ral humanity, to be inaccessible to such a proposition. But I little thought my compliance was to lead to all the injuries and atrocities I have since been loaded with. I confined myself, however, to advising this gentleman rather to apply to some person more marking in politics than me, who might have more lead among the people, and more knowledge of their feelings or intentions. Mr. Crawford upon this obtained leave for Mr. Arthur O'Connor, then in secret in another part of the prison, to come to speak with me, which he did at my request; but at this time refused taking any step. Nor did I ever meddle further in the business, than to recommend conciliation between the parties, and to intreat my kinsman, Mr. Dobbs, a member of the then parliament, to accept the office of mediator, merely because I knew him to be of a mild and benevolent disposition, and this was the actual commencement of that treaty so remarkable in itself and so strangely violated.

It is foreign to my purpose to say by what steps the negociation proceeded; further than as a well-wisher to peace and humanity, it was considered by nobody to be any concern of mine. But I was for some time induced by appearances to suppose, that good faith and good understanding prevailed between the ministers and the people: and the day I was told was fixed for my enlargement, as one against whom no charge had ever been made. Upwards of seventy prisoners, against whom no evidence appeared, had signed an act of self-devotion, and peace was likely to be the result. There was so much courtesy, that I was more than once permitted to go out of the prison, where I had before been locked up in rigorous solitude, and to return on my word. And Mr. O'Conner, now in the Fort St. George in Scotland, a close prisoner, was once on his

return from Kilmainham, where he had gone upon parole to see his fellow prisoners and colleagues in that negocia tion, challenged by the centinels, and refused admission. On one side, it appears by this, there was as much good faith as there has been cruel perfidy on the other.

One day, as we were all together in the yard of the bridewell, it was announced that the scaffold was erected for the execution of William Byrne; the preservation of whose life had been a principal motive for the signature of many of the prisoners to the agreement abovementioned. We were all thunderstruck by such a piece of news: but I was the more affected when I learned, that Lord Cornwallis had been desirous of remitting the execution, but that the faction had overborne him in the council, by arguing that the agreement was ineffective, inasmuch as Mr. O' Conner nor I had not signed it. In that moment I sent to Mr. Dobbs, to intreat that he would hurry to the castle, and offer my signature, on condition that this execution should be suspended; but unhappily it was too late. The terrorists had surrounded the scaffold, and that brave youth was hurried, undaunted, to his death! This deed filled me with horror. I had never known any thing of William Byrne, until I had found means of conversing with him in our common prison. Through favor of Mr. Bush, once my friend, and then employed as his counsel, he obtained leave to consult with me on the subject of his trial; and certainly whatever can be conceived of noble courage, and pure and perfect heroism, he possessed. His life was offered him on condition that he would exculpate himself, at the expense of the reputation of the deceased lord Edward Fitzgerald; and the scorn with which he treated this offer was truly noble. Go, says he, to the herald of that odious proposition, and tell the tempter that sent you, that I have known no man superior to him you would calumniate, nor

none more base, than him who makes this offer. It is not necessary to be a partisan of lord Edward Fitzgerald, nor acquainted with the sufferings and oppressions of the unfortunate Irish people, to feel the dignity of such a reply. One must be dead to the feelings of generosity, sacred even amongst enemies, not to be touched with it. The more so, when it is known, that this young man, who was but one and twenty years of age, was married to the woman that he loved, and had, within a few days, received a new pledge of fondness, and a new tie to life, in the birth of a first child. He had been loyally enrolled in a corps of volunteers, until the persecutions and horrors committed upon those of his persuasion, for he was of a Catholic family, drove him from the ranks of the persecutors into the arms of rebellion. Had there been men less weak, and less wicked, in the government of Ireland; or a system of less inhumanity, he, with thousands now in exile or in the grave, would have been its boast and ornament, and the foremost in virtue and in courage to defend it.

He

By the death of William Byrne, the work of blood seemed recommenced, and the life of Oliver Bond was next threatened. I had much friendship for this man, and great respect for his virtues. He had already suffered much from persecution, and borne it with great fortitude. was generally esteemed for his good morals, beloved by his friends, and respected even by his enemies. I had of ten partaken of his hospitality, and seen him happy amidst his family. He was now under sentence of death, which he seemed himself to despise. His virtuous wife appeared to me in my prison; and though she did not venture to urge me, her silent looks were irresistible persuasion. It might depend upon my consent whether she were to-morrow a widow or a wife. Whether her poor babes were to be restored to the smiles of a fond father, or be fatherless.

The deep regret I had for the fate of William Byrne, rushed full into my mind, and I determined to make that sacrifice which must ever please upon reflection. My bad health, indeed, at that moment lessened the price I had to give; my life was entirely despaired of by my friends.. Yet this friend died a few days after, unaccountably, in his prison, whilst I, after a series of unexambled persecution, live to tell his story and my own.

LETTER V.

Case stated-Union.

WITH respect to the other prisoners, every one of them seemed to treat death and danger with contempt. The memorial drawn up by three of them in their own justification and that of their cause, has already been in print, as well as the interrogatories and answers of such of them as were examined before the committee, touching the intended resistance and arming of the country. To these things I was a stranger, further than this, that I was an enemy to violation and torture; and determined on all occasions that offered to resist it, which I always openly declared. By the agreement I had signed the ministers were entitled to examine me, if they thought proper. But for the same reasons that they did not try me, they did not examine me. They knew that it would tend, not to their advantage, but to mine. As to the alliance with France, I knew it first by the ministerial publications, and they had so often asserted it when it was not true, that I, with many others, disbelieved it even after it was so. But I saw

crimes with my own eyes, to which, to submit, would be degrading to the name of man, and for not submitting to which, I am now an exile.

You will expect, perhaps, some distinct accounts of these transactions; but for this, I should rather refer you to the publications where it is to be found.

A principal one is the memoir of the three state prisoners, Emmet, M'Neven, and O'Connor.†

This statement appears full of strength and candor, and it was curious to observe at the time, that whatever merit the ministers made to the crown of their discoveries, they seemed to shrink entirely from the publication of them, whilst the prisoners insisted upon their avowals being published, as the undisguised and unstudied justification of their cause.

Much turned upon points of chronology: for, however great the causes and the feelings of general discontent were; whatever the long endured griefs of Ireland had been; whatever some individuals might have meditated, none of the persons in question, nor lord Edward Fitzgerald, nor others of whom so much has been said, were of the united system, nor was there any military organization formed until after the summer of 1796: previous to this, the persecution of the Catholics in Armagh, and the neighboring counties; the adoption and protection of the Orangemen; the passing of penal acts of such extreme severity, and the cruel execution of them; and particularly the insurrection act, which amounted in itself to as complete a revolution as if the king had been deposed, or had abdicated, had all taken place. Until these times, if the British con

4

See the pieces of Irish history, lately published by Dr. William James M'Nevin, p. 207.

F