"the natural leaders of the people."
They were not remarkable for talents; they were timid; they were
prostrate in the dust, and they half accepted the situation. They had
been so long regarding the Protestants as a superior race, that they
came to believe it at last, and, hence, in the presence of Protestants,
they always bore themselves with the humble downcast manner which became
inferiors. The young counsellor, fresh from the Kerry Mountains--an
athlete in mind and body--had no notion to submit so such degradation
from men who were his inferiors in every respect, and, consequently, his
language was full of manly independence. His high spirit appeared in his
whole manner, and as he walked through Dame Street, Parliament Street,
and along the quays to the Four Courts, he looked the noblest and
proudest man in Dublin--a very king of men.

In attack and denunciation he was terrible. What he said of Peel, when
Irish Secretary, is an example of this. At an aggregate meeting in 1815,
he alluded to him, as the worthy champion of Orangeism. At the mention
of Mr. Peel's name, says the report, there was much laughing. "You
mistake me, said Mr. O'Connell. I do not--indeed I do not intend, this
day, to enter into the merits of that celebrated statesman. All I shall
say of him, by way of parenthesis, is, that I am told he has, in my
absence, and in a place where he was privileged from any account,
grossly traduced me. I said, at the last meeting, in the presence of the
notetakers of the police, who are paid by him, that he was too prudent
to attack me in my presence. I see the same police informers here now,
and I authorize them carefully to report these my words, that Mr. Peel
would not DARE, in my presence, or in any place where he was liable to
personal account, use a single expression derogatory to my interest, or
my honour."

This passage led to the affair of honour between himself and Peel. No
hostile meeting, however, took place.

His best friends thought his propensity of arraigning and denouncing
those who differed from him, was often carried to excess, but he refused
to give it up or modify it. The defence he once made for it was, that it
was not _irritation_, it was _calculation_ that made him adopt that
style of animadversion.[264] The Catholic aristocracy and the older
leaders of the Catholics were offended with it, and soon retired from
any active part in Catholic affairs. This may have been one of
O'Connell's ca