But it was not as a jurist or an advocate that O'Connell was destined to hand down his name to posterity covered with imperishable glory. He only used his great professional success to further two ends. Like a true patriot, and, _à fortiori_, unlike the politicians of to-day, he desired first to establish his own independence before attempting to obtain that of his countrymen, knowing well that poverty, associated with ambition, is too often the means of leading men, otherwise honest, into the commission of acts not always honorable or meritorious. Then, also, as we have before intimated, he desired, under the protection of the court, to instil into the hearts and souls of the dejected Catholics a spirit of manliness and courage by his burning appeals to courts and juries--words which, if uttered out of court, would have entailed on him endless prosecutions and proscription. Strictly speaking, O'Connell cannot be considered as the leader of the Irish Catholics till 1820, when Henry Grattan died. That brilliant orator and inflexible patriot, though a Protestant, always enjoyed the confidence and esteem of the persecuted masses; and whether in or out of Parliament, in College Green or St. Stephen's, his conduct was ever such as to command their respect and affection. O'Connell, on the contrary, up to that date, was unable to control for any length of time the feeble movements which, during the previous decade, had been made by the Catholic body to obtain some redress of their grievances. His audacious denunciation of the government, and his contempt for the advocates of half measures, frightened away such lukewarm Catholics as Lords Fingal, Trimleston, and French; while his superior foresight, skill, and perhaps arrogance, frequently led him into disputes with the less clear-headed and more violent of his other associates. A portion of the national press, also, looked coldly upon the burly lawyer, fearing his ambition; while many of the clergy and bishops hesitated to yield implicit confidence to a man who was once a freemason, and a good deal of whose leisure time, it was said, was spent amid the _convives_ of the capital. The "Catholic Committee," which was mainly his creation, was established in 1808, and easily suppressed by the government, after a useless existence of less than three years. Its successor, the "Catholic Board," was equally powerless, and even more given to internal dissensions; and after its demise, in 1814, nine years elapsed, during which the Catholics, divided, dispirited, and despairing, made no effort whatever for their rights, unless the forwarding of an odd petition to the English Parliament might be called so.