CHAPTER II
O'CONNELL RESOLVES TO SUPPRESS THE "NATION"
O'Connell takes measures to destroy the Nation—Whig intrigues the probable cause—Supply of Nations to the Repeal Reading-rooms stopped—Interview with O'Connell on the subject—Letter from Father Kenyon—Costs of the Hawarden Case—Interview with Mr. Potter—O'Brien's commital to prison by the House of Commons—The effect on Irish opinion—Deputation to O'Brien from the 'Eighty-two Club—Letter from John Mitchel—O'Brien's release and O'Connell's proposal to give him a public reception in Ireland—Lord John Russell's disparagement of the Nation—Railway Trial—Robert Holmes' impressive constitutional defence—The 'Eighty-two Club thanks Holmes, and publishes his speech—Before the trial a meeting of Whigs in London attended by O'Connell and his son—Speech imputed to him—Indignation in Ireland—Debate by Meagher and others in Conciliation Hall, followed by letter from O'Connell—J. Reilly's imputations on the Nation.
The second Young Ireland party soon found themselves immersed in a sea of trouble. We were facing a State prosecution without the aid of the National treasury, wanting which in the late prosecution it is certain no writ of error could have been sued out. We were denied even the sympathy of the National organisation, never before refused to any one contending for the Irish cause, and we were submitted to a steady system of misrepresentation, at the instigation of Mr. John O'Connell, in which the machinery of the National Association was employed to undermine the National cause. There is no doubt that the bulk of the Catholic clergy past early manhood joined our enemies, for many of them deplored their delusion to me in after times; priests under thirty were generally partisans of the Nation.
We have now arrived at a point where O'Connell had
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