Lot 330
O'Connell, Daniel (1775-1847) Irish nationalist leader; called "the Liberator"; he was elected M.P. in 1828 but could take his seat only after the passage of the Catholic Emancipation Act (1829). ALS, 2½pp, 9" x 7¼", 1832 June 10. To Lord Ebington, regarding a derogatory opinion of Benjamin Disraeli expressed by O'Connell. In part: "…when I wrote to Mr. Bulwer expressing the opinion I entertain of Mr. Disraeli, I had no recollection…that so excellent a friend of civil and religious liberty as Mr. Smith was Sir Jno Baring's colleague at Wycombe. It was far from my mind that…the letter of so humble an individual as myself could be deemed of importance at Wycombe when I am not personally known to any one human being…."
There was no love lost between O'Connell and Disraeli. In 1835 they would quarrell publicly, to the point of almost fighting a duel, over reports that Disraeli had called O'Connell a "traitor and incendiary." During a heated exchange in Parliament, O'Connell disparaged Disraeli's Jewish ancestry, to which Disraeli responded: "Yes, I am a Jew and when the ancestors of the right honourable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon."
Estimated Value $400 - 600.
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| Realized $504 |
