Chapter II: Part 2

"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.

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."