arties in the Repeal Association, having the
same object in view--the good of Ireland--chose different and diverging
routes for arriving at it; and every day saw them further and further
from each other. The Young Ireland party, to the sorrow of their best
friends, and, exposing themselves to the sneers of their enemies,
drifted rapidly into an armed outbreak, feeble and ill-planned, if
planned at all, and ending in miserable disaster. The Old Ireland
agitation went on; but the hand of death was upon the mighty spirit who
alone could sustain it, and it may be said to have expired with him.

Moral force, with physical force in the not too dim perspective behind
it, was a giant power in the hands of O'Connell, and it won
emancipation; physical force by itself, when brought to the test,
eventuated in ridiculous failure.

English parties, instead of legislating for Ireland as an integral part
of the Empire, have been in the habit of using her for the promotion of
their own ambitious views. The party out of place seeks her aid to help
to reinstate it in power; whilst those in power, profuse of promises
before they had attained to it, forget, or postpone the measures which,
in opposition, they had pronounced essential to her welfare.

When Sir Robert Peel was resigning, he took especial care to lay down
the doctrine, that Ireland was fully entitled to all the rights and
privileges of Great Britain. His successor, Lord John Russell, expressed
the same view only a short time before he was summoned to the Councils
of his Sovereign. A few days after his unsuccessful attempt to form a
government, at the close of 1845, he was invited by the people of
Glasgow to accept the freedom of their city. In the speech which he
addressed to them, on that occasion, he said, "My opinion is, that
Scotchmen should have the same privileges as Englishmen, and that
Irishmen ought to have the same privileges as both Englishmen and
Scotchmen." The sentiment was received with cheers. He further said: "I
consider that the Union was but a parchment and unsubstantial union, if
Ireland is not to be treated, in the hour of difficulty and distress, as
an integral part of the United Kingdom; and unless we are prepared to
show, that we are ready to grant to Irishmen a participation in all our
rights and privileges, and to treat them exactly as if they were
inhabitants of the same island. I, therefore, could never listen to, or
agree with the assertion, that