essential union. Directly and indirectly it achieved for a moment a
semblance of national unity. The Irish Council, composed largely of the
resident landlords--who mostly endeavoured to alleviate the
distress--came into being, reasoned with the Government and, when the
Government ignored reason, fell to pieces. George Henry Moore, a young
sporting landlord and a Tory (afterwards, as a result, to become a
Nationalist leader), conceived the design of getting all the Irish
members of the British Parliament to act together against the existing
British Government or any British Government which did not deal honestly
and effectively with the crisis. With the Marquis of Sligo, a nobleman
who did his duty to his tenantry during the Famine, Moore travelled
around Ireland and secured between sixty and seventy Irish members of
Parliament and forty-five Irish peers to subscribe to his independence
programme. They met in Dublin, resolved boldly, departed for London
cheered by the nation, and crumbled there at the Premier's frown. When
the Tory Lord George Bentinck proposed that instead of pauperising the
Irish by a vote of four or five millions for relief there should be a
vote of sixteen millions for railway construction, the Premier, Lord
John Russell, threatened the Irish members with his displeasure if they
supported Bentinck, and the majority of them thereupon opposed the
proposal of reproductive work for the people in lieu of pauper relief.

It was in these circumstances Mitchel put forward his policy in the
Confederation of arming the people and bidding them hold their harvests.
The Confederation rejected the policy, still hoping to effect a national
union. Through such a union alone, it declared, could national
independence be achieved. Doheny strongly opposed Mitchel on this
ground. Mitchel's reply was simple. He had been and was ready to follow
the aristocrats of Ireland if they would lead. They would not lead, and
meanwhile the people perished. Therefore he would urge the people to