It was years before Butt acted on this counsel, but in the end he did what Meagher advised with all the results Meagher predicted.
Another evidence of growing confidence that all was not lost came from Samuel Ferguson. I take a single extract from a desultory and discursive diary written by fits and starts in prison:—
"I do not love to see visitors. Since Ballingarry there have not been half a dozen whom I would not willingly have avoided. Father Mathew was a signal exception; his sweet sympathetic disposition soothed my spirit. I was glad also to talk to Ferguson who came with Wilde the other day. He is persuaded that there will be a middle-class Protestant movement for some sort of legislature in Ireland, and that it will probably be successful."
Among the détenus transferred to Newgate was James Fintan Lalor, and as no restriction was placed on the intercourse of the political prisoners I took an early occasion of visiting him. This is the account of the visit in my diary:—
"I have seen Lalor for the first time in bed, poor fellow, with complicated maladies. Nature has been very unkind; he is almost a dwarf, near sighted, and with a face far from being winning or sympathetic. But he has a precious jewel in his head, which makes one speedily forget these drawbacks. His talk is original and vigorous, weighty with thought, and made bright and pleasant by a happy style. He is quite confident that this country, which was so recently appealed to in vain, is eager for an opportunity to fight, and may make a revolution before the end of 1850. His feeble frame is the vesture of an unconquerable soul, but he seems totally incapable of seeing facts which contradict his theory. He is without money, and though I have little enough it is the duty of one poor patriot to help another. Imprisonment is endangering his life, and I will move any one who can help to obtain his release, which ought not to be difficult, as he is only a Habeas Corpus prisoner. He has not forgiven John Mitchel for stealing his opinions and parading them as his own. He refused to write in the United Irishman, though Mitchel made various appeals to him, and when he came to
