the iniquity of which, even among English writers, is now proclaimed and execrated.  By fraud and by force that outrage on law, on right, and justice, was consummated.  In speaking thus I speak “sedition.”  No one can write the facts of Irish history, without committing sedition.  Yet every writer and speaker now will tell you that the overthrow of our national constitution, sixty-seven years ago, was an iniquitous and revolting scheme.  But do you, then, marvel that the laws imposed on us by the power that perpetrated that deed are not revered, loved, and respected?  Do you believe that that want of respect arises from the “seditions” of men like my fellow-traversers and myself?  Is it wonderful to see estrangement between a people and laws imposed on them by the over-ruling influence of another nation?  Look at the lessons—­unhappy lessons—­taught our people by that London legislature where their own will is overborne.  Concessions refused and resisted as long as they durst be withheld; and when granted at all, granted only after passion has been aroused and the whole nation been embittered.  The Irish people sought Emancipation.  Their great leader was dogged at every step by hostile government proclamations and crown prosecutions.  Coercion act over coercion act was rained upon us; yet O’Connell triumphed.  But how and in what spirit was Emancipation granted?  Ah there never was a speech more pregnant with mischief, with sedition, with revolutionary teaching—­never words tended more to bring law and government into contempt—­than the words of the English premier when he declared Emancipation must, sorely against his will, be granted if England would not face a civil war.  That was a bad lesson to teach Irishmen.  Worse still was taught them.  O’Connell, the great constitutional leader, a man with whom loyalty and respect for the laws was a fundamental principle of action, led the people towards further liberation—­the liberation, not of a creed, but a nation.  What did he seek?  To bring once more the laws and the national will into accord; to reconcile the people and the laws by restoring the constitution of queen, lords, and commons.  How was he met by the government?  By the nourish of the sword; by the drawn sabre and the shotted gun, in the market place and the highway.  “Law” finally grasped him as a conspirator, and a picked jury gave the crown then, as now, such verdict as was required.  The venerable apostle of constitutional doctrines was consigned to prison, while a sorrowing—­aye, a maddened nation, wept for him outside.  Do you marvel that they held in “disesteem” the law and government that acted thus?  Do you marvel that to-day, in Ireland, as in every century of all those through which I have traced this state of things, the people and the law scowl upon each other?  Gentlemen, do not misunderstand the purport of my argument.  It is not for the purpose—­it would be censurable—­of merely opening the wounds of the past that I have gone back upon history