of information were commensurate with his anxiety to vindicate the calumniated honour of his country," he was in the habit of undertaking annual journies in the depths of winter, from his residence in Silesia to London and Dublin, to procure an alleviation of their sufferings. No views of leadership mingled with his zeal; his exertions were known but to few, not blazoned forth in newspapers. His rank in the imperial court gave him access to the first circles in Great Britain; bred in camps, and educated in Germany, he impressed on senators and courtiers the impolicy and injustice of the penal code, with the bluntness of a soldier and the honesty of a German his efforts had no small weight in softening the rigour of persecution. His unassuming manners, his elevated station, his great age and venerable appearance, but above all, his ardent zeal in the cause of his oppressed countrymen, procured him a preponderating influence in the councils of the Catholics; that influence was exerted in the great purposes, during a long life, of promoting union, extinguishing dissension, and rousing to exertion. He strained every nerve to procure the concurrence of the nobility and gentry, but met with insuperable obstacles in the pride of an aristocracy of slaves, and in the malignity of party spirit, which shed

its venom on the purest motives, and disseminated the basest falsehoods." Such was the man whose temper and principles, as well as circumstances, were fortunately opposed to the overbearing dictatorship of Lord Trimleston, and who by his earnest and constant identification with the Committee and their measures, contributed mainly for a time to rescue both it and the body at large, from the slavish and chilling supremacy of the aristocracy.

The first ground of difference, the point through which the gradually-accumulating antipathy was allowed to escape, was the Remonstrance; but it soon launched out into accusations and recriminations of a much more personal character. Lord Taaffe supported the Remonstrance; Lord Trimleston opposed it. They were soon followed by their respective adherents. The motives alleged for this opposition, as they have come down to us, appear very unsatisfactory and indistinct; but the reader who follows the current of the history will soon perceive that they were the disguises only which the ancient animosities had for the moment assumed. A more positive source of dissension soon discovered itself. Lord Trimleston had been at the outset entrusted with the public money, subject of course to the interference of

the subscribers; but the Dictator, as he was justly termed, assumed the undivided control, and would suffer no intrenchment on this usurpation, or acknowledge the slightest authority, either on the part of the Committee, or the subscribers themselves, to interfere. This produced a very warm correspondence, in which Lord Taaffe's temper, sound sense, and Irish feeling, are most advantageously and touchingly contrasted to the arrogant conduct of his rival. The public indignation was universally excited; but the Remonstrance, notwithstand

• Mr. O'Conor, who may be considered as speaking the feelings of the Committee, though not actually a member, enters largely and warmly into the merits of this case. "You have laboured surely in vain," says he, (Letter, May, 1761, to Dr. Curry,)-" when, in your representative capacity as a committee, you bear the dictatorial taunts of a single person, who has usurped the property of the public, and who refuses to be accountable for it, except in his own way, not in theirs!" And a little lower-" I would with great deference also urge that, in regard to the uses it should be applied to, there is nothing so difficult as may not come within the extent of our own common penetration, without the dictatorship of any one person who might presume to exert a power over it. He lodged the money in an honest man's hands; but surely he did so under the control of the proprietors, and whether express or tacit, is all alike; the Committee, as representatives of those proprietors, have a right to ease him of the burden, &c. If this dictator

ing every exertion on the part of Lord Taaffe, notwithstanding his own personal contributions to the labours of the Committee, and still more his earnest and frequent communications with Primate Stone, was for the moment quashed, and the Catholics once more flung back, by the very hands which should have most assisted them, to their original state of apathy and despair.*

The administration of Lord Halifax, commencing under the kindest auspices, in a mild and encouraging speech from the throne, contributed for a moment to raise the hopes of the Catholics. But a momentary interval of hope was not sufficient to work a miracle. The old leaven remained; the feud continued: a distracted and timid body, contending by intervals only, and in small numbers, against a compact and energetic oligarchy, long in possession of power, animated by the same spirit, and gifted with a skill and judgment in the wielding and direction of their resources, unexampled in the

should refuse to comply, another course should be taken with him, which I hope may prove effectual in punishing him, without letting our enemies into the secret."

*This is not the only instance in Irish Catholic history of similar discussions arising from a similar cause. (See Walsh's History of the Remonstrance of 1661, First Treatise, Part 1.)

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history of public administrations ;-such a body had little chance of other than the most partial and transitory success, soon to be compensated by some some new conquest, or larger assumption on the part of their antagonists. They were yet fated to endure numerous disappointments, and to fall into numerous and important mistakes, before they could hope to find themselves in the straight and sure path, which conducts to the enjoyment of perfect freedom. The discussions consequent on Lord Trimleston's arrogant retention of the public money were partially got rid of, by Mr. A. M'Dermot's surrendering what he held under his Lordship, and a certain delusive tranquillity was for a moment restored to the deliberations of the body itself; but the repeated and iniquitous rejection of the Elegit bill, to which even personal selfishness would not consent to sacrifice

man.

* Mr. O'Conor fully saw the dangerous results of these contentions, and thought no price too great to purchase future exemption from the violent interference of this noble"Plain it is that Lord T. is meditating some mighty matter for his constituents. I expect no good from him; but if he does any, I do not grudge him the sums left in Mr. M'D.'s hands. He is a disease to our people, and I am confident they will never again subject any part of their property to his most arbitrary management."-Letter to Dr. Curry, Aug. 6th, 1762.