of these people, which will make plain His wisdom. At present it is hard to comprehend. I said, it seemed to me Australia wanted no vindication; property and life were as safe in an Australian city as in an English one. The Australians had met all their financial responsibilities promptly; they fostered education and religion, and the community was as free from crime or offence as any in the civilised world. He repeated, 'Wait till the larrikin comes on the stage; there is a large native population in New South Wales, and they will soon be the masters.'"
I speedily brought my wife and daughter to Dublin, where I was plunged into affairs as if I had been only absent for a week. Dillon, I found, was honorary secretary to a General Association of which Cardinal Cullen was understood to be the most active promoter. D' Arcy M'Gee had recently arrived in Ireland from Canada, and I read with great pain and regret a lecture he delivered at Wexford, in which he described his early opinions as boyish follies, many of which he had manifestly dropped by the way. I wrote a remonstrance, and assured him, in conclusion, that though he regarded himself as a fool at twenty, and a philosopher or statesman at forty, in my opinion he was much to be preferred in the former character.
Dillon brought me to the Evening Post office to see Dwyer, the new editor, who was formerly, and is still, he asserts, a Young Irelander; he has married the charming Louise Conway of former times, and so came to inherit a share in the Post. I told Dwyer I was afraid I would lose my character by coming into that office. "By Gad! I am afraid you will," said he, "for that is just what has happened myself."
Dined in the evening with John Dillon; Samuel Ferguson, D. F. MacCarthy, John O'Hagan, Charles Hart, P. J. Smyth, J. J. MacCarthy, and Dwyer of the Post, formed the company. The only stranger was Mr. Prendergast, author of a book on the settlement under Cromwell, which is well spoken of. He told a story during the evening extremely ill-suited to his audience. When Smith O'Brien was at Ballingarry, Prendergast was sheltering in a farmhouse with some English newspaper correspondents, and as he had nothing to fear from the
