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The conspicuous character of the event caused it to be warmly discussed in Parliament. In the House of Lords, Lord Roden asked whether any information had been given to her Majesty's government in Ireland likely to lead to the detection of the murderer of the Earl of Norbury; whether any persons were in custody charged with that crime; and whether the alarming conspiracy against life and property in Ireland, from which this tragic event, as well as many others similar to it, had emanated, was likely to be discovered and suppressed. It appeared there were some three persons arrested, but there was not sufficient evidence to detain them.

It came out that the Marquis of Normanby, who was then Lord Lieutenant, between 1837 and February 1839 had released 822 prisoners. Under the powers conferred upon him by various Coercion Acts, it is probable he had imprisoned most of them himself, and he was in like manner authorized to release them. There is no evidence that he released any of them without the fullest inquiry, and it was proved that he had rejected almost as many similar appeals to his clemency. But the excitement concerning Lord Norbury's assassination was extreme. Noble lords were in actual terror. The panic was led by Lord Brougham. He carried a vote of censure. The Marquis consequently resigned his office, and Lord Ebrington became Lord Lieutenant in his stead.

This accusation against Lord Normanby that he released 822 prisoners and refused applications for the release of about as many more, added to those who had no tangible excuse for applying to be released, gives us something more than a glimpse of the extent to which arbitrary arrests without accusation or trial had been carried; and, presuming that most, if not all, of those released could not have been detained by any torture of evidence, there is more than enough ground for concluding that the persons so released, or most of them, had been originally (when first imprisoned) totally innocent of any crime or evil intent whatever, which points to the extent to which suspension of habeas corpus may be abused, even when administered by a humane official.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE REPEAL AGITATION—O'CONNELL's supreme effort —FATHER MATHEW'S CRUSADE—CONCILIATION HALL -MILITARY SUPPRESSION-GOVERNMENT PROSECU

TION-O'CONNELL'S TRIAL, SENTENCE, RELEASE, AND

DEATH.

THEN O'Connell expressed the opinion that Catholic emancipation

WHEN

would deprive him of his chief weapon, he rather under-estimated the force of what he said. His notion was that religious enthusiasm was the most likely sentiment of the people upon which he could work, and that there was no surer way of securing popular sympathies than by appealing to religious motives. Between his first enunciation of Emancipation Act there was a

those convictions and the so-called delay that must have met his views precisely. During that time he succeeded in getting himself recognized throughout the country as the man of the people; and when the emancipation was effected, the position he had then acquired remained in its fullest force, strengthened by all the advantages of having such a marked success to appeal to. So far, time had played into his hands; it had given him the universal recognition he had sought; and, so far as the bulk of the people were concerned, he had become their acknowledged leader and master.

But though the opportune delay had thus secured his position amongst the people at large, it did not prevent the mischief to him that really did result from the emancipation. That mischief was the decay and destruction of the support he had at first derived from the professional Catholics. As soon as they were made eligible for government appointments, it became their interest to cultivate good relations

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229

with the government, and to truckle to the government whenever they could. This they did with an overflowing fervour that speedily carried them beyond O'Connell's reach. Previously, they had been emancipationists, and to that end repealers. Now, they were emancipated, and, being so, had become ardent unionists, thick-and-thin supporters of the government, whereby they saw their best chances of promotion. At the same time, the leading men of the government were not slow to discover (what they had probably foreseen) that the relief of the Catholics -making them eligible for government appointments-had opened up a rich mine of influential government patronage. That patronage was forthwith applied to the national demoralization of the professional classes of Ireland. It was successful from the first, and it has been successful ever since. Previously to 1829, when government appointments in Ireland were necessarily limited to Protestants, the choice was so limited that the government was comparatively at the mercy of its officials, who, as a natural consequence, exhibited a remarkable degree of independence. Then, a magistrate or a judge was at liberty to speak his mind, and he often did, in severe criticism of the government and in sympathy with the suffering people; but since that time the Catholic official classes of Ireland, almost wholly described under the designation of the Irish bar, have not emulated their predecessors in that respect.

It must have been an intensely bitter discovery for O'Connell, when he perceived these professional classes falling away from him. There is reason to believe that he very soon appreciated the humiliating fact, that so many of his educated countrymen were willing to put themselves up in the market of appointments to be bought at government prices, to do the dirty work of the alien and the oppressor-the very worst feature then and since so conspicuously manifested in the Irish character. For this cause, probably, O'Connell did not promptly follow up the Emanci pation Act by any very vigorous effort for repeal. He knew he had the ignorant masses with him, but the educated portion of the community he knew to be estranged. He was compelled to pause for consideration. Notwithstanding all these discouragements, O'Connell so far kept

the subject of repeal alive as to compel ministers to notice it in the King's speech at the opening of Parliament on the 4th of February, 1834, when William the Fourth was made to say, "I have seen with feelings of deep regret and just indignation, the continuance of attempts to excite the people of that country [Ireland] to demand a repeal of the legislative union. This bond of our national strength and safety I have already declared my fixed and unalterable resolution, under the blessing of Divine Providence, to maintain inviolate by all the means in my power. In support of this determination, I cannot doubt the zealous and effectual co-operation of my Parliament and my people."

In reply to this, O'Connell moved, as an amendment to the address, that the passage should be omitted. He was beaten by 189 to 23, but public attention had been turned to the subject, and petitions rolled in praying for repeal. One of these petitions "for a repeal of the legislative union between Great Britain and Ireland was presented to the Commons on the 22nd of April from Carlisle, where 2,100 signatures had been obtained; and after a number of petitions on the same subject had been presented, O'Connell made an extremely long speech, concluding with the words, "In the name, then, of Ireland, I call upon you to do my country justice. I call upon you to restore her national independence." The speech was to introduce a motion, "That a select committee be appointed to inquire and report on the means by which the dissolution of the Parliament of Ireland was effected; on the effects of that measure upon Ireland; and on the probable consequences of continuing the legislative union between both countries." After several adjournments of a very long debate, the motion was rejected in favour of an amendment by 523 to 38. Mr. Joseph Hume, who had voted in the minority, said "the majority was certainly ample enough for all purposes that were desirable, but oneit would not satisfy the people of Ireland." That was not only true at the time, but prophetic as to the future. The amendment so far acknowledged the necessity for the debate as to propose a conference with the Lords to arrange for presenting a special address to the King,

THE "NATION” NEWSPAPER.

231

expressing a determination, while maintaining the Union, to enact laws for the removal of grievances. The conference eventually met and agreed upon the address, which was duly presented and graciously replied to One of the enactments then promised was the fraudulent pretence of repealing tithes, previously referred to as resulting in the assassination of Lord Norbury-a worthy specimen of those remedial measures that have been so hypocritically foisted ever since upon a smarting people in Ireland and a deluded public in England.

So discontent went seething on, until repeal arrived at its most critical period in 1843. The Municipal Act had been passed in 1840, and had healed many wounds while opening some fresh sores,-the municipal franchise, through the persistency of the Lords, having been fixed at the extremely high figure of £10. The Poor Law Act was quietly irritating the whole community with its maximum of cost and its minimum of relief. Peace acts, arms acts, and other coercion acts, were, in the ordinary course, going gaily on. In the midst of these progressive events, O'Connell established early in 1839 the "Precursor Society," the meaning of the name being that Ireland was now about to make a last appeal for "justice," and that, if this were still denied, the existing society was but the precursor of a new and universal agitation for the repeal of the Union. This movement received considerable impetus from the establishment of the Nation newspaper, in 1842, by Thomas Davis and his friend Dillon, which paper sought to enlist the sympathies of Protestants in the interest of repeal, thus stripping the agitation of a certain suspicion of sectarianism, which, though disavowed by O'Connell, was naturally connected with it by reason of the antecedents of its chief. The editor was Mr. Duffy, but Davis was its chief writer.

Stimulated by the force of these circumstances, and backed by all the clerical and literary force of the country outside the corrupt official circles, O'Connell made his last great effort. It was early in 1843 when he established his "Repeal Association." The associates were to subscribe one shilling per annum, and the members one pound, or procure twenty subscriptions of one shilling. To these were added the