the Association, the Peace Resolutions, he said, “My honorable friend [Smith O’Brien] has deeply regretted the resolutions that have passed here this day fortnight.  He says he would have come up here to modify them, if he were aware that they were about to be brought forward.  There may have been, unfortunately, a form wanting; and I regret that any form of the Association should have been wanting in any proceeding that he complains of.  There may have been a want of the form of giving notice; but perhaps this may have been an excuse for the want of that notice—­namely, that the resolutions of this day fortnight were proposed by the founder of this Association, as simply and entirely the literal and the sole reiteration of the resolutions upon which he founded this Association.  He had no doubt upon the subject.  It is a maxim that all pledges and tests are to be taken in the sense and in the spirit of the person who gives or proposes the tests, otherwise they should be refused to be accepted.  Now, my father moved these resolutions this day fortnight, in order to bring back to men’s minds the principles on which this Association is founded—­in order to remove from gentlemen any real ground of complaint, if they find in this Hall an opposition to their doctrine of physical force, by shelving them that we don’t want to prevent them from expressing such opinions if they go elsewhere, but that we do object to it in an Association expressly founded on the exclusion of physical force.”  Mr. O’Brien, he continued to say, called the opinion about physical force a speculative opinion; he, Mr. O’Connell, denied it to be such; for the moment the loophole which he seeks to establish is admitted, we place the Association in danger, and it would be the duty of Government to put it down.  He then clearly indicated that, unless the Young Ireland party acceded to the Peace Resolutions, they could not continue to be members of the Association.  He said:  “It is time now to settle this point once and for ever.  If, in pressing this question to a point now, any of those talented, warm, enthusiastic and patriotic men, who have hitherto held out to us the prospect of most able and valuable assistance, should oppose the Peace Resolutions, so as to render their retirement from the Association necessary, that would, indeed, be a great calamity.  But Ireland must be saved at any price; on the other hand, if those who stood by the Peace Resolutions found themselves in a minority, they would retire—­with deep regret, and with fears for the safety of the Association—­they would retire, but not into inaction, they would still work for the cause, and redeem the pledge they had given their country, to labour without ceasing, until they succeeded in achieving her independence.”

Several other members addressed the meeting.  At its close Mr. O’Brien suggested that, if both parties wished, everything which had transpired on that day, regarding the questions in dispute, should be laid aside, binding neither party to any course of action, and reserving any measures to be adopted, so as to apply to what might occur at the meeting of next day.  John O’Connell replied that, in his opinion the Association was in the greatest peril, and it would be therefore necessary to have “Yea” or “Nay” to the Peace Resolutions.