There was much speculation as to who would be selected as chairman of the convention. The choice when made known called forth universal approbation. It was Mr. William Shaw, Member of Parliament for the borough of Bandon,[165] a Protestant gentleman of the highest position and reputation, a banker (president of the Munster Bank), a man of large wealth, of grave and undemonstrative manner, but of great depth and quiet force of character. He was one of the last men in Ireland who would answer the description of an “Irish agitator” as English artists draw the sketch. He was one who had everything to lose and nothing to gain by “revolution,” yet he had early joined the movement for Irish self-government, declaring that he did so as a business man having a large stake in the prosperity of the country, and because he saw that the present system was only the “pretence of a government” for Ireland.
Naturally the chief event of the
first day’s sitting was Mr. Butt’s great speech or opening statement on the whole case. It was a masterly review of the question of Irish legislative independence, and a powerful vindication of the federal adjustment now under consideration. He went minutely and historically into every fact and circumstance and every element of consideration, making his address rather a great argument than an oratorical display. At the close, however, when he came to tell how he himself had been led into this movement—how it began, how it had grown, till now he surrendered it into their keeping—his voice trembled with emotion. “State trials were not new to me,” he exclaimed:
“Twenty years before I stood near Smith O’Brien when he braved the sentence of death which the law pronounced upon him. I saw Meagher meet the same, and I then asked myself this: ‘Surely the state is out of joint, surely all our social system is unhinged, when men like O’Brien and Meagher are condemned to a traitor’s doom?’ Years passed away, and once more I stood by men who had dared the desperate enterprise of freeing their country by revolt.… I heard their words of devotion to their country as with firm step and unyielding heart they left the dock, and went down the dark passage that led them to the place where all hope closed upon them, and I asked myself again: ‘Is there no way to arrest this? Are our best and bravest spirits ever to be carried away under this system of constantly-resisted oppression and constantly-defeated revolt? Can we find no means by which the national quarrel that has led to all these terrible results may be set right?’ I believe, in my conscience, we have found it. I believe that England has now the opportunity of adjusting the quarrel of centuries. Let me say it—I do so proudly—that I was one of those who did something in this cause. Over a torn and distracted country—a country agitated by dissension, weakened by distrust—we raised the banner
on which we emblazoned the magic words, ‘Home Rule.’ We raised it with feeble hand. Tremblingly, with hesitation, almost stealthily, we unfurled that banner to the breeze. But wherever the legend we had emblazoned on its folds was seen the heart of the people moved to its words, and the soul of the nation felt their power and their spell. Those words were passed from man to man along the valley and the hillside. Everywhere men, even those who had been despairing, turned to that banner with confidence and hope. Thus far we have borne it. It is for you now to bear it on with more energy, with more strength, and with renewed vigor. We hand it over to you in this gathering of the nation. But, oh! let no unholy hands approach it. Let no one come to the help of our country,
“‘Or dare to lay his hand upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause’
who is not prepared never, never to desert that banner till it flies proudly over the portals of that ‘old house at home’—that old house which is associated with memories of great Irishmen, and has been the scene of many glorious triumphs. Even while the blaze of those glories is at this moment throwing its splendor over the memory of us all, I believe in my soul that the parliament of regenerated Ireland will achieve triumphs more glorious, more lasting, more sanctified and holy, than any by which her old parliament illumined the annals of our country and our race.
As his last words died away the assemblage, rising as one man, burst into cheers long protracted, and it was only after several minutes that order was restored.
Mr. Butt had spoken to a complete series of resolutions, which he now submitted to the conference; he concluded by formally moving the first of them: