been recently achieved, and I sincerely
believed that from that epoch a new course of policy would be adopted
towards Ireland. I persuaded myself that thenceforth the statesmen of
Great Britain would spare no effort to repair the evils produced by
centuries of misgovernment--that the Catholic and Protestant would be
admitted to share on equal terms in all the advantages resulting from
our constitutional form of government--that all traces of an ascendancy
of race or creed would be effaced--that the institutions of Ireland
would be gradually moulded so as to harmonise with the opinions of its
inhabitants, and that in regard of political rights, legislation for
both kingdoms would be based upon the principle of perfect equality."

Fourteen years had elapsed from the date of Catholic Emancipation, when
O'Brien startled the aristocrats of Ireland by renouncing his allegiance
to their party, and throwing himself heart and soul into the vanguard of
the people. He told his reasons for the change in bold convincing words.
He had seen that his expectations of justice were false and delusive.
"The feelings of the Irish nation," he said, "have been exasperated by
every species of irritation and insult; every proposal tending to
develop the sources of our industry--to raise the character and improve
the condition of our population, has been discountenanced, distorted, or
rejected. Ireland, instead of taking its place as an integral portion of
the great empire, which the valour of her sons has contributed to win,
has been treated as a dependent tributary province; and at this moment,
after forty-three years of nominal union, the affections of the two
nations are so entirely alienated from each other, that England trusts
for the maintenance of their connection, not to the attachment of the
Irish people, but to the bayonets which menace our bosoms, and the
cannon which she has planted in all our strongholds."

The prospects of the Repeal movement were not at their brightest when
O'Brien entered Conciliation Hall. In England, and in Ireland too, the
influence of O'Connell was on the wane, and with the dispersion of the
multitudes that flocked on that Sunday morning in October, 1843, to
listen to the Liberator on the plains of Clontarf, the peaceful policy
which he advocated received its death blow. Over O'Connell himself, and
some of the most outspoken of his associates, a State prosecution was
impending; and the arm of the government