ice. It was a time when
clear-sighted and earnest men almost lost hope, if they did not lose
faith. To be held in subjection by the tyranny of a stronger power was
a calamity of destiny to be resisted, but that the people should
themselves bind the chains of a more sordid tyranny of selfishness
around their spirits was wholly damnable and heart-breaking.

It was to fight this thing that Mr William O'Brien proposed yet
another crusade of light and liberty. As he founded the United Irish
League when the country was sunk in the uttermost depths of despair
and indifference, he now made a first gallant effort to establish a
new national organisation to preach a nobler creed of brotherhood and
reconciliation among all Irishmen, and to this he gave the appropriate
title of the All-for-Ireland League. The city and county of Cork
rallied to his side, with all the old-time fervour of Rebel Cork. The
inaugural meeting of the League was held in my native town, Kanturk,
and was splendidly attended by as gallant a body of Irishmen as could
be found in all Ireland--men who knew, as none others better, how to
fight, when fighting was the right policy, but who knew also, in its
proper season, when it was good to make peace. The Press, however,
shut its pages to the new movement and a complaisant Irish Party, now
utterly at the mercy of the Board of Erin, at a meeting specially
summoned for the purpose, passed a resolution of excommunication
against the new League and against every Member of Parliament who
should venture upon its platform, on the ground that it was usurping
the functions and authority of the United Irish League, which was now
nothing more than a cloak for the operations of the Board of Erin.

No human being could struggle under the mountain weight of
responsibility that now rested on the shoulders of Mr O'Brien. Wearied
by the monstrous labours and fights of many years, deserted by his own
colleague in the representation of Cork City, with the Nationalist
Press engaged in a policy of suppression and a system of secret
intimidation springing up all over the country, it would have been
madness for him to attempt to continue.

Accordingly he decided to quit the field again and to leave the clever
political manipulators in possession. After he had sent in his
application for the Chiltern Hundreds I came across specially from
Ireland to meet him at the Westminster Palace Hotel. It were meet not
to dwell upon our interview,