He issued a noble address to the
electors of his native city, in which he asked for their support on the
most patriotic grounds. "I shall not meddle," he said, "with English
affairs. I shall take no part in the strife of parties--all factions are
alike to me. I shall go to the House of Commons to insist on the rights
of this country to be held, governed, and defended by its own citizens,
and by them alone. Whilst I live I shall never rest satisfied until the
kingdom of Ireland has won a parliament, an army, and a navy of her
own." Mitchel strongly disapproved of his conduct. "If Mr. Meagher were
in parliament," said the _United Irishman_, "men's eyes would be
attracted thither once more; some hope of 'justice' might again revive
in this too easily deluded people." The proper men to send to parliament
were according to Mitchel, "old placemen, pensioners, five pound
Conciliation Hall Repealers." "We have no wish to dictate," concluded
Mitchel in an article on the subject, full of the lurking satire and
quiet humour that leavened his writings, "but if the electors of
Waterford have any confidence in us, we shall only say that we are for
Costello!"

"Costello" was defeated, however, but so was Meagher. The Young Ireland
champion was stigmatized as a Tory by the Whigs, and as a rebel by the
Tories; if _the people_, as Mitchel remarks had any power he would have
been elected by an overwhelming majority, but the people had no votes,
and Sir Henry Winston Barren was returned. Meagher went back to Dublin
almost a convert to Mitchel's views, leaving Whig, Tory, and West Briton
to exult over his discomfiture.

We have already seen what Meagher did when the guage of battle was
thrown down, and when "the day all hearts to weigh" was imagined to have
arrived, we have seen how he accompanied O'Brien in his expedition from
Wexford to Kilkenny, and thence to Tipperary; and how on the morning of
July 29th, 1848, he left O'Brien at Ballingarry, little dreaming of the
tragedy which was to make that day memorable, and expecting to be able
to bring reinforcements to his leader from other quarters before the
crisis came. He failed however in his effort to spread the flames of
insurrection. The chilling news of O'Brien's defeat--distorted and
exaggerated by hostile tongues--was before him everywhere, and even the
most resolute of his sympathisers had sense enough to see that their
opportunity--if it existed at all--had passed away. On the 12