d to be a member of the Association. There was another cause too
for his secession. A standing taunt in the mouth of the English press
was that O'Connell pocketed the peoples' money and took care to let
nobody know what he did with it. To put an end to this reproach Mr.
Martin asked that the accounts of the Association should be published.
"Publish the accounts!" shrieked the well-paid gang that marred the
influence and traded in the politics of O'Connell: "Monstrous!" and they
silenced the troublesome purist by suppressing his letters and expelling
him from the Association. In the ranks of the Confederates, however,
Martin found more congenial society; amongst them he found men as
earnest, as sincere, and as single-minded as himself, and by them the
full worth of his character was soon appreciated. He frequently attended
their meetings, and he it was who filled the chair during the prolonged
debates that ended with the temporary withdrawal of Mitchel from the
Confederation. When the _United Irishman_ was started he became a
contributor to its columns, and he continued to write in its pages up to
the date of its suppression, and the conviction of its editor and
proprietor.

There were many noble and excellent qualities which the friends of John
Martin knew him to possess. Rectitude of principle, abhorrence of
injustice and intolerance, deep love of country, the purity and
earnestness of a saint, allied with the kindliness and inoffensiveness
of childhood; amiability and disinterestedness, together with a perfect
abnegation of self, and total freedom from the vanity which affected a
few of his compatriots--these they gave him credit for, but they were
totally unprepared for the lion-like courage, the boldness, and the
promptitude displayed by him, when the government, by the conviction of
Mitchel, flung down the gauntlet to the people of Ireland. Hastily
settling up his worldly accounts in the North, he returned to Dublin to
stake his fortune and his life in the cause which he had promised to
serve. The _United Irishman_ was gone, but Martin had undertaken that
its place in Irish Journalism should not be vacant; and a few weeks
after the office in Trinity-street was sacked he reoccupied the violated
and empty rooms, and issued there-from the first number of the _Irish
Felon_. There was no halting place in Irish Journalism then. The
_Nation_ had already flung peace and conciliation and "balmy
forgiveness" to the winds, an