resources. I am perfectly well aware that you
don't desire to lead or influence others; but I believe, with Lamartine,
that that feeling which is a high personal and civic virtue, is a vice
in revolutions. If I were Smith O'Brien, I would strike out in my
own mind, or with such counsel as I valued, a definite course for the
revolution, and labour incessantly to develop it in that way."

Had Mr. Duffy desired to precipitate a weak man--the leader of other
weak men--into certain ruin, these extracts, and the letter from which
they are taken, would be perfectly consistent and intelligible. Had
Mr. Duffy himself been quite sure of escape, by some means, from the
consequences of insurrection, and had he desired to aid the government
in bringing the disaffection existing into actual maturity, such a mode
of addressing the proud, brave, and honest man to whom he wrote, would
be rational; but with the clergy and gentry of all sects in Ireland
adverse to any such movement, and with a fourth at least of all
the other classes in Ireland, except the mere peasantry, equally
hostile,--while many of those favourable to the Confederation were
afraid to move hand or foot in its behalf,--such a letter, written by
a man who ought from his position to have known Ireland well, is one of
the most extraordinary episodes in the history of the eminently foolish
transactions of the party.

After the wild affair at Boulagh Common, Smith O'Brien became a
fugitive. There was no more preparedness or spirit to rise in his behalf
than there had been for Mitchell; and indeed so destitute were leaders
and people of any military knowledge or resources, that in any effort
against the soldiery, the insurgents would have gone forth as sheep to
the slaughter.

On the 5th of August O'Brien was arrested at the Thurles railway
station, having taken a ticket at that place for Limerick. He was
recognised by Hulme, a guard on the Great Southern and Western Railway,
and the police and military were promptly summoned to Hulme's aid.
General M'Donald treated the prisoner with all possible courtesy, and
sent him to Dublin. The courtesies of the gallant general were rather
disdainfully repelled. Mr. O'Brien requested his portmanteau to be sent
for, as it contained various necessaries. This request was granted, but
all papers which it contained were abstracted by the Irish secretary,
and several documents and letters from the other leaders, of a
treasonable nature, w