maintained in that part of the empire? Again I can anticipate the
reply--"By the overwhelming sense of the people of Great Britain; by
the application, if necessary, of physical force for the maintenance
of authority; by the employment of the organised strength of
government, the police and the military, to enforce obedience to the
law." I deliberately affirm that a minister of the crown, responsible
at the time of which I am speaking for the public peace and the public
welfare, would have grossly and scandalously neglected his duty if he
had failed to consider whether it might not be possible that the fever
of political and religious excitement which was quickening the pulse
and fluttering the bosom of the whole Catholic population--which had
inspired the serf of Clare with the resolution and energy of a free
man--which had, in the twinkling of an eye, made all considerations of
personal gratitude, ancient family connection, local preferences, the
fear of worldly injury, the hope of worldly advantage, subordinate
to the all-absorbing sense of religious obligation and public
duty--whether, I say, it might not be possible that the contagion of
that feverish excitement might spread beyond the barriers which,
under ordinary circumstances, the habits of military obedience and
the strictness of military discipline opposed to all such external
influences.'

The officer who commanded the military force in Clare during the
election, testified, as the result of his observation there, that,
even in the constabulary and the army, the sympathies of a common
cause, political and religious, could not be altogether repressed,
and that implicit reliance could not long be placed on the effect of
discipline and the duty of obedience. On July 20, Lord Anglesea wrote
as follows:--