The Sun.
London, England, 1846-09-21 00:00:00

PUBLIC DINNER IN CORK TO
M-M SERGEANT MURPHY.

On Thursday evening the friends and admirers of Mr.
Sergeant Murphy entertained him at a magnificent din-
ner at the Imperial Hotel, with a view to testify their
esteem and admiration of the high a!tilities of the Hon.
and Learned Gentleman, as also to mark their strong
approbation of the admirable and efficient manner in
which he had, during the period of his representation of
the city of Cork, conducted the mercantile and other
important interests committed to his trust. All ranks,
all classes, all creeds, all parties :yore represented ; and
mingled together in unity and harmony were to be seen
the ultra Tory, the uncompromising rope filer, the honest
Whig, and the unflinching Radical ; no petty difference
existed ; no narrow distinction was suffered to inter-
pose. At seven o'clock precisely the company sit down
to dinner. Francis B. Beamish, Esq , presided. The
vice-presidents ere—Andrew Soearine, J.P., Thomas
IL Hewitt, John R. Burke, and Julius Besnard.
Among the letters of apology was 'lee frem Lard Jobn
Manners, now travelling in the south of Ireland.
After the, usual loyal toasts had been duly honoured,
The CHAIRMAN rose and, after some prefatory ob-
servations, said—Gentlemen, we are here not as a political
party.—([lear.) It is to me highly gratifying to find so
many of my fellow-citizens, entertaining as they do, ho-
nestly and sincerely, their different political and religious
opinions, assembled in this room to pay a well-merited
compliment to a distinguished fellow citizen. He came
amongst us here not as a political man; he has been one,
and, whilst so, no one doubts that he acted the character
of an upright man.—(Hear, hear.) It may be permitted
to me to state that I had the high gratification of pro-
posing our distinguished guest as a representative for
his native city in the year 1841, and whilst I did so. I
I proposed him because I felt a confidence in the man ;
and though parties supposed, in consequence of his hav-
ing passed a great many years on the other side of the
channel, that the national feeling which ought to belong
to an Irishman was altogether lost sight of, the result
proved that my anticipations were correct, that my ex-
pectations were fulfilled.—(llear. hear.) Gentlemen, he
was returned for your city, he filled the position of re
presentative for four years.—(hear, hear.) I will not
allude to any political matters ; he has ceased to be your
representative, but during the period that he filled that
position I will venture to say there is no man in the
community who will assert that he was an inefficient
member—((lear, hear)—and whilst he supported the
political views which he professed at his elevation, he
never lost sight of the pheition he filled when once ele-
vated—that he was one of the representatives of the city
of Cork, and that his duty was to attend to the wants
and interests of a commercial community, without refer-
ence to party politics.—(Hear, hear.) Gentlemen, his
voice, as a party man, of course he gave with the party
whom he supported ; but in his duty as a repre-
sentative he never lost sight of the interests of those
whom he was bound to protect—the great commer-
cial body of your city.—(Hear, hear.) Gentlemen, we
never ought to forget the services of such a man, and I
cannot help believing, for I am rather railway inclined,
that there is a feeling abroad at present that such a re-
presentative, distinct from mere party politics, would be
looked to by the united voice of the people of Corki and
that we should not be upbraided with the taunt that,
because a representative voted for this party or that, we
deprived him of his position; but when we find a man of
real and substantial merit, he should be continued in
that capacity; and that we yet may hope to see Sergeant
Murphy filling the proud position he once occupied.
—(Phis anticipation was responded to, with enthusiasm
which no words can express, every gentleman present
exerting his voice to the best of his ability to testify his
approval of the chairman's aspiration.) Gentlemen, I
will now give you " our distinguished townsman, Fran-
cis Stack Murphy—we feel proud of his talents and suc-
cess—we are grateful for his services while representing
our commercial community, and we hail his arrival in
Cork as affording an opportunity of tendering to him our
acknowledgments and certifying our respect and es-
teem."—(This toast was received with expressions of the
most ardent and unanimous enthusiasm, each one pre-
sent disregarding the narrow prejudices of party poli-
tics, and the petty trammels of sectarian feeling, and
vieing to do honour to the distinguished object of their
attention in the most emphatic and gratifying manner.
It was truly such an occasion as has been seldom, per-
haps never, witnessed, and which will not be readily ob-
literated from the memory of those who had the pleasure
of participating in its proceedings.)
Air, " Doth not a meeting like this make amends."—
(The appropriateness of this air elicited the laughter of
the company.)
Mr. Sergeant MURPHY then rose, and the acclamations
with which his name was received were renewed, and,
if possible, increased with tenfold vigour. The bursts of
cheering were loud, prolonged, and continuous; and for
at,least ten minutes there was no cessation of the enthu-
siastic demonstration of feeling that hailed the rising of
the Hon. and Learned Gentleman. 'When at length
order had been finally restored, Mr. Sergeant Murphy
proceeded to speak as follows:—Mr. Beamisil and Gen-
tlemen, it would indeed be affectation in me, accustomed
as I have been by the usages of the profession to which
I have the honour to blong, as well as the Parlia-
mentary position which, by your favour, I enjoyed, to
say for one moment that I should bring myself to plead
guilty, under ordinary circumstances, to any feeling of
embarrassment in addressing an ordinary assemblage.
But, sir, I do feel that I am under the influence of extra-

ordinary circumstances; and I do feel that this is an
extraordinary assembly. Gentlemen, it is my duty, as
it is also my inclination, on the present occasion to avoid
all topics that might for a moment interfere to interrupt
this, which I will denominate, a night dedicated to con-
cord and harmony, and as one selected for the purpose
of paying to me a distinguished compliment.—
(Hear, hear.) Such is my intention; but it would
be an ill return if I did not, as it were, in a sort of
common feeling with you all, recapitulate to you
the years that have passed since I had the honour to
know you; the feelings I entertained, the sensations
I experienced, and make you, in fact, part and
parcel of the elevation I have derived from your
flavour, and show you the impulses that agitated my
mind when I rendered you with eflriency my services.—
(Hear, hear.) Gentlemen, mine was a peculiar position.
My esteemed and excellent friend, our chairman has
alluded to it; and I will not disguise from you, for Ihope
it is no disgrace to an individual in my present position
to state that long, long antecedent to the period when
you honoured me with the, distinguished and ele7ated
position of your representative, these matters of ambition
bad crossed my youthful mind, with the belief—perhaps
an idle and dreamy one—that some day I would have
the honour of representing you; and, gentlemen, I am
now proud to feel that the realisation of that which then
seemed but a dream has ere now been accomplished.—
(Hear, hear, and cheers). I felt, gentlemen, when I had
selected another land for the pursuit of my professional
duties, I had in some measure estranged myself from the
circumstances that might lead to_such a distinguished
honour had I remained amongst you; but though I felt
so, I also felt that I had ties at home that bound me in-
separably to you; and that I could draw upon the un-
tarnished merits of others besides my own, paltry as they
were—(No, no)—as an earnest of the sincerity of one
who was otherwise unknown to you.—(Cheers.) I be-
lieved, as far as'l was concerned, I could appeal to asso-
ciates amongst you, without reference to politics or sects,
and I considered that however wayward my path I could
still trust to the pledge of trite hearts;; and I am
proud to say that I met and received that pledge in a
moment of, what I may term, ambitious presumption.—
("No, no," and cheers.) When I heard of the retirement
of my excellent and esteemed friend, our chairman, I
was attending to my professional duties on circuit, in
Liverpool, I immediately tendered my services.—( Hear.)
I felt the course I was about adopting would involve me
in deep and serious controversy ; hut I had the sanction
of my own feelings, which, however insufficient my
abil'ties, told me my heart was in the right place, and
also that my intentions were honest.—(L,tid cheers.) I
came amongst you, and I must confess I was received
with much more welcome and cordiality than I had an•
ticipated.—(Renewed cheers.) I was vouched for, and
my sincerity and rectitude guaranteed, not, I must say,
from my own merits, but by the integrity of those who
had lived long amongst you,_ and whose merits were

- -
known, I am proud to say, and also appreciated by you
—(Cheers)—and I went to represent your interests in
the Legislature with a deeper sense of obligation on me
than if I had been one long known and highly trusted by
reason of long and faithful services.—(Cheers.) I am
aware that with regard to your mercantile concerns I
was ignorant ; but I also knew that I had ever, by a
mere request, an overflowing fund of information in your
intelligence and cipability, and freely and generously it
wat tendered to me.—(Hear.) I have been spoken of
by excellent friend in relation to another state of cir-
cumstances in connexion with myself, that is with regard
to the position I hold elsewhere—in Ergland.—(Hear.)
As I said before, I knew it was a venturous thing to
leave my own country with a view to labour for the
acquirement of a station which I subsequently attained.
—( H
countryear, lft
hear.) Sitiri,mlprcesasnedoltyhoroughly and deeply say this, when I left
myl
impressed—(Hear, hear)—with the strong and warm
feeling that has ever actuated, and I hope ever
shall continue to actuate me, that I possessed a pride of
country—(Loud cheers,—and with me it was a leading
principle of my resolve' and determination never to dis-
grace by any possibility the country I was leaving for
another.—(Renewed and prolonged cheering.) Sir, I
believe I had to encounter strong prejudices—but, at the
same time, prejudices not incapable of being overcome.—
(Hear, hear.)- I felt, sir, that I had to come in contact
with persons less sensitive than my own countrymen ;
but yet I relied on my culrure here.—(Hear, hear.) I
believed that good breeding and good manners to the
ext(nt of a man's position were also favourable qualities.
—(hear, hear.) I believed that a fair and honest exhi-
bition of any ability was a quality which in that coun-
try (England) would not be overlooked if honestly ex-
ercised—(Hear, hear)—and, finally, I believed there
was there presented to me a guerdon of approbation and
reward for the perseverance and assiduity which I should
exercise.—(Hear, aroj cheers.) But if I hold a position
in that country—which indeed it would be affectation in
me to deny—(Hear, and cheering)—to what do I owe:it
but to the suffrages of my fellow-citiz-ns, which enabled
me to enter that arena, which is the only one, after all,
from which distinction can spring? Yes, to those suf
frages that placed me in the station which I occupied,
often ono of antagonism with men of great distinction,