“You may judge, then,” continued he, “what were my feelings on seeing him suddenly enter the house last night--to think that, while I was enjoying the pleasure of your society, and the hospitable attentions of your home, I had actually in my pocket at the moment the official order to apprehend the eldest son of my entertainer--the friend and companion of your childhood--to bring grief and mourning beneath the roof where I had passed so many happy hours--to dispel all the dreams I had begun to nourish of a neighbourhood connected by ties of kindness and good will. I had to choose between the alternative of this, or else, by a palpable avoidance of my duty, criminate myself, and leave my conduct open to the most dangerous comments of my enemies. The latter involved only myself. I have adopted it, and before this letter reaches your hands, I shall be on my way up to Dublin, nominally to attend the Council, but in reality to escape the necessity my onerous position would impose. None save those beneath your roof know that I have met Mr. Mark O'Donoghue, and I shall be half-way to Dublin before his arrival in the country is suspected. So much, in brief, for the past and the present. Now for the future. There are two courses open to this young gentleman, or to those who would serve and befriend him. One is, by a free and unlimited confession to the Government of all the circumstances of the plot, so far as they have come to his knowledge, the parties interested, their several shares in the undertaking, with every detail of date and time, to sue for a pardon for himself--a grace which, I need scarcely say, I will use all my influence to obtain. The other mode is, by a temporary exile; to withdraw himself from the notice of the Government, until the danger having perfectly passed over, political acrimony will have abated, and the necessity for making severe examples of guilt be no longer urgent. This latter course I opine to be preferable, on many grounds. It demands no sacrifice of private feeling--no surrender of honour. It merely provides for safety, reserving the future untrammelled by any pledge. Neither need the absence be long; a year or two at farthest; the probabilities are, that with their present knowledge of the schemes of the insurgents, the Government can either precipitate events, or retard and protract them at will. Their policy, in this respect, depending on the rank and importance of those who, by either line of procedure, would be delivered into their hands. Arguing from what they have already done, I should pronounce it likely that their game will be to wait, to weaken the hopes and break the spirit of the United party, by frequent defections; to sow distrust and suspicion