February 12.—I am just returned from the meeting of the Catholic Association, and faithful to its fire; for so great was the heat, and crowd, and excitement, that I nearly died under harness. The great question—the dissolution of the Catholic Association, was the subject of debate; and every ardent mind came worked up to the contest. All the best feelings, cool judgment, and tact, was evidently for the prompt and voluntary extinction of this great engine of popular opinion.
February 13.—Yesterday was memorable for our great
meeting at the Rotunda of the friends of civil and religious liberty—the
first great thing of the kind since the great era of the northern volunteer
martyrs, recalling the public spirit of 1782; there were fourteen peers
present;
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The élite of the élite dined with us the same day. Lords Miltown, Cloncurry, George Villiers, Henry Greville, Charles Brownlow, R. Sheil, John Power, Lord Clements; Lord W. Paget, and Lord Bective were invited, but were engaged, so they came in the evening with Wyse, and others of the notables. Since the Union, no such re-union has been in Dublin.
February 15. I was at a party last night of the debris of the ascendancy faction; but the Orange ladies all looked blue, and their husbands tried to look green.
