Year: 1859

We have just been reading the concluding
portion of the Life Of Robert Emmett, recent
ly published in that sound Douglas journal,
the Irish News, edited by the hero and patriot
Thos. Francis Meagher, one oflrelands noblest
sons. The dying speech of Emet was the great
est act of his life. 1t was like the ocean to the
rivers of the earth, for in it he infused the
whole spirit of his heroic schemes for the Ito.
critics of Ireland and compressed the gradeur
and glory of his brief but ever memorable
career He asked for no mercy Mt the hands
OF his oppressors. Prosecuted by an ungrateful
son of Ireland, a former friend and protege
Of the Emmet family. whose duty it was
and whose pride it ought to have been to
have relinquished all part or lot in the case,
especially as the senior prosecutor had decin.
ed to make an argument; with the verdict
against him Of a packed jury and a forsworn
judge, who was already deeply stained with
the blood of better men, ready to pronounce
sentence of death against him, he stood, in


all the sublimity of youthful patriotism and


valor, and on the brink of the grave that


was opening to swallow him, proclaimed in


the teeth of the bloated judge and his COVER


ing crew, the principles of liberty by which


he had been actuated and for which he was


ready to lay down his life. In all tho h sto-
ry of the earth. burst of more transcend


ant eloquence was never uttered by the lips


of mortal man. 1t was supra mortal in its


effect, and the hitherto shameless judge upon


the bench shook in his seat as he heard it,
and his knees smote together as if he were
summoned to the presencs of one who Sroke,
from the hollow grave, judgement dread
and awful npon himself He dared, the
trembling wretch that he was, to command
the doomed man to be silent, but the impas-
stoned speaker, great above all surrounding
men that he spoke ito time and to eternity"
was not to be Silenced by the Shiny worm of
mortality befor him, and launched the light
nings of his eloquence at the head of the SER
vile tool of power until his brow grew ashen
pale and the blood refused to do its Office in
his quivering lip and banching cheek. Let
no man write his epitaph, said the immortal
patriot, until Ireland was free, and the name
less tomb stone in the churchyard where he
sleeps, well attest the socredness with which
his dying command has been observed.


Thus did Emmett die, and where is the
Irishman who does not honor his name The
same love of popular liberty that Emmet had
is that which inspires the friends of popular
rights in this peculiar Land of Freedom, and
recreant to the memory of Irelands defenders
would that son of Erin he who would lend
his voice or his vote in America to the put
ting down that same character of liberty for
which those defenders have vainly struggled
and perished on the foreign shore which gave
them birth. James Buchanan and his myr-
mydons are endeavoring to inauguerate a
system Of politics which is as certainly
stepping stone to such q Capitalization of
power as will result in crushing out of
popular liberty, as the sun now shines, and |
any true friend of the Rights of Man ought
to be ashamed to be found in the ranks of
that schemeng and insidious party. No son
of Ireland at least should he there, for the !
Federalism of James Buchanan is but mod |
ifcation or initial Of that same spirit which
sacrificed an Emmet upon the altar of the
bloody Moloch Of Despotism.