helm--a fact which you and Young Ireland would seem never to have discovered until he ordered the boat to be stranded and yourselves to be set ashore." This language may be unnecessarily vigorous and hurtful but the judgment is not essentially unjust. But it was not merely disgust which kept Lalor out of the Repeal ranks. He disbelieved utterly in the Repeal of the Union as a solution for the Irish question. It was in the first place impracticable. "You will _NEVER_, in form of law, repeal the Act of Union. _Never_, while the sun sits in heaven, and the laws of nature are in action. _Never_, before night goes down on the last day." What was, however, practicable was to claim the land, refuse to pay rent for it, and institute a protracted, obstinate and violent resistance to the attempt on the part of English troops to take it back again. Once the land was again in the possession of the people of Ireland their ultimate policy would be clear. "Not the repeal of the Union, then, but the Conquest--not to disturb or dismantle the Empire, but to abolish it utterly for ever--not to fall back on '82 but act up to '48--not to resume or restore an old constitution, but found a new nation and raise up a free people, and strong as well as free, and secure as well as strong, based on a peasantry rooted like rocks in the soil of the land--this is my object." "Not the constitution that Wolfe Tone died to abolish, but the constitution that Wolfe Tone died to obtain--independence; full and absolute independence for this island, and for every man within this island." Lalor knew well enough that this meant fighting in the long run, but he thought that it was worth fighting for while Repeal of the Union was not: but who was to lead the fight? Little was to be looked for from the Repeal leaders, content with "a small Dublin reputation," with neither the desire nor the talents to lead a nation. His last article in the _Irish Felon_, written while Smith O'Brien and Meagher were in prison, is an impassioned appeal for someone to lead a nation that was only waiting for a man. "Remember this--that somewhere and somehow and by somebody, a beginning must be made. Who strikes the first blow for Ireland? Who draws first blood for Ireland? Who wins a wreath that will be green for ever?"