ay of meeting (June 22nd) a letter was read from Mr.
O'Connell, expressing "the bitterest regret at the efforts being made
by some of their juvenile members to create dissension in the
Association." "To silence all unworthy cavilling," he desired that the
solemn pledge of the Rotunda be read after his letter, and copies
thereof posted in the Hall. This letter was the signal for an attack on
the Seceders by James Fitzpatrick, who is now enjoying his reward in
shape of a lucrative office on the coast of Africa. Another discussion
followed, in which Messrs. Mitchel, Barry, O'Gorman and myself repelled
the charge urged against us by Lord John Russell, to the effect that we
were separatists.

The discussion which followed was an angry one. Fierce denunciations
against the Whigs proceeded from the Seceders, which were answered by
the Old Irelanders, as they called themselves, with clap-trap allusions
to the name and fame of the "Liberator." The audience were indisposed to
be duped, and so strong and general was the aversion to a Whig
compromise, that Mr. D. O'Connell, jun. was denied a hearing, and even
the Secretary found it difficult to command a moment's attention.

The next letter from Mr. O'Connell, was written after the accession of
the Whigs. It, too, evidently bore the impress of that controlling fact.
The writer enumerated twelve measures (excluding Repeal) "without which
no British minister should dream of bidding for the people of Ireland."
On the whole, the letter, which was long and elaborate, was an
unmistakable though very guarded advice to give another trial to the
Whigs. Mr. O'Brien, in moving that it be inserted on the minutes,
pressed his conviction that the "millions would never abandon Repeal."
He concluded by reading a resolution, pro posed in 1842 and seconded by
Mr. O'Connell himself, to the effect that the Whigs were as inimical to
Repeal as the Tories; and that no honest Repealer could vote for a Whig
representative. Mr. O'Brien, on this occasion, took a wrong course.
Instead of moving that the letter be inserted on the minutes, he should
have moved its rejection, as containing doctrines subversive of
principle and inconsistent with the solemn pledges of the nation. He
was, no doubt, influenced by a desire to preserve unanimity; but the
unanimity which is based on the disruption of most binding obligations
is weaker and more fatal than any division. One paramount advantage
would result from at once