allowing himself to be put forward. He at length succeeded in bringing him to the office of the Evening Post, wire on Tuesday, the 24th of June, the address was written in his presence, and that of William Frederick Conway, before ever the Catholic Association was made aware of it.*

Immediately after, O'Connell declared publicly that if no other candidate would go forward, he would go himself. Five thousand pounds were voted by the Association, as a first instalment towards the expenses of the election; and it being ascertained beyond question that M'Namara declined the contest, O'Connell at once came forward amidst the utmost enthusiasm, and addressed the electors of Clare. But election expenses in these times were very heavy, and O'Connell's purse could not, to any appreciable extent, sustain a contest for so vast a county as Clare. Fitzpatrick undertook to sound the wealthy Catholics on this essential point, and £1,600 were subscribed in a single day by sixteen leading Catholics. The country followed the example, and £14,000 was raised in a week, and money continued to flow in during the contest in great abundanc Cork city subscribed £1,000 in an incredibly sl time.f On the day eparture for Clare, O'Connell's Carriage and ses drove into the east yard of e Four Co out two d'clock, at which time

reas is the subject of a very

election-move amazed and Mr. O'Connell, & om vor the Evening Mail, wi. skind patronising Outolin for the expens

he was engaged in an important law argument When it was over he took off his wig and gown, stepped into his carriage and drove off, receiving from lawyers and clients. a perfect ovation. Every one wished him "God speed," and for a considerable time the courts were perfectly deserted.*

The following is his election address. It appeared for the first time in the Dublin Evening Post of June the 24th, but has no date whatever attached to itself. It was undoubtedly written on that day in the office of the Evening Post :

contest, is funny reading now, and was, indeed, laughable at the time. "In Dublin," wrote the Mail-man of that day, "threats of the most unequivocal nature are used, for the purpose of terrifying moderate Roman Catholics into subscriptions for this nefarious object; and persons who detent the present proceeding, and despise the man, reluctantly subscribe their money, to preserve, perhaps, their lives." (!!!)

* See Fagan. Vol. i. pp. 554 et seqq. The Evening Post says he took his seat on the box, which no doubt he did, for such was his habit.

MR. VESEY FITZGERALD TO MR. PEEL.

"My dear Peel,

(No date.)

I fear it will be a tremendous contest. You will judge of the spirit of this country, and of what I have to encounter, from the paper which I enclose you. An ineffectual attempt was made to resist Mr. O'Connell, but all were borne down by the violence of the meeting." Sir Robert Peel's Memoirs. Published by the Trustees of his Papers. Vol. 1., p. 109.

"TO THE ELECTORS OF THE COUNY OF CLARE.

"FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN,

"Your County wants a representative. I respectfully solicit your suffrages to raise me to that station.

"Of my qualifications to fill that station I leave you to judge. The habits of public speaking, and many, many years of public business, render me, perhaps, equally suited with most men to attend to the interests of Ireland in Parliament.

"You will be told I am not qualified to be elected. The assertion, my friends, is untrue. I am qualified to be elected, and to be your representative. It is true that, as a Catholic, I cannot, and of course never will, take the oaths at present prescribed to members of Parliament; but the authority which created these oaths (the Parliament) can abrogate them; and I entertain a confident hope that, if you elect me, the most bigoted of our enemies will see the necessity of removing from the chosen representative of the people an obstacle which would prevent him from doing his duty to his King and to his country.

"The oath at present required by law is, "that the Sacrifice of the Mass, and the invocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and other Saints, as now practised in the Church of Rome, are impious and idolatrous.' Of course I will never stain my soul with such an oath. I leave that to my honourable opponent, Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald. He has often taken that horrible oath. He is ready to take it again, and asks your votes to enable him so to

swear.

I would rather be torn limb from limb than take it. Electors of the County of Clare! choose between me, who abominate that oath, and Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald who has sworn it full twenty times! Return me to Parliament, and it is probable that such a blasphemous oath will be abolished for ever. As your representative, I will try the question with the friends in Parliament of Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald. They may send me to prison. I am ready to go there, to promote the cause of the Catholics, and of universal liberty. The discussion which the attempt to exclude your representative from the House of Commons must excite, will create a sensation all over Europe, and produce such a burst of contemptuous indignation against British bigotry, in every enlightened country in the world, that the voice of all the great and good in England, Scotland, and Ireland, being joined to the universal shout of the nations of the earth, will overpower every opposition, and render it impossible for Peel and Wellington any longer to close the doors of the constitution against the Catholics of Ireland.

"Electors of the County of Clare! Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald claims, as his only merit, that he is a friend to the Catholics. Why, I am a Catholic myself; and if he be sincerely our friend, let him vote for me, and raise before the British Empire the Catholic question in my humble person in the way most propitious to my final success. But no,

fellow-countrymen, no; he will make no sacrifice to that cause; he will call himself your friend, and act the part of your worst and most unrelenting

enemy.

"I do not like to give the epitome of his political life; yet, when the present occasion so loudly calls

He took office under

for it, I cannot refrain. Perceval-under that Perceval who obtained power by raising the base, bloody, and unchristian cry of NoPopery,' in England.

"He had the nomination of a member to serve for the Borough of Ennis. He nominated Mr. Spencer Perceval, then a decided opponent of the Catholics.

"He voted on the East Retford measure-for a measure that would put two virulent enemies of the Catholics into Parliament.

"In the case of the Protestant Dissenters in England he voted for their exclusion-that is, against the principle of the freedom of conscience; that sacred principle which the Catholics of Ireland have ever cultivated and cherished, on which we framed our rights to Emancipation.

Finally, he voted for the suppression of the Catholic Association of Ireland !

"And, after this-sacred Heaven! he calls himself a friend to the Catholics.

"He is the ally and colleague of the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel. He is their partner in power; they are, you know, the most bitter, persevering, and unmitigated enemies of the Catholics; and after all this, he, the partner of our bitterest and unrelenting enemies, calls himself the friend of the Catholics of Ireland.

66

Having thus traced a few of the demerits of my honourable opponent, what shall I say for myself?

"I appeal to my past life, for my unremitting and disinterested attachment to the religion and liberties of Catholic Ireland.

"If you return me to Parliament, I pledge