Year: 1867




boasts? We know you have enough of
manhood to fight for your country's free
dom, and will not insult your reason by be-
lieving that you will deny that the oppor-
tunity is now given you to prove yourselves
true. The sympathy OF the world is with
you; the cordial cooperation of all lovers OF
human liberty you may depend on the
great heart Of the American people beats in
unison with you then, brothers, be equal
to the responsibility; make one final, gl1ri-
GUS effort; let the fierce old Celtic spirit
within you animate you to join hearts and
hands In this the sublimest work of an exiled
people-the winning of liberty for your
fatherland.


But. remember to mingle prudence with
zeal. Keep your own counsel The enemy
must know OF your preparation only when
your grasp is fastened on his throat. Be
vigilans as we'll as active. Let the past ex-
perlence teach you how to prepare for the
future. But, above all, work work un-
ceasingly, untiringly, and with will.
Strengthen the hands of the Executive of
your organization, and we swear to you, by
our fathers graves, we will not desert or be-
tray you We are ready for the work if
We fail, it will be because you do not do your
part.


Brothers, the result of our past efforts,
as well as the hopes OF the future, justify US
upon calling upon you to make exertions
and sacrifices that will be worthy of the
cause IN which we are engaged. But be-
yond all this, there exists at the present
time necessity for prompt and determined
action on our part, which has never before
been presented to US. The safety of our
people at home is menaced; our kindred,
for whose elevation to freedom we have
hoped and prayed and struggled through so
many difficulties, are doomed to destruction
by the ruthless foe whose pride we have
humbled, whose power and prestige we
have shattered in the sight of the world, and
who threatens, in revenge, to stamp out"
our national existence, like loathsome
plague, by the determination of all who
represent the Irish race upon Irish soil.
Of what avail would it be to us to appeal to
the usages of war, or to say that the civiliza-
ton Of the age forbids the execution of a
threat more infamous than any that has
ever been uttered against people whose
sole crime Is that for 700 years they have
refused to be slaves or to acknowledge the
subsection sought to be enforced upon
them? The power which, within single
generation, has destroyed 1900, 900 of our
race by famine, artifcially engendered-
which, IN Jamaica, massacrcd the negroes,
on the pretense of a revolt concocted by her
own ofhcers-is capable of repeating the
same atrocities to-day in Ireland and the
fact that oug People have been placed under
the military rule of General whose fiend
lsh cruelty, in blowing the revoited Sepoys
from the mouths of bis cannon, the English
Government has awarded with a peerage,
proves that the foe that has so often at
tempted the determination of our race, is
only too willing to connive at the inhiction
OF all the evils with which we are threaten
ed by press that only too faithfully rep
resents the brutality that prompted the idea.
Can We submit tamely to an indignity so
vile? Is there any hing in the Irish nature
that suggests to our enemy an outrage so
nnheard Of, as that whole nation must be
sacrificed at the shrine of tyranny for an as
plration after freedom, which receives the
plaudits and the sympathy of the world,
when exhibited by any other people? Bro
theirs, this must not, cannot be; to permit
1t, when the power Of prevention is IN our
own hands, would be to court dishonor and
entail on ourselves disgrace, the stigma of
which would be indellible Already the in
fiuence OF your organization has been mani
tested IN snatchlDg from the lion his des-
tined prey ; and the fear of your power and
vengeance has saved the man whom British
law had consigned to the felon's DEATH
Let your voices ring out again; not in the
empty menace of excited crowds, but in tie
roar of assembling legions, and the crash of
arms as you grasp them in the determination
OF revenge; for, if the designs of England
be carried out in Ireland, it will not be the
judicial murder Of handful OF your race
that will call for vengeance; it will be the
wholesale slaughter of our people and the
devastation OF our ancestral homes that will
demand at our hands bloody retribution.
The salvation OF your country is in your
keeping. You possess here a power that
England will hesitate to DEFY Let your
acts, then, give expression to your deter
mlnation to hold her to a strict accountable
lty tor every outrage perpetrated on our
people at home; and, as you arm your
serves Tor the approaching struggle for Irish
independence, let your enemy know that
upon her will rest the onus of conducting
the tight upon the principles of honorable
warfare, or making it a strife of extermina-
ton, In which you will repay, with ten fold
interest the treasured wrongs of centuries.
You have within your reach hostages for
the. safety of your kindred, now menaced
with humiliation by the power that has
cast you out as exiles upon the world but
the hand with which you grasp them must
be that OF armed force; and if you place
not yourselves promptly in that position,
England, that never spared weak oppo-
nent, or yielded an iota to mercy or Justice,
will laugh at your efforts to avert from your
native land the dangers that now environ it.


Solemnly we adjure you, Brothers, not to
prove recreant to the great and holy trust
placed in your hands In unity, in friend
ship, in zeal, in confidence, let us all enter
upon our labor, pledging ''our lives, our
fortunes, and sacred honor" to its success !;
and the heroism, the energy, the devoted
ness, and the reverence of ali former times,
and all former struggles will gather about
this last glorious movement of Ireland to
sanctify it with their benedictions.


Signed, on behalf of the Senate of the
FenIan Brotherhood,


JAMES GIBBONS, Pres't Senate, F. B.


J. G. OBRIES, Secretary.


Approved


WIN. X. ROBERTS, President F. B.


~ The son of the Emueror of France