e portals to those who had ceased to be
welcome there, because of their connection with the repeal agitation.
O'Connell's reiterated declaration, that the Young Ireland leaders did
not possess the intelligence, experience, tact, or discretion to conduct
any great movement, much less one of such magnitude and peril as they
proposed, made a deep impression on the minds of the people, and checked
the insurgent progress of these eloquent declaimers.

A circumstance occurred in the English house of commons, in the early
part of the year, which damaged the _prestige_ of Smith O'Brien, and
although O'Connell exerted himself in parliament on his behalf, the
event gave the arch-agitator satisfaction. He had many a private joke
at the expense of O'Brien, and few men could wound with a brighter point
than O'Connell in his best moods of satire. Mr. O'Brien was nominated
on a committee, and refused to serve, alleging that the affairs of his
country were so neglected that he would not attend to any other business
than such as related to it. This was untrue, the affairs of Ireland
had for some years occupied much of the attention of the house, and,
moreover, if Mr. O'Brien did not choose to be amenable to the rules
of the assembly, he ought to have resigned his seat. Persisting in his
refusal to serve on the committee, he was, by order of the speaker,
taken into custody by the serjeant-at-arms, and confined to a chamber
within the precincts. After some time he was released, upon the motion
of Mr. Shaw, an Irish Conservative member. The obstinate conduct of
Mr. O'Brien, on this occasion, vindicated no principle and asserted no
right; it caused his own pure patriotism to be suspected, and brought
his country and himself into ridicule.

Such was the political condition of Ireland when 1846 closed in cold and
gloom over its sickening, starving population. The year expired in
the midst of the most frightful social condition to which any European
people had ever been reduced. O'Connell too truly described it, in one
of his strange and varied harangues in the Repeal Association, in the
following manner:--He commenced by saying, that he deeply regretted to
be obliged to announce that the state of the country was tenfold worse
than it was that day week. The frost had set in, and cold and hunger
were doing their work--in fact, starvation was stalking through the
land. In Connaught there were no less than forty-seven deaths
from starvation with