At the mention
of Mr. Peel's name, says the report, there was much laughing. "You
mistake me, said Mr. O'Connell. I do not--indeed I do not intend, this
day, to enter into the merits of that celebrated statesman. All I shall
say of him, by way of parenthesis, is, that I am told he has, in my
absence, and in a place where he was privileged from any account,
grossly traduced me. I said, at the last meeting, in the presence of the
notetakers of the police, who are paid by him, that he was too prudent
to attack me in my presence. I see the same police informers here now,
and I authorize them carefully to report these my words, that Mr. Peel
would not DARE, in my presence, or in any place where he was liable to
personal account, use a single expression derogatory to my interest, or
my honour."
This passage led to the affair of honour between himself and Peel. No
hostile meeting, however, took place.
His best friends thought his propensity of arraigning and denouncing
those who differed from him, was often carried to excess, but he refused
to give it up or modify it. The defence he once made for it was, that it
was not _irritation_, it was _calculation_ that made him adopt that
style of animadversion.
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