at various stages between Bannbridge and Belfast, and it was assumed that a sure barrier to his design was interposed.
Intense anxiety began to prevail in the other provinces lest O'Connell should suffer some gross insult or perhaps some disastrous injury, and I was not unnaturally assailed for having advised so dangerous an adventure. But we had reached a point when it was more dangerous to retreat than advance, for retreat meant humiliation for the National leader and his party, and the preparations went on steadily.[1] In Belfast a pavilion was erected for the banquet, and a public meeting was announced for the previous day. The North was like a beehive rashly overturned; all buzz and menace; a muster of Orangemen was summoned at various points along the line, and the pass into Ulster was pronounced secure. But O'Connell was not so easily baffled. I received by special messenger a letter from his most confidential agent, Patrick Vincent FitzPatrick, describing a method by which it was believed the enemy would be baffled, and announcing the exact hour of his probable arrival in Belfast, the device to be kept a profound secret, even from the committee, till he appeared amongst us. The resourceful old man set out a day earlier than was announced, horses having been ordered in the name of a gentleman who accompanied him, one of a little band selected for the purpose, of a temper not to be trifled with. He passed quietly through the enemy's pickets and arrived safely in the midst of his friends. The news spread like a bush fire in Australia; in an hour it was known in every corner of Belfast, and next morning throughout all Ulster. From an early hour in the morning bodies of Orangemen began to arrive in Belfast, and a brisk demand for tickets for the public meeting began—a demand not only from known O'Connellites, but from grim men with high cheek-bones, and vigorous young fellows with purple complexions and party-coloured cravats. It was plain the meeting was to be interrupted, and O'Connell advised that it should be abandoned, the banquet supplying sufficient opportunity to meet his friends and proclaim his opinions.
- ↑ It is a curious evidence of how wide the interest in these transactions was that upwards of £40 were received at the Vindicator office in separate sixpences sent by post from persons in various parts who wanted an immediate copy of the journal recording the visit to Belfast.
