canvassed with vindictive vigilance. The warmest Nationalists looked on
with doubt and coldness. Not one man of rank, outside the members of the
defunct society, joined its ranks. The routine of business, the receipt
of money, the resolutions, the speeches, were exactly identical with
those of its predecessors. The Government seemed neither to dread it nor
care for it. It lingered on, unsustained by the country and despised by
its enslavers. The contributions of the members did not suffice to pay
half the ordinary expenses of its machinery. Debts accumulated, and the
revenue did not increase. While the body was thus situated, Mr.
O'Connell had recourse to an expedient at once singular and decisive. It
was to build Conciliation Hall. The Association was at the time
seriously in debt, and he proposed to multiply that debt four-fold by
engaging in this costly undertaking.

While persons who affected to be in his confidence were amazed at this
step, the Government regarded it as an evidence of purpose which it was
indispensable at once to check. They saw that their opponents had
formerly menaced and coerced in vain, and they determined to proscribe.
Accordingly the newly appointed viceroy, Lord Ebrington, being waited on
by the Dublin Corporation with some address of congratulation,
delivered them a lecture on the disloyalty of the Corn Exchange, and
announced his purpose never to employ in the service of the Government
any one who frequented that pestilent locality. The corporation returned
abashed to their council-rooms to record the viceregal threat. But from
end to end of the land rose one shout of indignant defiance. Suspicion,
doubt and hesitation gave way to the taunt involved in the insolent
challenge. The ranks of the Association were filled, and its treasury
replenished; and the viceroy soon discovered how little was to be gained
by a vulgar appeal to the meanest passion when it was addressed to the
Irish people.