the field. This news Martin and I were requested to announce to Confederate councillors in Dublin, and to communicate to the leaders of clubs and such other persons as we considered trustworthy. We sent immediately for a dozen men, chiefly the staff of our journals, through whom these instructions could be carried out. The persons fit to be trusted with the news raised serious questions on which we were not always of one mind. Some thought Dublin ought to be attacked; the fall of the Castle would awaken the most sluggish district in the island. Others contended that the leaders ought to permit themselves to be arrested under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, which only involved a temporary imprisonment. But all controversy was terminated by the news which arrived the second day that Smith O'Brien accepted the programme of the leaders who joined him from Dublin and would take the field. It was a spectacle strangely out of harmony with the sceptical scoffing generation in which it befell. A gentleman of mature years, of distinguished lineage and station, the descendant of a great Celtic house, the husband of a charming wife, the father of a household of happy children, a man rich in the less precious gifts of fortune called opulence, staked his life to save his race from destruction. The chance of overthrowing the rooted power of the British Empire by insurrection was manifestly small, but a profound sense of public duty made him accept it with all its consequences rather than acquiesce dumbly in the ruin of his people.
The writers of the national journals immediately left town, mostly for Kilkenny, by circuitous routes, for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act rendered them liable to immediate arrest. A few concealed themselves in Dublin, awaiting a move in the metropolis. Martin could no longer bring out his newspaper; Lalor, the leading spirit, was arrested, and the other contributors were in the South or in concealment. I should have found it equally impossible but for the generous help of two noble women. Margaret Callan, my cousin and sister-in-law, who had been a contributor from the outset, undertook the editorship, and Miss Elgee ("Speranza") promised a leading article suitable to the occasion, and provided one which might be issued from the
