his countrymen to union, will lead them now to victory. Call on the multitude of reverend men of all the various sects of Christian faith, whom you have slain. Call on them by the sacred office of their priesthood, and by that God, whose holy word they taught, to pray for you. But if they sleep too sound, or will not hearken, go to the flocks they led, and they will follow you with many and many a blessing. Call from the earth where Porter's ashes lie, the gentle emanations of his genius, the lucid beams of mild philosophy; you want such lights, they will be very serviceable. Go to Belfast, and parley with the heads you there impaled, those silent witnesses of your humanity, who gave to all that looked askance and terrified upon them, such moving lessons of your mild persuasion as won all hearts to love you; those tongueless monitors were passing eloquent; bid them now speak for you; they will recruit you soldiers that will honour you, and draw their willing swords to fight your battles. Call upon Russel, whose once gentle heart you turned to desperate madness, and slew him like a ruffian. Invoke the crowd of brave and gallant victims, whom memory cannot count, nor choice select,"* and you will have an army strong in numbers, stronger in welltried courage and in union. But if this cannot be, and victory declares against your ruffian banners, remember Orr. He was the first that gave his life to union; Emmet the last that sealed it with his blood. Their parting words may teach you how to die. * See the answer of Mrs. Tone to the Hibernian Provident Society, on receiving a medallion, presented by them in honour of her husband, where this sentiment is elegantly conveyed. (See his Autobiography, No. XIX, of this series.) But no, you will not, dare not, die like them! You will betray your country first a hundred times, and rather than meet death as men should do, lay at the conqueror's feet your city's charter and your monarch's crown.* LETTER XXXVI. The Irish Emigrant. BORN in the country of affliction, his days were days of sorrow. He tilled the soil of his fathers, and was an alien in their land. He tasted not of the fruits which grew by the sweat of his brow. He fed a foreign landlord, whose face he never saw, and a minister of the gospel, whose name he hardly knew; an unfeeling bailiff was his tyrant, and the tax-gatherer his oppressor. Hunted by unrighteous magistrates, and punished by unjust judges; the soldier devoured his substance and laughed his complaints to scorn; he toiled the hopeless day, and at night lay down in weariness; yet noble he was of heart, though his estate was lowly. His cottage was open to the poor. He brake his children's bread, and ate of it sparingly, that the hungry might have share; he welcomed the benighted traveller, and rose with the stars of the morning to put him on his way. But his soul repined within him, and he sought relief in change. He had heard of a land where the poor were in peace, and the labourer thought worthy of his hire, where the blood of his fathers had purchased an asylum. He leads the aged parent whom love grappled to his heart; he bears his infants in his Jefferies and Kirk were as treacherous as they were atrocious. arms; his wife followed his weary steps; they escape from the barbarous laws that would make their country their prison; they cross the trackless ocean, they descry the promised land, and hope brightens the prospect to their view, but happiness is not for him; the ruthless spirit of persecution pursues him through the waste of the ocean; shall his foot never find rest, nor his heart repose? No, the prowling bird of prey hovers on Columbia's coast; wafted on eagle wings, the cruel pirate comes, ravishes the poor fugitive from the partner of his sorrows and the tender pledges of their love. See the haggard eyes of a father to whom nature denies a tear, a stupid monument of living death. He would interpose his feeble arm, but it is motionless; he would bid adieu, but his voice refuses its office. The prop of his declining years torn remorselessly from before him, he stands like the blasted oak, dead to hope and every earthly joy. Was it not then enough that this victim of oppression had left his native land to the rapacity of its invaders? Might he not have been permitted to seek a shelter in the gloom of the wilderness? No, the ruthless spirit of persecution is not yet sated with his sufferings. The torments of one element exhausted, those of another are now prepared for him. Enslaved to scornful masters, the authors of his misery, and forced to fight the battles of those his soul abhors. Death, that relieves the wretch, brings no relief to him, for he lived not for himself, but for those more dear to him than life; not for himself does he feel the winter's blast, but for those who are now unprotected, houseless, and forlorn. Where shall his wife now wander, when maddened with despair? Where shall his father lay his wearied bones? Where shall his innocent babes find food, unless the ravens feed them? Oh, hard and cruel men! oh, worse than hellish fiends! may not the poor find pity? what is he that now reviles them? beshrew his withered heart. Oh, Stewart! Oh, West! children of genius, sons of Columbia, where are now your pencils? Will you profane your gifts in flattering the mighty and the great, and withhold a nobler aid to the cause of the poor and the afflicted? A Letter from New York, to the Right Honourable LORD SPENCER, his Britannic Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department. "MY LORD,-According to your orders I was landed in this city on the 4th of July, 1806, by captain Sutton, of the Windsor Castle. I was sorry his majesty's ministers had judged it unsafe that I should be seen at Halifax, as I had need to recruit my health and to reinforce my principles. I feared to distress your lordship's humanity with the account of my sufferings, or I should have written sooner. My first sickness was the yellow jaundice, of which I nearly died; I was afterward seized with the rheumatism, and nearly lost my limbs. I am now, thank God, in good health and spirits, and shall take every means of showing myself grateful for past favours. "The day I arrived they were commemorating their independence, carousing, singing republican songs, drinking revolutionary toasts, bonfires blazing, cannons firing, and huzzaing for liberty! I was in expectation that the lord mayor would have brought the military and fired on them; but the mayor is not a lord, and I was informed he was seen drinking with some of the soldiers. They were also making an outcry about a Yankee sailor, called Pearce, that was killed-off by captain Whitby. It is a pity we had not them in Ireland, we might have ten thousand of them shot in a day, and not a word about them. "I would have gone to the barracks myself to inform against them, but there was no barrack. The soldiers live in their own houses, and sleep with their own wives. Nay, more, they have counting-houses, clerks, warehouses, ships, coaches, country seats; the like was never seen amongst common soldiers. "I asked if there was no clergyman that was a justice of peace to head the military? They showed me a bishop, a mild, venerable-looking old gentleman, that would not know which end of a gun to put foremost, fitter to give a blessing than to lead a corporal's guard; no vigour, no energy. And they say the clergy do not act as justices in this country. Indeed, the clergy here are not like certain clergy, as your lordship shall judge. "There is not a clergyman of any description in New York, nor, as far as I can learn, in all America, that can lead a concert, or play upon the fiddle, or that dances or manages an assembly, or gets drunk, or rides in at the death of a fox, or that wears a ruffled shirt, or sings a bawdy song, or keeps a mistress. All they do is to marry the young people, christen their children, visit the sick, comfort the afflicted, go to church, preach twice or thrice on a Sunday, teach the living how to live, and the dying how to die; they are pure in their lives, uncorruptible in their morals, and preach universal love and toleration, and what is more unaccountable, they have no tithes, and they live in the very midst of their congregations. If I might be bold to suggest anything, and it would not be counted over zealous, I could wish there was a good book written against this disuse of tithes; and I think, my lord, that Anacreon Moore would be a very proper person; it would be a good means of preventing emigration. "As to the government: at the head of it is an old country philosopher. I wish your lordship could get a sight of one of his shoes, with quarters up to his ancles, and tied with leather thongs. He has neither chamberlain nor vice-chamberlain, groom of the stole nor of the bed-chamber, master of the ceremonies, nor gentleman usher of the privy-chamber, nor black rod, nor groom, nor page of the privy chamber, nor page |