views and purposes.  Mr. Meagher and Mr. Leyne, with three or four others, travelled together on a car.  We dismissed ours, and crossed the country.  Next day we arrived once more at Brookhill, which is within about one mile of Fethard, where we were able to procure a car that brought Mr. Reilly as far as Kilkenny.  The first care of us who remained was to fulfil the commission assigned us.  A young friend, of whom mention has been already made, joined me that evening.  He had been two days in search of me, and was greatly exhausted by anxiety and fatigue.  Rumours of various kinds were rife.  But, what was most disheartening was that the courage of the people was fast subsiding.  Men who were most eager for deeds of any daring two days previously, began to exhibit symptoms of hesitation, doubt, and even indifference.  But a far sadder disaster had elsewhere befallen.  Mr. O’Brien, after a night of anxious care, was still full of hope.  He was even then engaged in drawing up a manifesto, embracing, as far as possible in such a document, the motives and causes which suggested and justified an armed revolt, and the principles upon which it was to be conducted.  Whether the draft was destroyed or fell into the hands of the Government, is not now clear, save in as far as the non-production of the paper at his trial, is evidence that it never reached his persecutors.  The leading principle of his entire conduct was, that the property, the liberty, the destiny of the island belonged to the entire people, and that the institutions which guaranteed them should be the calm embodiment of the nation’s deliberate judgment, ascertained through the medium of a free assembly, deriving its authority from universal suffrage.  This was one potent reason why he refused to assume, either as military leader, or as the chief of a provisional government, the responsibility of an act which could be regarded as the basis of the future government of Ireland.  He was scrupulously anxious that the great principles upon which the future liberty of Ireland was to be based, should emanate from the free will of the people, uncontrolled by dictatorial power or personal prestige.

But Mr. O’Brien was not destined to accomplish the object of his solicitude.  About twelve o’clock on the morning of Saturday, the 29th day of July, he was apprised of the approach of a body of police, under command of Captain Trant.  Simultaneously with the appearance of the police, an indiscriminate crowd, composed for the most part of women and boys with a few armed men, ranged themselves around him.  They occupied an eminence in front of the road by which the police approached.  Another road crossed this at right angles, and Captain Trant, instead of leading his men directly against Mr. O’Brien’s position, denied along the cross-road to the right hand—­that which led to the Widow M’Cormick’s.  The motive of this manoeuvre was obvious.  Either from personal cowardice, or from cool judgment, he