Ireland is generally regarded as one of the chief difficulties of English Cabinets, but at no period was it a greater difficulty than on the day Lord John Russell accepted the seals of office, as First Minister of the Crown. Nine millions of people were passing through the terrible ordeal of a famine year; a far more awful year of famine was before them; the Repeal of the Union was still regarded by them as the only true remedy for their grievances; the hopes awakened by the great public meetings of Clifden, Mullaghmast, and Tara were still clung to and fostered; whilst the fierce indignation resulting from the sudden, and therefore treacherous suppression of the projected meeting at Clontarf; and above all, the prosecution and unjust imprisonment of O'Connell and his compatriots, caused the Irish people to turn a deaf ear to every promised concession short of complete legislative independence. But, like the keen-eyed warrior of classic story, the English minister detected a flaw in the armour of this bold, defiant nation,--it was the old and fatal one of disunion. The men whose influence, lofty patriotism, and burning eloquence, had marshalled the whole people into one mighty phalanx, began to differ among themselves. The Liberator, who had been long proclaiming himself the apostle of a new doctrine, namely, that "no political amelioration was worth one drop of blood," now began to insist upon it more frequently than ever; probably on account of the warlike tone assumed by some of the young fiery spirits who followed, but hardly obeyed him. Thomas Francis Meagher, as their mouthpiece, proclaimed his conviction that there were political ameliorations worth many drops of blood; and adhesion to one or the other of these principles cleft in two the great Irish Repeal party, namely, into Old and Young Ireland. Of the former O'Connell was of course the leader, and William Smith O'Brien allowed himself to be placed at the head of the latter.