The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-10-10 00:00:00

THIRD EDITION.

Standard-ogice, Twelve o'clo.k.
MEETING OF THE REPEAL ASSOCIATION,

YESTERDAY

The usual weekly meeting took place yesterday, the 9th,
in Calvert's Theatre, Abbey-street, the Corn Exchange
being insufficient to accommodate the numbers expected
to attend, including some hundreds of the Liverpool re-
peelers, who arrived on Saturday and Sunday. The theatre
was crowded to excess in every part. Shortly after twelve
o'clock the chair was taken by John O'Connell, M.P.
Addresses of congratulation were then presented to Mr.
O'Connell, from the repealers of Manchester and Staley
Bridge, congratulating him on the progress of the repeal
agitation. He briefly thanked the deputation for the
compliment paid to him. _ .

Letters were read from various parts of the country,
enclosing subscriptions, and many of which were denomi-
nated " proclamation money".
Mr. O'CONNELL, in reference to a phrase in one of
these letters, said that nothing could excruciate him more
than the occurrence of anything tending to a breach of
the peace, and he would be most unhappy if he were not
certain that repeaters gave him credit for entertaining
these sentiments. He would conduct them through the
present crisis safe and sound, unattacked and uninjured,
in person or property. They should give their enemies
no occasion for triumph; and they would come out of the
present crisis with the certainty of obtaining legislative
independence—that to which their lives were devoted, and
the struggle fir which they never would give up, ex-
cept with their last breaths. (Loud cheers.)
Mr. GREENE, of Liverpool, handed in £45 from that
locality, and read the names of the contributors, many of
whom, he said, were then present in the pit, and were
ready to do or die if necessary. (Great cheering.)
Mr. NUGENT, of Kingstown, handed in .E 7 Ios., which,
he said, he had collected on the previous day at the door
of his own house, by hoisting Mr. O'Connell's proclama-
tion as a standard. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) The peo-
ple flocked around it immediately, and in a few minutes
the sum he had handed in was collected. He was de-
lighted to see the soldiers who landed in Kingstown yes-
terday sharing their bread with the poor creatures who
were asking alms on the beach.
Mr. O'CoNstget. handed in what he termed his own
"proclamation" money—Xs from himself—£l from each
of his seven children, and 255. from his quarter of a hun-
dred of gran, ch. ldren. (Cheers and laughter.)
The Hon. and Learned UENTLEXIAN then came for-
ward to address the meeting, and was received with great
cheering. Be said he had never addressed a public meet-
ing with a greater feeling of responsibility—with a more
triumphant conviction of the propriety of the conduct of
the people, and of the iniquity of their enemies. (Cheers.)
It was true he had passed a most hideous day yesterday,
because for hours he could not raise his confidence in the
people to such a pitch as not to apprehend that mischief
might occur at Clamart', and a massacre of the people
ensue as the inevitable result of any disturbance. (Hear,
hear.) He would say it was not the fault of the govern-
ment that a massacre did not take place, and if he were to
go to the scaffold for it, he would not hesitate to assert that
it the government wanted to entrap the. people, they just
adopted the cuurse calculated to effect their purpose. (Hear)
Had it not been fur his interposition a massacre would
have occurred. He now called on the people to- obey
every thing having the shape or appearance of legality—
if they wished for safety to themselves and for a repeal
of the union. It' they follow this course they must in-
evitably -brain repeal—by keeping themselves out of the
power of their eni m es, who would never venture to throw
off the mask and raise the dagger against them —(hear
arid cheers.) If they did so, it would, of course, be a
different case altogether; but he wanted to carry repeal
without shedding a drop of blood—without crime or
violence of any kind—in such a way as than he could meet
his Redeemer without having anything criminal
to answer fur, in that struggle for the liberty of his coon-
try—(cheers.l It had been said that if' he was arrested
there Might be a struggle. They could say nothing that
more grieved him, for it led to the inference that they did
not believe him to be sincere, when he told them to keep
the peace. He now told them to obey the law even if he
were to perish in consequence of that obedience. The
course of the government with respect to the Clontarf
meeting was, he repeated, calculated to cause the slaughter
of innocent people. They were in possession of the fact
for three weeks, yet did not announce their attention of
putting it down till the last moment Only for the activity
used, and his being in town, the friends of the people
could not have cautioned them from attending, and the
result might have been tearful. For six months the go-
vernment had permitted, nay, he might say, countenanced
these meetings ; they knew the names of those who took
part in them, yet there were no prosecutions--no hint
even of their being illegal—no caution given—in fact, on
the contrary, there was a continual acquiescence and ac-
knowledgment of their legality on the part of the govern-
ment. Up to Friday last such was the state of things,
when suddenly the government thought proper to inter-
fere with the last of their meetings, and one, too, above
all others, characterised by decent tranquillity, for the
requisition by which it was convened was signed exclu-
sively by Catholic clergymen. (Hear, hear.) Why did
they not publish the proclamation in the Gazette of Fri-
day l The associationTiKhl her tiivrtotg..pze;
before it was issued ; and if he had not sent messengersu
to the various parts of the country, whence the people
were expected to attend, there was no doubt that three or
four hundred thousand persons from the surrounding
counties would have assembled at Clontarf on yesterday ;
and, if they had done so, it would be next to a miracle if
some riot were not committed or fomented. (Hear, hear.)
Any of the low Dublin Orangemen could have gone there
and done it. (Hear, hear, hear.) He asserted that a set
of men who could act so, were unworthy of being entrust-
ed with the government of Dalkey Island. (Laughter.)
He then took out a copy of the proclamation, and com-
mented on it in a sneering and contemptuous tone, clause
by clause. One clause referred to placards calling on
people to march in military order. Of these placards the
Association knew nothing : they were anonymous. The
charge that their meetings tended to bring the govern-
ment and constitution into contempt, he utterly repu-
diated. He wished only to revive the constitution, and
this charge (to use the term of a friend when a man spoke
nonsense), mere " fudgeography." (Great laughter.) He
denounced the addressing of the proclamation " to all
magistrates, officers," &c., as illegal in language, and of
ferociaus authority, and quite different from the proclam-
ation issued in Wales, in which a complete catalogue of the
crime was set forth, and ended wiih enjoining all " magis-
trates, sheriffs, under-sheriffs, and all other civil authori-
ties whatsoever to be aiding in the suppression of these
outrages." In Ireland there had been no such outrages,
and the persons who issued the Irish proclamation should
be impeached for the abominable latitude as to the per-
sons to whom it was addressed. If they put such a procla-
mation into the Corn-Exchange Rooms, he would
be the first to go into it, notwithstanding. If they
sent police or soldiers to arrest them, they would
submit at once. The crime would be the govern-
ment's—the legal vindication should be theirs—(cheers.)
Mr. O'Connell then announced that he intended to have
simultaneous meetings on two occasions, but he would
not then fix the days. They would take place before the
meeting of parliament, and would be for the adoption and
signature of petitions to parliament. He concluded by
impressing on the meeting the necessity of an implicit
obedience to the laws, but at the same time never desist-
ing from legally struggling for repeal, and proposed a
resolution to that effect.

Captain SEAVER, of Newry, seconded it, and it was
adopted.
Mr. O'Connell announced the amount of the week's
rent to be £1.105 3s. ld.

Major NicHOl.soN :Who said it was the proclamation
brought him there, was the second chairman, and the
meeting seperated after giving three cheers for Mr. O'Con-
nell.

The above we have abbreviated from the Dublin Even-
ing Mail of yesterday. In addition to the circumstantial
account given, our Contemporary states that the moment
the paper was going to press, his question of " What IA ICI
Mr. O'Connell do next," has been answered by no less a
personage than Mr. O'Connell himself; for his reporter
who has just returned from Calvert's theatre, brouht
an account that the Liberator had entered into a soltmn
undertaking

" TO PROSECUTE AT LAW EVERY MAN
WHO SET HIS HAND TO THE PROCLAMATION
PROHIBITING THE CLONTARF MEETING."

Farce after Tragedy is fair and quite in O'Connell's
view ; but he may shortly find other more serious matter
to occupy himself with.