Iowa capitol reporter. [volume] (Iowa City, Iowa) 1841-1855, 1848-11-15

and used, every act to preventive junction
OF the Catholic clergy with the Reyolu-
tionary leaders.
In this latter enterprise they were ma
terially assisted by the opposition Of Mr..
John O'Connell to the form,tion of the.
''Irish League That League. devised
and advocated by the best Of clergymen
and citizens, was intended TO swallow up
both the Repeal Association and the Con-
federation. Its actual result would have
been to bring together Young Ireland and
the Prie>thood-the two vital elements Of
Irish politics at that period, Mr.. John
|O'Connell opposed it by Succession Of
small articles, unworthy Of any man, and
which were only tolerated because being
his fathers son he was necessary 10 the
| Union of parties. He asked delay Of a
fortnight of month-and of SIX weeks.
Finally when the six weeks wtre expir-
ed, and for very shame, he cold ask no
. more, he openly assaulted it as illegal, and
intended be un-Catholic. The Catholic
Clergy, with the exception ofcourageous
and eloquent Bishop Of Derry and his
/ clergymen-abandon the infant League,
and so the Confederates were left alone
! face to face, and foot to foot with the gov
eminent.
In taking that course, the Irish Clergy
did not leave themselves withoy argu-
ments. The bloody days of JUNG in Pa
ris-the lamentable anarchy in The City Of
Rome-the comparative unpre paredness
of the people--the slaughter that would
be made-the partial failure of the harvest
are all reasons for their course. But,
assuredly, they made the revolution fail
by preaching that if would fail. At Car
rick, at Castlerreagh, in Tipperay, Lin
erick, and Clare, they preached against
an appeal to arms, and made converts.
Now the concentration of the troops in
the towns and cities compelled the Con-
| federates to choose Guerrilla war or
none. The situation of an Irish town, in
August last may be understood from this
instance. In Dublin as IN most Irish
towns, there is an old and new town.
The Government people live in the new
town, and command its open andangular
streets from strong public buildings, fill
ing every vista, and Westinghouse, near
" as strong. In the old town live the
hereditary rebels who could be destroyed
by shower Of shells which might be so
directed as not to injure the other quarter.
In Dublin, the garrison was, on the 9th
of July, $4,000 men, and it averaged
throughout 10000. The object Of max
ing the warfare a guerrilla one, was to
drag these concentrations to pieces, as the
Spanish patriots did Napoleon's armies OF
] occupation, and by bringing them into dis
tricts where only infantry could act with
ease, to put them more on a level with the
raw levies Of the people. The remainder
of the course that might be taken would
be to burn the towns and cities, as the
Athens, and the Russian Moscow. This,
| believe, would have been the result, Oh
the news Of the first royalis,s blood being
drawn in the rural districts, whittier these
considerations, and the Habeas Corpus
Suspension Act, had driven our leaders.
But the rural districts would not move
without their clergy, and the clergy were
openly adverse or inactive.
| Ii is not fair to assume that there was
no system OF operation agreed on among
the coniederatcs. There was feasible
and well II derstood plan. What ii was,
it is not advisable for me pueicly to ex
plain. Beside, had rather future sue
cess should publish it than |. | have no
objec;ion-quite the contrary-to explain
it TO any Committee or circle OF the friends
OF Ireland, but printing it would serve no
purpose except to arm the enemy.
! The conclusion draw, from all know
of this attempt, is this-that the clergy Of
the people made a grave political mistake,
and that that mistake, was fatal to the in
surrection in its incipen, stages. 1twould
be Unfair and false TO say that they cannot
allege strong grounds for their course, but
! am, for one, fully convinced, that il they
had headed the peasantry we would have
renewed the miracle OF st. Patrick.
know there would be slaughter, but Fever
and Famine, now under the protection of
the British flag in Ireland, will destroy
more lives, and with worse weapons, than
the sixty thousand armed men could have
killed. And then TO compare the two re-
suits!
Until the good day of victory comes, all
individuals of the Irish nation must only
strive the more to make their names re-
spectacle by doing noble deeds-by hon
esty, by courage, by gentleness, by genius,
to save the national spirit from barrenness
and the national character from disparage-
ment. If this late movement has produced
nothing else, it has produced martyrs. 1t
has welded the Irish cause once more to
disinterestedness and self-sacrifice, and
next to such sages as Washington, the life
most valuable to freedom is life like En-
NETS offered up upon her holy altar, the
scaffold; such offerings have been freely
made of late in Ireland by the self immo-
lation of John Mitchell and his faithful
friend John Martin; by Mr.. Meagher and
Mr.. O'Gorman, the sons of two of our
richest merchants; by Mr.. Duffy, our
greatest journalist; by John Lillon and
Smith O'Brien, men whom much fortune
and many friends wooed in vain from "the
thorny path Of duty" In other revolu-
tionary attempts, leaders are usually less