Such scorn as is poured from it in the new-born “patriotism” of the Beresfords, the Fosters, the Whaleys, the Saurins, the Verekers, who had already alienated every right through which an Irishman could call himself a free man! “You are called on to oppose this Union, to preserve your rights. Now I ask the men who call on you what rights you have to support? I ask parliament what right _they_ have not wrested from you? They adjure you to support the constitution. Alas! for that constitution, originally a shadow, now embodied a substance of corruption. You are called on to resist—_what_? Not _oppression_, it has been _protected_. Not _injustice_, it has been _legalised_. Not _cruelty_, it has been _indemnified_.... Is it for the _Convention_, the _Insurrection_, the _Indemnity Acts_, that you are to resist the annihilation of the parliament that passed them? While these Bills stand recorded on their Journals parliament ought to know that the country cannot dread their extinction. And if the minister of England wishes to use any argument but military force for the accomplishment of this measure, let him present that statute-book to the people, and ask them—‘Why should you wish the duration of this parliament? do you not feel that I am omnipotent in it? are not my mandates written here in blood?...’ “I shall not dwell more on the advantages than I have done on the justice of this measure. I do not believe that one advantage will result from it, or from any other convention between Ireland and Great Britain which the English minister proposes, and which the English mercantile interest approves of: no convention or community of interests ever will be equitably conducted where both parties are not equally able to assert their own rights, and to resist the innovations or injustice of the other.... _I know that our part of the treaty will be signed and most strictly performed, and that the English part of it will be filled up how and when it suits the interests of the minister._” When the order came from the Castle to the State prisoners in Kilmainham on March 18th, 1799, instructing them to be ready for embarkation the following morning, Mary Anne Emmet, “at a late hour the same evening, on hearing of the order, proceeded immediately to the Castle, and demanded an interview with the viceroy for the purpose of ascertaining the fate that was destined for her brother. She presented herself to the viceroy with the spirit that seemed to be characteristic of her race. Lord Cornwallis was moved even to tears at the earnestness of her supplication, the anxiety exhibited in her looks, the strength of feeling, the energy of character displayed in the effort she had made. He treated her with kindness, and assured her that ‘no harm should occur to her brother.’... Miss Emmet returned to her family, and the intelligence she brought, little as it was, relieved the minds of her parents of much of their alarm.”[90] Footnote 90: