bited in a contested
election for the county of Clare, when Mr. O'Connell adopted the novel
experiment of offering himself a candidate for the representation. His
opponent was Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, an advocate for emancipation; but
his votes and speeches were considered only as a mockery, while the
government to which he belonged was based on the principle of exclusion;
and Mr. O'Connell was declared duly returned. The agitator had pledged
his professional character as a lawyer, not merely, that, although a
Catholic, he was capable of being elected, but that he could sit
and vote in the house of commons. After his election, a petition was
presented against his return to the house of commons; but the season was
so far advanced, that no decision could be pronounced upon it before
the prorogation of parliament, and the matter rested as it was, Mr.
O'Connell promising to demand his seat in the ensuing session. In the
meantime this triumph of the Association urged them to arrange more
extended plans of conquest; for it appeared that it might be practicable
to carry into effect their threat of returning all the county members of
Ireland. With these views a plan was formed and executed, with the aid
and agency of the priests, to break that link which united the Catholic
forty-shilling freeholders with their landlords. Certain tests were
framed, and resolutions adopted, to reject every candidate who should
decline a pledge to oppose the Duke of Wellington's administration,
and to vote for parliamentary reform, as well as for the repeal of the
subletting-act. The plan which the Association adopted to confirm and
extend its power was well fitted to compass the objects it had in
view. In almost every county liberal clubs were established, under the
direction of the Association, for the purpose of receiving and adopting
the pledges, and drilling the county to be in readiness to act upon
them on the instant, if required. The agitators, indeed, restrained the
Catholic peasantry from habitual outrage and lawless violence, but at
the same time they assembled them in large companies, regularly trained
for the exertion of physical force, and anxious for its display, if
necessary. The state of Ireland at this period was powerfully
portrayed by Mr. Shiel, at a meeting held in full force at Munster. He
remarked:--"What has government to dread from our resentment in peace?
An answer is supplied by what we actually behold. Does not a tremendous