le of repeal might be waged. Association after association was
formed by O'Connell, only to be put down by proclamation and to
re-appear under another name. The worst passions of the people were
effectually roused, assassinations became frequent, and Peel's
correspondence with Hardinge, then chief secretary, shows that he fully
recognised the failure of his experiment, as a cure for Irish
anarchy.[101] In the course of this new agitation, O'Connell used most
offensive expressions for which Hardinge called him to account. The
chief secretary's act may have been unjustifiable, but the shuffling and
faint-hearted conduct of O'Connell in declining this and later
challenges provoked by his foul language was fatal to his reputation for
courage. The most insolent of bullies, he never failed to consult his
own personal safety, by professing conscientious objections to duelling,
as well as by keeping just outside the meshes of the criminal law.

[Pageheading: _THE DEATH OF HUSKISSON._]

A few weeks before parliament met a tragical accident closed the life of
Huskisson, whose death was rendered all the more impressive by its
circumstances. In 1825 the idea of railways for the rapid conveyance of
goods and passengers bore fruit in an act for the construction of a line
between Liverpool and Manchester. It was not in itself a new idea, for
tramways had long been in use, and so far back as 1814 George Stephenson
had constructed a locomotive engine for a colliery. But it was generally
believed that such engines must always be limited to a speed of a few
miles an hour, and even the great engineer, Telford, giving evidence
before a committee in 1825, did not venture to speak of a higher maximum
speed than fifteen or twenty miles an hour. Few indeed were far-sighted
enough to credit this estimate, and the incredulity of ignorance was
aided by the forces of self-interest, for the profits of canals,
stage-coaches, and carriers' vans were directly threatened by the
innovation of railways. However, George Stephenson quietly persevered,
and from the moment that his pioneer engine, the "Rocket," won the prize
in a great competition of locomotives, "the old modes of transit were
changed throughout the whole civilised world". On September 15, 1830,
the first public trial of this and other engines was made at the opening
of the Liverpool and Manchester railway. Wellington, Peel, and other
eminent personages were present, among whom was Huskisson,