energies of the people to some becoming effort where the stake
was their lives. Meantime, week after week, the Government was praised,
the Board of Works were praised, and the people--"_the faithful and
moral people, who died, peacefully, of hunger_"--were praised, in the
Repeal Association.

[Illustration: Robert Holmes (1848)]

Late in the autumn of 1846, some men, few in number and humble in
condition, undertook the desperate task of remonstrating with the Repeal
Association. Among them, Mr. Keeley and Mr. Holywood, Mr. Crean and Mr.
Halpin, were prominent. Their undertaking was gigantic, considering the
formidable obstacles they proposed to encounter. They proceeded silently
and sedulously; and, in a few weeks, a remonstrance against the
course pursued by the Association was signed by fifteen hundred citizens
of Dublin. It was presented to the Chairman of the Association on the
24th of October, and ordered by Mr. J. O'Connell to be flung into the
gutter. The remonstrants and the public resented this indignity alike.
It was determined to hold a meeting in the Rotunda, where they proposed
to defend themselves against every species of assault. The meeting was
held on the 3rd of November, and was allowed to pass off without
disturbance. Mr. M'Gee attended. He had never appeared in the struggle
in the hall, nor was he a member at the time. His speech at the Rotunda
was calm, forcible and conclusive on the points in issue; and the
excitement it created was, in no small degree, enhanced by the fact that
the speaker was a young man theretofore unknown. The success of the
meeting suggested the practicability and safety of an experiment upon a
large scale preparatory to the formation of the Confederation. The
meeting was fixed for the 2nd of December. The remonstrant committee
offered to defend it against any assailants. The main object was to
reply to the calumnies which, for nearly six months, had been urged
against the leading seceders. The meeting was one of the most important
ever held in the metropolis. It was intelligent, numerous and
fashionable. The entire ability of the seceders was put forth; and such
was the sensation created by the proceedings that two publishers, one in
Dublin and one in Belfast, brought out reports, in pamphlet form, which
were read all over the country with the greatest avidity. It was that
night stated, only casually, that the seceders would meet in January to
announce to the nation the cour