[Letters to the
Reformers of Great Britain, No. 1.]
In May, 1832, O'Connell commenced the publication of his celebrated
_Letters to the Reformers of Great Britain_. Like Tallien, before the
French convention, he "rent away the veil" which Hume and Atwood had only
partially lifted. He held up before the people of Great Britain the new
indignities which had been added to the long catalogue of Ireland's
wrongs; he appealed to their justice, their honor, their duty, for
redress, and cast down before the Whig administration the gauntlet of his
country's defiance and scorn. There is a fine burst of indignant Irish
feeling in the concluding paragraphs of his fourth letter:--
"I have demonstrated the contumelious injuries inflicted upon us by this
Reform Bill. My letters are long before the public. They have been
unrefuted, uncontradicted in any of their details. And with this case of
atrocious injustice to Ireland placed before the reformers of Great
Britain, what assistance, what sympathy, do we receive? Why, I have got
some half dozen drivelling letters from political unions and political
characters, asking me whether I advise them to petition or bestir
themselves in our behalf!
"Reformers of Great Britain! I do not ask you either to petition or be
silent.
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