required from the candidates. The people prepared to act on this recommendation. The county, city, and boroughs of Cork were on the alert. I name them particularly, because I had personal experience of the southern agitation. Feargus O'Connor (now M.P. for Nottingham), incessantly traversed the county of Cork from end to end during the summer and autumn of 1832, addressing public meetings on national grievances, working up the registration of the county electors, and inflaming the masses with a strong desire to rescue the county from both Whigs and Tories. The city and boroughs took care of their own interests; and at the general election in 1832, out of eight members there were six Repealers, one Whig, and one Tory returned.* The elections over, O'Connell invited the Irish representatives to assemble in a "National Council" in Dublin. Many of their number obeyed the invitation. I must own that I did so, in the confident expectation that the leader would lay before us a plan for the agitation of Repeal in Parliament during the ensuing session. But O'Connell did not * I was elected for Mallow. It has often been publicly alleged that O'Connell influenced my election. He had nothing whatever to do with it, not having been even consulted. Equally untrue is the assertion of the Daily News that O'Connell "thrust Feargus O'Connor on the county Cork Electors." To Feargus alone is his election of 1832 attributable. think the question had yet acquired sufficient popular strength to render prudent a Repeal campaign in the English House of Commons. Much disappointment was the result of this opinion. Still greater disappointment arose from the total silence observed in the "National Council" on Repeal; this silence was excused on the ground that some of the persons who composed it were anti-repealers, and were induced to attend it on the faith of our carefully avoiding the forbidden topic. But copious materials for arriving at Repeal conclusions were submitted to the council by Michael Staunton, now Lord Mayor of Dublin. He was introduced by O'Connell on our first day of meeting, and presented us with financial details illustrative of the mismanagement of Irish resources by the English Parlia ment. Rumours at this time were rife that ministers intended to introduce a Coercion Bill for Ireland at an early period of the approaching session. O'Connell defied them. He thought it quite impossible that they could have very large English support. The Reform Bill-a new charter of liberty for England-had just been carried by an Irish majority in the House of Commons; and he judged it quite chimerical to suppose that the first Reformed Parliament-indebted for its reformation to Irish 7 assistance-would disgrace itself by requiting that assistance with an attack upon the liberties of Ireland. Feargus O'Connor's recent victory over Whiggism and Toryism in the county Cork elicited O'Connell's admiration. Speaking to me of Feargus one day at that period, he emphatically said, “He is a MAN." At a subsequent period he criticised Feargus's declamatory powers; remarking that his harangues were exciting, "but that there was too much bragging about conquering and trampling under foot in them. He also talks in a tone of leadership: now," continued O'Connell, "I never did so: on the contrary, I have always professed myself quite ready to follow the lead of any body who should work harder or better than I did; and my command is only the more readily obeyed on that account." The commencement of the session found the Irish members in London. There I occasionally met O'Connell, and we sometimes conversed on Repeal, respecting which measure I was anxious to elicit his policy and purposes. He was quite decided upon one point; namely, the imprudence of introducing the question prematurely into Parliament, "But," said I, “you will watch the earliest opportunity for its judicious introduction, and strike when the right moment comes?” “Trust me for that, my dear fellow," was his answer. One morning, at his house in Albemarle-street, the same subject was spoken of. He said he would first try to get all he possibly could from the Imperial Parliament, in the shape of an increased number of representatives, enlarged franchises, &c. He ended by quoting the following lines :— "Oh Erin! Shall it e'er be mine Between my labours and the grave." The Coercion Bill was introduced by the government. O'Connell's opposition to it forms one of the most brilliant and best sustained displays of vigorous ability in the annals of parliamentary debate. In an assembly, of which the great majority were politically and personally hostile to him, he yet held his ground, displaying a dexterity and promptitude in attack, a readiness in reply, and an inexhaustible fertility of resource. If O'Connell's fame were to be measured by one grand display of unrivalled ability, then I should point to the session of 1833 as the crowning glory of his parliamentary life. It must be admitted, that the resistance to coercion gave abundant exercise to his energies, without his encumbering himself with a repeal debate. Night after night, he confronted the ablest men in England; and, so far as the war of argument was concerned, he certainly kept them at bay. He fought, moreover, almost single-handed; for, with the exception of one or two good speeches from Sheil, he had really no assistance of any great value. He, however, made a concession to the enemies of Repeal in the earlier part of the session, which no motives of parliamentary expediency should have extorted from him. Taunted by Lord (then Mr.) Stanley, with the contrast between his energetic advocacy of Repeal in Ireland, and his careful avoidance of that subject in Parliament, he spoke as follows: "As long as I saw the utility of British connexion, and an immense utility may exist, I should prefer seeing this house doing justice to my countrymen, rather than that it should be done by a local legislature. I repeat it, this avowal is likely to be turned against me in Ireland; but I adhere to it, for it is my abstract opinion. If I thought that the machinery of the present government would work well for Ireland, there never lived a man more |