Mr. O’Connell and his son were in London, and Mr. O’Brien remained in Ireland.  They had been all summoned to attend on committees.  When Mr. O’Brien reached London, he found that the Messrs. O’Connell, without any previous communication with him or with the Association, and without reference to the solemn resolution, to the contrary, of that body, were acting on committees.  This deeply disappointed and mortified him, and he at once resolved to remain faithful, at all risks, and though he stood alone, to the obligation which he had contracted with the sanction and approval of his country.  Whatever may be the temper and resolution of the House of Commons, had it been resisted by the unbroken strength of the Association, it felt confident of its power to crush Mr. O’Brien alone, separate from, nay, abandoned by, the great leader of the Irish people.  It must be acknowledged that the course pursued by the Commons was considerate and moderate.  A principle involving their liberty of action was in issue; to vindicate it was indispensable; but finding themselves only opposed by a single man, of all those who had provoked the encounter, they proceeded with caution and forbearance.  They forewarned, counselled and remonstrated during the time that intervened; and several members of the House, including Mr. O’Connell, urged Mr. O’Brien to give way.  He refused, determinedly, and it may be supposed not the less sternly, when he found, among those who advised him to falsify his solemn promise, the man upon whose authority and through whose influence he had made it.  The result was, his arrest and imprisonment, for disobedience to the House.  Circumstances more trying never beset the fortitude of a great man.  Personal liberty was his slightest loss.  The sneers of his enemies, the pity of his personal, and the desertion of his political, friends poisoned[A] the very air of the miserable cell to which he was consigned, and what completed his agony was a notion that he had been abandoned by his country.

During the early part of his imprisonment, a motion was made questioning the authority of the House.  In the course of the discussion, Sir Thomas Wilde, then Attorney-General, dared any constitutional lawyer to impugn the jurisdiction assumed by the House.  Every member felt that the challenge was offered to Mr. O’Connell, who replied as follows:—­

“I am sure that the House will give credit to my assurance that I should not rise to advocate the cause of my honourable friend, if I thought he had had the slightest intention of being disrespectful towards the House.  It has not been his intention to be guilty of any contempt towards it:  he thought he was entitled to make the exception to which he adheres.  He has acted from a strong sense of duty, and I am sorry to see it is a sense of duty he is not likely to give up.”

I add to this an extract from his speech delivered at the Corn Exchange, when, in spite of the most earnest remonstrance, the Association offered its defiance in solemn form to the British Parliament.