It is impossible to find language too strong to characterise the guilt of the individuals, lay or clerical, who have spent the better part of their mean and mischievous existence in misleading their rude and ignorant fellow-countrymen. They are the moral nuisances who have always stood in the way of Ireland’s progression and happiness. But for them, there would have been no absenteeism, no heart-burning between the landlord and the tenant. The people would gradually have learned habits of industry and providence, and instead of whooping through the country like maniacs, shouting and yelling for repeal, which if granted, would make an utter hell of Ireland, they would be tilling the ground, or usefully employed in the development of that capital which no one dare hazard at present in their mad and turbulent districts. For all these things we do not blame, but execrate O’Connell and his tribe. The grasping selfishness of that family has for the last few years been the greatest curse to Ireland; and the crimes of other and inferior agitators shrink into insignificance, compared with the moral turpitude of the men who have deliberately fattened upon their country’s ruin. Mr John O’Connell, having previously declared his intention of dying on the floor of the House of Commons rather than permit the passing of a Coercion Bill to restrain his countrymen from murder, did in effect make his appearance in St Stephens, but by no means with a suicidal intention. One of his earliest speeches is worth preserving, as it exhibits, in a most extraordinary degree, the hereditary power of mendicancy. “If they had a reverence for human life, let them extend it to the people of Ireland. Give money. He asked for money. He heard the laughter of honourable gentlemen; but he could tell them that they ought to give money, and that it was their duty to do so. Charge them for the money if they liked, but at all events let them save the lives of the people. He did not expect to be met otherwise than with laughter; and he was bound to say that he never saw in that House one single real thought for the interest of Ireland. (_Great laughter._) He begged to say, that he had made that remark hastily and hotly, but now he repeated it deliberately and coolly. Whenever the interests of Ireland came into competition with those of England, they were invariably sacrificed. And if he did ask money, had he not a right to do so? In a few nights a motion would come on, and then he would prove that they owed it!” No man certainly ever did more credit to his profession. Brought up under the most able instructor of his age in the art of begging, John O’Connell exhibited on this occasion talents of the highest order, which would have made his fortune on the highway, unless some stray traveller should have mistaken the intentions of the suppliant, and been over ready with his pistol to prevent an anticipated robbery. The vile ingratitude of this man is almost equal to his audacity.