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DECAY OF O'CONNELL'S POPULARITY
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in the Secret Service, and died in Tasmania in the house of another Government spy named Balfe. Frederick Lucas, horrified at this revelation, declared that when a fact was stated in the Pilot the primâ facies assumption was that it was a lie. But the censure of Conciliation Hall was never directed against the faithful journal.

At the next meeting of the Association Mr. John O'Connell came over from Parliament with a message from his father in the nature of an ultimatum. After a speech in which France, Belgium, and the United States were disparaged for having won their liberty by arms, instead of relying on the growth of opinion, he declared that his father could not accept the aid of any man who did not unequivocally adopt the Peace Resolution. If the Association did not agree with him let them say so, and the founder and his friends would withdraw.

Mitchel, who followed, repeated his policy of acting strictly under the rules of the Association. He did not believe that any one was afraid of physical force, but there were many mortally afraid of Whiggery. He was told that he might retire if he did not agree with the Peace Resolutions. No doubt, he might, but he had come into that hall with the view of helping to repeal the Union, and he had no desire to relinquish that task. He was a Saxon Irishman, and he would remind his audience that if they had determined to hold that class of his countrymen aloof, England would long keep her heel on both their necks. Meagher, who was a brilliant boy, defended me and the Nation passionately, and reiterated his determination to pursue no policy but a peaceful one in that Association. But he could not restrain his scorn of the false and impossible doctrine of non-resistance applied to other countries, and he left a maladroit opening to an opponent who was watching for it. He had reached his peroration, which had raised the audience to a storm of enthusiasm, when Mr. John O'Connell interposed. This was the peroration:—

"The soldier is proof against an argument, but he is not proof against a bullet. The man that will listen to reason, let him be reasoned with; but it is the weaponed arm of the patriot that can alone avail against battalioned despotism. Then, my Lord Mayor, I do not disclaim the use of arms as