cumstances it was not surprising that resistance to tithes, often attended with bloodshed, spread with alarming rapidity. At the Cork spring assizes O'Connell was specially retained in an important case of Kearney v. Sarsfield, and during his absence a bill was introduced by Stanley, afterwards Earl of Derby, to enforce the recovery of tithe arrears. The measure, as O'Connell predicted, proved worse than useless, and towards the end of the session the composition of tithes was made universal and compulsory. When in London in May, he spoke at considerable length on the Reform Bill; and in committee he was indefatigable, though he was unsuccessful in his efforts to obtain the restoration of the elective franchise to the forty-shilling freeholders.
Returning in August to Darrynane, he renewed his agitation by means of public letters addressed for the most part to the National Political Union, a society he had recently established in opposition to the Trades Political Union, of which Marcus Costello was the president. He had now, he declared, three objects in view—to relieve Ireland of the Anglesey government, to obtain the extinction of tithes, and to obtain the tranquil and peaceable repeal of the union. In regard to tithes and vestry rates, he expressed his intention never again voluntarily to pay either. On 3 Dec. the old unreformed parliament was dissolved, and at the elections a repeal pledge was, by his advice, exacted from all the popular candidates in Ireland, of whom it is said that not less than half were nominated by him. His own unsolicited return for Dublin city he regarded as ‘perhaps the greatest triumph my countrymen have ever given me.’ Meanwhile famine and pestilence, attended by agrarian outrage, stalked the land. So alarming, indeed, was the general outlook that on 14 Jan. 1833 O'Connell addressed a strongly worded letter to Lord Duncannon, advising special means to be taken for the preservation of the public peace, and, above all, the removal of Anglesey and Stanley, to whose misgovernment he mainly attributed the distress. The speech from the throne alluded to the social condition of Ireland and foreshadowed a strong measure of coercion. O'Connell stigmatised the speech as ‘bloody and brutal;’ but even he never anticipated so drastic a measure as that which Earl Grey forthwith introduced into the House of Lords. He at once offered it the most strenuous resistance in his power. There was, he declared, no necessity for so despotic a policy. O'Connell actually offered to submit to banishment for a year and a half if it was withdrawn. In his extremity he reverted to his favourite notion—‘the O'Connell cholera,’ as Conway of the ‘Evening Post’ called it—of advising a run on the banks, but was fortunately dissuaded by his friends from so disastrous a step. All resistance proved unavailing, and the bill passed both houses by large majorities.
Meanwhile his reticence in regard to repeal was severely commented upon in Dublin. St. Audoen's parish, as usual, led the agitation, and was powerfully supported by the ‘Freeman's Journal’ and Feargus O'Connor [q. v.] Though firmly convinced of the uselessness and even impolicy of a premature discussion, he consented to bring the subject before parliament in the following session. He had long complained of the conduct of the London press, particularly the ‘Times’ and ‘Morning Chronicle,’ in wilfully misreporting and suppressing his speeches in parliament. His public denunciation of the newspapers elicited a strong protest from the staff of the ‘Times,’ and a determination no longer to report him; but by freely exercising his right to clear the house of strangers he reduced them to submission. In July 1833 his uncle, Count Daniel O'Connell [q. v.], died, leaving him considerable personal property. On his return to Ireland he endeavoured, but without success, to enlist the sympathy and support of the protestants of Ulster in favour of the establishment of a domestic legislature.
When parliament reassembled in 1834, the king's speech condemned ‘the continuance of attempts to excite the people of Ireland to demand a repeal of the legislative union.’ O'Connell moved the omission of the obnoxious paragraph, but he was defeated by 189 to 23. Disheartened at the result, he would gladly have postponed the question of repeal to a more propitious season. But he had promised to agitate the subject, and on 22 April 1834 he moved for the appointment of a select committee ‘to inquire into and report on the means by which the dissolution of the parliament of Ireland was effected; on the effects of that measure upon Ireland, and on the probable consequences of continuing the legislative union between both countries.’ He spoke for more than five hours, but he was encumbered with material, and his excursion into history was neither interesting nor correct. He was ably answered by Spring Rice. The debate continued for nine days, and when the decision of the house was taken O'Connell was defeated by 523 to 38, only one English member voting in the minority. Still, he regarded the debate as on the whole satisfactory. ‘I repeat,’ he wrote to Fitzpatrick, ‘that we repealers have
