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THE HOUR OF DESTINY.

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notes thy reign will be scarcely ligible to posterity, for the blood of thy subjects will have stained it.

Rise, then, men of Ireland, since Providence so wills it. Rise in your cities and in your fields, on your green hills, in your valleys, by your dark mountain passes, by your rivers and lakes, and ocean-washed shores. Rise as a nation. England has dissevered the bond of allegiance. Rise, not now to demand justice from a foreign kingdom, but to make Ireland an independent kingdom forever. It is no light task. God has appointed you. It is a work of trial and temptation. Oh! be steadfast in the trial-be firm to resist the temptation. You have to combat injustice, therefore you must yourselves be just. You have to overthrow a despot power, but you must establish order, not suffer anarchy. Remember, it is not against individuals, or parties, or sects, you wage war, but against a system; overthrow-have no mercy on that system. Down with it; down with it, even to the ground; but show mercy to the individuals who are but the instruments of that system. You look round upon a land—your own land—trodden down, and trampled, and insulted, and on a persecuted, despairing people. It is your right arm must raise up the trampled land-must make her again beautiful, and stately, and rich in blessings. Elevate that despairing people, and make them free and happy; but teach them to be majestic in their force, generous in their clemency, noble in their triumph. It is a holy mission. Holy must be your motives and your acts, if you would fulfil it. Act as if your soul's salvation hung on each deed, and it will, for we stand already in the shadow of eternity. For us is the combat, but not for us, perhaps, the triumph. Many a noble heart will lie cold, many a throbbing pulse will be stilled, ere the cry of victory will arise! It is a solemn thought, that now is the hour of destiny, when the fetters of seven centuries may at last be broken, and by you, men of this generation; by you, men of Ireland! You are God's instruments; many of you must be freedom's martyrs. Oh! be worthy of the name; and as you act as men, as patriots, and as Christians, so will the blessing rest upon your life here, when you lay it down a sacrifice for Ireland upon the red battle-field.

XXXVI-VINDICATION FROM TREASON.

M'MANUS.

My lords, I trust I am enough of a Christian, and enough of a man, to understand the awful responsibility of the question that has been put to me. My lords, standing on this my native soil-standing in an Irish court of justice, and before the Irish nation, I have much to say why sentence of death, or the sentence of the law should not be passed upon me. But, my lords, on entering this court, I placed my life -and what is of much more importance to me, my honorin the hands of two advocates; and, my lords, if I had ten thousand lives, and ten thousand honors, I would be content to place them under the watchful and glorious genius of the one, and the high legal ability of the other,—my lords, I am content. In that regard I have nothing to say. But I have a word to say, which no advocate, however anxious, can utter for me. I have this to say, my lords: that whatever part I may have taken through any struggle for my country's independence-whatever part I may have acted in that short career, I stand before your lordships now with a free heart, and with a light conscience, ready to abide the issue of your sentence. And now, my lords, perhaps this is the fittest time that I may put one sentiment on record, and it is this:Standing, as I do, between this dock and the scaffold, it may be now, or to-morrow, or it may be never; but whatever the result may be, I have this sentiment to put on record—that in any part I have taken, I have not been actuated by animosity to Englishmen ; for I have spent some of the happiest and most prosperous days of my life there, and in no part of my career have I been actuated by enmity to Englishmen, however much I may have felt the injustice of English rule in this land. My lords, I have nothing more to say. It is not for having loved England less, but for having loved. Ireland more, that I stand now before you.

XXXVII.-VINDICATION FROM TREASON

MEAGHER.

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

VINDICATION FROM TREASON.

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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 have tried to serve would think 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 which I have been convicted will view them; and by the country, the sentence which you, my lords, are about to pronounce, will be remembered only as the severe and solemn attestation of my rectitude 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 honored. In speaking thus, accuse me not, my lords, of an indecorous presumption. To the efforts I have made in a just and noble cause, I ascribe no vain importance-nor do I claim for those efforts any high reward. But it so happens, and it will ever happen so, that those who have tried to serve their country, no matter how weak the effort may have been, are sure to receive the thanks and blessings of its people. With my country, then, 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 for 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 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 bescech of you, my lord-you who preside on that bench-when the passions and prejudices of this hour have passed away, to appeal to your own conscience, and to ask of it, was your charge, as 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 retract 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 opened to receive me-even here, encircled by these terrors, the hope which has beckoned me to the perilous sea upon which I have been wrecked, still consoles, animates, 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 the meanest beggar in the world, to restore to her her native powers and her ancient constitution, this has been my ambition, and this ambition has been my crime. Judged by the law of England, I know this crime entails the penalty of death; but the history of Ireland explains this crime, and justifies it. Judged by .that history, I am no criminal, I deserve no punishment. Judged by that history, the treason of which I stand convicted, loses all its guilt, is sanctioned as a duty, will be ennobled as a sacrifice. With these sentiments, my lord, I await the sentence of the Court. Having done what I felt to be my duty--having spoken what I felt to be the truth, as I have done on every other occasion of my short career, I now bid farewell to the country of my birth, my passion, and my death-the country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies-whose factions I have sought to still-whose intellect I have prompted to a lofty aim-whose freedom has been my fatal dream. I offer to that country, as a proof of the love I bear her, and the sincerity with which I thought and spoke and struggled for her freedom-the life of a young heart, and with that life all the hopes, the honors, the endearments of a happy and an honored home. Pronounce, then, my lords, the sentence which the laws direct, and I will be prepared to hear it. I trust I shall be prepared to meet its execution. I hope to be able, with a pure heart and perfect composure, to appear before a higher tribunal-a tribunal where a judge of infinite goodness as well as of justice will preside, and where, my lords, many, many of the judgments of this world will be reversed.

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XXXVIII-INFLUENCE OF THE DUTCH.

BOYTON.

THERE is something in the history of the Dutch people calculated to attract the interest of every cultivated mind. Independent of all mere abstract considerations, we cannot but recollect that the brightest passages in British history were those in which England and Holland were written in the same page of Elizabeth, the founder of our empire, and the vindicator of our faith-of Cromwell, who made the name of Englishman respected as ever was that of ancient Roman -and the glories of Blenheim, and the laurels of Waterloo, were won along with Dutch allies, and against French foes. On one occasion alone, were we united with the French against the Hollanders; and abroad or at home, in our foreign or our domestic relations, it is the darkest and the basest page in the tablets of our histories—I allude to the reign of Charles the Second. With a profligate, an unconstitutional, and a popish government at home, the name of England was dishonored abroad. The Dutch fleets swept the seas, our shipping was destroyed even upon the waters of the Thames, and for once in our history a foreign fleet arrived within a single tide of London bridge. Nor were we absolved from our shame, until we sought from persecuted Holland a Deliverer-(No idea can be conveyed of the enthusiasm with which this declaration was received)—from dishonor abroad and despotism at home. No war can be safe but such as is supported by the good-will of the people. I am assured from every private account-I see it in forced acknowledgment of the hireling press, who, however enslaved to the Government, are constrained to obey the still higher behests of the popular will, that in England there is a universal reclamation against this war-and, in Ireland— in Ireland, what is the feeling? It has been said by a wise heathen, that a good man struggling with adversity is a spectacle worthy of gods to witness. But a great and temperate and wise prince, struggling against unjust aggression-asserting with firmness, and not without moderation, the unquestionable rights of his subjects-supported by the sacrifices and cheered by the affections of a unanimous and devoted people, is a spectacle well worthy the admiration of mankind.

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