wickedness, in the ruin entailed upon so many of their order by the Union. Much popular inaction was caused by O'Connell's postponement of Repeal for the celebrated "six years' experiment" on which he had embarked. The people of Ireland never entered with any heartiness into that experiment. They had a strong instinctive feeling that it would not succeed. And they thought, that were it even successful, no amount of minor acquisitions could supply to Ireland the want of a resident Parliament.

That such was also O'Connell's own conviction is evident, from the following passage in a private letter, quoted by Mr. Fagan, M.P. for Cork, in his "Life and Times of O'Connell."

"But," asks the Liberator, "may not the Repeal be dispensed with if we get beneficial measures without it? This is a serious question, and one upon which good men may differ; but it is my duty to make up my mind upon it, and I have made up my mind accordingly, that there can be no safety, no permanent prosperity for Ireland without a Repeal of the Union. This is my firm, my unalterable conviction."

I need scarcely add that it is also the firm and unalterable conviction of the Irish people.

In the beginning of 1838, the Liberator gave a proof of his indifference to all popularity which was

not founded on the only just title to public favourhonesty of purpose united with practical utility. Combinations of workmen to compel their employers to increase their wages had become general in Dublin. The results were necessarily ruinous to the short-sighted combinators themselves. The shipwrights were the greatest sufferers; the ship-building trade having nearly been destroyed in Dublin by this foolish and fatal policy. O'Connell denounced the combination system as being unjust in its principle and ruinous in its results. Amongst the combinators were hundreds of his warmest political adherents. They instantly mutinied against him; and for several successive days he was mobbed and hooted at the Royal Exchange. He continued his opposition, undaunted by the outcry; and calmly awaited the period when the combinators should return to their senses ; different as to the tenure of any popularity which could be endangered by honest perseverance in the cause of truth and public usefulness. He was taxed with having theretofore charged the decay of trade in Dublin on the Union; "whereas now," said his accusers, "you charge it on our combination."

in

"Both causes operate," was his reply. "If a man suffers from a headache, that is no reason why he

will not suffer still more if a toothache be added to it. The Union struck a heavy blow to trade-combination will complete the mischief.”

O'Connell's exertions were finally successful: his opponents abandoned the Combination System.

CHAPTER III.

Journey to Mount Melleraye-Foundling Hospital-Judge Norbury-The Catholics and their "natural Leaders"-Peter Bodkin Hussey-Jack Lawless-Anecdote of the Clare Election-Approach to Melleraye-The Monastery-Reception of O'Connell-O'Connell a Novelist !" Viscount O'Connell" -Offer of a Seat on the Bench.

IN August, 1838, the Liberator quitted Dublin for the monastery of Mount Melleraye, in the county of Waterford, where he intended to spend a few days in retreat. I was anxious to see that establishment, and he gave me a seat in his carriage. When travelling, he was usually very communicative, and every place of any interest along the road elicited some anecdote or reminiscence. On this journey, he talked much of his own achievements in the long struggle for Catholic Emancipation, and gave some sketches of his political fellow labourers.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon of a clear sunny day when we left town. On passing the

Foundling Hospital at the western end of the city, O'Connell said to me, "That is one of the institutions of mistaken philanthropy. It encouraged vice by affording an easy mode of disposing of its consequences. And then there was the hideous risk of incestuous marriages, from the foundlings' ignorance of their relationship to each other, or to the rest of the world. The late Dr. Troy, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, distinctly traced proofs, that in one case a youth brought up in that foundling hospital had married his own mother!"

A little further on were the roofless remains of the old Court House of Kilmainham.

"That ruin," said Mr. O'Connell," was a busy place after the rebellion. Its unpopular celebrity was commemorated in a ballad that began, I think, thus:

'Harkforward, Kilmainham! harkforward, Kilmainham ! We'll hang 'em, we'll hang 'em, before we arraign 'em. Old Toler* leads the bloody hunt,

This day some wretch must die." "

He then began to speak of his own recollections of the rebellion, of the Union (on which he made his maiden speech), and of the subsequent position of the Catholic cause.

*The late Judge Norbury, of punning and hanging notoriety.