in the country.' Well, be it so. I have no more stake in the country than Henry Grattan had when, he entered the Irish Parliament. I am not much richer than Andrew Marvell when he sat in the English Commons. But let it be noted that whatever I have, great or small, was honestly earned. Not a penny of it was won, Sir Thomas, by denying the country or the creed of my fathers. There is no blood-money in it, Mr. Under-Secretary. Dublin Castle stood open for me also if I could walk in the miry footsteps of a Monahan[1] or a Redington. The mart where Irish Catholics are 'bought, sold, or exchanged at the highest market-price' would not have refused even such humble capacities as mine when it finds it answers to buy up squires from Galway and 'fat cattle from the banks of the Barrow.' … I am 'an adventurer! 'Thank Heaven, I am independent,' Robert Burns wrote, 'for I have learned to hold a plough.' If I may venture to echo so noble a sentiment, I would say, 'Thank Heaven, I am independent, for I have learned to hold a pen!'"
The contest, I reminded my adversary, had begun in the Court in Green Street. In their own dens of law I had defeated him and his patron, Lord Clarendon, and now the case was set down for re-hearing at New Ross:—
"There we shall have fair play at last. Mr. Justice Perrin shall not close the door against the people. Mr. Sheriff French shall not pack the panel. Mr. Solicitor Hatchell shall not pick and choose the jury. Mr. Baron Lefroy shall not harangue the audience in 'double-barrelled' charges. We shall have untainted justice, and you shall remember it to your dying day."
The prediction was justified. In the end Redington withdrew from the contest in despair. A candidate set up by the owner of the town, however, went to the poll, but by twelve o'clock the contest was over, and I had won by a majority of more than two to one. Even my bitterest Old Ireland opponents in the committee voted for me in the end. That night the town was illuminated, and the neighbouring hills blazed with bonfires to celebrate an event which a dozen weeks before seemed impossible.
- ↑ The reader has not forgotten that Mr. Monahan was the Attorney-General who conducted the State prosecutions of 1848-9.
