My second letter was the only sort of letter that it could be,—an account of my own conjectures about him, and of my regret that I could see no probability of my being of use to him, except in as far as my experience of many troubles might enable me to speak suitably to him. I added some few words on the dangers attending any sort of trouble, when too keenly felt.
In answer to my first note came a few lines, telling me that the purpose of his application was mainly answered, and that my reply was of altogether greater consequence than I could have any idea of. He was less unhappy now, and believed he should never be so desperately wretched again. Wild as this might appear, I was still persuaded that he was not insane.
By the next post came a rather bulky packet. It contained, besides a letter from him, two or three old parchment documents, which showed that Patrick's forefathers had filled some chief municipal offices in the city in which the family had been settled for several generations. I had divined that Patrick was a gentleman; and he now showed me that he came of a good and honorable family, and had been well-educated. He was an orphan, and had not a relation in the world,—if I remember right. It was evident that he was poor; but he did not ask for money, nor seem to write on that account. He aspired to a literary life, and believed he should have done so, even if he had had the means of professional education. But he did not ask me for aid in trying his powers in literature. It was very perplexing; and the fact became presently clear that he expected me to tell him how I could be of use to him,—he being in no way able to afford me that information. I may as well give here the key to the mystery, which I had to wait for for some time. When poor Patrick was in a desperate condition,—very ill, in a lodging of which he could not pay the rent,—threatened with being turned into the street as soon as the thing could be done without danger to his life,—galled with a sense of disgrace, and full of impotent wrath against an oppressor,—and even suffering under deeper griefs than these,—at such a time, the worn man fell asleep, and dreamed that I looked kindly upon him. This happened three times; and on this ground, and this alone, he applied to me for comfort.
Before I learned this much, I had taken upon me to advise freely whatever occurred to me as best, finding Patrick entirely docile under my suggestions. Among other things, I advised him not to take offence, or assume any reserve, if a gentleman should call on him, with a desire to be of use to him. A gentleman did call, and was of eminent use to him. I had written to a benevolent friend of mine, a chief citizen of Dublin, begging him to obtain for me, through some trusty clerk or other messenger, some information as to what Patrick was like,—how old he was, what he was doing, and whether anything effectual could be done for him. Mr. H. went himself. He found Patrick sitting over a little fire in a little room, his young face thin and flushed, and his thin hands showing fever. He had had inflammation of the lungs, and, though he talked cheerfully, he was yet very far from well. Mr. H. was charmed with him. He found in him no needless reserves, and not so much sensitive pride as we had feared. Patrick had great hopes of sufficient employment, when once he could get out and go and see about it; and he pointed out two or three directions in which he believed he could obtain engagements. Two things, however, were plain: that there was some difficulty about getting out, and that his mind was set upon going to London at the first possible moment. He had not only the ordinary provincial ambition to achieve an entrance into the London literary world, but he had another object: he could serve his country best in London. Mr. H. easily divined the nature of the obstacle to his going out into the fresh air which he needed so much; and in a few days Patrick had a good suit of clothes. This was Mr. H.'s doing; and he also removed the danger of Patrick's being turned out of his lodging. The landlord had no wish to do such a thing; the young man was a gentleman,—regular and self-denying in his habits, and giving no trouble that he could help: but he had been very ill; and it was so desolate! Nobody came to see him; no letters arrived for him; no money was coming in, it was clear; and he could not go on living there,—starving, in fact.
Once able to go about again, Patrick cheered up; but it was plain that there was one point on which he would not be ruled. He would not stay in Dublin, under any inducement whatever; and he would go to London. I wrote very plainly to him about the risk he was running,—even describing the desolate condition of the unsuccessful literary adventurer in the dreary peopled wilderness, in which the friendless may lie down and die alone, as the starved animal lies down and perishes in the ravine in the desert. I showed him how impossible it was for me or anybody to help him, except with a little money, till he had shown what he could do; and I entreated him to wait two years,—one year,—six months, before rushing on such a fate. Here, and here alone, he was self-willed. At first he explained to me that he had one piece of employment to rely on. He was to be the London correspondent of the Repeal organ in Dublin,—the "Nation" newspaper. The pay was next to nothing. He could not live, ever so frugally, on four times the amount: but it was an engagement; and it would enable him to serve his country. So, as there was nothing else to be done, Mr. H. started him for London, with just money enough to carry him there. Once there, he was sure he should do very well.
I doubted this; and he was met, at the address he gave, (at an Irish greengrocer's, the only person he knew in London,) by an order for money enough to carry him over two or three weeks,—money given by two or three friends to whom I ventured to open the case. I have seldom read a happier letter than Patrick's first from London; but it was not even then, nor for some time after, that he told me the main reason of his horror at remaining in Dublin.
He had hoped to support himself as a tutor while studying and practising for the literary profession; and he had been engaged to teach the children of a rich citizen,—not only the boys, but the daughter. He, an engaging youth of three-and-twenty, with blue eyes and golden hair, an innocent and noble expression of countenance, an open heart, a glowing imagination, and an eloquent tongue, was set to teach Latin and literary composition to a pretty, warm-hearted, romantic girl of twenty; and when they were in love and engaged, the father considered himself the victim of the basest treachery that ever man suffered under. In vain the young people pleaded for leave to love and wait till Patrick could provide a home for his wife. They asked no favor but to be let alone. Patrick's family was as good as hers; and he had the education and manners of a gentleman, without any objectionable habits or tastes, but with every possible desire to win an honorable home for his beloved. I am not sure, but I think there was a moment when they thought of eloping some day, if nothing but the paternal displeasure intervened between them and happiness; but it was not yet time for this. There was much to be done first. What the father did first was to turn Patrick out of the house, under such circumstances of ignominy as he could devise. What he did next was the blow which broke the poor fellow down. Patrick had written a letter, in answer to the treatment he had received, in which he expressed his feelings as strongly as one might expect. This letter was made the ground of a complaint at the police-office; and Patrick was arrested, marched before the magistrate, and arraigned as the sender of a threatening letter to a citizen. In vain he protested that no idea of threatening anybody had been in his mind. The letter, as commented on by his employer, was pronounced sufficiently menacing to justify his being bound over to keep the peace towards this citizen and all his family. The intention was, no doubt, to disgrace him, and put him out of the question as a suitor; for no man could pretend to be really afraid of violence from a candid youth like Patrick, who loved the daughter too well to lift a finger against any one connected with her. The scheme succeeded; for he believed it had broken his heart. He supposed himself utterly disgraced in Dublin; and he could live there no longer. Hence his self-will about going to London.
In addition to this personal, there was a patriotic view. Very early in our correspondence, Patrick told me that he was a Repealer. He fancied himself a very moderate one, and likely on that account to do the more good. Those were the days of O'Connell's greatest power; or, if it was on the wane, no one yet recognized any change. Patrick knew one of the younger O'Connells, and had been flatteringly noticed by the great Dan himself, who had approved the idea of his going to London, hoped to see him there some day, and had prophesied that this young friend of his would do great things for the cause by his pen, and be conspicuous among the saviours of Ireland. Patrick's head was not quite turned by this; and he lamented, in his letters to me, the plans proposed and the language held by the common run of O'Connell's followers. Those were the days when the Catholic peasantry believed that "Repale" would make every man the owner of the land he lived on, or of that which he wished to live on; and the great Dan did not disabuse them. Those were the days when poor men believed that "Repale" would release every one from the debts he owed; and Dan did not contradict it. When Dan was dead, the consequence of his not contradicting it was that a literal-minded fellow here and there shot the creditor who asked for payment of the coat, or the pig, or the meal. For all this delusion Patrick was sorry. He was sorry to hear Protestant shopmen wishing for the day when Dublin streets would be knee-deep in Catholic blood, and to hear Catholic shopmen reciprocating the wish in regard to Protestant blood. He was anxious to make me understand that he had no such notions, and that he even thought O'Connell mistaken in appearing to countenance such mistakes. But still he, Patrick, was a Repealer; and he wished me to know precisely what he meant by that, and what he proposed to do in consequence. He thought it a sin and shame that Ireland should be trodden under the heel of the Saxon; he thought the domination of the English Parliament intolerable; he considered it just that the Irish should make their own laws, own their own soil, and manage their own affairs. He had no wish to bring in the French, or any other enemy of England; and he was fully disposed to be loyal to the Crown, if the Crown would let Ireland entirely alone. Even the constant persecution inflicted upon Ireland had not destroyed his loyalty to the Crown. Such were the views on which his letters to the "Nation" newspaper were to be grounded. In reply, I contented myself with proposing that he should make sure of his ground as he went along; for which purpose he should ascertain what proportion of the people of Ireland wished for a repeal of the Union; and what sort of people they were who desired Repeal on the one hand, or continued Union on the other. I hoped he would satisfy himself as to what Repeal could and could not effect; and that he would study the history of Irish Parliaments, to learn what the character and bearing of their legislation had been, and to estimate the chances of good government by that kind of legislature, in comparison with the Imperial Parliament.
If any foreign reader should suppose it impossible, that, in modern times, there can have been hopes entertained in Dublin of the streets being inundated with blood, such reader may be referred to the evidence afforded of Repeal sentiment five years later than the time of which I write. When the heroes of that rising of 1848—of whom John Mitchell is the sample best known in America—were tracked in their plans and devices, it appeared what their proposed methods of warfare were. Some of these, detailed in Repeal newspapers, and copied into American journals, were proposed to the patriotic women of Ireland, as their peculiar means of serving their country; and three especially. Red-hot iron hoops, my readers may remember, were to be cast down from balconies, so as to pin the arms of English soldiers marching in the street, and scorch their hearts. Vitriol was to be flung into their eyes. Boiling oil was to be poured upon them from windows. This is enough. Nobody believes that the thing would ever have been done; but the lively and repeated discussion of it shows how the feelings of the ignorant are perverted, and the passions of party-men are stimulated in Ireland, when unscrupulous leaders arise, proposing irrational projects. The consequences have been seen in Popish and Protestant fights in Ulster, and in the midnight drill of Phoenix Clubs in Munster, and in John Mitchell's passion for fat negroes in the Slave States of America. In Ireland such notions are regarded now as a delirious dream, except by a John Mitchell here and there. Smith O'Brien himself declares that there is nothing to be done while the people of Ireland are satisfied with the government they live under; and that, if it were otherwise, nothing can be done for a people which either elects jobbers to Parliament, or suspects every man of being a traitor who proceeds, when there, to do the business of his function. I suspected that Patrick would find out some of these things for himself in London; and I left him to make his own discoveries, when I had pointed out one or two paths of inquiry.
The process was a more rapid one than I had anticipated. He reported his first letter to the "Nation" with great satisfaction. He had begun his work in London. He went to the House of Commons, and came away sorely perplexed. After having heard and written so much of the wrongs of Ireland under the domination of the English Parliament, he found that Ireland actually and practically formed a part of that Parliament,—the legislature being, not English, but Imperial. He must have known this before; but he had never felt it. He now saw that Ireland was as well represented as England or Scotland; that political offices were held in fair proportion by Irishmen; and that the Irish members engrossed much more than a fair share of the national time in debate and projects of legislation. He saw at once that here was an end of all excuse for talk of oppression by Parliament, and of all complaints which assumed that Ireland was unrepresented. He was previously aware that Ireland was more lightly taxed than the rest of the empire. The question remained, whether a local legislature would or would not be a better thing than a share in the Imperial Parliament. This was a fair subject of argument; but he must now dismiss all notions grounded on the mistake of Ireland being unrepresented, and oppressed by the representatives of other people.