DANIEL O'CONNELL.

(1775-1847.)

DANIEL O'CONNELL, "the greatest popular leader the world has ever seen," as Mr. Gladstone said, was born Aug. 6, 1775, at Carhen, near Cahirciveen, and was educated in France. On the breaking out of the French revolution he was removed for safety from the seminary of St. Omer to Douay, but his liberty and even his life were endangered here, and with some difficulty he escaped. In 1794 he entered Lincoln's Inn as a law student. After two years he was called to the bar, but owing to illness he did not take his place there until the memorable year 1798. He found himself in the midst of rebellion, but, with the memory of the French revolutionary policy still before him, he ranged himself on the side of law and order and proved his loyalty by joining a yeomanry corps got up solely by the lawyers.

He adopted a policy aimed at emancipation of the Roman Catholics in the first place; next the restoration of the Irish Parliament, or, as it was called, Repeal of the Union; and lastly, the disendowment of the Established Church in Ireland. O'Connell made his first public speech on the 13th of January, 1800, in circumstances sufficient to shake the nerves of even a veteran orator, a party of military being present. In this speech, modest and short, O'Connell stated his opposition to the Union, and concluded by challenging every man who felt with him to proclaim his preference of the reenactment of the penal code to union with England.

The veto was a proposal that, with the grant of Catholic emancipation, the power of veto in the appointment of Roman Catholic bishops should rest with the Government. O'Connell opposed this power being vested in Government on any condition; and he was supported by the mass of the people, who were alarmed for the safety of their church. It seemed, however, as if all the powers were leagued in opposition to him. The bishops themselves declared in favor of the measure. But O'Connell's eloquence and persuasion soon caused the bishops to change their mind. The people were with him already, and finally the Pope himself withdrew his opposition. By this agitation two important ends were gained by O'Connell: in the first place the clergy now took an interest in the politics of the country, and the people were aroused to action.

O'Connell married Miss Mary O'Connell, a distant relative, in

1802.

Mr. Lecky, in his 'Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland,' says of O'Connell's success at the bar: "His language was clear, nervous, and fluent, but often incorrect and scarcely ever polished. Having but little of the pride of a rhetorician, he subordinated strictly all other considerations to the end he was seeking to achieve, and readily sacrificed every grace of style in order to procure an immediate effect. A great speech,' he used to say, 'is a very fine thing, but after all the verdict is the thing.' His professional income, which

in the first year of his legal life amounted to about £58 ($290), increased rapidly year by year, till in the year after his marriage it reached £9,000 ($45,000).

Many anecdotes are related of his wonderful abilities as a pleader and of his powers in cross-examination. In one case he was defending a man named James, indicted for murder, and had up for examination a witness who would stop at nothing to criminate the accused. The witness swore positively that a hat found near the body belonged to the prisoner. O'Connell asked to see the hat, proceeded to examine its outside, its top, its rim, and finally entered on a careful inspection of the inside. Turning it round slowly, and repeating the letters "J-a-m-e-s," he said to the witness: "Now, do you mean to tell the court and jury that this name was in the hat when you found it?" "I do, on my oath," replied the witness. "Did you see the name there?" "I did, surely. "This is the same hat; no mistake about it? 'Och, no mistake; it is his hat." "Now you may go down," said O'Connell, triumphantly. "My lord, there is an end of this case. There is no name whatever in the hat."

He found time to address meetings on the subject of Catholic emancipation, and became the acknowledged leader of the people. In 1806 the Whigs came into power, and from this time until 1815 O'Connell was one of the hardest worked men in the kingdom, organizing meetings, keeping his followers within the bounds of the law, and at the same time conducting an enormous and ever-increasing practice. In 1811 he took the house in Merrion Square, Dublin, where he resided for the remainder of his life. In 1813 his greatest forensic speech was made in defense of Magee, the proprietor of the Dublin Evening Post, who was prosecuted for a libel on the Duke of Richmond. In 1815 an unfortunate circumstance occurred, which threw a cloud over O'Connell's life ever after. He had called the Dublin municipal body a "beggarly corporation." Mr. D'Esterre, who was among the poorest of the members, at once construed the speech into a personal insult and challenged O'Connell. They met ; D'Esterre was killed at the first shot, to the intense horror and remorse of his antagonist. Twice afterward he was challenged by Mr. (afterward Sir) Robert Peel, but on both occasions the authorities interfered and prevented the duel.

The movement for Catholic emancipation became very feeble from 1815 to 1819. There had been agitation, speeches, and promised aid from men in power, but with no result, and the Catholic party were almost in despair. It was entirely owing to O'Connell's exertions that the movement did not utterly collapse.

The Irish Catholic Association was organized in 1825 with great care to avoid infringing the Convention Act and other restrictions on the expression of public opinion in Ireland. On the 4th of February, 1824, the motion for establishing the "Catholic Rent" was carried at a meeting of the Association. In 1828 the rent reached the sum of £21,425 ($107,125). The total amount collected amounted to £52,266 ($261,330). This money voluntarily contributed was set apart for Parliamentary expenses, for the cost incident upon meetings, services of the press, legal defenses of Catholics and rebels, and

numerous other outlays connected with the organization of the vast movement. There were three classes who contributed to the rentmembers, volunteers, and associates. The collectors were called Repeal wardens, and held office under the supervision of the priests. There were badges and other insignia of office, and Repeal readingrooms and places of meeting were established everywhere.

The Goverment took alarm, and Lord Liverpool brought a bill into Parliament on Feb. 10, 1825, for the suppression of the Association. O'Connell at once set out for London, and attempted to obtain a hearing at the bar of the House. Although he failed in gaining his end, he managed to exercise great influence on public opinion, Lord Brougham and the Liberals giving him their support. Lord Liverpool and Mr. Peel, however, carried the bill by a majority of 146. The act forbade holding meetings continuously for more than fourteen days, but O'Connell had little difficulty, as he said, in "driving a coach and six" through it. The old association was dissolved, and a new one formed, which arranged to hold fourteen days' continuous meetings annually, and these were most successful. After a long struggle the Catholic disabilities were partially removed in 1829; but O'Connell was refused a seat in the House on the ground that the Emancipation Act had been passed since his election. This was felt by the people as an insult, and because of the rebuff O'Connell afterward cherished a bitter feeling toward Sir Robert Peel, saying that "his smile was like the silver plate on a coffin." Of course he was at once re-elected; but this act of seeming spite served to modify any contented feeling on the part of the people, and induced them to demand and obtain yet more. The higher positions at the bar were now open, and many Roman Catholic barristers received the silk gown. Among these was Sheil, but O'Connell, the most deserving of all, was left out. A temporary suppression of the Catholic Association was accomplished, but O'Connell was constantly evading the proclamations of the Viceroy against his associations, by dissolving them, only to be reformed under new and different names. Now it was "Volunteers for Repeal of the Union," now "Friends of Ireland," again " Anti-Union Association." O'Connell was old enough to remember the Irish Parliament, which he desired to restore, and he felt that, although it may have had its faults, it contained more men of genius and real lovers of their country than had ever been engaged, either before or since, in the ordering of Irish affairs. He also knew well that the unbribed members were for the most part opposed to the Union. To further his views he established in 1839 a society which he called the "Precursor Society." It was, as its name implied, intended to lead up to the demand for Repeal, but its first object was to feel its way by trying how much of "justice to Ireland" could be obtained from the Whigs and Radicals then in power.

In 1841 he was elected Lord Mayor of Dublin, and resided at the Mansion House. In that year the Whigs went out of office, and Sir Robert Peel became Minister. All hope of obtaining repeal from Government being therefore gone, the Precursor Society was changed into the Repeal Association. For two years this body gained ground, and attracted no particular attention from the authorities; indeed

the normal state of the country for years had been agitation in some form. At length, in 1843, O'Connell ceased attending Parliament, declaring that the Repeal year had now come, and at once set about the work of organizing monster meetings and getting up petitions from various Irish corporations praying for Repeal. He declared the Union was false, that it had been obtained by bribery to the amount of two million and a quarter, and that it had been concluded by the weighty and unanswerable argument of twenty-nine thousand soldiers stationed in the country prepared to quell the slightest show of opposition. He pointed to the ruined trade, absenteeism, the money of the country drained out of it, and the manufactures destroyed.

Monster meetings were held in various parts of the country, and Repeal and the temperance cause went hand in hand. Mr. Lecky, in his graphic description of one of them, says: "At daybreak the mighty throng might be seen, broken into detached groups and kneeling on the green sward round their priests, while the incense rose from a hundred rude altars, and the solemn music of the mass floated upon the gale, and seemed to add a consecration to the cause.' And Lord Lytton has described the scene of another in fluent and sonorous verse.

At the fatal Mullaghmast near Dublin-where the English lords of the Pale once invited a number of Irish chiefs to a banquet, and while the feast was in progress had the hall surrounded by a body of troops, who, on a given signal, rushed in and massacred the overconfiding Irish guests-another monster meeting was held. Here the people crowned the Liberator with a cap made like an ancient Irish crown. The Government took the alarm, and notice of a bill for disarming the people of Ireland was given. Ships of war lay near the coast, the barracks were fortified, the military strength was increased, and O'Connell was deprived of his commission as magistrate. A Cabinet council was held, of which O'Connell said they were "consulting whether they would deprive us of our rights, and I know not what the result of that council may be ; but this I know: there was not an Irishman in the council. I may be told the Duke of Wellington was there. Who calls him an Irishman? If a tiger's cub was dropped in a fold, would it be a lamb? The council sat for an entire day, and even then did not conclude its deliberations, but adjourned till next day, while the business of the country was allowed to stand over. What had they to deliberate about? The Repealers were peaceable, loyal, and attached-affectionately attached to the Queen, and determined to stand between her and her enemies. If they assailed us to-morrow, and we conquered them -as conquer them we will one day-the first use of the victory which we would make would be to place the scepter in the hands of her who has ever shown us favor, and whose conduct has been full of sympathy and emotion for our sufferings.'

Another meeting was arranged for the 8th of October, 1843, at Clontarf, and on the preceding Saturday evening a Government proclamation was issued forbidding it. The roads were already thronged with multitudes on their way to the meeting. O'Connell, with the aid of active members of the association, took immediate

measures, and by herculean efforts they managed to stay the influx of the people and send them back peaceably to their homes. The Government, however, now that the first step had been taken, determined to crush the movement, and on the 14th of October warrants were issued for the arrest of O'Connell, his son, and seven of his associates, on the charge of exciting discontent and disaffection among the Queen's subjects. Bail was accepted for their appearance, and in the meantime O'Connell opened Conciliation Hall for the purpose of holding meetings during the ensuing winter. This open defiance determined the Government to proceed rigorously, and he was put on trial with the others at the Queen's Bench, Dublin, Jan. 16, 1844. The jury was notoriously packed, all Roman Catholics being excluded by the Government prosecutor. O'Connell was found guilty on May 30, condemned to two years' imprisonment with a fine of £2,000 ($10,000), and had to give security to keep the peace for seven years. He was conveyed to Richmond the same day, guarded by mounted police and followed by crowds of sympathizers. He wrote to the people, desiring them to conduct themselves quietly and to make no effort for his release.

An appeal against the sentence was brought before the House of Lords in September of the same year, and although O'Connell by his strong language had given many of the members cause to treat him as an enemy, their sense of justice and feeling of honor rose superior to mere personal prejudice, and on the ground of a packed jury the sentence was reversed. The people of Ireland received the decision with delight, and signal-fires blazed the joyful news all over the country. On Sept. 7 O'Connell was released, and was conducted by a monster procession to his own house. While passing the old House of Parliament in College Green, he rose up in his carriage and pointed to it silently. The people loudly cheered him, feeling how much that action expressed.

But O'Connell never recovered his former buoyancy of spirits. He was no longer young, and mind and body were both worn down by the continuous excitement of his life. The Young Ireland party, or the "rash young men of the nation" as he called them, the advocates of armed rebellion, were now a power in the land, and he dreaded the misery which their extreme proceedings might bring upon his country. Blighted hopes and gloomy anticipations did their work: he saw the great agitation for Repeal slackened, the fearful famine and pestilence of 1845-46 deeply affected his mind, and his naturally fine constitution completely broke down. In January, 1847, he left Ireland for the last time, and on the 8th of February he made his last speech in Parliament, when his altered appearance excited the sympathy of even his bitterest opponents. His had been a massive and imposing figure; his features, although not handsome, were full of good-nature and unmistakable genius; his eyes bright and piercing, and his voice deep and musical, with its brogue so melodious to Irish ears. Now his figure was shrunken, his face thin, and his head hanging upon his breast; and the once powerful voice sunk almost to a whisper, so that it was with difficulty his words could be heard. He implored the aid of Parliament for his famine-stricken country: "She is in