save themselves. The policy of the Confederation in normal times would
have been nationally sound. The circumstances had become abnormal, and
Mitchel's policy was suited to the abnormal circumstances. His
conviction that the British Government was deliberately using the
potato-crop failure for the purpose of reducing the Irish
population--which then was equal to more than half the population of
England and a menace to that country, as one of its statesmen
incautiously admitted--was a conviction not shared by the bulk of his
colleagues. They shrank from it as men will shrink from a conclusion
that horrifies the human nature in them. Mitchel went outside the
Confederation to preach his policy, and he might have preached it
without result had not the French Revolution turned men's minds to the
contemplation of arms and armed opinion. The arrest, indictment and
conviction of Mitchel, Doheny has described graphically. The reasons
that prevailed against attempting Mitchel's rescue, Doheny cogently
states. There is no reason to doubt that an attempt to rescue Mitchel
would have been a failure in its object. But there are occasions when it
is wiser to attempt the impossible than to acquiesce. The unchallenged
removal of Mitchel in chains from Ireland had a moral effect on the
country that was worth 20,000 additional troops to the Government.

Thereafter, the Confederation vacillated in its policy and finally
permitted itself, in its desire for Unity as the potent weapon, to be
extinguished in favour of an Irish League which was to combine
O'Connellites and Young Irelanders. The Irish League met once, and died.
The Confederation had been hoodwinked. Doheny who opposed the
amalgamation, retired to Cashel, severing his connection with the former
Confederation. He was, therefore, free in honour to have taken no part
in the insurrection, since it was begun by men from whom he had
withdrawn. But when the voice in the night whispered through his window