John O'Connell gives an anecdote which illustrates his father's success in the defence of his prisoners. It had fallen to his lot, at the Assizes in Cork, to be retained for a man on a trial for an aggravated case of highway robbery. By an able cross-examination, O'Connell was enabled to procure the man's acquittal. The following year, at the Assizes for the same town, he found himself again retained for the same individual, then on trial for a burglary, committed with great violence, very little short of a deliberate attempt to murder. On this occasion, the result of Mr. O'Connell's efforts rose a disagreement of the jury; and, therefore, no verdict. The Government witnesses having been entirely discredited during the cross-examination, the case was pursued no farther, and the prisoner was discharged. Again, the succeeding year, he was found in the criminal dock; this time on a charge of piracy! He had run away with a collier brig, and having found means for disposing of a portion of her cargo, and afterwards of supplying himself with some arms, he had actually commenced cruising on his own account, levying contributions from such vessels as he chanced to fall in with. Having "caught a tartar," whilst engaged in this profitable occupation, he was brought into Cove, and thence sent up to Cork to stand his trial for "piracy on the high seas." Again Mr. O'Connell saved him, by demurring to the jurisdiction of the Court—the offence having been committed within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty, and, therefore, cognizable only before an Admiralty Court. When the f ellow saw his successful counsel facing the dock, he stretched over to speak to him, and, raising his eyes and hands most piously and fervently to heaven, he cried out—"Oh, Mr. O'Connell, may the Lord spare you—to me!"
Here let me give my opinion, that the disqualification of his religious tenets, which kept him in a stuff gown while his juniors in standing, and inferiors in talent, were strutting about with all professional honour, was not much detriment to O'Connell's advancement. Here was a man, confessedly at the head of his profession, yet excluded from its honours by unjust and intolerant laws—it became, therefore, a practice to consider him a martyr for the sake of his religion, and he got many and many a brief because such was the feeling. His disqualification as a Catholic gained him business as a Barrister.
The Union failed to make Ireland happy—because the chains of the Catholics were still allowed to gall them, instead, as Mr. Pitt contemplated, of being removed with the least possible delay. George III. threw himself between Ireland and justice. Relief was expected from Mr. Fox, and might, perhaps, have been granted, but the death of that statesman, almost immediately succeeded by an Anti-Catholic Ministry, sounded the knell to the hopes of the people of Ireland. It was at this time that Mr. O'Connell came forward as a politician; he had personal reasons for doing so, because, now being in the enjoyment of a very excellent practice at the bar, he found numerous vexations arising from the privileges enjoyed by men less talented, less qualified than himself, but who enjoyed the advantages which religious and political "ascendency" gave them.
The Catholics at last threw themselves into an attitude of defence. O'Connell's first decided step[16] was the taking part in the proceedings of a meeting of Catholics, held in Dublin in May, 1809. Then, for the first time for over a hundred years, Catholics literally "spoke out." Their daring appeared to draw strength for their despair. What was called "the Catholic Committee" was formed, and this, strongly against O'Connell's advice, violated the law by assuming a representative character. Lord Killeen (eldest son of the Earl of Fingal, a Catholic peer), and some others of the leaders, were prosecuted by the Government. They were defended by O'Connell, and Ireland then witnessed the almost unprecedented circumstance of Catholic agitators being acquitted by a Protestant jury in Dublin.
The Catholic Committee, however, became alarmed, and broke up. Then was formed the Catholic Board, at which it was a matter of dispute whether Emancipation might not be purchased by allowing the Crown to pay the Catholic clergy, and giving the head of the Church of England a veto on the appointment of Catholic bishops in Ireland. Feeble and vacillating, the greater portion of the Catholic nobility held aloof from the struggle, in which O'Connell took the popular side. Later in the day,
The late Duke of Richmond (Viceroy of Ireland) put down the Catholic Board by means of his Attorney-General Saurin. The members of that Board, as some small acknowledgment for the services of their colleague, voted Mr. O'Connell a piece of plate, of the value of 1000l. The Board being put down, the Catholic cause would have fallen but for the intrepidity of O'Connell, who assumed the leadership at once, and published a letter, continued annually for a long time, in which he stated the wrongs of Ireland, with her claims for relief, and suggested the mode of action. This annual message had the motto, from Childe Harold,
"Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not,
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow."
Mr. Saurin is said to have seriously contemplated prosecuting O'Connell for sedition because of this motto from "Childe Harold."
The Catholic Board was suppressed, it is true, but there remained a thousand modes of action by which the spirit of patriotism might be kept alive in Ireland. Aggregate and other public meetings were instantly held, and at one of these Mr. O'Connell, in 1815, designated the Corporation of Dublin as a "beggarly corporation." A member of that "beggarly" and bankrupt body took upon himself to play the bravo in its defence. This man was a Mr. D'Esterre, and is understood to have had a promise of patronage from the Corporation (in the shape of a good berth), if he humbled the pride of O'Connell. It is more charitable than reasonable to hope that the Corporation were not so ruffianly as to hold out this hope to D'Esterre, because he was notoriously the best shot in Dublin; and yet, such "honourable" assassination is exactly what such a body would reward, if they did not suggest it.