did not consider that the circumstances and prospects of Ireland then justified the agitation of this question.  Catholic Emancipation had been recently achieved, and I sincerely believed that from that epoch a new course of policy would be adopted towards Ireland.  I persuaded myself that thenceforth the statesmen of Great Britain would spare no effort to repair the evils produced by centuries of misgovernment—­that the Catholic and Protestant would be admitted to share on equal terms in all the advantages resulting from our constitutional form of government—­that all traces of an ascendancy of race or creed would be effaced—­that the institutions of Ireland would be gradually moulded so as to harmonise with the opinions of its inhabitants, and that in regard of political rights, legislation for both kingdoms would be based upon the principle of perfect equality.”

Fourteen years had elapsed from the date of Catholic Emancipation, when O’Brien startled the aristocrats of Ireland by renouncing his allegiance to their party, and throwing himself heart and soul into the vanguard of the people.  He told his reasons for the change in bold convincing words.  He had seen that his expectations of justice were false and delusive.  “The feelings of the Irish nation,” he said, “have been exasperated by every species of irritation and insult; every proposal tending to develop the sources of our industry—­to raise the character and improve the condition of our population, has been discountenanced, distorted, or rejected.  Ireland, instead of taking its place as an integral portion of the great empire, which the valour of her sons has contributed to win, has been treated as a dependent tributary province; and at this moment, after forty-three years of nominal union, the affections of the two nations are so entirely alienated from each other, that England trusts for the maintenance of their connection, not to the attachment of the Irish people, but to the bayonets which menace our bosoms, and the cannon which she has planted in all our strongholds.”

The prospects of the Repeal movement were not at their brightest when O’Brien entered Conciliation Hall.  In England, and in Ireland too, the influence of O’Connell was on the wane, and with the dispersion of the multitudes that flocked on that Sunday morning in October, 1843, to listen to the Liberator on the plains of Clontarf, the peaceful policy which he advocated received its death blow.  Over O’Connell himself, and some of the most outspoken of his associates, a State prosecution was impending; and the arm of the government was already stretched out to crush the agitation whose object they detested, and whose strength they had begun to fear.  The accession of O’Brien, however, the prestige of his name, and the influence of his example, was expected to do much towards reviving the drooping fortunes of the Association.  Nor was the anticipation illusory.  From the day on which O’Brien became a Repealer, down to the date of the secession, the strongest prop of the Conciliation Hall was his presence and support; he failed indeed to counteract the corrupt influences that gnawed at the vitals of the Association and ultimately destroyed it; but while he remained within its ranks, the redeeming influence of his genius, his patriotism, and his worth, preserved it from the extinction towards which it was hastening.