Speeches of O’Connell—Crowning of the Liberator on the Hill of Tara—Prohibition of a proposed Meeting at Clontarf—Arrest of the Chief Agitators—Trial, Condemnation, and Sentences—The Convictions annulled by the House of Lords—Release of O’Connell, and Final Years of his Life—Effect of the Prosecution on the Government of Sir Robert Peel—Death of Prince Albert’s Father—Visit of the Prince to Saxe-Coburg-Gotha—His Presents to the Queen on her Birthday (1844)—Visits of the King of Saxony and the Emperor of Russia to England—Appearance and Manners of the Emperor—Political Objects of Nicholas in Visiting London—His Designs on Turkey—Memorandum of Agreement between the Czar and the English Government—Jealousy on the Part of the French—Ministerial Crisis in the Summer of 1844—Sir James Graham and the Opening of Letters at the Post Office—Disagreement with France with Respect to the Island of Tahiti—The Pritchard Affair—Queen Pomare and Queen Victoria—Anxieties of the English Court as to the Maintenance of Peace—The Ashburton Treaty with the United States.
Ireland, always more or less disturbed, was excited nearly to the point of rebellion in 1843, owing to an agitation for the Repeal of the Union which had been originated by Daniel O’Connell, one of the most remarkable men of that epoch. O’Connell belonged to a good but impoverished family in Kerry, and was brought up as a lawyer. But Nature had designed him for little else than a political agitator, and the demand for Roman Catholic Emancipation, which began to acquire force in the early part of the present century, drew him into the whirlpool of public life. Whatever his faults and errors, he was unquestionably a devoted son of the Church to which he and his family belonged; and the Romanists of this realm suffered at that time from many unjust disabilities. In a few years he became the leader of the movement; and when the Act of 1829 was passed, O’Connell was regarded by the great mass of the Irish people as a hero who could always lead them to victory. When a very young man, he was opposed to the union of the English and Irish Legislatures, and in 1841 he renewed an earlier agitation in favour of repealing that arrangement. As long as the Whigs were in power, or nearly so, O’Connell kept the national excitement within reasonable bounds; for he hoped to extort a good deal from a party which depended on extraneous support, and he was prepared to take less than his full demand, in the belief that an instalment in one year would prepare the way for complete payment in another. But, when it became evident that Sir Robert Peel would soon be Prime Minister, it was considered that nothing could be obtained except by means of an agitation carried to the extreme verge of legality, and apparently, if not really, threatening to pass beyond it.
The aims of O’Connell were far more national than political. He was studying in France when the great Revolution broke out, and its horrors made such an impression on his mind that he returned to his own country “half a Tory at heart.” His views were never what might be called Radical or democratic—though in many respects liberal; but he was a consummate demagogue—that is to say, a man gifted with a marvellous capacity of exciting, swaying, and controlling the mobs which were at once the sources and the subjects of his power. To these results, his commanding figure, expressive countenance, and splendid voice, contributed not a little. It may be doubted if there has ever been so accomplished an agitator in the modern world: those of the ancient republics spoke to much smaller audiences. One secret of his success (so far as he can be said to have succeeded) lay in the complete harmony which existed between himself and the majority of the Irish people. His face declared him to be an unmixed Celt, of the Hibernian variety; and not merely his face, but every throb of his nature. Passionate, impulsive, violent in thought and in expression, boastful, wayward, pathetic, and humorous, he drew from all these qualities a species of eloquence peculiarly suited to the audiences he addressed. In the open air, on a bleak hill-side, he would bring together thousands of half-barbarian peasantry, and play upon them, as a master plays upon an instrument. He had the almost unparalleled gift of stimulating his hearers to the very brink of some mad outbreak, and of restraining them at the last moment. It must be recorded to the credit of O’Connell that he always repudiated and condemned the resort to physical force, and that he did actually avoid it. Yet the turmoil he created was almost as distracting as civil war, and the gigantic failure of the Repeal movement was written in gloomy characters all over Ireland.
O’Connell had sat in the Imperial Parliament since 1829; and even in the House of Commons his fervid and headlong eloquence was often most impressive. But his greatest triumphs belonged, doubtless, to what may be called the platform order of oratory. The champion of Repeal had an unexampled command over the vocabulary of abuse; though it must be admitted that some of his opponents were not far behind in this effective accomplishment. Not only was O’Connell in the habit of referring, in general terms, to “the base, brutal, and bloody Saxon” (by whom, it may be necessary to explain, he meant the English people), but he attacked particular individuals with a ferocity of invective which was frequently more ludicrous than terrible. Unquestionably he had some of the characteristics of a great orator; yet his style was often tawdry, and his sentiment overwrought. Partly, perhaps, by virtue of these very characteristics, he acquired such an influence over the Roman Catholic Irish that there were but few things they would not have done, or abstained from doing, at a word from him. How far he was an honest man, is a subject which has been much disputed. It seems impossible to doubt that he loved his country, however imprudently; but it is also very difficult not to believe that he loved himself quite as much. In order to carry on his agitation, he called for the formation of a fund which came to be termed the Repeal Rent, and which was derived almost entirely from the weekly contributions of the poverty-stricken cotters of Ireland. These payments went into the hands of the Liberator, as O’Connell was fondly called; and it was asserted by many that the larger part was expended by him on his own gratifications. His advocates defend him in this respect by saying that he gave up a magnificent practice at the bar for the sake of conducting the Repeal movement, and that therefore he had a moral claim to some other source of income. But this is surely making patriotism easy, and even pleasant, after a fashion never before dreamt of by patriots of exalted character. It would appear also that in some instances O’Connell wrung their contributions from
DANIEL O’CONNELL.
the peasantry by absolute coercion, and that his ordinary dealings with his own tenants were particularly bad, since he acted as a “Middleman,” who appropriated three times as much rent as he paid to the head-landlord.16 It is no answer to such statements to say that O’Connell died poor, for the Repeal Rent—long the chief source of his income—had dwindled to nothing for some few years before his death.
At the beginning of 1843, the Liberator declared that that year was and should be “the Repeal Year.” He had for several months been endeavouring to strike a blow at British commerce by directing his followers to refuse all articles of British manufacture, and by setting an example in the garments which he himself wore. But this had very little effect; for the poor, who form the majority in Ireland, could not afford to indulge their national antipathies at the cost of higher-priced and probably inferior goods. It was therefore necessary to hold open-air meetings on a gigantic scale and in quick succession, though in 1843 the arch-agitator was about sixty-eight years of age. O’Connell not unfrequently touched on the land question which has given so much trouble in more recent times, and flattered Irish agriculturists with the hope of obtaining farms at no great sacrifice on their own parts. But the main object of his life, after the achievement of Roman Catholic Emancipation, was the passing of a measure for Repeal. The methods he pursued were sometimes not a little puzzling to English minds. While using language towards the British Parliament and the British people which looked like an indirect incentive to rebellion, notwithstanding its saving clauses, O’Connell would pour out the most flattering homage to the Queen; even prophesying that the time would come when her Majesty would gladly fly from her Tory enemies, and seek refuge among her faithful Irish—with a view, it would seem to have been implied, of ruling England from Ireland. All this nonsense pleased those who listened to it; but it was only so much byplay. The real agitation was far more serious; at one time it looked formidable. From the spring to the autumn of 1843, numerous meetings (generally on Sunday, that more might attend) were held in various parts of Ireland, at the bidding of O’Connell, and with the sanction of the priesthood of all grades. They were attended by enormous numbers, several