The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1843-10-17 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

GRATTAN'S CHARACTER OF DANIEL O'CONNELL IN 1815.—" Examine their leader, Mr. O'Connell —he assumes a right to direct the Catholics of Ireland— be advises—he harangues—and he excites •, he does not attempt to allay the passions of a warm and jealous people. Full of inflammatory matter, his declamations breathed everything but harmony, venting against Great Britain the most disgusting calumny, falsehoods, and treachery, equalled only by his impudene; describing Great Britian as the moat stupid, the most dishonest, and the most besotted nation that ever existed ; that Ireland could not confide in the promises of England, &c. Without discrimination he pronounced all Protestants ` bigots.' When he advocated the grievances of the Catholic body, he omitted the greatest greviance—himself! A man that could make the speeches he has made, utter the sentiments he has uttered, abuse the characters he has abused, praise the characters that he has praised, violate the promises that he has violated, propose such votes and such censures as he has proposed—can have little regard for private honour or for public character; he cannot comprehend the spirit of liberty, and he is not fitted to receive it. He betrays such a scattered understanding and barbarous mind, that if he got liberty he would immediately lose it. Almost unsuited for the British constitution, and almost ignorant of the bonds of civil society, of such a mould, and such a disposition, as to be incapable of accomplishing any rational object, his declamations to the lower orders are full of extravagance, wildness and ambiguity, and set afloat the had passions of the people, make them restless in disposition, and impatient in action. He leaves a vacuum in the meaning of his harangue, to be filled up by the elevated imagination of a warm-hearted and sensible people. It is the part of a bad man to make use of grievances as instruments of power, and render them the means of discontent without a single honest attempt at redress. He knows, or at least he ought to know, that this conduct is of such a nature as must always tend to confusion in bad m nisters, and strengthen their authority ; it seduces people into mischief not intended, and, after exciting them to Lolly, it abandons them through fear. It may lead them to rise against an exciseman or titheman, to burn a hayrick, or murder a farmer, but will never teach them to redress greivances, or to bring the offending minister to the scaffold. This leader in spirit is poor, his courage is of a hesitating quality, his political confidence is prodigious also; in debate he is more than a hero; in every sentence there is a challenge; in the field he is a diplomatic. He was insulted, and did not fight ; again insulted, he was goaded to the ground, where his antagonist Rodergo fell. He then offered an insult, was noticed by the condescending spirit of an imprudent minister, was challenged, travelled 400 miles incognito, was arrested through an unforeseen accident ; did not go to the ground, being prevented by an unavoidable necessity. His speaking is extravagnt diction—a vulgar boast, a swaggering sentence, affected bombast, and ludicrous composition. His liberty is not liberal, his politics are not reason, his reading is not learning, his learning is not knowledge; his rhetoric is a gaudy hyperbole, garnished with faded flowers, such as a drabbled girl would pick up in Covent. garden, stuck in with the taste of a kitchertmaid. He makes politics a trade to serve his desperate and interested purpose. This man can bring about nothing good ; in abortion he is the roost fertile ; the womb of his mind is of such sinful mould that it can never produce anything that is not deformed. He never succeeded in any project except the loss of your question. He harks arid harks, and, even when the filthy slaverer has exhausted its poison, and returns to its ken, nel, it there still hark• and ln,wls within un.een. No administration hut sxould inj,ire their reputation by advan* csig such a character."  rffilllD