impossible to affirm. Many believed that he wrote
in the confidence that no Irish jury, however packed, would find him
guilty; others supposed that he calculated upon a packed jury finding a
verdict against him, but that he felt sure of a popular revolt for his
rescue, and thus desired to precipitate the insurrection. A large
class of persons who did not sympathise with his doctrines and efforts,
alleged that, foreseeing the utter hopelessness of the cause upon which
he had embarked, he desired to bring matters as regarded himself at
once to a conclusion, and as he could not withdraw with honour from the
course he had espoused, he was anxious to incur the lesser penalty for
sedition, than to risk encounter with the queen's forces as the leader
of a bootless insurrection. His sentence was rapidly carried out, the
populace making no effort to save him. The leaders found various excuses
for not at once rising, and Mitchell was carried ignominiously away,
and departed before their eyes, not an arm raised, not a blow struck by
those who vehemently cheered him in his career of folly, and promised to
follow him to the death.

During and immediately previous to these transactions, the Repeal
Association and the Young Irelanders made a great parade, after their
own fashion, for their own ostensible objects. The Young Irelanders
called a convention of three hundred representatives or delegates
from every part of the country; these were, in fact, to be the
representatives of the insurrectionary clubs, ostensibly of the people.
Smith O'Brien, the last time he appeared in the English House of
Commons, had the temerity and absurdity to advise the premier to put
himself in communication with this council of three hundred, and
be guided in his measures by them. This was after the visit of the
honourable member to Paris, to induce the French government to espouse
the cause of insurrection in Ireland. His recommendation was received
with shouts of derisive laughter, and his treason was chastised by the
premier reminding him that he had taken the oath of allegiance, and at
the same time was encompassing the dishonour of the queen's throne.

At a meeting of the Old Irelanders in April, in Conciliation Hall, a Mr.
Aikins in the chair, the following business was transacted, which will
show the position which that party desired publicly to take both to the
Young Irelanders and to the government:--

"Mr. Maurice O'Connell proposed, and Mr. T