Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/81

elected at an immense sacrifice by an impoverished people were to make conditions for the country or only conditions for themselves. If the latter policy was determined upon I thought the League members ought to receive instructions when the Government were next in need of Irish votes to say, with Dr. M' Knight, the cause would be greatly advanced by having good men in office, and we would like to have something pleasant for ourselves. Mr. Lucas inquired whether the time the new officials were to have was to extend over their elections—must we wait until they went back and told the House of Commons and the people of England that their constituents approved of their conduct? If the Government could buy Irish support by places they would willingly pay that price for it, but there would be an end to public concessions. A motion condemning the deserters was carried in the Council against a minority of only four, and a deputation was dispatched to Carlow to exhort the electors to reject Mr. Sadleir, and they were happily successful. He was defeated the refusal of the men who had formerly supported him continue their confidence. But it was a great deduction from the satisfaction of the victory that Sadleir was supported the Catholic Bishop of the diocese, by Father Maher, uncle and confidant of Dr. Cullen, and by many local priests, who, like Sadleir, abandoned the principles they had hitherto professed. A further humiliation, almost equivalent to the loss of his seat, awaited Mr. Sadleir. During his canvass he ventured to suggest that Lord John Russell had proffered to the Brigadiers, as they were called, a practical retractation of the course he had taken on the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill; and when Lord John was questioned on the subject in the House of Commons he repudiated it with unconcealed scorn. No explanation, he affirmed, had been given, nor had any been asked. When Parliament reassembled the taint was found to have spread. Of thirty-eight members who attended a conference in one of the committee rooms, one-and-twenty declared themselves determined to sit in Independent Opposition, as before, and seventeen adhered to the Government. It was plain the Government had bought more than a brace of deserters; they had driven a wedge through the Independent party, dividing it into two sections,