"In public meetings in Ireland, he is so confident in his powers, that he gives himself little trouble in the selection of his materials, and generally trusts to his emotions for his harangues. He is, on that account, occasionally desultory and irregular. But there is no man more capable of lucid exposition, when he previously deliberates upon the order in which he should array the topics upon which he intends to dwell. He undertook, on this occasion [26 February 1825], the very laborious task of tracing the progress of the penal code, and epitomized in some measure the history of his country. For the first hour he was, perhaps, a little encumbered with small details; but when he advanced into the general consideration of the grievances under which the great body of the people are doomed to labor—when he painted the insolence of the dominant faction—when he showed the effects of the penal code brought to his own door—he seized with an absolute dominion upon the sympathies of his acclaiming auditors, and poured the full tide of his own emotions into their hearts... Many a big drop, compounded of heat and patriotism, of tears and of perspiration, stood upon the rude and honest faces that were cast in true Hibernian mould, and were raised toward the glory of Ireland with a mixed expression of wonder and of love."