Chapter I: Part 1

THE
LIFE, TRIAL AND CONVERSATIONS
OF
ROBERT EMMET, ESQ.
=Leader of the Irish Insurrection of 1803:=
ALSO, THE
CELEBRATED SPEECH
MADE BY HIM ON THE OCCASION.

O breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade,
Where cold and unhonoured his relics are laid;
Sad, silent, and dark be the tears that we shed,
As the night dew that falls on the grass o’er his head
But the night dew that falls, though in silence it weeps
Shall brighten with verdure the grave where he sleeps
And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,
Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.—MOORE

_Stereotyped from the last Dublin Edition._

NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED BY ROBERT CODDINGTON
NO. 366 BOWERY,
1850.

THE UNINSCRIBED TOMB OF EMMET.

“Let my tomb remain uninscribed, and my memory in oblivion, until
other times and other men can do justice to my character.”

“Pray tell me,” I said, to an old man who stray’d,
Drooping over the grave which his own hands had made,
“Pray tell me the name of the tenant who sleeps
’Neath yonder lone shade where the sad willow weeps;
Every stone is engrav’d with the name of the dead,
But yon black slab declares not whose spirit is fled.”

In silence he bow’d, then beckon’d me nigh,
Till we stood o’er the grave—then he said with a sigh,
“Yes, they dare not to trace e’en a word on this stone,
To the memory of him who sleeps coldly alone;
He told them—commanded—the lines o’er his grave,
Should never be traced by the hand of a slave!

“He bade them to shade e’en his name in the gloom,
Till the morning of freedom should shine on his tomb,
‘When the flag of my country at liberty flies,
Then—then let my name and my monument rise.’
You see they obey’d him—’tis thirty-three years,
And they still come to moisten his grave with their tears.

“He was young like yourself, and aspir’d to o’erthrow
The tyrants who fill’d his lov’d island with woe;
They crush’d his bold spirit—this earth was confin’d,
Too scant for the range of his luminous mind.”
He paus’d, and the old man went slowly away,
And I felt, as he left me, an impulse to pray.

Grant, Heaven! I may see, ere my own days are done,
A monument rise o’er my country’s lost son!
And oh! proudest task, be it mine to indite
The long-delay’d tribute a freeman must write;
‘Till then shall its theme in my breast deeply dwell,
So peace to thy slumbers, dear shade, fare thee well!

THE
LIFE AND CONVERSATIONS
OF
ROBERT EMMET, ESQ.

There are few persons whose name has been so hailed by the young and ardent, whose firmness and patriotism has been more admired, and whose character has produced a greater effect upon society, than the subject of these pages.

Robert Emmet was born in Dublin, in the year 1782, and was the son of Dr. Emmet, for many years state physician in Dublin. He was the youngest brother of Thomas Addis Emmet, who, before the rebellion of 1798, had abandoned a respectable situation at the Irish Bar, in order to project and carry into execution, the schemes of that day, for an Irish Republic, and of course, separation from Great Britain.

Emmet was moulded in Nature’s happiest form for his destined service. He possessed the physical qualities necessary for an accomplished speaker, with high intellect to master and employ knowledge, with imagination and feelings to sway the passions and command the heart; with the power of incessant labour to collect, discipline, and perfect the valued materials of a revolutionary measure, he was eminently calculated for the task which he had undertaken. And, had success depended upon the worth and the virtues of one man, Emmet would now have been hailed as the liberator of his country.

Early impressions are always the most lasting. Emmet had his young mind filled with a detestation of tyranny and injustice at an early age, by the virtue and patriotism of his private tutor, the Rev. Mr. Lewes, who, though a minister of the Established Church, was yet an enemy to its monopolizing power and persecuting spirit towards his Catholic fellow-subjects.

At the age of sixteen he entered Trinity College. Here his progress in classical and mathematical knowledge soon gained him honour and reputation. But his heated spirit had been worked up by the political enthusiasm in which he had been early initiated. At the Historical Society, of which he was a member, he expressed his sentiments so freely on English influence in Ireland, that he came under the suspicions of Lord Chancellor Clare, who ultimately expelled him from College, for denouncing, in a speech he made, the English form of government, and advocating that of a republic.

He had been sufficiently unguarded in his conduct, while the disturbances of ‘98 existed, to become an object of the vigilance of government, and had found it prudent to reside abroad so long as the habeas corpus act was suspended. He fled to the Continent, where an active correspondence was set on foot by the French government. Emmet, with the chiefs of the preceding Irish Rebellion were summoned to Paris. Consultations were held with them, and the organization of another revolution was commenced and prosecuted with increasing diligence. Nor was the then ruler of France, (Buonaparte) inattentive, or remiss to forward, by every means, in his power, the project. To Emmet was delegated the office of director and mover of this new attempt upon the British dominion in Ireland.

On the expiration of the habeas corpus act, he returned to Dublin, but thought it prudent, for the forwarding of the revolution, to live privately. He took obscure lodgings at Harold’s Cross, under the assumed name of Hewit. Here he held his meetings with his associates. These people hailed with transport the opportunity of recommencing another attempt on subverting British power in Ireland! and while some spread themselves over the country in every direction, others fixed themselves in the metropolis.

During the first four months after Emmet’s arrival, nothing of his machinations transpired. Soon after the King’s Proclamation, on the 8th of March, conceiving the moment of national alarm at the renovation of hostilities, and a threatened invasion, favourable to his projects, he became more active in his preparations. The whole of his family portion, which consisted of two thousand five hundred pounds, he devoted to his enthusiasm. In the beginning of April, he quitted his lodgings at Harold’s Cross, with the name of Hewit, and in the new name of Ellis he took the lease of a house, for which he paid a fine of sixty-one guineas, in Butterfield-Lane, near Rathfarnham. Here he harangued his associates, and encouraged them by hopes of a happy result to their labours.

‘Liberty,’ said he, ‘is the child of oppression, and the birth of the offspring is the death of the parent; while tyranny, like the poetical desert bird, is consumed in flames ignited by itself, and its whole existence is spent in providing the means of self-destruction. We have a complete exemplification of this in the past history and present state of Ireland, where increase of numbers and increase of intelligence, have been the direct result of that system which too long has ruled this kingdom.

‘The relentless oppression of the English Government forced the people into habits of temperance—necessity made them abstemious, and time reconciled them to their wholesome esculent, which providentially came, like the manna of the desert, to feed the sojourners in the land of their fathers.

‘When nature is easily satisfied, and the necessaries of life procured with little labour and care, increase of population will follow: because parents, who are contented with their own condition, will feel no uneasiness for their offspring, who can, without any difficulty, procure a situation similar to their own. Emigration from such a country was not to be expected; for men whose modified wants were amply satisfied at home, had no need to seek elsewhere for wealth they did not desire, or distinctions they did not value. Besides, Ireland has always had peculiar attractions in retaining her children: a Scotchman loves a Scotchman, but an Hibernian loves the green fields of his youth and to enjoy these there are few privations to which he will not cheerfully submit. The eccentric humour, the boisterous mirth, the kind and social intercourse, that characterize the peasantry, likewise spread their charms, and generally succeeded in subduing the aspiring notions of adventurers, and helped to retain the people at home. When to these were added the allurements of a more tender kind, and when no restraint was placed upon the natural instinct of man, we must not wonder that Ireland is blessed with a population without a parallel in Europe.

‘The base and cowardly conduct of the Irish proprietors in deserting the country, though at the moment a grievance, was absolutely productive of good. Their large domains were parcelled out to humble cottages; farms were divided and subdivided; cabins every where raised their unostentatious roofs; and every floor was blessed with a numerous progeny.

‘Ireland has been forced into agriculture;[1] and, this still farther tends to increase the population, and to give her that political importance she never could have acquired if the people had been immured in mineral dungeons, or confined to the fetid vapours of a manufacturing bastile. Rural labour is not more conducive to the health of the body, than it is beneficial to the exercise of the mind; and we always find the agriculturist superior to the mechanic not only in physical strength, but in moral energy. The one is a natural soldier, who commands respect, and exacts consideration; while the other is a mere animated machine, whose ideas serve but as internal wheels to keep his hands in motion. His frame is distorted, his mind crippled, and his courage annihilated: but the agriculturist is a man such as nature intended—fearless, active and resolute; the air he breathes ensures him health; the ground he tills supplies him with sustenance; and his occupations make him moral, hardy, and brave. This is the copy of a million portraits, and they are all found in Ireland.

‘The aspirations of civilized man after freedom are coeval with his existence. His rights, like the mountain torrent, may be diverted from their original channel, but cannot be effectually impeded in their course. Dams may be raised to stop the coming stream; but, if the congregated waters cannot find another way to the place of their destination, they will burst through every opposition, and overwhelm in destruction all the works of lordly and presumptive man.’

‘But we find,’ observed a bystander, ‘that very populous countries have continued in slavery.’

‘Numbers,’ rejoined Emmet, ‘whose minds are more enslaved than their bodies may submit to injustice; but numbers inspired with intelligence never can. The Irish people are not only shrewd, but informed; and for this good, as well as for every other blessing they possess, they are indebted to the folly and wickedness of their governors, _Divide et impera_ has long been the maxim of those who oppressed us; but the result has been the reverse of their anticipations. The continued agitation, faction, and discord, consequent upon such a system of legislation, produced their moral effects, and, like the vivid lightning, served to purify the element they disturbed. The political whirlpool has drawn within its vortex every man in Ireland; discussion has been universally provoked; and the passions have been enlisted in the general conflict. The human intellect has been propelled, vulgar errors corrected, and the spirit of enquiry and investigation has gone abroad.

‘To reason upon the political state of his country, has long been the propensity of the Irish peasant; and, from continually thinking upon that subject, he has at length learned to think right. He not only knows his degraded condition, but is well acquainted with the cause. There is not a subject connected with the country, on which he cannot give an accurate opinion; he knows, as well as any man in the Castle, the purpose of every measure of Government, whether it be to enrich a spendthrift nobleman by a job, or coerce the unfortunate peasantry by an Insurrection Act.

‘I know my countrymen: I have conversed with them, and have found them practical philosophers. Their sentiments are the pure emanations of acute minds, instructed in the school of nature, and taught by adversity. They are, in consequence, generally correct, and, without any great exertion of thought, are frequently profound. How often have I seen them smile at the abortive efforts of their friends, who endeavour to procure them redress in a constitutional way, while, at the same time, they have told me very pertinently, and very truly, that they expected no concession from Government, until they were able to insist on it!’

During this address, Emmet’s fine manly countenance glowed with an enthusiastic ardour, and he delivered himself with as much animated fervency as if he were addressing a numerous, but distracted assembly, which he wished to persuade. His words flowed with a graceful fluency, and he combined his arguments with all the ease of a man accustomed to abstract discussions.

His amiable and esteemed character gave an elevating influence to the fame of the society of which he was the leader—many of whom, though of equal talents and respectability, were inferior in that fine sensibility of heart, and constancy in friendship, which gained him the love and esteem of all who knew him. Nor was it only for his bland manners and fine sensibilities of heart, and constancy in friendship, and firmness in principle; he ranked amongst the highest of its gifted sons, who display its fertile genius and its social spirit, who introduce the name of Ireland to the respect of the world.

Commensurate with his value to relatives and friends, and to his native city, was the appalling sensation that pervaded his country on the occasion of his lamented death. It is not, then surprising that his removal in one unexpected moment from this busy life’s vocations, to the oblivious silence of the tomb, should produce, as it did, a general burst of sorrow, and a common sense of bereavement.

Forty summers have closed around the United Irishmen since they made catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform the leading measures of their policy. They found all the catholics of Ireland, the great majority of its population, reduced by the operation of the ferocious penal laws, to the condition of slaves, in all things but being vendible, to the very meanest of their protestant countrymen. Not only did the British Government embrace every severity that could waste the vigour of the nation, but all the rights of humanity, and every duty of life were sacrificed by its direction or connivance, provided only that this would promote the self interest, or gratify the rancour of the favoured party.

There was a law of discovery, by which a man who betrayed the confidence of his friend, if he were catholic, possessed himself of that friend’s estate. There was a law which disabled the catholic father to be guardian to his own child, or to educate him. There was a law which made the disobedience or apostacy of the catholic child the means whereby to disinherit his father. There was a law for robbing a catholic of his horse on the highway, if, when interrogated, he confessed his faith. There was a law to prevent the education of catholic children, and to punish catholic teachers as convicts; to banish the catholic clergy, and to hang them if they returned: to prevent catholics from purchasing or inheriting landed estates: from having arms for their defence: to debar them from the profession of the law: to prevent them from holding any office of trust, honour or emolument, voting at elections, or sitting in parliament.

The United Irishmen found their country under government of those laws, and of perhaps a hundred more, all conceived in the same spirit, and all elaborated with consummate skill to rob, harass, and insult a defenceless people. Those statutes, without parallel for their inhumanity, were framed against christians, under pretence of securing the protestant religion. They were enacted by the Irish protestants, political protestants, than whom no sect has cried more loudly against persecution, when protestants were the martyrs. For all this the protestant religion is not persecuting in its nature. The crimes of the dominant party are not justly chargeable upon the protestant religion, though committed in its name. They were bitterly deplored by the United Irishmen of all religions, and by none more than the subject of this memoir, himself a member of the established church, but no abettor of its injustice.

Through all this long persecution, the conduct of England wore a vizor of hypocrisy. It was not the conversion of the Irish it desired, but their spoliation, division and subjection. If united in religion, they might unite for their worldly interest, and a means of weakening them by dissension would be lost. The English mission never had the merit of even being honestly fanatical; it was cold-blooded and crafty. Its conduct was not feebly palliated by the mistaken sincerity of blind zeal, which time might soften and philosophy assuage. It had the more terrestrial motives of insatiable rapacity, the appetite for plunder, and the desire of battening on the green pastures of Ireland. This is the eating canker which neither time nor reason ever cures, and which is now as devouring, where it has the power, as at the first hour.

After the laws had disfranchised four-fifths of the population, all the emoluments of office, all the wealth of the richest church in the world, all the distinctions of power, all the pomp, circumstance, and advantages of dominion, fell into the lap of the favoured few. These men never wished to lessen the pretext of their gains; they never sought the conversion of their helots by any means that ever made proselytes to any cause.

The domestic spoliation of the catholics was the share of the Irish protestants in this wholesale robbery. The spoliation of the Irish nation was the part of England in this boundless plunder: she took the whole trade, prosperity, and independence of Ireland, which the Irish protestants freely surrendered for the license to pillage and tyrannize at home. These wrongs inflicted and endured, begat mutual hatred and frequent collision, and will account for the little union among Irishmen, and the ferocity of character to be found in those districts where the adverse parties came oftenest into contact.

This barter of a nation’s rights for the lucre of a faction, is what was called the protestant ascendancy in church and state. It was also called the British constitution. Against that impious combination of treachery within, and tyranny from without, the United Irishmen pointed their oath of union—“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.” It was this oath that was prosecuted as a felony, and for which frequent victims were sent to the scaffold.

Emmet did not live to behold the triumph of the catholic cause, that happy accomplishment of one of the great measures to which he devoted fortune and life. But he saw, or thought he saw, all the materials for a successful struggle for freedom, in the internal resources of his beloved Ireland. In his moments of social ease and retirement, he delighted to enumerate those resources. A writer who seems to have known him well, gives us the following conversation between Emmet and his friends while he was maturing his measures for the coming contest.

‘I have seldom spent a happier hour in my life, than I did that evening with Emmet. His manners, his eloquence, and the sincerity, as well as kindness, which breathed through every thing he said, banished reserve on my part, and we all conversed more like long-tried friends than casual acquaintances. We talked of literature, of London, and of politics. My sentiments regarding Liberty—the goddess he idolized—were warm; and, as I spoke with becoming abhorrence of tyranny, he seemed delighted with my opinions. Before we separated he made me promise to call on him that night at his lodgings; and when I did so, about eight o’clock, I was agreeably surprised to find the Exile there before me. After supper the conversation took a political turn, and Emmet, whose mind was then filled with the project of liberating his country, began to expatiate on the ease with which Ireland could throw off the English yoke, and the benefits that would ensue from such a measure.’

‘Your enthusiasm, my friend,’ said I, interrupting him, ‘carries you beyond the bounds of probability; for, in anticipating a revolution in this country, you forget that England calculates on the subjection of Ireland, and that she is able to compel what it is her interest to desire.’

‘That she desires it,’ he replied, ‘I have no doubt; but that she is able to compel it, I unhesitatingly deny. The belief in England’s superior strength has too long prevailed in this kingdom, but it is now, happily, beginning to disappear. In comparing the two countries, we must exclude from our calculation every thing but physical strength alone, and then the balance will be entirely in favour of Ireland; for I believe it will be readily admitted that she has the greater military population; and in a struggle for liberty, men only are valuable.

‘It is a matter of arithmetical calculation. Ireland can, in the event of a well-organized revolution, turn into the field between seven and eight hundred thousand effective men—an army certainly more numerous than any force England could send against her.’

‘Admitting your calculation to be correct,’ I returned, ‘you are not to deny the superiority of disciplined troops over rebel numbers. An army of fifty thousand men would soon rout your invincible phalanx.’

‘The time has passed, my dear sir,’ he rejoined, ‘when such an exploded notion found credence among mankind. In a barbarous age, when two armies drew up within gun-shot of each other, each serving as an immoveable target for its opponent to fire at, such a belief was natural, because he who possessed a musket had a fearful advantage over the man who had not one. But modern times have a different and more natural mode of warfare; personal prowess now, as in periods of antiquity, is likely to be victorious; and all necessary discipline can be learned in a very few days. A man does not necessarily acquire either superior courage or address from the colour of his coat, and a soldier with a fixed bayonet has no advantage over a fierce peasant with a well-tempered pike. Almost every victory of modern times has been gained by coming to close action, and that mode, to which a well-regulated army is indebted for success, is as available to a determined band of freemen as to any hired troops in Europe.

‘But, as different animals have different modes of attack and defence, an insurgent army has a discipline of its own, recommended by reason, and sanctioned by experience. With walled towns and close garrisons they have nothing to do: the hills of their country serve them as places of retreat; marshes, rivers, and lakes are their best bastions, while defiles afford them opportunities of attack, and woods and valleys serve them as places of ambush.

‘The face of nature solicits the oppressed to regain their freedom; and certainly, no country on the globe has so many invitations to revolt as our own. Scarcely a mile, from one extremity of the island to the other, in which an hostile army could not be successfully harassed, and, if needful, successfully opposed. To this may be added, that an Irish insurgent army would materially differ from a similar one in any kingdom of Europe; for nearly every peasant, and certainly every man above the rank of a peasant, is intimately acquainted with the use of fire-arms. Those near the sea-shore (and those are a large portion) are excellent marksmen; while the inhabitants of mountains, and the neighbourhoods of bogs, lakes and marshes, are expert fowlers. The Wexford insurgents, in the late rebellion, gave a proof of their abilities, and showed that the peasantry of Ireland, when aroused, are nothing inferior to the best disciplined troops in Europe.’

‘I know it,’ interrupted the Exile, ‘for I witnessed their skill in bringing down an enemy, and I must confess that, had they leaders of experience, they were nothing inferior, man for man, to any force that might be brought against them.’

‘There is always a deficiency,’ said I, ‘in some part, that renders every effort of the remainder abortive. Out of a hundred revolts, scarcely one has been successful.’

‘Pardon me,’ said Emmet, ‘if I set you right; for history furnishes us with few instances of failure where a nation has been unanimous. It is giving the enemies of man a new weight, to add to the burden of oppression, by dignifying pigmy insurrections and partial rebellions with the name of open revolt. They should rather be called sanguinary riots, and thus reduced to their proper level: their ghosts might not be summoned from oblivious neglect to scare mankind from an assertion of their rights. Instances of national resuscitation are neither few nor unfrequent. Tyranny was expelled from Rome by the rebellion of the people; and Switzerland and the Netherlands are memorials of successful revolts. In our own day, America has shown us what a few thousand peasants could accomplish when actuated by a love of liberty. Ireland is superior in numbers to any of these, equals them in address and courage, and stimulated by wrongs greater than have been experienced by all these together.

‘Soldiers are but men, and generally the most imbecile of men. Let the people be taught to despise the glare and glitter of polished arms, and the terror they are wont to inspire will be converted into objects of ridicule and contempt.—Happily an opinion prevails in Ireland, that a soldier is an inferior mortal, and that three hundred athletic peasants would be equal to a regiment of a thousand men. I don’t say that this opinion is correct, but it must be admitted that, in case of a rising, it would be of infinite service, as tending to inspire confidence in the insurgents, and contempt for their enemies—two things that materially conduce to victory.

‘Leaders, in a harassing war, would be easily procured, for the sagacity of an unlettered peasant might serve for the purpose. Who does not remember the servant boy at Oulard, whose advice was followed by the destruction of a whole regiment?—Great occasions produce great men, and generals are formed in the study as well as in the camp. The Catholics are not what they formerly were,—intelligence is diffused, thousands of them are in the British army, and every man of these would desert on the first opportunity, for the _amor patriæ_ is not extinguished by the imposition of the military oath.’

Down to the period of 1782, English acts of parliament were suffered to bind Ireland. Misgovernment and poverty, the neglect of agriculture, the prohibition of commerce, the abandonment of manufactures were, during that period, the portion of Ireland. But towards the end of the American war, the volunteers emancipated their country from this bondage, and gave it the means of being independent. The example of America was before both parties with all the omens; hence the demands of the volunteers were prudentially conceded, and the glorious revolution of 1782 was accompanied without the loss of a drop of blood. The happy consequence was the immediate liberation of the commerce of Ireland from English restrictions. Her ensuing prosperity seemed miraculous—so prompt, so general, so enriching; and her aptitude to prosper by a free trade became known at the same time, to her rival and herself.

But the volunteers could not be always in arms, and Ireland had no representative assembly to foster her prosperity during peace. Hers was, alas! a borough-parliament, composed solely of the dominant faction, representing but a small portion of the inhabitants, and having few feelings or wishes in unison with the mass of the people.

Every one soon perceived that all measures of relief would be insecure, nay, illusory, unless preceded or accompanied by a reform in the parliament. The volunteers saw it, and endeavoured to reform; but they excluded the Catholics from their plan, and did not see (unhappy effects of the ignorance of the time!) that this alone would defeat their aim; that they could not erect an edifice of freedom on a foundation of monopoly. Warned by these errors, the United Irishmen altered the system of reform fundamentally. They extended their base, and established their plan upon three simple principles, necessarily dependent upon each other, and containing the disease, the remedy, and the mode of its attainment. The excess of English influence was the disease, a reform in parliament the remedy, and the inclusion of the Catholics the mode of its attainment.

Theobald Wolfe Tone had, of all others, the greatest part in effecting this change of sentiment among the Protestants, to whose communion he belonged. He wrote the original declaration for the Society of United Irishmen of Belfast, and his powerful writings brought the Presbyterians of the North very generally into the system.

Emmet often heard him in strains of pure and forceful eloquence expand, inculcate and apply, for the benefit of his beloved country, the political principles of the United Irishmen.

Wherever men have had no means of legitimate redress, we have seen them become their own avengers, the worst government being always marked by the greatest commotions. If there be not an impartial administration of justice, the stiletto takes place of the jury, and for want of a government restricted and accountable in Ireland, insurrection and civil war were the resources of an exasperated people. Left without the protection of a national parliament, Ireland was always tyrannically ruled, the frame of society dislocated and broken, and her numerous insurrections were the throes of agonized nature.

But from the moment the protestant reformers recognised the principle that no reform was practicable, efficacious, or just, which should not equally include Irishmen of every religious persuasion, the measure was feasible. It received the assent of the whole nation, save only the established church, and the other dependants of the British government. Its principle recommended itself to the common sense of mankind; and the authority of America proclaimed its benefits. In a short time its way was so far prepared by public opinion that even its interested opponents anticipated its final success. They determined, therefore, upon the desperate expedient of leaving no parliament in Ireland for reform to better. They hastened to buy from the borough-holders that which a truly Irish parliament would not sell—its own existence and the nation’s independence. They hoped to extinguish in the abolition of the parliament, every chance of peaceable and constitutional improvement. They conspired to transport it for life, mutilated and captive, into the British House; to imprison beyond sea, in the abyss of English supremacy, where its languishing, nerveless remains, doomed to live in a perpetual minority, could never more bring to its ill-fated country the blessings of liberty, good government, or commerce.

By the measures of a legislative union, Ireland reverts again to the same wretched state as when bound by acts of the British parliament. On the misery of that state, the ablest men who ever advocated her cause, even other than United Irishmen, have exhausted eloquence and invective, and the brightest page in her history is the one which records the extorted renunciation of that usurped power and plenary right of self-government. The pitiful representation of Ireland in a foreign land can but little avail her for her own benefit. She is there in a minority of one to six. The six give the law to the one, and with that one they have nothing in common. They have other constituents, who are a different people, who have clashing interests, who have national antipathies and who may well feel contempt for the substitutes of that parliament that traitorously sold its country. Such are the legislators who have bound Ireland in fetters.

The consequences are the same as heretofore: discontent and remonstrance, and a proclamation to all Europe, showing how easy it would be to dismember the United Kingdom. No loyalty will reconcile rational beings to preserve an evil which they can exchange for a good; so that those who make Ireland poor and enslaved, set before her, above all other men, the advantages of separation. What can create a desire for this remedy but ill-treatment? And so long as this treatment lasts, how shall that desire discontinue? They stand in the relation of cause and effect, and will for ever go on, or cease together.

It was the opinion of Emmet, that the legislative union was a measure more suited to facilitate the despotism of the ministry than to strengthen the dominion of England. Since the abuse of power has always followed excess, no less in nations than individuals, a restraint upon human actions is salutary for all parties, and the impediment that shall stop the career of ministerial tyranny, will be found to work best for the stability of the connexion. If this operate to the good of Ireland, she will observe it for its utility, an Irish parliament being then its best preservative. If, on the contrary, it be made, as at present, to sacrifice the many for the few, it will be viewed as a curse by the Irish people—an evil that must be got rid of rather than a good to be embraced and cherished.

At present we see those persons who deny a parliament to Ireland on which to rest her peace and happiness, self-poised and self-protected; we see them sedulous to change the state of the question, and to represent the repeal of the legislative union as a schism in the government. They would limit the people of Ireland entirely to England for benefits—whence, then, have come their wrongs? An Irish parliament, on the contrary, would be a bond of liberal connexion; it would settle every question of domestic policy at home, prevent strife and recrimination between both countries, secure to the affairs of Ireland, a degree of attention which however necessary, they do not and cannot obtain among the weighty concerns of a different people, in a foreign legislature. It would remove the old opprobrious evil of legislation without representation; for wherever this is partial and foreign, it is inadequate: as relates to Ireland, it is worthless mockery. Why was a borough-constituency vicious, but because it sent men to make laws for the people who did not represent the people, who were returned by a different body, and intent upon serving themselves and their employers.

The attributes of genius are not rare among the countrymen of Emmet, and time is constantly developing the resources of mind. The labours of intellect press onward for distinction, while names of high endowments are forced back to make room for new reputation. They alone will be remembered who have acted with an impulsive power on the destinies of their country and kind. Among those who first taught how to overthrow the misrule of Ireland, who exposed its cause and prepared its cure, Emmet is distinguished. He had great influence in the adoption of those measures which are still at issue between Ireland and her foes, and which, in part obtained, in part withheld, are determinative of her future happiness, as they shall finally fall or be signally successful.

The different depots of Dublin, which he hired, were, at his sole expense, furnished with military pikes and handles, ammunition and clothing. In one of these depots, gunpowder was manufactured: in the others, timber was provided for constructing pikes, and those already made, and his other arms and stores were there deposited.

It must be observed of the numerous persons connected with those depots, that neither the certainty of an ample reward, nor the wavering instability common to men engaged in danger and dangerous designs, could draw the discovery from the impenetrable recesses of their fidelity: an evident proof that the hearts of the people were with the project; or, perhaps it was that the departments of the police of Dublin, were all filled by men who had been deeply engaged in the cruelties of the preceding rebellion, and who, being on that account stigmatized and detested by the people, even those who were secretly inclined to give information, were not willing to unbosom themselves to men whom they regarded with so much horror.

We cannot resist the temptation to insert the following narrative, as illustrative of the cruelties and abominations committed daily, and with impunity, upon the unfortunate people of that dreadful period:

“After walking about a mile, we came to a neat thatched cabin, situated in a very sequestered valley. A river ran before it, and a few aged trees shaded the simple roof. The door was open, and, on our entrance, a peasant rose to receive us. He smiled as he handed me a chair, and looked inquisitively at my companion.

“‘Don’t you recollect Mr. J——?’ inquired the exile. This interrogation was followed by a momentary pause, during which Howlan seemed lost in reflection, after which he burst into an exclamation of surprise and pleasure.

“‘Oh! blud-an-ounze!’ he repeated several times, ‘is this yourself—your own four bones whole and sound after all? Well, well, I knew, I knew I should see you again, though I was certain you were dead; and many is the _pater-and-avi_ I said for your soul, though I believe you are a Protestant. But where’s the harm in that? did not you fight like any Roman for ould Ireland? and what more could a real true-born Catholic do? Troth, some of them didn’t do as much, the _spalpeens_, or we wouldn’t have now to begin again.’

“‘So, so, Howlan,’ said the Exile, ‘you haven’t yet learned to be loyal?’

“‘Loyal!’ repeated the hero of Oulard, ‘no, in troth, for it is not in my grain; and faith, I believe if I was paid for it, these stripes on my back would not let me. Oh no, the crows will get white feathers before Denis Howlan will forgive the Orangemen—bad luck to them.’

“‘I recollect,’ returned the Exile, ‘a part of your story, but the apprehensions I was under when I first heard it, prevented me from attending to the whole. Was not your father murdered?’

“‘Murdherd!’ repeated Howlan; ‘ay, murdherd over and over again; and wasn’t I murdherd myself? But,’ he continued, ‘I’ll just tell it all here to you both.’ Then, drawing his stool close to where we sat, he proceeded:—

“‘My father, (Lord be marciful to his sowl in glory!) kept a snug little farm on the righthand side of the road that goes from Gorey to Ferns; and, though I say it, there was not a more _sasty_ man in the county of Wexford. I, myself, was the youngest of three sons and two daughters, and the devil a more genteeler family attended Mass of a Sunday than Paddy Howlan’s. My two brothers were able strapping fellows, and faith, there were worse boys in the parish than myself. You may be sure we were real _Crappies_, and why but we should for our religion and country?

“‘The winter before the Rebellion, the Yeo’s[2] were out every night, and dreadful work they made of it—burning, whipping, and shooting.—A poor Catholic couldn’t live at all at all; and, as we expected that they would give us a call; we hid our pikes and guns in the ditches, and, to be sure, appeared as innocent as lambs. I shall never forget the 15th of November; no, never, while there is a drop of Irish blood in my soul; for, when I think of it, my brain boils, and my very flesh creeps, as if there was a blister all over me. Well, as I was saying, on the 15th of November, I was coming home from Enniscorthy market; and being after taking a glass of the _creature_ with one friend or another, I was pretty merry, and to make the road light, I was singing ‘_The Victim of Tyranny_,’ and the ould mare a-self was so pleased with the tune, that she kept the track as straight as a die, though the night was as dark as pitch.

“‘Just as I came to the top of the _boughareen_, that led down to our house, a fellow seized my beast by the halter, and while you’d be looking round you, a score of bayonets was ready to pop into poor Denis. “Hallo!” said I, “what’s this?” “You Popish rebel,” cried the officer, for it was a party of the North Cork, “what song is that you were singing?”

“Och, nothing at all,” said I, “only new words to an ould tune.”

“Ah! then, by ——,” said he, “you shall soon sing another tune, unless you tell us of all the people you know to be United Irishmen.”

“Faith, and that’s what I can soon do,” says I, “for I know nobody.” The word wasn’t well out of my mouth, when he ran his sword into my arm, saying, “That’s a tickler to help your memory.” “Thank your honour,” says I, “but as ye are not Yeo’s, I hope you will act decent, and let a poor boy pass. My name is Howlan, and never did any man an injury.”—“Howlan!” cried the officer, “you are the very man we want. Have you not two brothers?” “Ay, and a father too,” I answered, quite calmly, though I was in a terrible pickle, with the blood streaming down my arm.

“‘I was then bid to drive down to my father’s house, and they all kept quite close to me. The family were all in bed, and I, foolish enough, called up my poor father, then seventy years of age, and my two brothers. They came out into the lawn in their shirts, for they were so frightened they forgot to put on their clothes, and if they hadn’t, they could not, for want of time.

“‘My father said he had no arms; and when he protested, which was the truth, that he was no united man, the sergeant knocked him down with a pistol, and some of the soldiers began kicking of him while he lay on the ground. My brothers, of course, (for what Christian would turn informer?) refused to confess anything, and accordingly, the eldest was taken and tied to a car, and a drummerboy proceeded to flog him at a desperate rate, while one of the party, to give him light, set fire to the barn. As the flames mounted up to the skies, I could see my brother’s back, hackled like a raw griskin, while the poor fellow refused to gratify his murderers with a single groan. My mother rushed out, and falling on her knees, beseeching the villains to forbear, but one of the soldiers gave her a kick in the stomach, and stretched her on the pavement.

“‘Knowing how soldiers then treated young girls, I made signs to my sisters, who had come to the door, to shut it, and remain inside. They did so, before the soldiers could prevent them; and one of them having seen what I had done, told the others, and in a minute there were a dozen stabs in my body. My eldest brother was then released, and the other tied up in his place, when my father, who had recovered, rushed forward and seized the drummer’s arm. Poor man! the savages had no pity on his tears, and he received several stabs!’

“Here Denis was overpowered by his feelings, and after hastily wiping away one or two natural drops from his cheek, continued.

“‘I was now questioned about united men, and arms, and as I also refused to make any discovery, they took and bound my hands behind me, and then, taking the halter from the mare’s head, they placed it round my neck, and raising the car up, hung me out of the back-band. They were too cruel to let me die a natural death, and so cut me down a few minutes afore I went to Paradise. I can’t tell anything about that time, but my ould mother told me that my face was as black as a pot, and my tongue a _bandle_ long. The first thing I recollect, after being hanged, was to see the poor ould house in flames, the soldiers having set fire to it, to get my sisters out, but they were disappointed, as the girls had made their escape while they were hanging me.

“‘To make a long story short,’ continued Denis, ‘my father, myself, and two brothers, were thrown into the cart, and marched off to Ferns. Next day my father died in the guard-house; and after a week’s confinement, my brothers and I were turned out with pitched caps upon our heads.[3] We had now no house, no home, for my father’s life being the term of the lease, the landlord had seized on our little all, and so we went to service, as did my sisters, my mother having died in a month after my father. My brothers were long before they recovered; and for myself, I’ll feel the effects of that bloody night to the day of my death.’

“The tale of this untutored peasant, told in his own vulgar, but expressive language, produced a painful interest on my feelings, while it excited my indignation to that degree of frenzy, which made me instantly determine upon the Quixotic resolution of finding out the office under whose command the family of Howlan had been tortured, and call him to an account or, at least, expose him to the world. Filled with this extravagant notion, I inquired of Denis, as we walked along, where the North Cork were now stationed.

“‘Lord bless your honour,’ replied Denis, ‘there’s not a man of them in the land o’ the living, for I was at the killing of them all myself—and quick work we made of it—on Oulard Hill.’

“‘Oh, I remember,’ said I, ‘Mr. J—— spoke of your generalship there. How was that?’

“‘Why,’ replied Denis, ‘when I went to sarvice, my master lived in the very parish with Father Murphy, who, God bless him, coming one day through Ferns, saw the Yeo’s shooting poor Catholics like dogs, trying how many of them a musket ball would go through at once; so in the evening he called his congregation together in the chapel. It was as dark as _bags_, and not a candle lightning to show us the way to say our prayers. We were all silent as death, and you could hear a pin drop on the floor while the priest was speaking. He tould us ’twas better to die fighting for our religion and country, than be butchered like sheep by the Orangemen. He said what was Gospel, and faith we took his advice, and marched in fine order after him, and he in the middle of us to Oulard Hill, where we encamped for the night. The Yeo’s fled like murder at the sight of us, for they are the greatest cowards in the world, and sent the sogers to frighten us: but faith, their day was passed, and once we burnt the candle, we’d burn the inch. When the red coats appeared, our faces were all manner of colours, and many proposed to run away. ‘No, no,’ says I, ‘the priest and God is with us, and what have we to fear? Here is a ditch and gravel hole, and lie in them till the sogers come quite close, and when I cry out _Erin go bragh_, let every man start up, and use his pike.’ My advice was taken, and Father Murphy blessed us all. The sogers come up, sure enough with a fellow like a turkey cock strutting before them on his horse, and when they came quite near the ditch, he went behind them, and we could hear the words, “Ready, present, fire!” Pop, pop, pop, went their muskets; but faith I shouted out like a lion, _Erin go bragh_,[4] and it would do your heart good to see what sport we had. They weren’t a breakfast for us, and I had the pleasure, thank God, of sticking my pike into the rascally lieutenant, who murdered myself and my father.”

Government had, by the month of June, discovered sufficient to quicken its diligence, and the officers of the police appeared thenceforward more alert and vigilant; notwithstanding which it was difficult to bring them to believe that the project of insurrection was on foot. This state of delusion continued until the fourteenth of July, the anniversary of the French Revolution, which opened the eyes of many, and excited a considerable degree of alarm. Bonfires were publicly made in commemoration of that event, and collections of people, apparently strenuous and decided, formed and partook in the festivity. On the sixteenth, the depot of powder in Patrick Street blew up, in which there were two men nearly suffocated; one of whom, in throwing up the window, cut the artery of his arm, and bled to death, the other was taken prisoner. Emmet was so alarmed at the discoveries this explosion would lead to, that he quitted the house in Butterfield-Lane, and took up his permanent residence at the depot in Mass-lane. He there had a mattress to sleep on, that he might be present night and day to direct and animate the workmen.

The interval of the seven days ensuing after the explosion, was employed by Emmet and his associates either in deliberating on the propriety of immediately flying to arms, or in concerting the most practicable mode of commencing their operations. It was ultimately agreed upon to seize the several depots and arsenals in the vicinity of Dublin; and above all, it was universally determined to gain possession of the castle, as, in that case, it was supposed they could more decidedly influence the public mind by having the seat of government in their power.

As the day of attack approached, the greater part of Emmet’s adherents, contemplating their danger, wished to defer the attempt. Emmet, however, was peremptory in the opposite way of thinking. He represented, with an impetuosity not to be resisted, that the militia was about to be embodied; that the country would be placed every day in a more unassailable posture, and by its multiplied measures of defence, become impregnable.

The reader will probably not be displeased with the following extract from the pen of the same writer whom we have so often quoted, as illustrative of the kind, generous, and unsuspecting character of Emmet, even under the most difficult and trying circumstances.

‘I learned from Denis that the conspirators met in a valley not far from where we were, and that he was hastening to join them: I signified my readiness to attend him; and, as Denis was not a man of ceremony, he did not stand long upon punctilios, but immediately conducted me across a heathy and desolate hill, towards the place of rendezvous.

‘The night had closed around us as we approached a mountain chasm, and, after scrambling through a rude aperture in a stupendous rock, we found ourselves in a kind of natural recess, formed by an amphitheatre of surrounding hills, whose overhanging acclivities frowned in gloomy horror upon the little valley. By the light of the stars we could discern some persons, who had entered before us, proceeding towards the opposite side, and we accordingly followed in their footsteps. We had not proceeded far when the voice of a person speaking fell upon our ears, and I had not to listen long before I recognized the deep, but harmonious accents of my friend Emmet, as he addressed the people around him, who appeared to be about the number of five hundred. His harangue was on popular topics, of Irish grievances, and he spoke with a fervency of manner that showed him sincere in the sentiments he uttered. When he concluded, Malachy took his station, and proceeded to address the peasantry. I could not but observe in his speech, superior ingenuity. Emmet was more eloquent, but less artful; more impassioned, but less logical. There was sincerity in every word he uttered, and patriotism appeared to predominate in every measure he recommended, whilst humanity breathed throughout his discourse. But Malachy addressed himself directly to the passions, and so intimately blended religion with politics, that his auditors could scarcely suppress the operation of their feelings, and when he concluded, an involuntary burst of applause followed.

‘Denis, who had listened with the utmost attention to both speakers, now took me by the hand, and led me into the throng. Malachy cast his eye upon me, and instantly exclaimed, ‘A Spy!’

‘A Spy!’ was re-echoed by a hundred voices, and in a moment the deferential horror of all present caused a circle to be formed around me, every man being eager to get as far as possible from what he considered the contagion of my presence.