During the imprisonment the National movement fell under the control of Smith O'Brien and Thomas Davis, and attained a dignity and practical method which compensated for the popular élan it had lost,[1] but it received a secret wound which could not be healed. O'Connell lost faith in the movement he had created, and began to ponder on the best means of retreat.
After we were three months in prison the judicial members of the House of Lords assembled to determine the strange question whether we had been legally convicted. Every step in the proceeding (it was contended) was tainted with error. The panel was badly arrayed, the offences were badly charged, and the Chief Justice so seriously misdirected the jury that the conviction was not a legal one. The Chancellor and Lord Brougham sustained the judgment of the Court in Dublin at all points, but three Whig Law Lords pronounced it fatally bad, and one of them declared in language which became memorable, that " such a system rendered the ad- . ministration of justice a mockery, a delusion, and a snare." We were discharged from custody, and O'Connell was restored to a people delirious with joy at his victory. But from that hour forth he never made one step in advance, or one serious effort to reanimate the National movement. At the moment this change of policy was only imperfectly realised by his ablest supporters, and was not at all suspected by the mass of the people.
The defeat and reversal of the State prosecution restored the prestige of the National movement as if by magic. Before Clontarf, when friendly foreign nations and converted domestic opponents did her homage, Ireland had won a
- ↑ "Four Years of Irish History."
of tenants driven out of their holdings to perish. Lord Hawarden was a court official, and as he flatly denied the charge Sir Robert Peel required him to vindicate himself by the prosecution of his libeller. His solicitor wrote to me saying Lord Hawarden would gladly pass over the journal to reach the real offender, if he would acknowledge the authorship. I replied that the land system in Ireland wanted to be investigated, and I was ready for the inquiry. O'Connell, who knew that Father Davern was a man of great popular influence, intimated to him that if he was sure of his facts, the Repeal Association would undertake the defence, and Father Davern immediately announced himself as the author, and was accepted as defendant, and I heard no more of the case at that time.
