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below was reversed. In discussing the matter next day in the House of Commons, Lord John Eussell declared: "I must, I say, reassert my own opinion, more than once expressed in this House, that the trial of Mr. O'Connell and the other traversers in Ireland was not such a trial as could give an impression of the fairness and justice of the Government… The trial was not a trial by a fair jury, but one elaborately put together for the purpose of conviction, and charged by a judge who did not allow any evidence or consideration in favour of the traversers to come fairly before his mind… I trust the effect of these proceedings will be, that no example of such a trial will again occur." The news of the decision was swiftly flashed over Ireland by signal fires, and was received with enthusiasm. The prisoners were released, and on the 7th September were formally accompanied to their homes by a monster procession—O'Connell upon a triumphal chariot, with an Irish harper playing before him. Although the incarceration had been short, O'Connell never recovered his buoyancy; hope and spirit appeared gone, and the illness of which he ultimately died was beginning to creep over him. The progress of the Repeal movement gradually slackened. A rescript from Rome, though it did not actually forbid the clergy joining in the agitation, obliged them to refrain, to a certain degree, from public expressions of opinion. It has been asserted that about this time the Whig party debated the propriety of arranging a federal parliament for Ireland; but the advent of the famine rendered unnecessary any idea of concession. The winter of 1845-'6 broke O'Connell's heart. Not alone were the people he most dearly loved decimated by starvation and pestilence, and obliged to fly from the country in multitudes, but the ranks of the Repeal Association were split up into Old and Young Irelanders—the former holding to O'Connell's moral force programme, and the latter, comprising the youth, talent, and energy of the party, sick of delay, gradually drifting into a policy of revolution, with a view to separation from Great Britain. Under these influences O'Connell's health rapidly declined, and he left Ireland for the last time in January 1847. On the 8th February he made his last speech in Parliament—a short appeal, uttered with evident difficulty, on the condition of Ireland—concluding with the words: "She is in your hands—in your power. If you do not save her, she cannot save herself. I solemnly call on you to recollect that I predict, with the sincerest conviction, that onefourth of her population will perish unless you come to her relief." His physicians ordered him to the Continent, and his desires led him towards Rome; but his strength failed him at Genoa, where he died, 15th May 1847, aged 71. O'Connell bequeathed his heart to Rome. It rests in the church of St. Agatha. His body was not removed to Ireland until August, and was buried at Glasnevin, after lying in state in the Catholic Cathedral, Dublin. O'Connell's presence was commanding. His shoulders were broad, his face massive, his features, naturally plain, were lit up by the light of genius; his eyes were piercing. His voice was musical, great in power and compass, rich in tone, ever fresh in the variety of its cadences. His accent was unmistakably Irish. His style was forcible—when addressing popular audiences often coarse, and perhaps too rhetorical. His career has never been more ably sketched than by Mr. Lecky: "The truth is, that the position of O'Connell, so far from being a common one, is absolutely unique in history. There have been many greater men, but there is no one with whom he compares disadvantageously, for he stands alone in his sphere. We may search in vain through the records of the past for any man who, without the effusion of a drop of blood, or the advantages of office or rank, succeeded in governing a people so absolutely and so long, and in creating so entirely the elements of his power. A king without rebellion, with his tribute, his government, and his deputies, he at once evaded the meshes of the law and restrained the passions of the people. He possessed to the highest degree the eloquence and adroitness of a demagogue, but he possessed also all the sagacity of a statesman and not a little of the independence of a patriot. He yielded frequently to the wishes of the people and to the passions around him, but on points which he deemed important he was quite capable of resisting them… It was said that he exhibited a systematic disregard for truth. It Is extremely difficult to form any adequate judgment on such a question in the case of a man so long and fiercely assailed as O'Connell; but we are inclined to think that the truth was simply that he had a natural propensity to exaggeration, and, like all popular orators, a great passion for producing those effects which the statement of a startling fact in an unqualified form so often causes. His conversation was full of witty anecdotes, which it is impossible I to read without feeling that they are too