Meagher"s subsequent career in Ireland is soon told. He was a regular attendant at the meetings of the Confederation, of which he was one of the founders, and the fame of his eloquence, his manly appearance, and the charms of his youthful frankness contributed immensely towards the growth of the new organization. He always acted with O"Brien, whom he loved in his inmost soul, but he was respected and admired by every section of nationalists, the Mitchelites, the Duffyites, and we might even say the O"Connellites. When the country began to feel the influence of the whirlwind of revolution which swept over the continent, overturning thrones and wrecking const.i.tutions as if they were built of cardboard, Meagher shared the wild impulse of the hour, and played boldly for insurrection and separation. He was one of the three gentlemen appointed to present the address from Ireland to the French Republican government in 1848; and in the speech delivered by him at the crowded meeting in the Dublin Music Hall before his departure, he counselled his countrymen to send a deputation to the Queen, asking her to convene the Irish parliament in the Irish capital. "If the claim be rejected," said Meagher, "if the throne stand as a barrier between the Irish people and the supreme right--then loyalty will be a crime, and obedience to the executive will be treason to the country. Depute your worthiest citizens to approach the throne, and before that throne let the will of the Irish people be uttered with dignity and decision. If nothing comes of this," he added, "if the const.i.tution opens to us no path to freedom, if the Union be maintained in spite of, the will of the Irish people, if the government of Ireland insist on being a government of dragoons and bombadiers, of detectives and light infantry, then," he exclaimed in the midst of tumultuous cheering, "up with the barricades, and invoke the G.o.d of Battles!"
While the Republican spirit was in full glow in Ireland, Meagher astonished his friends by rushing down to Waterford and offering himself as a candidate for the post left vacant in parliament by the resignation of O"Connell. By this time the Confederates had begun to despair of a parliamentary policy, and they marvelled much to see their young orator rush to the hustings, and throw himself into the confusion and turmoil of an election contest. _Que le diable allait il faire dans cette galere_ muttered his Dublin friends. Was not the time for hustings orations, and parliamentary agitation over now? Meagher, however, conceived, and perhaps wisely, that he could still do some good for his country in the House of Commons. He issued a n.o.ble address to the electors of his native city, in which he asked for their support on the most patriotic grounds. "I shall not meddle," he said, "with English affairs. I shall take no part in the strife of parties--all factions are alike to me. I shall go to the House of Commons to insist on the rights of this country to be held, governed, and defended by its own citizens, and by them alone. Whilst I live I shall never rest satisfied until the kingdom of Ireland has won a parliament, an army, and a navy of her own." Mitchel strongly disapproved of his conduct. "If Mr. Meagher were in parliament," said the _United Irishman_, "men"s eyes would be attracted thither once more; some hope of "justice" might again revive in this too easily deluded people." The proper men to send to parliament were according to Mitchel, "old placemen, pensioners, five pound Conciliation Hall Repealers." "We have no wish to dictate," concluded Mitchel in an article on the subject, full of the lurking satire and quiet humour that leavened his writings, "but if the electors of Waterford have any confidence in us, we shall only say that we are for Costello!"
"Costello" was defeated, however, but so was Meagher. The Young Ireland champion was stigmatized as a Tory by the Whigs, and as a rebel by the Tories; if _the people_, as Mitchel remarks had any power he would have been elected by an overwhelming majority, but the people had no votes, and Sir Henry Winston Barren was returned. Meagher went back to Dublin almost a convert to Mitchel"s views, leaving Whig, Tory, and West Briton to exult over his discomfiture.
We have already seen what Meagher did when the guage of battle was thrown down, and when "the day all hearts to weigh" was imagined to have arrived, we have seen how he accompanied O"Brien in his expedition from Wexford to Kilkenny, and thence to Tipperary; and how on the morning of July 29th, 1848, he left O"Brien at Ballingarry, little dreaming of the tragedy which was to make that day memorable, and expecting to be able to bring reinforcements to his leader from other quarters before the crisis came. He failed however in his effort to spread the flames of insurrection. The chilling news of O"Brien"s defeat--distorted and exaggerated by hostile tongues--was before him everywhere, and even the most resolute of his sympathisers had sense enough to see that their opportunity--if it existed at all--had pa.s.sed away. On the 12th day of August, 1848, Meagher was arrested on the road between Clonoulty and Holycross, in Tipperary. He was walking along in company with Patrick O"Donoghue and Maurice R. Leyne, two of his intimate friends and fellow-outlaws, when a party of police pa.s.sed them by. Neither of the three was disguised, but Meagher and Leyne wore frieze overcoats, which somewhat altered their usual appearance. After a short time the police returned; Meagher and his companions gave their real names on being interrogated, and they were at once arrested and taken in triumph to Thurles. The three friends bore their ill fortune with what their captors must have considered provoking nonchalance. Meagher smoked a cigar on the way to the station, and the trio chatted as gaily as if they were walking in safety on the free soil of America, instead of being helpless prisoners on their way to captivity and exile.
Meagher stood in the dock at Clonmel a week after O"Brien had quitted it a convict. He was defended by Mr. Whiteside and Isaac b.u.t.t, whose magnificent speech in his defence was perhaps the most brilliant display of forensic eloquence ever heard Within the court in which he stood. Of course the jury was packed (only 18 Catholics were named on a jury-panel of 300), and of course the crown carried its point. On the close of the sixth day of the trial, the jury returned into court with a verdict of "guilty," recommending the prisoner to mercy on the ground of his youth.
Two days later he was brought back to the dock to receive sentence. He was dressed in his usual style, appeared in excellent health, and bore himself--we are told--throughout the trying ordeal, with fort.i.tude and manly dignity. He spoke as follows:--
"My lords, it is my intention to say a few words only. I desire that the last act of a proceeding which has occupied so much of the public time, should be of short duration. Nor have I the indelicate wish to close the dreary ceremony of a state prosecution with a vain display of words. Did I fear that hereafter, when I shall be no more, the country I tried to serve would speak ill of me, I might, indeed, avail myself of this solemn moment to vindicate my sentiments and my conduct. But I have no such fear. The country will judge of those sentiments and that conduct in a light far different from that in which the jury by whom I have been convicted have viewed them, and by the country the sentence which you, my lords, are about to p.r.o.nounce, will be remembered only as the severe and solemn attestation of my rect.i.tude and truth. Whatever be the language in which that sentence be spoken, I know that my fate will meet with sympathy, and that my memory will be honoured. In speaking thus, accuse me not, my lords, of an indecorus presumption in the efforts I have made in a just and n.o.ble cause. I ascribe no main importance, nor do I claim for those efforts any high reward. But it so happens, and it will ever happen so, that they who have lived to serve their country--no matter how weak their efforts may have been--are sure to receive the thanks and blessings of its people. With my countrymen I leave my memory, my sentiments, my acts, proudly feeling that they require no vindication from me this day. A jury of my countrymen, it is true, have found me guilty of the crime of which I stood indicted. For this I entertain not the slightest feeling of resentment towards them. Influenced as they must have been by the charge of the Lord Chief Justice, they could perhaps have found no other verdict. What of that charge? Any strong observations on it I feel sincerely would ill-befit the solemnity of this scene; but I would earnestly beseech of you, my lord--you who preside on that bench--when the pa.s.sions and the prejudices of this hour have pa.s.sed away, to appeal to your own conscience, and ask of it, was your charge what it ought to have been, impartial and indifferent between the subject and the crown? My lords, you may deem this language unbecoming in me, and perhaps it may seal my fate; but I am here to speak the truth, whatever it may cost--I am here to regret nothing I have ever done, to regret nothing I have ever said--I am here to crave with no lying lip the life I consecrate to the liberty of my country. Far from it. Even here--here, where the thief, the libertine, the murderer, have left their foot-prints in the dust--here, on this spot, where the shadows of death surround me, and from which I see my early grave in an unanointed soil open to receive me--even here, encircled by these terrors, that hope which first beckoned me to the perilous sea on which I have been wrecked, still consoles, animates, and enraptures me. No; I do not despair of my poor old country--her peace, her liberty, her glory. For that country I can do no more than bid her hope. To lift this island up--to make her a benefactor to humanity, instead of being, as she is now, the meanest beggar in the world--to restore to her her native powers and her ancient const.i.tution--this has been my ambition, and this ambition has been my crime. Judged by the law of England, I know this crime entails upon me the penalty of death; but the history of Ireland explains that crime and justifies it. Judged by that history, I am no criminal, you (addressing Mr.
M"Ma.n.u.s) are no criminal, you (addressing Mr. O"Donoghue) are no criminal, and we deserve no punishment; judged by that history, the treason of which I stand convicted loses all its guilt, has been sanctified as a duty, and will be en.o.bled as a sacrifice. With these sentiments I await the sentence of the court. I have done what I felt to be my duty. I have spoken now, as I did on every other occasion during my short life, what I felt to be the truth. I now bid farewell to the country of my birth--of my pa.s.sions--of my death; a country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies--whose factions I sought to quell--whose intelligence I prompted to a lofty aim--whose freedom has been my fatal dream. To that country I now offer as a pledge of the love I bore her, and of the sincerity with which I thought and spoke, and struggled for her freedom, the life of a young heart; and with that life, the hopes, the honours, the endearments of a happy, a prosperous, and honourable home. Proceed, then, my lords, with that sentence which the law directs--I am prepared to hear it--I trust I am prepared to meet its execution. I shall go, I think, with a light heart before a higher tribunal--a tribunal where a Judge of infinite goodness, as well as of infinite justice, will preside, and where, my lords, many many of the judgments of this, world will be reversed."
There is little more for us to add. Meagher arrived with O"Brien, O"Donoghue, and M"Ma.n.u.s in Van Dieman"s Land in October, 1849, and escaped to America in 1852. He started the _Irish News_ in New York, which he enriched by personal recollections of the stirring scenes in which he partic.i.p.ated; but his career as a journalist closed abruptly with the outbreak of the war of Secession, when he raised a Zouave Company to join Corcoran"s 69th Regiment, with which he fought gallantly at Bull"s Run. Every one remembers how the gallantry of the Irish regiment in which Meagher served, saved the Federal forces from annihilation on that field of disaster. Subsequently he raised and commanded the Irish Brigade, which won imperishable laurels throughout the hard-fought campaigns that ended with the capture of Richmond. When Mr. Johnson became President of the United States, he appointed Meagher to the position of Governor of Montana Territory, in the far West, a post which he held until his death.
His end was sad and sudden. One dark wild night in July, 1867, a gentleman suddenly disappeared from the deck of the steamer on which he was standing, and fell into the great Missouri, where it winds its course by the hills of Montana. The accident was too sudden for availing a.s.sistance. A sudden slip, a splash, a faint cry, a brief struggle, and all was over; the hungry waters closed over him, and the rapid rolling current swept away his lifeless corpse. The finished scholar, the genial friend, the matchless orator, the ardent patriot was no more. Thomas Francis Meagher was dead.
KEVIN IZOD O"DOHERTY.
Another bold, clever, and resolute opponent of British rule in Ireland was torn from the ranks of the popular leaders on the day that Kevin Izod O"Doherty was arrested. Amongst the cl.u.s.ter of talented and able men who led the Young Ireland phalanx, he was distinguished for his spirit and his mental accomplishments; amongst the organizers of the party his ready words, manly address, and ceaseless activity gave him a prominent position; amongst its journalists he was conspicuous for fearlessness, frankness, and ability. Over the surging waves of the excitement and agitation that convulsed the country during the period which ended with the affray at Ballingarry, and through the haze which time has cast over the attempted revolution of "48, his figure looms up in bold proportions, suggestive of mental capacity, fort.i.tude of soul, and tenacity of purpose. For him, as for many of his brilliant a.s.sociates, the paths of patriotism led down to proscription and pain; but O"Doherty fulminating the thunderbolts of the _Tribune,_ or sowing the seeds of patriotism amongst the students of Dublin, was not one whit more self-possessed or undaunted than when standing a convict in the Greenstreet dock, he awaited the sentence of the court.
Kevin Izod O"Doherty was born of respectable Catholic parents in Dublin, in June, 1824. He received a liberal education, by which he profited extensively, showing even in his school-days strong evidences of natural ability, and talents, of more than average degree. He directed his attention to the medical profession on completing his education, and was in the full tide of lectures and hospital attendance when the development of the national sentiment that pervaded the year "48 drew him into the vortex of public life. He became a hard working and enthusiastic member of the Young Ireland party, and was one of the founders of the Students" and Polytechnic Clubs, which were regarded by the leaders in Dublin as the _elite_ of the national force in the capital. When Mitchel was struck down and his paper suppressed, O"Doherty was one of those who resolved that the political guidance which the _United Irishman_ was meant to afford, should not be wanting to the people. In conjunction with Richard Dalton Williams--"Shamrock"
of the _Nation_--he established the _Irish Tribune_, the first number of which saw the light on the 10th of June, 1848. There could be no mistake about the objects of the _Tribune_, or the motives of its founders in establishing it. The British government could ill afford to endure the attacks on their exactions and usurpations thundered forth weekly in its articles. Its career was cut short by the mailed hand of authority at its fifth number, and on the 10th of July, "48, Kevin Izod O"Doherty was an inmate of Newgate prison.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARLES J. KICKHAM. JOHN O"LEARY. THOMAS CLARK LUBEY.]
On the 10th of August he was placed at the bar of Green-street court-house, and arraigned on a charge of treason-felony, and a vigorous effort was made by the crown to convict him. The attempt, however, was a failure; the jury-panel had not been juggled as effectively as usual, and a disagreement of the jury was the consequence. The crown, however, had no idea of relaxing its grasp of its victim; after John Martin"s conviction O"Doherty was put forward again, and a new jury selected to try him. Again were the government defeated; the second jury like the first refused to agree to a verdict of guilty, and were discharged without convicting the prisoner. A third time was O"Doherty arraigned, and this time the relentless hatred of his persecutors was gratified by a verdict of guilty. The speech delivered by Mr. O"Doherty after conviction was as follows:--
"My lords--I did hope, I confess, that upon being placed in this dock for the third time, after two juries of my fellow-citizens had refused to find a verdict against me, that while my prosecutors would have been scrupulous in their care in attempting to uphold their law, they would not have violated the very spirit of justice."
Judge Crampton.--"I have a great difficulty in preventing you from making any observations that may occur to you to be of service; but if you mean to cast imputations of obloquy upon the law officers of the crown, the court cannot permit that."
Mr. O"Doherty--"I only wish to mention a matter of fact. The Attorney-General stated that there were only three Roman Catholics set aside on my jury."
Judge Crampton again interposed, and requested the prisoner not to pursue this line of observation.
Mr. O"Doherty.--"I would feel much obliged if your lordship would permit me to mention a few more words with reference to my motives throughout this affair.
"I had but one object and purpose in view. I did feel deeply for the sufferings and privations endured by my fellow-countrymen. I did wish by all means, consistent with a manly and honourable resistance to a.s.sist in putting an end to that suffering. It is very true, and I will confess it, that I desired an open resistance of the people to that government, which, in my opinion entailed these sufferings upon them. I have used the words open and honourable resistance, in order that I might refer to one of the articles brought in evidence against me, in which the writer suggests such things as flinging burning hoops on the soldiery. My lords, these are no sentiments of mine. I did not write that article. I did not see it, or know of it until I read it when published in the paper. But I did not bring the writer of it here on the table. Why? I knew that if I were to do so, it would be only handing him over at the court-house doors to what one of the witnesses has very properly called the fangs of the Attorney-General. With respect to myself I have no fears. I trust I will be enabled to bear my sentence with all the forbearance due to what I believe to be the opinion of twelve conscientious enemies to me, and I will bear with due patience the wrath of the government whose mouthpiece they were; but I will never cease to deplore the destiny that gave me birth in this unhappy country, and compelled me, as an Irishman, to receive at your hands a felon"s doom, for discharging what I conceived--and what I still conceive to be my duty. I shall only add, that the fact is, that instead of three Roman Catholic jurors being set aside by the Attorney-General, there were thirteen; I hold in my hand a list of their names, and out of the twelve jurors he permitted to be sworn there was not one Roman Catholic."
Mr. O"Doherty was sentenced to transportation for ten years. He sailed for Van Dieman"s Land in the same ship that bore John Martin into exile.
In the course of time he, like Martin and O"Brien, was set at liberty on condition of his residing anywhere out of "the United Kingdom." He came on to Paris, and there resumed his medical studies. He paid, however, one secret and hurried visit to Ireland. He came to wed and bear away with him, to share his fortune in other lands, a woman in every way worthy of him--one whose genius and talents, like his own, had been freely given to the cause of Ireland, and whose heart had long been his in the bonds of a most tender attachment. "Eva," one of the fair poetesses of the _Nation_, was the plighted wife of O"Doherty. Terrible must have been the shock to her gentle nature when her patriot lover was borne off a convict, and shipped for England"s penal settlements in the far southern seas. She believed, however, they would meet again, and she knew that neither time nor distance could chill the ardour of their mutual affection. The volumes of the _Nation_ published during his captivity contain many exquisite lyrics from her pen mourning for the absent one, with others expressive of unchanging affection, and the most intense faith in the truth of her distant lover. "The course of true love" in this case ended happily. O"Doherty, as we have stated, managed to slip across from Paris to Ireland, and returned with "Eva" his bride.
In 1856 the pardons granted to the exiles above named was made unconditional, and in the following year O"Doherty returned to Ireland, where he took out his degrees with great _eclat_; he then commenced the practice of medicine and surgery in Dublin, and soon came to be ranked amongst the most distinguished and successful members of his profession.
After remaining some years in Ireland, Mr. O"Doherty sailed far away seawards once again, and took up his abode under the light of the Southern Cross. He settled in a rising colony of Australia, where he still lives, surrounded by troops of friends, and enjoying the position to which his talents and his high character ent.i.tle him.
TERENCE BELLEW M"Ma.n.u.s.
The excitement caused by the startling events of which this country was the scene in the summer of 1848 extended far beyond the sh.o.r.es of Ireland. Away beyond the Atlantic the news from Ireland was watched for with glistening eyes by the exiles who dwelt by the sh.o.r.es of Manhattan or in the backwoods of Canada. Amongst the Irish colony in England the agitation was still greater. Dwelling in the hearts of the monster towns of England, the glow of the furnace lighting up their swarthy faces; toiling on the ca.n.a.ls, on the railways, in the steamboats; filling the factories, plying their brawny hands where the hardest work was to be done; hewers of wood, and drawers of water; living in the midst of the English, yet separated from them by all the marks of a distinctive nationality, by antagonistic feelings, by clashing interests, by jarring creeds; such was the position of the men who carried the faith, the traditions, the politics, and the purpose of Ireland into the heart of the enemy"s country. With their countrymen at home they were united by the warmest ties of sympathy and affection. In London, in Manchester, in Birmingham, in Leeds, Confederate Clubs were established, and active measures taken for co-operating with the Young Ireland leaders in whatever course they might think proper to adopt. In Liverpool those clubs were organized on the most extensive scale; thousands of Irishmen attended their weekly meetings, and speeches rivalling those delivered at the Rotundo and at the Music Hall in fervour and earnestness were spoken from their platforms. Amongst the Irishmen who figured prominently at these gatherings there was one to whom the Irish in Liverpool looked up with peculiar confidence and pride. He was young, he was accomplished, he was wealthy, he filled a highly respectable position in society; his name was connected by everyone with probity and honour; and, above all, he was a nationalist, unselfish, enthusiastic, and ardent. The Irishmen of Liverpool will not need to be told that we speak of Terence Bellew M"Ma.n.u.s.
The agitation of 1848 found M"Ma.n.u.s in good business as a shipping agent, his income being estimated by his Liverpool friends at ten or twelve hundred a year. His patriotism was of too genuine a nature to be merged in his commercial success, and M"Ma.n.u.s readily abandoned his prospects and his position when his country seemed to require the sacrifice. Instantly on discovering that the government were about to suspend the _Habeas Corpus_ Act in Ireland, he took the steamer for Dublin, bringing with him the green and gold uniform which he owned in virtue of being a general of the "82 Club. In the same steamer came two detectives sent specially to secure his arrest in Dublin. M"Ma.n.u.s drove from the quay, where he landed, to the _Felon_ Office. He discovered that all the Confederate leaders out of prison had gone southwards on hostile thoughts intent; and M"Ma.n.u.s resolved on joining them without a moment"s hesitation. Having managed to give the detectives the slip, he journeyed southwards to Tipperary and joined O"Brien"s party at Killenaule. He shared the fortunes of the insurgent leaders until the dispersion at Ballingarry, where he fought with conspicuous bravery and determination. He was the first to arrive before the house in which the police took refuge, and the last to leave it. The Rev. Mr. Fitzgerald, P.P., an eye witness, gives an interesting account of M"Ma.n.u.s" conduct during the attack on the Widow M"Cormack"s house. He says:--
"With about a dozen men more determined than the rest, was M"Ma.n.u.s, who indeed throughout the whole day showed more courage and resolution than anyone else. With a musket in his hand, and in the face of the enemy, he reconnoitered the place, and observed every accessible approach to the house, and with a few colliers, under cover of a cart-load of hay, which they pushed on before them, came up to the postern-door of the kitchen. Here with his own hand he fired several pistol-shots, to make it ignite, but from the state of the weather, which was damp and heavy, and from the constant down-pour of rain on the previous day, this attempt proved quite unsuccessful. With men so expert at the use of the pickaxe, and so large a supply of blasting powder at the collieries, he could have quickly undermined the house, or blown it up; but the circ.u.mstance of so many children being shut in with the police, and the certainty that, if they persevered, all would be involved in the same ruin, compelled him and his a.s.sociates to desist from their purpose."
When it became useless to offer further resistance, M"Ma.n.u.s retired with the peasantry to the hills, and dwelt with them for several days. Having shaved off his whiskers, and made some other changes in his appearance, he succeeded in running the gauntlet though the host of spies and detectives on his trail, and he was actually on board a large vessel on the point of sailing for America from Cork harbour when arrested by the police. His discovery was purely accidental; the police boarded the vessel in chase of an absconding defaulter, but while prosecuting the search one of the constables who had seen M"Ma.n.u.s occasionally in Liverpool recognised him. At first he gave his name as O"Donnell, said he was an Irish-American returning westward, after visiting his friends in the old land. His answers, however, were not sufficiently consistent to dissipate the constable"s suspicion. He was brought ash.o.r.e and taken handcuffed before a magistrate, whereupon he avowed his name, and boldly added that, he did not regret any act he had done, and would cheerfully go through it again.
On the 10th of October, 1848, he was brought to trial for high treason in Clonmel. He viewed the whole proceedings with calm indifference, and when the verdict of guilty was brought in he heard the announcement with unaltered mien. A fortnight later he was brought up to receive sentence; Meagher and O"Donoghue had been convicted in the interim, and the three confederates stood side by side in the dock to hear the doom of the traitor p.r.o.nounced against them. M"Ma.n.u.s was the first to speak in reply to the usual formality, and his address was as follows:--
"My lords--I trust I am enough of a Christian and enough of a man to understand the awful responsibility of the question which has been put to me. Standing upon my native soil--standing in an Irish court of justice, and before the Irish nation--I have much to say why the sentence of death, or the sentence of the law, should not be pa.s.sed upon me. But upon entering into this court I placed my life--and what is of more importance to me, my honour--in the hands of two advocates, and if I had ten thousand lives and ten thousand honours, I should be content to place them all in the watchful and glorious genius of the one, and the patient zeal and talent of the other. I am, therefore, content, and with regard to that I have nothing to say. But I have a word to say, which no advocate, however anxious and devoted he may be, can utter for me. I say, whatever part I may have taken in the straggle for my country"s independence, whatever part I may have acted in my short career, I stand before you, my lords, with a free heart and a light conscience, to abide the issue of your sentence. And now, my lords, this is, perhaps, the fittest time to put a sentence upon record, which is this--that standing in this dock, and called to ascend the scaffold--it may be to-morrow--it may be now--it may be never--whatever the result may be, I wish to put this on record, that in the part I have taken I was not actuated by enmity towards Englishmen--for among them I have pa.s.sed some of the happiest days of my life, and the most prosperous; and in no part which I have taken was I actuated by enmity towards Englishmen individually, whatever I may have felt of the injustice of English rule in this island; I therefore say, that it is not because I loved England less, but because I loved Ireland more, that I now stand before you."
In 1851, M"Ma.n.u.s escaped from captivity in Van Dieman"s Land, and he soon after settled in California where he died. His funeral was the greatest ever witnessed upon earth. From the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific thousands of miles away, across continents and oceans they brought him, and laid his ashes to rest in the land of his birth. On the 10th day of November, 1861, that wonderful funeral pa.s.sed through the streets of Dublin to Glasnevin, and those who saw the gathering that followed his coffin to the grave, the thousands of stalwart men that marched in solemn order behind his bier will never forget the sight. A silent slab unlettered and unmarked shows the spot where his remains were interred; no storied urn or animated bust, no marble column or commemorative tablet has been consecrated to his memory, but the history of his life is graven in the hearts of his countrymen, and he enjoys in their affectionate remembrance, a monument more enduring than human hands could build him.
THOMAS CLARKE LUBY.
Looking along the course of Irish history, it is easy to point out certain periods in which England could have found an opportunity for making terms with the Irish nation, healing some of the old wounds and mitigating in some degree the burning sense of wrong and the desire of vengeance that rankled in the hearts of the Irish race. There were lulls in the struggle, intervals of gloomy calm, occasions when the heart of Ireland might have been touched by generous deeds, and when the offer of the olive branch, or even a few of its leaves, would have had a blessed effect. But England never availed of them--never for an instant sought to turn them to good account. She preferred when Ireland was defeated, prostrate, and forlorn, to taunt her with her failure, scoff at her sufferings, and add to her afflictions. Such was her conduct during the mournful time that followed on the attempted insurrection of 1848.
It was an appaling time, in whose death-laden atmosphere political action was impossible. The famine had made of the country one huge graveyard. A silence fell upon the land, lately so clamorous for her rights, so hopeful, and so defiant. The Repeal organization spoke no more; the tramp of the Confederate Clubs was no longer heard in the streets; O"Connell was dead; the Young Ireland leaders were fugitives or prisoners; and the people were almost bewildered by a sense of their great calamity. Then, if England had stooped to raise her fallen foe, offered her some kindly treatment, and spoken some gracious words, the bitterness of the old quarrel might have been in some degree a.s.suaged, even though its cause should not be entirely obliterated. But England did not choose to take that politic and Christian course. She found it much pleasanter to chuckle over the discomfiture of the Irish patriots, to ridicule the failure of their peaceable agitation, to sneer at their poor effort in arms, to nickname, and misrepresent, and libel the brave-hearted gentleman who led that unlucky endeavour; and above all to felicitate herself on the reduction that had taken place in the Irish population. That--from her point of view--was the glorious part of the whole affair. The Irish were "gone with a vengeance!"--not all of them, but a goodly proportion, and others were going off every day. Emigrant ships cl.u.s.tered in the chief ports, and many sought their living freights in those capacious harbours along the Atlantic coast which nature seemed to have shaped for the accommodation of a great commerce, but where the visit of any craft larger than a fishing smack was a rare event. The flaming placards of the various shipping-lines were posted in every town in Ireland,--on the chapel-gates, and the shutters of closed shops, and the doors of tenantless houses; and there appeared to be in progress a regular breaking up of the Irish nation. This, to the English mind, was positively delightful. For here was the Irish question being settled at last, by the simple process of the transference of the Irish people to the bottom of the deep sea, or else to the continent of America--nearly the same thing as far as England was concerned, for in neither place--as it seemed to her--could they ever more trouble her peace, or have any claim on those fruits of the Irish soil which were needed for the stomachs of Englishmen. There they could no longer pester her with pet.i.tions for Tenant Right, or demands for a Repeal of the Union. English farmers, and drovers, and labourers, loyal to the English government, and yielding no sort of allegiance to the Pope, would cross the Channel and take possession of the deserted island, which would thenceforth be England"s in such a sense as it never was before. O magnificent consummation! O most brilliant prospect, in the eyes of English statesmen! They saw their way clear, they understood their game; it was to lighten in no degree the pressure which they maintained upon the lives of the Irish people, to do nothing that could tend to render existence tolerable to them in Ireland, or check the rush of emigration.
Acting in conformity with this shallow and false estimate of the situation, they allowed to drift away unused the time which wise statesmen would have employed in the effectuation of conciliatory and tranquilising measures, and applied themselves simply to the crushing out from the Irish mind of every hope of improved legislation, and the defeat of every effort to obtain it. Thus when the people--waking up from the stupefaction that followed on the most tragic period of the famine--began to breathe the breath of political life again, and, perceiving the danger that menaced the existence of the peasant cla.s.ses, set on foot an agitation to procure a reform of the land-laws, the government resolutely opposed the project; defeated the bills which the friends of the tenantry brought into parliament; and took steps, which proved only too successful, for the break up of the organization by which the movement was conducted. And then, when Frederick Lucas was dead, and Mr. Duffy had gone into exile, and the patriot priests were debarred from taking part in politics, and Messrs. John Sadlier and William Keogh were bought over by bribes of place and pay, the government appeared to think that Irish patriotism had fought in its last ditch, and received its final defeat.
But they were mistaken. The old cause that had survived so many disasters was not dead yet. While the efforts of the Tenant Righters in Ireland were being foiled, and their party was being scattered, a couple of Irishmen, temporarily resident in Paris, fugitive because of their connexion with the events of "48, were laying the foundations of a movement more profoundly dangerous to England, than any of those with which she had grappled since the days of Wolfe Tone and Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Those men were John O"Mahony and James Stephens.
Since then their names have been much heard of, and the organization of which they were the originators has played an important part in Irish history. But at the period of which we are now writing, the general public knew nothing of O"Mahony or of Stephens beyond the fact that they were alleged to have taken some part in the recent insurrectionary demonstrations. Stephens, who was then a very young lad, had been present at the Ballingarry attack, and had been severely wounded by the fire of the police. He managed to crawl away from the spot to a ditch side, where he was lost sight of. A report of his death was put into circulation, and a loyal journal published in Kilkenny--the native town of the young rebel, who in this instance played his first trick on the government--referred to his supposed decease in terms which showed that the rule _de mortuis nil nisi bonum_ found acceptance with the editor.