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"friends, that in no instance did the name of any individual 66 escape from us; on the contrary, we always refused answer"ing such questions as might tend to implicate any person what"ever, conformably to the agreement entered into by the state "prisoners with government.

"ARTHUR O'CONNOR,

"THOMAS ADDIS EMMET,

"WILLIAM JAMES MAC NEVEN.

newspapers

The sending forth of this advertisement from the body of a prison, and authenticated by the names of the parties, left no doubt of the truth of its allegations. A tempest of folly and fury was immediately excited in the house of commons. Blinded by their rage, the members of that honourable assembly neglected the obvious distinction between the and their report. They took to themselves the falsehoods that had been repelled, Mr. McNaghten, and two virulent barristers, Francis Hut. chinson and Cuningham Plunket, were even clamorous for having the persons who signed the refutation disposed of by a summary execution. Plunket had been the bosom intimate of Emmet, the companion of his childhood, and the friend of his youth. Hutchinson afterwards acknowledged that he was instigated to what he did by the administration, which imitated in this proceeding the ancient policy of the English, in making Irishmen the executioners of one another. The conduct of both marks the inhumanity and meanness to which Irish gentlemen debased themselves at this period, the better to signalize their loyalty towards the rulers of wretched Ireland.

The prisoners were immediately remanded to the closest cusfody, and no friend or acquaintance was suffered to approach them. In the mean time, the committee proceeded formally in printing their report, and as the advertisement had contradicted, by anticipation, every falsehood common to that publication and to the newspapers, three of the state prisoners were again

summoned

summoned before the secret committee of the house of lords, in order to draw the line between what they admitted and what they rejected.

They readily confirmed what they had actually asserted before the secret committees of parliament, and only wished that the committees would state it all to the public. But the object ministers had most at heart was to prove the existence of a military organization, the design of separating Ireland from Great Britain, and the alliance formed for this purpose with France. It was no part of their plan to bring evidence of the acts of tyranny which forced the United Irishmen into such measures. To those three points, therefore, were the questions of the committee directed. But to shew more pointedly the license taken by the ministerial newspapers, Dr. Mac Neven instanced, that of names having been disclosed, which was a misrepresentation of fact not warranted by the report of either house of parliament. It was only in allusion to this misrepresentation, and a few others of less importance, that the expression was introduced into his deposition, "which are not supported by the report of either house of parliament."

When the secret committees drew up their reports, they were neither on their oaths, nor on their honours; but they allowed. themselves every possible latitude in general accusations against the whole body of United Irishmen, with a vain hope of justifying themselves while they aspersed others.

The annexed memoir and examinations contain all that passed between the Anglo-Irish government and Messrs. Emmet and Mac Neven. The committees of the lords and commons examined those gentlemen to what matters they pleased, and asked them what questions they liked. They have given their own edition of the examinations, which contain whatever they could substantiate to criminate those persons, or the Union, on their

authority.

authority. Out of this record, then, no body has a right to travel for objections against them, because that accuser to which they were most obnoxious and best known, can specify nothing beyond what is there. The supplementary malice of others may evince inveteracy of dislike, but cannot affect those two deputies. It is, above all things, absurd to assert that they acknowledged any political acts not to be found in those admissions. If they did, the Anglo-Irish government would not be silent on the subject. The moment specific charges are preferred, they are reduced to the memoir and examinations; and yet it appears from them that Emmet and Mac Neven had not even the merit of being United Irishmen until 1796. That is, after the recall of Lord Fitz William, when the British cabinet sent over Lord Camden to foster the Orange system, to continue the slavery of the catholics, and to resist every measure of reform; when, indeed, there was no alternative but bondage or resistance.

From the beginning, the whole course of English government in Ireland, was unjust, tyrannical and degrading. No sooner did the United Irishmen endeavour to procure a reform of this iniquitous system, than the partizans of England, interested in its continuance, flew to fresh acts of coercion and cruelty; and then pretended that these were wrung from them by necessity, without adverting to the old and prior wrongs of the country.

During the secret imprisonment of these deputies, which followed the publication of their advertisement, an act of parliament passed through nearly all its stages, teeming in its recitals with the most injurious falsehoods. On reading them in the London Courier, Mr. Samuel Neil on wrote a letter, which he designed to send to the editor of that paper, declaring that the state prisoners had retracted nothing; but that they had entered into a compact with government, of which he inclosed him a copy, for stopping the effusion of blood.

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It well merits the attention of those who lived out of the Irish, metropolis at that period, that the first knowledge which any of the prisoners had of that statute was from an English newspaper. This circumstance affords a specimen of the general darkness of that tyranny and terror which were predominant, and of the peculiar obscurity in which this transaction was meant to be involved. It also further evinces the faithlessness of the AngloIrish Administration.

Some time antecedent to the introduction of this law, Lord Norbury, then attorney-general, mentioned to Mr. Emmet, that it was intended to bring in a bill for carrying into effect the agreement entered into between the state prisoners and the go❤ vernment.' Mr. Emmet replied that he could see no necessity for any such bill; but if one were introduced, that the state prisoners, as peculiarly interested, ought first to receive copies of it. This the attorney-general promised should be done, and sufficient time given them to make any observations on it they might think fit. Notwithstanding such assurance, it was passed without their ever knowing its contents, except by the newspaper already mentioned, while many of them were detained in close custody, and excluded from all external communication.

Neilson, in order to leave no room for cavilling, inclosed a copy of his letter to the editor of the Courier, in one to Lord Castlereagh, together with the newspaper and offensive passages underscored. In a few hours after, Messrs. Cook and Marsden came to Neilson's prison, asked him if he really meant to publish a contradiction to the act of parliament, and being answered in the affirmative, Mr. Cook solemnly declared, that if so, it was his excellency the Lord Lieutenant's determination to make void the compact, and cause civil and military executions to proceed as before. But, sir, said Neilson, how can an act of mine subject others to punishment? It will, was the Secretary's answer. If you publish a syllable on the subject, the consequence shall equally

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equally affect all. The loss of one life was not thought a suffi cient curb against the workings of honest indignation, and therefore it was threatened that a mass of fellow-creatures should be involved in the same destruction. Thus we have

seen men who invoke order, rend the ties of social security, and set up for themselves the ruffian law of force; men who invoke religion, address heaven to witness only the perfidy of their engagements; and those who declaim about humanity, become very copyists of the enormities they stigmatize in their enemies.

The message sent by Mr. Cook was singularly characteristic of inhuman duplicity, of remorseless cruelty, of a shameful disregard of public faith, and together with the subsequent treatment of the prisoners, forms a counter-part of the former conduct of Lord Cornwallis towards the citizens of Charleston.* Nevertheless, had the British government not found an obse quious instrument in the American minister, Mr. Rufus King, they could not have consummated their design, without a degree of undisguised perfidy of which they seemed solicitous to avoid the appearance. It was that minister who furnished the

pretext

*After the battle of Camden, the behaviour of Lord Cornwallis to the American prisoners was a kind of rehearsal of the perfidiousness and cruelty which he practised so many years later against the defenceless Irish. Christopher Gadsden and the citizens of Charleston had entered into a regular capitulation with him for the surrender of that city; but no sooner did the English general find himself the stronger, than he caused, in direct violation of the articles, the most conspicuous of them to be arrested and.transported to St. Augustine, as he did the Irish prisoners to Fort George. In both instances, the sufferers were sent off without previous notice; in both instances a formal compact was violated; in both cases, their private papers were seized. Though his sanguinary acts in Ireland are scarcely noticed, they fell so much short of the more infuriate atrocity of the Orangemen, yet the blood he shed there was immense, and in violation of his compact with the United Irishmen.-Vide Castlereagh's account of the number of executions-debates in the house of commons.

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