The life, trial and conversations of Robert Emmet, Esq., leader of the Irish insurrection of 1803 : $b also, the celebrated speech made by him on the occasionAnonymous
History
The life, trial and conversations of Robert Emmet, Esq., leader of the Irish insurrection of 1803 : $b also, the celebrated speech made by him on the occasion
He had been sufficiently unguarded in his conduct, while the
disturbances of ‘98 existed, to become an object of the vigilance of
government, and had found it prudent to reside abroad so long as the
habeas corpus act was suspended. He fled to the Continent, where an
active correspondence was set on foot by the French government. Emmet,
with the chiefs of the preceding Irish Rebellion were summoned to Paris.
Consultations were held with them, and the organization of another
revolution was commenced and prosecuted with increasing diligence. Nor
was the then ruler of France, (Buonaparte) inattentive, or remiss to
forward, by every means, in his power, the project. To Emmet was
delegated the office of director and mover of this new attempt upon the
British dominion in Ireland.
On the expiration of the habeas corpus act, he returned to Dublin, but
thought it prudent, for the forwarding of the revolution, to live
privately. He took obscure lodgings at Harold’s Cross, under the assumed
name of Hewit. Here he held his meetings with his associates. These
people hailed with transport the opportunity of recommencing another
attempt on subverting British power in Ireland! and while some spread
themselves over the country in every direction, others fixed themselves
in the metropolis.
During the first four months after Emmet’s arrival, nothing of his
machinations transpired. Soon after the King’s Proclamation, on the 8th
of March, conceiving the moment of national alarm at the renovation of
hostilities, and a threatened invasion, favourable to his projects, he
became more active in his preparations. The whole of his family portion,
which consisted of two thousand five hundred pounds, he devoted to his
enthusiasm. In the beginning of April, he quitted his lodgings at
Harold’s Cross, with the name of Hewit, and in the new name of Ellis he
took the lease of a house, for which he paid a fine of sixty-one
guineas, in Butterfield-Lane, near Rathfarnham. Here he harangued his
associates, and encouraged them by hopes of a happy result to their
labours.
‘Liberty,’ said he, ‘is the child of oppression, and the birth of the
offspring is the death of the parent; while tyranny, like the poetical
desert bird, is consumed in flames ignited by itself, and its whole
existence is spent in providing the means of self-destruction. We have a
complete exemplification of this in the past history and present state
of Ireland, where increase of numbers and increase of intelligence, have
been the direct result of that system which too long has ruled this
kingdom.
‘The relentless oppression of the English Government forced the people
into habits of temperance—necessity made them abstemious, and time
reconciled them to their wholesome esculent, which providentially came,
like the manna of the desert, to feed the sojourners in the land of
their fathers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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