palmerston, who scoffed at their claims, and Kussell, 
 to whom no cause was sacred if it was not strong in 
 votes ; but a third Irish party, elected by the suffrage, 
 and sometimes purchased by the blood, of the suffering 
 people, who were more numerous than they, who repre- 
 sented larger constituencies, and who were supported 
 by an undoubted majority of the Irish bishops. And 
 as the session proceeded, whenever a candidate went 
 to the hustings in the name of Independent Opposition 
 his fate was to be hamstrung from behind by the 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PAELIAMENT. 253 
 
 crosier of some Whig prelate. If there were no English 
 members in the House they were overwhelmed by 
 the representatives of Tenant-right constituencies, 
 North and South ; and to many honest English 
 members it seemed certain that we needs must be 
 making unreasonable demands, since we were not 
 supported at the hustings by the class on whose behalf 
 they were made. 
 
 It was no wonder that a feeling of despair began to 
 spring up anew in the mind of the people who had been 
 so often defeated and betrayed. But the League jour- 
 nals reminded them that success in the English Parlia- 
 ment comes slowly at best. Plunket spent half a 
 lifetime making bootless motions on the Catholic 
 question ; Grey and Brougham saw a generation pass 
 while they agitated for Reform in Parliament. The 
 battle of the Corn Laws was twice as lono^ as the war 
 of Troy ; the rapidest success in the annals of Parlia- 
 ment — Peel's creation of a Conservative party to resist 
 the Whigs after the Reform Bill — cost three or four 
 years. The Irish party had not been quite five months 
 in the House of Commons, and in these five months 
 the question they had charge of gained more ground 
 than in the previous twenty years. 
 
 In March and April the Election Committees were at 
 work, and had made havoc with members old and new. 
 A dozen Englishmen were unseated for bribery, and as 
 
254 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 many Irishmen were menaced with the same fate, either 
 for intimidation, rioting, or want of qualification. Mr. 
 Keogh had escaped from this ordeal by giving evidence 
 concerning his landed possessions, which was a marvel 
 and a bye-word in Dublin. The next Irish petition 
 tried was the one against the member for New Ross. 
 It was charged that I was incapable of sitting, being 
 subject to a prosecution for high treason at the suit of 
 her Majesty the Queen ; that I had interrupted the 
 free exercise of the franchise by violence and intimida- 
 tion ; that certain of the electors, the night before the 
 polling, were treated with meat, drink, and entertainment 
 to secure their votes, and that at the time of the election 
 I was not duly qualified pursuant to the provisions of 
 1 and 2 Yic. chap. 48. The committee was constituted 
 in the usual manner, of two Whigs, two Tories, and a 
 chairman of moderate politics. The first allegation, 
 that I was under a prosecution for high treason, was 
 inserted to prejudice the committee against me. It 
 was untrue in point of fact : and if it had been true 
 did not constitute a disqualification. The chars^e that 
 a popular constituency had been intimidated into voting 
 for a candidate whom they supported with passionate 
 enthusiasm against their personal interest was absurd 
 on the face of it ; and after hearing Mr. Lambert's wit- 
 nesses the committee declared the charge frivolous and 
 vexatious, and ordered him to pay the costs of the sit- 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 255 
 
 ting member on this allegation. The charge of treating 
 the night before the polling was merely a guess, and 
 through the precaution which Father Doyle had insisted 
 upon it proved to be an ill-founded one. But the ques- 
 tion of qualification remained, and it was to be tried 
 for the first time on the naked facts of the case, Avithout 
 any of the fictitious pretences commonly employed 
 to mislead an Election Committee. I instructed my 
 counsel to withhold nothing and extenuate nothing.^ 
 
 My first witness was Mr, O'Hara, a retired solicitor, 
 of capacity and experience. After stating that he had 
 offered me, and that I had accepted, a rent-charge of 
 £300 a year on his landed property, he was cross- 
 examined. ''I presume Mr. Dnffy paid at least a dozen 
 years' purchase for this annuity, or was it twenty years ? " 
 said the counsel for the petitioner, in the tone of badin- 
 age usual on such occasions. " No," replied Mr. O'Hara, 
 "he did not pay a penny." ''Did not pay a penny!" 
 echoed the learned counsel, with uplifted hands and 
 eyebrows, and a triumphant glance at the committee. 
 " The annuity (he continued) was receivable quarterly ; 
 no doubt Mr. Duffy collected it punctually?" "No," 
 replied Mr. O'Hara, "he has not collected it at all." 
 
 1 My counsel were Mr. O'Malley, Q.C., and Mr. Huddleston, 
 the present Baron Huddleston. Tliey expressed great satisfaction 
 and relief at the frank character of the case relied upon ; which 
 sentiment Baron Huddleston has publicly repeated in the present 
 year, 1886 
 
256 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 ''Pray tell us, Mr. O'Hara, were jou surprised at tliis 
 neglect in realising his property ? " " Certainly not ; I 
 granted the annuity for the purpose of a Parliamentary 
 qualification, and I never expected him to enforce it." 
 " So, sir, you created this charge on your estate without 
 receiving any price for it ? the grantee never asked you 
 to pay a single instalment, and you admit that you 
 never expected that he would ? In point of fact, was 
 not the arrangement a mere pretence and delusion ? " 
 " Not at all," rejoined Mr. O'Hara, with admirable 
 coolness, " the law requires that a borough member 
 shall have a legal estate of £300 a year, and I granted 
 Mr. Duffy such an estate as effectually as if he had paid 
 ten thousand pounds for it ; he had the right and power 
 to enforce it at his discretion; if he had judgment 
 creditors they might enter on the land, seize my cattle, 
 and sell them to satisfy their claims. I have given him 
 all I could give. The price to be received in return is, 
 I conceive, a question affecting me alone." 
 
 Mr. Hudson was in attendance to prove a second 
 rent-charge ; but it was not necessary to produce him, 
 as the intrinsic value of Mr. O'Hara's was not disputed. 
 The committee retired to deliberate on the case sub- 
 mitted to them. M'Mahon, from the beginning, had 
 advised that the legal estate was all the law re- 
 quired ; and when the room was cleared he was still 
 confident in this view. But my friends generally were 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PAELIAMENT. 257 
 
 apprehensive that the committee would be of a different 
 opinion. Some of them urged me to stand again if the 
 decision should be unfavourable. " Folly," I replied 
 somewhat impatiently ; " if the decision be unfavour- 
 able it is because my qualification is invalid, and there 
 will be an end to my Parliamentary career." Dr. Brady, 
 the Leasrue member for Leitrim, had been tauc^ht the 
 value of money by early struggles gallantly surmounted, 
 and this is an experience which prosperity seldom com- 
 pletely counteracts. But he had at bottom a generous 
 Irish nature, easily kindled into a flame. " Certainly 
 not," he rejoined. '' Stock or dividends constitute an 
 unassailable qualification, and I will transfer £10,000 
 to your credit to-morrow morning if the necessity 
 arises." The necessity did not arise, for after a few 
 minutes we were called into the committee-room to be 
 informed that my qualification was valid. This decision, 
 in a case where nothing was coloured or withheld, con- 
 tributed to bring the practice of requiring a property 
 qualification to an end. In the next Parliament it was 
 abolished. The petition against Moore in Mayo had an 
 equally favourable issue for the sitting member ; and 
 in the cases of Lucas and Kennedy the petitions 
 were withdrawn.^ 
 
 ^ The receipts and expenditure of tke New Ross election fund 
 and the New Ross petition fund were, at my request, audited and 
 published in detail. The former, after paying all the costs of the 
 
258 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 The Ulster Tenant-right party sent Dr. M'Knight 
 and Mr. Kogers to London to watch the progress of the 
 Select Committee, and we saw with surprise and pain 
 that they relied on the deserters and their colleagues 
 more than on the members of the League. In the 
 committee, Mr. Kirk from the North, and the nominees 
 of Mr. Keogh, proved lukewarm friends of the tenant- 
 farmer, but the deputation could not be persuaded to 
 recognise facts which time has placed beyond contro- 
 versy. To break with the North was to throv/ away a 
 moiety of our strength ; but to condone the treason of 
 the deserters was to throw it away altogether. Alliances 
 between Irish members and the English Government, 
 whether under O'Connell or his sons, or under Mr. 
 Keogh's Brigade, had only one result ; a few men got 
 places or promotion, and the claims of the people were 
 iornored or derided. The Southerns had orone throucjh 
 this bitter experience more than once, but the Northerns 
 recalled the fact Avith the languid memory of spectators 
 who had no interest at stake. 
 
 election, left a balance which was appropriated to the costs of an 
 action for bribery, arising out of the election. The expenses of 
 the petition amounted to £400. Mr. Lambert had been compelled 
 to pay .£128 as costs incurred in refuting his unfounded charge of 
 intimidation ; after furnishing the balance up to £400, the trustees 
 had a surplus of £155, of which £72 were remitted to New Eoss 
 for local purposes, and the balance applied to paying a portion of 
 the costs of Mr. Wyse's action arising out of the election. 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 259 
 
 But the most important deserter from the principles 
 which had carried Crawford's bill to a second readinsf 
 remains to be mentioned. It was Mr. Crawford himself. 
 He published a letter advising the tenant-farmers to 
 accept and be thankful for a measure more moderate 
 than his bill. He described the policy by which the 
 Irish party had won so signal a success in the current 
 session, and described it accurately as a policy of " acting 
 on their pledges." But though two members had just 
 forfeited theirs, he was not disposed to complain. He 
 found it impossible to doubt that they would use the 
 position they had obtained to promote public ends.^ 
 
 ^ "I believe I may say that I adhered with a desperate fidelity 
 to this question, and I do not abandon a single principle or detail 
 of the Tenant-right Bill as being inconsistent with justice. But 
 still, when I think there is a great amount of good within your 
 reach, I will not take the selfish course of counselling an ad- 
 hesion to my own measures or my own views, to obstruct useful 
 progress, and to impede national benefit, or to encourage delusive 
 agitation for any object which I do not believe to be attainable ; 
 such a course I would consider one among the greatest political 
 crimes a man possessing any share of public confidence can com- 
 mit." — Mr. Sharman Crawford's Address to the Tenant-farmers 
 and People of Ireland, Nov., 1853. 
 
 " By what means was success to be sought ? It was obtained 
 by Irish members acting faithfully on their pledges. This power 
 will continue and increase if the same bond of action still hold 
 the body together : and still more so when two of its most dis- 
 tinguished members have accepted office ; and we cannot doubt 
 that such acceptance of office by them is accompanied by an 
 expected power to advance this particular question to which they 
 are so strongly pledged." — Ibid, 
 
 s2 
 
260 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 Though we all now know that he might as reasonably 
 have given credit for good intentions to Titus Oates as 
 to John Sadleir, it would be cruel to triumph over the 
 mistakes of an honourable man. But it is less easy to 
 forgive him having disparaged and misrepresented the 
 pohcy of Independent Opposition. As the Derby 
 Budget was, he conceived, injurious to British interests 
 (by augmenting the house tax, which did not extend to 
 Ireland), he affirmed that Irish members would not have 
 been justified in supporting it in order to save a Govern- 
 ment which had in hand a land code beneficial to Ire- 
 land. Such a policy, he insisted, would not promote, 
 but defeat, the tenants' claims. As he had been twenty 
 years in Parliament without getting his bill read a 
 second time, while the men whom he lectured carried 
 it to a second reading^ in a sinoie session, it would have 
 been modest to recognise that they were better judges 
 of Parliamentary policy than he. We now know that 
 the aid which he lent the traitors at this crisis marred 
 the cause with which his name is honourably identified 
 more than his life-long labours had advanced it. And 
 that the policy of Independent Opposition, which he 
 rejected, and which Mr. Butt, when he became an Irish 
 leader, equally rejected, is the only one which has ad- 
 vanced the Irish cause, and which, revived in the present 
 day, promises to carry it to complete success. 
 
 The motives of the Northern delegates in falling 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 261 
 
 away from their old colleagues were as mucli mixed as 
 human motives commonly are. The example of Craw- 
 ford counted for much. An unjust prejudice against 
 Lucas as a furious bigot (which he was not), prevailed 
 from an early period, and some of them were persuaded 
 that it is only men in office who can carry questions 
 successfully through the House of Commons. But 
 Negro Slavery had been abolished by Wilberforce, 
 Religious Equahty established by O'Connell, and Free 
 Trade by Cobden, without any of them having held 
 office under the Crown. There were lower motives 
 also at work. The Prime Minister was a Presbyterian, 
 and the Duke of Argyll and two other colleagues be- 
 longed to the same Church. If there were four 
 Catholics in the Cabinet it could not be doubted that 
 the Catholics, who had imperilled the League on the 
 Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, would have been found hoorah- 
 ing at their backs, and we were patient with this sym- 
 pathy. But when the Banner of Ulster announced as 
 certain that patronage would reward complacency in 
 lower places, it became plain that Whig agents were at 
 work in Ulster.^ The most active intriguer was said to 
 be a Mr. Wilson Kennedy, an influential elder of the 
 
 ^ "If Ulster had in Parhament Liberal Presbyterian repre- 
 sentatives, every one of these men who might be qualified for 
 official duties would have a place in the Irish administration. 
 This is not a mere hypothesis." — Banner of Ulster^ quoted in 
 Nation. 
 
262 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 General Assembly, who had been Presbyterian candi- 
 date for Coleraine against Lord Naas, and who was an 
 intimate friend and ally of Mr. John Sadleir, and 
 managing director of the Tipperary Joint Stock Bank. 
 Dr. M'Knight had lately been on a visit with him, and 
 unfriendly inferences were drawn from the fact. No 
 one had done so much to organise the tenant cause in 
 the North as M'Knight ; no one had done as much to 
 confirm the Union of North and South ; but against 
 these services must be set the fact that he helped to 
 the best of his ability the men who betrayed and ruined 
 for an entire generation the cause he served so well. 
 And as he had been forward in ascribing personal 
 motives to Moore and others, it was inevitable that his 
 own motives for favouring the dispensers of patronage 
 should be unfavourably judged. 
 
 As the Derby government had been overthrown on 
 their financial proposals the Budget of the new Govern- 
 ment was awaited with keen interest. When it was 
 submitted by Mr. Gladstone it was found to contain a 
 number of salutary proposals. A hundred domestic 
 commodities were to be relieved from duties, certain 
 oppressive taxes were to be repealed, and the advertise- 
 ment duty abolished. But to recoup the Treasury for 
 this sacrifice it was proposed to extend the income-tax 
 to Ireland, which had been exempt hitherto in con- 
 sideration of its poverty. This new impost was 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 263 
 
 estimated to j^ield half a million sterling. To impose 
 such a burthen on Ireland at a period of great distress 
 in order to confer a boon upon England, which was 
 overflowing with prosperity, was a startling proposal. 
 The late administration had refrained from this measure 
 on the specific ground that the direct taxes already 
 paid in Ireland were heavier than those paid in England 
 in proportion to the resources of the country. No 
 people rejoices in additional burthens, and the state of 
 Ireland at the time justified the universal resistance 
 with which the proposal was encountered. But success 
 was essential to the existence of the Government, and 
 their Irish supporters did not shrink from this new test. 
 On the second reading, so absorbing was the interest 
 that only one Irish member was absent, seventy-two 
 voted against the Budget, and thirty- two supported it.^ 
 In committee the Leaguers fought it in detail, and one 
 of those " scenes " which the House loves better than 
 grave debate sprang out of their resistance. An Irish 
 member^ had the audacity to tell the Government 
 that they obtained their majority by arts as base as 
 
 ^ Colonel Dunne proposed a preliminary inquiry to ascertain 
 whether the system of imperial finance did not press with undue 
 weight upon Ireland, before imposing the new tax ; among 
 the majority who refused inquiry were Maurice O'Connell, 
 William Kirk, Eox of Longford, and the ordinary tail of 
 Mr. Keogh. 
 
 2 Mr. Duffy. 
 
264 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 those which enabled Walpole and the Pelhams to 
 recruit supporters two generations earlier. His words 
 were taken down, and he was directed to attend in his 
 place the next day that he might withdraw them, or 
 suffer the penalty of refusal. When the House re- 
 assembled he declined to withdraw them, and undertook, 
 if a committee were granted, to prove that the career 
 of Messrs. Keogh, Sadleir, and some of their associates 
 justified them. The leader of the House objected to 
 this investigation, on the ground that his colleagues 
 had not been corrupted, but only converted to better 
 opinions, and the deserters sat dumb and gloomy amidst 
 the jeers of the Opposition. But a bribe is not less a 
 bribe because it is paid quarterly at the Treasury ; and 
 the infamy of the transaction was for the first time 
 made plain to Englishmen. 
 
 The resistance of the Irish members to the income- 
 tax was not mere impatience of taxation, but rather a 
 well-grounded fear that the same injustice which marked 
 other branches of the connection between the two 
 countries would prevail in this department. Irish 
 gentlemen not unfriendly to Mr. Gladstone, and who 
 are competent witnesses on the subject, affirm that 
 from that time to the present he has increased our 
 burthens by an amount exceeding fifty millions sterling, 
 and that the wise concessions which he has made in re- 
 forming the Land Code and disestablishing the Church 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 265 
 
 are scarcely a set-off for the exhausting drain created 
 by his financial policy."^ 
 
 As soon as their vote on the income-tax made it 
 
 1 Mr. Gladstone based his infliction of the income-tax on 
 Ireland on the article of the Union which provided that when- 
 ever the debt of Ireland, which in 1801 was less than a sixteenth 
 part of the British debt, should have reached the much higher 
 proportion of 1 Irish to Vi British, it should then be competent 
 for the United Parliament to abolish separate Irish and British 
 quotas of taxation, and to tax both countries indiscriminately. 
 The figures are as follows, according to a Parliamentary return 
 (No. 35, year 1819) :— British debt on the 5th January, 1801, 
 £450,504,984 ; Irish debt at the same date, £28,545,134. Now, 
 when the liabilities of the two countries were so widely unequal 
 — the British debt being 16 1 times as large as the Irish— it is 
 clear that it would have been unfair and dishonest to raise the 
 taxation of Ireland to the British level without giving Ireland a 
 substantial equivalent for the new burthen entailed upon her by 
 the Union. But as the object of the authors of the Union was 
 to bring Ireland under British burthens without giving her any 
 equivalent, they adopted the device of getting Ireland into debt 
 beyond her means to pay by deliberately over-estimating her 
 relative taxable ability in the appointment of common expenses. 
 The " Irish " debt was rapidly forced up to the prescribed pro- 
 portion of 1 Irish to 7|- British by this fraudulent expedient. 
 Instead of wealth the Union gave us debt— debt which was 
 fictitious, so far as it originated in the initial overcharge — and 
 this debt, thus forced upon Ireland, had been made by the 
 7th Article of the Union, the condition of consolidating the 
 Irish and English Exchequers, and enabling the English Parlia- 
 ment to tax Ireland indiscriminately with Great Britain. The 
 question is examined at some length by Mr. Daunt in an article 
 entitled " How the Union Robs Ireland," in the Dublin Review 
 for April, 1883. 
 
266 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 plain that tliere was nothing to be feared from the bulk 
 of the Irish members, Lord Palmerston told the select 
 committee on the Land Bills, that for his part he saw no 
 necessity for legislation on the question. Next day 
 Crawford's bill Avas set aside by nineteen to nine, 
 Mr. Kirk, the only tenant-righter sent from the North, 
 voting in the majority. Mr. Napier's bills were next 
 taken in hand and carefully j^runed. The Tenants 
 Compensation Bill, as it left the committee, ignored 
 Ulster Tenant-right, and denied compensation for the 
 class of improvements most commonly made in Ireland. 
 The country had been rendered habitable by an industry 
 like that which raised Venice on a quagmire or Holland 
 on a sandbank ; yet all improvements more than twenty 
 years in existence were confiscated. Ireland is a moist 
 country, spotted with bogs and wastes, for which drain- 
 ing and reclamation are beyond all things necessary ; 
 but compensation for drains or reclaimed waste and bog 
 was omitted. Inordinate rents had as we know created 
 habitual arrears; in former measures a landlord ejecting 
 a tenant was enabled to set-off these arrears against 
 any claims for compensation, but the modified bill went 
 a step farther, and declared that if a tenant was ejected 
 for non-payment of rent or arrears he should not be 
 entitled to compensation for any improvements what- 
 ever. But the Northern farmers had not sent one 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 267 
 
 member to Parliament, and their trusted spokesman 
 had justified the policy by which their interest was 
 betrayed.-^ 
 
 In the midst of this treason the question was carried 
 from the House of Commons to the country. The 
 members for Clare w^ere unseated for intimidation. 
 They had uniformly supported the Government, and 
 revelled in patronage for their relatives and dependants. 
 The member for Sligo, an Englishman, introduced by 
 the Brigadiers, was unseated for bribery ; and Maurice 
 O'Connell, who had long been a moral WTeck and a 
 spectacle humiliating to Irishmen, rendered Tralee 
 vacant by his death. Here were opportunities for the 
 country to redeem itself. In the fervour of a general 
 election, when districts caught fire from each other, 
 great results were accomplished ; but in solitary 
 elections the odds in favour of the landlords were 
 sometimes overwhelming. To the Government and the 
 gentry there was now added the episcopacy, and some- 
 
 1 When the bills came back from the committee the first 
 division in the House was on the question of terminating the 
 tenancy" of agricultural labourers on a month's notice, as if there 
 were not evictions enough already in Ireland. Mr. Kirk, Erank 
 and Vincent Scully, Anthony O'Flaherty, and Cecil Lawless 
 supported the proposal. Against another amendment, forbidding 
 magistrates to act in cases connected with the estates they owned 
 or managed, Maurice O'Connell, Eox, Grace, Kirk, and other 
 Irish members voted. 
 
268 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 times, under the influence of tlie bishops, the majority of 
 the local clergy. There was always a group of patriotic 
 priests in a constituency ready to face all conse- 
 quences ; but the world, the devil, and the flesh were 
 often too strong for them. The people had man}^ 
 excuses for lethargy, but when all is said, they were 
 fatally wrong ; you can do little for a class who will do 
 nothing for themselves. In Tralee Mr. Shine Lalor, a 
 country gentleman of good character and capacity, 
 presented himself on the principles of Independent 
 Opposition, and was well received. Mr. Daniel 
 O'Connell, the youngest son of O'Connell, was at this 
 time out of Parliament. He had resigned his seat, it 
 was said, in order to accept a foreign consulship, and the 
 arrangement having fallen through he needed another 
 seat to qualify him for another situation. The local 
 clergy helped him against Mr. Lalor, and a furious mob 
 howled at that gentleman for presuming to o]3pose the 
 son of the Liberator. The young O'Connell was elected, 
 and took his seat in time to support the Government 
 on their land policy, and whenever they needed him 
 throughout the session. In Clare the unseated members 
 presented themselves for re-election. They had not 
 voted once in the interests of their constituents when 
 the Government needed their assistance, and they 
 merited condign punishment. They were re-elected, 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PAKLIAMENT. 269 
 
 the pretence being that their opponent was an exter- 
 minator ; but their re-election pulled down more 
 rooftrees in the future than Colonel Yandeleur had 
 done in the past. In Sligo a singular farce was per- 
 formed. Mr. Sadleir stood for the vacancy, and was 
 proposed by the parish priests and supported by the 
 Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, who had , previously 
 helped him at Carlow. With him stood Mr. Somers, 
 the late member, a ]J7-'oUg4 of Lord Palmerston. But 
 a genuine candidate of the Leag^ue was in the field. 
 Father Feeny, the vicar-general of the diocese, pro- 
 posed Mr. Cantwell, and Father Peter O'Connor sujo- 
 ported him with vigour and enthusiasm. At the same 
 time a Mr. Hanley, connected with a bigoted newspaper 
 in London, came over to figure as an Exeter Hall 
 candidate. His libels on Catholic men and opinions 
 were so rabid that the Protestant electors disavowed 
 him in a public meeting. But he served as a patent 
 justification for supporting at all hazards a leader of the 
 Catholic Defence Association. The mob, recruited 
 from Lord Palmerston's estate, was more furious than 
 the mobs at Limerick or Tralee. Half a dozen priests 
 who sujDported Cantwell were threatened, hustled, 
 and assailed whenever they appeared in the streets. 
 " Hell broke loose," one of them declared, " could 
 scarcely have exceeded the scenes they witnessed." 
 
270 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 The Catholic champion was duly elected, and soon 
 after it was discovered that Mr. Hanley had been 
 brought over from London by Mr. Sadleir for this 
 specific purpose — 
 
 " All that is now required (said Archdeacon Fitz- 
 gerald) to establish an Irish member as the very pink 
 of patriot representatives is, not to vote against 
 Mavnooth Colleo;e or the Nunneries, and the veriest 
 runaway from his party or his pledges will give no 
 such vote, for this very sufficient reason, that under 
 existing circumstances such a vote has no marketable 
 value." 
 
 Before this universal triumph of corruption national 
 feeling became almost afraid to show itself. An 
 Industrial Exhibition, opened at the expense of 
 William Dargan, an eminent contractor, was held in 
 connection with the Royal Dublin Society, and the 
 Queen was brought over to witness the loyalty and 
 satisfaction of the people. The Exhibition building 
 was ornamented by all the flags of Europe except 
 one : there was no Irish flag. All these disasters were 
 like a cordial to the enemies of our race. The Times 
 uttered another jubilant prediction that the Celt 
 would disappear from Ireland as completely as the 
 elk or the wolf — 
 
 "Both the Roman CathoHcs of Ireland and the race identified 
 with that faith there are all leaving Ireland. Ere ioiicr there 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 271 
 
 will be none left. At the present rate of emigration, which 
 cannot be less than 200,000, chiefly Eoman Catholics, in a year, 
 our children will see the time when the Celts will be as obsolete 
 in Ireland as the Phoenicians in Cornwall, and the Eoman 
 Catholic system as forgotten as the worship of Astarte. In fifty 
 years Ireland will be Protestant to a man, and the Church 
 Establishment will be no longer the ' flagrant injustice/ the ' one 
 great anomaly,' the ' latent disorder/ the ' imperial danger,' which 
 Mr. G. H. Moore describes it." 
 
 More than thirty of the fifty years have since elapsed, 
 and the fell prophecy does not seem to be in course of 
 fulfilment. But who can tell how largely it has 
 contributed to the exasperation of the men whose 
 flight to America it proclaimed so triumphantly ? It 
 contained perhaps the first seeds of the Dynamite and 
 Invincible conspiracies, and is intrinsically as cruel and 
 base as they. 
 
 In this era of disaster a new antagonist appeared 
 against the men who were struggling to save a remnant 
 of the Irish race. John Mitchel had escaped from Van 
 Diemen's Land and established a newspaper in New 
 York, and in that journal he vehemently exhorted 
 Irish Nationalists to have nothing to do with the 
 League. The principles it contended for — rent fixed 
 by the State and permanent tenure — would never be 
 accepted by the House of Commons. Never, never ! 
 But there was hope elsewhere ; before twelve months 
 had elapsed an expedition from America might be seen 
 
272 THE LEAGUE OF NOKTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 on the shores of Ireland. To this cruel rhodomon- 
 tade many young men gave then' joyful assent ; they 
 refrained from heliDino- the work which could be accom- 
 jDlished, and had been accomplished, and wasted 
 their lives dreaming of an exiDedition as fabulous 
 as the sleej)ing warriors under the hill of Aileah.^ 
 The estrangement of the Northern delegates, it will 
 be noted, did not originate in any hereditary causes of 
 quarrel existing between North and South. It sprang 
 from such a difference of political opinion as constantly 
 divides men in England, and in all countries where 
 free institutions exist. The controversy primarily was 
 Avhether certain persons in accepting office had acted 
 with probity and good faith. No difference of creed 
 was involved, for the men impeached were not Northern 
 or Protestants, but Catholics, and those who impeached 
 them were also Catholics. Still less did a provincial 
 question arise, for none of the deserters were Ulster 
 men. It may be confidently assumed, I think, that 
 while four years of harmonious action justifies the 
 conclusion that Irishmen of various races can sink 
 
 1 Those who liave read Four Years of Irish History/ will be 
 at no loss to understand that it was at me Mr. Mitchel's enmity 
 was aimed, or to recognise what was its origin. But they only 
 half know the facts and factors in the case. To understand them 
 fully see note on " John Mitchel, Gavan Duffy, and the League," 
 in the Appendix to this volume. 
 
THE LEAGUE IN PARLIAMENT. 273 
 
 their differences for public ends as well as Swiss or 
 Hungarians of various races, the break in their 
 friendly relations was one which must have happened 
 wherever free controversy exists, and does not disturb 
 that conclusion. 
 
CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 ANOTHEK EALLY OF THE LEAGUE. 
 
 In the face of these disheartening difficulties the 
 leaders did not despair; the harvest was a plentiful 
 one, and there was still in every constituency a group 
 of faithful priests and farmers ready to make another 
 struggle. If the North returned to its place in the 
 movement with its old zeal, all would still be well. A 
 Conference had become the established agency for 
 maintaining a steady connection with public opinion, 
 and a Conference was called for the 5th October. It 
 will be noted that the system of agitation which 
 O'Connell had established — a weekly meeting, which 
 was in effect a monologue by the leader on current 
 affairs, and the collection of a weekly rent — had quite 
 disappeared, and was replaced ^ by a genuine consult- 
 ation at headquarters, and local consultations from time 
 to time at convenient places. Sharman Crawford, 
 Sergeant Shee, about a dozen members of Parliament, 
 
ANOTHER RALLY OF THE LEAGUE. 275 
 
 a large number of Southern priests and farmers, and 
 half a dozen delegates from Ulster attended. But 
 there were now plainly two parties face to face — one 
 which still upheld the fidelity of Messrs. Sadleir and 
 Keogh, and another which saw in them the worst 
 ■enemies of the cause. 
 
 The earliest business submitted was a table exhibiting 
 the votes of Irish members of the past session. It 
 led to angry controversy. Father Quaid undertook to 
 defend the members for Clare, and Dr. M'Knight 
 propounded the amazing thesis that to consider the 
 votes of members of Parliament was no part of the 
 business of the Conference. But though their conduct 
 might not be scrutinised or censured, it was permissible, 
 it seems, to applaud them at discretion, for the learned 
 Doctor confidently affirmed that there was one member 
 to whom the farmers owed more than to any other man 
 in Parliament, and this was Mr. William Keogh. 
 
 Mr. Bowyer, an English Catholic, who sat for 
 Dundalk, and who, though personally upright, had 
 that tolerance for backsliding in others which charac- 
 terises men who take only a languid interest in a public 
 question, made a proposal which he thought all parties 
 ought to accept. The pledge which bound members 
 to oppose any Administration that did not make 
 Crawford's bill a "Cabinet question" might be modified 
 by substituting "Government question." The Adminis- 
 
 T 2 
 
276 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 tration must introduce such a bill, but need not stake 
 its existence on it. Mr. Rogers gave this proposal his 
 warmest support, but it was shown so conclusively in the 
 debate which ensued that the change would enable an 
 Administration to play with the question, without any 
 serious purpose of legislating upon it, that Sharman 
 Crawford supported the retention of the word "cabinet," 
 and only tv/o hands were held up in support of the 
 amendment. 
 
 Dr. M'Knight, who had charged Moore with place- 
 begging at the last Conference, now charged Lucas 
 with treachery to the cause. He had privately advised 
 the Chief Secretary for Ireland (so the Doctor declared) 
 to lay aside his Land Bills and postpone legislation to 
 another session. As Lucas pronounced the imputation 
 to be wholly false, I have no doubt it was so ; but had 
 he desired to postpone or defeat a bill which denied 
 compensation for the most usual and necessary improve- 
 ments to be made hereafter, and for all past improve- 
 ments more than twenty years in existence, who could 
 blame him ? At the Conference Sharman Crawford was 
 silent on this subject, but a week later he published 
 a letter adopting the charge. There were few things 
 which the Northern delegates might not have done 
 with impunity, so strong was the desire to retain them 
 in the League, but to whitewash sordid traitors and 
 disparage a man who was devoting his life to the 
 
ANOTHER RALLY OF THE LEAGUE. 277 
 
 contest was past human endurance, and these pro- 
 ceedings excited general indignation. A vote of 
 confidence in the Independent Party and of censure 
 on the deserters was adopted. The Northern deputa- 
 tion did not attend on the subsequent days, and when 
 they returned home Dr. M'Knight wrote of the Council 
 with fierce hostility. 
 
 Looking back on that quarrel through the vista of 
 years, I recognise that though Lucas was right in 
 principle he was often precipitate and passionate in 
 manner and unskilful in method. Assailed on all sides 
 by mercenary and unscrupulous enemies — for since Mr. 
 Keogh had the patronage of Ireland to dispense he had 
 troops of adherents — he (and all of us perhaps) struck 
 blows which not merely inflicted just punishment on 
 traitors, but sometimes turned timid friends into active 
 enemies. We did not under-estimate the value of 
 Sharman Crawford's co-operation ; but how can you 
 co-operate with a man who offers you a public and 
 deliberate insult ? And this is what Crawford did in 
 the case of Lucas. In a letter to Dr. M'Knight, written 
 for publication, he affirmed that he had been compelled 
 b}^ various mis-statements and equivocations to decline 
 personal communication with Mr. Lucas except in the 
 presence of witnesses ! ^ 
 
 •^ I desire to reproduce one fact in the controversy in a note at 
 the end of the chapter, because the party to which I belonged 
 
278 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 A strong ma.n rarely escapes the aberrations to which 
 strength has a tendency ; and though Lucas was a calm 
 and philosophical thinker, he easily became a passionate 
 and fanatical controversialist, not consciously unjust to 
 his adversaries, but harsh and unmeasured ; and after 
 this incredible imputation much may be forgiven him. 
 It is proper to say that the Northerns from the 
 beginning feared him as a furious bigot, mistaking 
 for bigotry the devotion of a profoundly religious man 
 to the faith which he had embraced at so many sacri- 
 fices ; and Dr. M'Knight, from the foundation of the 
 League, took as much pains to warn me against him as 
 Dr. Cullen took to warn him against me. But a crisis 
 had now come when the League had to choose — and I 
 especially, who was most closely allied with the 
 Northerns — had to choose between parties who no 
 longer trusted each other, and we chose unhesitatingly 
 the man of highest integrity and plainest disinterested- 
 ness. My judgment on the controversy, when all the 
 parties to it are dead, is that Crawford was misled by 
 shameless lying on the part of the new officials, and was 
 grossly unjust to Lucas; and that Lucas, too indignant 
 to rest on the solid ground of his character and services, 
 
 had suffered sucli shame and torture by the methods of dealing 
 with pnblic money in the Repeal Association, that they could not 
 endure that suspicion should rest for a moment on any fund with 
 which they were concerned. — See note " The Northerns and the 
 League Funds." 
 
ANOTHER EALLY OF THE LEAGUE. 279 
 
 which furnished ample protection, became an aggressor 
 in turn, and was unjust to Crawford. In the height of 
 his indignation he used language respecting him which 
 it was hopeless that a cold, proud man would ever 
 forgive. 
 
 On the two last days the business was less political. 
 Mr. Lucas made a masterly statement on the revival 
 of manufactures in Flanders. Mr. M'Mahon brought 
 forward a scheme to develop Irish fisheries, and Mr. 
 Kennedy, who had planted industrial schools in Farney, 
 explained the method which had been adopted with a 
 view to its extension. Mr. Duffy submitted a plan of 
 a Small Proprietors' Society, for enabling farmers to 
 buy their own farms whenever they came under the 
 hammer of the Encumbered Estates Court, to which 
 a number of practical men had given a warm approval, 
 notably Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright. The price of free- 
 hold land was abnormally low, and the proposal was to 
 form a joint-stock company which would resell to the 
 tenants at wholesale prices. The Irish capital which 
 hides itself annually in stocks, mortgages, and savings 
 banks, it was estimated would be sufficient for the 
 purpose. When the project was first mooted, eighteen 
 months earlier, it had the misfortune to attract the 
 attention of Mr. John Sadleir, who was unknown to 
 me at that time. Had I known him, I would have 
 understood that his object was probably to make a 
 
280 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 humane enterprise a milch cow for his firm of attorneys 
 and land-jobbers. "There are men," says Eichelieu, 
 " who, if you saw them praying on the Mount of Olives, 
 you would understand that they were about to build an 
 oil-mill up there." 
 
 Before the recess terminated two more elections 
 occurred of the fatal character already described. 
 Early in November Clonmel fell vacant by the death 
 of Cecil Lawless ; a local committee was appointed to 
 prepare for the event, and commenced its labours by a 
 declaration that entire independence of party must 
 characterise their future representative. The Rev. Dr. 
 Burke, the senior parish priest, was reported to have 
 said that he would be influenced neither by favour nor 
 by affection, and that if he carried the key of the 
 borough, as was alleged, he would use it to lock out 
 traitors; but his action proved strangely at variance 
 with his professions. A Tipperary constituency was 
 not easy to win. The county was represented by a 
 brother and a cousin of John Sadleir ; the Tipperary 
 Bank, which the family controlled, exercised wide 
 influence over farmers and shopkeepers. But the 
 League was bound to take the field, and a strong 
 deputation was despatched to the constituency.^ The 
 
 1 The deputation consisted of Moore, Lncas, Duffy, Dr. Gray, 
 and Father O'Shea. "We had a candidate in reserve who promised 
 to be a popular one. He had written to me from Paris offering 
 
ANOTHER RALLY OF THE LEAGUE. 281 
 
 local committee received the deputation with great 
 favour, and it seemed for a time that Clonmel would do 
 its duty. The town is distributed into two parishes ; in 
 one of them the bulk of the electors and all the clergy 
 were adherents of the League, in the other the parish 
 priest announced as candidate Mr. John O'Connell, who 
 would stand on the principles of Daniel O'Connell. It 
 was but a year since Mr. John O'Connell had resigned 
 Limerick, and shrunk into private life, and the deputa- 
 tion understood perfectly well that the only Daniel 
 O'Connell whose principles he would adopt was the 
 young gentleman whose election for Tralee had given 
 another servile adherent to the Government. The zeal 
 of an aged priest for the son of the Liberator would be 
 respectable, and even admirable, if it was his own 
 interest he was sacrificing to the sentiment. But the 
 cause of the people was not his private property, and, 
 
 to stand on League principles ; and, having made confidential 
 inquiries, as I was bound to do, he seemed peculiarly suitable. 
 A well-informed friend assured me that " he was a young man 
 just emerging from his minority ; of promising abilities and 
 striking appearance, possessing a moderate hereditary estate, 
 tribunitial blood as a kinsman of O'ConnelFs and a Celtic title — 
 an excellent equipment for public usefulness in Ireland. But " 
 my friend added, " Per contra his nearest relatives are Whigs ; and 
 it is a fact not to be overlooked that among O'Connell's immense 
 family connection scarcely one has been distinguished by public 
 spirit or unselfish aims." This candidate was The O'Donoghue, 
 but circumstances in the end forbade our putting any person in 
 nomination. 
 
282 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AXD SOUTH. 
 
 as it was quite impossible to believe that an intelligent 
 man misunderstood the motives of the candidate, he 
 must be held guilty of a cruel wrong to his race and 
 his country. The deputation said plainly that the 
 pretence of O'Connell's son was idle. In truth, 
 O'Connell had no son, and never had a son, in the 
 sense of an inheritor of his courage and patriotism. It 
 was a sad retrospect to look back on the career of the 
 men of his blood, whom the people had trusted for the 
 sake of his illustrious name and services. One son 
 abandoned Meath for a situation from the Whisfs ; 
 another abandoned Waterford for the same purpose ; 
 a namesake and son-in-law abandoned Kerry; and a 
 second son-in-law Dublin on a like temptation; and 
 the constituencies so abandoned had all but one fallen 
 into the hands of Tories or Castle hacks. 
 
 The committee heard Mr. O'Connell and the League 
 deputation in succession. The latter made the National 
 policy so plain that the committee declared by a large 
 majority they would accept no candidate not pledged to 
 sit and act with the party of Independent Opposition. 
 A public meeting of electors exhibited a similar spirit. 
 But the Whigs were advised by men who were skilful 
 and experienced in intrigue, and in the end the com- 
 mittee were induced to accept a ridiculous compromise. 
 Mr. John O'Connell, they affirmed, undertook to act on 
 the principles of Independent Opposition, if he were 
 
ANOTHER RALLY OF THE LEAGUE. 283 
 
 excused from sitting with men wlio distrusted him. and 
 on this understanding they accepted him. In the end 
 he explained away or repudiated the stringent condi- 
 tions of the contract ; but the exact terms were of no im- 
 portance, for it was a pledge which no one expected him 
 to keep. He went into Parliament to support a Govern- 
 ment from whom he expected a personal favour, and he 
 supported them servilely till it was obtained. There 
 was a bitter sting in the summing up of his career by 
 Father O'Shea, standing on the same balcony with him, 
 in face of the electors of Clonmel. " Alas for Ireland ! 
 
 " Unprized are her sons till they've learned to betray, 
 Undistinguished they Hve if they shame not their sires." 
 
 Before Parliament re-assembled the chief Leaguers 
 
 were entertained at public dinners by their constituents. 
 
 If the support they received from the country gradually 
 
 diminished in area it increased in intensity. They used 
 
 these occasions to enforce on the people the melancholy 
 
 truth that the disasters which had befallen their cause 
 
 was nobody's fault but their own ; they had preferred 
 
 evil to good, and the natural consequences followed — 
 
 "Of the five-and-twenty deserters who have gone 
 over to the enemy (said one Leaguer) there are three- 
 and-twenty of whom I could have told with as much 
 certainty twelve months ago as at this hour that they 
 would betray the country on the first opportunity. If 
 constituencies will elect men notoriously corrupt or 
 notoriously allied with the Whigs, it is too absurd to 
 pretend that an experiment has failed because they 
 
284 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 have done wliat any man might have foretold they 
 would do. If you were going to hght, and selected pol- 
 troons for officers, of course you would lose the battle. 
 If you were going to try a case at law, and selected 
 block! leads for counsel, of course you would lose the 
 case. But does that prove tliat with brave men and 
 wise men you would fail ? Look at tlie candidates re- 
 commended or assisted by the Tenant League; not one 
 single man of them has proved untrue." 
 
 Tlie gradual substitution of private aims for public 
 ones was illustrated by individual instances familiar at 
 that time to the whole country — 
 
 " A learned member for a midland county recently 
 declared that he meant to preserve his independence 
 most jealously, but lie would feel at liberty to recom- 
 mend liis constituents to Government for local dis- 
 tinctions, such a,s the magistracy. A learned member 
 for the largest county in Ireland went a step further, 
 and declai-ed that he would feel it his duty to recom- 
 mend deserving persons for public offices in Ireland on 
 all fitting opportunities. Another said that for his part 
 he had promised his own constituents to get them sit- 
 uations as often as lie could, and he meant to keep his 
 promise. But a learned Sergeant ca])pod the climax. 
 He affirmed that promotion for himself in his profession 
 was his right, tliat lie hoped it would come soon, and 
 that he would very gladly accept it." ^ 
 
 The Sadleirite Press retorted by a steady fire of mis- 
 representation. As the Leaguers had relinquished all 
 personal aims in politics, they were, of course, charged 
 with sordid baseness, and, as Lucas was a Catholic of 
 
 1 Speech of Mr. DufTy at DuiKlalk. 
 
ANOTHER RALLY OF THE LEAGUE. 285 
 
 antique type, he was naturally proclaimed to be merely 
 a selfish pervert and a " whitewashed Quaker." ^ 
 
 Against all these reverses fortune supplied one signal 
 set-ofF. In Mr. Sadleir's contest for Carlow he had 
 struck an audaciously foul blow, for which he was un- 
 expectedly made responsible. Mr. Dowling, an elector 
 who refused to support him, and threatened to canvass 
 his tenants against him, was arrested by one of Sadleir's 
 election agents on his way to the hustings and carried 
 to the local office of the Tipperary Bank. There were 
 bills of his in the bank which had not come to maturity, 
 and he had given to a friend who endorsed them a bond 
 as a counter security. On tliis b(jTid he was arrested. 
 As no attorney could sign the certificate in such a trans- 
 action without risk of being struck off the rolls, the name 
 of a dying attorney was forged to the instrument. In 
 these proceedings it was proved that Mr. Sadleir had 
 intervened, not merely through relatives and agents, but 
 personally by direction and assistance. When he came 
 to be examined, however, he denied everything and re- 
 pudiated everybody. lie swore that the manager of the 
 bank, whose guest he was during the election, acted 
 without his knowledge, and that though Dowling was 
 
 ^ A number of priests, of whom Father Redmond, of Arklow, 
 was the most notable, attacked Lucas in tlie newspapers, one of 
 them cniployinj^f the phrase (luotod above. By tliis time; Lucas 
 was persuaded that tliey had the sanction and encouragement of 
 Dr. Cullen for attacking him. 
 
286 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 arrested in his presence and conveyed to his bank, he 
 was not aware of either fact. But a spectator described 
 him as having quite lost his accustomed dash and pluck 
 in the witness-box. The jury disbelieved the Lord of 
 the Treasury and gave a verdict for Dowling. When the 
 news was flashed throughout the Empire the sensation 
 was intense. One of the Queen's Government directing 
 a fraudulent arrest, supported by deliberate forgery, was 
 an unheard-of scandal ; but it was still worse to have 
 such an official disbelieved on oath by a respectable 
 jury. He was compelled to resign his office and quit 
 Downing-street for ever. The humiliation of his fall 
 can only be estimated by measuring the height to 
 which he had hoped to climb. It was understood that 
 he was confident of becoming a peer and marrying into 
 a family of European repute as financiers. And it 
 might have been so ; he had faculties which with 
 better fortune would have made him a Law or a 
 Hudson. 
 
 The first reverse was followed by a second. Mr. 
 Dowling took an action for false imprisonment, and ob- 
 tained signal damages. In most civilised countries this 
 exposure would have ruined and scattered the political 
 connection which he had created ; but in Ireland it 
 ruined no one but Mr. Sadleir. His most intimate con- 
 federates still held up their heads, and not one bishop 
 or ecclesiastic of any rank abandoned the party. Mr. 
 
ANOTHER RALLY OF THE LEAGUE. 287 
 
 Chichester Fortescue^ accepted the office which Mr. 
 Sadleir was forced to relinquish, and his seat for Louth 
 became vacant. The League determined to contest it, 
 and Mr. M'Namara Cantwell was put in nomination. 
 Mr. Cantwell was one of the proprietors of the FreemaTis 
 Journal, and a member of the Committee of the Defence 
 Association, as well as of the League Council ; but his 
 chief claim at the moment was that in his professional 
 capacity as an attorney, he had conducted the Dowling 
 case to a successful issue. The County Club approved 
 of his candidature, and he commenced a canvass, accom- 
 panied by Mr. Moore and Mr. Cashel Hoey, and a little 
 later by Dr. Gray and Father O'Shea. Thirty priests, 
 half of them curates, welcomed him cordially ; but 
 Mr. Fortescue was not left without clerical supporters. 
 Fifteen priests, of whom it was noticed as a significant 
 fact that only one was a curate, declared for the new 
 Lord of the Treasury. He had much more effectual 
 clerical backing, however, for which we were not pre- 
 pared. Dr. Cullen, who had gradually become more 
 and more associated with Whig politics, now for the 
 first time threw his whole weight openly on the side of 
 the Government. The fearless spirit and great popular- 
 ity of Father O'Shea had proved important forces in the 
 contest, and when it was at its height Dr. Cullen sent a 
 private note to the Bishop of Ossory advising his recall 
 ^ The present Lord Carliiigford. 
 
288 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 from Louth, and recommending, if he had gone without 
 regular leave of absence, that he should be suspendedj 
 and in any case that he should be prohibited from leav- 
 ing the diocese or parish for any public purpose what- 
 ever. The feelings which this arbitrary stroke of 
 authority excited, the dangers it created, the action it 
 provoked, have all been described by Lucas ^ with a vig- 
 our and plainness which relieve me from the necessity 
 of telling the story in detail. The immediate effect was 
 to lose the election. Backed by the Apostolic Delegate 
 the Whig priests set no limit to their hardihood, and at 
 the polling the new Lord of the Treasury obtained a 
 decided majority. 
 
 The session opened at the beginning of February, 
 and the first Irish business was an unequivocal charge 
 which had been made against certain L^ish members of 
 trafficking in Government offices for their personal pro- 
 fit. At a League banquet in Tuam Dr. Gray and Mr. 
 Christopher Kelly specified cases of gross corruption 
 which had fallen within their own knowledge. Mr. 
 Butt, on behalf of the members implicated, demanded 
 inquiry, and a select committee was appointed for the 
 purpose. After minute investigation a multitude of 
 unpleasant facts were established, on which it is need- 
 less to return.^ But it came out incidentally that the 
 
 1 In his " Statement " for the Pope. 
 
 ^ Dr. Gray's statement was that a young man was negotiating 
 
ANOTHER RALLY OF THE LEAGUE. 289 
 
 Duke of Newcastle and certain of the Peelites had sub- 
 scribed money for Mr. Keogh's election. Mr. Lucas, who 
 was examined before the committee, told them that 
 there was a class of corruptionists in Ireland worse than 
 those who sold petty places for money, or trucked them 
 against election accounts. These were men who got into 
 Parliament by specific pledges, sometimes confirmed by 
 solemn oaths, and then repudiated them for their personal 
 profit. While this committee was still sitting, a meeting 
 was held in Dublin to protest against the inspection of 
 nunneries. Mr. John Reynolds, against whom it had 
 just been proved that he accepted money extracted 
 from officers for whom he had procured compensation 
 in Parliament, appeared as a Catholic champion. The 
 main purpose of his speech, however, was not a vindi- 
 cation of nunneries, but an attack on the editor of the 
 Tablet. It was with immense difficulty a hearing was 
 obtained for Lucas to defend himself. He was servinp- 
 the Irish people with a consummate ability which 
 
 the purchase of a vice-guardianship from a member of Parliament 
 for £300 when the office of vice-guardian was abolished. He 
 produced the young man, who reluctantly admitted the fact. 
 Mr. Kelly's statement was that a stipendiary magistracy was sold 
 for £1,000, of which only £500 were paid, the magistrate, when 
 secure in office, having refused the second instalment. The 
 stipendiary magistrate was produced, and denied the bargain. 
 But he was compelled to admit that immediately after his appoint- 
 ment he lent £400 to Mr. Somers, of which he never was repa 
 principal or interest, though fourteen years had elapsed. 
 
 U 
 
290 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 commanded tlie attention of the House of Commons, and 
 in Dublin he was shouted down at the bidding of a dema- 
 gogue just detected in corrupt practices. And Lucas 
 was confident that in assailing him the demagogue had 
 the secret support and encouragement of Dr. Cullen.^ 
 
 In the programme of the Government the principal 
 measure for the session was a Reform Bill, but before it 
 got beyond the second reading a war with Russia broke 
 out, and it was put aside. The same preoccupation was 
 pleaded against taking up the Land question in the 
 House of Commons. But in the Lords two or three 
 peers introduced separate Land bills, and along with 
 their schemes the Government measures of the preced- 
 ing year were submitted to a select committee. In the 
 Commons a committee had proved a convenient instru- 
 ment for cutting down the original proposals, and in the 
 Lords it was still more effective for the same purpose. 
 The Tenants' Compensation Bill became the paltriest 
 and meanest scheme for which any Cabinet had yet 
 become responsible. The law of distress was maintained 
 in full vigour, but scarcely a remnant of the principle of 
 compensation was preserved, and the Ulster Tenant- 
 
 1 It is proper to note that Lucas's position at the moment was 
 damaged by the fact that he had advised a witness before the 
 Corruption Committee to produce a note addressed to him by one 
 of the Brigadiers which was marked " private." He vindicated 
 his action under the circumstances of the case with great power 
 and subtlety, but the current of ojDinion ran against him. 
 
ANOTHER EALLY OF THE LEAGUE. 291 
 
 right was ignored, if it was not (as some contended) 
 confiscated. When the bills reached the Commons, 
 towards the close of the session, Sergeant Shee, on his 
 own responsibility, proposed to defer all legislation till 
 next year, as it was impossible at that late period to 
 deal with the subject adequately. The Government 
 cheerfully acquiesced, and the measures were withdrawn. 
 Mr. Napier complained that the Whigs had taken pos- 
 session of his bills, first defaced them, and then unduly 
 delayed them ; and Mr. Disraeli reminded the House 
 that they had been doing nothing particular for some 
 months, and might have been employed on this question. 
 Lord John Russell, in the slow and discontented drawl 
 which was his ordinary niethod, accounted for the delay 
 by announcing that nothing had been done because it 
 was not desirable to do anything. The Lord-Lieutenant 
 and other persons in Ireland, with the best information, 
 assured him that there was no lons^er need for legisla- 
 tion, there was a good harvest, a friendly feeling ex- 
 isted between landlord and tenant, and the question 
 was settling itself. 
 
 On the face of God's earth there was not a country so 
 miserable and hopeless as L'eland at that time. The 
 population were flowing out of it like water from a ves- 
 sel which is staved. The workhouses were crammed 
 with inmates stricken with the diseases that sjDring 
 from want and neglect, the landlords were still levelling 
 
 u 2 
 
292 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 homesteads and rooting out the native race, and nothing 
 was to be done for remedy or alleviation. Nothing was 
 to be done, and three-fourths of the representatives 
 elected by the stricken people assented in silence, and 
 three-fourths of the bishops, born and bred among them, 
 sanctioned the perfidy. No ecclesiastic of any rank who 
 had supported the Government abandoned them because 
 they relinquished the Land question, any more than 
 they had done when the fall of Sadleir and the dis- 
 closures before the Corruption Committee laid bare the 
 character of Mr. Keogh's associates. It was no better 
 in the North. The Banner of Ulster admitted that 
 nothing was now to be hoped from the Government, but 
 it continued its complaisance to the sordid traitors who 
 had brought about this result. 
 
 The Times, which played the part of chorus in the 
 tragedy, notified the point which the drama had now 
 reached with commendable plainness — 
 
 At length the bubble has burst, and after trifling a 
 year and a half with this particular form of Socialism, 
 from the very touch of which they ought to have 
 recoiled. Ministers have declared that they will counten- 
 ance it no longer, and will not even support two cognate 
 bills, admitted to be good in themselves, for fear that 
 they should be made the vehicle of Tenant-right 
 abominations." 
 
 The strongest nature is made stronger by the 
 mesmeric sense of sympathy and support. But sym- 
 
ANOTHER RALLY OF THE LEAGUE. 293 
 
 pathy and support were gradually ebbing away from us. 
 We were tasting what the poet calls ''man's predestined 
 lot — being beaten and baffled." The stay which upheld 
 the Leaguers against all difficulties was conviction. 
 They entirely believed that they were right. Some of 
 them were endowed with great force of character, some 
 were more liable to excitement and depression, but all 
 were certain they were labouring for a great public end. 
 An assembly like the House of Commons is rarely slow 
 to recognise sincerity. It may hate it, and call it odious 
 names, but it knows it for what it is. Genuine con- 
 viction and unfaltering will can no more conceal them- 
 selves than a man's stature or colour. There never was 
 in Ireland before or since a political party more able, 
 honest, or devoted, than the League of 1850. But the 
 Land question was still in the pioneer stage — a stage 
 through which all public questions fought by operating 
 on opinion must inevitably pass. 
 
 Happily villainy is not an agreeable pursuit. I saw 
 Mr. Sadleir at this time when he came to the House to 
 vote on a party division, and his face was appalling. He 
 had always been a dark mysterious person, but now he 
 looked wild, haggard, and repulsive. None of us had 
 any suspicion that he was an undetected forger and a 
 swindler, but it seemed that thwarted ambition had 
 turned his blood into liquid mud. 
 
 I have confined this narrative to the Tenant-right 
 
'294: THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 contest, but the Irish members naturally applied them- 
 selves to other tasks. They endeavoured to obtain 
 chaplains for Catholics serving in the army and navy, 
 to secure religious equality in the Colonies, and they 
 defended Maynooth College from an organised attempt 
 to misrepresent and destroy it. It is enough to say 
 that Lucas took the lead and Moore a notable part in 
 these controversies. One instance in the Ma3mooth 
 debate is worth recording as an illustration of the sort 
 of evidence on which English opinion respecting 
 Ireland is sometimes founded. Sir Francis Head, a 
 retired Governor of Upper Canada, published a book 
 entitled A Fortnight in Ireland, for which the Irish 
 Constabulary furnished materials in the shape of violent 
 speeches delivered at Tenant Eight meetings, and re- 
 ported by them to headquarters. Most of these speeches 
 were made by the Reverend This or That; and they 
 were naturally cited as illustrations of Maynooth dis- 
 cipline. Was a system to be tolerated which produced 
 firebrands like these reverend orators ? The Irish 
 member who followed took up the reprehended 
 speeches, and read three or four of the stroDgest of 
 them amid ironical cheers. The sentiments, he said, 
 seemed to him just and reasonable under the circum- 
 stances which existed in Ireland, but if the House 
 differed with him in this opinion, he submitted at any 
 rate that it was rash to hold Maynooth responsible (Oh ! 
 
ANOTHER EALLY OF THE LEAGUE. 295 
 
 oh ! and more ironical cheers). He would only trouble 
 them with a single fact in support of this conclusion ; 
 every speaker, without exception, whom he had quoted 
 was a Presbyterian minister ! There was an anony- 
 mous speech indeed in the collection particularly objec- 
 tionable to Irish landlords, and it might seem impossible 
 to relieve Maynooth from the imputation of having 
 trained this unnamed speaker at any rate. But he 
 undertook to prove a negative even in that case ; for 
 he recognised the passage in question as one from a 
 speech which he had himself delivered in the Tholsel 
 of New Ross 1 
 
296 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 NOTES ON CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE NORTHERNS AND THE LEAGUE FUNDS. 
 
 This letter will explain itself^ 
 
 "peculation of public money. 
 
 " It so happens that Tenant-right is the only question likely to 
 bring in supplies of money from the rural districts, and the 
 Dublin system of financial management is the excellent old plan 
 which has already destroyed so many previous agitations, namely, 
 that of having a small metropolitan clique who ' receive ' all 
 cash sent in — who ' vote ' its appropriation, ' expend ' it in 
 accordance with their own votes, and then account for their dis- 
 bursements, calling themselves all the while by different names 
 according to the official characters temporarily assumed. At the 
 very outset of the Tenant League the Northern members set 
 themselves against this barefaced system of finance, and for a 
 time they succeeded. 
 
 " At length, however, certain parties contrived to oust every 
 respectable treasurer who could be appointed, and to re-establish 
 the ancient regime. The incessant remonstrances of the North 
 at length compelled the selection of three trustees, resident in 
 Dublin, and chosen from among the friends of Messrs. Lucas and 
 Dufi'y. The trustees had not been long in office until they 
 peremptorily refused to sanction the money appropriations 
 habitually voted, and they were consequently removed by a 
 summary process, the nominal Council retaining in its own hands 
 all funds transmitted to the League, without putting the trustees 
 to any trouble in the matter.' ' — Banner of Ulster. 
 
 "To Jambs M'Knight, Esq., LL.D. 
 
 " Sir, — I find the above passage in your newspaper, and, as it 
 implies charges of a kind which I will permit no man to connect, 
 in any manner, with my name, I come straight to you for a 
 
ANOTHER EALLY OF THE LEAGUE. 297 
 
 prompt substantiation of them ; or sucli an apology as an offence 
 so serious requires. I make full allowance for the exaggeration 
 of party warfare. I am by no means sensitive to the ordinary 
 assaults of the Press, of which I have had my full share without 
 feeling a jot the worse for them. But on the subject of public 
 funds I have spoken and written opinions which forbid me to 
 endure the smallest imputation in silence. You will comprehend, 
 therefore, that this is not a subject— as far as I am concerned — 
 which can be despatched in generalities. My personal honour 
 demands that it be fully retracted or scrupulously sifted to the 
 bottom. 
 
 " I confidently believe your imputations on the Tenant League 
 are totally unfounded. If you can establish any one of them I 
 promise to separate myself from the League for ever. But I feel 
 no necessity to undertake the defence of a public body which has 
 many members better qualified and entitled to become its 
 champion— I content myself with defending my own honour. 
 As far, therefore, as you have presumed to connect my name with 
 your allegations I pronounce them wicked and gratuitous inven- 
 tions, false as a whole, and false in every particular. 
 
 "The gravamen of your very serious charge is this — That 
 certain parties in Dublin (afterwards described as 'friends of 
 Lucas and Duffy),' (1) contrary to the remonstrances of the 
 Northern members, who were the watchful guardians of the 
 funds, (2) contrived to oust every respectable treasurer who could 
 be appointed, (3) till, at length, trustees were named ; but these 
 officers peremptorily refused to sanction the money appropriations 
 habitually voted, and (4) were consequently removed by a 
 summary process. 
 
 " As far as I know or believe there is not one solitary item of 
 truth in this very circumstantial statement. But to prevent 
 mistakes I will take it in detail. 
 
 " 1. The resolution of the League ordering the annual audit and 
 publication of its accounts was not adopted at the instance of any 
 of those whom you call Northern members. It was my proposal 
 at the Preparatory Committee. They have accordingly been 
 habitually audited, and laid before the public in the newspapers. 
 
298 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 Almost the only concern I have ever had with the pecuniary 
 affairs of the League was to vote year after year for this publica- 
 tion. Nobody resisted it ; and I never heard, as far as I can 
 recollect, any member resident in Ulster utter a word in re- 
 monstrance on the manner in which the funds were kept or 
 accounted for. 
 
 " 2. If any treasurer was ever ' ousted,' I pray you name him. 
 The charge is that ' every respectable treasurer who could be 
 appointed was ousted.' As far as my knowledge of the affairs 
 of the League goes, there is not the colour of fact for this imputa- 
 tion in a single instance. Certain I am that I never deposed any 
 person ; or proposed, or suggested any 'person whatever for the 
 office, or ever witnessed or was a party to any attempt of the kind 
 imputed. 
 
 " 3. ' The three trustees at length appointed (friends of Messrs. 
 Lucas and Duffy) peremptorily refused to sanction the money 
 appropriations habitually voted.' This is a tangible fact, and a 
 clinching one. If this happened, then indeed we have a case to 
 deal with, and I pray you specify it. In my entire connection 
 with the League such a circumstance never came under my 
 notice. No trustees ever made any such objection, or had the 
 slightest ground for making it. The story is as purely imaginary 
 as the last romance in the circulating libraries. 
 
 " 4. ' The trustees were consequently removed by a summary 
 process.' No trustees were ever removed by a summary process, 
 or by any process whatever, as far as I know. If they were, who 
 are they, and what was the process ? 
 
 " But we must come to closer quarters. These charges mean 
 nothing if they do not mean that the money of the League has 
 been voted for some purposes in which Messrs. Lucas and Duffy 
 had a j)ersonal interest. I challenge you to name one sum, how- 
 ever small, voted for any purpose in which I had the slightest 
 personal interest. It is the usage of political bodies to buy and 
 circulate newspapers containing reports of their proceedings. 
 The League never circulated one copy of the Nation. It is the 
 usage, I believe, to sustain friendly newspapers by high-priced 
 advertisements. The high-priced advertisements of the League, 
 
ANOTHER RALLY OF THE LEAGUE. 299 
 
 siicli as its requisitions and audits, which cost much in unfriendly 
 papers, were published gratis in the Nation. The few shillings 
 a quarter paid for its ordinary advertisements, the secretary tells 
 me, have been less to the Nation than to the Telegraph., and would 
 amount to about as much since the formation of the League as I 
 paid in one week for sending to Tyrone and Clare to report its 
 meetings — rather less than it got in subscriptions out of the 
 ofl&ce of the Nation. This is true in every respect of the Tahlet 
 as well as the Nation — that is to say, of Messrs. Lucas and Duffy. 
 
 " But I am not content to stop here. I ask you to specify any 
 money vote of the League which concerned me personally one 
 straw whether it passed or not — any one vote which I had the 
 smallest interest in more than a member residing in Belfast or 
 Londonderry. I challenge you to show that I aim, or that I 
 aimed to be, richer by the value of a postage-stamp from the 
 funds of the League ; that I had any interest to serve in it, that 
 any of its treasurers were made or unmade by me, or, in short, 
 that I had more to do with the management or expenditure of its 
 funds than Dr. M'Knight. 
 
 " The actual fact is that for the three years the League has 
 been in existence I have not taken part in a dozen of its votes on 
 disbursements of money. I had something else to do than 
 muddle over petty finances, and my duty to the public was, 
 I conceived, fully discharged by taking care that competent 
 auditors were appointed from time to time and the accounts 
 published. 
 
 " I shall not condescend to retaliate charges, but assuredly my 
 impression on the subject of the funds was this — that they had 
 been almost exclusively furnished by the South and almost 
 exclusively squandered by the North, as far as there were dis- 
 bursements which were not indispensable. Of the very few votes 
 which I originated (not, I believe, beyond a dozen) three were 
 for advances to Northern gentlemen for the purpose of organising 
 their respective counties ; one of them did his duty very efficiently, 
 and the other two spent the money and never made the smallest 
 return for it. This is my experience. 
 
 " And now, sir, I demand your direct answer. Are you 
 
300 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 prepared to substantiate charges witli wliich you liave connected 
 my name 1 If you have any case whatever, speak out and let 
 the public judge of it. If not, it can scarcely be necessary to 
 suggest the course you should pursue. 
 
 " May I at the same time inquire how it has happened, if these 
 suspicions were in your mind since the formation of the League, 
 that you have maintained with me personally a frank and 
 intimate correspondence on its proceedings, without ever having 
 hinted a complaint 1 That, on the contrary, you were pleased, 
 publicly and privately, to except me from the complaints you 
 did make (which were never in relation to the funds). 
 
 " I separated from you ; I did so with pain and hesitation, but 
 peremptorily and publicly, when you became the advocate of men 
 wdio had broken their solemn specific engagements for Treasury 
 pay. This would account for angry feelings on your part, un- 
 doubtedly ; but how it will account consistently with your honour 
 for imputations never breathed before, and directed against a 
 man whom you were accustomed to call your friend, it remains 
 for you to show. — I am, sir, your obedient servant, ■ 
 
 " C. Gavan Dufft. 
 
 "Blackrock, Dublin, 
 October 13." 
 
 Dr. M'Knight did not attempt to sustain any one of the 
 imputations, but withdrew the charge, grudgingly indeed, but 
 unequivocally. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DR. CULLEN AND THE WHIG BISHOPS. 
 
 The war still engrossed public attention, and in the 
 ensuing session Irish business might be represented by 
 a cipher. Outside of Parliament the League journals 
 and a few League priests laboured to keep alive opinion, 
 but the people seconded them feebly. That stage of 
 depression was nearly reached v/hen only the uncon- 
 querable do not despair. The leaders found themselves 
 charged with all the costs as well as all the labour of 
 the agitation. From lack of funds deputations defrayed 
 their own expenses, and the subscription list showed 
 large contributions from a few persons, instead of 
 moderate contributions from all, as of old.^ The harvest 
 was a bountiful one ; but the farmers in general regarded 
 
 ^ In 1852 the League received only ^600, of which £170 were 
 personal subscriptions of the Council and its most active members. 
 This was the expenditure — Salaries, ,£220; the monthly periodica], 
 £10 ; postage, £38 ; printing and stationery, .£70 ; rent, £30 ; 
 expense of deputations, £38. 
 
302 THE LEAGDE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 this temporary gleam of prosperity less as an opportunity 
 for renewing tlie struggle than as a lucky holiday, when 
 they need take no thought for to-morrow. Our troubles 
 were increased by a mesmeric feeling that Sergeant 
 Shee was growing cold in the cause. His latest bill was 
 only a shadow of his original proposal ; and when a 
 Leaguer refused to put his name upon such a pitiful 
 scheme, the Sergeant crossed the house and substituted 
 the name of one of the deserters. He was anxious, 
 doubtless, to perform the task assigned to him like a 
 gentleman, if it did not prove too inconvenient, but he 
 had no deep feelings at stake, and the temptations to 
 attorn were cogent. Another trouble to be noted at 
 this time was the death of Maurice Leyne. He had 
 gone to Tipperary to establish a local journal, which it 
 might be hoped would make the continued ascendency 
 of Sadleirism there impossible, was seized with typhoid 
 fever and suddenly carried away in the maturity of his 
 powers. Leyne had a gift of eloquence almost as 
 electric as Meagher's, and a gift of humour to which 
 Meagher made no approach.^ He died in the arms of 
 a man whom I had induced him to take with him in 
 this enterprise — a young artist, from Bantry, who 
 
 ^ His scjiiibs, signed " Zozimns," in the revived Nation were 
 unfortunately on temporary topics chiefly, otherwise they would 
 have proved of enduring interest. A specimen or two will be 
 found in a note at the end of the chapter. 
 
' DE. CULLEN AND THE WHIG BISHOPS. 303 
 
 became known to me through some graphic contributions 
 to the Nation, and who in the end made himself known 
 to Ireland and Irishmen throughout the world as an 
 orator of singularly persuasive power, a writer of rare 
 verve and skill, and a patriot of unwavering devotion.^ 
 
 In the progress of public business we now found the 
 influence of Dr. Cullen at work against us at every step. 
 In London, the Whig members boasted that they, not 
 we, had the sympathy and confidence of the bishops. 
 When Lucas contended for a more just and liberal 
 arrangement with respect to Catholic chaplains in the 
 army and navy, he was assured by members of the 
 Government that the heads of his Church were content 
 with what they had done. In effect the Apostolic Dele- 
 gate was the leader of the Irish Whigs. When he 
 came to Ireland the mission with which he was charo^ed 
 was understood to be to bring the Church into stricter 
 harmony with the discipline of Rome. But to this 
 legitimate and salutary purpose he very plainly added 
 a design for which it was contended that he had, and 
 could have, no authority, the design of regulating the 
 politics of . the country at his discretion. If such a task 
 were admissible, it is difficult to conceive any one less 
 qualified to undertake it. He was unacquainted with 
 Ireland, unskilled in the principles of Parliamentary 
 government, and slow to comprehend or accept new 
 
 1 A. M. Siillivau. 
 
304 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 ideas. He came from Rome em^agred ag^ainst the secret 
 societies as the disturbers of Christendom, and con- 
 founded Parhamenfcary opposition with Continental 
 Liberahsm, which, from the necessity of its position, was 
 driven to conspire. His idea of a social and political 
 organisation for Ireland was understood to be one 
 modelled on the Government of Rome, where the 
 supreme authority resided in a few great ecclesiastics, 
 and laymen counted for nothing. But Ireland was 
 Democratic and Catholic to the core. Though the 
 people were profoundly devoted to the Catholic faith, 
 wTong and resistance of it had trained them into 
 hatred of arbitrary power, and it would have been as 
 difficult to induce them to accept the political rule of 
 Rome as of London.^ He was no doubt alarmed with 
 absurd rumours and exaggerations by the Catholic 
 gentry and officials who surrounded him ; but he started 
 with a profound confidence in his own judgment as a 
 sure guide in all difficulties. When he changed his 
 political action he offered no explanation, and would 
 have been affronted if any one had expected him to 
 justify himself. He was taking his course after the 
 best consideration of the circumstances, and the business 
 
 ■• The yonng men of tlie day were described by an eminent 
 contemporary poet as — 
 
 " Kindly Irish of the Irish, 
 Neither Saxon nor Italian." 
 
DR. CULLEN AND THE WHIG BISHOPS. 305 
 
 of laymen was to follow, in admiring silence if possible, 
 but, at any rate, without dissent or criticism. When 
 he had to choose between the leaders of the Tenant 
 League and the deserters from it, it ought not to have 
 been a difficult task. On one side were men who re- 
 nounced all the personal advantages which ambition 
 seeks in a political career, that they might help a 
 people in sore extremity ; on the other, men who 
 confessedly sought their own interest in the first place, 
 if not exclusively. But it was with the latter he took 
 his place. One of the tasks he undertook at this time 
 was to establish a Catholic University. It was a wise 
 and necessary v/ork which carried with it the sympathy 
 of every generous heart. But from the beginning the 
 Archbishop aimed to control it by his individual will 
 without the aid or concurrence of others who had as 
 clear a duty, or as clear an interest in its success. 
 Liberal contributions were given by the Irish all over 
 the world — given indeed again and again — but funds 
 are only one of the conditions of success. Dr. MacHale 
 separated from him first, then the eminent man who 
 had undertaken to control the institution as its Rector, 
 the present Cardinal Newman ; the best of the middle- 
 class were driven to despair of the project by the method 
 of government adopted at the outset. In the education 
 of their children they were to have no part except to 
 subscribe the necessary funds. The committee which 
 
 X 
 
306 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 lie selected to revive Collegiate learning, which had 
 once its virtual seat in this island, did not contain one 
 layman of adequate intellect or culture. There were 
 twenty-four members, of whom eight were bishops and 
 eight priests ; and eight were laymen — mere wooden 
 figures, set up for show. The most notable were 
 Thomas Meagher, M. P., a respectable citizen in his 
 proper place ; and Charles Bianconi, who, as some one 
 suggested, was a man of large readmg — but it lay among 
 way-bills chiefly. 
 
 When the session closed, some of Lucas's friends in 
 
 England, stung by the unfair treatment to which he 
 
 had been subjected, determined to present him with a 
 
 testimonial for his Parliamentary services to the cause 
 
 of religion. The measure of Dr. Cullen's enmity is 
 
 furnished by the fact that he wrote to an English 
 
 bishop recommending him to discourage the tribute. 
 
 Though he was gifted with an exceptionally vigorous 
 
 physique, constant labour and responsibility began to 
 
 tell upon Lucas by this time. Mr. Potter, one of our 
 
 colleagues, was reported to be dying at Limerick, killed, 
 
 like William Cobbett, by the total change of habits 
 
 which the late hours in Parliament imposed, and I 
 
 found myself in a scarcely more hopeful condition. A 
 
 brain constantly overworked and a body stinted of fresh 
 
 air and exercise brought on an intense dyspepsia which 
 
 our public troubles were not calculated to allay. I was 
 
DR. CULLEN AND THE WHIG BISHOPS. 307 
 
 advised to travel for a time, and at the end of the session 
 I went to make some personal acquaintance with the 
 peasant proprietors of France and Belgium. The news 
 which followed me from Ireland from time to time did not 
 tend to make the excursion balsamic. A quarrel sprang 
 up between Lucas and Shee, which found its way into 
 the newspapers. A Conference was summoned as usual 
 in the autumn ; but the Parliamentary leader, instead 
 of giving his assistance, wrote a letter to the Castle 
 organ,^ justifying himself for his refusal to attend. To 
 carry his difficulties to such a confidant was a symptom 
 which coald scarcely be mistaken. " A Conference," 
 he affirmed, " would be of no use till a union with the 
 North was renewed," a union which he knew the North 
 had broken by abandoning the principles of Crawford's 
 bill and of Independent Opposition. But he was pre- 
 pared to abandon these principles himself. His main 
 reliance was on the Government, who had declared that 
 legislation was no longer necessary — 
 
 "It is our duty, (he said,) as sensible and honest 
 men, not to allow a most difficult question to be made 
 an engine of internecine strife or party vexation, but 
 to give to the Government under which we live our 
 best assistance in a fair endeavour to effect its 
 settlement." 
 
 Only two members of Parliament attended the Con- 
 ference, and no Northern delegate, but there was a 
 
 ■^ Dublin Even'mg Post. 
 
 X 2 
 
308 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 considerable number of priests and farmers present. 
 The original principles and policy of the League were 
 re-affirmed, and it was resolved to appeal to the country 
 through a series of county naeetings. 
 
 A friend, who was a vehement Nationalist, but also 
 a Catholic, as obedient to authority in its legitimate 
 sphere as Lucas, wrote me at this time of a danger 
 becoming more and more menacing — 
 
 " The Roman policy towards this country has under- 
 gone a complete change, and one hostile to its nationality. 
 Until O'Connell's death Rome, or at least an influential 
 party there, believed in the possibility of an independ- 
 ent Catholic State here, capable, with France, of strong 
 action on England. Since O'Connell's death they see 
 only the chance of a Red Republic. But England has 
 shown extraordinary symptoms of conversion. These 
 were recognised in the new Hierarchy and the Papal 
 Aggression. Then they were again forced into an 
 attitude of hostility. This all changes again, however, 
 when Lord Aberdeen (who, to an extraordinary degree, 
 enjoys the confidence of Roman statesmen) attains office, 
 and offers it to the Catholics who defended ' Papal 
 agfaression.' Then Rome returns to her design of 
 treating Ireland as an intrenched camp of Catholicity in 
 the heart of the British Empire, capable of leavening 
 the whole empire — nay, the whole Anglo-Saxon race — 
 and devotes every nerve to that end. But the first 
 postulate of it is the pacification of L^eland. L'eland 
 must be thoroughly imperialised, loyalised, welded into 
 England. Paul Cullen succeeds Castlereagh. You 
 may well believe that it is slowly my mind has come 
 to this conviction, but believe me it is the key that reads 
 everything that has been meeting us, we knew not how, 
 
DR CULLEN AND THE AVHIG BISHOPS. S09 
 
 for the last two years. I will write upon it the minute 
 you assent, and I think in a w^ay well weighed and 
 orthodox. The truth is it has so beset my mind for 
 months that I can think of nothing else. And you meet 
 whiffs of it everywhere in the air so that it seems to be 
 like some huge atmosphere of choke damp, only needing 
 a spark to kindle it. We [Nationalists] must give up 
 Ireland unless we face it. And for a variety of reasons 
 this is the very day, the very hour, and the very 
 minute." 
 
 The theory described was undoubtedly the policy of 
 the Apostolic Delegate ; how far he acted under author- 
 ity and instructions from the Holy See was still doubt- 
 ful. It was a subject of complaint among ecclesiastics 
 that he never exhibited the instrument which specified 
 the nature and extent of his powers ; and in the end it 
 was discovered that the policy was entirely his own. 
 
 The first of the county meetings was fixed to be held 
 at Callan early in November. It was preceded by a 
 correspondence between Father Keeffe, secretary of the 
 preliminary committee, and Sergeant Shee, in which it 
 became too plain that the learned member for the 
 county had gone quite over to the Government and was 
 in training for the seat on the English bench which he 
 finally obtained. When the correspondence seemed 
 likely to endanger the Sergeant's re-election the Bishop 
 of Ossory interposed with a mandate ordering Father 
 Keeffe to pursue the controversy no further. As the 
 day of meeting approached he followed up this measure 
 
310 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 by a more arbitrary stroke of authority. Father Keeffe 
 was forbidden to attend the meeting in his own parish 
 or to take any further part in the pubhc affairs of Ireland. 
 The locus in qiio was a marvellous place for the experi- 
 ment of excluding priests, to begin. Half the population 
 had been already lost by cruel evictions, the churches 
 were more than half empty, there were two thousand 
 paupers in the workhouse, and two priests had akeady 
 died of fever caught in attendance on them. 
 
 As one of the founders of the first Tenant Protection 
 Society, Father Keeffe was a man who could not be 
 spared ; but the principle was of still more hnportance 
 than the man. If a Whig bishop was at liberty to 
 exclude a priest of unblemished character from public 
 life, the example was sure to be imitated by other Whig 
 bishops ; and the public cause in which we were eugaged 
 must necessarily fail. The experiment was crucial. 
 Already such of the clergy as thought it their duty to 
 accept implicitly the direction of bishops in politics or 
 who loved peace better than the public interest, and a 
 few who had private ends to secure, were at the beck of 
 the Castle ; if the courageous and high-principled could 
 be silenced by authority, what hope remained ? It had 
 been proved by repeated experiments that without the 
 aid of the local clergy elections could not be won. 
 There was no ballot to shelter the voter from the venge- 
 ance of his landlord ; there was no Land law fencing him 
 
DE. CULLEN AND THE WHIG BISHOPS. 311 
 
 from eviction. For the chance of obtainincr rig-hts 
 common to his class in all other civilised countries the 
 Irish peasant had to stake his existence at the hustings 
 almost as nakedly as a soldier does going into battle, 
 and it is small wonder if men of simple minds saw the 
 near and certain danger more clearly than the distant 
 advantage. The League priests taught them where 
 their true interest and safety lay, and this was their 
 offence. After the lapse of a generation, when the facts 
 can be judged dispassionately, I affirm that the class 
 against whom this policy was directed were among the 
 best ecclesiastics in the Irish Church and were drawn 
 into politics by a generous sympathy with wrongs and suf- 
 ferings of which they were the daily witnesses. If men 
 who trafficked in Government places were to be supported 
 by episcopal authority, and independent priests repressed, 
 the contest was at an end. What must ensue we knew 
 full well. In 1832 O'Connell obtained a body of forty 
 Repeal members. A couple of years later he came to 
 an agreement with the Whigs, and thirty of the forty 
 procured offices or honours for themselves, and were 
 heard of no more in National politics. In 1846 
 O'Connell's sons obtained a much smaller party, but it 
 had gone in the same way. And once again were the 
 representatives of Ireland to be set up for sale ? It is 
 insensate to speak of any corporation of men as if they 
 were of strictly identical principles and feelings ; and 
 
312 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 some priests were, no doubt, convinced Whigs from sym- 
 pathy with the Catholic gentry, and a few, who had once 
 wielded immense influence for public ends, had latterly 
 set up political hucksters' shops, in which they bartered 
 their inflaence for favours bestowed on their relatives 
 and friends. But the bulk of them were by nature, 
 experience, and sympathy, the truest friends and the 
 safest guides the people could hope to find. Without 
 their aid O'Connell could have no more united the Irish 
 people than Charles Edward could have raised the High- 
 landers without the aid of their chiefs. But it was not 
 on the platform or the hustings their service was most 
 indispensable. No one could know Ireland without 
 being familiar with cases in which a priest, unknown till 
 the occasion called him forth, planted himself in the 
 path of some local oppressor, like a detis ex machina. 
 If these strong and skilful counsellors could be corrupted 
 or cowed, the hope of saving the people vanished away.^ 
 
 1 An occasional contributor to the Nation described with rare 
 insight and knowledge the conditions which go to make Irish 
 priests controversialists of unusual power. " Birth, early associa- 
 tions, the course of studies at Maynooth, and the nature of the 
 clerical life in country districts, all combine to give the Irish 
 priest his most striking mental characteristic — strength. Sprung 
 for the most part from the farmer class — a class who think 
 directly if coarsely ; growing up among the fields, in vigour of 
 body and mind ; fed at college on the old classics, on the masculine 
 logic of the schools, on the subtle but accurate distinctions of 
 moral theology, and the mighty eloquence of the Fathers ; coming 
 forth into a position of labour, power, and responsibility ; open 
 
DE. CULLEN AND THE WHIG BISHOPS. 313 
 
 When this transaction happened I was slowly returning 
 from the Continent, still somewhat invalided. But a 
 letter from Lucas communicating the facts drew me into 
 the arena on the instant.^ At Callan we had a hasty 
 
 to all the invigorating influences of nature, as many a stormy 
 ride by niglit through the mountains might testify ; and neither 
 weakened by indolence nor by the emasculating influence of 
 desultory and hasty reading, the Irish priest for the most part 
 retains a hardiness of thought and language rare in this age. 
 Coarse it may often be and unrefined, but still the stuff is in it — 
 and we have never seen a sophism so completely strangled or a 
 fallacy dashed so heartily to pieces as in occasional writings of the 
 Irish clergy. When the New Reformation crusade was preached 
 through Ireland some twenty years ago its orators were met almost 
 in every parish by some obscure priest, who with vehement 
 energy, with theology at his fingers' ends, with ridicule, anger, 
 and indomitable logic, encountered and defeated them. W^hen 
 with this rude force and learning is combined the cultivation and 
 mastery over language which familiarity with the English classic 
 writers alone can give, the result is such writing as we occasionally 
 see coming from some unknown country priest, and which it 
 would be hard to parallel elsewhere — terse, eloquent, idiomatic — 
 with a grip like a vice, and a broad vein of humour. But such 
 a combination is rare. For the most part the talents and acquire- 
 ments of the country clergy either lie torpid or else are un- 
 skilfully handled — the force occasionally running riot for want 
 of this cultivation." 
 
 ^ " I hope you are quite strong again. We need you and all 
 your strength. You may have seen that a meetiug is to be held 
 at Callan on Sunday next. This morning news came that in 
 consequence of his letter to Sergeant Shee, in last week's Nation, 
 the Bishop has commanded Father Mat. Keeffe to abstain in 
 future from politics. This new order of things will require very 
 careful and very resolute handling ; and if there were no other 
 reason, your presence at Callan will be absolutely necessary. 
 
314 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 conference, and agreed upon a line of action, which was 
 carried into immediate operation. To endure a stroke 
 so fatal to the national interest in silence at any bidding 
 would have been base, and we resolved to combat it with 
 all our streno^th. 
 
 The meetino; was remarkable for numbers and 
 enthusiasm, but still more for the unequivocal manner 
 in which it separated from the policy of the bishop and 
 the county member. It was estimated that ten thousand 
 farmers of Kilkenny and Tipperary attended. The 
 chair was occupied by the archdeacon of the diocese 
 who bore emphatic testimony against the party with 
 whom Sergeant Shee was now associated. Another 
 archdeacon, the able and venerable Fitzgerald, of 
 Rathkeale, made it plain that the Ossory discipline was 
 not likely to be tamely accepted by the second order of 
 the clergy — 
 
 " I read in some old-world history (he wrote) of 
 Lestock and Mathews, two captains, who, from mutinous 
 or cowardly impulses, fled from the battle, leaving their 
 rough old admiral, Benbow, to defeat and death. When 
 they returned to England they were turned out of the 
 service with ignominy, and their swords broken over their 
 lieads. Pity they had not to deal with the tender- 
 hearted folks of Athlone, or Sligo, or Carlo w. Bonfires 
 and illuminations and triumphal arches would have 
 awaited Lestock and Mathews, I can imagine the 
 
 Do, therefore, come, for God's sake, unless the field is to he 
 abandoned at once." — Lucas to Duffy, Oct. 25, 1854. 
 
DE. CULLEN AND THE WHIG BISHOPS. 315 
 
 Very Rev. Father , or the patriotic and eloquent 
 
 Father , returning the swords and expressing a 
 
 hope (a hope not likely to be disappointed) that they 
 would use these weapons as nobly and honourably as 
 before. (But irony, after a little, proved an inadequate 
 vehicle of his feeling, which broke into naked in- 
 dignation.) The representation of a borough or a 
 county is the mightiest weapon for good or evil to the 
 Celtic race and the Celtic Church that an Irishman can 
 wield in our times ; and is it not evil of the worst kind 
 to commit that all-powerful weapon to the dishonest, 
 traitorous hands — to the felon hands of those who falsely 
 and perfidiously violate their solemn pledges ? To me 
 it would appear that the parties who select such as 
 these to sit on that awful tribunal where the doom of 
 the Irish race is in the balance is to share in the guilt 
 of him who opened the gates of Rome to Alaric, or of 
 the fisherman who piloted the Algerine Corsair into 
 the haven of Baltimore to visit midnight slaughter on 
 the sleeping and unsuspecting town." 
 
 Father Aylward, a leading priest of the diocese, 
 moved a resolution, calling on Sergeant Shee to attend 
 the next Conference, and accept its instructions respect- 
 ing the bill with which he had been intrusted, on pain 
 of forfeiting the confidence of his constituents. And 
 Father Tom O'Shea, who lay as completely at the mercy 
 of the Bishop as his colleague who had been silenced, 
 spoke with his usual distinctness and vigour. Patrick 
 Lalor, of Tinakill, called attention to the fact that Ser- 
 geant Shee, who was pledged to accept nothing less 
 than the principles of Crawford's bill, had introduced 
 a measure, as his latest proposal, which would 
 
316 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 leave the tenant in a worse condition than it found 
 him. 
 
 Father Cahill declared that the most melancholy 
 result of political desertion was that it led the people to 
 distrust even those who were faithful. " For the future," 
 he said, " when a Whig and a Tory contest a consti- 
 tuency in which I have an interest I will say to the 
 people — Take your choice ; one is as bad as the other. 
 If a pledge-breaker stands I will support an open bigot, 
 like Spooner or Chambers, in preference. But when a 
 man makes his appearance professing the principles of 
 Lucas, Duffy, and Moore, if I am satisfied from his 
 antecedents that he is of sterling stuff, I will teach the 
 people that he is of the creed outside of which there is 
 no political salvation for Ireland." 
 
 Lucas addressed himself to the question which was 
 uppermost in all minds. He announced that the well- 
 beloved priest of Callan was forbidden by ecclesiastical 
 authority to take any part whatever in public affairs. 
 Father Keeffe was determined to practise the most ex- 
 emplary obedience to his bishop. But the ultimate 
 authority of the Church was the Supreme Pontiff who 
 sits at Rome, the successor of St. Peter, whose Church 
 is the mother and mistress of all Churches, who rules 
 over all local ecclesiastical authority, and who has the 
 right to decide in all causes in the last resort. As a 
 loyal and obedient son of the Church, he and other 
 
DR. CULLEN AND THE WHIG BISHOPS. 317 
 
 members of Parliament were resolved to bring before 
 the Holy See, for its official decision, the question, 
 whether the honest clergy of Ireland were to be silenced 
 by authority and their mouths closed for ever ? What 
 the clergy of Ossory, what the clergy of other dioceses in 
 Ireland, might consider it their duty to do he was not 
 in a condition to say; but as regards laymen and 
 politicians, before a month was over some of them 
 would cross the Channel and find themselves, with the 
 blessing of God, beneath the shadow of the Vatican. 
 '' Let no man say," he added, " that in doing this — in 
 making an appeal from the decision of Ossory to the 
 decision of Rome — they are guilty of disrespect to the 
 bishop of this diocese. The ablest and most pious 
 bishop, with the best intentions, is, after all, but a falli- 
 ble man. There is no infallibility under Heaven but in 
 the Chair of St. Peter. If the final decision of the 
 Church closed the mouths of honest priests, and upheld 
 pledge-breakers, place-beggars, and all those who made 
 politics a dishonest game, he, speaking in the name of 
 some there present, but speaking, above all, his own 
 conviction, would declare that he saw no other course 
 for honest and sane men to take but to wash their hands 
 of public affairs altogether, and to abandon all hope of 
 protecting the rights and interests of Ireland in the 
 Parliament of Great Britain." 
 
 At the public dinner which followed the meeting I 
 
318 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 reiterated the declaration which Lucas had made on 
 our behalf. I had come there, I said, almost without 
 visiting my own home, because the stroke aimed at 
 Father Keeffe, which was the first open exercise of a 
 policy long pursued in secret, was one fatal to the 
 peo]3le's interest. Whether the Bishop of Ossory had 
 exceeded his legitimate authority I would not undertake 
 to say, but of one thing I was certain, honourable men 
 would decline to maintain a contest with bigots and 
 oppressors in the House of Commons if they were to be 
 betrayed at home by bishops of their own Church. No 
 one was ignorant of the case of Father Doyle, of Ross^ 
 or of the witlidrawal of Father O'Shea from the Louth 
 election.^ English bigots demanded an act to exclude 
 priests from politics, and the Whig Bishops accom- 
 modated them with a discipline which was equivalent 
 
 ^ The result of this banishment of Father Doyle furnishes a 
 curious illustration of the force of individual character. The 
 parish was Ramsgrange, where he set to work at once with 
 characteristic vigour to perform his new duties. He settled down 
 for life, and has been for twenty years parish priest in his place 
 of banishment, and has made it notable as the centre of fruitful 
 and edifying work. It contains one of the largest churches in 
 the diocese, efficient Catholic schools, a glebe house on the same 
 scale as the church ; out of proportion it seemed to the simple 
 life of the pastor, till its real purpose was disclosed by its trans- 
 formation into a convent for middle class education. The banished 
 curate has become a Canon and one of the Council of the Diocese, 
 and is still a tribune of the people, whose advice guides the 
 county in any public emergency. 
 
DR. CULLEN" AND THE WHIG BISHOPS. 319 
 
 to an act. It was fortunate for religion that there was 
 a tribunal to which a bishop must be as submissive as a 
 layman, and to this tribunal the case would be carried — 
 
 " I will not anticipate the decision, but if there is not 
 protection for the second order of the clergy — for that 
 order whose zeal and devotion, whose sacrifices and 
 whose courage won and maintained the liberties of the 
 Irish Church — I, for one, will feel it a duty to throw 
 up my seat in Parliament and not keep up the show of 
 a battle in London which is betrayed and defeated at 
 home." 
 
 The patronage of the Bishop did not protect Sergeant 
 Shee from stern rebuke. Speaking to the toast of the 
 Independent party in Parliament, Father O'Shea ex- 
 pressed a hope that the member whom they had elected 
 with so much pains and with so much enthusiasm 
 would not disgrace an honourable name ; would not 
 become a by-word, like Scully, Keogh, and Sadleir. 
 He trusted he would not disgrace his constituents, and 
 if he did he would be the first renegade of the party 
 returned by the influence of the Irish Tenant League. 
 He fancied he knew the whole soul and mind of Duffy 
 and of Lucas — he thought he knew and understood the 
 spirit and chivalry of Moore, the honesty of the 
 m.ember for Louth, and the integrity and highminded- 
 ness of M'Mahon ; and he believed he himself would 
 become a traitor Avhen these men would sully their 
 glorious cause. 
 
320 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 The immense population of Tipperary was summoned 
 to the second county meeting at Thurles. Five-and- 
 twenty thousand persons were said to be present, and 
 as many as sixty-two priests had signed the requisition. 
 The principles of the League Bill and of Independent 
 Opposition were reaffirmed as the creed of the party. 
 On the Ossory discipline Moore confirmed what had been 
 said by his colleagues at Callan — 
 
 "I solemnly declare, before God and man, that in 
 what I say at this moment I am not guilty of the slight- 
 est exaggeration. I believe that to place an interdict 
 upon the clergy — in their efforts to vindicate the social 
 and religious rights of their people — to be the most 
 wicked, because the most subtle and the most dangerous, 
 of all the penal laws by which it has been sought to 
 damn and degrade us." 
 
 It was vain to seek Tenant-right, it was vain to seek 
 any honest end in Parliament, or to attempt the redress 
 of any wrong till this question was decided. And he 
 reiterated the pledge to retire and leave the responsi- 
 bilities of public affairs on the bishops, if the appeal to 
 Rome proved unsuccessful — 
 
 " If Father Tom O'Shea, whose name is a household 
 word under every poor man s roof in Ireland — if Father 
 Keeffe, whom every honest friend of the poor man's 
 cause has learned to regard as one of its staunchest 
 defenders, are no longer to have the right, in this free 
 country, to exercise their own free will, to confront 
 backsliding and rebuke bad faitJi, I for one will be but 
 too well content to retire from a conflict in which sue- 
 
DE. CULLEN AND THE WHIG BISHOPS. 321 
 
 cess will be no longer possible, and perseverance scarcely 
 honourable — until in the hour of peril and disaster, 
 which inevitably follows upon perfidy and corruption, 
 these shallow plotters shall seek to defend themselves 
 against the results of their own miserable intrigues in 
 the adoption of an honest policy." 
 
 It has been questioned by precipitate critics if the 
 leaders were justified in retiring even in the worst con- 
 tingency. This is hard, and somewhat unequal, justice. 
 In recent times the defection of a single constituency, 
 the opposition of a majority of his colleagues on one 
 point of policy, if persisted in, has been held to justify 
 the leader in threatening to resign his functions. But 
 here there was not a single constituency since the 
 general election which had not been guilty of defec- 
 tion; the majority of the party had openly deserted, 
 and the districts in the island reputed to be most 
 national — Tipperary, Cork, Limerick, Clare, and Galway 
 — permitted their representatives to vote habitually 
 against the policy and the leaders of the party. 
 
 Priests learned in canon law declared that the 
 Church did not require blind obedience to exceptional 
 rules, still less to arbitrary caprice. What she exacted 
 was submission to well-understood and specific law, 
 which she did not permit bishops any more than priests 
 to violate. An appeal to Rome was therefore deter- 
 mined on. Father Keeffe resolved to carry his own 
 case to Propaganda, and it was proposed to commission 
 
 Y 
 
322 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 two deputations — one lay, the other clerical — to repre- 
 sent the public question to the Holy See. 
 
 When we took stock of our affairs at the opening of 
 the new year, they might well seem desperate if this 
 new stroke could not be averted. We had opposed to 
 us the Government, the aristocracy, and the Estab- 
 lished Church, and a decided majority of the Catholic 
 bishops ; the middle class, if not hostile, were indiffer- 
 ent, and the peasantry were weary of a contest which 
 had yielded such trifling results. The party pledged 
 to aid us in Parliament had gradually dwindled away, 
 and not a single recruit was sent from Ireland to 
 replace the deserters. A return of our losses in a 
 three years' contest was published at the time, and, 
 as it was strictly accurate, may be reproduced here as 
 historical — 
 
 Deserters in 1852, 
 
 1. Castleross, Lord. 
 
 2. Fitzgerald, J. D. (now Lord 
 
 Fitzgerald). 
 
 3. Higgins, Ouseley. 
 
 4. Keating, Eobert. 
 
 5. Keogh, William. 
 
 6. Russell, J. W. 
 
 7. Sadleir, John. 
 
 8. Sadleir, James. 
 
 9. Scully, Francis. 
 10. Scully, Vincent. 
 
 Deserters in 1853. 
 
 1. Ball, John. 
 
 2. Burke, Sir Thomas. 
 
 3. Cogan, W. H. F. 
 
 4. Esmonde, John. 
 
 5. Fitzgerald, Sir John. 
 
 6. Grace, Oliver. 
 
 7. Kirk, William. 
 
 8. O'Brien, Cornelius. 
 
 9. O'Flaherty, Anthony. 
 
DR CULLEN AND THE WHIG BISHOPS. 323 
 
 Deserters in 1854. 
 
 1. Bellew, Captain. 3. Sliee, Sergeant. 
 
 2. Bland, Loftus. 4. Urquhart, Pollard. 
 
 1. Greville, Colonel.^ 
 
 2. Greene, John. 
 
 3. M'Cann, James. 
 
 Deserters in 1855. 
 
 4. O'Brien, Patrick (the present 
 Sir Patrick O'Brien). 
 
 Not one Presbyterian minister remained in the Council 
 of the League,^ not one Catholic bishop was still an 
 active member. In every election lost for two years 
 quondam-members of the League co-operated with its 
 opponents, and if a deserter had behaved with signal 
 faithlessness he might count on presenting himself to 
 the people, leanings like Richard III., on two bishops. 
 It was plain that if episcopal despotism could silence 
 
 ^ Colonel Greville was among the last to desert of those who 
 did not remain, faithful to the end. He became a Whig in 1855, 
 and was created a peer in 1869. 
 
 2 In the end Mr. Wm. Girdwood declared strongly for Inde- 
 pendent Opposition, but the claims of his profession withdrew 
 him from active politics ; and he died very young. Mr. Under- 
 wood lingered on in the League, and when it ceased to exist was 
 one of the founders of the Brotherhood of St. Patrick, a semi- 
 revolutionary organisation. Mr. Bell, several years after the 
 transaction described in this volume, withdrew from his office of 
 Presbyterian minister, and associated himself in London and in 
 New York with the Fenian Societies which had then come into 
 existence. 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 the boldest priests who remained, no contest worth 
 maintaining could be continued. 
 
 While the E-oman mission was being organised 
 Edmund Burke Roche, who from being a fiery Re- 
 pealer in '44, and a Brigadier in '51, had become a 
 steady Whig, was rewarded with a peerage. Cork, 
 which he had represented for more than twenty years, 
 became vacant, and the largest constituency in Ireland 
 was called upon to pronounce upon the most urgent 
 Irish interests. The Liberal electors were brought 
 together in conference, and their proceedings illustrate 
 the fatal make-believe which had succeeded to definite 
 principles in so many minds. It was declared with 
 much unction that they wanted a man who would pro- 
 mote not his own interest but the public interest, and 
 who would represent not himself but his constituency. 
 And it was solemnly resolved that the candidate ac- 
 cepted by them must act in opposition to all Govern- 
 ments not prepared to abolish the Church Establish- 
 ment in Ireland, and pass Sharman Crawford's Land 
 Bill. Several candidates presented themselves, among 
 whom was Mr. Rickard Deasy, a successful barrister 
 and a native of the county. He desired to enter Par- 
 liament as the directest road to promotion ; but he is 
 distinguishable from the Brigadiers by the signal fact 
 that he made no mystery of his purpose. He declared 
 that he would not join the party of Independent Oppo- 
 
DE. CULLEN AND THE WHIG BISHOPS. 325 
 
 sition, and that if he were offered the office of Solicitor- 
 General he would accept it.^ After this declaration 
 Mr. M'Carthy Downing, a member of the Council of 
 the League,^ inquired whether his acceptance of the 
 office would not depend on the Government proffering 
 it, making Sharman Crawford's bill a Cabinet question. 
 Mr. Deasy was understood to reply in the affirmative. 
 Some one else asked if he would act with Sadleir and 
 Keogh, but he evaded giving an answer. Mr. Roche 
 was a peer, and Dr. Power Governor of a Crown 
 Colony, because they had followed these leaders ; but 
 Mr. Downing expressed himself perfectly satisfied. 
 Three candidates went to the poll, but Mr. Deasy was 
 elected. He became in succession Solicitor-General, 
 Attorney- General, and a Baron of the Exchequer ; and 
 the Government, from whom he accepted these favours, 
 no more proposed Sharman Crawford's Land Bill than 
 Fergus O'Connor's Charter. 
 
 At the same time as the Cork election Cavan became 
 vacant, and was addressed by a Tory and a Whig. The 
 
 ^ '' He would never (he declared) sign the sentence of political 
 ostracism which would be inflicted by the refusal to enter into 
 the service of the Crown. The doctrine was unjust and un- 
 constitutional, for it was tlie spirit of the Constitution that the 
 servants of the Crown should be the representatives of the people. 
 He would tell them that that was his ambition, provided he would 
 not be compelled to sacrifice his principles for its attainment." — 
 Speech of Mr. Deasy. 
 
 ^ Afterwards Home Rule member for the county Cork. 
 
326 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 latter was a Catholic barrister, who had held office 
 under Lord John Russell while he was passing his 
 penal law against bishops. To support this candidate 
 the Bishop of Kilmore took the field in person. With 
 a cruel indifference to consequences he assured the 
 people from the pulpit that they ran no risk in support- 
 ing Mr. Hughes, because even his opponents respected 
 him. But the Whig bishop pleaded in vain; though 
 the Catholic electors were in a great majority, the Tory 
 was chosen. 
 
 With the mission to the Holy See the story of the 
 League of North and South properly comes to an 
 end. The appeal was necessarily a purely Catholic 
 one, and Lucas's strong personal convictions and feel- 
 ings intensified its character in this respect. But as 
 some brief account of it is essential to complete the 
 narrative of the marvellous rise and fall of the League. 
 I furnish it in a concluding chapter. 
 
DR CULLEN AND THE WHIG BISHOPS. 327 
 
 NOTE ON CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MAURICE LEYNE'S SQUIBS. 
 
 Here are a couple of specimens — tlie first is a parod}^ on a 
 song of Maurice O'Connell's in the Sjnrit of the Nation ; the 
 second a parody on a well-known ballad by Thomas Davis — 
 
 RECRUITING SONG FOR THE " IRISH BRIGADE." 
 
 ^zV— "The White Cockade.'^ 
 
 Is there an idle patriot here 
 Whose pocket feels uncommon queer, 
 Who thinks " a seat," if not too dear, 
 Would bring him through another year ? 
 
 Come, let him wear the white cockade, 
 
 And learn the spouter's blustering trade ; 
 
 'Tis for sich stuff a member's made ; 
 
 Oh, let him join the Brass Brigade ! 
 
 II. 
 Who feared to speak in Forty-eight, 
 But slunk within the Castle gate, 
 And bowed and begged among the great, 
 A hungry spy, with outstretched plate 1 
 Come, let him wear, &c. 
 
 III. 
 Who's skilled to act as pamphleteer 
 To Clarendon or grim Napier, 
 And wheel about the coming year 
 If Aberdeen be new Premier 1 
 Oh, let him wear, &c. 
 
328 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 lY. 
 
 WIlo fumed about the " Foreign Sec," 
 Yet brings fat Saxons here on " spec " ? 
 Who for the Tenants' rights can shout 
 Yet turn defaulting farmers out '? 
 Come, let him wear, &c. 
 
 "Who cants and roars about " the Church," 
 Yet leaves his country in the lurch 1 
 Who for a place when on the search, 
 Would shirk the case of Castle Birch 1 
 Come, let him wear, &c. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Who's weight to ride the recreant's race, 
 And take and hold the winning place 1 
 Who to the Bishops can grimace, 
 But sell Kildare to Orange Naas 1 
 Come, let him wear, «&c. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The people are our lawful prey ; 
 Their suffrage keeps the dun at bay. 
 And Ultramontane pledges, they 
 Are " O'er the hills and far away." 
 Then come and wear, &c. 
 
 VIII, 
 
 So, would you be our brave compeer. 
 Just drop a line to John Sadleir ; 
 He'll do the job (and not too dear), 
 And straight you'll strut a Brigadier. 
 
 Come then, and wear the white cockade, 
 
 And learn the spouter's blustering trade; 
 
 'Tis for sich stuff a number's made ; 
 
 Oh, come and join the Brass Brigade ! 
 
DE. CULLEN AND THE WHIG BISHOPS. 329 
 
 A BRIGADE BALLAD. 
 I. 
 
 Lord Derby is out, and the Brass Band is met, ' 
 
 And the member for Carlow is President yet ; 
 With his glass in his hand, and the fox in his mien, 
 Cries he, " Comrades, a welcome to Lord Aberdeen ! " 
 With bumpers and cheers they have done as he bade, 
 For Lord Aberdeen's 'listed the Irish Brigade ! 
 
 TI. 
 
 " Here's a health to the Pope ! "—and they winked as they 
 
 quaffed ; 
 " Here's to old Sharman Crawford ! " — and loudly they laughed ; 
 " Good-bye to the pledges we took while ago. 
 Where Shannon and Barrow and Lough Corrib flow ; 
 May we soon be in place ! " — such a rumpus they made, 
 You'd have thought that mad drunk was the Irish Brigade ! 
 
 HI. 
 
 " Here's the list of appointments : " All silent they grow— 
 
 "For the Treasury, Sadleir ; Solicitor, Keogh ; 
 
 O'Flaherty's booked for a berth on Cork-hill ; 
 
 All the rest will be paid from the Government till ! " 
 
 So they rushed from their dinner, their claims to parade, 
 
 For tin is the want of the Irish Brigade I 
 
 IV. 
 
 They voted and speeched with this object in view, 
 Themselves to advance and the country to do. 
 But those who returned them as members of yore 
 Now angrily swear that they' 11 have them no more ! 
 For a curse and disgrace to the cause they've betrayed, 
 Are the Traitors and Scamps of the Irish Brigade ! 
 
 ZOZIMUS. 
 
CHAPrER X. 
 
 THE MISSION TO EOME AND ITS EESULTS. 
 
 To Englishmen, so many of whom are persuaded 
 that episcopal influence is supreme among Irish 
 Catholics, these transactions will teach a lesson as new 
 and significant as the union of North and South. 
 Here was an archbishop who professed to be the con- 
 fidential agent of the Pope, yet his policy was vehem- 
 ently resisted by the mass of Irish Catholics. They 
 appealed to the Pope to control him, because he was 
 his agent, and in that character was using the powers 
 conferred upon him at Pome to thwart and injure 
 the interests of their country. Lucas, a Catholic 
 Englishman warmly sympathizing with Ireland, and 
 a trained polemic to whom ecclesiastical interests were 
 the first consideration, naturally took up a position 
 which corresponded with his individual convictions 
 and duties — but the bulk of the Tenant Leaguers 
 would have echoed the langjuag^e in which O'Connell 
 
THE MISSION TO EOME AND ITS EESULTS. 331 
 
 roughly embodied popular opinion in his day — "As much 
 theology as you please from Eome, but no politics." 
 
 When it was determined to carry to the Holy See 
 a complaint that the Apostolic Delegate was misusing 
 his authority, it was a rare and exceptional circumstance 
 that a layman was forthcoming, endowed with the 
 knowledge, courage, and position necessary to prosecute 
 such a complaint. 
 
 After consultation, it was agreed that a memorial, to 
 be drawn up and signed by priests exclusively, should 
 be put into immediate circulation, and when extensively 
 signed be carried to Rome by a deputation of priests. 
 That the Catholic members of Parliament should state 
 the danglers which the Catholic interests intrusted to 
 them suffered by the new policy in a memorial to 
 be presented to the Propaganda by Lucas and one of 
 our colleagues. The case of the two Callan curates — 
 for Father O'Shea was ordered to refrain from politics 
 immediately after the county meetings — was to be taken 
 in charge by the clerical deputation, or by the appel- 
 lants in person, as might be advised by competent 
 counsellors in Pome. As far as opinion at home was 
 concerned, Moore and I proposed to elicit a full 
 expression of it on the subject of the appeal. 
 
 Lucas undertook his mission in no rash temper. At 
 the outset he consulted theolos^ians skilled in canon 
 law and representative men among his constituents. 
 
332 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 Dr. O'Hanlon, the Senior Professor of Theology in 
 Maynooth College, advised that the appeal against the 
 Ossory discipline was sound in iDrinciple and ought to 
 be successful — 
 
 " I think (he said) the Holy See will never ratify the doctrine 
 involved in the prohibition of the Bishop. To say that a priest 
 should not interfere in politics is in other words to maintain that 
 a priest, as such, in a vast variety of cases, should not employ 
 either his influence or authority to deter or restrain men from the 
 
 commission of sin There is no use in concealing from 
 
 ourselves the fact that the author of all this mischief is the Arch- 
 bishop of Dublin. He has become far more willing and ready 
 than poor Dr. Murray ever was to carry into effect the views of 
 our Saxon Government in regard to this unfortunate country. 
 In truth, lie has been up to the present time regarded in Rome as 
 the organ and mouthpiece of the Irish Church, and he has 
 employed the influence thus acquired in endeavouring to subjugate 
 prelates, priests and people, to the British Government. It is 
 with this view that he has, in utter contempt of the recommenda- 
 tion of both priests and bishops, caused the rejection by the Holy 
 See of several most worthy priests, and substituted in their places 
 as prelates of our Church men who have little other merit than 
 that of subserviency to his views and wishes," 
 
 Lucas reached Rome in the middle of December, and 
 immediately waited upon several Irish prelates then in 
 that city. In his first private report to his colleagues 
 at home he said — 
 
 " I have seen and had conversations with Dr. MacHale, Dr. 
 Derry, and Cardinal Wiseman. Dr. MacHale did not — nor did 
 any one else — understand the whole scope of the business at first. 
 On giving him a further explanation, and showing him the extent 
 of the move we were making, he completely came round to our 
 
THE MISSION TO ROME AND ITS RESULTS. 333 
 
 view, and expressed great satisfaction at the deputation, and 
 spoke repeatedly with the greatest confidence as to the result. . . . 
 The Archbishop had not read the memorial, but had heard of it, 
 and thought some of the clauses about appointments to benefices, 
 &c., misht do harm. I made his Grace understand that the 
 memorial was not drawn by me, but by the clergy, and expressed 
 the genuine sentiments of those who drew it." ^ 
 
 The new Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster also 
 took a favourable view of the mission. He was very 
 gracious and friendly, and spoke with '' a serious and 
 composed earnestness which gave the impression of a 
 fixed opinion and a settled purpose ; and I may add 
 (says Lucas) that both Dr. MacHale and Dr. Derry have 
 been very favourably impressed with him." 
 
 Monsisfnore Talbot, brother of Lord Talbot de Mala- 
 hide, was one of the Pope's chamberlains, and, from 
 his constant access to his Holiness, a man of large 
 influence. Lucas saw him a little later, and found him 
 friendly, but not very sanguine. 
 
 Lucas's colleagues and clerical friends, who had 
 undertaken to elicit and enlighten opinion in Ireland 
 while he was at Rome, set to work vigorously. The 
 priests' memorial was taken in hand by a clerical 
 committee. Father Dwyer, of Doon, a prudent and 
 gifted young curate of the archdiocese of Cashel, was 
 secretary, and he had the aid of experienced friends, 
 several of whom have since attained ecclesiastical rank 
 
 ^ Rome, 15th December, 1854. 
 
334 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 or distinction, and two of whom are now bishops. The 
 Callan priests prepared their own case, transmitted it 
 to Lucas, and awaited further instructions. On behalf 
 of the Parliamentary party, Moore and I threw ourselves 
 on the country for sympathy and co-operation. Criti- 
 cism on a bishop in Ireland, whenever a bishop had 
 been subject to any criticism, had hitherto been uni- 
 formly meek and forbearing. But when the lives of 
 the people and the essential liberties of the Church 
 were at stake, forbearance was considered criminal, and 
 long-repressed feeling burst out in a flood. The Nation 
 took the lead : but several ecclesiastics wrote in the 
 provincial Press, and others, at public meetings, exposed 
 the fatal character of the new policy. Lucas had left 
 no one behind to whom he would intrust this delicate 
 task, and the Tablet restricted itself to copying articles 
 from the Nation and reporting the provincial meetings 
 — a circumstance which greatly increased my responsi- 
 bility in dealing openly with questions which the 
 community were accustomed to see passed over in 
 silence. As the bishops aimed to control the politics 
 of Ireland at their discretion, it was plainly declared 
 that bishops had hitherto been the least intrepid or 
 reliable class among the Irish people. At the Invasion 
 a Synod of Bishops in Munster welcomed Henry II., 
 and confirmed his claim to possess the island, an Ulster 
 Synod, however, having taken a more patriotic course. 
 
THE MISSION TO ROME AND ITS RESULTS. 335 
 
 In the Middle Ages, bishops of English birth or selec- 
 tion were the bitterest enemies of Irish rights, and the 
 worst defamers of the Irish name. At the Reformation 
 a shameful proportion of the Episcopacy accepted the 
 new doctrines to save their revenues. In the Confede- 
 ration of Kilkenny, Charles I. had more partisans among 
 the bishops than the Pope and the people together. In 
 1800 half the Episcopacy were Castle bishops, and 
 supported the Union, and applauded Castlereagh and 
 Cooke in language which would have been unbecomingly 
 obsequious if addressed to Cardinal Fransoni or Cardinal 
 Antonelli. If the second order of the clergy had 
 accepted the advice of certain bishops a few years later 
 no good Irishman would ever after have been permitted 
 to attain a mitre. O'Connell declared that they 
 favoured the project of giving the English Crown "an 
 indirect but efficient power of nominating the Catholic 
 bishops of Ireland, and vehemently discountenanced 
 the opposition of the laity to that measure." The 
 same spirit was still at work; every defeat of the 
 League at the hustings was directly attributable to the 
 influence of some Whig bishop. The Irish Church in 
 its most disastrous days was saved from ruin by mis- 
 sionary priests and barefooted friars. There had always 
 been patriot bishops who laboured and suffered and 
 died for the people, but they were in a perpetual 
 minority. If the doctrine of " No more priests in 
 
336 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 politics " was to prevail, it became necessary to inquire 
 to whom was the political influence which priests now 
 exercised to be transferred ? Was it for their own 
 benefit the Whig prelates meditated this portentous 
 change ? An article in the Nation, raising this grave 
 question, concluded in these words — 
 
 " If they persist in enforcing the doctrine of ' No more 
 priests in politics ' it will become a clear duty in those 
 who are not prepared to see the rights of this country 
 jobbed away by English factions to push the principle 
 to its natural limits, and insist upon ' No more bishops 
 in politics.' . . . We believe it [the Episcopacy] 
 will be disciplined and reduced to order by the authority 
 of the Holy See. It is there the eyes of the country 
 are turned. But if it be not, we foresee its political in- 
 fluence will not long survive its influence over the body 
 of the priesthood. If it robs the priest of political 
 power the people will strip it naked of the same, and 
 the retribution will be just. If there are to be no more 
 working priests in politics, why should there be any 
 more mitred priests? If the priests who alone won 
 Catholic Emancipation by strengthening the strong 
 hands of O'Connell are to be silenced, let the episcopal 
 priests, who (with some illustrious exceptions, past and 
 present) were in courtly correspondence with the 
 enemies of the people, be silenced also. If bishops 
 insist upon no more priests in politics, let the people 
 insist upon no more bishops." 
 
 It need scarcely be said that the proposal was to have 
 " no more bishops " in politics, but the Whig Press de- 
 clared that here was a project to abolish the Episcopacy ; 
 and a portion of the article, translated into Italian, 
 
THE MISSION TO KOME AND ITS RESULTS. 337 
 
 was duly laid before the Propaganda by Dr. Cullen, to 
 illustrate the evil designs and uncatholic opinions of the 
 League party and Lucas's confederates at home.^ 
 
 The Whig Press denied that any good Christian 
 could desire to see priests engaged in politics. Had not 
 St. Paul said, " Nemo militans Deo imiolicat se in negotiis 
 soecularihus " ? The Leaguers naturally demanded, if 
 this counsel of the Apostle meant that priests should 
 refrain from public affairs, were all the cardinals and 
 bishops who have been Ministers of State for the last 
 fourteen centuries — were all the Nuncios and Les^ates 
 who arbitrated peace and war and the disputed inherit- 
 ance of realms — were all the priests and bishops who 
 took sword in hand to fight for the liberty of their 
 native soil or the secular rights of their people — were 
 the Jesuits in Paraguay and in Europe — were the L^ish 
 priests, struggling for Catholic Emancipation, or the 
 Belgian priests, fighting for national independence — 
 living in rebellion to the law of God ? Or was the in- 
 struction of St. Paul meant only for Ireland, and only in 
 the latter half of the nineteenth century, and especially 
 during the administration of Lord Aberdeen ? Had it 
 no force in the days of the Defence Association, when 
 the Tories were to be ousted from power ? And would 
 it lose its authority the moment they resumed office ? 
 And was it intended for priests only, and not for bishops ? 
 ^ Lucas's Correspondence. 
 
 Z 
 
338 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 Priests were very dangerously " entangled in secular 
 affairs " when they were bartering their public support 
 for some personal advantage — when they were scandal- 
 ising the people by begging places for their own kith 
 and kin — when they accepted free farms, or farms at a 
 nominal rent, from oppressive landlords whom they sus- 
 tained at elections — or when they discounted their 
 ecclesiastical influence in any shape for personal ad- 
 vantage. But who would venture to say that the 
 priest who was labouring to save the lives of his people 
 in the land where their fathers died for the faith, to 
 prevent their homesteads being rooted up, to check 
 the exterminator and the Souper, and the lascivious 
 bashaw of the parish — who would presume to contend 
 that such a priest was not engaged in work of Christian 
 charity? Who would say that he was entangled in 
 secular affairs ? In the history of Europe kings made 
 scarcely a more prominent figure than ecclesiastical 
 personages; they made laws and unmade them, founded 
 States and plucked them down ; framed treaties, and 
 broke up alliances. The doctrine came from England ; 
 yet the early history of England was a history of priests. 
 In the Saxon era it was open to debate whether the 
 good St. Dunstan took the devil by the nose, according 
 to the popular legend ; but there was no doubt that he 
 took a licentious king and a tyrannical nobility by the 
 nose. In the Norman era St. Thomas a'Becket was a 
 
THE MISSION TO EOME AND ITS RESULTS. 339 
 
 figure of as huge proportions as Henry II., and an 
 ecclesiastic guided the barons who wrung the Magna 
 Charta from the pusillanimous John. In our own day 
 was not the sovereign of Rome a priest, and his Secretary 
 of State and entire Executive ecclesiastics ? — 
 
 "Exclude priests from politics ! It was for this object 
 that English intrigue laboured for the last half cen- 
 tury," — teste Castlereagh's private correspondence with 
 the Catholic bishops in '98 and '99 ; Quarantotti's con- 
 troversy in 1814 ; Lord Clarendon's letter to the Arch- 
 bishop of Corfu in '48. What brought Lord Minto to 
 Eome ? What brought Bulwer ? What was Petre doing 
 there at present ? Whispering, lying, intriguing, with 
 sleepless activity, for one end — to exclude Irish priests 
 from Irish politics." ^ 
 
 If the policy succeeded, the people, hopeless of agita- 
 tion, would fly to secret societies and violence. "No 
 priests in politics " would set up the Ribbon Lodges again. 
 It would fill to suffocation the stifling emigrant ship. 
 The bigots predicted that the Catholic people would soon 
 dwindle down to a minority in Ireland, and this policy 
 gave the malign prediction a chance of being fulfilled.^ 
 
 At the beginning of January the serious business of 
 the mission commenced. Lucas had an official interview 
 with Monsignore Barnabo, the Secretary of Propaganda. 
 He was favourably known to this great ofiicial as Editor 
 of the Tablet. But so far as he was a representative of 
 
 1 Nation. 2 jji^^ 
 
 z 2 
 
340 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 tlie party of Independent Opposition lie stood at a great 
 disadvantage. Since Dr. Cullen had become a Whig 
 his retainers in Dublin and at Rome vied with our 
 natural enemies in misrepresenting us. It was reported 
 to the Holy See that certain ungovernable priests who 
 aimed to throw off the authority of their superiors, as- 
 sociated with laymen of a base ambition when they 
 were not men of evil conduct and designs, were in- 
 troducing disorder into the Church in Ireland. They 
 thwarted the labours of the Apostolic Delegate to 
 restrict the clergy to their natural duty — the cure of 
 souls — mixed them up in worldly cabals, and even in 
 violent and revolutionary designs. On one side, it 
 seemed, were all the good ecclesiastics, who served God 
 and performed their functions in silence ; on the other, 
 turbulent, reckless men, forgetful of their duty. The 
 Apostolic Delegate was gradually restoring order, but 
 it was necessary to strengthen his hand by new and 
 more stringent rules of discipline by which evil-doers 
 could be restrained, and, if necessary, punished ; and 
 the Secretary assured Lucas that new rules in the shape 
 of Diocesan Statutes framed for Leinster were before 
 Propaganda at that moment for their consideration.^ 
 
 Lucas took the only course which promised the small- 
 est success under the circumstances. He turned the 
 tables on his opponents. He undertook to show that 
 
 Eome, December 23. 
 
THE MISSION TO EOME AND ITS EESULTS. 341 
 
 tlie Apostolic Delegate was not carrying out the policy 
 of the Holy See, but a policy of his own, ill-conditioned 
 m its nature and injurious to the interests of religion. 
 That he had completely changed the tenor of his con- 
 duct in public affairs within two or three years, and 
 was now repressing what he had before aided, and help- 
 ing what he had hindered. That the priests whom he 
 was discouraging were among the most pious and zealous 
 in the Church, and that those whom he favoured 
 were of a widely different character. That the laymen 
 whom he was assailing had sacrificed every object of 
 personal advantage and ambition to save a Catholic 
 nation from extinction, while the laymen \^hom he 
 favoured had habitually and notoriously sacrificed the 
 interests of the poor and of religion to their personal 
 advancement. That the prelates and other ecclesiastics 
 whom he represented as the salt of the Church, living 
 apart from political objects for the honour and glory of 
 God, were, in truth, violent and often- selfish politicians, 
 and had employed the tremendous spiritual powers con- 
 ferred upon them for the service of God to promote the 
 objects of the political party with which they were 
 associated. It would be a calamity to create in Ireland 
 a popular party opposed to the Church, and to set 
 people loose in all public affairs from the influence of the 
 Church and clergy ; but if Dr. Cullen's views prevailed 
 such would be the inevitable result, and they would 
 
342 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 mourn at Kome for many long years the troubles which 
 bad advisers had brought upon them. 
 
 And he proceeded to contend, and demonstrate, that 
 the proposed statutes, which were represented as neces- 
 sary to restrain public scandals, would not at all restrain 
 the only public scandals which had occurred in later 
 times, but on the contrary were designed to repress 
 those men who were zealous for the lives of the poor, 
 and encourage those who bartered their influence for 
 personal objects. He insisted that the Holy See was 
 studiously misinformed on Irish affairs, and that it was 
 invited, on the basis of this false information, to pursue 
 a policy disastrous to the interests of the Catholic people 
 and the Catholic Church ; that O'Connell, after a long 
 life of opposition to the English Government, had 
 brought the greatest calamity on his country, and inten- 
 sified the horrors of the famine, by an imhappy alliance 
 with the Whig Government in 1846. The recent policy 
 and proposed statutes of the Archbishop of Dublin were 
 the embodiment and revival of these dangerous errors. 
 
 An indictment so clear and specific, raising such 
 serious issues, and sustained by a man of the capacity 
 and services of Lucas, seems to have alarmed the 
 Secretary. He urged that a conference between Dr. 
 Cullen, Dr. MacHale, and Lucas should be held at 
 Propaganda, at which he would assist, and at which 
 some middle course might be agreed upon. 
 
THE MISSION TO ROME AND ITS RESULTS. 843 
 
 The conference with Dr. C alien was finally brought 
 about, it was believed, by the personal interposition of 
 the Pope. The design was that an understanding might 
 be arrived at which, if it proved acceptable to his Holiness, 
 might be made a rule of action for the future — ■ 
 
 " The conference (Lucas wrote to his friends) lasted 
 two hours and a half, and of course I cannot give a 
 shorthand report of it. A great deal turned on my 
 speech at Callan, and on recent speeches and writings 
 of others, also on Father O'Shea's conduct. On these 
 things I said what may easily be imagined. Still 
 speaking about the League, he took credit to himself 
 for allowing perfect freedom of opinion, and alleged 
 that he had recently promoted a clergyman whose con- 
 nection with the League he regretted, and whom he 
 had advised not to have anything to do with it ; but 
 still, though he continued a member of it, so unwilling 
 was he to interfere with free opinion that he had actually 
 made him a canon — Canon Redmond. Upon my honour 
 he said that I 
 
 " I interrupted him by saying that his Grace forgot 
 that before he made Redmond a canon, Redmond had 
 done his best to damage the League, to serve the 
 Government, and to damage those who had opposed 
 the Government — namely, us. He said he did not see 
 that there was any harm iu supporting the Government : 
 that if opposing the Government was a virtue, we 
 ought in Italy to co-operate with Mazzini, and in Hun- 
 gary with Kossuth ; that the first duty of every Catholic 
 was to support the Government, unless they attacked 
 the Church. He then broke into a violent tirade 
 against Huffy, whom he described as a wicked man, 
 to act with whom after his conduct in 1848 was impos- 
 sible until he had fasted fifty years on bread and water. 
 I defended Huffy, as you may imagine, and referred to 
 
344 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 the evidence of Dr. Blake and Dr. Moriarty on his trial. 
 At this time he became more violent. He said Duffy 
 had been a party to getting the people massacred ; 
 ridiculed the notion of his being a pious man, declared 
 he did not care what anybody had sworn ; and turning 
 upon me, said it was a shame, or discreditable, for me 
 to say a word in behalf of such a man, or to act with 
 him.^ 
 
 " With regard to the services of any particular men 
 in Parliament or elsewhere (which I did not press upon 
 him, but somehow it got mentioned), he said Ireland 
 would always produce plenty of excellent laymen ; that 
 if one set of men passed away, another would be there 
 to supply their places. The meaning of this of course 
 was that we might go to the devil if we liked. . . . 
 
 " I can't, of course, tell half that was said, but I have 
 told enough to show the animus of the dialogue. 
 
 " On Dr. Cullen's part the conversation was carried 
 on in a tone of shabby equivocation, ill-concealing, 
 and not intended to conceal, a resolute purpose of de- 
 fiance; and it rose into passion when he spoke of Duffy, 
 whose recent articles seem not to have pleased him. 
 But let all who read this understand that this passion 
 and vehemence were the passion and vehemence of a 
 man who is on the defensive, who has his back to the 
 wall, who feels that his all is at stake, who, being 
 
 ^ A Castle bisliop seems to be as inevitably an enemy and 
 assailant of an Irish Nationalist as a Crown Prosecutor. More 
 than a generation later Dr. Cullen's successor in the See of Dublin 
 fell foul of my successor in the Nation at that time, with a 
 condemnation as decisive. In the Nation of April 25, 1885, one 
 may read this significant statement — " Talking to a distinguished 
 foreign ecclesiastic on the day of the burial of the late A. M. 
 Sullivan, he [Cardinal MacCabe] said — ' The man they are bury- 
 ing to-day was a bad man ; he was one of the wickedest men this 
 country ever produced.'" — Letter of an Irish Catholic. 
 
THE MISSION TO ROME AND ITS RESULTS. 345 
 
 personally compromised with the'Goverument, cannot do 
 what the Pope wishes, and who is therefore determined 
 to fight it out aginst the Pope and people, with every ap- 
 pearance of submission to the Holy See and compliance 
 with its spirit." 
 
 The articles which had inflamed Dr. Cullen's temper 
 to such a pitch were never rude or disrespectful, but 
 they were painfully plain and direct. A specimen or 
 two of the language most objected to are necessary to 
 the veracity of the narrative — 
 
 " If some of the best priests in Ireland are sent to 
 rot in boo-s and morasses, if, amono- three thousand, no 
 three have been found to undertake a mission to Kome 
 in defence of their common right — if a bishop of the 
 Church of God has mounted the platform with a man 
 of the character and reputation of Mr, William Keogh — 
 if the hopes of the country are low when they ought to 
 be high and confident — if political profligacy has lost 
 much of its horror in the eyes of people — we declare, 
 in presence of God and man, that the chief cause of 
 these perilous phenomena is the alliance between the 
 Archbishop of JJublin and the Catholic agents of Dublin 
 Castle. We see no reason for concealing it ; on the 
 contrary, the first step towards terminating the reign 
 of terror is to proclaim it aloud — that fear of the Apos- 
 tolic Delegate weighs like lead on the Irish priesthood, 
 and renders all public action driftless and impotent. 
 There is the fatal truth." ^ 
 
 And again — 
 
 " The Times accepts and adopts Dr. Cullen as a person 
 ' who has merited the approbation and confidence of the 
 English Government and Irish Executive ; ' ' who has 
 
 1 Nation. 
 
346 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 exercised his legatine powers with much discretion and 
 in a manner to give satisfaction to the Enghsh Govern- 
 ment ; ' and ' whose fail would he a loss to English 
 interests and views.' There was a time, and Irish 
 readers rememher it well, when ' the Itahan Monk,' 
 with his ' pastorals against the polka/ and his ' astro- 
 nomical craze,' was the favourite butt of the Times, and 
 Globe, and Advertiser!' ^ 
 
 Lucas was naturally of a different opinion from the 
 archbishop about the necessity of plain speaking. 
 Shortly after the conference he wrote to his wife — 
 
 " Tell Duffy I have read the Nation with real plea- 
 sure. I think he has done great service. When I 
 wrote — if I wrote — querulously, it was because I was 
 in exterior darkness, knowing nothing, and feeling 
 shut out from the world. Let him know this. If Moore 
 has not made up his mind to come before this reaches, 
 let him not come at all. I am now in hopes that before 
 he has started the affair may possibly be adjusted. 
 Perhaps the Callan cases may make it linger ; but it 
 now looks nearer a settlement than it has yet done." 
 
 The most painful impression vdiich this interview 
 conveys is the disrespect with which Dr. Cullen treated 
 Lucas throughout. From other sources I learned that 
 he was imperious and contemptuous, and that Lucas 
 was deeply wounded.^ The space which separates an 
 
 1 Nation. 
 
 2 Ten years later I made the acquaintance at Eome of Father 
 Mulhooly, then prior of San Clemente, who saw Lucas constantly 
 during his mission, and sympathised warmJy with him. He 
 told me that in his judgment Lucas had no success, and could 
 not, except in moments of temporary enthusiasm, have con- 
 
THE MISSION TO EOME AND ITS EESULTS. 347 
 
 archbishop, who was also an Apostolic Delegate, from a 
 Catholic publicist, is naturally wide enough, but to 
 Dr. Cullen it seemed immeasurable. Now that death 
 has reduced both the interlocutors to their natural 
 dimensions, his estimate will scarcely be confirmed by 
 posterity. The publicist was a man endowed with rare 
 and splendid gifts, with judgment, penetration, the 
 patience that removes mountains, and the moral in- 
 dignation which burns up false pretences like bramble ; 
 a man who, for the sake of God, devoted endowments 
 which might have raised him to a first place in his own 
 prosperous country, to the service of the poorest people 
 and the most unprosperous nation in Christendom. 
 When we are no longer dazzled by the cope and the 
 mitre, which of us can fail to discern between Paul 
 Cullen and Frederick Lucas that the layman was the 
 better Christian and the born master ? 
 
 Lucas had two interviews with the Pope, who treated 
 him with special consideration, and applauded his 
 
 sidered that he had any. That in the interview with Dr. Cullen 
 he was wounded and humiliated, and that his bitter disappoint- 
 ment was no doubt partly the cause of his illness, but he lived in 
 Rome during an unhealthy season, and worked too closely at his 
 Statement. In Father Mulhooly's opinion he had no chance of a 
 victory at any time. In addition to Dr. Cullen's great position 
 as Apostolic Delegate he had won the complete confidence of 
 Monsignore Barnabo in '48, when he remained in Rome in charge 
 of the Irish College while the other was in charge of the 
 Propaganda. 
 
348 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 defence of Catholic interests in the House of Commons, 
 but signified mildly that he was less well content with 
 his career as a journalist, as " the editor of the Tablet 
 sometimes escaped from the kingdom of moderation into 
 that of impatience." His Holiness at the close of the 
 last interview intimated that if Lucas laid his views on 
 Irish affairs before him in writing, he would give them 
 his best attention. On this hint he determined to 
 prepare an exhaustive Statement for the personal in- 
 formation of the Holy See, and began to work on it 
 immediately. 
 
 While the business was proceeding in this fashion at 
 E-ome, the Castle Press in Dublin contained confident 
 reports from week to week that Lucas had altogether 
 failed. Cardinal Barnabo had received him coldly, it 
 was alleged ; and as he was not supported by any depu- 
 tation from Ireland, and had produced no Memorial, he 
 was regarded as merely fighting a personal quarrel of 
 his own. His friends began to feel uneasy at the delay 
 of the Priests' Memorial and Deputation. At public 
 meetings in Tipperary, Wexford, and Mayo, which 
 Moore and I attended in turn, the local clergy gave a 
 warm sanction to the movement, agreed to emphatic 
 resolutions, and applauded the strongest expressions of 
 opinion. Sixty priests signed the requisition for the 
 Wexford meeting, and the majority of them, with all 
 their representatives in Parliament, assisted at the 
 
THE MISSION TO KOME AND ITS RESULTS. 349 
 
 meeting and dinner ; in Mayo the High Sheriffs for the 
 past and present year sanctioned the movement ; Moore 
 spoke in the presence of a large body of priests, and the 
 archdeacon of the diocese censured some of the Whio- 
 bishops by name. A number of signatures were gradu- 
 ally obtained for the Memorial, but they were not very 
 numerous, and they were delayed or refused in places 
 from which we were entitled to count on them most 
 confidently. At the beginning of February Father 
 Dwyer wrote to me in some dismay. He had received 
 encouragement from every part of Ireland ; but many 
 priests who disapproved of Dr. Cullen's policy and 
 desired to see it reversed, and were willing to express 
 this opinion in their localities, made difficulties in sign- 
 ing a memorial attacking him so directly ; and as 
 respects the deputation, priests selected had pleaded 
 ill-health, urgent local duties, and other excuses, which 
 separately might be admitted, but, taken together, he 
 thought, looked ominous. For want of willing seniors 
 the committee had urged upon Father Dwyer to 
 carry the Memorial and the correspondence to Propa- 
 ganda himself, and he was disposed to do so if this were 
 considered the best course — 
 
 "It is cruel (he said) to leave Lucas as he is ; but is 
 it worth while to send or go with our memorial at all ? 
 Letters which I have just received make me seriously 
 ask this question. I find that only a few signatures of 
 curates can be expected from Ferns. In Tuam it is an 
 
350 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 utter failure. We have forty-six signatures from Meatli, 
 the same number from Cashel, and not more than 
 twenty-five from all the rest of Ireland. Father Doyle 
 tells us to use the Wexford requisition and the clerical 
 names attached to it and the resolutions at the meet- 
 ing, instead of the memorial. That may be done ; and 
 the very numerous letters I have received from persons 
 declining for special reasons to sign the memorial of 
 which they approve, might also be used to show why 
 the memorial is not more generally signed, whilst mul- 
 titudes of priests are in their hearts in favour of it. 
 .... Some dozen of the priests of Achonry, with the 
 Vicar-General in the chair, passed strong resolutions in 
 favour of the movement ; their names were sent at- 
 tached to the resolutions, but they have not yet signed 
 the memorial. What do you think ought to be done ? " 
 
 The difficulty which the Secretary encountered was 
 increased by the personal entrance of the bishops into 
 the controversy. Dr. Walsh wrote a letter to the Whig 
 newspapers complaining that he was misrepresented in 
 a document called a Memorial circulated for signature 
 among priests in neighbouring dioceses. If he had 
 exceeded the limits of his authority there was a right 
 of appeal, and he courted an appeal to the proper 
 tribunal. But the proper tribunal was not the public 
 Press, or the people, or even the priests, but the Pope. 
 After this publication many priests considered they 
 were justified in refusing to sign a memorial arising 
 out of a complaint where " inquiry was courted." To 
 confine the remonstrance to the Callan case was the 
 course they approved of A little later the Archbishop 
 
THE MISSION TO ROME AND ITS RESULTS. 351 
 
 of Dublin wrote a letter from Rome treating the appeal 
 and the memorial as newspaper fictions. No memorial 
 from Ossory or any other diocese complaining of any 
 bishop or archbishop had been presented at the Pro- 
 paganda ; and no deputation lay or clerical was heard 
 of at Bome, save one gentleman, who exhibited no 
 credentials from any party. 
 
 These specific and authoritative statements had a 
 decided success for a time, but there was a serious and 
 damaging reaction when it became known that the 
 Bishop of Ossory, who courted inquiry, refused Father 
 Keefe permission to go to Rome to support his case — 
 
 " His lordship (a local priest wrote to me) peremp- 
 torily refused, and said he will not give him leave of 
 absence unless he receives an official summons. Father 
 Keefe assured him that he had received directions from 
 his advocate, through Mr. Lucas, to go over at once to 
 Rome, and he produced the letter. The Bishop replied 
 that that was not a summons, and that he would not 
 allow him to go. What law he acts under I don't 
 know ; certainly 'tis not canon law." 
 
 By this stroke the Callan complaint was indefinitely 
 postponed. The secret influence of the Apostolic Dele- 
 gate stopped the Memorial as effectually. It was at 
 first believed that the Archbishop of Cashel, in whose 
 diocese it had a multitude of supporters, was, at bottom, 
 friendly to it. But when Father Dwyer requested his 
 permission to carry the document to Rome, he posi- 
 tively refused. Some of his clergy urged him to re- 
 
352 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 consider this decision, but he replied that he would not 
 interfere with Father Dwyer's liberty of action ; he was 
 free to go to Rome if he chose, but if he went he must 
 sever his connection with the province of Cashel. 
 Other bishops were sounded without success. " Our 
 friends in the Episcopacy (one of the committee wrote) 
 are fainthearted, vacillating, and afraid of their 
 shadows. They shrink from being mixed up in any 
 way with what might bring trouble on them at home or 
 abroad." Those who were most disposed to assume that 
 bishops must necessarily be right could least understand 
 their prohibiting an appeal to the supreme authority.^ 
 
 When Lucas learned that the hope of a deputation 
 was at an end he was greatly moved. But his anger 
 did not make him unjust. He made all the allowance 
 that could reasonably be expected, and lamented the 
 failure of the cause rather than his personal discom- 
 fiture. He felt relieved, he declared, from a necessity 
 of consulting any one's wishes but his own in his further 
 action, and intimated that the moral torpor in Ireland 
 micyht necessitate his reconsidering^ his relations with 
 that country. 
 
 1 As Louis Napoleon figured as " Celui-ci ' ' in the correspond- 
 ence of tlie Opposition, Dr. Cullen was commonly spoken of as 
 " PauL" His authority and influence as Apostolic Delegate 
 seemed destined to last for a lifetime, and one of the two or three 
 bishops who held by the League answered a request to aid the 
 appeal to Rome by replying with a smile that such affairs could 
 only be regulated satisfactorily in a Paulo-post future. 
 
THE MISSION TO ROME AND ITS RESULTS. 353 
 
 "Rome, March 5th. 
 
 ". . . . I had written a much longer letter, but the 
 receipt of j^our letter, and that of Fr. Dwyer's, of Doon, 
 filled me with such indignation that I tore the letter 
 up, intending at that moment to write nothing. In- 
 deed, what is the use of writing at all, or of what value 
 is Irish public opinion ? In a matter which primarily 
 concerns the priests, out of twenty-seven dioceses and 
 3,000 priests, not one can be found to give me an 
 effective lift after I have spent three months in Rome 
 upon an affair in which it is my personal interest to be 
 defeated, and in which I am making every conceivable 
 sacrifice of interest and convenience on public grounds 
 alone. Fr. Dwyer, of Doon, has done his best, and I am 
 heartily thankful ; nor do I blame any individual, 
 because I don't know who personally is to blame : but I 
 feel that it is simply impossible to save or serve a people, 
 3,000 of whose picked men are capable of such incon- 
 ceivable cowardice. Think of the Wexford priests ! 
 God help us ! I am, it seems, to make their meeting 
 and resolutions to stand in place of signatures to a 
 memorial. I neither can nor will do anything of the 
 sort. Simply in conversation I make it serve for proof 
 of the reign of terror which prevails in Ireland, and 
 which bows every head down to the dust in hopeless 
 servility. My first impression was to send in no repre- 
 sentation of my own, but to content myself with a 
 . formal presentation of the two memorials, and to return 
 home content with having accomplished nothing. But 
 calmer reflection has made me more inclined to the belief 
 that, being here, it is a sort of duty to do what more I 
 can do with little additional inconvenience — that is, to 
 send in to the Pope statements of my own on points 
 about which I know that information is needed. Perhaps 
 ultimately this may be my decision ; but after what has 
 happened I have a right to say that I feel m3^self com- 
 
 A A 
 
354 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 pletely absolved from any obligation towards anybody 
 else in this business ; free to remain in Parliament, if 
 elected, or to quit Parliament whatever turn the affair 
 takes, and at liberty to break off from my labours here 
 whenever I please." - 
 
 I read this letter with something like consternation. 
 The desertion of which he complained moved my anger 
 as deeply as his own. But I differed from him as to 
 the line of duty which this disaster prescribed. I could 
 not admit that he was " completely absolved from any 
 obligation to anybody else in the business." Some of us 
 had not deserted him, or failed to do anything which 
 we undertook. Some of us had staked the peace and 
 happiness of life on the issue as unequivocally as he 
 had. I wrote immediately to say that I held fast by 
 the policy we had jointly announced at Callan, and 
 which he had repeated at Propaganda and in his inter- 
 view with the Pope — that if the new discipline could 
 not be restrained by authority, we would retire from 
 Parliament and leave the Whig bishops nakedly re- 
 sponsible for the failure of the people's cause. We 
 could not succeed without the patriot priests, and I was 
 not disposed to occupy a position where we would be 
 merely a convenient screen for the Castle bishops. If 
 he continued in Parliament to promote certain Catholic 
 interests, as I surmised was his purpose, that was a 
 design in which I, at any ra,te, would not engage. I 
 entered the League and the House of Commons to pre- 
 
THE MISSION TO EOME AND ITS RESULTS. 355 
 
 serve the Irish people from extermination, in the hope 
 that they might afterwards be able to regain their national 
 rights, and no other purpose, however good in itself, 
 would be a substitute for this one. I was still of opinion 
 that, if his mission had failed, we ought immediately to 
 resign our seats. 
 
 In his reply Lucas contended that the time had not 
 come for a decision ; but though I continued of opinion 
 that the time had come, and that the postponement 
 would rob the transaction of character and simificance, I 
 postponed further controversy till his return from Rome.^ 
 It is probable that he did not determine his course 
 at the moment, but he pondered more and more on 
 the duty of concentrating himself on Catholic affairs. 
 Constant labour and anxiety, and the climate of Rome 
 since the southern heat had set in, tried his health 
 seriously. He was suffering from asthma, bronchitis, 
 and the sleeplessness which a brain disturbed with over- 
 work or care rarely escapes. His personal interests and 
 duties were postponed to the task he had undertaken, 
 
 1 Lucas's reply on the cardinal point was in these terms — 
 " I hope to be home in time to consult with you and others about 
 the course to be taken. My inclination is to make it a matter of 
 common deliberation, and to act with you at all events, and with 
 those friends out of Parliament whose opinion we jointly value. 
 I take it that in Parliament nobody thinks of retiring but our- 
 selves. . . . Put my name to your Smith 0' Brien memorial. I 
 think Alexander II. will disturb your programme of ' Gladstone 
 or Bright at last.' " 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 but their ghosts could not alwa3^s be laid ; and though 
 he was careful to assure his wife that his health was 
 reasonably good, he sometimes forgot, I fear, in the 
 absorbing interests of his mission, precautions without 
 which no one is long well. His complete neglect of the 
 TaUet would have been fatal to any journal less rooted 
 in the confidence of its readers.^ 
 
 His letters home were very touching ; they vibrate 
 with the passion of a strong, tender man, uttering the 
 inmost feelimis of his heart. 
 
 " I am ever thinking (he Avrote to his wife) of my poor 
 dear little Angy (his son Angelo, now Rev. Angelo Lucas) 
 and it adds to my troubles and anxieties that I fear some 
 day when he grows older he may look back to this very 
 time when I am hazarding everything for what I believe 
 to be my duty, and may reproach me in his own mind 
 for having, in pursuit of a vain endeavour, thrown away 
 his interests and neglected my duty to him. The fear 
 that this may happen, and the thought that it may be 
 in some degree true, are often very bitter to me. Poor, 
 dear boy ! I love him as my own soul. I sit and think 
 of him and you almost for hours together sometimes ; 
 
 1 The Tablet was managed during his absence by Dr. Tormey, a 
 young priest, wlio bad won distinction in Maynooth as a Dunboyne 
 student, and since be bad been on tbe mission was known for 
 discourses of striking vigour and freshness. In bis correspondence 
 home Lucas expressed bis gratitude over and over again to Father 
 Tormey, and Mr. Michael Dwyer, the assistant editor, for main- 
 taining tbe spirit of the paper so effectually ; and to Mr. O'Byrne, 
 who bad entire control of the business department. But the 
 individuality of a great writer is tbe soul of his journal, and no 
 zeal or ability can compensate for its absence. 
 
THE MISSION TO EOME AND ITS EESULTS. 357 
 
 and I pray God, if it be His will, to remove this burden 
 from me and to take me out of public life. I hope you 
 won't think from this that I am very downhearted. 
 On the contrary, I am, on the whole, very cheerful and 
 very ready to do the work in hand ; but these thoughts 
 come over me sometimes, and then I yearn with 
 an inexpressible desire to get back to my wife and 
 child." 
 
 Of personal discomfort he rarely uttered a complaint. 
 In March he wrote to his friend Rev. Dr. Whitty, Provost 
 of Westminster : — 
 
 " I am now for the first day in my more comfortable 
 and expensive lodgings. They look out very pleasantly 
 over chimney-pots and tiles, from the 3tio piano of 124 
 Via di Due Macelli on to the upper part of the palace 
 and gardens of the Quirinalj and up to this hour, half- 
 past two o'clock, the sun is on the bedroom, and it is 
 very warm. ... I am very well, and the weather 
 heavenly.'* 
 
 The slow process of collecting facts and carefully 
 authenticating them, so that nothing might be presented 
 to the Pope which was not ascertained to be true, was a 
 trying labour. His correspondence for this purpose was 
 immense : and the slow, irregular post between Dublin 
 and Eome doubled the toil. The memorial was gradu- 
 ally extending to a volume. In April he had written 
 " as much as four or five long articles in the Dublin 
 Bevievj," and his work was far from being finished. 
 There were still three or four chapters to write, but he 
 expected to have them out of hand early in May. 
 
358 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 " Suppose tliem done (he wrote towards the end of 
 April), the Vice-Rector of the English College, Father 
 Morris (a very warm friend, and very capable), will then 
 revise them. We shall then take them to my avocat to 
 revise and advise about. When my avocat shall have 
 revised it, and the text is settled, the translation has 
 then to be finished, but the translator works more 
 slowly than I have done. Then it has to be presented, 
 and then I have to wait to see if explanations are 
 required." ^ 
 
 By the middle of May the work was completed, except 
 a summing up to point the moral. The state of his 
 health, which had become more and more troublesome, 
 the desire to take part in a debate on Maynooth, fixed 
 for the close of the month, and, above all, doubtless, an 
 
 ^ Not only Dr. Morris, but the professors generally of the 
 English College, were friendly to his mission, while those of the 
 Irish College were hostile. It may he noted here that Lucas 
 was charged by certain priests of the diocese of Elphin with a 
 complaint to Propaganda against their bishop. Lucas told them 
 in reply — 
 
 " Dr. Brown is fully understood in Eome to be, from age and 
 infirmity, incapable of managing his diocese ; his acts are not 
 approved, and he has received from the Holy See, ' a hundred 
 times,^ hints and suggestions to resign his bishopric, upon which 
 be has not thought proper to act. Great difficulty is felt about 
 proceeding to extremities with him ; but I venture to say that 
 to be relieved from your present intolerable condition, your best 
 course is great patience, and care to send to Eome well-authenti- 
 cated statements of every misuse of power that takes place in 
 your diocese." 
 
 This was the bishop who patronised Mr. Keogh in 1853, and 
 who had gone to Conciliation Hall in 1846, to denounce the 
 Young Irelanders as bad Catholics. 
 
THE MISSION TO EOME AND ITS RESULTS. 359 
 
 anxiety to join his wife and child, determined him to re- 
 turn home, leaving the bulk of the Statement in course 
 of translation, and carrying a few chapters with him 
 for further review. He was content with it as an array 
 of facts. "Clearness and intelligibility," he said, "are 
 the only merits I aspire to/' But he promised that it 
 would be at any rate " an Easy Lesson in Irish politics ; 
 the first Hornbook for Beginners." To my thinking it 
 would be difficult to extract from the arcana of States a 
 document written under a profounder determination to 
 be just and veracious, and not for any motive to hide 
 away essential truths, than that great State paper. 
 Much of it is written with a merciless plainness of state- 
 ment which can only be justified by the integrity of his 
 motives and the importance of the end in view. While 
 it was written his life was ebbing away, and before it 
 was completed he was called on to prepare for death. 
 On his death-bed he saw nothing^ to retract or miti- 
 gate : and this circumstance contributes to give the 
 document its over-mastering force. 
 
 Towards the close of May, Lucas arrived in London, 
 and came immediately to the House of Commons. A 
 glance was enough to read the history of bis mission. 
 Baffled hopes and bitter disaster were written on his 
 face. His countenance was cadaverous, his eye feverish, 
 his cheeks hollow, and his flesh had so fallen away that 
 he seemed to be wearinof the clothes of a bii^fxer man. 
 
360 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 He told us with a painful smile that the door-keeper 
 had stopped him as a stranger, and, in fact, he was 
 barely recognisable by his intimate friends. The news 
 which he had to hear was as discouraging as the news 
 which he had to tell. The Independent party had 
 dwindled to half a dozen, and the Land question in 
 Parliament had fallen back to the condition in which 
 the Leas^ue had found it. There was a bill of Serojeant 
 Shoe's before the House, but the Government had 
 struck out drainage, planting, and the redemption of 
 bog from the improvements to be compensated ; and, in 
 a country where inordinate rents had made arrears uni- 
 versal, it was provided that no tenant in arrear should be 
 entitled to make improvements or to claim compensa- 
 tion for improvements already made. In short, all our 
 labours had been wasted by the policy of the Whig 
 bishops and the success of the deserters.^ 
 
 ^ But even tins was not enough. The landlords mustered 
 their friends in force, and struck out the principle of compensa- 
 tion for past improvements altogether, by a majority of thirty- 
 six. When one came to inquire in what manner a majority was 
 constituted for so iniquitous a project, it was generally found to 
 consist of a score of Irish landlords defending their own fraud, 
 with a dozen or so of their nominees and hangers-on, a batch of 
 English squires, some of them having Irish property, and a 
 string of the relatives and nominees of absentee proprietors and 
 the usual chorus of Dundrearies and Dunderheads caught in the 
 smoking-room or lobby and brought in to pronounce the solemn 
 verdict of Parliament by an invitation to " Come along, like a 
 brick, and vote against a d— d Irish craze." 
 
THE MISSION TO ROME AND ITS RESULTS. 361 
 
 The melancholy muddle of the Crimean war, Lord 
 John Kussell's intrigues and perfidy, the fall of Lord 
 Aberdeen and the rise of Lord Palmerston, occupied 
 Parliament during the mission to Eome ; but they lie 
 outside the purpose of this narrative. No change 
 brought better prospects to Ireland, for the bulk of her 
 representatives were voting servilely with the Minister 
 in possession. Mr. Keogh, who remained in both 
 Governments, and even got promotion, kept them in 
 order by crumbs of patronage supplemented by liberal 
 drafts on the Bank of Hope, which no one knew better 
 than he how to draw. 
 
 Lucas became the guest of our colleague, Richard 
 Swift, at Wandsworth, and there, after half a year's 
 separation, we had an opportunity for a confidential 
 Ute-a-Ute. So far as Propaganda was concerned, he 
 admitted that his mission had failed, but he still hoped 
 that when his Memorial was presented to the Pope it 
 might bring about the change of policy we desired. He 
 had reflected on the project of retiring from Parliament ; 
 it had been much pressed upon him by friendly eccle- 
 siastics that he had duties to Catholic interests, not only 
 in Ireland but throughout the Empire, from which the 
 failure of his mission did not relieve him, and that he 
 ought to remain in the House of Commons to perform 
 them. He said, with a melancholy smile, that he could 
 still be member for the Pope. I contended that our 
 
362 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 pledges were not conditional, but positive, and that they 
 were too specific to be disregarded by men who had 
 denounced pledge-breaking so mercilessly ; and I 
 insisted that the authors of the calamity which had 
 befallen the Irish cause would not be recognised by the 
 people on any other condition than our retirement. We 
 debated the question late into the night without coming 
 to an agreement. With or without his co-operation, 
 I declared I would fulfil my undertaking ; but I felt 
 injured because a measure which was the policy of a 
 party might, when adopted only by one man, have the 
 appearance of personal caprice ; and we parted for 
 the first time in mutual displeasure. 
 
 I informed my private and political friends of my 
 intention without delay. Some of them urged pleas in 
 abatement ; some frankly recognised that the time had 
 come for telling the people that we could accomplish 
 nothing for them under existing conditions. Out of a 
 sheaf of letters I pick two, representing these different 
 currents of opinion. The Bishop of Kerry, the most 
 generous and considerate of private friends, urged delay : 
 
 ''My DEAR Friend (he wrote), — I commenced several 
 times to write you a long letter, but I could never get 
 time to give you all my mind. So I tore up what I had 
 written ; and now I ask one favour, that you come and 
 spend a week with me iu the mountains before 3^ou 
 declare publicly your intention. Let me have the 
 satisfaction of having done my best to keep you. We 
 
THE MISSION TO EOME AND ITS KESULTS. 263 
 
 want honest and able men, and we cannot spare even 
 one. 
 
 " The time is not far off when some who now dis- 
 approve will admit the rectitude of your views and 
 motives, and regret that your policy had not been 
 better supported. You were not able to do the best 
 thing ; then try the next best. You were always hope- 
 ful ; you did not despond in darker days ; why despair 
 now ? I feel anxiously on this matter. — Yours sincerely, 
 
 " ►J^ D. MORIARTY." 
 
 A man of stronger will, and destined in the end to 
 occupy a higher position in the Church, came to a wiser 
 conclusion. Dr. Croke wrote : — 
 
 " This much, however, I must say, that our party has 
 been long since destroyed, and that there is no room in 
 Ireland for an honest politician. For myself, I have 
 determined never to join any Irish agitation, never to 
 sign any petition to Government, and never to trust to 
 any one man, or body of men living in my time, for the 
 recovery of Ireland's independence. All hope with me 
 in Irish affairs is dead and buried. I have ever 
 esteemed you at once the honestest and most gifted of 
 my countrymen, and your departure from Ireland leaves 
 me no hope." 
 
 After a little, I told my constituents in a public 
 address that it was no longer possible to accomplish the 
 task for which I had solicited their votes, and that I 
 would therefore resign my seat. To avoid the pain and 
 humiliation of a controversy with Lucas in the face of 
 rejoicing enemies, I allowed the fact that I was retiring 
 in fulfilment of a pledge which we had made in common 
 
364 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 to fall into the background in my farewell address. 
 And I have since paid the penalty in having the circum- 
 stance constantly misunderstood. I retired because I 
 was pledged to retire if we failed to establish the inde- 
 pendence of the second order of the clergy in politics ; 
 and we had failed. But I spoke of my own intentions 
 solely, and made no allusion to the purpose or duty of 
 any one else.^ Some journals naturally assumed that 
 
 ^ I invite tlie reader's attention to the terms of the announce- 
 ment : — " I have determined to retire from the office to which 
 your favour raised me, and, till better times arrive, from all share 
 and responsibility" in the public affairs of Ireland. The Irish 
 party is reduced to a handful, the popular organisation is deserted 
 by those who created it, prelates of the Irish Church throng the 
 ranks of our opponents, priest is arrayed against priest, and parish 
 against parish, a shameless political profligacy is openly defended 
 and applauded, the special opportunity sent by Heaven for our 
 deliverance is bartered away to an English faction, and the 
 ultimate aim for which alone I laboured — to give back to Ireland 
 her national existence — is forgotten or disdained. Till all this he 
 changed, there seems to be no more hope for the Irish Cause than 
 for the corpse on the dissecting-table. I have done my best to 
 change it. For the last twelve months I have spared no pains 
 in public or private to rally the National party — but in vain. A 
 preternatural apathy broods over the country, disheartened by 
 corruption and pampered by a false and temporary prosperity. 
 When all external circumstances favour a National movement, it 
 is repudiated at home. God knows I have done my best. One 
 step alone remains. I promised, in guch a fatal contingency, to 
 throw up my seat in Parliament, in order that the truth might not 
 be screened from the people, nor the crisis pass without some 
 emphatic warning and protest. The time for this duty has come." 
 [I should, perhaps, note that this catalogue of crimes proper to be 
 denounced and errors proper to be amended has been described 
 
THE MISSION TO ROME AND ITS RESULTS. 3G5 
 
 Lucas was about to take the same course, and he 
 wrote a note to the Times denying that he had any- 
 such intention. He still spoke in private of returning 
 to Rome to present his Memorial, and insisted that 
 his health was considerably better since his arrival 
 in England. 
 
 The failure of the mission had coerced me to quit 
 Parliament; the paralysis of national feeling induced 
 me to quit Ireland also. A country where Mr. Keogh 
 was the popular patriot, surrounded by huzzaing 
 partisans, and Dr. Cullen the dominant ecclesiastic, was 
 one where life would be a long torture. I was then and 
 always a Catholic of the school of Newman and 
 Montalembert, not at all of the school of Dr. Cullen or 
 M. Veuillot : and I knew William Keogh at that moment 
 as well as all Ireland knows him now. I told my con- 
 stituents that the motive which induced me to take up 
 the Land question was the belief that it was not a 
 substitute for, but a step towards, national self-crovern- 
 ment, and an essential preliminary without which nothino- 
 could be accomplished in the larger enterprise. Some 
 might believe that the national cause could be asserted 
 by a people who had not secured the means of livino- 
 like men, but I did not believe it. 
 
 in later times as a statement by me that " Ireland was as dead as 
 a corpse on a dissecting-table " — a manifest and disingenuous 
 misrepresentation.] 
 
366 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 " If there be any who honestly think so (I said), let 
 them try, and may God prosper them. For me, I have 
 tried. For seven years I have kept the green flag flying 
 alone, or with but a handful of friends ; for twice seven 
 years I have thought, written, and acted to one sole end. 
 in these years I have been five times prosecuted by the 
 English Government — in '42, in '44, in '46, in '48, and 
 '49, — and wasted thirteen months of my life in English 
 prisons. I have 'spent and been spent' cheerfully in 
 fortune, health, peace, the duties of home and the 
 rights of my children ; often with less aid than opposi- 
 tion from those who professed the same opinions, always 
 in exhausting personal conflict with a hired Press, and all 
 who lived, or hoped to live, by corruption." 
 
 Meantime some of the friends nearest to Lucas 
 assured me that he was in a much more dangerous 
 condition than he supposed, and that he would be for 
 a long time, perhaps for ever, unfit for serious labour. 
 I was deeply touched by a calamity brought on by the 
 constancy and courage with which he had performed 
 his task at Rome, and I wrote to him to put our recent 
 controversy out of his mind, as I went into exile re- 
 membering only the good battle we had fought together 
 for a good cause. The last letter which I got from 
 him came in reply: — 
 
 " I was dehghted, my dear Duffy, to receive your 
 very kind note on my return to Brighton from London 
 on a visit to the doctor. The little scene to which you 
 refer was most painful to me, and I am, above all 
 things, delighted that we may now consider the affair 
 at an end. There may be a difference of opinion, but 
 I am sure you acquit me of entertaining towards you 
 
THE MISSION TO EOME AND ITS EESULTS. 367 
 
 anything but kind and affectionate feelings, such as I 
 have no doubt whatever you entertain towards me. . . . 
 It is to me a subject of the deepest regret that you are 
 going from Ireland — not only on public grounds, with 
 regard to which I consider it a calamity — but on 
 private grounds, and because the absence of such a 
 friend as I have always felt you to be makes our 
 wretched politics very much more distasteful than they 
 have hitherto been." 
 
 Before quitting Parliament there was some work 
 which it was my peculiar duty to do. After the escape 
 of Meagher and Mitchel the Government allowed Smith 
 O'Brien and his remaining associates to return to Europe 
 with the sole condition that they must not revisit the 
 United Kingdom. It is a significant tribute to the 
 character of O'Brien among men who knew him well 
 that I had little difficulty in obtaining the signatures of 
 a hundred and fifty members of Parliament to a 
 memorial requesting that this restriction might be 
 withdrawn. Sir Fitzroy Kelly and Henry Baillie, 
 Spooner and Alexander Hamilton, Whiteside and 
 Napier signed as willingly as Cobden, Bright, Lord 
 Godrich/ or Milner Gibson. The Secretary of the 
 Admiralty and the Secretary of the Board of Control ^ 
 felt free to urge this measure on the Cabinet of the 
 Administration to which they belonged ; and Mr. 
 Disraeli, then leader of the Opposition, authorised me 
 
 ^ The present Marquis of Ripon. 
 
 2 Mr. Phinn and Mr. Danby Seymour. 
 
3G8 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 to tell Lord Palmerston that he approved of the pro- 
 posal. But all I could accomplish at the moment was 
 to get the question considered ; their unconditional 
 return to Ireland was long delayed by official timidity. 
 The tragic story of Lucas's sudden relapse and pre- 
 mature death need not be detailed here. He died on 
 Monday, 20th October, in his forty-fourth year, and was 
 buried at Brompton Cemetery. His last thoughts 
 were given to the public cause. The Rev. Dr. Whitty, 
 his closest friend in life, and the confessor who prepared 
 him for death, immediately after that event wrote these 
 touching words to Monsignore Morris, to whom the 
 Memorial was intrusted for presentation to the Pope : — 
 
 " From the most complete and intimate knowledge 
 of his sentiments, I may add that, as in life, so at the 
 near approach of death, his one desire and prayer Avas 
 that the Holy See should be made acquainted with the 
 whole truth, and determine on all these questions 
 what would be for the welfare of the Church in these 
 kingdoms." 
 
 Touching testimonies of public confidence and 
 affection followed him to the grave. For my part, I 
 did what I could to honour the memory of my lost 
 colleague. When his approaching death was announced 
 I declined on the instant a farewell banquet prepared 
 by political fiiends in Ireland, and a second by literary 
 friends in London, of which it is pleasant to remember 
 that John Stuart Mill was chairman, and James 
 
THE MISSION TO ROME AND ITS RESULTS. 369 
 
 Hannay, author of Singleton Fontenoy, and Edward 
 
 Whitty, author of the Friends of Bohemia, the 
 
 Secretaries. At the same time, but on other grounds, 
 
 I refused a pecuniary testimonial. After fourteen years 
 
 spent in pubhc labours, during which I possessed the 
 
 chief property in a popular journal, I did not carry 
 
 away a hundred pounds from its profits to begin life 
 
 anew. I sold my interest in the Nation, indeed, at a 
 
 fair price, to A. M. Sullivan and one of his friends ; but 
 
 the purchase-money was spent in wiping out the 
 
 responsibilities of a public and Parliamentary career in 
 
 which, after the treason of Sadleir and Keogh, the 
 
 leaders paid the expenditure for the most part out of 
 
 their private resources. I was resolute, however, not 
 
 to mix up the necessary public action of laying down 
 
 my office with any private interest or convenience 
 
 whatever.^ 
 
 But I accepted aid which I might hope to repay if 
 
 1 I may quote a few lines from a letter of the period to explain 
 the animus of my refusal : — " I declined a public tribute in '44 
 when a State prisoner in Richmond ; in '46, when amerced by 
 a Government prosecution ; and in '49 (tendered by Father 
 Mathew), when a State prisoner in Newgate. Not because I was 
 insensible of the generous kindness that prompted it, nor because 
 I denied that it may sometimes be wisely and properly tendered 
 by the people to those who suffer in their cause ; but from personal 
 feeling alone. To maintain an impregnable Nationality in Ireland 
 against scepticism and corruption, I fear it is necessary to keep it 
 clear not only of the bribes of the Castle but even of the 
 largesse of the people." 
 
 B B 
 
370 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 I did not utterly fail in the new country. The friend 
 whom I loved best in life, after Thomas Davis, came 
 to me with his hands full of bank-notes, which he 
 insisted I should borrow till better times came ; an 
 Irishman in the public service of England, whom I had 
 never seen, and knew at that time only as a Protestant 
 Nationalist of remarkable literary gifts (which, happily, 
 he still employs in the same cause), offered me the 
 savings of his lifetime, to be repaid at discretion ; and 
 an Irish lady, married to a staff officer in the English 
 army, proffered me the law library of her uncle, an 
 English judge, as I meditated practising as a barrister 
 in Australia. It is good to know that any man 
 who has served the Irish cause honestly has never 
 failed to win gratitude and confidence from the Irish 
 race. 
 
 One question to be determined before I left Ireland 
 was the future of the Tenant League. I urged on the 
 Council the policy of dissolving it forthwith, in order 
 that the fact might stand out in naked significance 
 that the cause had been destroyed by Whig bishops. 
 Another rally might be made later, and would be more 
 successfully made, I contended, if in the interval there 
 was no pretence of agitation to create false hopes. But 
 some adventurous persons who had become members 
 of the Council in later times, of whom the most notable 
 was Mr. MacNamara Cantwell, insisted that they 
 
THE MISSION TO EOME AND ITS EESULTS. 371 
 
 could use the organisation for good results, and it 
 was resolved to keep the League alive. The new- 
 leaders began their labours by summoning a selected 
 number of the Irish party to take counsel at Dublin ; 
 but they did not understand the men they proposed to 
 deal with. Mr. Tristram Kennedy, Mr. J. F. Maguire, 
 Mr. Swift, and others answered their invitation by 
 informing them that some of the members they were 
 invited to meet had habitually and ostentatiously 
 betrayed the popular cause, and that it was an insult 
 and a blunder to ask honest men to confer with them. 
 This rebuff was fatal. Moore, Maguire, Archdeacon 
 Fitzgerald, Father Tom O'Shea, Father Dowling, and 
 others still made generous efforts to keep public feeling 
 alive, but it gradually ebbed away. In Parliament 
 there remained four or five men true to their principles; 
 but Moore, the only one fit to lead, lost his seat at the 
 first general election, and those who remained, and 
 one or two others sent to support them, did not choose 
 a leader and submit themselves to his control, rarely 
 consulted together, and had no common centre of 
 authority. They naturally accomplished nothing — 
 
 "All fighting without lead and without method, 
 A dreary, hopeless, desultory war." 
 
 Such is the history of the League ; a brilliant and 
 marvellous beginning, a singularly successful Parliamen- 
 tary career for a time, and then — treacher}^, desertion, 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 and defeat. We failed at that time and place, because 
 we were betrayed by prelates in whom the people had 
 a blind confidence. It is a popular tradition that after 
 the battle of the Boyne Sarsfield declared that if the 
 two armies could change kings be would fight it over 
 again and win; and if we could have changed the 
 bishops of 1855 for the bishops of 1885 tbe Land 
 question would have been settled triumphantly thirty 
 years earlier. At any rate, the founders of the League 
 awakened and formulated for the first time the 
 opinions destined to prevail in the end, as surely as 
 Wilberforce and Clarkson awakened opinion in favour 
 of the slave, or John Keogb and Wolfe Tone in favour 
 of the trampled Catholic : and tbey taught the 
 principle of Independent Opposition, which alone could 
 insure success. The League inherited that weapon 
 from the Young Irelanders of 1848, and bequeathed 
 it to the Irish party of 1886. 
 
 In a narrative which turns so essentially on the 
 personal character of a few men, readers unacquainted 
 with the local circumstances will j^i'obably desire to 
 learn the fate of the dramatis personm. Time is a sharp 
 test of character ; and character, tried by life and death, 
 throws a searching retrospective light on events. The 
 young priests who fell under the disfavour of the 
 Apostolic Delegate are still living. Nearly twenty 
 years after the transactions which I have recorded the 
 
THE MISSION TO EOME AND ITS EESULTS. 373 
 
 See of Ossory became vacant by the death of Dr. Walsh, 
 and the parish priests of the diocese expressed their 
 verdict on the character and career of Father Matthew 
 Keeffe by electing him at the head (dignissimits) of the 
 list of three priests submitted to the Holy See from 
 which to select the new bishop. But Dr. Cullen was 
 still the chief counsellor on Irish affairs, and Dr. Moran, 
 his nephew, was the choice of the Propaganda. The 
 new bishop — acting solely in the interest of religion, 
 no doubt, but who certainly started with no prejudice 
 in favour of the " Callan Curates '" — found in them his 
 most efficient colleagues. The official theologian of his 
 diocese was the Very Rev. Canon O'Shea, P.P., once 
 Curate of Callan ; his brother was Archdeacon ; and 
 the Yery Rev. Canon Keeffe, P.P., was a Prebendary 
 of Ossory — one of the bishop's consultative Council of 
 Four, and Precentor of the Diocesan Chapter. 
 
 Of the young priest banished from New Ross, whom 
 friends were fond of naming the " Iron Curate " after 
 another man of steadfast will, the " Iron Duke," I 
 have already spoken. His colleagues, the " Carbonari 
 Curates," either died at their posts or entered religious 
 orders that they might perform the duties of the priest- 
 hood under severer discipline and in harder labour 
 than the life of a secular priest exacts. 
 
 Archdeacon Fitzgerald and all the parish priests who 
 took a leading part in the League are dead. Of the 
 
374 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 younger men, the curates who aided it, many are also 
 dead. Father Dwyer, who managed the Memorial 
 movement, and Father Cahill, who expounded and 
 justified it with distinguished ability, are dead ; but 
 Father Dwyer's closest associate and counsellor is now 
 Bishop of Limerick ; the young curate who induced 
 many priests of Down and Connor to sign the Priests' 
 Memorial, and set them the example, is now Bishop of 
 these united dioceses/ The ]3arish priest, who came 
 most promptly from the far West to the consultations 
 of the Council, is now Bishop of Clonfert ; the young 
 professor who welcomed the leader of the League to 
 the ecclesiastical capital of Connaught with the most 
 vigorous oratory, is now Archbishop of Tuam ; and 
 the other young professor, who sketched an effectual 
 organisation for encounteriDg the serried power of the 
 exterminators, is now Archbishop of Cashel. 
 
 Dr. M' Knight is also dead, having struggled to the 
 end for the interests of the tenant-farmers on the new 
 and perplexing theory of duty which he adopted after 
 the establishment of the Aberdeen Administration. 
 Rev. John Bogers is a Professor in the Queen's College, 
 Belfast, and has not, I think, abandoned any of the 
 opinions which he taught with such persuasive power 
 thirty years ago. Bev. David Bell, when the League 
 fell, despaired of constitutional agitation, and allied 
 
 1 Both, have died while this narrative is passing through the press. 
 
THE MISSION TO EOME AND ITS EESULTS. 375 
 
 himself with the Fenian movement. He now resides 
 in the United States, and holds a secular office under 
 the Republic. Several others of the Presbyterian 
 ministers are living, and cannot, I am persuaded, regret 
 the work of Christian charity in which they were 
 engaged when the League banner of orange, green, and 
 blue, was lifted to the sky. 
 
 Sergeant Shee was made a judge by Lord Palmerston, 
 being the first Catholic who had reached that office in 
 England since the flight of James II. On circuit he 
 considered it his duty, as one of the Queen's judges, 
 to go in state to the Protestant cathedral in the circuit 
 town, as his colleague, a Protestant, naturally and 
 properly did. This humiliating ceremonial will enable 
 all men of honour of whatever creed to estimate Mr. 
 Justice Shee's consistency and courage. 
 
 I may assume that the fate of John Sadleir and 
 William Keogh is known to all my readers. Detected 
 in swindling on a gigantic scale, Sadleir either com- 
 mitted suicide by the strange device of going to 
 Hampstead on a winter evening and swallowing a dose 
 of poison on the open heath, or, as many persons are 
 persuaded, got a body conveyed to that place, which the 
 coroner's jury were induced to accept as his, and made 
 his escape to new regions to enjoy his plunder at leisure. 
 A gifted woman, who announced the news to me at the 
 Antipodes, remarked that she was "shocked but not 
 
376 THE LEAGUE OF NOETH AND SOUTH. 
 
 surprised, as lie always looked like a man wlio had sold 
 himself to the devil." His brother and accomplice was 
 expelled from Parliament, fled from justice, and has 
 been heard of no more. After these exposures, Mr. 
 Keogh, like Jeffries, whom he resembled in vigour of 
 intellect, laxity of principle, and disregard of truth, 
 clambered at an early age to the Bench. In that 
 position he bid for English sympathy by assailing the 
 bishops on whose shoulders he had risen to office, was 
 held in respect neither by those whom he joined nor 
 those whom he deserted, and ended a tempestuous life 
 by a miserably tragic death. 
 
 Dr. Cullen, the chief factor in these transactions, 
 maintained his influence at Rome unimpaired up to his 
 death. He was created a Cardinal, being the first Irish- 
 man ever invested with the purple. Of his episcopal 
 career I am no competent judge, but I can confidently 
 affirm that his political action was deeply disastrous to 
 Ireland. After the lapse of a generation we can es- 
 timate it by its results. He separated the priests from 
 the people in his archdiocese, and Dublin has been the 
 seat of a murderous conspiracy, conducted by humble 
 and illiterate, but, as the judge who tried them affirmed, 
 ''not naturally evil-disposed men," whom he had de- 
 prived of the counsel and guidance in public affairs 
 which might have retained them in the path of moral- 
 ity. He raised the episcopal authority in politics to a 
 
THE MISSION TO EOME AND ITS RESULTS. 377 
 
 new and unprecedented standard, and more and more 
 aimed to accumulate all power in his own hands. A Na- 
 tional journalist formulated his constantly contracting 
 system in language of equal wit and truth : — "No priests 
 in politics — except bishops." " No bishops in politics — 
 except archbishops." "No archbishops in politics — 
 except the Apostolic Delegate." The result was that 
 the influence of the episcopal office fell lower than it 
 had ever done since the coming of St. Patrick, till wiser 
 counsels re -established it. His immediate successor, who 
 followed in his footsteps, not only lost all authority in 
 ]3ublic affairs over the mass of the people, but was sub- 
 jected, to disedifying personal rebuffs unprecedented in 
 Irish history. And the eminent ecclesiastic who fills 
 his office at present has formally reversed his policy b}^ 
 restoring the freedom of the clergy in public affairs. 
 There is now scarcely one bishop who sympathises with 
 the theory of Cardinal Cullen, and not one who acts 
 upon it. It is needless to further debate a system on 
 which his own Order have pronounced so significant a 
 verdict. 
 
 Of myself I may venture to say a word in the last 
 book I shall write on the history of my own times. Dr. 
 Cullen's successful resistance of the appeal to Rome in- 
 duced me to quit my native land; but I served the Irish 
 race more effectually elsewhere than I could have done 
 in Ireland at that time. Neither here nor anywhere 
 
378 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 else on the face of the earth have Irishmen attained so 
 open and successful a career as in the land where I 
 laboured twenty years for that result. Irishmen proved, 
 what it was very essential in the interest of Irish 
 nationality to demonstrate, that Irish Celts were fit to 
 govern, and would exercise with honourable and scru- 
 pulous fidelity the trusts which they accepted. Many 
 difiicultics disappeared before that demonstration ; even 
 the intractable prejudices of the Cardinal at length 
 gave way. When I returned to Ireland, after ten years' 
 absence, the Catholic University was largely ofiicered 
 by my political associates in YouDg Ireland, and a Na- 
 tional Association was at work of which my life-long 
 friend, John Dillon, was the leader. When the authori- 
 ties of the University invited me to an entertainment, 
 and John Dillon urged me to enter the Association and 
 share with him the responsibility of its management, I 
 was entitled to infer that the patron of the University 
 and of the Association had been consulted on these 
 measures. But I considered the political system, though 
 somewhat amended, still incurably bad, and declined to 
 re-enter Irish politics by that door. Ten years later 
 still, when I again visited Dublin at the era of the 
 O'Connell Centenary, the Lord Mayor, Alderman 
 M'Swiney, who was for the moment a personage of un- 
 usual importance, invited me to a conference of three 
 persons at the Mansion House, the purpose of which was to 
 
THE MISSION TO EOME AND ITS EESULTS. 379 
 
 found a new Repeal Association on the old lines of 1843, 
 and a National journal to sustain its policy. I inquired 
 who was to furnish funds for so costly an undertaking 
 as a daily paper, and he told me, after some hesitation, 
 that in addition to his own large contribution the Car- 
 dinal promised a substantial share of the capital. I 
 demanded if the Lord Mayor knew that his Eminence 
 regarded me, who was invited to direct these operations, 
 as a man who ought to endure a long penance on bread 
 and water before being permitted to serve the country 
 again. He rejoined that the Cardinal had quite altered 
 his opinion upon this point. I replied that I had not 
 altered mine. I still thought that the policy of exclud- 
 ing priests from politics to make way for bishops, and 
 excluding bishops to make way for archbishops, was 
 execrable ; that I had always striven to rear a people 
 able to judge and act for themselves ; to rear men and 
 citizens, not grown children or obedierit mutes ; and 
 that I would be mad to undertake the task he desiofned 
 for me, where there existed difference of principle so 
 fundamental and unchangeable. 
 
 Immediately afterwards my old friends, the veterans 
 of the Tenant League, made a proposal which was much 
 more seductive. Father Peter O'Reilly, P.P. of Kings- 
 court, invited as many of them as he could muster, includ- 
 ing the Callan curates (now become ecclesiastical rulers 
 where they had been confessors and martyrs), to meet 
 
380 THE LEAGUE OF NORTH AND SOUTH. 
 
 me under his hospitable roof, and with them a county 
 member, Mr. Ennis, of Meath, who was prepared to re- 
 sign his seat to make a vacancy for me. But I dis- 
 covered that Mr. Ennis expected me to adopt the policy 
 of Mr. Butt, which formally excluded Independent 
 Opposition, and included a scheme of making the 
 Irish members a legislature for Ireland in the intervals 
 of their attendance on the Imperial Parliament. The 
 project had never been scrutinised by men familiar 
 with national constitutions, and in truth it was hope- 
 lessly and incurably defective. It was a melancholy 
 spectacle to me to see Irish members pledged to a 
 scheme which would never be accepted either by Eng- 
 land or Ireland when they came to understand it ; and 
 as it would have contradicted the practice of my life to 
 profess and defend opinions which I did not hold, I de- 
 clined this test. The scheme is now not only abandoned, 
 but is as obsolete as the Penal Laws. I would not re- 
 enter Parliament ; but to the measure of my powers and 
 opportunity I served my race in whatever position I 
 found myself, and vindicated to unfriendly audiences 
 the principles which I had contributed to plant in Irish 
 minds. 
 
 This narrative is now completed, and it contains much 
 which I deem it important that Irishmen should know. 
 It is our reproach that we are inciiriosi suorum. How 
 few of us are familiar with the marvellous story of John 
 
THE MISSION TO EOME AND ITS EESULTS. 381 
 
 Keogh's struggle for Catholic Emancipation, which he 
 almost won while O'Connell was still a lad at college 1 
 How many of the young men of to-day know that in 
 1833, when the Established Church in Ireland was 
 docked of bishops and revenues by Parliament, its com- 
 plete disendowment might perhaps have been accom- 
 plished, and was rendered only a question of time ? 
 And if in 1856 all the labours of the Tenant League 
 seemed wasted, it was not so. Truths had been uttered 
 which, once heard, are never forgotten, and the prin- 
 ciples embodied in recent land legislation were first 
 formulated by the League of 1850. The revived contest 
 for them was conducted under the immense advantages 
 of the ballot and an extended franchise, and with the 
 aid of prelates who shared the sentiments and labours 
 of the Tenant League. There is scarcely a notable 
 ecclesiastic in Ireland past sixty, a Land Leaguer, at 
 present, who was not openly or confidentially allied 
 with the Tenant Leaguers thirty years ago. If we were 
 defeated in 1854, they also were defeated. If they are 
 successful now, a liberal share of the merit belonsfs to 
 those who toiled for the truth in evil davs. 
 
APPENDICES. 
 
APPENDICES. 
 I. 
 
 TOUE THEOUGH IKELAND IN 1849. 
 
 Pakt of this tour was made in company with Thomas 
 Carlyle. In notes of that visit to Ireland, published since 
 his death (a publication to be greatly deplored, I think), he 
 mentions my meeting and conferring with several of the 
 public men who afterwards became founders of the League. 
 But he scarcely does justice to his personal feelings at cer- 
 tain spectacles which we encountered. I borrow a page 
 from my own diary of the same period — 
 
 " We travelled slowly from Limerick to Sligo, and we 
 found everywhere the features of a recently conquered 
 country. Clare was almost a wilderness from Kilrush to 
 Corofin. The desolate shores of Lough Corrib would have 
 resembled a desert but that the stumps of ruined houses 
 showed that not Nature, but Man, had been the desolator. 
 Between Killala Bay and Sligo, during an entire day's 
 travel, we estimated that every second dwelling was pulled 
 down ; and not cabins alone, but stone houses fit for the 
 residence of a substantial yeomanry. 
 
 *'The degradation which had fallen on the generous and 
 spirited Celtic race was a sight such as I had nowhere seen 
 
 C C 
 
386 APPENDICES. 
 
 or read of. The famine and the landlords have actually 
 created a new race in Ireland. We saw on the streets of 
 Galway crowds of creatures more debased than the Yahoos 
 of Swift — creatures having only a distant and hideous re- 
 semblance to human beings. Grey-headed old men, whose 
 idiotic faces had hardened into a settled leer of mendicancy, 
 and women filthier and more frightful than the harpies, 
 who at the jingle of a coin on the pavement swarmed in 
 myriads from unseen places ; struggling, screaming, shriek- 
 ing for their prey, like some monstrous and unclean animals. 
 In Westport the sight of the priest on the street gathered 
 an entire pauper population, thick as a village market, 
 swarming round him for relief. Beggar children, beggar 
 adults, beggars in white hairs, girls with faces grey and 
 shrivelled ; women with the more touching and tragic as- 
 pect of lingering shame and self-respect not yet effaced ; 
 and among these terrible realities, imposture shaking in 
 pretended fits to add the last touch of horrible grotesqueness 
 to the picture ! I saw these accursed sights, and they are 
 burned into my memory for ever. Poor, mutilated, and 
 debased scions of a tender, brave, and pious stock, they 
 were martyrs in the battle of centuries for the right to live 
 in their own land, and no Herculaneum or Pompeii covers 
 ruins so memorable to me as those which lie buried under 
 the fallen roof- trees of an ' Irish extermination.' " 
 
 In the West we were shown the residence of a baronet 
 who spent in London a rental of £30,000 a year drawn 
 from his Irish tenantry. He had ejected 320 persons 
 within a few months, and was in arrears with his poor-rate. 
 In a workhouse in the county of Kilkenny, described as 
 one of the best-conducted in Ireland, and managed by a paid 
 vice-guardian, we found a crowd of infant children as 
 visibly fading away as if they had been sentenced to death. 
 They were crowded into a single small room, the mephitic 
 atmosphere of which would poison a grown man 
 
APPENDICES. 387 
 
 IL 
 
 JOHN MITCHEL, THE LEAGUE, AND GAYAN DUFFY. 
 
 When the League yms fighting the battle o£ the Irish 
 tenant-farmers against the landlords, the British Govern- 
 ment, Sadleir, Keogh, and the Parliamentary deserters 
 who had betrayed the people for office or patronage, and 
 the Whig bishops who lent them a fatal support, Mr. 
 Mitchel escaped from Tasmania and resumed the office of 
 journalist at [N'ew York. The first work he took in hand, 
 was, not to aid the organisation which had so many 
 eiiemies, but to denounce it as entirely worthless. Nothing, 
 he affirmed, would ever be obtained for the tenant-farmers 
 from the British Parliament ; their best hope was an Irish 
 expedition from the United States, with arms in their 
 hands, which might be expected perhaps before another 
 year had elapsed. What patriotic Irishmen ought to do 
 with the League was to renounce and repudiate it. It is 
 no longer necessary to invite the judgment of posterity on 
 that policy ; a generation has since lived and died ; all the 
 League demanded has been won from Parliament, and the 
 expedition which Mr. Mitchel was expected to lead never 
 set out : neither the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, 
 nor the heat between England and France, which at one 
 time threatened an explosion, having furnished the opening 
 for which he was waiting. Towards the close of his life he 
 
 C C 2 
 
388 APPENDICES. 
 
 visited Ireland to preach the kindred doctrine of refusing 
 to seek Home Rule in Parliament (where it could never 
 be obtained), and of electing only such members as were 
 resolved not to sit in the House of Commons, and whose seats 
 would necessarily be given by that body (as his own seat 
 was given) to the enemies of the people. That policy, 
 also, has been effectually tested by time, and need not be 
 debated. 
 
 It was a curious aggravation of Mr. Mitchel's attacks on 
 the League that while he was issuing them from his bureau 
 in New York, Dr. M'Knight, at Belfast, was holding some 
 of us responsible for having been the friends and confederates 
 of a man who denied that it " is a crime, or a wrong, or 
 even a peccadillo, to hold slaves, to buy slaves, to sell slaves, 
 or to keep slaves to their work by flogging or other need- 
 ful coercion." This theory of human rights has also been 
 removed from the region of controversy, having received 
 final judgment at Richmond before the sword of General 
 Grant. 
 
 The ground upon which the Nationalists who supported 
 the League justified themselves was very simple — ^It is easy 
 (they said) for you to be heroic and transcendental at New 
 York ; but we who stand face to face with the enemy 
 know that it is impossible to accomplish anything except 
 by the tedious and exhausting process of Parliamentary 
 action ; without it our people will be altogether defenceless, 
 and our manifest duty is to recognise the institutions which 
 exist, and employ them for their benefit. The most con- 
 clusive verdict on this controversy is that a dozen years 
 later, when the Southern States of America had the same 
 problem to solve, Mr. Mitchel adopted the identical policy 
 
APPENDICES. 389 
 
 there which he insisted on the League rejecting in Ireland. 
 " There was no longer a Confederate Government (he 
 wrote) — it had disappeared from human eyes ; and inas- 
 much as a country cannot be without a Government, and 
 the only Government then in fact subsisting being the 
 Federal Government of the United States, I owed to it, 
 from that instant, full obedience^ which obedience I at once 
 yielded in good faith, as I think my fellow-citizens at the 
 South very generally did at the same time ; and for the same 
 reason I am therefore no longer a Secessionist nor a rebel ; 
 but a Unionist and a lawful citizen." Mr. Mitchel's attacks 
 on the League were supplemented by attacks upon me. He 
 found it embarrassing, when challenged by common friends, 
 to justify that procedure. When he was an attorney in a 
 northern village T offered him a position and an income as 
 a contributor to the Nation, which enabled him to change 
 that obscure stage for the one on which his reputation was 
 won ; and after three years' intimate daily connection I can 
 ask no better testimony than his own how my relations 
 with him were conducted. When we separated in January, 
 1848, he wrote to me — 
 
 " I do not blame you, (he said in the note announcing 
 his retirement from the Natioit) I do not blame you in 
 the slightest jjarticular ; and, moreover, I am quite certain 
 I could not have worked in subordination to any other man 
 alive near so long as I have done w^ith you. And lastly, 
 that I give you credit in all that is past for acting on good 
 and disinterested motives, with the utmost sincerity, and 
 also with uniform kindness to me personally." 
 
 After his attacks had continued for nearly three months, 
 during which I copied them weekly into the Nation, I re- 
 plied, in a " Letter to John Mitchel from Charles Gavan 
 
390 APPENDICES, 
 
 Duffy," which excited wide attention in Ireland and in 
 America. Its most significant result was that Mr. Mitchel 
 never attacked me any more, and several years later re- 
 pudiated with great warmth a suggestion in the Nation, 
 then edited by Mr. A. M. Sullivan, that he still assailed 
 me whenever an opportunity offered. As far as I am con- 
 cerned, here the matter might have ended for ever, but 
 Mr. Mitchel had not the grace to blot out from his Jail 
 Journal the imputations which I had shown to be untrue 
 and impossible, and they are still read by thousands of our 
 countrymen. I labour under the additional disadvantage 
 that my "Letter to John Mitchel" appeared in pamphlet 
 form, as a supplement to the Nation, and owing to its dim- 
 inutive size, is rarely bound with the volume to which it 
 belongs. In short, it has disappeared from publication, while 
 the libels which it answers and rebuts remain in currency. 
 Under these circumstances, while I was engaged in writing 
 the history of the period, I resolved to republish a few para- 
 graphs from it for readers who desire to tnow the truth. 
 Mr. Mitchel answered it elaborately in his newspaper, the 
 Citizen ; but as he is now where he cannot defend himself, 
 where I also must soon be, I shall not reprint any state- 
 ment which he did not in express terms or by direct im- 
 plication admit to be true. Allegations which he either 
 denied or disputed I shall leave out of account. But I am 
 entitled that the facts of a case, which his brilliant book 
 will keep long in memory, should be accurately known. 
 
 Mr. Mitchel's gravest charge was that I lowered the 
 National cause by producing Father Mathew, Dr. Blake, 
 and other witnesses to speak of my past career, and by 
 allowing Meagher to prove that a letter bearing his 
 
APPENDICES. 391 
 
 signature was inserted in the Nation during my absence. 
 This was my reply — 
 
 "And now, sir, let us consider your charges on their 
 merits. 
 
 " The first amounts to this : that I was guilty of crime 
 and cowardice in producing witnesses to character on my 
 trial, and permitting it to be proved that certain of the 
 articles in the indictment were not written by me. Before 
 defending that course, I wish to inquire how it comes you 
 selected me for reprobation on this score ? T was the last 
 tried of the State prisoners : six months after Martin — five 
 months after O'Brien and Meagher — four months after 
 O'Doherty and Williams — and that which you charge as a 
 crime upon me, every soul of them did months before me ! 
 Mark ; there is not a single feature of my defence which 
 was not anticipated by the prisoners you left behind jou 
 in Van Diemen's Land, or rejoined in America. And there 
 is not one of them but was tried and convicted long before 
 my first jury was sworn. 
 
 "The earliest tried was John Martin. In your Jail 
 Journal, you described him as your main reliance for re- 
 volutionary vigour in Ireland : others you pronounced ' not 
 sufiiciently desperate ; your chief trust was in Martin and 
 Reilly.' . . . Martin was tried six months before me, and 
 what was his defence 1 
 
 " Did ' the unfortunate man, bowed and prostrate to the 
 earth,' produce witnesses to prove ' his legal and constitu- 
 tional character ' 1 
 
 " Did ' the poor man try to evade the responsibility of 
 some of the prosecuted articles, by proving that they were 
 not written by himself ' % 
 
 " Mr. Martin did precisely what you are pleased to de- 
 scribe in these terms. His brother, James Martin, was 
 produced to prove that so recently as the March of the 
 same year, and a month after the French revolution, he 
 had delivered a speech in Newry, in which he declared for 
 the ' Constitution of '82 ' — advocated 'the authority of the 
 Queen, Lords, and Commons ' of Ireland — disavowed any 
 intention to ' unsettle property ' — disowned ' insurrection,' 
 
392 APPENDICES. 
 
 and said unequivocally, ' let it be understood, then, that 
 for one Repealer I do not advocate violence or war, and I 
 am just as peaceful in my views now as before the recent 
 events which have created such a warlike spirit in some of 
 my countrymen.' 
 
 "The most dangerous articles in the indictment against 
 Martin were James Finton Lalor's. An order of Court was 
 obtained to remove Lalor from Clonmel to Dublin, for the 
 purpose of acknowledging his own writings ; and he was 
 not examined in the end, only because it was found his 
 testimony, on the whole, would be dangerous to the 
 prisoner [in fact it might have been elicited that Martin 
 had read proofs in prison of the articles in question]. But 
 in lieu of his personal evidence, a ' subpoena duces tecum ' was 
 served on the Attorney-General to produce a letter which 
 Lalor had addressed to him, claiming the responsibility of 
 the articles ; and a similar letter of Reilly's was read to 
 the court and jury in the course of the defence. In the 
 end, the charge of the judge turned chiefly on the question 
 — whether Martin was cognisant of, and responsible for, 
 these particular articles. And Mr. Butt requested per- 
 mission to read two queries ' written by the prisoner him- 
 self,' to bring the mind of the jury to bear directly on the 
 injustice and absurdity of convicting him for the work of 
 others : First — Whether the jury believed that John Martin 
 intended to depose the Queen, or make war against her % 
 and (second), whether John Martin expressed both or either 
 of these intentions 1 
 
 "■ This was the first of the State trials. Mr. Martin 
 adopted the practice universal in such circumstances — the 
 practice of increasing, by every legitimate means, the 
 difficulty an arbitrary Government found in convicting him. 
 He employed the only defence admissible in an English 
 court — he pleaded ' not guilty ' by the evidence as well as 
 by his answer to the arraignment. I do not blame him in 
 the smallest degree — but for you, Mr. Mitchel (who knew 
 these facts), I fear me your indignation is not heroic rage 
 after all, but only the black bile of personal malevolence. 
 
 " The Clonmel trials followed next. O'Brien summoned 
 his Parliamentary and private associates to say what he 
 
APPENDICES. 393 
 
 was and what were his opinions. Mr. Monsell, Sir Denham 
 ISTorreys, Bolton Massey, Sir David E-oche, and others were 
 examined with this view. The cause of which he was the 
 leader had been stained by brutalities of sentiment which 
 revolted him, and he separated himself peremptorily from 
 them by this evidence. I most confidently believe his 
 anxiety at that momentous hour was less for his life than 
 that his character might stand right with his people then 
 and thereafter. Biit whatever were the specific motives, 
 he did that in September which you assail me for doing 
 in the April after. 
 
 "Terence M'Manus is not reputed to want courage. Well ; 
 Mr. M'Manus thought it not unbecoming to produce 
 merchants of Cork, Waterford, and Kilkenny, literally 'to 
 bear witness to his good character in private life,' as a 
 commercial man. The Castle press had described him as 
 an English Chartist, and that practical intellect which 
 before and since had guided him out of the hands of his 
 enemies suggested the natural answer — to confront them 
 with the truth. 
 
 "But what did Thomas Meagher? He proved that he 
 had separated himself peremptorily from Mr. John Mitchel, 
 rejected his theories, and supported the resolutions which 
 resulted in driving him from the Irish Confederation. In 
 short, he put his true character before the jury and the 
 country — for Thomas Meagher was a revolutionist of the 
 sword, not of the shambles. 
 
 " All these men were tried before me — their trials were 
 published as widely as mine — you have been living under 
 the roof with one of them, and in familiar intercourse with 
 the rest for the last three or four years, and know their 
 story like the alphabet — yet jou think it is quite fair to 
 ignore their cases — to ignore your friend John Martin's 
 case ; to ignore Thomas Meagher's, and M'Manus's, who 
 are at hand to answer for themselves ; to ignore O'Brien's, 
 the most conspicuous man among us, in order to fasten 
 upon your accustomed quarry — myself. This is what you 
 consider fair play and open dealing. 
 
 " I now come to my own defence. I scorn to rest it 
 upon precedent ; I took the course I did, not because all 
 
'S\)4: APPENDICES. 
 
 my comrades had set me the example, but because it was 
 the wisest, best, and boldest open to me at that hour. But 
 you were a prisoner in Van Diemen's Land, and I refrained 
 from specifying one of the chief motives of my elaborate 
 defence. Yoa, Mr. Mitchel, furnished that motive. The 
 clumsy libels of Balfe and Birch might precipitate my con- 
 viction by ruining me with the jury ; your more subtle 
 slanders, shaped to defame me with the people, weighed 
 heavier on my mind. I had been silent under bitter pro- 
 vocation for the sake of the cause, but I was not poison- 
 proof. You had not utterly failed ; and when I read in 
 my cell in Newgate that I was ' about to plead guilty on the 
 eve of O'Brien's trial,' I felt to the marrow of my bones 
 that, if any man believed the foul lie, I owed it to you. I 
 reviewed in my mind the battle I had maintained through 
 a stormy era with the most unscrupulous of adversaries, 
 the Castle hack and the Jacobin, and then, and on that 
 reflection, I determined to set my whole life before the jury 
 and the country. I determined to snatch away the hob- 
 goblin my enemies had laboured to create, and set an 
 honest man in his place. So help me the good God that 
 will judge me, I embarked in the movement of '48 believing 
 that I had on one side the English gibbet, if we failed ; 
 and on the other, the hand of some fanatical assassin, whom 
 your slanders would arm against me, if we succeeded. 
 And in putting myself on my country by my defence, I 
 was not alone answering Lord Clarendon — I was answering 
 you. How did you misrepresent my character? I will 
 specify two or three overt acts traceable to yourself, by 
 which I apprehend you and I, Mr. Mitchel, will be better 
 understood for the future. 
 
 "You were an habitual reader of the JVorthern Star in 
 '48 ; every number of your paper contained extracts from 
 it. You were in personal communication with the Irish 
 Chartists, and spoke at two of the three meetings they 
 held in Dublin that year. In the Star, Mr. Fergus 
 O'Connor published a biography, describing how you 
 sacrificed your noble professional income to be a mere 
 writer in the Nation ; and how you were compelled to break 
 away from that unworthy journal, because the cowardly 
 
APPENDICES. 395 
 
 proprietor, Gavan Daffy, not only trammelled the free 
 expression of your sympathy with the English Chartists, 
 but himself wrote infamous reactionary articles about 
 digging deeper the gulf between Ireland and them. 
 Afterwards Mr. Dyott adorned his speech with this story 
 at one of the Chartist meetings in Dublin, and improvised 
 an effective comparison between Mr. Duffy of the Nation 
 and Mr. Conway of the Fo8t. His speech was, of course, 
 transferred to the United Irishman, but this paragraph was 
 adroitly omitted. You chuckled, I have no doubt, at the 
 odium that was created against me among large masses of 
 men in England and Ireland, and at your own growing 
 Chartist popularity. Will you chuckle now, when I dis- 
 close the fact that, of these reactionary anti-Chartist 
 articles I was not the writer, and — you, Mr. John Mitchel, 
 were ! 
 
 " In our relations at that moment a sensitive gentleman 
 would have burned with impatience to assume the responsi- 
 bility of his own work ; he would have walked into a 
 furnace rather than shelter himself from reproach behind 
 me. But you took the benefit of the fable ; and I, for my 
 part, left you your miserable triumph, rather than distract 
 the Confederation by an exposure. 
 
 "Rev. John Kenyon's second letter, assailing O'Connell 
 while his body was still unburied, was refused insertion 
 in the Nation till a more fitting occasion. ' Free opinion 
 and free discussion,' said the Nation, ' are good in theii* 
 time and place. But this kind of gladiatorial combat over 
 a dead body has been disused since the Trojans and well- 
 booted Greeks fought over the corpse of Menoeiades.' 
 Father Kenyon nursed his wrath till the appearance of the 
 United Irishman. In the first number he congratulated 
 you that, unlike the Nation, you would not curtail dissent 
 and extinguish thought by rejecting unpalatable com- 
 munications. In the third number he sent you the identical 
 rejected epistle, and you inserted it, observing it would be 
 in the public memory that it was siippyessed by the Nation 
 in the previous June, It was beautiful to contemplate 
 the contrast between your generous and gallant reception 
 of ' free opinion ' and my cowardly suppression of it. In 
 
396 APPENDICES. 
 
 that day, when men's minds were preternaturally suspicious, 
 no reader could fail to carry away so patent a conclusion. 
 
 ''Oh, soul of candour and chivalry! it was you who 
 suppressed Kenyon's letter in the Nation ; it was you who 
 notified that this kind of gladiatorial combat over a dead 
 body had ceased with the pagan times ! And I, after 
 that equivocation, once again held my peace, lest a new 
 quarrel would deliver our divided ranks a prey to the 
 enemy. 
 
 " It is not enough that I answer for my own acts, or acts 
 done in my presence or with my authority. Your generous 
 friendship credits me with the sins of others ; and with 
 sins that had no existence. This is your next charge, 
 miraculously elicited from one number of a dally paper, 
 the transactions running over weeks — 
 
 " ' The doctor has sent into my cabin a Daily News which 
 came by the mail on Sunday. Now, why could not Mr. 
 Duffy have made ballads in some quiet place all his days ? 
 As if purposely to relieve the enemy from all embarrass- 
 ment in the " vindication of the Law," he has allowed a 
 petition to Government to be got up, very extensively signed, 
 praying that as he is totally ruined — as he has already been 
 long confined — as he is an admirable private character — • 
 as his health is delicate — as the violent and revolutionary 
 articles in his newspaper appeared during a period of great 
 excitement, and extended over but a few weeks — the enemy 
 would, of their mercy, forbear to persecute him further — 
 the very thing they wished to have any decent excuse for. 
 I say he has allowed this petition, because no petitioners 
 could make such implied promises of amendment w\ih.out his 
 sanction, and especially because he has not disowned the 
 mean proceeding. It is quite in keeping with his miserable 
 defence upon his last trial, his production of evidence to 
 character, his attempt to evade the responsibility of articles 
 published by himself. Sir Lucius O'Brien, too, who presents 
 this memorial to Lord Clarendon, takes occasion to admit 
 the " guilt " of the culprit. With what joy the enemy 
 must gloat upon this transaction, and exult over us and 
 our abandoned cause I ' 
 
 " Unhappy man ! Did you indeed people your solitude 
 
APPENDICES. 397 
 
 witli these hideous spectres of a diseased heart "i 1 am fain 
 to throw down my pen. That hell of envy and rancour 
 carried in your bosom to the Antipodes and back again, 
 making the daylight dark and truth falsehood to your eyes, 
 is its own Nemesis. 
 
 " Of all the rash and ungenerous conclusions to which you 
 rush, over the chance number of a paper, which yesterday's 
 or to-morrow's might correctj so much as one is not true. 
 i^^ot one. 
 
 " Nobody made ' promises of amendment ' on my behalf, 
 ' implied ' or expressed. On the contrary, the memorialists 
 were met with a flat and insolent refusal on the ground 
 (to cite the language of Lord Clarendon) that I had 
 ' exhibited no signs of repentance, and had not ex- 
 pressed the smallest regret.' Our cause was trampled 
 under the feet of soldiers and spies ; the country was in a 
 panic j the arm of the law was strong and merciless ; the 
 malice of my enemies desperate and vindictive, but I had 
 ' not exhibited the least regret for my course.' I accept 
 it as my epitaph. 
 
 " And let me tell you now, sir, what has never dropped 
 from my pen before. On the eve of the fifth commission, 
 when it had become a point of honour with the Government 
 not to be defeated, and I had everything to fear from their 
 vengeance, I was offered a release if I consented to enter 
 a plea of ' Guilty.' It is not my habit, Mr. Mitchel, to 
 clamour over my own achievements ; and, except to Meagher 
 and O'Brien, who read it at the time, my refusal was 
 unknown beyond the circle of my own family, and has so 
 remained to this day. 
 
 "The 'cause' was not ^abandoned'; on the contrary, 
 it was regaining courage and confidence at that hour by 
 the demonstration that English law might be resisted with 
 success. You had made it ridiculous by threats unaccom- 
 plished ; my forty days' combat, face to face with the law, 
 was making the pulse of the people beat fast again. They 
 felt that for one man to exhaust and defeat all the resources 
 of a powerful State was a more unexampled victory (what- 
 ever its intrinsic value) than if Ballingarry had been made 
 a Bannockburn. 
 
39^ APPENDICES. 
 
 " Sir Lucius O'Brien ' admitted the guilt ' of the culprit ! 
 What then 1 The opinion of a man unknown to me — with 
 whom I have never had the slightest communication then 
 or since — an opinion contradicted by his companions as 
 soon as it was uttered, the opinion of a man who repudiated 
 his own brother, an opinion uttered behind my back, and 
 over which I had no possible control — am I to be slandered 
 on grounds like these? I cannot think that even in the 
 Banbridge Petty Sessions this would have passed for 
 evidence. It belongs to your later studies — the Jurispru- 
 dence of the Lamp-post. 
 
 " But I did not disown the memorial. No, indeed ; I 
 looked on with unmixed satisfaction while twenty thousand 
 citizens of Dublin, including the foremost in every pro- 
 fession and pursuit, while some hundreds of the Irish 
 priesthood — while men I had never heard of, and places I 
 had never seen, proclaimed their sympathy with my life 
 and character, and demanded my release. The reasons 
 urged were their reasons, not mine. What I gloried in 
 was the answer such a demonstration furnished to my 
 slanderers — come what might, tliei/ had failed — you had 
 failed, and the aim of my life would not be misunderstood. 
 
 "I did not forbid the movement ; nor did Meagher and 
 O'Brien forbid a similar memorial at the same moment 
 against their sentence being carried out. They let it take 
 its course. When will you spit your poisonous rheum upon 
 them ; or is it only in me it is a crime to have friends 1 
 
 " Your last charge is that I sent O'Brien to Ballingarry 
 and that the insurrection was (in consequence, no doubt) a 
 contemptible failure. That I sent O'Brien to Ballingarry 
 is utterly untrue ; but I decline to debate a question of 
 which you know nothing. The failure I am in no way 
 bound to defend ; I was not there ; the time, place, or 
 modus operandi were not of my choosing ; but it passes 
 human patience to hear you disparage it. 
 
 " ' The Ballingarry failure (you say, and one might fancy 
 it was Mr. Birch was sneering at O'Brien and his associates 
 instead of Mr. Mitchel) is hardly, I suppose, to be treated 
 as a criterion. A gentleman — a very estimable and worthy 
 gentleman certainly — goes with three or four attendants (!) 
 
APPENDICES. 399 
 
 (who are wholly unknown to the people they go amongst) 
 into the counties of Kilkenny and Tipperary, and there 
 tells several persons they are to rise in insurrection under 
 his guidance, and free the country. He has no money, this 
 gentleman, to pay troops, no clothing or arms to give them, 
 no food to keep them alive. He just exhibits a pike, and 
 bids them follow him and free the country ! ' 
 
 " Whatever was the value of that plan of campaign, there 
 is one thing a man may safely aver — it was at least better 
 than yours ; an opinion which may be predicated of any 
 plan since the Tooley Street plot. One looks back on the 
 United Irishman — at its promises, its performances, its 
 plan of operations, its adjustment of means to ends (that 
 grand secret of all human success) with feelings which even 
 the interests at stake cannot keep grave. One must smile 
 or swear. Your theory of revolution was reducible to two 
 maxims worthy of Bedlam — that whatever was meditated 
 against the English Government should be proclaimed 
 beforehand, and that officers or preparation were superfluous. 
 You neglected every precaution ; the greatest as well as 
 the smallest. You had no agent in France, no agent in 
 America, no agent in Canada, no agent among the dis- 
 contented Chartists of England. When you were arrested 
 you had not a barrel of gunpowder, or a case of muskets. 
 You did not know where to lay your hand upon pickaxes 
 or crowbars to make the first barricade. Your resources 
 literally began and ended in an ink-bottle. Your system 
 of tactics consisted in uttering threats which you were not 
 able to fulfil ; in denouncing the puerility and cowardice of 
 being adequately prepared ; and in disparaging, as Re- 
 actionaries, the men who took the precautions which you 
 neglected. Your labours had indeed one computable 
 result ; you begot among the Confederates an angry and 
 unscrupulous faction, who spent their nights and days in 
 denouncing the best men in the movement. But of these 
 ' Montagnards ' not one took the field with O'Brien ; on 
 the contrary, some of them behaved with signal cowardice, 
 one with disgusting treachery, and a third was unmasked as 
 a Government spy. O'Brien's failure might have befallen 
 any cause ; it had befallen some of the noblest in the annais 
 
400 APPENDICES. 
 
 of mankind ; destiny may repeat or may reverse it — but 
 nothing can rob it of its intrinsic greatness. In the midst 
 of a generation who did not believe in heroic sacrifice he 
 offered up his life for the common weal. That is an event 
 of the grandest interest even on the obscurest stage. No 
 generous enemy would undervalue it ; only the ^t^igenerous 
 enemy who masquerades in the disguise of a friend." 
 
 I desire to add to these extracts a single fact with which 
 I think the reader ought to be acquainted. I published in 
 the Nation every line Mr. Mitchel wrote against me ; I 
 published his answer to my letter. Of my vindication or 
 retaliation he never allowed a line to appear in the Citizen. 
 He crowded his paper week after week with letters from 
 third parties sustaining him or assailing me, but my vindi- 
 cation he utterly excluded from readers before whom I had 
 been systematically assailed. Every other Irish- American 
 journal in New York, and, as far as I know, in the United 
 States, copied it, and several purely American journals also, 
 without curtailing it of a syllable ; the Citizen alone, where 
 its appearance was a manifest right, excluded it. 
 
 J 
 
 LOMDUN : RICHARD CLAY &, bONS, PRINTERS. 
 
' 
 
 Date 
 
 Due 
 
 
 
 — :: — - ', ' """^ ^ 
 
 
 'vm 2/1 ' 
 
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