The selection by the Government of the moment for interference with Mr O’Connell’s proceedings, was unquestionably characterised by consummate prudence.  When the meetings commenced in March or April, this year, they had nothing of outward character which could well be noticed.  They professed to be meetings to petition Parliament for Repeal; and, undoubtedly, no lawyer could say that such a meeting would per se be illegal, any more than a meeting to complain of Catholic relief, or to pray for its repeal—­or for any other matter which is considered a settled part of the established constitution.  The mere numbers were certainly alarming, but the meetings quietly dispersed without any breach of the peace:  and after two or three such meetings, without any disturbance attending them, no one could with truth swear that he expected a breach of the peace as a direct consequence of such a meeting, though many thought they saw a civil war as a remote consequence.  The meetings went on:  some ten, twelve, fifteen occurred,—­still no breach of the peace, no disturbance.  The language, indeed, became gradually more seditious—­more daring and ferocious:  but, as an attempt to put down the first meeting by force would have been considered a wanton act of oppression, and a direct interference with the subject’s right to petition, it became a very difficult practical question, at what moment any legal notice could be taken by prosecution, or executive notice by proclamation, to put down such meetings.  Notwithstanding several confident opinions to the contrary advanced by the newspaper press at the time, a greater mistake—­indeed a grosser blunder—­could not have been made, than to have prosecuted those who attended the early meetings, or to have sent the police or the military to put those meetings down.  An acquittal in the one case, or a conflict in the other, would have been attended with most mischievous consequences; and, as to the latter, it is clear that the executive never ought to interfere unless with a force which renders all resistance useless.  It appears perfectly clear to us, even now, that a prosecution for the earlier meetings must have failed; for there existed then none of that evidence which would prove the object and the nature of the association:  and to proclaim a meeting, without using force to prevent or disperse it if it defied the proclamation; and to use force without being certain that the extent of the illegality would carry public opinion along with the use of force; further, to begin to use force without being sure that you have enough to use—­would be acts of madness, and, at least, of great and criminal disregard of consequences.  Now, when meeting after meeting had taken place, and the general design, and its mischief, were unfolded, it became necessary that some new feature should occur to justify the interference of Government; and that occurred at the Clontarf meeting.