The Sun.
London, England, 1836-05-28 00:00:00

MR. O'CONNELL.

At a Meeting held at the King's Head, Great Yar-
mouth, on Tuesday, May 24, 1836, Wm. Barth, Esq.,
Mayor, in the Chair, it was unanimously resolved,
Firstly—That this Meeting fully appreciates the success-
ful exertions of Mr. O'Connell in obtaining the great bless-
ings of Parliamentary and Municipal Reform for England
and Scotland, and that it deeply deplores the refusal by
oue branch of the Legislature, to extend equal rights to our
fellow subjects in Ireland.
Secondly—lt having been publicly announced that Mr.
O'Connell has accepted an invitation to dine with the Re-
formers of Ipswich on Friday next,—that this Meeting,
impressed with a full sense of gratitude for the services
which Mr. O'Connell has on all occasions rendered to the
cause of Civil and Religious Liberty, do invite him to a
Public Dinner at the Town Hall on Saturday next.

An invitation, embodying the spirit of the above resolu-
tions, having been sent to Mr. O'Connell, the following
answer, addressed to the Chairman "of the meeting, has
been received, which will give sincere pleasure to the Re-
formers of Yarmouth :

Mn. MAYOR,—I bad the high honour and proud gratifi-
cation to receive the resolutions passed at the meeting, at
which you were pleased to preside at Great Yarmouth on
Tuesday last, and the invitation to a public dinner which
accompanied those resolutions.
It is not in any language with which I am acquainted, to
express the feelings excited by finding myself thus honoured
by independent Englishmen, who can have no motives but
their honest conviction, and their generous sympathy for
my afflicted country, to address me as they have done.
However, I will say, you do me but justice in recognising
my exertions on behalf of the liberties of the English
people—but those exertions, although honest and well in-
tentioned, were endowed with too little of talent to be of
any praiseworthy utility. I have always voted for, and will
always vote for, every measure that is calculated to lessen
the burdens, or increase the franchises of the English na-
tion ; and I look back with pleasure to my humble, but
earnest, participation in the struggles which have produced
the " instalment," which England has already obtained, of
Parliamentary and Corporate Reform.
I deeply deplore that it is impossible for me to accept
the invitation with which I am honoured—nothing but the
impossibility of complying with the kind request could pre-
vent me from accepting it. But my time, until Sunday,
is engaged ; and was so before I got the invitation from
Yarmouth. On Friday I dine at Ipswich, on Saturday at
Bungay—and I must on Monday be in the House of Com-
mons on business of vital consequence to my late consti-
uents of Dublin.

Accept, then, the only apology I could send you—
namely, the impossibility of complying with the invitation.
I cannot conclude without thanking you for your gene-
rous sympathy for the people of Ireland. The House of
Lords has insulted the Irish nation and the British House
of Commons, and they will continue to insult both so long as
they may play their " fantastic tricks" free from any punish-
ment or responsibility. But I do not judge rightly of English
common sense if it permits One Hundred and Fifty unac-
countable men—unaccountable in every sense of the word
—to continue to ride rough-shod over the destinies of mil-
lions without check or controul, and solely at the discre-
tion of their caprice, or the dictation of their own sinister
interests.
I have the honour to be,
Your very grateful and faithful servant,
DANIEL O'CONNELL.
London, May 25, 1836.