irit of the age forbids
it. The agitation will go on, for it is spreading among men who, to use
the words of the eloquent Shiel, while looking out upon the ocean, and
gazing upon the shore, which Nature has guarded with so many of her
bulwarks, can hear the language of Repeal muttered in the dashing of the
very waves which separate them from Great Britain by a barrier of God's
own creation. Another bloodless victory, we trust, awaits O'Connell,--a
victory worthy of his heart and intellect, unstained by one drop of human
blood, unmoistened by a solitary tear.

Ireland will be redeemed and disenthralled, not perhaps by a repeal of
the Union, but by the accomplishment of such a thorough reform in the
government and policy of Great Britain as shall render a repeal
unnecessary and impolitic.

The sentiments of O'Connell in regard to the means of effecting his
object of political reform are distinctly impressed upon all his appeals
to the people. In his letter of December, 1832, to the Dublin Trades
Union, he says: "The Repealers must not have our cause stained with
blood. Far indeed from it. We can, and ought to, carry the repeal only
in the total absence of offence against the laws of man or crime in the
sight of God. The best revolution which was ever effected could not be
worth one drop of human blood." In his speech at the public dinner given
him by--the citizens of Cork, we find a yet more earnest avowal of
pacific principles. "It may be stated," said he, "to countervail our
efforts, that this struggle will involve the destruction of life and
property; that it will overturn the framework of civil society, and give
an undue and fearful influence to one rank to the ruin of all others.
These are awful considerations, truly, if risked. I am one of those who
have always believed that any political change is too dearly purchased by
a single drop of blood, and who think that any political superstructure
based upon other opinion is like the sand-supported fabric,--beautiful in
the brief hour of sunshine, but the moment one drop of rain touches the
arid basis melting away in wreck and ruin! I am an accountable being; I
have a soul and a God to answer to, in another and better world, for my
thoughts and actions in this. I disclaim here any act of mine which
would sport with the lives of my fellow-creatures, any amelioration of
our social condition which must be purchased by their blood. And here,
in the face of God a