Year: 1859

We have Just been reading the concluding


norton of the Life of Robert Emmett, recent
" published in that sound Douglas journal,
the Irish News, edited by the hero and patriot
Thos. Francis Meagher one Of Irelands 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 ofhiJ heroic schemes for the lib
critics of Ireland and compressed the gradeur
and glory of his brief but ever memorable
career lie asked for no mercy at the hands
ofhis oppressors Prosecuted by an ungrateful
son of Ireland, 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 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 the histo-
ry of the earth, burst of more transcend
ant eloquence was never uttered by the lips
of mortal man. 1t was Supramortal 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 spoke,
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 "to 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 blanching check. 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 sacredness with which
his dying command has been observed.


Thus did Emmett die, and where is the
Irshman 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 be 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 a 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 schemeing and insidious party. No son
of Ireland at least should be there, for the
Federalism of James Buchanan is but a mod
ifcation or initial Of that same spirit which
sacrificed an Emmett upon the altar of the
bloody Moloch of Despotism