"The report can give you no notion of the scene of riotous confusion in the Hall. O'Connell, you know, wanted to get us out, and in that, at all events, he certainly failed. He also wanted, I think, to sneak out of the Dungarvan affair, and in that he failed. He also wanted to have us hooted down in the meeting, and in that he failed. And all that amounts, I think, to a triumph for Young Ireland."
But they had not contented O'Connell, and a considerable section of Repealers were determined from the beginning to accept his guidance wherever it would lead them. It is impossible not to respect the determination to uphold as long as possible a leader who had served Ireland so long and so effectually. But when at length the choice lay between him and the manifest welfare of Ireland the sentimental preference for the leader was a fatal mistake; and fatally has Ireland paid for it.
It will be noted that O'Brien was absent from these contests, which were thrown entirely on young men new to debate, and who had not yet won personal authority. Looking back on the transactions with serener vision, I have no doubt that O'Brien's motive was to preserve his influence for public purposes by not coming into conflict with O'Connell. He wrote a letter to the Association indicating his dissent from the new policy, but it attracted no attention. But in the heat of the battle I regarded his reticence differently, and in a man whom I greatly esteemed it wounded me keenly. I wrote to him brusquely, perhaps rudely:—
"You will see by the papers of to-day what became of your letter—it was read and put aside without a word of comment. If it kept your character clear with the people, it certainly had no other practical effect. To have saved Dungarvan would have needed your personal presence in the committee and in the Association. The contest for the honour of the cause and its safety (both being, I think, involved in the question of Dungarvan) was very unequally maintained, when a few young men had to set themselves against all the venality, all the timidity, and all the honest, confiding ignorance of the Association. And most of them have now left town for circuit; so that while you stay in the
