duty, to protect themselves against all aggressors on the face of the earth. And surely the time has come, while we still suffer under one calamity and await another, to determine the cause of our misery, and to take measures for our protection. The time has fully arrived when the country should come together, by some adequate representatives, and say, in the solemn voice of a nation, 'We can endure no more, we can look on this desolation no longer; the resources of Ireland belong to the people of Ireland, and henceforth must meet their necessities; and this we will maintain though earth and hell say No!'"
These appeals were unsuccessful; but every one who blames the young men for their failure is invited to put himself in their position, and say what he could have done that was better. Not only the British Government, resting on a large army, the gentry, and official classes, but the traders and shopkeepers, were opposed to decisive measures, and the persons who spoke in the name of the National Organisation were vehement in the assurance that only a little more patience was necessary, and all would be well. A gifted and patriotic Irish ecclesiastic in a foreign country uttered what may be regarded as the morale of the question whether the Irish were bound to die of starvation in the midst of plenty. "In a crisis like the famine (said Archbishop Hughes, of New York) the Irish may submit to die rather than violate the rights of property; but if such a calamity should ever happen (which God forbid) the Scotch will not submit, the English will not submit, the French will not submit, and depend upon it the Americans will not submit." Help from O'Connell was no longer to be counted on. There was a great decay in his physical power, and he spoke rarely, and to little purpose. In February he went to Parliament accompanied by his son, and the remnant of the Association became Bedlamite under the control of the Head Pacificator. The country scarcely supplied Repeal Rent enough to pay the weekly expenses of the hired claque who usurped the places once occupied by the leaders of the people.
A gleam of hope came from an unexpected quarter. Lord George Bentinck informed Smith O'Brien that he had a plan for employing and feeding the famishing people in
