No unjust aspersions from a people in ignorance of the resistance offered to them, and the motives that influenced them, could induce them to explain the position they had taken.

But when they saw while they were subjected to the storm that Mr.O'Connell's friends, on the authority of his published letter, took credit for neutrality, they resolved once more to test the question in a body, whose proceedings were of a more private character, and where the most marked difference of opinion could lead to no fatal result--the Eighty-Two Club.

Mr.O'Connell was the president of this club, and Mr.O'Brien one of its vice-presidents.

A meeting was called.

The attendance was unusually large.