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Speeches from the Dock; Or, Protests of Irish Patriotism. Part I

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Title: Speeches from the Dock; Or, Protests of Irish Patriotism. Part I

Commentator: T. D. Sullivan
        A. M. Sullivan
        D. B. Sullivan


        
Release date: August 4, 2004 [eBook #13112]
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SPEECHES FROM THE DOCK, PART I

or, Protests of Irish Patriotism

Speeches Delivered After Conviction,

by

THEOBALD WOLFE TONE
WILLIAM ORR
THE BROTHERS SHEARES
ROBERT EMMET
JOHN MARTIN (1848)
WILLIAM SMITH O'BRIEN
THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER
TERENCE BELLEW McMANUS
JOHN MITCHEL
THOMAS C. LUBY
JOHN O'LEARY
CHARLES J. KICKHAM
COLONEL THOMAS F. BURKE
CAPTAIN MACKAY





   "Freedom's battle, once begun,--
   Bequeath'd from bleeding sire to son,--
   Though baffled oft, is ever won."





DUBLIN:

A. M. SULLIVAN, ABBEY STREET.

1868




PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION


Little more than a year ago we commenced an undertaking never previously
attempted, yet long called for--the collection and publication, in a
complete form and at a low price, of the Speeches of Irish Patriots,
spoken from the dock or the scaffold.

The extraordinary success which attended upon our effort was the best
proof that we had correctly appreciated the universal desire of the
Irish people to possess themselves of such a memorial of National
Protest--protest unbroken through generations of martyrs.

The work was issued in weekly numbers, and reached a sale previously
unheard of in Irish literature. In a few months the whole issue was
exhausted, and for a long time past the demand for a Second Edition has
been pressed upon us from all sides. With that demand we now comply.

The present issue of "Speeches from the Dock" has been carefully revised
and considerably improved. With it, as Part I. of a series, we have
bound, as its sequels, Parts II. and III.--each Part, however, complete
in itself--bringing the list of convict patriot orators down to the
latest sentenced in 1868. It may be that even here the sad array is not
to close, and that even yet another sequel may have to be issued, ere
the National Protest of which these Voices from the Dock are the
utterances, shall be terminated for ever. Even so, our faith will be all
unshaken in the inevitable triumph of the cause for which so many
martyrs have thus suffered; and we shall still await in Faith and Hope
the first strains of that Hymn of Deliverance which shall yet resound
through the valleys of Emancipated Ireland.

90 MIDDLE ABBEY STREET,

_November_, 1868.




INTRODUCTORY.


To the lovers of Ireland--to those who sympathize with her sufferings
and resent her wrongs, there can be few things more interesting than the
history of the struggles which sprang from devotion to her cause, and
were consecrated by the blood of her patriots. The efforts of the Irish
race to burst the fetters that foreign force and native dissensions
imposed on them, and elevate their country from bondage and degradation
to a place amongst free nations, fill a page in the world's history
which no lover of freedom can read without emotion, and which must
excite wonder, admiration, and regret in the mind of every man with whom
patriotism is not a reproach, and who can sympathize with a cause
ennobled by fidelity and sacrifice, and sanctified by the blood and
tears of a nation. "How hands so vile could conquer hearts so brave," is
the question which our National Poet supposes to arise in the mind of
the stranger, as he looks on the spectacle of Ireland in her decay; but
another question will suggest itself to those who study the history of
our country: it is, how a feeling so deeply rooted as the love of
independence is in the hearts of the Irish people--an aspiration so
warmly and so widely entertained--which has been clung to with so much
persistency--which has survived through centuries of persecution--for
which generations have arisen, and fought, and bled, and dashed
themselves against the power of England with a succession as unbroken as
that of the waves upon our shores--a cause so universally loved, so
deeply reverenced, and so unflinchingly supported by a brave and
intrepid race, should never have attained the blessing of success. A
more signal instance than that which Ireland can supply of the baffling
of a nation's hope, the prolonged frustration of a people's will, is not
on record; and few even of those who most condemn the errors and
weakness by which Irishmen themselves have retarded the national object,
will hesitate to say that they have given to mankind the noblest proof
they possess of the vitality of the principles of freedom, and the
indestructibility of national sentiment.

It is for us, however, Irish of the Irish, that the history of the
struggle for Ireland's rights possesses most attractions. We live amidst
the scenes where the battles against the stranger were fought, and where
the men who waged them lived and died. The bones of the patriots who
laboured for Ireland, and of those who died for her, repose in the
graveyards around us; and we have still amongst us the inheritors of
their blood, their name, and their spirit. It was to make us free--to
render independent and prosperous the nation to, which we belong--that
the pike was lifted and the green flag raised; and it was in furtherance
of this object, on which the hearts of Irishmen are still set, that the
men whose names shine through the pages on which the story of Ireland's
struggles for national existence is written, suffered and died. To
follow out that mournful but absorbing story is not, however, the object
aimed at in the following pages. The history of Ireland is no longer a
sealed volume to the people; more than one author has told it truthfully
and well, and the list of books devoted to it is every day receiving
valuable accessions. Nor has it even been attempted, in this little
work, though trenching more closely on its subject, to trace the career
and sketch the lives of the men who fill the foremost places in the
ranks of Ireland's political martyrs. In the subjoined pages little more
will be found than a correct report of the addresses delivered, under
certain peculiar circumstances, by the group of Irishmen whose names are
given on the titlepage. A single public utterance from the lips of each
of these gentlemen is all that we have printed, though it would be easy
to supplement them in nearly every case by writings and speeches owning
a similar authorship, equally eloquent and equally patriotic. But the
speeches given here are associated with facts which give them peculiar
value and significance, and were spoken under circumstances which lend
to them a solemn interest and impressiveness which could not otherwise
be obtained. They reach us--these dock speeches, in which nobility of
purpose and chivalrous spirit is expressed--like voices from the tomb,
like messages from beyond the grave, brimful of lessons of dignity and
patriotism. We can see the men who spoke them standing before the
representatives of the government whose oppression had driven them to
revolt, when the solemn farce of trying them for a crime which posterity
will account a virtue had terminated, and when the verdict of "guilty"
had gladdened the hearts of their accusers. The circumstances under
which they spoke might well cause a bold man to falter. They were about
parting for ever from all that makes life dear to man; and, for some of
them, the sentence; which was to cut short the thread of their
existence, to consign them to a bloody and ignominious death, to leave
their bodies mutilated corpses, from which the rights of Christian
burial were to be withheld--which was to assign them the death of a dog,
and to follow them with persecuting hand into the valley of death--was
about to fall from the lips of the judges whom they addressed. Against
others a fate less repulsive, perhaps, to the feelings of humanity, but
certainly not more merciful, and hardly less painful and appalling, was
about to be decreed. Recent revelations have thrown some light on the
horrors endured by the Irish political prisoners who languish within the
prison pens of England; but it needs far more than a stray letter, a
half-stifled cry from the dungeon depths, to enable the public to
realize the misery, the wretchedness, and the degradation attached to
the condition to which England reduces her political convicts. Condemned
to associate with the vilest of the scoundrels bred by the immorality
and godlessness of England--exposed, without possibility of redress, to
the persecutions of brutal, coarse-minded men, accustomed to deal
only with ruffians than whom beasts are less ferocious and
unreclaimable--restricted to a course of discipline which blasts the
vigour of the body, and under whose influence reason herself totters
upon her throne--the Irish rebel against whom the doom of penal
servitude has been pronounced is condemned to the most hideous and
agonizing punishments to which men of their class could be exposed. It
was with such terrors staring them in the face that the men whose words
are recorded in this little work delivered their speeches from the dock.
It is surely something for us, their countrymen, to boast of, that
neither in their bearing nor in their words was there manifested the
slightest trace of weakness, the faintest exhibition of any feeling
which could show that their hearts were accessible to the terror which
their situation was so well calculated to inspire. No cheek grew pale,
no eyes lost their light--their tones were unbroken, and their manner
undaunted as ever, as these men uttered the words we purpose recording.
Their language tells of minds which persecution could not subdue, and
for which death itself possessed no sting; and the manner in which it
was expressed showed that, in their case, elevation of sentiment was
allied with unconquerable firmness and resolution. Never were lessons so
noble more boldly preached. It is in courts of justice, after all,
declares a great English authority, that the lessons of morality are
best taught; and in Ireland the truthfulness of the assertion is
established. But it is not from the bench or the jury-box that the words
have fallen in which the cause of morality and justice has been
vindicated; venality, passion, and prejudice have but too often swayed
the decisions of both; and it is to the dock we must turn when we seek
for honour, integrity, and patriotism.

We owe it to the men who suffered so unflinchingly in the cause of our
country, and who have left us so precious a heritage in the speeches in
which they hurled a last defiance at their oppressors, that their names
should not be forgotten, or the recollection of their acts suffered to
grow cold. The noblest incentive to patriotism, as it is the highest
reward which this world can offer those who dare and suffer for
fatherland, is the gratitude, the sympathy, and the applause of the
people for whom they laboured. We owe it to the brave men whose
patriotism is attested in the addresses comprised in this volume, that
the memory of their noble deeds shall not pass away, and that their
names shall remain enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen. They
failed, it is true, to accomplish what they attempted, and the battle to
which they devoted themselves has yet to be won; but we know that they,
at least, did their part courageously and well; and, looking back now
upon the stormy scenes of their labours, and contrasting the effects of
their sacrifices with the cost at which they were made, the people of
Ireland are still prepared to accept the maxim that--

   "Tis better to have fought and lost,
   Than never to have fought at all."

While such men can be found to suffer as they have suffered for Ireland,
the ultimate triumph of her aspirations cannot be doubted, nor can the
national faith be despaired of while it has martyrs so numerous and so
heroic. It is by example that the great lessons of patriotism can best
be conveyed; and if the national spirit burn brightly to-day in
Ireland--if the spirit of her children be still defiant and
unsubdued--if, at home and in the far West, the hearts of the Irish
people still throb with the emotions that prompted Emmet and Wolfe
Tone--if their eyes are still hot to see the independence of their
country, their arms still ready to strike, and their spirit ready to
sacrifice for the accomplishment of that object, we owe the result
largely to the men whose names are inscribed in this little work, and
whose memory it is intended to perpetuate.

We have commenced our series with the speech of Theobald Wolfe Tone, and
our record stretches no further back than the memorable insurrection of
1798. If our object were to group together the Irishmen who are known
to have struggled for the independence of their country, and who
suffered for their attachment to her cause, we might go much farther
back into history, and indefinitely increase the bulk of this
publication. We fix the insurrection of '98 as the limit of our
collection, chiefly because it was at that time trials for high treason
in Ireland assumed the precise meaning and significance which they now
possess, and there is consequently, in the speeches which follow, such a
unity of purpose and sentiment as renders them especially suitable for
presentation in a single volume. Only seventy years have elapsed since
Wolfe Tone spoke to the question why sentence should not be pronounced
on him--only two-thirds of a century since Emmet vindicated the cause of
his country from the Green street dock, and already what a host of
imitators and disciples have they had! There is not a country in Europe,
there is not a nationality in the world, can produce such another
collection as that which we to-day lay before the people of Ireland. We
live under a government which claims to be just, liberal, and
constitutional, yet against no other government in Christendom have the
same number of protests been made within the same space of time. Not
Poland, not Hungary, not Venetia, can point to such an unbroken
succession of political martyrs. The pages of history contain nothing to
compare with the little volume we to-day place in the hands of our
countrymen; and we know of no more powerful and eloquent condemnation of
the system on which Ireland is governed, than that contained in the
simple fact that all those speeches were spoken, all those trials
carried-out, all those sentences decreed, within the lifetime of a
single generation. It is idle to think of subduing a people who make so
many sacrifices, and who are undaunted still; it is vain to think of
crushing a spirit which survives so much persecution. The executioner
and the gaoler, the gibbet, the block, and the dungeon, have done their
work in the crusade against Irish Nationality, and we know what the
result is to-day. The words of the last political convict whose name
appears in these pages are as uncompromising and as bold as those of the
first of his predecessors; and, studying the spirit which they have
exhibited, and marking the effect of their conduct on the bulk of their
countrymen, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion, that so much
persistent resolution and heroism must one day eventuate in success, and
that Ireland, the country for which so many brave men have suffered with
such unfaltering courage, is not destined to disprove the rule that--

   "Freedom's battle once begun,--
   Bequeath'd from bleeding sire to son--
   Though baffled oft, is ever won."




       *       *       *       *       *




THEOBALD WOLFE TONE.


No name is more intimately associated with the national movement of 1798
than that of Theobald Wolfe Tone. He was its main-spring, its leading
spirit. Many men connected with it possessed, as he did, brilliant
talents, unfailing courage and determination, and an intense devotion to
the cause; but the order of his genius raised him above them all, and
marked him out from the first as the head and front of the patriot
party. He was one of the original founders of the Society of United
Irishmen, which was formed in Belfast in the year 1791. In its early
days this society was simply a sort of reform association, a legal and
constitutional body, having for its chief object the removal of the
frightful oppressions by which the Catholic people of Ireland were
tortured and disgraced; but in the troubled and portentous condition of
home and foreign politics, the society could not long retain this
character. The futility of seeking a redress of the national grievances
by parliamentary means was becoming apparent to every understanding. The
system of outrage and injustice towards the Catholics, unabating in its
severity, continued to exasperate the actual sufferers and to offend all
men of humane feelings and enlightened principles; and, at the same
time, the electric influence of the American War of Independence and the
French Revolution was operating powerfully in every heart, evoking there
the aspiration for Irish freedom, and inspiring a belief in its possible
attainment. In the midst of such exciting circumstances the society
could not continue to stand on its original basis. In the year 1794,
after a debate among the members, followed by the withdrawal of the more
moderate or timid among them from its ranks, it assumed the form and
character of a secret revolutionary organization; and Tone, Thomas Addis
Emmet, Samuel Neilson, Thomas Russell, James Napper Tandy, with a number
of other patriotic gentlemen in Belfast, Dublin, and other parts
of the country, soon found themselves in the full swing of an
insurrectionary movement, plotting and planning for the complete
overthrow of British power in Ireland. Thenceforward, for some time, the
organization went on rapidly extending through the province of Ulster,
in the first instance, and subsequently over most of the midland and
southern counties.

[Illustration: THEOBALD WOLFE TONE. _From a Portrait by his
Daughter-in-law, Mrs. Sampson Tone._]

Such was the state of affairs when, in the early part of 1794, an
emissary from the French government arrived in Ireland, to ascertain to
what extent the Irish people were likely to co-operate with France in a
war against England. This individual was the Rev. William Jackson, an
Irish Protestant clergyman, who had for some years been resident in
France, and had become thoroughly imbued with Democratic and Republican
principles. Unfortunately, he was not one of the most prudent of envoys.
He revealed his mission to an acquaintance of his, an English attorney,
named Cockayne, who repaid his confidence by betraying his secrets to
the government. Cockayne was immediately employed as a spy upon
Jackson's further proceedings, in which capacity he accompanied his
unsuspecting victim to Ireland, and acquired cognizance of most of his
negotiations. On the 28th of April; 1794, Jackson was arrested on a
charge of high treason. He was brought to speedy trial, was found
guilty, but was not sentenced, for, on the day on which the law's award
was to have been announced to him, he contrived, before entering the
court, to swallow a dose of poison, from the effects of which he expired
in the dock. Tone, with whom Jackson was known to have been in
confidential communication, was placed by those events in a very
critical position; owing, however, to some influence which had been made
with the government on his behalf, he was permitted to exile himself to
America. As he had entered into no engagement with the government
regarding his future line of conduct, he made his expatriation the means
of forwarding, in the most effective manner, the designs he had at
heart. He left Dublin for Philadelphia on the 20th of May, 1795. One of
his first acts, after arriving, was to present to the French Minister
there resident a memorial on the state of Ireland. During the remaining
months of the year letters from his old friends came pouring in on him,
describing the brightening prospects of the cause at home, and urging
him to proceed to the French capital and impress upon the Directory the
policy of despatching at once an expedition to ensure the success of the
Irish revolutionary movement.

Tone was not the man to disregard such representations. He had at the
time a fair prospect of securing a comfortable independence in America,
but with the full concurrence of his heroic wife, who had accompanied
him across the Atlantic, he sacrificed those chances and resumed the
perilous duties of an Irish patriot. On the 1st of January, 1796, he
left New York for Paris to try what he could do as a diplomatist for the
cause of Ireland. Arrived at the French capital, he had his business
communicated to the Directory through the medium of an Irish gentleman,
named Madgett, and also by memorial, representing always that the
landing of a force of 20,000 men in Ireland, with a supply of arms for
the peasantry, would ensure the separation of Ireland from England. Not
satisfied with the slow progress he was thus achieving, he went on the
24th of February direct to the Luxemburg Palace, and sought and obtained
an interview with the War Minister, the celebrated Carnot, the
"organizer of victory." The Minister received him well, listened
attentively to his statements, discussed his project with him, and
appeared much impressed with the prospects it presented. The result was
that on the 16th of December in the same year, a splendid expedition
sailed from Brest for Ireland. It consisted of seventeen sail of the
line, thirteen frigates and fifteen transports, with some smaller craft,
and had on board 15,000 troops, with a large supply of arms for the
Irish patriots. Tone himself, who had received the rank of
Adjutant-General in the French service, was on board one of the vessels.
Had this force been disembarked on the shores of Ireland, it is hardly
possible to doubt that the separation of this country from England would
have been effected. But the expedition was unfortunate from the outset.
It was scattered on the voyage during a gale of wind, and the Admiral's
vessel, with Hoche, the Commander, on board, was separated from the
others. A portion of the expedition entered the magnificent Bay of
Bantry and waited there several days in expectation of being rejoined by
the vessel containing the Admiral and Commander; but they waited in
vain. Tone vehemently urged that a landing should be effected with the
forces then at hand--some 6,500 men--but the officers procrastinated,
time was lost, the wind which had been blowing from the east (that is
out the harbour) rose to a perfect hurricane, and on the 27th and 28th
of the month the vessels cut their cables and made the best of their way
for France.

This was a terrible blow to the hopes of the Irish organizer. Rage and
sadness filled his heart by turns as the fierce storm blew his vessel
out of the bay and across the sea to the land which he had left under
such favourable auspices. But yet he did not resign himself to despair.
As the patient spider renews her web again and again after it has been
torn asunder, so did this indefatigable patriot set to work to repair
the misfortune that had occurred, and to build up another project of
assistance for his unfortunate country. His perseverance was not
unproductive of results. The Batavian or Dutch Republic, then in
alliance with France, took up the project that had failed in the Bay of
Bantry. In the month of July, 1797, they had assembled in the Texel an
expedition for the invasion of Ireland, nearly, if not quite, as
formidable in men and ships as that which had left Brest in the previous
year. Tone was on board the flag ship, even more joyous and hopeful than
he had been on the preceding occasion. But again, as if by some
extraordinary fatality, the weather interposed an obstacle to the
realization of the design. The vessels were ready for sea, the troops
were on board, nothing was wanted but a slant of wind to enable the
fleet to get out. But for five weeks it continued to blow steadily in
the adverse direction. The supplies ran low; the patience of the
officers, and of the government, became exhausted--the troops were
disembarked and the project abandoned! The second failure in a matter
of such weight and importance was a heavy blow to the heart of the brave
Tone. Elaborate and costly efforts like those which had ended so poorly,
he felt could not often be repeated; the drift of the war was cutting
out other work for the fleets and armies of France and her allies, and
the unwelcome conviction began to settle darkly on his mind that never
again would he see such a vision of hope for dear Ireland as that which
had shone before him on those two occasions, and vanished in doubt and
gloom.

Yet there was no need to despair. Assurances reached Tone every day that
the defeat and humiliation of England was a settled resolve of the
French Government, one which they would never abandon. And for a time
everything seemed to favour the notion that a direct stroke at the heart
of England was intended. In the latter part of 1797 the Directory
ordered the formation of "The Army of England," the command of which was
given to General Buonaparte. Tone's heart again beat high with hope, for
now matters looked more promising than ever. He was in constant
communication with some of the chief officers of the expedition, and in
the month of December he had several interviews with Buonaparte himself,
which however he could hardly consider of a satisfactory nature. On the
20th of May, 1798, General Buonaparte embarked on board the fleet at
Toulon and sailed off--not for Ireland or England, but for Egypt.

On the Irish leaders at home these repeated disappointments fell with
terrible effect. The condition of the country was daily growing more
critical. The government, now thoroughly roused and alarmed, and
persuaded that the time for "vigorous measures" had arrived, was
grappling with the conspiracy in all directions. Still those men would,
if they could, have got the people to possess their souls in patience
and wait for aid from abroad before unfurling the banner of
insurrection; for they were constant in their belief that without the
presence of a disciplined army on Irish soil to consolidate their
strength and direct it, a revolutionary effort of the Irish people
could end only in disaster. But the government had reasons of their own
for wishing to set an Irish rebellion afoot at this time, and they took
measures to precipitate the rising. The arrest of the delegates at the
house of Oliver Bond in Dublin, and the capture of Lord Edward
Fitzgerald contributed to this end; but these things the country might
have peacably endured if no more dreadful trial had been put upon it.
What could not be endured was the system of riot and outrage, and
murder, to which the unfortunate peasantry were then given over. Words
fail to describe its cruelty and its horrors. It was too much for human
nature to bear. On the 23rd of May, three days after Buonaparte had
sailed from Toulon for Alexandria, the Irish insurrection broke out. The
news of the occurrence created the most intense excitement among the
Irish refugees then in Paris. Tone rushed to and fro to the Directory
and to the generals, pleading for the despatch of some assistance to his
struggling countrymen. Various plans were suggested and taken into
consideration, but while time was being wasted in this way, the military
forces of the British Government were rapidly suppressing the
insurrection of the unarmed and undisciplined Irish peasantry. In this
condition of affairs a gallant but rash and indiscreet French officer,
General Humbert, resolved that he would commit the Directory to action,
by starting at once with a small force for the coast of Ireland. Towards
the middle of August, calling together the merchants and magistrates of
Rochelle, "he forced them to advance a small sum of money, and all that
he wanted, on military requisition; and embarking on board a few
frigates and transports with 1,000 men, 1,000 spare muskets, 1,000
guineas, and a few pieces of artillery, he compelled the captains to set
sail for the most desperate attempt which is, perhaps, recorded in
history." Three Irishmen were on board the fleet--Matthew Tone, brother
to Theobald, Bartholomew Teeling, and Sullivan, an officer in the French
service, who was enthusiastically devoted to the Irish cause, and had
rendered much aid to his patriotic countrymen in France. Humbert landed
at Killala, routed with his little handful of men a large force of the
royal troops, and held his ground until General Lake, with 20,000 men
marched against him. After a resistance sufficient to maintain the
honour of the French arms, Humbert's little force surrendered as
prisoners of war. The Irish who had joined his standard were shown no
mercy. The peasantry were cruelly butchered. Of those who had
accompanied him from France, Sullivan, who was able to pass as a
Frenchman, escaped; Teeling and Matthew Tone were brought in irons to
Dublin, tried, and executed. The news of Humbert's expedition and the
temporary success that had attended it created much excitement in
France, and stirred up the Directory to attempt something for Ireland
more worthy of the fame and power of the French nation, and more in
keeping with their repeated promises to the leaders of the Irish
movement. But their fleet was at the time greatly reduced, and their
resources were in a state of disorganization. They mustered for the
expedition only one sail of the line and eight small frigates, commanded
by Commodore Bompart, conveying 5,000 men under the leadership of
General Hardy. On board the Admiral's vessel, which was named the Hoche,
was the heroic Theobald Wolfe Tone. He knew this expedition had no
chance of success, but he had all along declared, "that if the
government sent only a corporal's guard, he felt it his duty to go along
with them." The vessels sailed on the 20th of September, 1798;
it was not till the 11th October that they arrived off Lough
Swilly--simultaneously with an English squadron that had been on the
look out for them. The English ships were about equal in number to the
French, but were of a larger class, and carried a much heavier armament.
The French Admiral directed some of his smaller craft to endeavour to
escape by means of their light draught of water, and he counselled Tone
to transfer himself to that one of them which had the best chance of
getting away. The Frenchmen, he observed, would be made prisoners of
war, but for the Irish rebel a worse fate was reserved if he should fall
into the hand of his enemies. But to this suggestion the noble-hearted
Tone declined to accede. "Shall it be said," he replied, "that I fled
while the French were fighting the battles of my country." In a little
time the Hoche was surrounded by four sail of the line and one frigate,
who poured their shot into her upon all sides. During six hours she
maintained the unequal combat, fighting "till her masts and rigging were
cut away, her scuppers flowed with blood, her wounded filled the
cockpit, her shattered ribs yawned at each new stroke, and let in five
feet of water in the hold, her rudder was carried off, and she floated a
dismantled wreck on the water; her sails and cordage hung in shreds, nor
could she reply with a single gun from her dismounted batteries to the
unabating cannonade of the enemy." During the action Tone commanded one
of the batteries "and fought with the utmost desperation, as if he was
courting death." But, as often has happened in similiar cases, death
seemed to shun him, and he was reserved for a more tragic fate.

The French officers who survived the action, and had been made prisoners
of war, were, some days subsequently, invited to breakfast with the Earl
of Cavan, who commanded in the district in which they had been landed.
Tone, who up to that time, had escaped recognition, was one of the
party, and sat undistinguished among them, until Sir George Hill, who
had been a fellow-student of his in Trinity College, entered the room
and accosted him by his name. This was done, not inadvertently, but with
the intention of betraying him. In a moment he was in the hands of a
party of military and police who were in waiting for him in the next
room. Seeing that they were about to put him in fetters, he complained
indignantly of the offering of such an insult to the uniform which he
wore, and the rank--that of Chef de Brigade--which he bore in the French
army. He cast off his regimentals, protesting that they should not be so
sullied, and then, offering his limbs to the irons, exclaimed--"For the
cause which I have embraced, I feel prouder to wear these chains, than
if I were decorated with the Star and Garter of England." He was hurried
off to Dublin, and though the ordinary tribunals were sitting at the
time, and the military tribunals could have no claim on him, as he had
never belonged to the English army, he was put on his trial before a
court-martial. This was absolutely an illegal proceeding, but his
enemies were impatient for his blood, and would not brook the chances
and the delays of the ordinary procedure of law. On the 10th of
November, 1798, his trial, if such it might be called, took place in one
of the Dublin barracks. He appeared before the Court "dressed," says the
_Dublin Magazine_ for November, 1798, "in the French uniform: a large
cocked hat, with broad gold lace and the tri-coloured cockade; a blue
uniform coat, with gold-embroidered collar and two large gold epaulets;
blue pantaloons, with gold-laced garters at the knees; and short boots,
bound at the tops with gold lace." In his bearing there was no trace of
excitement. "The firmness and cool serenity of his whole deportment,"
writes his son, "gave to the awestruck assembly the measure of his
soul," The proceedings of the Court are detailed in the following
report, which we copy from the "Life of Tone," by his son, published at
Washington, U.S., in 1826:--

   The members of the Court having been sworn, the Judge Advocate called
   on the prisoner to plead guilty or not guilty to the charge of having
   acted traitorously and hostilely against the King. Tone replied:--

   "I mean not to give the court any useless trouble, and wish to spare
   them the idle task of examining witnesses. I admit all the facts
   alleged, and only request leave to read an address which I have
   prepared for this occasion."

   Colonel DALY--"I must warn the prisoner that, in acknowledging those
   _facts_, he admits, to his prejudice, that he has acted
   _traitorously_ against his Majesty. Is such his intention?"

   TONE--"Stripping this charge of the technicality of its terms, it
   means, I presume, by the word traitorously, that I have been found in
   arms against the soldiers of the King in my native country. I admit
   this accusation in its most extended sense, and request again to
   explain to the court the reasons and motives of my conduct."

   The court then observed they would hear his address, provided he kept
   himself within the bounds of moderation.

   Tone rose, and began in these words--"Mr. President and Gentlemen of
   the Court-Martial, I mean not to give you the trouble of bringing
   judicial proof to convict me legally of having acted in hostility to
   the government of his Britannic Majesty in Ireland. I admit the fact.
   From my earliest youth I have regarded the connection between Great
   Britain and Ireland as the curse of the Irish nation, and felt
   convinced that, whilst it lasted, this country could never be free
   nor happy. My mind has been confirmed in this opinion by the
   experience of every succeeding year, and the conclusions which I have
   drawn from every fact before my eyes. In consequence, I was
   determined to employ all the powers which my individual efforts could
   move, in order to separate the two countries. That Ireland was not
   able of herself to throw off the yoke, I knew; I therefore sought for
   aid wherever it was to be found. In honourable poverty I rejected
   offers which, to a man in my circumstances, might be considered
   highly advantageous. I remained faithful to what I thought the cause
   of my country, and sought in the French Republic an ally to rescue
   three millions of my countrymen from--"

   The President here interrupted the prisoner, observing that this
   language was neither relevant to the charge, nor such as ought to be
   delivered in a public court.

   A Member said it seemed calculated only to inflame the minds of a
   certain description of people (the United Irishmen), many of whom
   might be present, and that the court could not suffer it.

   The JUDGE ADVOCATE said--"If Mr. Tone meant this paper to be laid
   before his Excellency in way of _extenuation_, it must have quite a
   contrary effect, if the foregoing part was suffered to remain." The
   President wound up by calling on the prisoner to hesitate before
   proceeding further in the same strain.

   TONE then continued--"I believe there is nothing in what remains for
   me to say which can give any offence; I mean to express my feelings
   and gratitude towards the Catholic body, in whose cause I was
   engaged."

   PRESIDENT--"That seems to have nothing to say to the charge against
   you, to which you are only to speak. If you have anything to offer in
   defence or extenuation of the charge, the court will hear you, but
   they beg you will confine yourself to that subject."

   TONE--"I shall, then, confine myself to some points relative to my
   connection with the French army. Attached to no party in the French
   Republic--without interest, without money, without intrigue--the
   openness and integrity of my views raised me to a high and
   confidential rank in its armies. I obtained the confidence of the
   Executive Directory, the approbation of my generals, and I will
   venture to add, the esteem and affection of my brave comrades. When I
   review these circumstances, I feel a secret and internal consolation
   which no reverse of fortune, no sentence in the power of this court
   to inflict, can deprive me of, or weaken in any degree. Under the
   flag of the French Republic I originally engaged with a view to save
   and liberate my own country. For that purpose I have encountered the
   chances of war amongst strangers; for that purpose I repeatedly
   braved the terrors of the ocean, covered, as I knew it to be, with
   the triumphant fleets of that power which it was my glory and my
   duty to oppose. I have sacrificed all my views in life; I have
   courted poverty; I have left a beloved wife unprotected, and children
   whom I adored fatherless. After such a sacrifice, in a cause which I
   have always considered--conscientiously considered--as the cause of
   justice and freedom, it is no great effort, at this day, to add the
   sacrifice of my life. But I hear it said that this unfortunate
   country has been a prey to all sorts of horrors. I sincerely lament
   it. I beg, however, it may be remembered that I have been absent four
   years from Ireland. To me these sufferings can never be attributed. I
   designed by fair and open war to procure the separation of the two
   countries. For open war I was prepared, but instead of that a system
   of private assassination has taken place. I repeat, whilst I deplore
   it, that it is not chargeable on me. Atrocities, it seems, have been
   committed on both sides. I do not less deplore them. I detest them
   from my heart; and to those who know my character and sentiments I
   may safely appeal for the truth of this assertion; with them I need
   no justification. In a case like this success is everything. Success,
   in the eyes of the vulgar, fixes its merits. Washington succeeded,
   and Kosciusko failed. After a combat nobly sustained--combat which
   would have excited the respect and sympathy of a generous enemy--my
   fate has been to become a prisoner, to the eternal disgrace of those
   who gave the orders. I was brought here in irons like a felon. I
   mention this for the sake of others; for me, I am indifferent to it.
   I am aware of the fate which awaits me, and scorn equally the tone of
   complaint and that of supplication. As to the connection between this
   country and Great Britain, I repeat it--all that has been imputed to
   me (words, writings, and actions), I here deliberately avow. I have
   spoken and acted with reflection and on principle, and am ready to
   meet the consequences. Whatever be the sentence of the court, I am
   prepared for it. Its members will surely discharge their duty--I
   shall take care not to be wanting in mine."

   The court having asked if he wished to make any further observation,

   TONE said--"I wish to offer a few words relative to one single
   point--the mode of punishment. In France our _emigrees_, who stand
   nearly in the same situation in which I now stand before you, are
   condemned to be shot. I ask that the court shall adjudge me the death
   of a soldier, and let me be shot by a platoon of grenadiers. I
   request this indulgence rather in consideration of the uniform I
   wear--the uniform of a Chef de Brigade in the French army--than from
   any personal regard to myself. In order to evince my claim to this
   favour, I beg that the court may take the trouble to peruse my
   commission and letters of service in the French army. It will appear
   from these papers that I have not received them as a mask to cover
   me, but that I have been long and _bona fide_ an officer in the
   French service."

   JUDGE ADVOCATE--"You must feel that the papers you allude to will
   serve as undeniable proof against you."

   TONE--"Oh, I know they will. I have already admitted the facts, and
   I now admit the papers as full proof of conviction."

   [The papers were then examined; they consisted of a brevet of Chef de
   Brigade from the Directory, signed by the Minister of War, of a
   letter of service granting to him the rank of Adjutant-General, and
   of a passport.]

   General LOFTUS--"In these papers you are designated as serving in the
   army of England."

   TONE--"I did serve in that army, when it was commanded by Buonaparte,
   by Dessaix, and by Kilmaine, who is, as I am, an Irishman; but I have
   also served elsewhere."

   The Court requested if he had anything further to observe.

   He said that nothing more occurred to him, except that the sooner his
   Excellency's approbation of the sentence was obtained the better.

This is Tone's speech, as reported in the public prints at that time,
but the recently-published "Correspondence" of Lord Cornwallis--Lord
Lieutenant in those days--supplies a portion of the address which was
never before published, the Court having forbade the reading of it at
the trial. The passage contains a noble outburst of gratitude towards
the Catholics of Ireland. Tone himself, as every reader is aware, was a
Protestant, and there can have been no reason for its suppression except
the consideration that it was calculated to still more endear the
prisoner to the hearts of his countrymen. We now reprint it, and thus
place it for the first time before the people for whom it was written:--

   "I have laboured to create a people in Ireland by raising three
   millions of my countrymen to the rank of citizens. I have laboured to
   abolish the infernal spirit of religious persecution, by uniting the
   Catholics and Dissenters. To the former I owe more than ever can be
   repaid. The services I was so fortunate as to render them they
   rewarded munificently; but they did more: when the public cry was
   raised against me--when the friends of my youth swarmed off and left
   me alone--the Catholics did not desert me; they had the virtue even
   to sacrifice their own interests to a rigid principle of honour; they
   refused, though strongly urged, to disgrace a man who, whatever his
   conduct towards the government might have been, had faithfully and
   conscientiously discharged his duty towards them; and in so doing,
   though it was in my own case, I will say they showed an instance of
   public, virtue of which I know not whether there exists another
   example."

The sad sequel of those proceedings is soon told. The request of the
prisoner to receive a military execution was refused by the Viceroy,
Lord Cornwallis, and Tone was sentenced to die "the death of a traitor"
within forty-eight hours from the time of his conviction. But
he--influenced, it must be confessed, by a totally mistaken feeling of
pride, and yielding to a weakness which every Christian heart should be
able to conquer--resolved that, rather than allow his enemies to have
the satisfaction of dangling his body from a gibbet, he would become his
own executioner. On the night of the 11th of November he contrived,
while lying unobserved in his cell, to open a vein in his neck with a
penknife. No intelligence of this fact had reached the public when, on
the morning of the 12th, the intrepid and eloquent advocate, John
Philpot Curran, made a motion in the Court of King's Bench for a writ of
_Habeas Corpus_, to withdraw the prisoner from the custody of the
military authorities, and transfer him to the charge of the civil power.
The motion was granted immediately, Mr. Curran pleading that, if delay
were made, the prisoner might be executed before the order of the Court
could be presented. A messenger was at once despatched from the court to
the barrack with the writ. He returned to say that the officers in
charge of the prisoner would obey only their military superiors. The
Chief Justice issued his commands peremptorily:--"Mr. Sheriff, take the
body of Tone into custody--take the Provost Marshal and Major Sandys
into custody,--and show the order of the Court to General Craig." The
Sheriff sped away, and soon returned with the news that Tone had wounded
himself on the previous evening, and could not be removed. The Chief
Justice then ordered a rule suspending the execution. For the space of
seven days afterwards did the unfortunate gentleman endure the agonies
of approaching death; on the 19th of November, 1798, he expired. No more
touching reference to his last moments could be given than the following
pathetic and noble words traced by a filial hand, and published in the
memoir from which we have already quoted:--"Stretched on his bloody
pallet in a dungeon, the first apostle of Irish union and most
illustrious martyr of Irish independence counted each lingering hour
during the last seven days and nights of his slow and silent agony. No
one was allowed to approach him. Far from his adored family, and from
all those friends whom he loved so dearly, the only forms which flitted
before his eyes were those of the grim jailor and his rough
attendants--the only sounds which fell on his dying ear the heavy tread
of the sentry. He retained, however, the calmness of his soul and the
possession of his faculties to the last. And the consciousness of dying
for his country, and in the cause of justice and liberty, illumined like
a bright halo his later moments and kept up his fortitude to the end.
There is no situation under which those feelings will not support the
soul of a patriot."

Tone was born in Stafford-street, Dublin, on the 20th of June, 1764. His
father was a coachmaker who carried on a thriving business; his
grandfather was a comfortable farmer who held land near Naas, county
Kildare. In February, 1781, Tone entered Trinity College, Dublin; in
January, 1787, he entered his name as a law student on the books of the
Middle Temple, London, and in 1789 he was called to the bar. His mortal
remains repose in Bodenstown churchyard, county Kildare, whither parties
of patriotic young men from the metropolis and the surrounding districts
often proceed to lay a green wreath on his grave. His spirit lives, and
will live for ever, in the hearts of his countrymen.




       *       *       *       *       *




WILLIAM ORR.


Twelve months before Wolfe Tone expired in his prison cell, one of the
bravest of his associates paid with his life the penalty of his
attachment to the cause of Irish independence. In the subject of this
sketch, the United Irishmen found their first martyr; and time has left
no darker blot on the administration of English rule than the execution
of the high-spirited Irishman whose body swung from the gallows of
Carrickfergus on the 14th of October, 1797.

William Orr was the son of a farmer and bleach-green proprietor, of
Ferranshane, in the county of Antrim. The family were in comfortable
circumstances, and young Orr received a good education, which he
afterwards turned to account in the service of his country. We know
little of his early history, but we find him, on growing up to manhood,
an active member of the society of United Irishmen, and remarkable for
his popularity amongst his countrymen in the north. His appearance, not
less than his principles and declarations, was calculated to captivate
the peasantry amongst whom he lived; he stood six feet two inches in
height, was a perfect model of symmetry, strength, and gracefulness, and
the expression of his countenance was open, frank, and manly. He was
always neatly and respectably dressed--a prominent feature in his attire
being a green necktie, which he wore even in his last confinement.

One of, the first blows aimed by the government against the United
Irishmen was the passing of the Act of Parliament (36 George III.),
which constituted the administration of their oath a capital felony.
This piece of legislation, repugnant in itself to the dictates of reason
and justice, was intended as no idle threat; a victim was looked for to
suffer under its provisions, and William Orr, the champion of the
northern Presbyterian patriots, was doomed to serve the emergency.

He was arraigned, tried, and convicted at Carrickfergus on a charge of
having administered the United Irishman's oath to a soldier named
Wheatly. The whole history of the operations of the British law courts
in Ireland contains nothing more infamous than the record of that trial.
We now know, as a matter of fact, that the man who tendered the oath to
Wheatly was William M'Keever, a well-known member of the society, who
subsequently made his escape to America. But this was not a case, such
as sometimes happens, of circumstantial evidence pointing to a wrong
conclusion. The only evidence against Orr was the unsupported testimony
of the soldier Wheatly; and after hearing Curran's defence of the
prisoner there could be no possible doubt of his innocence. But Orr was
a doomed man--the government had decreed his death before hand; and in
this case, as in every other, the bloodthirsty agents of the crown did
not look in vain for Irishmen to co-operate with them in their infamy.

At six o'clock in the evening the jury retired to consider their
verdict. The scene that followed in the jury room is described in the
sworn affidavits of some of its participators. The jury were supplied
with supper by the crown officials; a liberal supply of intoxicating
beverages, wines, brandy, &c., being included in the refreshments. In
their sober state several of the jury-men--amongst them Alexander
Thompson, of Cushendall, the foreman--had refused to agree to a verdict
of guilty. It was otherwise, however, when the decanters had been
emptied, and when threats of violence were added to the bewildering
effects of the potations in which they indulged. Thompson was threatened
by his more unscrupulous companions with being wrecked, beaten, and "not
left with sixpence in the world," and similar means were used against
the few who refused with him to return a verdict of guilty. At six in
the morning, the jury, not a man of whom by this time was sober,
returned into court with a verdict of guilty, recommending the prisoner
at the same time in the strongest manner to mercy. Next day Orr was
placed at the bar, and sentenced to death by Lord Yelverton, who, it is
recorded, at the conclusion of his address burst into tears. A motion
was made, by Curran in arrest of judgment, chiefly on the grounds of the
drunkenness of the jury but the judges refused to entertain the
objection. The following is the speech delivered by William Orr after
the verdict of the jury had been announced:--

   "My friends and fellow-countrymen--In the thirty-first year of my
   life I have been sentenced to die upon the gallows, and this sentence
   has been in pursuance of a verdict of twelve men, who should have
   been indifferently and impartially chosen. How far they have been so,
   I leave to that country from which they have been chosen to
   determine; and how far they have discharged their duty, I leave to
   their God and to themselves. They have, in pronouncing their verdict,
   thought proper to recommend me as an object of humane mercy. In
   return, I pray to God, if they have erred, to have mercy upon them.
   The judge who condemned me humanely shed tears in uttering my
   sentence. But whether he did wisely in so highly commending the
   wretched informer, who swore away my life, I leave to his own cool
   reflection, solemnly assuring him and all the world, with my dying
   breath, that that informer was foresworn.

   "The law under which I suffer is surely a severe one--may the makers
   and promoters of it be justified in the integrity of their motives,
   and the purity of their own lives! By that law I am stamped a felon,
   but my heart disdains the imputation.

   "My comfortable lot, and industrious course of life, best refute the
   charge of being an adventurer for plunder; but if to have loved my
   country--to have known its wrongs--to have felt the injuries of the
   persecuted Catholics, and to have united with them and all other
   religious persuasions in the most orderly and least sanguinary means
   of procuring redress--if those be felonies, I am a felon, but not
   otherwise. Had my counsel (for whose honorable exertions I am
   indebted) prevailed in their motions to have me tried for high
   treason, rather than under the insurrection law, I should have been,
   entitled to a full defence, and my actions have been better
   vindicated; but that was refused, and I must now submit to what has
   passed.

   "To the generous protection of my country I leave a beloved wife, who
   has been constant and true to me, and whose grief for my fate has
   already nearly occasioned her death. I have five living children, who
   have been my delight. May they love their country as I have done, and
   die for it if needful.

   "Lastly, a false and ungenerous publication having appeared in a
   newspaper, stating certain alleged confessions of guilt on my part,
   and thus striking at my reputation, which is clearer to me than life.
   I take this solemn method of contradicting the calumny. I was applied
   to by the high-sheriff, and the Rev. William Bristow, sovereign of
   Belfast, to make a confession of guilt, who used entreaties to that
   effect; this I peremptorily refused. If I thought myself guilty, I
   would freely confess it, but, on the contrary, I glory in my
   innocence.

   "I trust that all my virtuous countrymen will bear me in their kind
   remembrance, and continue true and faithful to each other as I have
   been to all of them. With this last wish of my heart--nothing
   doubting of the success of that cause for which I suffer, and hoping
   for God's merciful forgiveness of such offences as my frail nature
   may have at any time betrayed me into--I die in peace and charity
   with all mankind."

Hardly had sentence of death been passed on William Orr, when
compunction seemed to seize on those who had aided in securing that
result. The witness Wheatly, who subsequently became insane, and is
believed to have died by his own hand, made an affidavit before a
magistrate acknowledging that he had sworn falsely against Orr. Two of
the jury made depositions setting forth that they had been induced to
join in the verdict of guilty while under the influence of drink; two
others swore that they had been terrified into the same course by
threats of violence.

These depositions were laid before the viceroy, but Lord Camden, the
then Lord Lieutenant, was deaf to all appeals. Well might Orr exclaim
within his dungeon that the government "had laid down a system having
for its object murder and devastation." The prey was in the toils of the
hunters, on whom all appeals of justice and humanity were wasted.

Orr was hung, as we have said, in the town of Carrickfergus on the 14th
of October, 1797. It is related that the inhabitants of the town, to
express their sympathy with the patriot about being murdered by law, and
to mark their abhorrence of the conduct of the government towards him,
quitted the town _en masse_ on the day of his execution.

His fate excited the deepest indignation throughout the country; it was
commented on in words of fire by the national writers of the period, and
through many an after year the watchword and rallying cry of the United
Irishmen was--

   "REMEMBER ORR."




       *       *       *       *       *




HENRY AND JOHN SHEARES.


Among the many distinguished Irishmen who acted prominent parts in the
stormy events of 1798, and whose names come down to us hallowed by the
sufferings and sacrifices inseparable in those dark days from the lot of
an Irish patriot, there are few whose fate excited more sympathy, more
loved in life, more honored in death than the brothers John and Henry
Sheares. Even in the days of Emmet and Wolfe Tone, of Russell and
Fitzgerald, when men of education, talent, and social standing were not
few in the national ranks, the Sheareses were hailed as valuable
accessions to the cause, and were recognised by the United Irishmen as
heaven-destined leaders for the people. It is a touching story, the
history of their patriotic exertions, their betrayal, trial, and
execution; but it is by studying such scenes in our history that
Irishmen can learn to estimate the sacrifices which were made in bygone
days for Ireland, and attach a proper value to the memory of the
patriots who made them.

Henry and John Sheares were sons of John Sheares, a banker in Cork, who
sat in the Irish Parliament for the borough of Clonakilty. The father
appears to have been a kindly-disposed, liberal-minded man, and numerous
stories are told of his unostentatious charity and benevolence. Henry,
the elder of the two sons, was born in 1753, and was educated in Trinity
College, Dublin. After leaving college he purchased a commission in the
51st Regiment of foot, but the duties of a military officer were ill
suited to his temperament and disposition, and the young soldier soon
resigned his commission to pursue the more congenial occupation of law
student. He was called to the bar in 1790; his brother John, his junior
by three years, who had adopted the same profession, obtained the rank
of barrister-at-law two years previously. The brothers differed from
each other widely in character and disposition. Henry was gentle in
manners, modest and unassuming, but firmly attached to his principles,
and unswerving in his fidelity to the cause which he adopted; John was
bold, impetuous, and energetic, ready to plan and to dare, fertile of
resources, quick of resolve, and prompt of execution. To John the elder
brother looked for guidance and example, and his gentle nature was ever
ruled by the more fiery and impulsive spirit of his younger brother. On
the death of the father Henry Sheares came in for property to the value
of £1,200 per annum, which his rather improvident habits soon diminished
by one-half. Both brothers, however, obtained large practice at their
profession, and continued in affluent circumstances up to the day of
their arrest.

In 1792 the two brothers visited Paris, and this excursion seems to have
formed the turning point of their lives and fortunes. The French
Revolution was in full swing, and in the society of Roland, Brissot, and
other Republican leaders, the young Irishmen imbibed the love of
freedom, and impatience of tyranny and oppression, which they clung to
so faithfully, and which distinguished them so remarkably during the
remainder of their lives. On returning to Ireland in January, 1793, the
brothers joined the ranks of the United Irishmen. John at once became a
prominent member of the society, and his signature appears to several of
the spirited and eloquent addresses by which the Dublin branch sought
from time to time to arouse the ardour and stimulate the exertions of
their compatriots. The society of United Irishmen looked for nothing
more at this period than a thorough measure of parliamentary reform,
household suffrage being the leading feature in their programme; but
when the tyranny of the government drove the leaguers into more violent
and dangerous courses, when republican government and separation from
England were inscribed on the banners of the society instead of
electoral reform, and when the selfish and the wavering had shrunk
aside, the Sheareses still remained true to the United Irishmen, and
seemed to grow more zealous and energetic in the cause of their country
according as the mists of perplexity and danger gathered around it.

To follow out the history of the Sheareses connection with the United
Irishmen would be foreign to our intention and to the scope of this
work. The limits of our space oblige us to pass over the ground at a
rapid pace, and we shall dismiss the period of the Sheareses' lives
comprised in the years between 1793 and 1798, by saying that during that
period, while practising their profession with success, they devoted
themselves with all the earnestness of their nature to the furtherance
of the objects of the United Irishmen. In March, 1798, the affairs of
the organization became critical; the arrest of the Directory at Oliver
Bond's deprived the party of its best and most trusted leaders, besides
placing in the hands of the government a mass of information relative to
the plans and resources of the conspirators. To fill the gap thus
caused, John Sheares was soon appointed a member of the Directory, and
he threw himself into the work with all the ardour and energy of his
nature. The fortunes of the society had assumed a desperate phase when
John Sheares became its ruling spirit. Tone was in France, O'Connor was
in England, Russell, Emmet, and Fitzgerald were in prison. But Sheares
was not disheartened; he directed all his efforts towards bringing about
the insurrection for which his countrymen had so long been preparing,
and the 23rd of May, 1798, was fixed on by him for the outbreak. He was
after visiting Wexford and Kildare, and making arrangements in those
counties for the rising, and was on the verge of starting for Cork on a
similar mission, when the hand of treachery cut short his career, and
the gates of Kilmainham prison opened to receive him.

Amongst all the human monsters who filled the ranks of the government
informers in that dark and troubled period, not one appears to merit a
deeper measure of infamy than Captain Warnesford Armstrong, the
entrapper and betrayer of the Sheareses. Having obtained an introduction
to John, he represented himself as a zealous and hard-working member of
the organization, and soon wormed himself completely into the confidence
of his victims. He paid daily visits to the house of the Sheareses in
Baggot-street, chatted with their families, and fondled the children of
Henry Sheares upon his knee. We have it on his own testimony that each
interview with the men whose confidence he was sharing was followed by a
visit to the Castle. We need not go through the sickening details of
this vile story of treachery and fraud. On the 21st of May the Sheareses
were arrested and lodged in prison, and on the 12th of the following
month Armstrong appeared against them in the witness-box. The trial was
continued through the night--Toler, of infamous memory, who had been
created Attorney-General expressly for the occasion, refusing Curran's
request for an adjournment; and it was eight o'clock in the morning of
the 13th when the jury, who had been but seventeen minutes absent,
returned into court with a verdict of guilty against both prisoners.

After a few hours' adjournment the court re-assembled to pass sentence.
It was then that John Sheares, speaking in a firm tone, addressed the
court as follows:--

   "My Lords--I wish to offer a few words before sentence is pronounced,
   because there is a weight pressing on my heart much greater than that
   of the sentence which is to come from the court. There has been, my
   lords, a weight pressing on my mind from the first moment I heard the
   indictment read upon which I was tried; but that weight has been more
   peculiarly pressing upon my heart when I found the accusation in the
   indictment enforced and supported upon the trial. That weight would
   be left insupportable if it were not for this opportunity of
   discharging it; I shall feel it to be insupportable since a verdict
   of my country has stamped that evidence as well founded. Do not
   think, my lords, that I am about to make a declaration against the
   verdict of the jury or the persons concerned with the trial; I am
   only about to call to your recollection a part of the charge at which
   my soul shudders, and if I had no opportunity of renouncing it before
   your lordships and this auditory, no courage would be sufficient to
   support me. The accusation of which I speak, while I linger here yet
   a minute, is that of holding out to the people of Ireland a direction
   to give no quarter to the troops fighting for its defence! My lords,
   let me say thus, that if there be any acquaintances in this crowded
   court--I do not say my intimate friends, but acquaintances--who do
   not know what I say is truth, I shall be reputed the wretch which I
   am not; I say if any acquaintance of mine can believe that _I_ could
   utter a recommendation of giving no quarter to a yielding and
   unoffending foe, it is not the death which I am about to suffer that
   I deserve--no punishment could be adequate to such a crime. My lords,
   I can not only acquit my soul of such an intention, but I declare, in
   the presence of that God before whom I must shortly appear, that the
   favourite doctrine of my heart was, _that no human being should
   suffer death but when absolute necessity required it_. My lords, I
   feel a consolation in making this declaration, which nothing else
   could afford me, because it is not only a justification of myself,
   but where I am sealing my life with that breath which cannot be
   suspected of falsehood, what I say may make some impression upon the
   minds of men not holding the same doctrine. I declare to God I know
   of no crime but assassination which can eclipse or equal that of
   which I am accused. I discern no shade of guilt between that and
   taking away the life of a foe, by putting a bayonet to his heart when
   he is yielding and surrendering. I do request the bench to believe
   that of me--I do request my country to believe that of me--I am sure
   God will think that of me. Now, my lords, I have no favour to ask of
   the court; my country has decided I am guilty, and the law says I
   shall suffer--it sees that I am ready to suffer. But, my lords, I
   have a favour to request of the court that does not relate to myself.
   My lords, I have a brother whom I have even loved dearer than myself,
   but it is not from any affection for him alone that I am induced to
   make the request. He is a man, and therefore I would hope prepared to
   die if he stood as I do--though I do not stand unconnected; but he
   stands more dearly connected. In short, my lords, to spare your
   feelings and I my own, I do not pray that that _I_ should not die,
   but that the husband, the father, the son--all comprised in one
   person--holding these relations dearer in life to him than any other
   man I know--for such a man I do not pray a pardon, for that is not in
   the power of the court, but I pray a respite for such time as the
   court in its humanity and discretion shall think proper. You have
   heard, my lords, that his private affairs require arrangement. When I
   address myself to your lordships, it is with the knowledge you will
   have of all the sons of our aged mother being gone. Two have perished
   in the service of the King--one very recently. I only request that,
   disposing of me with what swiftness either the public mind or justice
   requires, a respite may be given to my brother, that the family may
   acquire strength to bear it all. That is all I wish; I shall remember
   it to my last breath, and I shall offer up my prayers for you to that
   Being who has endued us all with the sensibility to feel. That is all
   I ask. I have nothing more to say."

It was four o'clock, p.m., when the judge proceeded to pass sentence,
and the following morning was appointed for the double execution. At
mid-day on Saturday, July 14th, the hapless men were removed to the room
adjoining the place of execution, where they exchanged a last embrace.
They were then pinioned, the black caps put over their brows, and
holding each other by the hand, they tottered out on the platform. The
elder brother was somewhat moved by the terrors of his situation, but
the younger bore his fate with unflinching firmness. They were launched
together into eternity--the same moment saw them dangling lifeless
corpses before the prison walls. They had lived in affectionate unity,
inspired by the same motives, labouring for the same cause, and death
did not dissolve the tie. "They died hand in hand, like true brothers."

When the hangman's hideous office was completed, the bodies were taken
down, and the executioner, in accordance with the barbarous custom of
the time, proceeded to sever the heads from the bodies. It is said,
however, that only on the body of Henry Sheares was that horrible act
performed. While the arrangements for the execution were in progress,
Sir Jonah Barrington had been making intercession with Lord Clare on
their behalf, and beseeching at least a respite. His lordship declared
that the life of John Sheares could not be spared, but said that Henry
might possibly have something to say which would induce the government
to commute his sentence; he furnished Sir Jonah with an order to delay
the execution one hour, and told him to communicate with Henry Sheares
on the subject. "I hastened," writes Sir Jonah, "to Newgate, and arrived
at the very moment that the executioner was holding up the head of my
old college friend, and saying, 'Here is the head of a traitor.'" The
fact of this order having been issued by the government, may have so far
interrupted the bloody work on the scaffold as to save the remains of
the younger Sheares from mutilation. The bodies of the patriots were
interred on the night of the execution in the vaults of St. Michan's
church, where, enclosed in oaken coffins, marked in the usual manner
with the names and ages of the deceased, they still repose. Many a pious
visit has since been paid to those dim chambers--many a heart, filled
with love and pity, has throbbed above those coffin lids--many a tear
has dropped upon them. But it is not a feeling of grief alone that is
inspired by the memory of those martyrs to freedom; hope, courage,
constancy, are the lessons taught by their lives, and the patriotic
spirit that ruled their career is still awake and active in Ireland.




       *       *       *       *       *




ROBERT EMMET.


In all Irish history there is no name which touches the Irish heart like
that of Robert Emmet. We read, in that eventful record, of men who laid
down their lives for Ireland amid the roar and crash of battle, of
others who perished by the headsman's axe or the halter of the hangman,
of others whose eyes were closed for ever in the gloom of English
dungeons, and of many whose hearts broke amid the sorrows of involuntary
exile; of men, too, who in the great warfare of mind rendered to the
Irish cause services no less memorable and glorious. They are neither
forgotten nor unhonoured. The warrior figure of Hugh O'Neill is a
familiar vision to Irishmen; Sarsfield expiring on the foreign
battle-field with that infinitely pathetic and noble utterance on his
lips--"Would that this were for Ireland"--is a cherished remembrance,
and that last cry of a patriotic spirit dwells for ever about our
hearts; Grattan battling against a corrupt and venal faction, first to
win and then to defend the independence of his country, astonishing
friends and foes alike by the dazzling splendour of his eloquence; and
O'Connell on the hill-sides pleading for the restoration of Ireland's
rights, and rousing his countrymen to a struggle for them, are pictures
of which we are proud--memories that will live in song and story while
the Irish race has a distinct existence in the world. But in the
character of Robert Emmet there was such a rare combination of admirable
qualities, and in his history there are so many of the elements of
romance, that the man stands before our mental vision as a peculiarly
noble and loveable being, with claims upon our sympathies that are
absolutely without a parallel. He had youth, talent, social position, a
fair share of fortune, and bright prospects for the future on his side
when he embarked in the service of a cause that had but recently been
sunk in defeat and ruin. Courage, genius, enthusiasm were his, high
hopes and strong affections, all based upon and sweetened by a nature
utterly free from guile. He was an orator and a poet; in the one art he
had already achieved distinction, in the other he was certain to take a
high place, if he should make that an object of his ambition. He was a
true patriot, true soldier, and true lover. If the story of his
political life is full of melancholy interest, and calculated to awaken
profound emotions of reverence for his memory, the story of his
affections is not less touching. Truly, "there's not a line but hath
been wept upon." So it is, that of all the heroic men who risked and
lost everything for Ireland, none is so frequently remembered, none is
thought of so tenderly as Robert Emmet. Poetry has cast a halo of light
upon the name of the youthful martyr, and some of the sweetest strains
of Irish music are consecrated to his memory.

[Illustration: ROBERT EMMET.]

Robert Emmet was born on the 4th of March, 1778. He was the third son of
Doctor Robert Emmet, a well-known and highly respectable physician of
Dublin. Thomas Addis Emmet, already mentioned in these pages, the
associate of Tone, the Sheareses, and other members of the United Irish
organization, was an elder brother of Robert, and his senior by some
sixteen years. Just about the period when the United Irishmen were
forming themselves into a secret revolutionary society, young Emmet was
sent to receive his education in Trinity College. There the bent of the
lad's political opinions was soon detected; but among his fellow
students he found many, and amongst them older heads than his own, who
not only shared his views, but went beyond them in the direction of
liberal and democratic principles. In the Historical Society--composed
of the _alumni_ of the college, and on whose books at this time were
many names that subsequently became famous--those kindred spirits made
for themselves many opportunities of giving expression to their
sentiments, and showing that their hearts beat in unison with the great
movement for human freedom which was then agitating the world. To their
debates Emmet brought the aid of a fine intellect and a fluent
utterance, and he soon became the orator of the patriot party.

So great was the effect created by his fervid eloquence and his
admirable reasoning, that the heads of the college thought it prudent on
several occasions to send one of the ablest of their body to take part
in the proceedings, and assist in refuting the argumentation of the
"young Jacobin." And to such extremities did matters proceed at last
that Emmet, with several of his political friends, was expelled the
college, others less obnoxious to the authorities were subjected to a
severe reprimand, and the society, thus terrorised and weakened, soon
ceased to exist. Our national poet, Thomas Moore, the fellow-student and
intimate friend of young Emmet, witnessed many of those displays of his
abilities, and in his "Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald," speaks
of him in terms of the highest admiration. "Were I," he says, "to number
the men among all I have ever known who appeared to me to combine in the
greatest degree pure moral worth with intellectual power, I should,
among the highest of the few, place Robert Emmet." "He was," writes the
same authority, "wholly free from the follies and frailties of
youth--though how capable he was of the most devoted passion events
afterwards proved." Of his oratory, he says, "I have heard little since
that appeared to me of a loftier, or what is a far more rare quality in
Irish eloquence, purer character." And the appearance of this greatly
gifted youth, he thus describes: "Simple in all his habits, and with a
repose of look and manner indicating but little movement within, it was
only when the spring was touched that set his feelings, and through them
his intellect in motion, that he at all rose above the level of ordinary
men. No two individuals indeed could be much more unlike to each other
than was the same youth to himself before rising to speak and after; the
brow that had appeared inanimate and almost drooping, at once elevating
itself to all the consciousness of power, and the whole countenance and
figure of the speaker assuming a change as of one suddenly inspired."

The expulsion of Emmet from the college occurred in the month of
February, 1798. On the 12th of the following month his brother, Thomas
Addis Emmet, was arrested. The manner in which this noble-hearted
gentleman took the oath of the United Irish Society, in the year of
1795, is so remarkable that we cannot omit mention of it here. His
services as a lawyer having been engaged in the defence of some persons
who stood charged with having sworn in members to the United Irish
organization--the crime for which William Orr was subsequently tried and
executed--he, in the course of the proceedings, took up the oath and
read it with remarkable deliberation and solemnity. Then, taking into
his hand the prayer book that lay on the table for the swearing of
witnesses, and looking to the bench and around the court, he said
aloud--

"My Lords--Here, in the presence of this legal court, this crowded
auditory--in the presence of the Being that sees and witnesses, and
directs this judicial tribunal--here, my lords, I, myself, in the
presence of God, declare I take this oath."

The terms of the oath at this time were, in fact, perfectly
constitutional, having reference simply to attainment of a due
representation of the Irish nation in parliament--still, the oath was
that of a society declared to be illegal, and the administration of it
had been made a capital offence. The boldness of the advocate in thus
administering it to himself in open court appeared to paralyse the minds
of the judges. They took no notice of the act, and what was even more
remarkable, the prisoners, who were convicted, received a lenient
sentence.

But to return to Robert Emmet--the events of 1798, as might be supposed,
had a powerful effect on the feelings of the enthusiastic young patriot,
and he was not free of active participation with the leaders of the
movement in Dublin. He was, of course, an object of suspicion to the
government, and it appears marvellous that they did not immediately take
him into their safe keeping under the provisions of the _Habeas Corpus_
Suspension Act. Ere long, however, he found that prudence would counsel
his concealment, or his disappearance from the country, and he took his
departure for the Continent, where he met with a whole host of the Irish
refugees; and, in 1802, was joined by his brother and others of the
political prisoners who had been released from the confinement to
which--in violation of a distinct agreement between them and the
government--they had been subjected in Fort George, in Scotland. Their
sufferings had not broken their spirit. There was hope still, they
thought, for Ireland; great opportunities were about to dawn upon that
often defeated, but still unconquerable nation, and they applied
themselves to the task of preparing the Irish people to take advantage
of them.

At home the condition of affairs was not such as to discourage them. The
people had not lost heart; the fighting spirit was still rife amongst
them. The rebellion had been trampled out, but it had been sustained
mainly by a county or two, and it had served to show that a general
uprising of the people would be sufficient to sweep every vestige of
British power from the land. Then they had in their favour the
exasperation against the government which was caused by that most
infamous transaction, the passage of the Act of Union. But they found
their chief encouragement in the imminence of another war between France
and England. Once more the United Irishmen put themselves into
communication with Buonaparte, then First Consul, and again they
received flattering promises of assistance. Robert Emmet obtained an
interview with that great man, and learned from him that it was his
settled purpose on the breaking out of hostilities, which could not long
be deferred, to effect an invasion of England. Full of high hopes, Emmet
returned to Dublin in October, 1802; and as he was now in very heart of
a movement for another insurrection, he took every precaution to avoid
discovery. He passed under feigned names, and moved about as little as
possible. He gathered together the remnants of the United Irish
organization, and with some money of his own, added to considerable sums
supplied to him by a Mr. Long, a merchant, residing at No. 4
Crow-street, and other sympathisers, he commenced the collection of an
armament and military stores for his followers. In the month of May,
1803, the expected war between France and England broke out. This event
of course raised still higher his hopes, and gave a great stimulus to
his exertions. To and fro he went from one to another of the depots
which he had established for the manufacture and storage of arms in
various parts of the city, cheering, directing, and assisting his men at
their work. Pikes were got ready by the thousand, and ingeniously stowed
away until they should be wanted; rockets, hand-grenades, and other
deadly missiles were carefully prepared; but an accidental explosion,
which occurred on the 16th of July, in one of these manufactories
situate in Patrick-street, was very near leading to the discovery of the
entire business, and had the effect of precipitating the outbreak. The
government at this time had undoubtedly got on the scent of the
movement, and the leaders considered that no time was to be lost in
bringing matters to a crisis. Emmet now took up his abode in the
Marshalsea-lane depot, snatching his few hours of sleep "on a mattress,
surrounded by all the implements of death." There he made a final
arrangement of his plans, and communicated his instructions to his
subordinates, fixing the 23rd of July as the date for the rising.

The history of that unfortunate attempt need not here be written.
Suffice it to say that the arrangements miscarried in nearly every
particular. The men in the numbers calculated upon did not assemble at
the appointed time or in the appointed places, and the whole force that
turned out in Thomas-street for the attack on the Castle did not number
a hundred insurgents. They were joined by a riotous and noisy rabble;
and their unfortunate leader soon perceived that his following was, as
had previously been said of the king's troops, "formidable to every one
but the enemy." They had not proceeded far on their way when a carriage,
in which were Lord Kilwarden, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, his
daughter, and his nephew, the Rev. Mr. Wolfe, drove into the street. The
vehicle was stopped, and the Chief Justice was immediately piked by a
man in the crowd whose son he had some time previously condemned to
execution. The clergyman also was pulled out of the carriage and put to
death. To the lady no violence was offered, and Emmet himself, who had
heard of the deplorable tragedy, rushing from the head of his party,
bore her in his arms to an adjoining house. No attack on the Castle took
place; the insurgent party scattered and melted away even before the
appearance of military on the scene, and in little more than an hour
from the time of his setting out on his desperate enterprise, Robert
Emmet was a defeated and ruined man, a fugitive, with the whole host of
British spies and bloodhounds employed to hunt him to the death.

Yet he might have foiled them and got clear out of the country if his
personal safety was all on earth he cared for. But in that noble heart
of his there was one passion co-existent with his love of Ireland, and
not unworthy of the companionship, which forbade his immediate flight.
With all that intensity of affection of which a nature so pure and so
ardent as his was capable, he loved a being in every way worthy of
him--a lady so gentle, and good, and fair, that even to a less poetic
imagination than his own, she might seem to be a fitting personification
of his beloved Erin; and by her he was loved and trusted in return. Who
is it that has not heard her name?--who has not mourned over the story
of Sarah Curran! In the ruin that had fallen on the hopes and fortunes
of the patriot chief, the happiness of this amiable lady was involved.
He would not leave without an interview with her--no! though a thousand
deaths should be the penalty. The delay was fatal to his chances of
escape. For more than a month he remained in concealment, protected by
the fidelity of friends, many of whom belonged to the humbler walks of
life, and one of whom in particular--the heroic Anne Devlin, from whom
neither proffered bribes nor cruel tortures could extort a single hint
as to his place of abode--should ever be held in grateful remembrance by
Irishmen. At length on the 25th of August, the ill-fated young
gentleman was arrested in the house of a Mrs. Palmer, at Harold's-cross.
On the 19th of September he was put on his trial in the court-house,
Green-street, charged with high treason. He entered on no defence,
beyond making a few remarks in the course of the proceedings with a view
to the moral and political justification of his conduct. The jury,
without leaving their box, returned a verdict of guilty against him;
after which, having been asked in due form why sentence of death should
not be pronounced upon him, he delivered this memorable speech, every
line of which is known and dear to the hearts of the Irish race:--

   "MY LORDS--I am asked what have I to say why sentence of death should
   not be pronounced on me, according to law. I have nothing to say that
   can alter your predetermination, nor that it will become me to say,
   with any view to the mitigation of that sentence which you are to
   pronounce, and I must abide by. But I have that to say which
   interests me more than life, and which you have laboured to destroy.
   I have much to say why my reputation should be rescued from the load
   of false accusation and calumny which has been cast upon it, I do not
   imagine that, seated where you are, your mind can be so free from
   prejudice as to receive the least impression from what I am going to
   utter. I have no hopes that I can anchor my character in the breast
   of a court constituted and trammelled as this is. I only wish, and
   that is the utmost that I expect, that your lordships may suffer it
   to float down your memories untainted by the foul breath of
   prejudice, until it finds some more hospitable harbour to shelter it
   from the storms by which it is buffetted. Was I only to suffer death,
   after being adjudged guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in
   silence, and meet the fate that awaits me without a murmur; but the
   sentence of the law which delivers my body to the executioner will,
   through the ministry of the law, labour in its own vindication, to
   consign my character to obloquy; for there must be guilt somewhere,
   whether in the sentence of the court, or in the catastrophe, time
   must determine. A man in my situation has not only to encounter the
   difficulties of fortune, and the force of power over minds which it
   has corrupted or subjugated, but the difficulties of established
   prejudice. The man dies, but his memory lives. That mine may not
   perish, that it may live in the respect of my countrymen, I seize
   upon this opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the charges
   alleged against me. When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly
   port--when my shade shall have joined the bands of those martyred
   heroes who have shed their blood on the scaffold and in the field in
   the defence of their country and of virtue, this is my hope--I wish
   that my memory and name may animate those who survive me, while I
   look down with complacency on the destruction of that perfidious
   government which upholds its domination by blasphemy of the Most
   High--which displays its power over man, as over the beasts of the
   forest--which sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand, in the
   name of God, against the throat of his fellow who believes or doubts
   a little more or a little less than the government standard--a
   government which is steeled to barbarity by the cries of the orphans,
   and the tears of the widows it has made."

   [Here Lord Norbury interrupted Mr. Emmet, saying--"that the mean and
   wicked enthusiasts who felt as he did, were not equal to the
   accomplishment of their wild designs."]

   "I appeal to the immaculate God--I swear by the Throne of Heaven,
   before which I must shortly appear--by the blood of the murdered
   patriots who have gone before me--that my conduct has been, through
   all this peril, and through all my purposes, governed only by the
   conviction which I have uttered, and by no other view than that of
   the emancipation of my country from the superinhuman oppression under
   which she has so long and too patiently travailed; and I confidently
   hope that, wild and chimerical as it may appear, there is still union
   and strength in Ireland to accomplish this noblest of enterprises. Of
   this I speak with confidence, of intimate knowledge, and with the
   consolation that appertains to that confidence. Think not, my lords,
   I say this for the petty gratification of giving you a transitory
   uneasiness. A man who never yet raised his voice to assert a lie,
   will not hazard his character with posterity, by asserting a
   falsehood on a subject so important to his country, and on an
   occasion like this. Yes, my lords, a man who does not wish to have
   his epitaph written until his country is liberated, will not leave a
   weapon in the power of envy, or a pretence to impeach the probity
   which he means to preserve, even in the grave, to which tyranny
   consigns him."

   [Here he was again interrupted by the court]

   "Again I say, that what I have spoken was not intended for your
   lordship, whose situation I commisserate rather than envy--my
   expressions were for my countrymen. If there is a true Irishman
   present, let my last words cheer him in the hour of his affliction."

   [Here he was again interrupted. Lord Norbury said he did not sit
   there to hear treason.]

   "I have always understood it to be the duty of a judge, when a
   prisoner has been convicted, to pronounce the sentence of the law. I
   have also understood that judges sometimes think it their duty to
   hear with patience, and to speak with humanity; to exhort the victim
   of the laws, and to offer, with tender benignity, their opinions of
   the motives by which he was actuated in the crime of which he was
   adjudged guilty. That a judge has thought it his duty so to have
   done, I have no doubt; but where is the boasted freedom of your
   institutions--where is the vaunted impartiality, clemency, and
   mildness of your courts of justice if an unfortunate prisoner, whom
   your policy, and not justice, is about to deliver into the hands of
   the executioner, is not suffered to explain his motives sincerely and
   truly, and to vindicate the principles by which he was actuated? My
   lords, it may be a part of the system of angry justice to bow a man's
   mind by humiliation to the purposed, ignominy of the scaffold; but
   worse to me than the purposed shame, or the scaffold's terrors, would
   be the shame of such foul and unfounded imputations as have been laid
   against me in this court. You, my lord, are a judge; I am the
   supposed culprit. I am a man; you are a man also. By a revolution of
   power we might change places, though we never could change
   characters. If I stand at the bar of this court, and dare not
   vindicate my character, what a farce is your justice! If I stand at
   this bar and dare not vindicate my character, how dare you calumniate
   it. Does the sentence of death, which your unhallowed policy inflicts
   on my body, condemn my tongue to silence and my reputation to
   reproach? Your executioner may abridge the period of my existence;
   but while I exist I shall not forbear to vindicate my character and
   motives from your aspersions; and, as a man, to whom fame is dearer
   than life, I will make the last use of that life in doing justice to
   that reputation which is to live after me, and which is the only
   legacy I can leave to those I honor and love, and for whom I am proud
   to perish. As men, my lords, we must appear on the great day at one
   common tribunal; and it will then remain for the Searcher of all
   hearts to show a collective universe, who was engaged in the most
   virtuous actions, or swayed by the purest motives--my country's
   oppressor, or"-----

   [Here he was interrupted, and told to listen to the sentence of the
   law].

   "My lords, will a dying man be denied the legal privilege of
   exculpating himself in the eyes of the community from an undeserved
   reproach, thrown upon him during his trial, by charging him with
   ambition, and attempting to cast away for a paltry consideration the
   liberties of his country? Why did your lordships insult me? Or
   rather, why insult justice, in demanding of me why sentence of death
   should not be pronounced against me? I know, my lords, that form
   prescribes that you should ask the question. The form also presents
   the right of answering. This, no doubt, may be dispensed with, and so
   might the whole ceremony of the trial, since sentence was already
   pronounced at the Castle before the jury were empanelled. Your
   lordships are but the priests of the oracle, and I insist on the
   whole of the forms."

   [Here Mr. Emmet paused, and the court desired him to proceed.]

   "I am charged with being an emissary of France. An emissary of
   France! and for what end? It is alleged that I wished to sell the
   independence of my country; and for what end? Was this the object of
   my ambition? And is this the mode by which a tribunal of justice
   reconciles contradiction? No; I am no emissary; and my ambition was
   to hold a place among the deliverers of my country, not in power nor
   in profit, but in the glory of the achievement. Sell my country's
   independence to France! and for what? Was it a change of masters? No,
   but for my ambition. Oh, my country, was it personal ambition that
   could influence me? Had it been the soul of my actions, could I not,
   by my education and fortune, by the rank and consideration of my
   family, have placed myself amongst the proudest of your oppressor. My
   Country was my Idol. To it I sacrificed every selfish, every
   endearing sentiment; and for it I now offer up myself, O God! No, my
   lords; I acted as an Irishman, determined on delivering my country
   from the yoke of a foreign and unrelenting tyranny, and the more
   galling yoke of a domestic faction, which is its joint partner and
   perpetrator in the patricide, from the ignominy existing with an
   exterior of splendour and a conscious depravity. It was the wish of
   my heart to extricate my country from this doubly rivetted
   despotism--I wished to place her independence beyond the reach of any
   power on earth. I wished to exalt her to that proud station in the
   world. Connection with France was, indeed, intended, but only as far
   as mutual interest would sanction or require. Were the French to
   assume any authority inconsistent with the purest independence, it
   would be signal for their destruction. We sought their aid--and we
   sought it as we had assurance we should obtain it--as auxiliaries in
   war, and allies in peace. Were the French to come as invaders or
   enemies, uninvited by the wishes of the people, I should oppose them
   to the utmost of my strength. Yes! my countrymen, I should advise you
   to meet them upon the beach with a sword in one hand, and a torch in
   the other. I would meet them with all the destructive fury of war. I
   would animate my countrymen to immolate them in their boats, before
   they had contaminated the soil of my country. If they succeeded in
   landing, and if forced to retire before superior discipline, I would
   dispute every inch of ground, burn every blade of grass, and the last
   entrenchment of liberty should be my grave. What I could not do
   myself, if I should fall, I should leave as a last charge to my
   countrymen to accomplish; because I should feel conscious that life,
   any more than death, is unprofitable when a foreign nation holds my
   country in subjection. But it was not as an enemy that the succours
   of France were to land. I looked, indeed, for the assistance of
   France; but I wished to prove to France and to the world that
   Irishmen deserved to be assisted--that they were indignant at
   slavery, and ready to assert the independence and liberty of their
   country; I wished to procure for my country the guarantee which
   Washington procured for America--to procure an aid which, by its
   example, would be as important as its valour; disciplined, gallant,
   pregnant with science and experience; that of a people who would
   perceive the good, and polish the rough points of our character. They
   would come to us as strangers, and leave us as friends, after sharing
   in our perils and elevating our destiny. These were my objects; not
   to receive new taskmasters, but to expel old tyrants. It was for
   these ends I sought aid from France; because France, even as an
   enemy, could not be more implacable than the enemy already in the
   bosom of my country."

   [Here he was interrupted by the court.]

   "I have been charged with that importance in the emancipation of my
   country, as to be consided the key-stone of the combination of
   Irishmen; or, as your lordship expressed it, 'the life and blood of
   the conspiracy.' You do me honour over much; you have given to the
   subaltern all the credit of a superior. There are men engaged in this
   conspiracy who are not only superior to me, but even to your own
   conceptions of yourself, my lord--men before the splendour of whose
   genius and virtues I should bow with respectful deference, and who
   would think themselves disgraced by shaking your blood-stained hand."

   [Here he was interrupted.]

   "What, my lord, shall you tell me, on the passage to the scaffold,
   which that tyranny (of which you are only the intermediary
   executioner) has erected for my murder, that I am accountable for all
   the blood that has and will be shed in this struggle of the oppressed
   against the oppressor--shall you tell me this, and must I be so very
   a slave as not to repel it? I do not fear to approach the Omnipotent
   Judge to answer for the conduct of my whole life; and am I to be
   appalled and falsified by a mere remnant of mortality here? By you,
   too, although if it were possible to collect all the innocent blood
   that you have shed in your unhallowed ministry in one great reservoir
   your lordship might swim in it."

   [Here the judge interfered.]

   "Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor; let no
   man attaint my memory, by believing that I could have engaged in any
   cause but that of my country's liberty and independence; or that I
   could have become the pliant minion of power, in the oppression and
   misery of my country. The proclamation of the Provisional Government
   speaks for our views; no inference can be tortured from it to
   countenance barbarity or debasement at home, or subjection,
   humiliation, or treachery from abroad. I would not have submitted to
   a foreign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the
   foreign and domestic oppressor. In the dignity of freedom, I would
   have fought upon the threshold of my country, and its enemy should
   enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. And am I, who lived
   but for my country, and who have subjected myself to the dangers of
   the jealous and watchful oppressor, and the bondage of the grave,
   only to give my countrymen their rights, and my country her
   independence, am I to be loaded with calumny, and not suffered to
   resent it? No; God forbid!"

   Here Lord Norbury told Mr. Emmet that his sentiments and language
   disgraced his family and his education, but more particularly his
   father, Dr. Emmet, who was a man, if alive, that would not
   countenance such opinions. To which Mr. Emmet replied:--

   "If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns
   and cares of those who were dear to them in this transitory life,
   oh! ever dear and venerated shade of my departed father, look down
   with scrutiny upon the conduct of your suffering son, and see if I
   have, even for a moment, deviated from those principles of morality
   and patriotism which it was your care to instil into my youthful
   mind, and for which I am now about to offer up my life. My lords, you
   are impatient for the sacrifice. The blood which you seek is not
   congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim--it
   circulates warmly and unruffled through the channels which God
   created for noble purposes, but which you are now bent to destroy,
   for purposes so grievous that they cry to heaven. Be yet patient! I
   have but a few more words to say--I am going to my cold and silent
   grave--my lamp of life is nearly extinguished--my race is run--the
   grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I have but one
   request to ask at my departure from this world, it is--THE CHARITY OF
   ITS SILENCE. Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my
   motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance
   asperse them. Let them and me rest in obscurity and peace; and my
   tomb remain uninscribed, and my memory in oblivion, until other times
   and other men can do justice to my character. When my country takes
   her place among the nations of the earth, _then_ and _not till then_,
   let my epitaph be written. I have done."

This affecting address was spoken--as we learn from the painstaking and
generous biographer of the United Irishmen, Dr, Madden--"in so loud a
voice as to be distinctly heard at the outer doors of the court-house;
and yet, though he spoke in a loud tone, there was nothing boisterous in
his manner; his accents and cadence of voice, on the contrary, were
exquisitely modulated. His action was very remarkable, its greater or
lesser vehemence corresponded with the rise and fall of his voice. He is
described as moving about the dock, as he warmed in his address, with
rapid, but not ungraceful motions--now in front of the railing before
the bench, then retiring, as if his body, as well as his mind, were
spelling beyond the measure of its chains. His action was not confined
to his hands; he seemed to have acquired a swaying motion of the body
when he spoke in public, which was peculiar to him, but there was no
affectation in it."

At ten o'clock, p.m., on the day of his trial, the barbarous sentence of
the law--the same that we have so recently heard passed on prisoners
standing in that same dock, accused of the same offence against the
rulers of this country--was passed on Robert Emmet. Only a few hours
were given him in which to withdraw his thoughts from the things of this
world and fix them on the next. He was hurried away, at midnight, from
Newgate to Kilmainham jail, passing through Thomas-street, the scene of
his attempted insurrection. Hardly had the prison van driven through,
when workmen arrived and commenced the erection of the gibbet from which
his body was to be suspended. About the hour of noon, on the 20th of
September, he mounted the scaffold with a firm and composed demeanour; a
minute or two more and the lifeless remains of one of the most gifted of
God's creatures hung from the cross beams--strangled by the enemies of
his country--cut off in the bloom of youth, in the prime of his physical
and intellectual powers, because he had loved his own land, hated her
oppressors, and striven to give freedom to his people. But not yet was
English vengeance satisfied. While the body was yet warm it was cut down
from the gibbet, the neck placed across a block on the scaffold, and the
head severed from the body. Then the executioner held it up before the
horrified and sorrowing crowd that stood outside the lines of soldiery,
proclaiming to them--"This is the head of a traitor!" A traitor! It was
a false proclamation. No traitor was he, but a true and noble gentleman.
No traitor, but a most faithful heart to all that was worthy of love and
honour. No traitor, but a martyr for Ireland. The people who stood
agonized before his scaffold, tears streaming from their eyes, and their
hearts bursting with suppressed emotion, knew that for them and for
Ireland he had offered up his young life. And when the deed was
finished, and the mutilated body had been taken away, and the armed
guards had marched from the fatal spot, old people and young moved up to
it to dip their handkerchiefs in the blood of the martyr, that they
might then treasure up the relics for ever. Well has his memory been
cherished in the Irish heart from that day to the present time. Six
years ago a procession of Irishmen, fifteen thousand strong, hearing
another rebel to his grave, passed by the scene of that execution, every
man of whom reverently uncovered his head as he reached the hallowed
spot. A few months ago, a banner borne in another Irish insurrection
displayed the inscription--

"REMEMBER EMMET."

Far away "beyond the Atlantic foam," and "by the long wash of
Australasian seas," societies are in existence bearing his name, and
having for their object to cherish his memory and perpetuate his
principles. And wherever on the habitable globe a few members of the
scattered Irish race are to be found, there are hearts that are thrilled
by even the faintest allusion to the uninscribed grave-stone and the
unwritten epitaph.




       *       *       *       *       *




THOMAS RUSSELL.


When Emmet was dead, and the plan to which he devoted his fortune, his
talents, and his life, had sunk in failure, the cause of Irish
independence appeared finally lost, and the cry, more than once repeated
in after times, that "now, indeed, the last bolt of Irish disaffection
has been sped, and that there would never again be an Irish rebellion,"
rung loudly from the exulting enemies of Ireland. The hearts of the
people seemed broken by the weight of the misfortunes and calamities
that overwhelmed them. The hopes which had brightened their stormy path,
and enabled them to endure the oppression to which they were subjected
by expectations of a glorious change, flickered no longer amidst the
darkness. The efforts of the insurgents were everywhere drowned in
blood; the hideous memories of '98 were brought up anew; full of bitter
thoughts, exasperated, humiliated, and despondent, the people brooded
over their wretched fate, and sullenly submitted to the reign of terror
which was inaugurated amongst them. Little had the Irish patriots to
look forward to in that dark hour of suffering and disappointment. A
nightmare of blood and violence weighed down the spirits of the people;
a stupor appeared to have fallen on the nation; and though time might be
trusted to arouse them from the trance, they had suffered another loss,
not so easily repaired, in the death and dispersion of their leaders.
Where now should they find the Moses to lead them from the land of
captivity? Tone, Fitzgerald, Emmet, Bond, M'Cracken, the Sheareses--all
were dead. M'Nevin, Neilson, and O'Connor were in exile. Heavily and
relentlessly the arm of vengeance had fallen on them one by one; but the
list was not even then completed. There was yet another victim to fall
before the altar of liberty, and the sacrifice which commenced with Orr
did not conclude until Thomas Russell had perished on the gallows of
Downpatrick.

The importance of the part which Thomas Russell fills in the history of
the United Irishmen, the worth of his character, the purity and nobility
of his sentiments, and the spirit of uncompromising patriotism displayed
in his last address, would render unpardonable the omission of his name
from such a work as this. "I mean to make my trial," said Russell, "and
the last of my life, if it is to close now, as serviceable to the cause
of liberty as I can," and he kept his word. To-day, we try in some
slight way to requite that fidelity which endured unto death, by
rescuing Thomas Russell's name from oblivion, and recalling his services
and virtues to the recollection of his countrymen.

He was born at Betsborough, Dunnahane, in the parish of Kilshanick,
county Cork, on the 21st November, 1767. His father was an officer in
the British army, who had fought against the Irish Brigade in the
memorable battle of Fontenoy, and who died in a high situation in the
Royal Hospital at Kilmainham. Thomas, the youngest of his three sons,
was educated for the Protestant Church; but his inclinations sought a
different field of action, and at the age of fifteen he left for India
as a volunteer, where he served with his brother, Ambrose, whose
gallantry in battle called down commendation from the English king.
Thomas Russell quitted India after five years' service, and his return
is ascribed to the disgust and indignation which filled him on
witnessing the extortions, the cruelties, the usurpations, and
brutalities, which were carried out and sanctioned by the government
under which he served. He left Ireland burdened with few fixed political
principles and little knowledge of the world; he returned a full grown
man, imbued with the opinions which he never afterwards abandoned. He
was then, we are told, a model of manly beauty, one of those favoured
individuals whom we cannot pass in the street without being guilty of
the rudeness of staring in the face while passing, and turning round to
look at the receding figure. Though more than six feet high, his
majestic stature was scarcely observed, owing to the exquisite symmetry
of his form. Martial in his gait and demeanour, his appearance was not
altogether that of a soldier. His dark and steady eye, compressed lip,
and some what haughty bearing, were occasionally strongly indicative of
the camp; but in general the classic contour of his finely formed head,
the expression of sweetness that characterised his smile, and the
benevolence that beamed in his fine countenance, seemed to mark him out
as one that was destined to be the ornament, grace, and blessing of
private life. His manners were those of the finished gentleman, combined
with that native grace which nothing but superiority of intellect can
give; he was naturally reserved and retiring in disposition, and his
private life was distinguished by eminent purity and an unostentatious
devotion to the precepts of religion.

Such was Thomas Russell when he made the acquaintance of Theobald Wolfe
Tone in Dublin. There is no doubt that the views and opinions of Tone
made a profound impression on young Russell; it is equally certain, on
the other hand, that Tone learned to love and esteem his new friend,
whose sentiments were so much in accordance with his own. Throughout
Tone's journal we find constant references to Thomas Russell, whom he
always places with Thomas Addis Emmet at the head of his list of
friends. Early in 1791 Russell proceeded to Belfast to join the 64th
Regiment, in which he had obtained a commission; before leaving Dublin
he appears to have become a member of the Society of United Irishmen,
and in Belfast he soon won the friendship and shared the councils of the
patriotic men who were labouring for Ireland in that city.

While in Belfast, Russell fell into pecuniary embarrassments. His
generous and confiding nature induced him to go bail for a false friend,
and he found himself one morning obliged to meet a claim for £200, which
he had no means of discharging except by the sale of his commission.
Russell sold out and retired to Dungannon, where he lived for some time
on the residue of the money thus obtained, and during this period he was
appointed a Justice of the Peace for the county of Tyrone. After a short
experience of "Justices' justice" in the North, he retired from the
bench through motives alike creditable to his head and heart. "I cannot
reconcile it to my conscience," he exclaimed one day, "to sit on a bench
where the practice exists of inquiring what religion a person is before
investigating the charge against him." Russell returned, after taking
this step, to Belfast, where he was appointed to a situation in the
public library of the town, and where he became a regular contributor to
the organ of the Ulster patriots, the _Northern Star_.

In 1796 he was appointed by the United Irishmen to the supreme military
command in the county Down, a post for which his military experience not
less than his personal influence fitted him, but his political career
was soon afterwards interrupted by his arrest on the 26th of September,
1796. Russell was removed to Dublin, and lodged in Newgate Prison; his
arrest filled the great heart of Tone, who was then toiling for his
country in France, with sorrow and dismay. "It is impossible," he says
in his journal, "to conceive the effect this misfortune has on my mind.
If we are not in Ireland in time to extricate him he is lost, for the
government will move heaven and earth to ensure his condemnation. Good
God!" he adds, "if Russell and Neilson fall, where shall I find two
others to replace them?" During the eventful months that intervened
between the date of his arrest and the 19th of March, 1799, poor Russell
remained chafing his imprisoned soul, filled with patriotic passion and
emotion, in his prison cell in Kilmainham. On the latter date, when the
majority of his associates were dead, and their followers scattered and
disheartened, he was transferred to Fort George in Scotland, where he
spent three years more in captivity. The government had no specific
charge against him, but they feared his influence and distrusted his
intentions, and they determined to keep him a prisoner while a chance
remained of his exerting his power against them. No better illustration
of Russell's character and principles could be afforded than that
supplied in the following extract from one of the letters written by him
during his incarceration in Fort George:--"To the people of Ireland," he
writes, addressing an Irish friend and sympathiser, "I am responsible
for my actions; amidst the uncertainties of life this may be my
valedictory letter; what has occasioned the failure of the cause is
useless to speculate on--Providence orders all things for the best. _I
am sure the people will never abandon the cause; I am equally sure it
will succeed_. I trust men will see," he adds, referring to the infidel
views then unhappily prevalent, "that the only true basis of liberty is
morality, and the only stable basis of morality is religion."

In 1802 the government, failing to establish any distinct charge against
Russell, set him at liberty, and he at once repaired to Paris, where he
met Robert Emmet, who was then preparing to renew the effort of
Fitzgerald and Wolfe Tone. Time had not changed, nor suffering damped,
the patriotic impulses of Thomas Russell; he entered heartily into the
plans of young Emmet, and when the latter left for Ireland in November,
1802, to prosecute his hazardous enterprise, it was with the full
understanding that Russell would stand by his side in the post of
danger, and with him perish or succeed. In accordance with this
arrangement, Russell followed Robert Emmet to Dublin, where he arrived
so skilfully disguised that even his own family failed to recognise
him. Emmet's plans for the outbreak in Dublin were matured when Russell,
with a trusty companion, was despatched northwards to summon the Ulster
men to action. Buoyant in spirit, and filled with high expectation, he
entered on his mission, but he returned to Dublin a week later prostrate
in spirit and with a broken heart. One of his first acts on arriving in
Belfast was to issue a proclamation, in which, as "General-in-Chief of
the Northern District," he summoned the people of Ulster to action.

The North, however, refused to act. It was the old, old story. Belfast
resolved on waiting "to see what the South would do," and the South
waited for Belfast. Disgusted and disappointed, Russell quitted the
Northern capital and proceeded to Antrim, where at least he thought he
might expect to find cordial co-operation; but fresh disappointments
awaited him, and with a load of misery at his heart, such as he had
never felt before, Russell returned to Dublin, where he lived in
seclusion, until arrested by Major Sirr and his myrmidons on the 9th of
September, 1803. A reward of £1,500 had been offered for his
apprehension. We learn on good authority that the ruffianly town-major,
on arresting him, seized the unfortunate patriot rudely by the
neck-cloth, whereupon, Russell, a far more powerful man than his
assailant, flung him aside, and drawing a pistol, exclaimed--"I will not
be treated with indignity." Sirr parleyed for a while; a file of
soldiers was meanwhile summoned to his aid, and Russell was borne off in
irons a prisoner to the Castle. While undergoing this second captivity a
bold attempt was made by his friends to effect his liberation by bribing
one of the gaolers; the plot, however, broke down, and Russell never
breathed the air of freedom again. While awaiting his trial--that trial
which he knew could have but one termination, the death of a
felon--Russell addressed a letter to one of his friends outside, in
which the following noble passage, the fittest epitaph to be engraved on
his tombstone, occurs:--"I mean to make my trial," he writes, "and the
last of my life, if it is to close now, as serviceable to the cause of
liberty as I can. _I trust my countrymen will ever adhere to it:_ I know
it will soon prosper. When the country is free," he adds--that it would
be free he never learned to doubt--"I beg they may lay my remains with
my father in a private manner, and pay the few debts I owe. I have only
to beg of my countrymen to remember that the cause of liberty is the
cause of virtue, _which I trust they will never abandon_. May God bless
and prosper them, and when power comes into their hands I entreat them
to use it with moderation. May God and the Saviour bless them all."

Russell was taken to Downpatrick, escorted by a strong force of cavalry,
where he was lodged in the governor's rooms, preparatory to being tried
in that town by a Special Commission. While in prison in Downpatrick he
addressed a letter to Miss M'Cracken, a sister of Henry Joy M'Cracken,
one of the insurgent leaders of 1798, in which he speaks as follows:
"Humanly speaking, I expect to be found guilty and immediately executed.
As this may be my last letter, I shall only say that I did my best for
my country and for mankind. I have no wish to die, but far from
regretting its loss in such a cause, had I a thousand lives I would
willingly risk or lose them in it. Be assured, liberty will in the midst
of those storms be established, and God will wipe the tears from all
eyes."

The sad anticipations expressed by Russell were but too fully borne out.
There was short shrift in those days for Irishmen accused of treason,
and the verdict of guilty, which he looked forward to with so much
resignation, was delivered before the last rays of the sun which rose on
the morning of the trial had faded in the gloaming. It was sworn that he
had attended treasonable meetings and distributed green uniforms; that
he asked those who attended them, "if they did not desire to get rid of
the Sassanaghs;" that he spoke of 30,000 stands of arms from France, but
said if France should fail them, "forks, spades, shovels, and pickaxes"
would serve that purpose. It was useless to struggle against such
testimony, palpably false and distorted as it was in some parts, and
Russell decided on cutting short the proceedings. "I shall not trouble
my lawyers," he said, "to make any statement in my case. There are but
three possible modes of defence--firstly, by calling witnesses to prove
the innocence of my conduct; secondly, by calling them to impeach the
credit of opposite witnesses, or by proving an _alibi_. As I can resort
to none of those modes of defence without involving others, I consider
myself precluded from any." Previous to the Judge's charge, the prisoner
asked--"If it was not permitted to persons in his situation to say a few
words, as he wished to give his valedictory advice to his countrymen in
as concise a manner as possible, being well convinced how speedy the
transition was from that vestibule of the grave to the scaffold." He was
told in reply, "that he would have an opportunity of expressing
himself," and when the time did come, Russell advanced to the front of
the dock, and spoke in a clear, firm tone of voice, as follows:--

   "Before I address myself to this audience, I return my sincere thanks
   to my learned counsel for the exertions they have made, in which they
   displayed so much talent. I return my thanks to the gentlemen on the
   part of the crown, for the accommodation and indulgence I have
   received during my confinement. I return my thanks to the gentlemen
   of the jury, for the patient investigation they have afforded my
   case; and I return my thanks to the court, for the attention and
   politeness they have shown me during my trial. As to my political
   sentiments, I shall, in as brief a manner as possible (for I do not
   wish to engross the time of the court), say a few words. I look back
   to the last thirteen years of my life, the period with which I have
   interfered with the transactions of Ireland, with entire
   satisfaction; though for my share in them I am now about to die--the
   gentlemen of the jury having, by their verdict, put the seal of truth
   on the evidence against me. Whether, at this time, and the country
   being situated as it is, it be safe to inflict the punishment of
   death upon me for the offence I am charged with, I leave to the
   gentlemen who conduct the prosecution. My death, perhaps, may be
   useful in deterring others from following my example. It may serve,
   on the other hand, as a memorial to others, and on trying occasions
   it may inspire them with courage. I can now say, as far as my
   judgment enabled me, I acted for the good of my country and of the
   world. It may be presumptuous for me to deliver my opinions here as
   a statesman, but as the government have singled me out as a leader,
   and given me the appellation of 'General,' I am in some degree
   entitled to do so. To me it is plain that all things are verging
   towards a change, when all shall be of one opinion. In ancient times,
   we read of great empires having their rise and their fall, and yet do
   the old governments proceed as if all were immutable. From the time I
   could observe and reflect, I perceived that there were two kinds of
   laws--the laws of the State and the laws of God--frequently clashing
   with each other; by the latter kind, I have always endeavoured to
   regulate my conduct; but that laws of the former kind do exist in
   Ireland I believe no one who hears me can deny. That such laws have
   existed in former times many and various examples clearly evince. The
   Saviour of the world suffered by the Roman laws--by the same laws His
   Apostles were put to the torture, and deprived of their lives in His
   cause. By my conduct I do not consider that I have incurred any moral
   guilt. I have committed no moral evil. I do not want the many and
   bright examples of those gone before me; but did I want this
   encouragement, the recent example of a youthful hero--a martyr in the
   cause of liberty--who has just died for his country, would inspire
   me. I have descended into the vale of manhood. I have learned to
   estimate the reality and delusions of this world; _he_ was surrounded
   by everything which could endear this world to him--in the bloom of
   youth, with fond attachments, and with all the fascinating charms of
   health and innocence; to his death I look back even in this moment
   with rapture. I have travelled much, and seen various parts of the
   world, and I think the Irish are the most virtuous nation on the face
   of the earth--they are a good and brave people, and had I a thousand
   lives I would yield them in their service. If it be the will of God
   that I suffer for that with which I stand charged, I am perfectly
   resigned to His holy will and dispensation. I do not wish to trespass
   much more on the time of those that hear me, and did I do so an
   indisposition which has seized on me since I came into court would
   prevent my purpose. Before I depart from this for a better world I
   wish to address myself to the landed aristocracy of this country. The
   word 'aristocracy' I do not mean to use as an insulting epithet, but
   in the common sense of the expression.

   "Perhaps, as my voice may now be considered as a voice crying from
   the grave, what I now say may have some weight. I see around me many,
   who during the last years of my life have disseminated principles for
   which I am now to die. Those gentlemen, who have all the wealth and
   the power of the country in their hands, I strongly advise, and
   earnestly exhort, to pay attention to the poor--by the poor I mean
   the labouring class of the community, their tenantry and dependents.
   I advise them for their good to look into their grievances, to
   sympathize in their distress, and to spread comfort and happiness
   around their dwellings. It might be that they may not hold their
   power long, but at all events to attend to the wants and distresses
   of the poor is their truest interest. If they hold their power, they
   will thus have friends around them; if they lose it, their fall will
   be gentle, and I am sure unless they act thus they can never be
   happy. I shall now appeal to the right honourable gentleman in whose
   hands the lives of the other prisoners are, and entreat that he will
   rest satisfied with my death, and let that atone for those errors
   into which I may have been supposed to have deluded others. I trust
   the gentleman will restore them to their families and friends. If he
   shall do so, I can assure him that the breeze which conveys to him
   the prayers and blessings of their wives and children will be more
   grateful than that which may be tainted with the stench of putrid
   corpses, or carrying with it the cries of the widow and the orphan.
   Standing as I do in the presence of God and of man, I entreat him to
   let my life atone for the faults of all, and that my blood alone may
   flow.

   "If I am then to die, I have therefore two requests to make. The
   first is, that as I have been engaged in a work possibly of some
   advantage to the world, I may be indulged with three days for its
   completion; secondly, that as there are those ties which even death
   cannot sever, and as there are those who may have some regard for
   what will remain of me after death, I request that my remains,
   disfigured as they will be, may be delivered after the execution of
   the sentence to those dear friends, that they may be conveyed to the
   ground where my parents are laid, and where those faithful few may
   have a consecrated spot over which they may be permitted to grieve. I
   have now to declare, when about to pass into the presence of Almighty
   God, that I feel no enmity in my mind to any being, none to those who
   have borne testimony against me, and none to the jury who have
   pronounced the verdict of my death."

The last request of Russell was refused, and he was executed twelve
hours after the conclusion of the trial. At noon, on the 21st of
October, 1803, he was borne pinioned to the place of execution. Eleven
regiments of soldiers were concentrated in the town to overawe the
people and defeat any attempt at rescue; yet even with this force at
their back, the authorities were far from feeling secure. The interval
between the trial and execution was so short that no preparation could
be made for the erection of a scaffold, except the placing of some
barrels under the gateway of the main entrance to the prison, with
planks placed upon them as a platform, and others sloping up from the
ground, by which it was ascended. On the ground hard by, were placed a
sack of sawdust, an axe, a block, and a knife. After ascending the
scaffold, Russell gazed forward through the archway--towards the
people, whose white faces could be seen glistening outside, and again
expressed his forgiveness of his persecutors. His manner, we are told,
was perfectly calm, and he died without a struggle.

A purer soul, a more blameless spirit, than Thomas Russell, never sunk
on the battle-field of freedom. Fixed in principles, and resolute in
danger, he was nevertheless gentle, courteous, unobstrusive, and humane;
with all the modesty and unaffectedness of childhood, he united the zeal
of a martyr and the courage of a hero. To the cause of his country he
devoted all his energies and all his will; and when he failed to render
it prosperous in life, he illumined it by his devotion and steadfastness
in death. The noble speech given above, and the passages from his
letters which we have quoted, are sufficient in themselves to show how
chivalrous was the spirit, how noble the motives of Thomas Russell. The
predictions which he uttered with so much confidence have not indeed
been fulfilled, and the success which he looked forward to so hopefully
has never been won. But his advice, so often repeated in his letters, is
still adhered to; his countrymen have not yet learned to abandon the
cause in which he suffered, and they still cherish the conviction which
he so touchingly expressed--"that liberty will, in the midst of these
storms be established, and that God will yet wipe off the tears of the
Irish nation."

Russell rests in the churchyard of the Protestant church of Downpatrick.
A plain slab marks the spot where he is laid, and there is on it this
single line--

"THE GRAVE OF RUSSELL."


       *       *       *       *       *


We have now closed our reference to the portion of Irish history
comprised within the years 1798 and 1803, and as far as concerns the men
who suffered for Ireland in those disastrous days our "Speeches from the
Dock" are concluded. We leave behind us the struggle of 1798 and the men
who organized it; we turn from the records of a period reeking with the
gore of Ireland's truest sons, and echoing with the cries and curses of
the innocent and oppressed; we pass without notice the butcheries and
outrages that filled the land, while our countrymen were being sabred
into submission; and we leave behind us, too, the short-lived
insurrection of 1803, and the chivalrous young patriot who perished with
it. We turn to more recent events, less appalling in their general
aspect, but not less important in their consequences, or less
interesting to the present generation, and take up the next link in the
unbroken chain of protests against British rule in Ireland with the
lives and the fortunes of the patriots of 1848. How faithfully the
principles of freedom have been handed down--how nobly the men of our
own times have imitated the patriots of the past--how thoroughly the
sentiments expressed from the Green-street dock nineteen years ago
coincide with the declarations of Tone, of Emmet, and of Russell--our
readers will shortly have an opportunity of judging. They will see how
all the sufferings and all the calamities that darkened the path of the
martyrs of '98 were insufficient to deter others, as gifted, as earnest,
and as chivalrous as they, from following in their footsteps; and how
unquenchable and unending, as the altar light of the fire-worshipper,
the generous glow of patriotic enthusiasm was transmitted through
generations, unaffected by the torrents of blood in which it was sought
to extinguish it.

The events of our own generation--the acts of contemporary patriots--now
claim our attention; but we are reluctant as yet to turn over the page,
and drop the curtain on the scenes with which we have hitherto been
dealing, and which we feel we have inadequately described. We have
spoken of the men whose speeches from the dock are on record, but we
still linger over the history of the events in which they shared, and of
the men who were associated with them in their endeavours. The patriots
whose careers we have glanced at are but a few out of the number of
Irishmen who suffered during the same period, and in the same cause, and
whose actions recommend them to the admiration and esteem of posterity.
Confining ourselves strictly to those whose speeches after conviction
have reached us, the list could not well be extended; but there are many
who acted as brave a part, and whose memories are inseparable from the
history of the period. We should have desired to speak, were the scope
of our labours more extended, of the brave Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the
gallant and the true, who sacrificed his position, his prospects, and
his life, for the good old cause, and whose arrest and death contributed
more largely, perhaps, than any other cause that could be assigned to
the failure of the insurrection of 1798. Descended from an old and noble
family, possessing in a remarkable degree all the attributes and
embellishments of a popular leader, young and spirited, eloquent and
wealthy, ardent, generous, and brave, of good address, and fine physical
proportions, it is not surprising that Lord Edward Fitzgerald became the
idol of the patriot party, and was appointed by them to a leading
position in the organization. Lord Edward Fitzgerald was born in
October, 1763; being the fifth son of James Duke of Leinster, the
twentieth Earl of Kildare. He grew up to manhood, as a recent writer has
observed, when the drums of the Volunteers were pealing their marches of
victory; and under the stirring events of the period his soul burst
through the shackles that had long bound down the Irish aristocracy in
servile dependence. In his early years he served in the American War of
Independence on the side of despotism and oppression--a circumstance
which in after years caused him poignant sorrow. He joined the United
Irishmen, about the time that Thomas Addis Emmet entered their ranks,
and the young nobleman threw himself into the movement with all the
ardour and energy of his nature. He was appointed Commander-in-Chief of
the National forces in the south, and laboured with indefatigable zeal
in perfecting the plans for the outbreak on the 23rd of May. The story
of his arrest and capture is too well known to need repetition.
Treachery dogged the steps of the young patriot, and after lying for
some weeks in concealment, he was arrested on the 19th day of May, 1798,
two months after his associates in the direction of the movement had
been arrested at Oliver Bond's. His gallant struggle with his captors,
fighting like a lion at bay, against the miscreants who assailed him;
his assassination, his imprisonment, and his death, are events to which
the minds of the Irish nationalists perpetually recur, and which,
celebrated in song and story, are told with sympathising regret wherever
a group of Irish blood are gathered around the hearth-stone. His genius,
his talents, and his influence, his unswerving attachment to his
country, and his melancholy end, cast an air of romance around his
history; and the last ray of gratitude must fade from the Irish heart
before the name of the martyred patriot, who sleeps in the vaults of St.
Werburgh, will be forgotten in the land of his birth.

In less than a fortnight after Lord Edward expired in Newgate another
Irish rebel, distinguished by his talents, his fidelity, and his
position, expiated with his life the crime of "loving his country above
his king." It is hard to mention Thomas Russell and ignore Henry Joy
M'Cracken--it is hard to speak of the Insurrection of '98 and forget the
gallant young Irishman who commanded at the battle of Antrim, and who
perished a few weeks subsequently, in the bloom of his manhood, on the
scaffold in Belfast. Henry Joy M'Cracken was one of the first members of
the Society of United Irishmen, and he was one of the best. He was
arrested, owing to private information received by the government, on
the 10th of October, 1796--three weeks after Russell, his friend and
confidant, was flung into prison--and lodged in Newgate Jail, where he
remained until the 8th of September in the following year. He was then
liberated on bail, and immediately, on regaining his liberty, returned
to Belfast, still bent on accomplishing at all hazards the liberation of
his country. Previous to the outbreak in May, '98, he had frequent
interviews with the patriot leaders in Dublin, and M'Cracken was
appointed to the command of the insurgent forces in Antrim. Filled with
impatience and patriotic ardour, he heard of the stirring events that
followed the arrest of Lord Edward Fitzgerald; he concentrated all his
energies in preparing the Northern patriots for action, but
circumstances delayed the outbreak in that quarter, and it was not until
the 6th of June, 1798, that M'Cracken had perfected his arrangements for
taking the field, and issued the following brief proclamation, "dated
the first year of liberty, 6th June, 1798," addressed to the Army of
Ulster:--

"To-morrow we march on Antrim. Drive the garrison of Randalstown before
you, and hasten to form a junction with your Commander-in-Chief."

Twenty-one thousand insurgents were to have rallied at the call of
M'Cracken, out not more than seven thousand responded to the summons.
Even this number, however, would have been sufficient to strike a
successful blow, which would have filled the hearts of the gallant
Wexford men, then in arms, with exultation, and effected incalculable
results on the fate of Ireland, had not the curse of the Irish cause,
treachery and betrayal, again come to the aid of its enemies. Hardly had
the plans for the attack on Antrim been perfected, when the secrets of
the conspirators were revealed to General Nugent, who commanded the
British troops in the North, and the defeat of the insurgents was thus
secured. M'Cracken's forces marched to the attack on Antrim with great
regularity, chorusing the "Marseillaise Hymn" as they charged through
the town. Their success at first seemed complete, but the English
general, acting on the information which had treacherously been supplied
him, had taken effective means to disconcert and defeat them. Suddenly,
and as it seemed, in the flush of victory, the insurgents found
themselves exposed to a galling fire from a force posted at either end
of the town; a gallant resistance was offered, but it was vain. The
insurgents fled from the fatal spot, leaving 500 of their dead and dying
behind them, and at nightfall Henry Joy M'Cracken found himself a
fugitive and a ruined man. For some weeks he managed to baffle the
bloodhounds on his track, but he was ultimately arrested and tried by
court-martial in Belfast, on the 17th July, 1798. On the evening of the
same day he was executed. We have it on the best authority that he bore
his fate with calmness, resolution, and resignation. It is not his fault
that a "Speech from the Dock" under his name is not amongst our present
collection. He had actually prepared one, but his brutal judges would
not listen to the patriot's exculpation. He was hung, amidst the sobs
and tears of the populace, in front of the Old Market place of Belfast,
and his remains were interred in the graveyard now covered by St.
George's Protestant church.

Later still in the same year two gallant young officers of Irish blood,
shared the fate of Russell and M'Cracken. They sailed with Humbert from
Rochelle; they fought at Castlebar and Ballinamuck; and when the swords
of their French allies were sheathed, they passed into the power of
their foes. Matthew Tone was one of them; the other was Bartholomew
Teeling. The latter filled the rank of Etat-major in the French army;
and a letter from his commanding officer, General Humbert, was read at
his trial, in which the highest praise was given to the young officer
for the humane exertions which he made throughout his last brief
campaign in the interest of mercy. "His hand," he said, "was ever raised
to stay the useless effusion of blood, and his protection was afforded
to the prostrate and defenceless." But his military judges paid little
heed to those extenuating circumstances, and Teeling was condemned to
die on the day of his trial. He perished on the 24th September, 1798,
being then in his twenty-fourth year. He marched with a proud step to
the place of execution on Arbour Hill, Dublin, and he died, as a soldier
might, with unshaken firmness and unquailing mien. No lettered slab
marks the place of his interment; and his bones remain in unhallowed and
unconsecrated ground. Hardly had his headless body ceased to palpitate,
when it was flung into a hole at the rere of the Royal Barracks. A few
days later the same unhonoured spot received the mortal remains of
Matthew Tone. "He had a more enthusiastic nature than any of us," writes
his brother, Theobald Wolfe Tone, "and was a sincere Republican, capable
of sacrificing everything for his principles." His execution was
conducted with infamous cruelty and brutality, and the life-blood was
still gushing from his body when it was flung into "the Croppy's Hole."
"The day will come," says Dr. Madden, "when that desecrated spot will be
hallowed ground--consecrated by religion--trod lightly by pensive
patriotism--and decorated by funeral trophies in honour of the dead
whose bones lie there in graves that are now neglected and unhonoured."

There are others of the patriot leaders who died in exile, far away from
the land for which they suffered, and whose graves were dug on alien
shores by the heedless hands of the stranger. This was the fate of Addis
Emmet, of Neilson, and of M'Nevin. In Ireland they were foremost and
most trusted amongst the gifted and brilliant throng that directed the
labours and shaped the purposes of the United Irishmen. They survived
the reign of terror that swallowed up the majority of their compatriots,
and, when milder councils began to prevail, they were permitted to go
forth from the dungeon which confined them into banishment. The vision
of Irish freedom was not permitted to dawn upon them in life; from
beyond the sandy slopes washed by the Western Atlantic they watched the
fortunes of the old land with hopeless but enduring love. Their talents,
their virtues, and their patriotism were not unappreciated by the people
amongst whom they spent their closing years of life. In the busiest
thoroughfare of the greatest city of America there towers over the heads
of the by-passers the monument of marble which grateful hands have
raised to the memory of Addis Emmet. In the centre of Western
civilization, the home of republican liberty, the stranger reads in
glowing words, of the virtues and the fame of the brother of Robert
Emmet, sculptured on the noble pillar erected in Broadway, New York, to
his memory. Nor was he the only one of his party to whom such an honour
was accorded. A stone-throw from the spot where the Emmet monument
stands, a memorial not less commanding in its proportions and
appearance, was erected to William James M'Nevin; and the American
citizen, as he passes through the spacious streets of that city which
the genius of liberty has rendered prosperous and great, gazes proudly
on those stately monuments, which tell him that the devotion to freedom
which England punished and proscribed found in his own land the
recognition which it merited from the gallant and the free.

[Footnote: The inscriptions on the Emmet monument are in three
languages--Irish, Latin, and English. The Irish inscription consists of
the following lines:--

   Do mhiannaich se ardmath
     Cum tir a breith
   Do thug se clu a's fuair se moladh
     An deig a bais.

The following is the English inscription:

   _In Memory of_
   THOMAS ADDIS EMMET,

   Who exemplified in his conduct,
   And adorned by his integrity.
   The policy and principles of the
   UNITED IRISHMEN--

   "To forward a brotherhood of affection,
   A community of rights, an identity of interests, and a union of power
   Among Irishmen of every religious persuasion,
   As the only means of Ireland's chief good,
   An impartial and adequate representation
   IN AN IRISH PARLIAMENT."

   For this (mysterious fate of virtue) exiled from his native land,
   In America, the land of Freedom,
   He found a second country,
   Which paid his love by reverencing his genius.
   Learned in our laws, and in the laws of Europe,
   In the literature of our times, and in that of antiquity,
   All knowledge seemed subject to his use.
   An orator of the first order, clear, copious, fervid,
   Alike powerful to kindle the imagination, touch the affections,
   And sway the reason and will.
   Simple in his tastes, unassuming in his manners,
   Frank, generous, kind-hearted, and honourable,
   His private life was beautiful,
   As his public course was brilliant.
   Anxious to perpetuate
   The name and example of such a man,
   Alike illustrious by his genius, his virtues, and his fate;
   Consecrated to their affections by his sacrifices, his perils,
   And the deeper calamities of his kindred,
   IN A JUST AND HOLY CAUSE;
   His sympathising countrymen
   Erected this Monument and Cenotaph.]





       *       *       *       *       *




JOHN MITCHEL


Subsequent to the melancholy tragedy of 1803, a period of indescribable
depression was experienced in Ireland. Defeat, disaster, ruin, had
fallen upon the national cause; the power on whose friendly aid so much
reliance had been placed was humbled, and England stood before the world
in the full blaze of triumph and glory. Her fleet was undisputed
mistress of the ocean, having swept it of all hostile shipping, and left
to the enemy little more than the small craft that sheltered in narrow
creeks and under the guns of well-defended harbours. Her army, if not
numerically large, had proved its valour on many a well-fought field,
and shown that it knew how to bring victory to light upon its standards;
and, what was not less a matter of wonder to others, and of pride to
herself, the abundance of her wealth and the extent of her resources
were shown to be without a parallel in the world. Napoleon was an exile
on the rock of St. Helena; the "Holy Alliance"--as the European,
sovereigns blasphemously designated themselves--were lording it over the
souls and bodies of men by "right divine;" the free and noble principles
in which the French Revolution had its origin were now sunk out of
sight, covered with the infamy of the Reign of Terror and the
responsibility of the series of desolating wars which had followed it,
and no man dared to speak for them. Those were dark days for Ireland.
Her parliament was gone, and in the blighting shade of the provincialism
to which she was reduced, genius and courage seemed to have died out
from the land. Thousands of her bravest and most devoted children had
perished in her cause--some on the scaffold, and others on the field of
battle--and many whose presence at home would have been invaluable to
her were obliged to seek safety in exile. So Erin, the crownless Queen,
sat in the dust with fetters on her limbs, her broken sword fallen from
her hand, and with mournful memories lying heavy on her heart. The
feelings of disappointment and grief then rankling in every Irish
breast are well mirrored in that plaintive song of our national poet,
which open with these tristful lines:---

   "'Tis gone, and for ever, the light we saw breaking,
     Like heaven's first dawn o'er the sleep of the dead,
   When man, from the slumber of ages awaking,
     Looked upward and blessed the pure ray ere it fled.
   'Tis gone, and the gleams it has left of its burning
     But deepen the long night of bondage and mourning,
   That dark o'er the kingdoms of earth is returning,
     And darkest of all, hapless Erin, o'er thee."

[Illustration: WILLIAM S. O'BRIEN. JOHN MITCHEL. JOHN MARTIN.]

In this gloomy condition of affairs there was nothing for Irish
patriotism to do except to seek for the removal, by constitutional
means, of some of the cruel grievances that pressed on the people.
Emancipation of the Catholics from the large remainder of the penal laws
that still degraded and despoiled them was one of the baits held out by
Mr. Pitt when playing his cards for the Union; but not long had the
Irish parliament been numbered with the things that were, when it became
evident that the minister was in no hurry to fulfil his engagement, and
it was found necessary to take some steps for keeping him to his
promise. Committees were formed, meetings were held, speeches were made,
resolutions were adopted, and all the machinery of parliamentary
endeavour was put in motion. The leaders of the Catholic cause in this
case, like those of the national cause in the preceding years, were
liberal-minded Protestant gentlemen; but as time wore on, a young
barrister from Kerry, one of the old race and the old faith, took a
decided lead amongst them, and soon became its recognised champion, the
elect of the nation, the "man of the people." Daniel O'Connell stood
forth, with the whole mass of his Catholic countrymen at his back, to
wage within the lines of the constitution this battle for Ireland. He
fought it resolutely and skilfully; the people supported him with an
unanimity and an enthusiasm that were wonderful; their spirit rose and
strengthened to that degree that the probability of another civil war
began to loom up in the near future--inquiries instituted by the
government resulted in the discovery that the Catholics serving in the
army, and who constituted at least a third of its strength, were in full
sympathy with their countrymen on this question, and could not be
depended on to act against them--the ministry recognised the critical
condition of affairs, saw that there was danger in delay, yielded to the
popular demand--and Catholic Emancipation was won.

The details of that brilliant episode of Irish history cannot be told
within the limits of this work, but some of its consequences concern us
very nearly. The triumph of the constitutional struggle for Catholic
Emancipation confirmed O'Connell in the resolution he had previously
formed, to promote an agitation for a Repeal of the Union, and
encouraged him to lay the proposal before his countrymen. The forces
that had wrung the one measure of justice from an unwilling parliament
were competent, he declared, to obtain the other. He soon succeeded in
impressing his own belief on the minds of his countrymen, whose
confidence in his wisdom and his powers was unbounded. The whole country
responded to his call, and soon "the Liberator," as the emancipated
Irish Catholics loved to call him, found himself at the head of a
political organization which in its mode of action, its extent, and its
ardour was "unique in the history of the world." Every city and great
town in Ireland had its branch of the Repeal Association--every village
had its Repeal reading-room, all deriving hope and life, and taking
direction from the head-quarters in Dublin, where the great Tribune
himself "thundered and lightened" at the weekly meetings. All Ireland
echoed with his words. Newspapers, attaining thereby to a circulation
never before approached in Ireland, carried them from one extremity of
the land to the other--educating, cheering, and inspiring the hearts of
the long downtrodden people. Nothing like this had ever occurred before.
The eloquence of the patriot orators of the Irish parliament had not
been brought home to the masses of the population; and the United
Irishmen could only speak to them secretly, in whispers. But here were
addresses glowing, and bold, and tender, brimful of native humour,
scathing in their sarcasms, terrible in their denunciations, ineffably
beautiful in their pathos--addresses that recalled the most glorious as
well as the saddest memories of Irish history, and presented brilliant
vistas of the future--addresses that touched to its fullest and most
delicious vibration every chord of the Irish heart--here they were being
sped over the land in an unfailing and ever welcome supply. The peasant
read them to his family by the fireside when his hard day's work was
done, and the fisherman, as he steered his boat homeward, reckoned as
not the least of his anticipated pleasures, the reading of the last
report from Conciliation Hall. And it was not the humbler classes only
who acknowledged the influence of the Repeal oratory, sympathised with
the movement, and enrolled themselves in the ranks. The priesthood
almost to a man, were members of the Association and propagandists of
its principles; the professional classes were largely represented in it;
of merchants and traders it could count up a long roll; and many of the
landed gentry, even though they held her Majesty's Commission of the
Peace, were amongst its most prominent supporters. In short, the Repeal
Association represented the Irish nation, and its voice was the voice of
the people. The "Monster Meetings" of the year 1843 put this fact beyond
the region of doubt or question. As popular demonstrations they were
wonderful in their numbers, their order, and their enthusiasm.
O'Connell, elated by their success, fancied that his victory was as good
as won. He knew that things could not continue to go on as they were
going--either the government or the Repeal Association should give way,
and he believed the government would yield. For, the Association, he
assured his countrymen, was safe within the limits of the law, and not a
hostile hand could be laid upon it without violating the constitution.
His countrymen had nothing to do but obey the law and support the
Association, and a Repeal of the Union within a few months was, he said,
inevitable. In all this he had allowed his own heart to deceive him;
and his mistake was clearly shown, when in October, 1843, the
government, by proclamation and a display of military force, prevented
the intended monster meeting at Clontarf. It was still more fully
established in the early part of the following year, when he, with a
number of his political associates, was brought to trial for treasonable
and seditious practices, found guilty, and sentenced to twelve months'
imprisonment. The subsequent reversal of the verdict by the House of
Lords, was a legal triumph for O'Connell; but nevertheless, his prestige
had suffered by the occurrence, and his policy had begun to pall upon
the minds of the people.

After his release the business of the Association went on as before,
only there was less of confidence and of defiance in the speeches of the
Liberator, and there were no more monster meetings. He was now more
emphatic than ever in his advocacy of moral force principles, and his
condemnation of all warlike hints and allusions. The weight of age--he
was then more than seventy years--was pressing on his once buoyant
spirit; his prison experience had damped his courage; and he was haunted
night and day by a conviction--terrible to his mind--that there was
growing up under the wing of the Association, a party that would teach
the people to look to an armed struggle as the only sure means of
obtaining the freedom of their country. The writings of the
_Nation_--then a new light in the literature and politics of
Ireland--had a ring in them that was unpleasant to his ears, a sound as
of clashing steel and the explosion of gunpowder. In the articles of
that journal much honour was given to men who had striven for Irish
freedom by other methods than those in favour at Conciliation Hall; and
the songs and ballads which it was giving to the youth of Ireland--who
received them with delight, treasuring every line "as if an angel
spoke"--were bright with the spirit of battle, and taught any doctrine
except the sinfulness of fighting for liberty. The Liberator grew
fearful of that organ and of the men by whom it was conducted. He
distrusted that quiet-faced, thoughtful, and laborious young man, whom
they so loved and reverenced--the founder, the soul, and the centre of
their party. To the keen glance of the aged leader it appeared that for
all that placid brow, those calm grey eyes and softly curving lip of
his, the man had no horror of blood-spilling in a righteous cause, and
was capable not only of deliberately inciting his countrymen to rise in
arms against English rule, but also of taking a foremost place in the
struggle. And little less to be dreaded than Thomas Davis, was his
friend and _collaborateur_, Charles Gavan Duffy, whose sharp and active
intellect and resolute spirit were not in the least likely to allow the
national cause to rest for ever on the peaceful platform of Conciliation
Hall. Death removed Davis early from the scene; but in John Mitchel, who
had taken his place, there was no gain to the party of moral force. Then
there was that other young firebrand--that dapper, well-built,
well-dressed, curled and scented young gentleman from the _Urbs
Intacta_--whose wondrous eloquence, with the glow of its thought, the
brilliancy and richness of its imagery, and the sweetness of its
cadences, charmed and swayed all hearts--adding immensely to the dangers
of the situation. O'Brien, too, staid and unimpulsive as was his
character, deliberate and circumspect as were his habits, was evidently
inclined to give the weight of his name and influence to this "advanced"
party. And there were many less prominent, but scarcely less able men
giving them the aid of their great talents in the press and on the
platform--not only men, but women too. Some of the most inspiriting of
the strains that were inducing the youth of the country to familiarize
themselves with steel blades and rifle barrels proceeded from the pens
of those fair and gifted beings. Day after day, as this party sickened
of the stale platitudes, and timid counsels, and crooked policy of the
Hall, O'Connell, his son John, and other leading members of the
Association, insisted more and more strongly on their doctrine of moral
force, and indulged in the wildest and most absurd denunciations of the
principle of armed resistance to tyranny. "The liberty of the world,"
exclaimed O'Connell, "is not worth the shedding of one drop of human
blood." Notwithstanding the profound disgust which the utterance of such
sentiments caused to the bolder spirits in the Association, they would
have continued within its fold, if those debasing principles had not
been actually formulated into a series of resolutions and proposed for
the acceptance of the Society. Then they rose against the ignoble
doctrine which would blot the fair fame of all who ever fought for
liberty in Ireland or elsewhere, and rank the noblest men the world ever
saw in the category of fools and criminals. Meagher, in a brilliant
oration, protested against the resolutions, and showed why he would not
"abhor and stigmatize the sword." Mr. John O'Connell interrupted and
interfered with the speaker. It was plain that freedom of speech was to
be had no longer on the platform of the Association, and that men of
spirit had no longer any business there--Meagher took up his hat and
left the Hall, and amongst the crowd that accompanied, him, went William
Smith O'Brien, Thomas Devin Reilly, Charles Gavan Duffy, and John
Mitchel.

After this disruption, which occurred on the 28th of July, 1846, came
the formation of the "Irish Confederation" by the seceders. In the
proceedings of the new Society Mr. Mitchel took a more prominent part
than he had taken in the business of the Repeal Association. And he
continued to write in his own terse and forcible style in the _Nation_.
But his mind travelled too fast in the direction of war for either the
journal or the society with which he was connected. The desperate
condition of the country, now a prey to all the horrors of famine, for
the awfully fatal effects of which the government was clearly
responsible--the disorganization and decay of the Repeal party,
consequent on the death of O'Connell--the introduction of Arms' Acts and
other coercive measures by the government, and the growing ardour of the
Confederate Clubs, were to him as signs and tokens unmistakable that
there was no time to be lost in bringing matters to a crisis in which
the people should hold their own by force of arms. Most of his political
associates viewed the situation with more patience; but Mr. Mitchel was
resolved that even if he stood alone, he would speak out his opinions to
the people. In the latter part of December, 1847, he withdrew from the
_Nation_. On the 5th of February, 1848, at the close of a debate, which
had lasted two days, on the merits of his policy of immediate resistance
to the collection of rates, rents, and taxes, and the division on which
was unfavourable to him, he, with a number of friends and sympathisers
withdraw from the Confederation. Seven days afterwards, he issued the
first number of a newspaper, bearing the significant title of _The
United Irishman_, and having for its motto the following aphorism,
quoted from Theobald Wolfe Tone: "Our independence must be had at all
hazards. If the men of property will not support us, they must fall; we
can support ourselves by the aid of that numerous and respectable class
of the community, the men of no property."

The _Nation_ had been regarded as rather an outspoken journal, and not
particularly well affected to the rulers of the country. But it was
mildness, and gentleness, and loyalty itself compared to the new-comer
in the field of journalism. The sudden uprising of a most portentous
comet sweeping close to this planet of ours could hardly create more
unfeigned astonishment in the minds of people in general than did the
appearance of this wonderful newspaper, brimful of open and avowed
sedition, crammed with incitements to insurrection, and with diligently
prepared instructions for the destruction of her Majesty's troops,
barracks, stores, and magazines. Men rubbed their eyes, as they read its
articles and correspondence, scarcely believing that any man in his
sober senses would venture, in any part of the Queen's dominions, to put
such things in print. But there were the articles and the letters,
nevertheless, on fair paper and in good type, published in a duly
registered newspaper bearing the impressed stamp of the Customs--a sign
to all men that the proprietor was bound in heavy sureties to the
government against the publication of "libel, blasphemy, or
sedition"!--couched, moreover, in a style of language possessing such
grace and force, such delicacy of finish, and yet such marvellous
strength, rich with so much of quiet humour, and bristling with such
rasping sarcasm and penetrating invective, that they were read as an
intellectual luxury even by men who regarded as utterly wild and wicked
the sentiments they conveyed. The first editorial utterance in this
journal consisted of a letter from Mr. Mitchel to the Viceroy, in which
that functionary was addressed as "The Right Hon. the Earl of Clarendon,
Englishman, calling himself her Majesty's Lord Lieutenant-General and
General Governor of Ireland." The purport of the document was to
declare, above board, the aims and objects of the _United Irishman_, a
journal with which, wrote Mr. Mitchel, "your lordship and your
lordship's masters and servants are to have more to do than may be
agreeable either to you or me." That that purpose was to resume the
struggle which had been waged by Tone and Emmet, or, as Mr. Mitchel put
it, "the Holy War, to sweep this island clear of the English name and
nation." "We differ," he said, "from the illustrious conspirators of
'98, not in principle--no, not an _iota_--but, as I shall presently show
you, materially as to the mode of action." And the difference was to
consist in this--that whereas the revolutionary organization in
Ninety-Eight was a secret one, which was ruined by spies and informers,
that of Forty-Eight was to be an open one, concerning which informers
could tell nothing that its promoters would not willingly proclaim from
the house-tops. "If you desire," he wrote, "to have a Castle detective
employed about the _United Irishman_ office in Trinity-street, I shall
make no objection, provided the man be sober and honest. If Sir George
Grey or Sir William Somerville would like to read our correspondence, we
make him welcome for the present--only let the letters be forwarded
without losing a post." Of the fact that he would speedily be called to
account for his conduct in one of her Majesty's courts of law, the
writer of this defiant language was perfectly cognizant; but he declared
that the inevitable prosecution would be his opportunity of achieving a
victory over the government. "For be it known to you," he wrote, "that
in such a case you shall either publicly, boldly, notoriously _pack a
jury_, or else see the accused rebel walk a free man out of the court of
Queen's Bench--which will be a victory only less than the rout of your
lordship's red-coats in the open field." In case of his defeat, other
men would take up the cause, and maintain it until at last England would
have to fall back on her old system of courts-martial, and triangles,
and free quarters, and Irishmen would find that there was no help for
them "in franchises, in votings, in spoutings, in shoutings, and toasts
drank with enthusiasm--nor in anything in this world, save the
_extensor_ and _contractor_ muscles of their right arms, in
these and in the goodness of God above." The conclusion of this
extraordinary address to her Majesty's representative was in the
following terms:--

   "In plain English, my Lord Earl, the deep and irreconcilable
   disaffection of this people to all British laws, lawgivers, and law
   administrators shall find a voice. That holy Hatred of foreign
   dominion which nerved our noble predecessors fifty years ago for the
   dungeon, the field, or the gallows (though of late years it has worn
   a vile nisi prius gown, and snivelled somewhat in courts of law and
   on spouting platforms) still lives, thank God! and glows as fierce
   and hot as ever. To educate that holy Hatred, to make it know itself,
   and avow itself, and, at last, fill itself full, I hereby devote the
   columns of the _United Irishman_."

After this address to the Lord Lieutenant, Mr. Mitchel took to
addressing the farming classes, and it is really a study to observe the
exquisite precision, the clearness, and the force of the language he
employed to convey his ideas to them. In his second letter he supposes
the case of a farmer who has the entire produce of his land in his
haggard, in the shape of six stacks of corn; he shows that three of
these ought, in all honour and conscience, be sufficient for the
landlord and the government to seize upon, leaving the other three to
support the family of the man whose labour had produced them. But what
are the facts?--the landlord and the government sweep _all_ away, and
the peasant and his family starve by the ditch sides. As an illustration
of this condition of things, he quotes from a southern paper an account
of an inquest held on the body of a man named Boland, and on the bodies
of his two daughters, who, as the verdict declared, had "died of cold
and starvation," although occupants of a farm of over twenty acres in
extent. On this melancholy case the comment of the editor of the _United
Irishman_ was as follows:--

   "Now what became of poor Boland's twenty acres of crop? Part of it
   went to Gibraltar, to victual the garrison; part to South Africa, to
   provision the robber army; part went to Spain, to pay for the
   landlord's wine; part to London, to pay the interest of his honour's
   mortgage to the Jews. The English ate some of it; the Chinese had
   their share; the Jews and the Gentiles divided it amongst them--and
   there was _none_ for Boland."

As to the manner in which the condition and fate of poor Boland were to
be avoided, abundant instructions were given in every number. The
anti-tithe movement was quoted as a model to begin with; but, of course,
that was to be improved upon. The idea that the people would not
venture on such desperate movements, and had grown enamoured of the
Peace policy and of "Patience and Perseverance," Mr. Mitchel refused to
entertain for a moment:--

   "I will not believe that Irishmen are so degraded and utterly lost as
   this. The Earth is awakening from sleep; a flash of electric fire is
   passing through the dumb millions. Democracy is girding himself once
   more like a strong man to run a race; and slumbering nations are
   arising in their might, and 'shaking their invincible locks.' Oh! my
   countrymen, look up, look up! Arise from the death-dust where you
   have long been lying, and let this light visit your eyes also, and
   touch your souls. Let your ears drink in the blessed words, 'Liberty!
   Fraternity! Equality!' which are soon to ring from pole to pole!
   Clear steel will, ere long, dawn upon you in your desolate darkness;
   and the rolling thunder of the People's cannon will drive before it
   many a heavy cloud that has long hidden from you the face of heaven.
   Pray for that day; and preserve life and health that you may worthily
   meet it. Above all, let the man amongst you who has no gun sell his
   garment and buy one."

So Mr. Mitchel went on for some weeks, preaching in earnest and exciting
language the necessity of preparation for an immediate grapple with "the
enemy." In the midst of his labours came the startling news of another
revolution in France, Louis Philippe in full flight, and the
proclamation of a Republic. Yet a few days more and the Berliners had
risen and triumphed, only stopping short of chasing their king away
because he conceded all they were pleased to require of him; then came
insurrection in Sicily, insurrection in Lombardy, insurrection in Milan,
insurrection in Hungary--in short, the revolutionary movement became
general throughout Europe, and thrones and principalities were tumbling
and tottering in all directions. Loud was the complaint in the _United
Irishman_ because Dublin was remaining tranquil. It was evident,
however, that the people and their leaders were feeling the
revolutionary impulse, and that matters were fast hurrying towards an
outbreak. John Mitchel knew that a crisis was at hand, and devoted all
his energies to making the best use of the short time that his newspaper
had to live. His writing became fiercer, more condensed, and more
powerful than ever. Lord Clarendon was now addressed as "Her Majesty's
Executioner General and General Butcher of Ireland," and instructions
for street warfare and all sorts of operations suitable for an insurgent
populace occupied a larger space than ever in his paper. But the
government were now resolved to close with their bold and clever enemy.
On Tuesday, the 21st of March, 1848, Messrs. O'Brien, Meagher, and
Mitchel were arrested, the former for seditious speeches, uttered at a
meeting of the Confederation held on the 15th of that month, the latter
for three seditious articles published in the _United Irishman_. All
were released on bail, and when the trials came on, in the month of May,
disagreements of the jury took place in the cases of O'Brien and
Meagher. But before the trial of Mr. Mitchel could be proceeded with, he
was arrested on a fresh charge of "treason-felony"--a new crime, which
had been manufactured by Act of Parliament a few weeks before. He was,
therefore, fast in the toils, and with but little chance of escape.
Little concern did this give the brave-hearted patriot, who only hoped
and prayed that at last the time had come when his countrymen would
launch out upon the resolute course of action which he had so earnestly
recommended to them. From his cell in Newgate, on the 16th of May, he
addressed to them one of his most exciting letters, of which the
following are the concluding passages:--

   "For me, I abide my fate joyfully; for I know that, whatever betide
   me, my work is nearly done. Yes; Moral Force and 'Patience and
   Perseverance' are scattered to the wild winds of heaven. The music my
   countrymen now love best to hear is the rattle of arms and the ring
   of the rifle. As I sit here and write in my lonely cell, I hear, just
   dying away, the measured tramp of ten thousand marching men--my
   gallant confederates, unarmed and silent, but with hearts like bended
   bow, waiting till _the time_ comes. They have marched past my prison
   windows, to let me know there are ten thousand fighting men in
   Dublin--'felons' in heart and soul.

   "I thank God for it. The game is afoot at last. The liberty of
   Ireland may come sooner or later, by peaceful negotiation or bloody
   conflict--but it is _sure_; and wherever between the poles I may
   chance to be, I will hear the crash of the downfall of the
   thrice-accursed British Empire."

On Monday, May 22nd, 1848, the trial of Mr. Mitchel commenced in the
Commission Court, Green-street, before Baron Lefroy. He was eloquently
defended by the veteran lawyer and uncompromising patriot, Robert
Holmes, the brother-in-law of Robert Emmet. The mere law of the case was
strong against the prisoner, but Mr. Holmes endeavoured to raise the
minds of the jury to the moral view of the case, upon which English
juries have often acted regardless of the letter of the Act of
Parliament. With a jury of Irishmen impartially chosen it would have
been a good defence, but the Castle had made sure of their men in this
case. At five o'clock on the evening of the 26th, the case went to the
jury, who, after an absence of two hours, returned into court with a
verdict of "Guilty."

That verdict was a surprise to no one. On the day the jury was
empanelled, the prisoner and every one else knew what it was to be. It
was now his turn to have a word to say for himself, and he spoke, as was
his wont, in plain terms, answering thus the question that had been put
to him:--

   "I have to say that I have been found guilty by a packed jury--by the
   jury of a partizan sheriff--by a jury not empanelled even according
   to the law of England. I have been found guilty by a packed jury
   obtained by a juggle--a jury not empanelled by a sheriff but by a
   juggler."

This was touching the high sheriff on a tender place, and he immediately
called out for the protection of the court. Whereupon Baron Lefroy
interposed, and did gravely and deliberately, as is the manner of
judges, declare that the imputation which had just been made on the
character of that excellent official, the high sheriff, was most
"unwarranted and unfounded." He adduced, however, no reason in support
of that declaration--not a shadow of proof that the conduct of the
aforesaid official was fair or honest--but proceeded to say that the
jury had found the prisoner guilty on evidence supplied by his own
writings, some of which his lordship, with a proper expression of horror
on his countenance, proceeded to read from his notes. In one of the
prisoner's publications, he said, there appeared the following passage
"There is now growing on the soil of Ireland a wealth of grain, and
roots, and cattle, far more than enough to sustain in life and comfort
all the inhabitants of the island. That wealth must not leave us another
year, not until every grain of it is fought for in every stage, from the
tying of the sheaf to the loading of the ship; and the effort necessary
to that simple act of self-preservation will at one and the same blow
prostrate British dominion and landlordism together." In reference to
this piece of writing, and many others of a similar nature, his lordship
remarked that no effort had been made to show that the prisoner was not
responsible for them; it was only contended that they involved no moral
guilt. But the law was to be vindicated; and it now became his duty to
pronounce the sentence of the court, which was--that the prisoner be
transported beyond the seas for a term of fourteen years. The severity
of the sentence occasioned general surprise; a general suspiration and
low murmur were heard through the court. Then there was stillness as of
death, in the midst of which the tones of John Mitchel's voice rang out
clearly, as he said:--

   "The law has now done its part, and the Queen of England, her crown
   and government in Ireland are now secure, pursuant to act of
   parliament. I have done my part also. Three months ago I promised
   Lord Clarendon, and his government in this country, that I would
   provoke him into his courts of justice, as places of this kind are
   called, and that I would force him publicly and notoriously to pack a
   jury against me to convict me, or else that I would walk a free man
   out of this court, and provoke him to a contest in another field. My
   lord, I knew I was setting my life on that cast, but I knew that in
   either event the victory should be with me, and it is with me.
   Neither the jury, nor the judges, nor any other man in this court
   presumes to imagine that it is a criminal who stands in this dock."

Here there were murmurs of applause, which caused the criers to call out
for "Silence!" and the police to look fiercely on the people around
them. Mr. Mitchel resumed:--

   "I have shown what the law is made of in Ireland. I have shown that
   her Majesty's government sustains itself in Ireland by packed juries,
   by partizan judges, by perjured sheriffs."

Baron Lefroy interposed. The court could not sit there to hear the
prisoner arraign the jurors, the sheriffs, the courts, and the tenure by
which Englands holds this country. Again the prisoner spoke:--

   "I have acted all through this business, from the first, under a
   strong sense of duty. I do not repent anything that I have done, and
   I believe that the course which I have opened is only commenced. The
   Roman who saw his hand burning to ashes before the tyrant, promised
   that three hundred should follow out his enterprise. Can I not
   promise for one, for two, for three, aye for hundreds?"

As he uttered these words, Mr. Mitchel looked proudly into the faces of
the friends near him, and around the court. His words and his glance
were immediately responded to by an outburst of passionate voices from
all parts of the building, exclaiming--"For me! for me! promise for me,
Mitchel! and for me!" And then came a clapping of hands and a stamping
of feet, that sounded loud and sharp as a discharge of musketry,
followed by a shout like a peal of thunder. John Martin, Thomas Francis
Meagher, and Devin Reilly, with other gentlemen who stood close by the
dock, reached over it to grasp the hand of the new made felon. The
aspect of affairs looked alarming for a moment. The policemen laid
violent hands on the persons near them and pulled them about. Mr.
Meagher and Mr. Doheny were taken into custody. Baron Lefroy, in a high
state of excitement, cried out--"Officer! remove Mr. Mitchel!" and then,
with his brother judges, retired hurriedly from the bench. The turnkeys
who stood in the dock with Mr. Mitchel motioned to him that he was to
move; he took a step or two down the little stairs under the flooring of
the court-house, and his friends saw him no more.

He was led through the passages that communicated with the adjoining
prison, and ushered into a dark and narrow cell, in which, however, his
detention was of but a few hours' duration: At four o'clock in the
evening of that day--May 27th, 1848--the prison van, escorted by a large
force of mounted police and dragoons, with drawn sabres, drove up to the
prison gate. It was opened, and forth walked John Mitchel--_in fetters_.
A heavy chain was attached to his right leg by a shackle at the ankle;
the other end was to have been attached to the left leg, but as the
jailors had not time to effect the connexion when the order came for the
removal of the prisoner, they bade him take it in his hand, and it was
in this plight, with a festoon of iron from his hand to his foot, he
passed from the prison into the street--repeating mayhap to his own
heart, the words uttered by Wolfe Tone in circumstances not
dissimilar:--"For the cause which I have embraced, I feel prouder to
wear these chains, than if I were decorated with the star and garter of
England." Four or five police inspectors assisted him to step into the
van, the door was closed after him, the word was given to the escort,
and off went the cavalcade at a thundering pace to the North-wall, where
a government steamer, the "Shearwater," was lying with her steam up in
readiness to receive him. He clambered the side-ladder of the steamer
with some assistance; on reaching the deck, the chains tripped him and
he fell forward. Scarcely was he on his feet again, when the paddles of
the steamer were beating; the water, and the vessel was moving from the
shores of that "Isle of Destiny," which he loved so well, and a sight of
which has never since gladdened the eyes of John Mitchel.

The history of Mr. Mitchel's subsequent career, which has been an
eventful one, does not rightly fall within the scope of this work.
Suffice it to say that on June the 1st, 1848, he was placed on board the
"Scourge" man-of-war, which then sailed off for Bermuda. There Mr.
Mitchel was retained on board a penal ship, or "hulk," until April 22nd,
1849, when he was transferred to the ship "Neptune," on her way from
England to the Cape of Good Hope, whither she was taking a batch of
British convicts. Those convicts the colonists at the Cape refused to
receive into their country, and a long struggle ensued between them and
the commander of the "Neptune," who wished to deposit his cargo
according to instructions. The colonists were willing to make an
exception in the case of Mr. Mitchel, but the naval officer could not
think of making any compromise in the matter. The end of the contest was
that the vessel, with her cargo of convicts on board, sailed on February
19th, 1850, for Van Dieman's Land, where she arrived on April 7th of the
same year. In consideration of the hardships they had undergone by
reason of their detention at the Cape, the government granted a
conditional pardon to all the criminal convicts on their arrival at
Hobart Town. It set them free on the condition that they should not
return to the "United Kingdom." Mr. Mitchel and the other political
convicts were less mercifully treated. It was not until the year 1854
that a similar amount of freedom was given to these gentlemen. Some
months previous to the arrival of Mr. Mitchel at Hobart Town, his
friends William Smith O'Brien, John Martin, Thomas F. Meagher, Kevin
Izod O'Doherty, Terence Bellew MacManus, and Patrick O'Donoghue, had
reached the same place, there to serve out the various terms of
transportation to which they had been sentenced. All except Mr. O'Brien,
who had refused to enter into these arrangements, were at that time on
parole--living, however, in separate and limited districts, and no two
of them nearer than thirty or forty miles. On his landing from the
"Neptune," Mr. Mitchel, in consideration of the delicate state of his
health, was allowed to reside with Mr. Martin in the Bothwell district.

In the summer of the year 1853, a number of Irish gentlemen in America,
took measures to effect the release of one or more of the Irish patriots
from Van Dieman's Land, and Mr. P.J. Smyth sailed from New York on that
patriotic mission. Arrived in Van Dieman's Land, the authorities, who
seemed to have suspition of his business, placed him under arrest, from
which he was released after three days' detention. The friends soon
managed to meet and come to an understanding as to their plan of future
operations, in conformity with which, Mr. Mitchel penned the following
letter to the governor of the island:--

   "Bothwell, 8th June, 1853.

   "SIR--I hereby resign the 'comparative liberty,' called
   'ticket-of-leave,' and revoke my parole of honour. I shall forthwith
   present myself before the police magistrate of Bothwell, at his
   police office, show him this letter, and offer myself to be taken
   into custody. I am, sir, your obedient servant,

   "JOHN MITCHEL."

On the next day, June the 9th, Mr. Mitchel and Mr. Smyth went to the
police office, saw the magistrate with his attending constables; handed
him the letter, waited until he had read its contents, addressed to him
a verbal statement to the same effect, and while he appeared to be
paralyzed with astonishment, and uncertain what to do, touched their
hats to him and left the office. Chase after them was vain, as they had
mounted a pair of fleet steeds after leaving the presence of his
worship; but it was not until six weeks afterwards that they were able
to get shipping and leave the island. On the 12th of October, 1853, Mr.
Mitchel was landed safe in California--to the intense delight of his
countrymen throughout the American States, who celebrated the event by
many joyful banquets.

Since then, Mr. Mitchel has occupied himself mainly with the press. He
started the _Citizen_ in New York, and subsequently, at Knoxville,
Tennessee, the _Southern Citizen_. As editor of the _Richmond Examiner_
during the American civil war, he ably supported the Southern cause, to
which he gave a still stronger pledge of his attachment in the services
and the lives of two of his brave sons. One of these gentlemen, Mr.
William Mitchel, was killed at the battle of Gettysburg; the other,
Captain John Mitchel, who had been placed in command of the important
position of Fort Sumter, was shot on the parapet of that work, on July
19th, 1864. Shortly after the close of the war, Mr. John Mitchel was
taken prisoner by the Federal government; but after undergoing an
imprisonment of some months his release was ordered by President
Johnson, acting on the solicitation of a large and influential
deputation of Irishmen. In the latter part of the year 1867, turning to
the press again, he started the _Irish Citizen_ at New York, and in that
journal, at the date of this writing, he continues to wield his
trenchant pen on behalf of the Irish cause. To that cause, through all
the lapse of time, and change of scene, and vicissitude of fortune which
he has known, his heart has remained for ever true. He has suffered much
for it; that he may live to see it triumphant is a prayer which finds an
echo in the hearts of all his fellow-countrymen.

We have written of Mr. Mitchel only in reference to his political
career; but we can, without trenching in any degree on the domain of
private life, supply some additional and authentic details which will be
of interest to Irish readers. The distinguished subject of our memoir
was born at Camnish, near Dungiven, in the county of Derry, on the 3rd
of November, 1815. His father was the Rev. John Mitchel, at that time
Presbyterian Minister of Dungiven, and a good patriot, too, having
been--as we learn from a statement casually made by Mr. Mitchel in
Conciliation Hall--one of the United Irishmen of 1798. The maiden name
of his mother, who also came of a Presbyterian and county Derry family,
was Mary Haslitt. At Newry, whither the Rev. Mr. Mitchel removed in the
year 1823, and where he continued to reside till his death in 1843,
young John Mitchel was sent to the school of Dr. David Henderson, from
which he entered Trinity College, Dublin, about the year 1830 or 1831.
He did not reside within the college, but kept his terms by coming up
from the country to attend the quarterly examinations. Though he did not
distinguish himself in his college course, and had paid no more
attention to the books prescribed for his studies than seemed necessary
for passing his examinations respectably, John Mitchel was known to his
intimate friends to be a fine scholar and possessed of rare ability.
While still a college student, he was bound apprentice to a solicitor in
Newry. Before the completion of his apprenticeship, in the year 1835, he
married Jane Verner, a young lady of remarkable beauty, and only sixteen
years of age at the time, a daughter of Captain James Verner. Not long
after his marriage he entered into partnership in his profession, and in
conformity with the arrangements agreed upon, went to reside at
Banbridge, a town ten miles north of Newry, where he continued to
practice as a solicitor until the death of Thomas Davis in 1845. He had
been an occasional contributor to the _Nation_ almost from the date of
its foundation; its editors recognised at once his splendid literary
powers, and when the "Library of Ireland" was projected, pressed him to
write one of the volumes, suggesting as his subject the Life of Hugh
O'Neill. How ably he fulfilled the task is known to his countrymen, who
rightly regard the volume as one of the most valuable of the whole
series. When death removed the amiable and gifted Thomas Davis from the
scene of his labours, Mr. Duffy invited John Mitchel, as the man most
worthy of all in Ireland, to take his place. Mr. Mitchel regarded the
invitation as the call of his country. He gave up his professional
business in Banbridge, removed with his wife and family to Dublin, and
there throwing himself heart and soul into the cause, fought it out
boldly and impetuously until the day when, bound in British chains, "the
enemy" bore him off from Ireland.




       *       *       *       *       *




JOHN MARTIN.


When the law had consummated its crime, and the doom of the felon was
pronounced against John Mitchel, there stood in the group that pressed
round him in the dock and echoed back the assurances which he flung as a
last defiance at his foes, a thoughtful, delicate looking, but resolute
young Irishman, whose voice perhaps was not the loudest of those that
spoke there, but whose heart throbbed responsively to his words, and for
whom the final message of the unconquerable rebel possessed a meaning
and significance that gave it the force of a special revelation.
"Promise for me, Mitchel," they cried out, but he had no need to join in
that request; he had no need to intimate to Mr. Mitchel his willingness
to follow out the enterprise which that fearless patriot had so boldly
commenced. On the previous day, sitting with the prisoner in his gloomy
cell, John Martin of Loughorne had decided on the course which he would
take in the event of the suppression of the _United Irishman_ and the
transportation of its editor. He would start a successor to that
journal, and take the place of his dear friend at the post of danger. It
was a noble resolve, deliberately taken, and resolutely and faithfully
was it carried out. None can read the history of that act of daring, and
of the life of sacrifice by which it has been followed, and not agree
with us that while the memories of Tone, of Emmet, and of Russell, are
cherished in Ireland, the name of John Martin ought not be forgotten.

A few days subsequent to that memorable scene in Greenstreet
court-house, John Martin quitted his comfortable home and the green
slopes of Loughorne, separated himself from the friends he loved and
the relatives who idolized him, and entered on the stormy career of a
national leader and journalist, at a time when to advocate the
principles of nationality was to incur the ferocious hostility of a
government whose thirst for vengeance was only whetted by the
transportation of John Mitchel. He knew the danger he was braving; he
knew that the path on which he entered led down to suffering and ruin;
he stood in the gap from which Mitchel had been hurled, with a full
consciousness of the perils of the situation; but unflinchingly and
unhesitatingly as the martyr goes to his death, he threw himself into
the thinning ranks of the patriot leaders; and when the event that he
anticipated arrived, and the prison gates opened to receive him--then,
too, in the midst of indignities and privations--he displayed an
imperturbable firmness and contempt for physical suffering, that showed
how powerless persecution is to subdue the spirit that self-conscious
righteousness sustains.

His history previous to the conviction of his friend and school-fellow,
John Mitchel, if it includes no events of public importance, possesses
for us all the interest that attaches to the early life of a good and
remarkable man. John Martin was born at Loughorne, in the lordship of
Newry, Co. Down, on the 8th of September, 1812; being the eldest son of
Samuel Martin and Jane Harshaw, both natives of that neighbourhood, and
members of Presbyterian families settled there for many generations.
About the time of his birth, his father purchased the fee-simple of the
large farm which he had previously rented, and two of his uncles having
made similar investments, the family became proprietors of the townland
on which they lived. Mr. Samuel Martin, who died in 1831, divided his
attention between the management of the linen business--a branch of
industry in which the family had partly occupied themselves for some
generations--and the care of his land. His family consisted of nine
children, of whom John Martin--the subject of our sketch--was the second
born. The principles of his family, if they could not be said to possess
the hue of nationality, were at least liberal and tolerant. In '98, the
Martins of Loughorne, were stern opponents of the United Irishmen; but
in '82, his father and uncles were enrolled amongst the volunteers, and
the Act of Union was opposed by them as a national calamity. It was from
his good mother, however, a lady of refined taste and remarkable mental
culture, that young John derived his inclination for literary pursuits,
and learned the maxims of justice and equality that swayed him through
life. He speedily discarded the prejudices against Catholic
Emancipation, which were not altogether unknown amongst his family, and
which even found some favour with himself in the unreflecting days of
boyhood. The natural tendency of his mind, however, was as true to the
principles of justice as the needle to the pole, and the quiet rebuke
that one day fell from his uncle--"What! John, would you not give your
Catholic fellow-countrymen the same rights that you enjoy yourself?"
having set him a thinking for the first time on the subject, he soon
formed opinions more in consonance with liberality and fair play.

When about twelve years of age, young Martin was sent to the school of
Dr. Henderson at Newry, where he first became acquainted with John
Mitchel, then attending the same seminary as a day scholar. We next find
John Martin an extern student of Trinity College, and a year after the
death of his father he took out his degree in Arts. He was now twenty
years old, and up to this time had suffered much from a constitutional
affection, being subject from infancy to fits of spasmodic asthma.
Strange to say, the disease which troubled him at frequently recurring
intervals at home, seldom attacked him when away from Loughorne, and
partly for the purpose of escaping it, he took up his residence in
Dublin in 1833, and devoted himself to the study of medicine. He never
meditated earning his living by the profession, but he longed for the
opportunity of assuaging the sufferings of the afflicted poor. The air
of the dissecting-room, however, was too much for Martin's delicate
nervous organization; the kindly encouragement of his fellow-students
failed to induce him to breathe its fetid atmosphere a second time, and
he was forced to content himself with a theoretical knowledge of the
profession. By diligent study and with the assistance of lectures,
anatomical plates, &c., he managed to conquer the difficulty; and he had
obtained nearly all the certificates necessary for taking out a medical
degree, when he was recalled in 1835 to Loughorne, by the death of his
uncle John, whose house and lands he inherited.

During the four years following he lived at Loughorne, discharging the
duties of a resident country gentleman as they are seldom performed in
Ireland, and endearing himself to all classes, but particularly to the
poor, by his gentle disposition, purity of mind, and benevolence of
heart. In him the afflicted and the poverty-stricken ever found a
sympa

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