onnell himself. Nor can it be alleged with truth that
he accepted it from mercenary motives, or used it selfishly. His fortune
was small; his position required large expenditure; and it is notorious
that the money he received was not hoarded, nor used to enrich his
family, but employed for political and often charitable purposes which
had the entire approbation of the donors. The Young Irelanders, however,
at first furtively and anonymously, afterwards more or less openly,
and, finally, in the columns of the newspaper press, and in the Repeal
Association itself, stigmatised the rent as mercenary. This new party
divided influence with "the Liberator" upon the boards of the Corn
Exchange, and in public meetings generally, and was the cause of great
distraction in the councils and operations of the Repeal Association.
At first they treated O'Connell as conscientiously wrong-headed on the
subjects of moral and physical force; but they gradually widened their
ground of attack, and suggested that he was actuated by corrupt motives,
not for his own advantage, but in order to obtain places for a host of
needy adventurers who constituted what was termed his "tail." Finally,
they denounced him as a coward, and the abettor therefore of a cowardly
policy: that being afraid to place himself at the head of his armed
countrymen, he affected to abhor bloodshed, and held out a hope which he
knew to be delusive--that Ireland could conquer the restoration of her
legislature by moral, in contradistinction to physical force.

Before noticing further the effect of these differences upon O'Connell
and the Irish repeal party, it is desirable to glance at the character
and talents of the leading Young Irelanders, as these men will occupy
much prominence in the history of succeeding years. Thomas Davis was
generally alleged to be the founder of this section of the repeal party.
He was only a student in Trinity College, Dublin, when he first entered
upon political life. He imbibed early in youth a passionate love of
country, and retained it until his death, which, to the general regret,
occurred in a few years after he had entered upon political life. Mr.
Davis was a poet, although not of a high order; several specimens of
good ballad composition are amongst his remains. He cultivated classic
literature with success; as an antiquary and an historian acquired
reputation; wrote energetically and fluently; spoke in public with
earnestness and force,