reland was
taken care of by somebody or other. Patrick saw that this way of
putting Government in abeyance was a mild copy of what happened when a
Parliament sat in Dublin, perpetrating the most insolent tyranny and the
vilest jobs ever witnessed under any representative system. He told me,
very simply, that the people of Ireland should send to Parliament men
whom they could trust, and should trust them to act when there: the
people should either demand a share of office for their countrymen, or
make up their minds to go without; they ought not first to demand office
for Irishmen, and then call every Irishman a traitor and self-seeker who
took it. In a very short time he told me that he found he had much to
unlearn as well as learn: that many things of which he had been most
sure now turned out to be mistakes, and many very plain matters to be
exceedingly complicated; but that the one thing about which there could
be no mistake was, that, in such a state of opinion, he was no proper
guide for the readers of the "Nation," and he had accordingly sent in
his resignation of his appointment, together with some notices to the
editor of the different light in which Irish matters appear outside the
atmosphere of Repeal meetings.

In thus cutting loose from his only means of pecuniary support, Patrick
forfeited also his patriotic character. He was as thoroughly ruined in
the eyes of Repealers as if he had denounced the "Saxon" one hour and
the next crept into some warm place in the Custom-House on his knees.
Here ended poor Patrick's short political life, after, I think, two
letters to the "Nation," and here ended all hope of aid from his
countrymen in London. His letter was very moving. He knew himself to be
mortified by O'Connell's behavior to him; but he felt that he could not
submit to be regarded with suspicion because he had come to see for
himself how matters stood. He did not give up Repeal yet: he only wanted
to study the case on better knowledge; and in order to have a
perfectly clear conscience and judgment, he gave up his only pecuniary
resource,--his love and a future home being in the distance, and always
in view, all the time. Here, in spite of some lingering of old hopes,
two scenes of his young life had closed. His Irish life was over, and
his hope of political service.

I had before written about him to two or three literary friends in
London; and now I felt bound to see what could be done in opening a way
fo