Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS

OF THE LATE

DANIEL O'CONNELL, M.P.

BY WILLIAM J. O'N. DAUNT, ESQ.,

OF KILCASCAN, COUNTY CORK.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186, STRAND.

MDCCCXLVIII.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS

OF

O'CONNELL.

CHAPTER I.

Parson Crampton throwing Stones at his own Windows-Parson Hamilton firing at his own Effigy-Parson Hawkesworth's romantic Affair with Miss Fitzgerald-Newspaper Notoriety -Reminiscences of Country Inns-O'Connell's Contrast between Whig and Tory Governments, and their several Bearings on the Agitation-Civil War of 1798-" Memoir on Ireland"-Misgovernment continued for Centuries-O'Connell on his own Notoriety, and his Nomination to the Throne of Belgium.

ON the 16th of August our usual agitating staff attended a Repeal meeting at Drogheda. Returning, on the following day, O'Connell laughed heartily at the detection of the Rev. Mr. Crampton in the act of throwing stones at his own windows; the reverend gentleman having complained É VOL. II.

B

of attacks upon his house, and procured the attendance of a party of police to protect him from the aggressions of the Popish conspirators. Two of the police who were placed on this duty detected Mr. Crampton, at night, throwing stones at the windows. The reverend gentleman's explanation was, that he did so in order to test the vigilance of his guard. But if he had not been caught in the fact, we probably should never have heard a single word of this" ingenious device."

"These parsons occasionally do very curious things," said O'Connell. "Several years ago, a parson at Roscrea, named Hamilton, dressed up a figure to represent himself; seated it at table, with a pair of candles before it, and a Bible, which the pseudo-parson seemed to be intently studying. He then stole out, and fired through the window at the figure. It was a famous case of Popish atrocity-a pious and exemplary clergyman, studying the sacred word of God, brutally fired at by a Popish assassin! He tried to get a man named Egan convicted of the crime; but having the temerity to appear as a witness himself, it came out upon cross-examination that the reverend divine was entitled to the sole and undivided glory of the transaction."*

See "Ireland and her Agitators" for a full detail of this curious transaction; the particulars of which were furnished to the present writer by a member of the Egan family.

« AnkstesnisTęsti »