CHAPTER I.
RETROSPECT--COMMENCEMENT OF THE REPEAL STRUGGLE .-- EARLY DAYS OF THE ASSOCIATION.
The appearance of this narrative will surprise no one.

For apology, if any be needed, the writer may trust to his own share in the transactions with which it deals; and still more so perhaps to the misrepresentation to which, during their progress, he had been personally subjected.

But personal vindication imparts neither interest nor importance to history, while it necessarily detracts from its dignity and good faith.

Besides, time with the disastrous events marking its more recent course, have silenced the voice of calumny; and the writer undertakes his task with no personal feeling to gratify or even to consult.

The character of others, now unable to be heard, is far dearer to him than his own: and while he aspires to justify, before the world, their singular career, distinguished throughout by generous and lofty passions, surpassing intellect and measureless love of their country and countrymen--a career so brilliant and instructive even in the last hours of gloom--he will endeavour to infuse into the history of their struggles and their fate, that generous tenderness toward others, that spirit of self-sacrifice and supreme love of truth, which were among their noblest characteristics.
The undertaking suggests but one painful consideration--the impossibility of treating the subject fully and fairly without investigating facts far anterior to the late struggle, but coincident in their effect with its progress and development, and stamping their pernicious and fatal influence upon the spirit and conduct that led to a final overthrow.