The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-03-05

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 a collect1ves universe who was engaged in the most virtuous actions, or swayed | by the purest motive-my country's | oppressors, or
 Here he was interrupted, and told 1 to listen to the sentence of the laW.) 1 My lords, will dying man be denied
 the legal privilege of exculpating him. | self in the eyes of the community from
 an undeserved reproach, thrown upon hi mduring his trial, by charging him
 with ambition, and attempting to cast 1: 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 pro-
 nounced at the Castle before the jury
 but the priests of the oracle, and I
 insist on the whole of the forms. am charged with being an emissary | of France. An emissary of France!
 and for what end? It is alleged that
 I wish 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; l I am no emdssary; and my ambition was to hold a place among the deliv-
 erers of my country, not in power nor | in profit, but in the glory of the
 achievement. Sell my country's inde-
 pendence to France! and for what? Was it a change of masters? No, but
 for ambition. Oh, my country! was it
 personal ambition that could influence
 me? Had it been the soul of my ac- | Yon hxy Yooy
 and fortune, by the rank and consider
 ation of my family, have placed myself | amongst the prOudeSt of your oppres-
 sors? My country was my idol! To 1t
 I sacrificed every selfish, every endear-
 ing sentiment; and for it I now offer
 acted as an Irishman, determined on l delivering my country from the yoke
 of a foreign and unrelenting tyranny. and the more galling yoke of do-
 mestic faction, which is its joint part
 ner and perpetrator in the patricide,
 from the ignoniny existing with an
 exterior of splendor and conscious
 depravity. It was the wish of my
 heart to extricate my country from
 this doub1y riveted despotfsm-I wish
 ed to place her independence beyond
 the reach of any power on earth. l
 wished to exalt her to that proud sta ! tion in the world. Connection with
 France was, indeed, intended, but only | as far as mutual interest would sane tion or require. Were the French to assume any authority inconsistent with 1 the purest independence, it would be the signal for their destruction. We sought their aid-and we sought 1t as | we had assurance we should obtain it-as auxiliaries in war, and allies in i peace. Were the FrHch to come as | invaders or enemies, uninvited by the wishes of the people, I should oppose i 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 torch in the other. I would meet them with all | the destructive fury of war. I would
 animate my countrymen to immolate l them in their boats, before they had
 contaminated the soil of my country. | If they succeeded in landing, and if i forced to retire before superior disci
 pline, 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 last charge. to my countrymen to
 accomplish; because I should feel con-
 scious that life, any more than death,
 is unprofitable when a foreign nation | holds my country in subjection. But | it was not as ali enemy that the suc-
 COTS of France were to land. I looked, 1 indeed, for the assistance of France; put l W1Sn6Q (O pTOVG tO IdHCG dlu | to the world that Irishmen deserved to
 be assisted; that they were indignant
 at slavery, and ready to assert the in- | dependence and liberty of their coun-
 try. I wished to procure for my coun-
 try the guarantee which Washington procured for America; to procure an
 aid which. by its example, would be as important as it's valor; disciplined, ! gallant, pregnant with science and ex- i perience; that of 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 task masters, 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.
 (Iere he was interrupted by the courD
 I have been charged with that inn portance in the emancipation of my country as to be considered the key stone of the combination of Irishmen; or as your lordship expressed it, ''the | life and blood of the conspiracy" You do me honor overmuch: you have giv- en to the subaltern all the credit of a superior There are men engaged in
 
 perior to me, but even to your own conceptions of yourself, my lord-men before the splendor of whose genius and virtues should bow with respect full difference, and who would think themselves disgraced by shaking your blood stained hand.
 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 been and will be shed in this struggle of the op- pressed against the oppressor-shall you tell me this, and must I be so very a slave as not to repel it? I do f not fear to approach the Omnipotent Judge to answer for the conduct of my whole life; and am to be appalled, and falSified by a mere remnant of mortality here? By you, too, although if it were possible to collect all the in- nocent blood that you have shed in your unhallowed ministry on one great reservoir, your lordship might swim in it.
 (Here the judge interrupted)
 Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dshonor: 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 minfon of power, in the oppression and misery of my country. The proclamation of the pro- visionaI government speaks for our views; no inference can be tortured from it to countenance barbarity or de-