'Agitate, agitate, agitate,' a sympathetic Viceroy had written to
O'Connell, upon the subject of Catholic emancipation, and an official
stir followed. The Marquis of Anglesey, who led the cavalry at Waterloo,
and lost a leg there, had not hesitated to utter his mind about Ireland.
O'Connell unthinkingly read the letter at a meeting, and the Viceroy
found himself in trouble with his Government. That was within Sir
George's memory; but take, as touching O'Connell more intimately, an
election meeting at Limerick, where the regiment was paraded to keep
order.
'With a bitter satire, O'Connell introduced into his speech,' said Sir
George, 'the story of the siege of Limerick. He eloquently told how the
women of Limerick beat back the soldiers of William III. This was his
shrewd method of getting at us soldiers, and he implied that, if
necessary, the women of Limerick could beat back the soldiers of another
English king. All we could do was to stand there, stiff as starch, while
the stings fell from his caustic tongue. O'Connell was a splendid
speaker, and he had a most inviting presence, an attractive personality
altogether. Looking at him, you decided, "That's a capital fellow, a
merry fellow to be with; why, I should like to be a friend of his!"'
The Irish peasant then, and of subsequent black years, was to Sir George
a figure of pathos hard to match in history.
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