The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1865-08-11
the freshman IN AMERICA.
The Relationship Of the Irish Inn
migrant to the United States.
AN ADDRESS

IT
Before the Irish immigration So.
ciety Of st. Paul, Wednesday
Evening, August ID.
There was large audience at Inger-
soils ball last evening to listen to an ad-
dress by Major General THOMAS FRANCIS
MKAGHRR. ....-
Rev. JOHN r ICELAND, preliminary to
an introduction of the distinguished ora
tor, read a dispatch from the Secretary of
the President Of toe United States, ten
dering to Gen. NEAeHKR the Secretary
ship of the Territory of Montana, and
stated that Gen. MEAeHER had accepted
the appointment with view Of being a
help to his countrymeR who should emil
CRATE to that Territory. Mr.. ICELAND
then paid graceful compliment to the
culture, elosuence, and patriotism of Gen.
MxAeHKR, and concluded by introducing
him to the audience. Gen. AKAsHzR, on
rising was received with much applause,
(Which was frequently renewed during the
address), and spoke as follows:
Ladies' and Gentlemen:
There was one scene witnessed in the morn.
ing of my boyhood which left upon my MEM
ory an impression that can never be efaced.
That scene was the departure of an emigrant
ship from the quay of my native city of Water
ord. 1t was tranquil evening in the month
of June. The broad river SUR flowed past the
aged city with gentle grandeur, and in the soft
light of the declining day seemed as if it
throbbed heavily In sympathy with the sor-
rows, the memories, and the hopes, it was
about to bear away upon its bosom to distant
shore The city itself, with its eight centuries
of troubled life chronicle in weeds and moul-
dering characters upon its walls, ever wearing
a careworn and clouded look, had, it appeared
to me, q lonelier and gloomier aspect than
usual, the hills that faced it throwing deeper
shadow over it than Mount Misery and CrOm.
wells Rock appeared to me to do at any time
before Now and then the stroke of bell, beat
ing through the dull air from some church or
workshop, and closing sOlemnly the labors and
vexations of the day, vocalized the scene with
its mournful vibrations, and made it sadder
still On the deck of the ship were hundreds
of men, women and children-the sons and
daughters of Innisfail-sOrrOw-s stricken, and
yet hoperul and heroic fugitives from the
island that gave them birth. Sorrow-stricken,
for an memorable decree, of which poverty, in
justice. the tyrannies of an agrarian absolutism
were the ministers, compelled them to surren-
der the land of their love and pride, the hal
lowed earth in which their fathers and
other dear ones slept with the silent
angels OF the grave, the ruined nation
to which their treasured traditions, their i'm
memorial songs, their inherited wrongs and
mseries, their darkest memories of persecution,
lost battles for freedom, and the martyrdOm of
their chiefs, with an intense devotion bound
them. Hopeful, though sOrrOw-stricken, for
the summer sun, burning in its varied splendor
on the Western horizon. had often told them
that the glory, departing from them, was light
ing up, away beyond those wastes of interven.
ing ocean, land OF promise, in which, under
the government of free and all-powerful PEG.
pie, their broken fortunes would be repaired
and the happiness and honor, the protection,
encouragement and liberty, denied them at
home, would, to the fullest measure of their
industry, be secured them for life. Heroic, as
well as hopeful, were those wounded hearts.
For the strong resolve to conquer, in new
field, the dark fate that overwhelmed them in
the old, had the mastery Of the hour, and the
tears that would otherwise have been black as
the rain of the blacklist winter night, sparkled
with the thoughts and visions which the assur.
ances of victory in America inspired. Young
as was, l deeply shared in the prevailing
mournfulness of the scene; for, young as
was, had heard enough of the cruelty that
had, for years and years, been done to Ireland,
to know that her people were leaving her, not
from choice, but from compulsion and that it
was not the sterility of her soil, or any other
unfavorable dispensation of nature. but the
malignant hostility of laws and practices,
devised and enforced for the politi-
cal subjugation of the country, which
compelled them to leave. A stranger
witnessing the scene, unless he had been in
siructed in the more recent history of the
country, would have surveyed it with perplexi-
ty. as though an inscrutable enigma had been
submitted to his consideration. 1t is an enig-
ma which still puzzles that vast portion of the
world. which, deriving its ideas of Ireland and
her people from the lips and pens of the pub
lie men, the scrbes and pharisees of England,
finds 1t impossible to reconcile upon rational
grounds the contradiction which an immense
immigration from country, so susceptible of
culture and so bounteously productive as Ire
land is, strikingly involves. To escape the
judgement with which an enlightened and up
right opinion would everywhere visit her.
should the true cause of such an anomaly stand
confessed, it has been the steadfast labor of
England to ascribe the wretchedness of the r.
ish people generally on ineradicable Incidence,
and their flight in multitudes to this country
as the result of an unhealthy restlessness and a
rowing disposition. 1t Is not necessary for me
to contradict this assertion which utterly false
as it is, proceeds from wicked disposition to
calumniate, and pursue with disabilities, race
that with its inyincable heart eternally protests
against the government that has beggared it,
and which in its success and popularity abroad
furnishes an emphatic refutation to the SLAM
ders of its hereditary enemies. That the in
evitable necessity of the Irish race has been
for some time past, is at present. and
will continue for some time longer, to over
flow in the emigration to the new world, must
De admitted even by those whose pride of pat
fiotsm revolts at the necessity. That it would
nave been defeated had the grand project Of
Wolfe Tone succeeded, or Robert Emmett
gained the mastery of his executiouers, or the
eAuitant hopes of 1S4S been realized, cannot
put oe acknowledged, even by those who in
tneiI gross passion for imperial agrandize-
ment ana power have made the prostitution of
I.eiand Inc aim of their malicious statesman
snip. for my part, l feel convinced, that had
Ireland, at one or other of the memorable
epochs to which alluCe come ont v;ctorions