ungarvan were more openly betrayed and trafficked on by John
O'Connell, and when they had to contend against the treachery of the
priest, the treachery of the Association and the whole strength of the
Whigs, they were only defeated in their opposition to Mr. Shiel by three
votes. But, sincere or not, absurd or not, they were conclusive with the
committee, or its chairman, who reported that it was not advisable to
oppose Mr. Shiel, and this report was published just two days after Mr.
Shiel had been returned unopposed.

No wonder that the actual return of Mr. Shiel, which the committee was
charged to resist, had escaped its vigilance; for the celebrated Peace
Resolutions were, at the same time, under discussion, and produced
simultaneously with the Dungarvan report. Mr. Mitchel, Mr. O'Gorman and
Mr. Meagher, who attended the committee, vainly remonstrated against the
betrayal of Dungarvan, as well as the Peace Resolutions. They saw that
the real object of the resolutions was to blind the country to the other
important question, whether the Irish constituencies were to be
transferred once more to Whig placemen; and they confined their
opposition principally to the Dungarvan case. It must be admitted, too,
that the falsehood involved in the Peace Resolutions, escaped their
attention in the first instance; and they were under the impression that
the pledge they contained extended no farther than the action of the
Association itself was concerned. On consideration, they found it was of
far wider scope, and would engage them to a false principle, embracing
all men, all countries and all tunes; and having stated this at the
public meeting of the Association, they allowed the resolutions to pass
without further opposition.

The original resolution on which the Association was framed is this:--

"The total disclaimer of, and absence from, all physical force,
violence or breach of the law."

The resolution, reported on the 13th of July, 1846, is as follows:--

"That, to promote political amelioration, peaceable means alone
should be used, to the exclusion of all others, save those that
are peaceful, legal and constitutional."

Sometimes, it has been averred lately that these two resolutions are, in
principle and effect, the same. Mr. O'Connell himself declared the
latter was introduced by him, "_to draw a line of demarcation between
Old and Young Ireland_." Indeed, if there were no distinction, the
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