During this address, Emmet’s fine manly countenance glowed with an enthusiastic ardour, and he delivered himself with as much animated fervency as if he were addressing a numerous, but distracted assembly, which he wished to persuade. His words flowed with a graceful fluency, and he combined his arguments with all the ease of a man accustomed to abstract discussions. His amiable and esteemed character gave an elevating influence to the fame of the society of which he was the leader—many of whom, though of equal talents and respectability, were inferior in that fine sensibility of heart, and constancy in friendship, which gained him the love and esteem of all who knew him. Nor was it only for his bland manners and fine sensibilities of heart, and constancy in friendship, and firmness in principle; he ranked amongst the highest of its gifted sons, who display its fertile genius and its social spirit, who introduce the name of Ireland to the respect of the world. Commensurate with his value to relatives and friends, and to his native city, was the appalling sensation that pervaded his country on the occasion of his lamented death. It is not, then surprising that his removal in one unexpected moment from this busy life’s vocations, to the oblivious silence of the tomb, should produce, as it did, a general burst of sorrow, and a common sense of bereavement. Forty summers have closed around the United Irishmen since they made catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform the leading measures of their policy. They found all the catholics of Ireland, the great majority of its population, reduced by the operation of the ferocious penal laws, to the condition of slaves, in all things but being vendible, to the very meanest of their protestant countrymen. Not only did the British Government embrace every severity that could waste the vigour of the nation, but all the rights of humanity, and every duty of life were sacrificed by its direction or connivance, provided only that this would promote the self interest, or gratify the rancour of the favoured party.