Chapter IV: Part 4

Of this I speak with the confidence of intimate knowledge, and with the consolation that appertaining to that confidence. Think not, my Lords, I say this for the petty gratification of giving you a transitosy 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, nor 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 Lordships, whose situation I commiserate rather than envy—my expressions were for my countrymen—if there is a true Irishmen present, let my last words cheer him in the hour of 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, his opinion 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 your 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 proposed ignominy of the scaffold—but worse to me than the proposed 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 upon my body, also condemn my tongue to silence, and my reputation to reproach? Your executioner may abridge the period of my existence, but whilst I exist I shall not forbear to vindicate my character and my 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 honour 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 actuated by the purest motive—my country’s oppressors, or——

[_Here he was again 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, of an undeserved reproach thrown upon him during the 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 Lord, that form prescribes that you should ask the question—the form also implies 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 your jury was empanelled. Your Lordships are but the priests of the Oracle, and I submit—but 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 contradictions? 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 for a change of masters? No, but for ambition! O, 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 among the proudest of my country’s oppressors? My country was my idol; to it I sacrificed every selfish—every endearing sentiment—and for it I now offer up my life. O, God! No! my Lord; 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, for the ignominy of 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 they to assume any authority inconsistent with the purest independence, it would be the signal for their destruction; we sought 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 would meet them on 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, and 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 before them, and the last entrenchment of liberty should be my grave. What I could not do myself, if I should fall, I would 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; who would preserve the good, and polish the rough points of our character; they would come to us as strangers and leave us as friends, after sharing our perils and elevating our destiny. These were my objects—not to receive new taskmakers, but to expel old tyrants; these were my views, and these only became Irishmen. 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 efforts to emancipate my country, as to be considered the keystone 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, before the splendour of whose genius and virtues I should bow with respectful deference, and who would think themselves dishonoured to be called your friend, and who would not disgrace themselves by shaking your blood-stained hand.

[_Here he was again interrupted._]

“What, my Lord! shall you tell me, on the passage to that 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 shall 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, who, if it were possible to collect all the innocent blood that you have caused to be shed, in your unhallowed ministry, into 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 dishonour; let no man attaint my memory, by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but of my country’s liberty and independence, or that I became the pliant minion of power, in the oppression or the miseries of my countrymen. The proclamation of the Provisional Government speaks for our views; no inference can be tortured from it to countenance barbarity or debasment 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 present domestic oppressor. In the dignity of freedom, I would have fought on the threshold of my country, and its enemy should only enter 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 or repel it? No, God forbid!

[_Here Lord Norbury told Mr. Emmet that his sentiments and language
disgraced his family and education, but more particularly his father,
Dr. Emmet, who was a man, if alive, that would not countenance such
opinions._]

“If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and cares of those who are dear to them in this transitory life—O 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 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 that surround your victim; it circulates warmly and unruffled through the channels which God created for nobler purposes, but which you are bent to destroy, for purposes so grievous, that they cry to Heaven. Be ye patient! I have but a few words more 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 repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, 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.

ACCOUNT OF THE LATE
PLAN OF INSURRECTION IN DUBLIN,
AND THE CAUSE OF ITS FAILURE.[7]

The plan was comprised under three heads—_points of attack_, _points of check_, and _lines of defence_.

The points of attack were three:—The Pigeon House, the Castle, and the Artillery Barracks at Island Bridge.

The attack was to begin with the Pigeon House, number of men 200. The place of assembly, the Strand, between Irishtown and Sandymount. The time, low water. The men to divide into two bodies: one to cross by a sand bank, between the Pigeon House and Light House, where they were to mount the wall; the other to cross at Devonshire Wharf; both parties to detach three men with blunderbusses, and three with jointed pikes, concealed, who were to seize the sentries and gates for the rest to rush in. Another plan was formed for high water, by means of pleasure, or fishing boats, going out in the morning, one by one, and returning in the evening to the dock at the Pigeon House, where they were to land. A rocket from this was to be the signal for the other two, viz.:

The Castle, the number of men 200. The place of assembly, Patrick-street depot. A house in Ship-street was expected, also one near the gate. A hundred men to be armed with jointed pikes and blunderbusses, the rest to support them, and march openly with long pikes. To begin by the entrance of two job coaches, hackney coachmen, two footmen, and six persons, inside, to drive in at the upper gate into the yard, come out of the coaches, turn back and seize the guard, (or instead of one of the job coaches, a sedan going in at the same time, with two footmen, two chairmen, and one inside;) at the same moment a person was, in case of failure, to knock at Lamprey’s door, seize it and let in others, to come down by a scaling ladder from a window on the top of the guard-house, while attacks were made at a public house in Ship-street, which has three windows commanding the guard-house, a gate in Stephen-street, another at the Aungier-Street, end of Great George’s-street, leading to the ordnance, another at the new houses in George’s-street, leading to the riding yard, and another over a piece of a brick wall near the Palace-street gate. Scaling ladders for all these. Fire balls, if necessary, for the guard-house of the upper gate. The Lord Lieutenant and principal officers of government, together with the bulk of artillery, to be sent off under an escort to the commander in Wicklow, in case of being obliged to retreat. I forgot to mention that the same was to be done with as much of the Pigeon House stores as could be. Another party with some artillery to come into town along the quays, and take post at Carlisle Bridge, to act according to circumstances.

Island Bridge, 400 men. Place of assembly, Quarry-hole opposite, and Burying ground.—Eight men with pistols and one with a blunderbuss, to seize the sentry walking outside, seize the gates, some to rush in, seize the cannon opposite the gate, the rest to mount on all sides by scaling ladders; on seizing this to send two cannon over the bridge facing the barrack-road. Another detachment to bring cannon down James’s-street, another towards Rathfarnham as before. To each of the flank points, when carried, reinforcements to be sent, with horses, &c. to transport the artillery. Island Bridge only to be maintained; a false attack also thought of, after the others had been made on the rear of the barracks, and if necessary, to burn the hay stores in the rear.

Three rockets to be the signal that the attack on any part was made, and afterwards a rocket of stars in case of victory, a silent one of repulse.

Another point of attack not mentioned: Cork-street Barracks; if the officer could surprise it, and set fire to it; if not, to take post in the house (I think in Earl-street, the street at the end of Cork-street, leading to Newmarket, looking down the street with musquetry, two bodies of pikemen in Earl-street,) to the right and left of Cork-street, and concealed from troops marching in that street. Another in, I think, Marrowbone-lane, to take them in rear. Place of assembly, fields adjacent, or Fenton fields.

POINTS OF CHECK.—The old Custom-house, 300 men, the gate to be shut or stopped with a load of straw, to be previously in the street.—The other small gate to be commanded by musquetry, and the bulk of the 300 men to be distributed in Parliament-street, Crane-lane, and those streets falling into Essex-street, in order to attach them if they forced out. The jointed pikes and blunderbusses lying under great coats, rendered all these surprises unsuspected; fire balls, if necessary, and a beam of rockets.

An idea also was, if money had been got, to purchase Rafferty’s cheese shop, opposite to it, to make a depot and assembly; and to mine under and blow up a part of the Custom-house, and attack them in confusion, as also the Castle. The miners would have been got also to mine from a cellar into some of the streets through which the army from the barracks must march.

The assembly was at the Coal-quay.

Mary-street barracks, sixty men. A housepainter’s house, and one equally removed on the opposite side, (No. 36, I believe,) whose fire commands the iron gate of the barracks without being exposed to the fire from it, to be occupied by twenty-four blunderbusses; the remainder, pikemen, to remain near Cole’s-lane or to be ready in case of rushing out to attack them. Assembly, Cole’s-lane market, or else detached from Custom-house body.

The corner house of Capel-street, (it was Killy Kelley’s,) commanding in Ormond-quay, and Dixon, the shoemaker’s (or the house beyond it,) which open suddenly on the flank of the army, without being exposed to their fire, to be occupied by blunderbusses. Assembly detached from Custom-house body.

LINES OF DEFENCE.—Beresford-street has six issues from Church-street, viz: Coleraine-street, King-street, Stirrup-lane, Mary’s-lane, Pill-lane, and the Quay. These to be chained in the first instance by a body of chainmen; double chains and padlocks were deposited, and the sills of the doors marked. The blockade to be afterwards filled up; that on the Quay by bringing up the coaches from the strand, and oversetting them, together with the butchers’ blocks from Ormond-market. The houses over the chains to be occupied with hand grenades, pistols and stones. Pikemen to parade in Beresford-street, to attack instantly any person that might penetrate; the number 200. Assembly, Smithfield depot, where were 800 pikes for reinforcements. The object was to force the troops to march towards the Castle, by the other side of the water, where the bulk of the preparations and men to receive them were.

Merchant’s Quay. In case the army, after passing the Old Bridge, marched that way, Wogan’s house and a Birmingham warehouse next to it to be occupied with musquetry, grenades, and stones; also, the leather crane at the other end of the Quay; a beam to be before the crane, lying across the Quay, to be fired at the approach of the enemy’s column. A body of pikemen in Winetavern-street, instantly to rush on them in front; another body in Cook-street to do the same, five lanes opening on their flank, and by Bride-street in their rear. Another beam in Bridge-street, in case of taking that route, and then the Cook-street body to rush out instantly in front; a beam in Dirty-lane; main body of pikemen in Thomas-street to rush on them instantly on firing the beam. The body on the Quay to attack on rear; in case of repulse, Catherine’s Church, Market house, and two houses adjacent, that command that street, occupied with musquetry. Two rocket batteries near the Market house, a beam before it, body of pikemen in Swift’s-alley, and that range, to rush on their flank, after the beam was fired through Thomas-court, Vicar-street, and three other issues; the corner houses of these issues to be occupied by stones and grenades, the entire of the other side of the street to be occupied with stones, &c. the flank of this side to be protected by a chain at James’s-gate, and Guiness’s drays, &c. the rear of it to be protected from Cook-street, in case the officer there failed, by chains across Rainsford-street, Crilly’s-Yard, Meath-street, Ash-street, and Francis-street. The Quay body to co-operate by the issues before mentioned, (at the other side,) the chains of which would be opened by us immediately. In case of further repulse, the houses at the corner of Cutpurse-row, commanding the lanes at each side of the Market-house, the two houses in High-street, commanding that open, and the corner houses of Castle-street, commanding Skinner-row, (now Christ Church-place) to be successively occupied. In case of a final retreat, the routes to be three: Cork-street, to Templeogue, New-street, Rathfarnham, and Camden-street department. The bridges of the Liffey to be covered six feet deep with boards full of long nails bound down by two iron bars, with spikes eighteen inches long, driven through them into the pavement to stop a column of cavalry, or even infantry.

The whole of this plan was given up by me for the want of means, except the Castle and lines of defence, for I expected 300 Wexford men, 400 Kildare men, and 200 Wicklow, all of whom had fought before, to begin the surprises at this side of the water, and by the preparations for defence, so as to give time for the town to assemble. The county of Dublin was also to act at the instant it began—the number of Dublin people acquainted with it I understood to be 4 or 5,000. I expected 2,000 to assemble at Costigan’s Mills, the grand place of assembly. The evening before, the Wicklow men failed, through their officer. The Kildare men who were to act, (particularly with me,) came in, and at five o’clock went off again from the Canal-harbour, on a report that Dublin would not act. In Dublin itself, it was given out by some treacherous or cowardly person, that it was postponed till Wednesday. The time of assembly was from six till nine, instead of 2,000, there was eighty men assembled, when we came to the Market-house they were diminished to eighteen or twenty. The Wexford men did assemble, I believe, to the amount promised, on the Coal-quay; but 300 men, though they might be sufficient to begin on a sudden, were not so, when government had five hours’ notice by express from Kildare.

Added to this, the preparations were, from an unfortunate series of disappointments in money, unfinished, and scarcely any blunderbusses bought up.

The man who was to turn the fuzes and rammers for the beams forgot them, and went off to Kildare to bring men, and did not return till the very day. The consequence was, that all the beams were not loaded, nor mounted with wheels, nor the train-bags, of course, fastened on to explode them.

From the explosion in Patrick-street, I lost the jointed pikes which were deposited there, and the day of action was fixed on before this, and could not be changed.

I had no means of making up for their loss but by the hollow beams full of pikes, which struck me three or four days before the 23d. From the delays in getting the materials, they were not able to set about them till the day before; the whole of that day and the next, which ought to have been spent in arrangements, was obliged to be employed in work. Even this, from the confusion occasioned by men crowding into the depot from the country, was almost impossible.

The person who had the management of the depot mixed, by accident, the slow matches that was prepared, with what was not, and all our labour went for nothing.

The fuzes for the grenades he had also laid by where he forgot them, and could not find them in the crowd.

The cramp irons could not be got in time from the smiths, to whom we could not communicate the necessity of despatch; and the scaling ladders were not finished (but one.) Money came in at five o’clock, and the trusty men of the depot, who alone knew the town, were obliged to be sent out to buy up blunderbusses, for the people refused to act without some. To change the day was impossible, for I expected the counties to act, and feared to lose the advantage of surprise. The Kildare men were coming in for three days; and after that it was impossible to draw back. Had I another week; had I one thousand pounds; had I one thousand men, I would have feared nothing. There was redundancy enough in any one part to have made up, if complete, for deficiency in the rest; but there was failure in all—plan, preparation, and men.

I would have given it the respectability of insurrection, but I did not uselessly wish to spill blood: I gave no signal for the rest, and they all escaped.

I arrived time enough in the country to prevent that part of it which had already gone out with one of my men, to disarm the neighbourhood from proceeding. I found that by a mistake of the messenger, Wicklow would not rise that night—I sent off to prevent it from doing so the next, as it intended. It offered to rise even after the defeat, if I wished it, but I refused. Had it risen, Wexford would have done the same. It began to assemble, but its leader kept it back till he knew the fate of Dublin. In the state Kildare was in, it would have done the same. I was repeatedly solicited by some of those who were with me to do so, but I constantly refused. The more remote counties did not rise, for want of money to send them the signal agreed on.

I know how men without candour will pronounce on this failure, without knowing one of the circumstances that occasioned it. They will consider only that they predicted it; whether its failure was caused by chance, or by any of the grounds on which they made their prediction, they will not care—they will make no distinction between a prediction fulfilled and justified—they will make no compromise of errors—they will not recollect that they predicted also that no system could be formed—that no secrecy nor confidence could be restored—that no preparations could be made—that no plan could be arranged—that no day could be fixed, without being instantly known at the Castle; that government only waited to let the conspiracy ripen, and crush it at their pleasure; and that on these grounds only did they predict it miscarriage. The very same men that after success would have flattered, will now calumniate. The very same men, that would have made an offering of unlimited sagacity at the shrine of victory, will not now be content to take back that portion that belongs of right to themselves, but would violate the sanctuary of misfortune, and strip her of that covering that candour would have left her.

R. E.

The following facts have come to our knowledge, too late to be inserted in their proper place. But we deemed them too interesting to be altogether omitted. Indeed, every incident of his short, but virtuous life, however slight, cannot fail to impart some degree of at least a melancholy pleasure to every generous and patriotic bosom.

“One day, previous to his trial, as the governor was going his rounds, he entered Emmet’s room rather abruptly, and observing a remarkable expression in his countenance, he apologised for the interruption. He had a fork affixed to his little deal table, and appended to it there was a tress of hair. ‘You see,’ said he to his keeper, ‘how innocently I have been occupied: this little tress has been long dear to me, and I am plaiting it to wear in my bosom on the day of my execution.’ On the day of that fatal event, there was found, sketched by his own hand with a pen and ink, upon that very table, an admirable likeness of himself, the head severed from the body which lay near it, surrounded by the scaffold, the axe and all the paraphernalia of a high treason execution. What a strange union of tenderness, enthusiasm and fortitude, do not the above traits of character exhibit! His fortitude indeed, never forsook him; on the night previous to his death, he slept as soundly as ever, and when the fatal morning dawned, he arose, knelt down and prayed, ordered some milk, which he drank, wrote two letters, (one to his brother in America, and the other to the secretary of state, inclosing it,) and then desired the sheriffs to be informed that he was ready. When they came to his room, he said he had two requests to make: one, that his arms might be left as loose as possible, which was humanely acceded to. “I make the other,” said he, “not under any idea that it can be granted, but that it may be held in remembrance that I have made it, it is, that I may be permitted to die in my green uniform.” This, of course, was not allowed him—and the request seemed to have no other object than to show that he gloried in the cause for which he was to suffer. A remarkable example of his power, both over himself and others, occurred at this melancholy moment. He was passing out, attended by the sheriffs and preceded by the executioner; in one of the passages stood the turnkey who had been personally assigned to him during his imprisonment: this poor fellow loved him in his heart, and the tears were streaming from his eyes in torrents. Emmet paused for a moment; his hands were not at liberty—he kissed his cheek—and the man who had been for years the attendant of a dungeon, habituated to scenes of horror, and hardened against their operation, fell senseless at his feet. Before his eyes had opened again upon this world, those of the youthful sufferer had closed forever!”

THE END.

-----

Footnote 1:

AGRICULTURE.—‘The mother and nurse of a military population, Ireland
has been forced into this. It was thought that she had sunk under the
arbitrary tyranny of British monopoly. Let the proud Briton regale
himself in the wholesome air of mines and workshops, and become
ossified in the strengthening attitudes of monotonous labour; while
the degraded Irishman draws health and number, and fierceness and
force, and becomes too nimble to be caught by his crippled owner, who
hobbles after and threatens with his crutch.’

Footnote 2:

A contemptuous name for Yeomen.

Footnote 3:

It is said that the North Cork Regiment were the inventors—but they
certainly were the intruders of pitchcap torture into the county of
Wexford. Any person having their hair cut short, (and therefore called
a Croppy, by which appellation the soldiery designated a United
Irishman) on being pointed out by some loyal neighbour, was
immediately seized and brought into a guard-house, where caps either
of coarse linen, or strong brown paper, besmeared inside with pitch,
were kept always ready for service. The unfortunate victim had one of
these, well heated, compressed on his head: and when judged of a
proper degree of coolness, so that it could not easily be pulled off,
the sufferer was turned out amidst the horrid acclamations of the
merciless torturers, and to the view of vast numbers of people, who
generally crowded to the guard-house door, attracted by the afflicting
cries of the tormented.

Footnote 4:

Hay’s History of the Insurrection in Wexford.

Footnote 5:

The rebel outlaws, who took up their abodes in the mountains and
fastnesses of Wexford and Wicklow, after 1798, ludicrously called
themselves “The Babes of the Wood.”

Footnote 6:

That paper was as follows:

“It may appear strange, that a person avowing himself to be an enemy
of the present Government, and engaged in a conspiracy for its
overthrow, should presume to suggest an opinion to that Government on
any part of its conduct, or could hope that advice coming from such
authority, might be received with attention. The writer of this,
however, does not mean to offer an opinion on any point, on which he
must of necessity, feel differently from any of those whom he
addresses, and on which therefore his conduct might be doubted. His
intention is to confine himself entirely to those points on which,
however widely he may differ from them in others, he has no hesitation
in declaring, that, as a man, he feels the same interest with the
merciful part, and as an Irishman, with at least the English part of
the present administration: and at the same time to communicate to
them in the most precise terms, that line of conduct which he may
hereafter be compelled to adopt, and which, however painful it must,
under any circumstances be, would become doubly so if he was not
conscious of having tried to avoid it by the most distinct
notification. On the two first of these points, it is not the
intention of the undersigned, for the reason he has already mentioned,
to do more than state, what government itself must acknowledge—that of
the present conspiracy it knows (comparatively speaking) nothing. That
instead of creating terror in its enemies, or confidence in its
friends, it will only serve by the scantiness of its information, to
furnish additional grounds of invective to those who are but too ready
to censure it for a want of intelligence, which no sagacity could have
enabled them to obtain. That if it is not able to terrify by a display
of its discoveries, it cannot hope to crush by the weight of its
punishments. Is it only now we are to learn, that entering into
conspiracy exposes us to be hanged?—Are the scattered instances which
will now be brought forward necessary to exemplify the statute? If the
numerous and striking examples which have already preceded, were
insufficient,—if government can neither by novelty of punishment, nor
the multitude of its victims, impress us with terror, can it hope to
injure the body of a conspiracy so impenetrably woven as the present,
by cutting off a few threads from the end of it.

“That with respect to the second point, no system however it may
change the nature, can affect the period of the contest that is to
take place; as to which the exertions of United Irishmen will be
guided only by their own opinion of the eligibility of the moment for
effecting the emancipation of their country.

“That administration....”

The following paper was found in the depot, in Emmet’s hand-writing:—

“I have little time to look at the thousand difficulties which still
lie between me and the completion of my wishes that those difficulties
will likewise disappear I have ardent, and I trust, rational hopes;
but if it is not to be the case, I thank God for having gifted me with
a sanguine disposition. To that disposition I run from reflection, and
if my hopes are without foundation—if a precipice is opening under my
feet, from which duty will not suffer me to run back, I am grateful
for that sanguine disposition, which leads me to the brink and throws
me down, while my eyes are still raised to visions of happiness, that
my fancy formed in the air.”

Footnote 7:

Annexed to the copy from which the above has been transcribed, is the
following memorandum, in the hand-writing of a gentleman who held a
confidential situation under the Irish government.—“The original of
this paper was delivered on the morning just before he was brought out
to execution, in order to be forwarded to his brother, Thomas Addis
Emmet, at Paris.”

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 3. Re-indexed footnotes using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter. 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 5. Enclosed blackletter font in =equals=.