142
MY LIFE IN TWO HEMISPHERES
that he was perhaps treading on dangerous ground. O'Brien said he would bow to the chair, but, as an appeal had been made to his discretion, he continued of opinion that it was not only discreet, but most advisable, that the topic should be treated in that place. The chairman rejoined that he individually agreed with Mr. O'Brien in the premises, but his business was to prevent the discussion of anything which did not relate to the Association. Mr. O'Brien sat down, but many persons continued to think that the prosecution of a Repeal journal for defending the honour of the country against a threat to shut up Conciliation Hall, and declare the agitation for Repeal to be high treason, was as nearly related to the Association as the character of Monsieur Thiers, or the proceedings of German dissenters from the Catholic Church, or the treatment of tenants in Darrynane Beg—O'Connell's estate—which had all been elaborately discussed without let or hindrance. At the ensuing meeting Mr. Henry Grattan took up the subject. He warned the Orangemen of Ulster that if they attempted to meet and express their constitutional opinion against the. new-fangled commercial policy of Peel, the Government might send troops from Dublin to Armagh; and if any independent journal suggested that if they were sent by railway for such a purpose the result might be hazardous, he would be prosecuted for exercising that constitutional right. The Head Pacificator jumped to his feet to save the Association from manifest danger. He told Mr. Grattan, in the prodigious rhetoric for which he was distinguished, that 'from the lips of O'Connell himself, whose profound legal wisdom had been Ireland's palladium of safety for so many years, he heard as his parting words aboard the packet, that he considered the introduction of this subject while the case was pending in the Court of Queen's Bench as deeply and dangerously calculated to imperil the safety of the Repeal Association of Ireland.' Mr. Grattan yielded to this impassioned appeal; but O'Brien, who began to be impatient of the manifest injustice, declared that he had consulted legal friends since the last meeting, and they were of opinion that the subject might be discussed with safety and propriety. He would postpone it, however, till the return of Mr. O'Connell."
