Ireland, it would seem, was destined at this time to have sorrow upon sorrow; her great Liberator, O'Connell, died in May, 1847. For some time his powers had been evidently failing, and no wonder, after the life of hard work he had gone through. Besides, he was in his seventy-second year. Many members of his family lived to be much older, and he used to say, good-humouredly, that they had a trick of living till ninety. But they did not labour as he did. The writer heard him in Conciliation Hall, shortly before he went to England for the last time, and his feebleness was painful, especially to any one who remembered his proud, defiant energy in earlier years. The quarrels and dissensions, which had arisen amongst the national party teased, and depressed him, and must have affected his health. It was observed, too, by his friends, and indeed by all, that his imprisonment in Richmond told considerably upon him; his speeches, after his liberation, lacking that buoyant pleasantry for which they were wont to be remarkable. The famine also weighed heavily upon his spirits; every question, he frequently said, must be postponed but the one of saving the lives of the people. We need not, however, go in search of causes for his death; he had done the work of a host of men, he was seventy-two, and it was natural he should die; but the Irish people were not at all prepared for his death: no, in their affection for him, they had made up their minds that their Liberator was to live up to that ninety, which he had so often promised them,—and, with the vigour of forty-five.
In the last days of March, 1847, O'Connell left Dublin for London, to attend his parliamentary duties. He presented some petitions on the 1st of February, and spoke at some length about the Famine on the 8th; his speech, the last he ever made, occupying about one hundred lines of a newspaper column. He was imperfectly heard. One report says, "Mr. O'Connell rose, but spoke very indistinctly, and directed his voice very much to the lower part of the house." The opening remark in Hansard is,—"Mr. O'Connell was understood to say." He was very kindly received by the house; hears and cheers are thickly strewn through his speech as reported. This was in part, no doubt, the kindness of pity for the great old man, in the hour of his feebleness and humiliation. For he, who in the day of his might, had hurled "his high and haughty defiance" at them all, was there to crave bread, to save the lives of those millions with whom he had so often threatened them. His last words were an appeal to their charity; they also contained a prophecy, which was, alas! but too strictly verified. "She is in your hands," he said, "she is in your power. If you don't save her, she can't save herself; and I solemnly call upon you to recollect that I predict, with the sincerest conviction, that one-fourth of her population will perish, unless you come to her relief. (Cheers from both sides)."
So ended the public career of the great leader of the Irish nation, to be followed in two short months by his death. Two days after he had spoken in the House of Commons, the rumour reached the Clubs that he was dangerously ill. This was contradicted, and a letter from himself to the Repeal Association, which was read at their next meeting, reassured the public. Next, the news came that writing fatigued him, and that his physicians forbade it; so, for the future his son John wrote, in his own name, to the Association, always, as might be expected, taking the sanguine view of his father's health. A month passed. His physicians ordered him to Hastings, and after spending a fortnight there he sailed for France. His intention was to go to Rome. At Lyons, he felt so poorly that he was obliged to refuse audiences to the various deputations of that Catholic city, which crowded to his hotel to do him honour. He arrived at Genoa, his final stage, on the 6th of May, and breathed his last in that city on the evening of the 15th, with the tranquillity of a child. His faithful friend, the Rev. Dr. Miley, and several of the principal clergy of the place were kneeling in prayer around his bed when he expired.
O'Connell's character has been traced by many eloquent pens, some friendly, some the reverse, but all are forced to admit that the powers with which he was gifted were of the highest order. He first became distinguished as a lawyer; soon after being called, he distanced those of his own standing, and in time, his legal opinion was regarded as oracular. Crown lawyers, and even judges feared him, as well they might, for he never spared them when they were wrong. In the early part of his career, his admiring countrymen loved to call him, "the counsellor," and it was their highest delight to hear him cross-examine a witness. Anecdotes of his wit, humour, and keen penetration whilst so engaged, are very numerous, very amusing, and full of character. As a cross-examiner he had no rival at all; lawyers of his time there were, who might dispute the palm with him for profound knowledge of the laws and constitution of the country, yet some how or other it came to be admitted, openly or tacitly, that no other lawyer could see so far into an Act of Parliament as Dan, nor drive a coach and six through it so triumphantly.
But it was in the political arena he made his enduring fame. When he entered public life, the Catholics of Ireland were a despised, enslaved race: not only were they enslaved, but through custom, or by tradition, they thought, and spoke, and acted, like slaves. Their leaders were the few Catholic peers that Ireland possessed, and the heads of those old Catholic families, who, by some means, managed to retain a portion of their property. These were called "the natural leaders of the people." They were not remarkable for talents; they were timid; they were prostrate in the dust, and they half accepted the situation. They had been so long regarding the Protestants as a superior race, that they came to believe it at last, and, hence, in the presence of Protestants, they always bore themselves with the humble downcast manner which became inferiors. The young counsellor, fresh from the Kerry Mountains—an athlete in mind and body—had no notion to submit so such degradation from men who were his inferiors in every respect, and, consequently, his language was full of manly independence. His high spirit appeared in his whole manner, and as he walked through Dame Street, Parliament Street, and along the quays to the Four Courts, he looked the noblest and proudest man in Dublin—a very king of men.
In attack and denunciation he was terrible. What he said of Peel, when Irish Secretary, is an example of this. At an aggregate meeting in 1815, he alluded to him, as the worthy champion of Orangeism. At the mention of Mr. Peel's name, says the report, there was much laughing. "You mistake me, said Mr. O'Connell. I do not—indeed I do not intend, this day, to enter into the merits of that celebrated statesman. All I shall say of him, by way of parenthesis, is, that I am told he has, in my absence, and in a place where he was privileged from any account, grossly traduced me. I said, at the last meeting, in the presence of the notetakers of the police, who are paid by him, that he was too prudent to attack me in my presence. I see the same police informers here now, and I authorize them carefully to report these my words, that Mr. Peel would not DARE, in my presence, or in any place where he was liable to personal account, use a single expression derogatory to my interest, or my honour."
This passage led to the affair of honour between himself and Peel. No hostile meeting, however, took place.
His best friends thought his propensity of arraigning and denouncing those who differed from him, was often carried to excess, but he refused to give it up or modify it. The defence he once made for it was, that it was not irritation, it was calculation that made him adopt that style of animadversion.[264] The Catholic aristocracy and the older leaders of the Catholics were offended with it, and soon retired from any active part in Catholic affairs. This may have been one of O'Connell's calculations. Although his aggressive propensities were sometimes indulged to an extreme degree, he was right in the main, for, the "whispering humbleness" of the older Catholic leaders would have never won emancipation; and this was handsomely and honourably confessed to Mr. P.V. Fitzpatrick by Lord Fingal, shortly before his death. Lord Fingal having sent for Mr. Fitzpatrick, that gentleman repaired immediately to his lordship's residence, and having been shown into the library, where the dying nobleman was reclining in an easy chair, feeble in body, but bright and vigorous in mind, his lordship addressed him as follows: "Mr. Fitzpatrick, I have been for some time thinking whom I should pitch upon, to discharge my conscience of a heavy debt, and I have fixed upon you, as the most appropriate person, because you not only know me and Mr. O'Connell, but you knew us all who were connected with Catholic politics for years, and well. You know, too, that I went forward to an extent, that caused me to be sometimes snubbed by those of my own order in that body; but, notwithstanding, I, like them was criminally cowardly. We never understood that we had a nation behind us—O'Connell alone comprehended that properly, and used his knowledge fitly. It was by him the gates of the Constitution were broken open for us; we owe everything to his rough work, and, to effect further services for Ireland, there must be more of it. I never understood this properly until they made me a peer of parliament, and I feel myself bound to make the avowal under the circumstances in which you now see me, preparatory to my passing into another world. You will communicate this to O'Connell, and my most earnest wish, that he will receive the avowal as an atonement for my not having always supported him, as I now feel he should have been supported."[265]
O'Connell, as an orator, aimed at being what he was called for many years, "The Man of the People." In some of his earlier speeches there are marks of care and preparation, but during three-fourths of his career, his only preparation was to master his subject; words of the best and most effective kind never failed him. There is little doubt, that elaborate preparation would have marred the effect of O'Connell's oratory. He, like all great men, had a quick, intuitive mind—one, in fact, that could scarcely bear the tedium of careful preparation, and the true character of which came out in cross-examining and in reply; for although great and lucid in statement, he was still more powerful in reply. Woe to the man who provoked the lion to anger,—he pawed him to death. His gesture was not very demonstrative, but it was sometimes very energetic, and when he wanted a cheer for a man or a principle, he called for it, by a bold flourish of his hand above his head. But O'Connell stood in little need of the aids which gesture commonly gives the public speaker; his fine presence and unrivalled voice did everything for him. It is said he had no ear for music, but his voice when speaking in public, was the most musical that could be heard: great in power and compass, rich in tone, ever fresh in the variety of its cadences, it was as unique and striking as the great man to whom it belonged; nor was the charming brogue which accompanied it, the least of its attractions. Another advantage possessed by him has not been so much remarked upon—the rapid, changeful expression of his features. By observing O'Connell's face, as he spoke, one could be sure of the tone and temper of what was coming. Was he about to make an adversary ridiculous by an anecdote or a witticism? His eyes, his lips, his whole face suddenly became expressive of humour. Did he intend to turn from pleasantries to solemn warning, or fierce denunciation? (a usual habit of his); the dark cloud was sure to cast its shadow across his manly features, before the thunder came forth.
His style was simple and forcible. He very seldom quoted the classics, although he was fond of giving passages from the English poets, more especially from Moore; but the lines which expressed the guiding principle of his life were taken from Byron: