THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY From the collection of James Collins, Drumcondra, Ireland. Purchased, 1918. 5 M 38 II s The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/lifelettersofjohOOsill By the same Author . LIFE OF JOHN MITCHEL. WITH AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE ’48 MOVEMENT IN IRELAND. “ The author has clearly put his heart and soul into the writing of it, and he is in fullest sympathy with his subject in ail his thoughts and works. He has made the story of John Mitchel’s career a very attractive one, and he has sketched a busy and a critical period with a very sympathetic and a very graphic pen. . . . ” — Freeman's Journal . “ It is an excellent Life, and deserves to be widely bought and read in Ireland.’' — United Ireland. “ The great-hearted patriot whose memory Irishmen love and revere, finds a sympathetic biographer in P.A.S. . . . This little monograph is a fine tribute to its great subject, and ‘ P.A.S.’ has done his work of love lovingly and well.” — Boston Pilot . “ This is an interesting little book, as it could hardly fail to be with John Mitchel for its theme. It has been compiled with considerable skill and industry, and is particularly rich in apposite extracts from Mitchel himself and others of the Young Ireland party.” — Irish Monthly. “ P.A.S. has shown a conscientious desire to do justice to the great Irishman whose history he has written in this volume, and we cordially endorse what is said of John Mitchel in the concluding paragraph of the work.” — Michael Davitt in the Labour World. “ It gives us a good deal of Mitchel’s own writings and speeches, not available elsewhere, and the selections are well made.” — The Nation. “ The writer of the above is, undoubtedly, an ardent admirer of the hero of the work, whose principles were at all times unhesitatingly given expression to. . . . There are many extracts from the speeches and newspaper articles of John Mitchel from the papers he conducted in America.” — Limerick Reporter . “ I read it carefully, and will freely say it gave me much pleasure. It is sound, concise, and clear. "-^John Augustus O'Shea. Dublin: JAMBS DUFFY & CO., Ltd. THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN MARTIN. «ltl|r gfetc&es «f THOMAS DEVIN REILLY, FATHER JOHN KENYON, And other “Young Irelanders.” BY THE AUTHOR OF 11 LIFE OF JOHN MITCHEL,” ETC. ■ ( . I, . VI PREFACE. some and the open desertion of other former friends. Uncompromisingly honest, he gave no quarter and took none — not even when the unasked-for “ pardon” reached him in Van Diemen s Land would he seek to have it made unconditional that he might visit home and kindred in Ireland, because, in his opinion, that would be a tacit admission of the right of England to govern Ireland, — a right which he denied to the last. Political life for its own sake, with the sordidness and self-seeking incident to it, was distasteful to him. He took'part in it simply for the benefit of his fellow-countrymen, and had it been his to see the achievement of his hopes and aspirations, there is no question but he would^have retired into the quiet of private life which had more charm for him. It was not his “ Ambition’s end or aim, To add to the vain-glorious list of those Who dabble in the pettiness of fame.’* In this age, characterized as it is by selfish- ness and egotism, it is, no doubt, difficult to understand, much less appreciate, the nobility of such a character. In fact, his is a char- acter much easier misunderstood ; and it was PREFACE. Vll the knowledge that such misunderstanding does to a great extent exist, that induced me to undertake the task of writing his life. In doing so I met with the warmest encourage- ment from his honoured widow and her sister-in-law (Mrs. John Mitchel), both of whom placed at my disposal numerous letters and family papers, and otherwise gave me invaluable assistance. I have also to acknow- ledge my indebtedness to Miss Thomson for her great kindness in allowing me to use several letters she received from John Martin; they cover a considerable period, and deal largely with public affairs. All of these letters, and the letters to Sir 0. G. Duffy, are now published for the first time. No apology is needed for including sketches of Father John Kenyon and Thomas Devin Reilly. There is no existing account of the lives of either of these two great men ; not even in Mr. Webb’s admirable Compendium of Irish Biography is there mention of their names. For the account of Devin Reilly, I am indebted to his lately deceased widow, whose friendship it was my privilege to enjoy for many years. I have often thought it a pity that the writings of this gifted Irishman have Vlll PREFACE. never been collected, but lie scattered in the columns of the Nation , United Irishman , and Irish Felon at home, and in the many papers with which he was connected in America, no- tably the Democratic Review , which contains some of his best work. It is for this reason that I have given some extracts from his articles in the United Irishman and Irish Felon. They will serve to show what a rich feast we would have were such a collection made. For the rest, but little remains to be said. In one respect John Martin was an ideal subject for a biographer. In the whole record of his life there was (as those who knew him will not need to be told) nothing to conceal, nothing to be condoned, nothing that he said or did that might not be blazoned forth to the world. Nor did he ever — although he had great cause — allow him- self to say anything harsh or uncharitable of those who forgot their professions of patriot- ism and deserted Ireland in her hour of need. He was, in truth, an Irish Bayard — Sans peur et sans reproche . And so my pleasant task is done. P. A. S. Dublin, 1st May , 1893. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. 1812—1840. PAGE Introductory — John Mitchel’s trust in his friends — They loyally respond — Scope of this book — Birth of John Martin — Account of the Martin family — John is sent to school — Meets and be- comes acquainted with John Mitchel — Their friendship — Youthful prejudices — Martin goes to Trinity — Contrasted with Mitchel — Resides in Dublin and studies medicine — Death of his uncle — Removes to Loughorne — Life there — Visits America — Continental tour — Returns home — Personal appearance 1 — 12 CHAPTER II. 1841— 1842. Viceregal declaration anent Repeal Association — Its effect — “ Young Ireland” — The Nation — Davis and his aims — O’Connell and the Nation — The Young Irelanders — Convivial Meetings 13—27 CHAPTER III. 1842— 1848. Martin still at Loughorne — Attention turned to Politics— Smith O’Brien’s Accession to Repeal Association — Its Effect — Martin joins it — Rea- sons for not doing so earlier — The Repeal X CONTENTS. PAG K Accounts — Infidel opinions — The Charge Re- pelled — Memorial to Dr. Crolly — Rupture in Conciliation Hall, and departure of the “ Young Ireland” Party — Martin severs his connection with Conciliation Hall — The Irish Confederation established — Its Council— Father John Kenyon of Templederry — Mitchel’s opinion of him — Described by J. A. O’Shea — Mitchel and the Famine Policy — Break-up in Nation Office — Martin and others leave the Confederation — Martin’s letter to United Irishman — Practical aid to the Starving People .... 28 — 61 CHAPTER IV. 1848. Death of Martin’s Mother — His love of books — His visits to Mitchel in Dublin, and courtship of Miss Mitchel — Letter to Lord Massarene — Letters to Mitchel — Letter to United Irishman forecasting Mitchel’s fate — Meeting of Confederates — Mar- tin’s Speech — Turning point in his career — His resolve — A. M. Sullivan’s opinion — Thomas Devin Reilly — Birth and early Years — Identifies himself with Mitchel — Writes for Nation and United Irishman — Selections from his writings — Escapes to America — His fortunes there — Account of his wife — Death — His character — Poem by Joseph Brenan . 62 — 104 CHAPTER V. 1848 ( continued ). Martin removes to Dublin and establishes the Irish Felon — Its contributors — Letter — Article by Devin Reilly — Lalor’s Letters — The Felon Club — Warrant for Martin’s Arrest — He gives himself up — Imprisoned in Newgate — Letter to Lord CONTENTS. XX PAGE Clarendon — Seizure of the Felon — Martin’s last article — Letter to Mr. Zacariah Wallace — The “ Trial” — Isaac Butt’s Speech for the defence — The Verdict — Speech of the prisoner and sen- tence — Letters to Gavan Duffy — Transported to Van Diemen’s Land .... 105—143 CHAPTER VI. 1849—1864. News of Martin’s conviction reaches Mitchel — His Reflections — Arrival of the “ Elphinstone” in Van Diemen’s Land — Ticket-of -leave — Letter from Mitchel — Life in Van Diemen’s Land — Arrival of P. J. Smyth — “ Conditional Pardon” granted — Letter to Miss Thomson — Arrival in Paris — Unconditional Pardon and Visitto Ireland — Death of Sister-in-law and Brother — Comes to live in Kilbroney — Mitchel in Paris, and Martin’s Visit — Letters to Miss Thomson — State of Ireland during Martin’s exile — The O’Donoghue — The National League — Letters to Miss Thomson — League Publications — The O’Donoghue deserts the League — Letters to Miss Thomson — Death of Smith O’Brien 144 — 175 CHAPTER VII, 1865—1869. The American Civil War — Letters to Miss Thomson — Sad News from America — Progress of the League — Fenian ism — Martin and Father Kenyon visit Mitchel in Paris — Letter to Mrs. Mitchel — Mrs. Page on her father’s friendship for Martin — Failure of the National League — Fenian In- surrection — Letters — Father Kenyon visits Mar- tin at Kilbroney — His health failing — Letter to Miss Thomson — More Fenian arrests — The Man- Xll CONTENTS. PAGE Chester Executions — Feeling in Dublin —Public Procession and Speech by Martin — State Prose- cution Threatened — Letters — Prosecution begun — Martin’s Speech in his defence— Acquittal — Letters — Thinking of entering Parliament — Let- ter to Mrs. Mitchel — Marriage . . 176 — 201 CHAPTER VIII. 1869— 1870. Death of Father Kenyon — His Politics — Letters to Mitchel — To Miss Thomson — Departure of Martin and his Wife for America — Banquet in his honour in New York — Speech of Horace Greeley — Martin’s Reply — Speech at Phila- delphia Banquet — Visits Boston — Lectures there — Lecture in Newark, N.J. — Returns Home 202—224 CHAPTER IX. 1870— 1873. Events in Ireland during Martin’s absence— Long- ford vacancy— Martin adopted as Candidate, but defeated — Good Results — The Home Govern- ment Association — Meath Election — Martin triumphantly returned — Significance of the Election — Enters Parliament — Friendship of Mr. Joseph Co wen — His tribute to Martin’s Memory — First Speech in the House — Parliamentary Life distasteful — Removes to Warrenpoint — Letter to Miss Thomson — Lecture in Dundalk — Galway Election Petition Debate — Martin’s Speech — Letters to John Mitchel . 225—253 CHAPTER X. 1873—1875. The Irish Home Rule League — Martin Secre- tary — Letter to Mitchel — General Election — Home Rule Victories — Meeting of the Home CONTENTS. Xlll PAGE Rule Party — Martin resigns the paid Secretary- ship — Mitchel visits Ireland — Martin writes to him and to Mrs. Mitchel — Close of Year 1874 — Pleasure afforded Martin by Mitchel’s visit — Vacancy in Tipperary — Mitch el’s address to the Electors — He is elected — Letter — Proceedings in Parliament — Another Letter — Speech in House of Commons on Mitchel debate — Second Election — Martin in Newcastle — Speech on St. Patrick’s Hay, 1875 — Returns to London and learns of Mitchel’s death — Departs for Ireland . 254 — 287 CHAPTER XL 1875. Letter to Mrs. Simpson — Martin attends Mitchel’s funeral — Is seized with sudden illness— Death — Effect throughout Ireland — Sympathetic Meet- ings — Dr. Sadler’s Letter — Martin’s charac- ter 288—297 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. CHAPTER I. 1812—1840. Introductory — John Miichei’s trust in his friends — They loyally respond — Scope of this book — Birth of John Martin — Account of the Martin family — John is sent to School — Meets and becomes acquainted with John Mitchel — Their friendship — Youthful prejudices — Martin goes to Trinity — Contrasted with Mitchel — Resides in Dublin and studies medicine — Death of his Uncle — Removes to Loughorne — Life there — Visits America — Continental Tour — Returns home — Personal appearance. When John Mitchel stood in the dock in Green Street, on the 27th of May, 1848, a new made “ felon ” according to British “law,” and, addressing his judges, stated his conviction that the course he had opened was only commenced, and that he could “ promise for one, for two, for three, aye for hundreds ” to follow his example, he indi- cated as he spoke three men whose names are dear to all Irishmen — J ohn Martin, Thomas Devin Beilly, and Thomas Francis Meagher. 2 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. In thus singling out three from the crowd of friends who then surrounded him, he, as it were, placed in their hands the carriage of the cause, for his fidelity to which he was then about to undergo a long and dreary banish- ment. Right loyally did they respond to the trust he reposed in them, and amongst the first to give practical proof of his earnest- ness was John Martin. As he spent the best years of his life in the service of his country, I propose to tell as much about him and his career as will enable the reader to appreciate the greatness and yet the simplicity of his character, and the whole-souled singleness of purpose, and self-abnegation which at all times actuated him. For this purpose I propose to give such of his writings and speeches (he was not a great writer or speaker) as will assist the narrative ; and I shall also sketch the lead- ing incidents in the lives of a few of his contemporaries, notably those of the ’48 period — a period in Irish history which has pro- duced not a few men remarkable alike for genius and patriotism. LIFE OF JOHN MAKTIN. 3 John Martin was born at Loughorne, Newry, in the County Down, on the 8th of September, 1812. His father, Mr Samuel Martin, was one of three brothers, farmers and proprietors of a linen manufactory in Loughorne, a townland which was owned by the Martin family at this period, the three brothers having purchased the fee simple of the farms which they had previously rented. About the year 1810, Mr Samuel Martin married Miss Jane Harshaw, a young lady of refined taste and great mental culture. Both families were of a Presbyterian stock, and settled in Newry for many generations. There were nine children by this marriage, of whom John was the second eldest. He was in some respects of a delicate constitution, and from his school days he was a sufferer from chronic asthma. He early developed a love for books, and this with his natural delicacy of temperament and refined disposi- tion, caused him to be intended by his parents for the medical profession. While at home, receiving his preliminary education, young John was carefully instructed by his good mother, for whom he had a high vene- ration, in those excellent principles of truth and justice which characterized him all through life ; and it was from her that he 4 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. derived that inclination for literary pursuits which brought him into contact with the Young Ireland party, and shaped his life’s destiny. In 1824, being then about twelve years of age, he was sent to the school kept by Dr. David Henderson at Newry. Here he first met and became acquainted with John Mitchel, who was also a day-scholar at the same school, and who, though three years his junior, had been twelve months in the school before him. This acquaintance speedily ripened into a close and life-long friendship, a friendship which reminds us of the beautiful friendships of Orestes and Pylades ; of Patroclus and Achilles : — “ A generous friendship no cold medium knows, Burns with one love, with one resentment glows ; One should our interests and our passions he ; My friend must hate the man that injures me,” Mitchel lived in Newry, and Loughorne was about five miles distant ; and as it was in those school days that young Martin suffered most from asthma, and often had to spend whole nights sitting up, many a time would his schoolfellow walk out to Loughorne, and the two boys would spend the night together, reading or talking, Mitchel walking back to Newry to school in the morning. It was in those days and nights that their common love of books, and the many points of simi- LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 5 larity in their tempers and dispositions cemented that friendship which neither time nor change could alter or shake. It is not too much to say that John Mitchel had a similar influence over Martin as had Davis over the youngmen who gathered around him in the early Nation days, and of whom Mitchel in his “ Last Conquest ” wrote : — “ It is very safe to say, that to the personal influence of Davis, to the grandeur of his aims, to his noble tolerance, to his impassioned zeal, and the loving trust which all generous natures were constrained to place in him, the Repeal As- sociation was indebted, not for O’Brien only, but for Dillon, MacNevin, Meagher, O’Gorman, Mar- tin, and Devin Reilly; and to the same influence they were indebted for their fate. Yes, to them and hundreds more, he was indeed a Fate ; and there is not one amongst them, still alive, but blesses the memory of the friend who first filled their souls with the passion of a great ambition and a lofty purpose.” * Martin remained at Dr. Henderson’s school till 1829 — Emancipation year. It may easily be imagined that, being brought up amidst such strict Presbyterian surroundings, he would have conceived prejudices against his Catholic fellow-countrymen, and it may at once be said that his juvenile mind did * “Last Conquest : Perhaps, ” pp, 118, 119. 6 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. entertain some of the prejudice, not alto- gether unknown amongst his family, against Catholics and Catholic Emancipation ; but his uncle one day rebuking some unconsidered remark that had fallen from him on the subject, said : “ What ! John, would you not give Catholics the same rights that you enjoy yourself ? ” This set him thinking for the first time on the subject, and the opinions he afterwards formed were more in conson- ance with the principles of liberty, justice, and equality. In this place I may mention that the political principles of the Martin family were not always National. In ’98 they were opposed to the United Irishmen ; but in 1782, they were enrolled amongst the glor- ious volunteers, and joined in opposing the Act of Union as a national calamity ; and although they were not to be found amongst that noble band — the United Irishmen — they were at all times lovers of justice, and tolerant of the opinions of others. Having completed his primary education in Newry, Martin entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1830 — the same year as John Mitch el — and, like him, did not reside within the College, but pursued his studies at home in Loughorne, keeping his terms by coming up to Dublin to attend the quarterly exa- minations. As a student he was, unlike LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 7 Mitchel, diligent and laborious. It was, very probably, the difference between mere talent and genius, which latter is not too strong a term to apply to Mitchel, who, in his student days, paid no more attention to his studies than was absolutely necessary to enable him to pass his examinations respect- ably, and yet the brilliancy of his writings has placed him in the foremost rank of the writers of his time. The study of modern languages had a great fascination for Martin, and he was a perfect master of not a few. He passed all his examinations brilliantly, and took out his degree in Arts in 1832. His father had died in the latter part of the previous year, and Martin having found almost total free- dom from the asthmatic attacks while in Dublin, decided upon taking up his resi- dence there, which he did in 1833. His fathers death had left him in independent circumstances, and he occupied himself in Dublin by studying medicine, not with any idea of practising it professionally, but his generous nature was struck with the opportunity it would afford him of assuaging the sufferings of the afflicted poor, to whom much-needed medical aid was (and is) often denied for want of money wherewith to obtain it. Fired by philanthropic zeal, his progress in the study was rapid ; and al- 8 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. though one visit to a dissecting room had been enough for him, and nothing would induce him to enter one a second time, thereby foregoing actual practical knowledge or experience, yet, with the assistance of anatomical plates, and constant attendance at lectures, he surmounted the difficulty, and had obtained nearly all the certificates neces- sary for taking out a medical degree, when an event occurred which terminated his medical studies, and closed his residence in Dublin — this was the death of his uncle J ohn, which occurred in 1835. He inherited his uncles property amount- ing to about £400 a year, and was thus placed in a similar position to that of his uncles, and what his father’s had been — that of a proprietor farming a portion of his own lands, and at the same time a small landlord. For four years, without intermission, he continued to discharge the duties of his position as they are very seldom discharged in Ireland. To all classes, but especially the poor, he endeared himself by the gentleness of his disposition, and the benevolence of his heart. It was no uncom- mon thing to see his doorsteps crowded with poor people who came to him for medical advice, and for whom he prescribed gratui- tously ; not, however, without a certain amount of reluctance, partly from diffidence LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 9 as to his own abilities, but more from an unwillingness to seem to interfere with the regular profession. For four years, as I have said, he continued to live thus, scatter- ing blessings and bringing joy and happiness wherever he went ; idolised by his tenantry, and looked up to with reverence and grati- tude by the poor. Assuredly, “ the love of a people is the most sublime crown that can rest on the brow of any man.” This brings the record of his life down to the year 1839, when he was seized with a desire to visit America. Accordingly he made all the necessary arrangements regarding his property, and in the spring of that year he sailed from Bristol to New York. From New York he proceeded to Upper Canada, where a married sister of his, a Mrs. Frazer, had settled, and with whom and her husband he made several tours through Canada and the Northern States, visiting the Niagara Falls, Toronto, Montreal, Philadelphia, Wash- ington, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and back again to New York. His home letters at this period were most interesting, full of his views of men and things, and showing the gradual expansion of his mind and develop- ment of his political ideas. After being absent from Ireland for nearly twelve months, he arrived home early in 1840, and remained there until the year following, when he went 10 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. on a brief continental tour, in the course of which he visited Belgium, Italy, and Ger- many, finally returning home towards the close of the same year. Before concluding this chapter I will endeavour to describe his personal appear- ance about this period. He was slightly above the middle height (were it not for the effect of the asthma on his frame he would have been a tall man), of slender build, with that slight stoop of the head which betokens thoughtfulness ; his hair was dark brown, very abundant, but not curly ; his eyes were large, blue-grey in colour, and of an exqui- sitely tender expression; his nose was aquiline, and, like all his features, finely cut ; his complexion was clear, and he had a fine intellectual head and placid brow. He had a pleasant gravity of demeanour, and spoke in distinct measured tones, with, perhaps, the slightest trace of the clear northern accent. He possessed in a marked degree the faculty of personal fascination, and added to a keen sense of humour a great love for fun. He could see the ridiculous side of anything at a glance, and often brought home most amusing descriptions of the scenes in the House of Commons during the short time in which he was a member. Later, I may give some anecdotes of this time, but for the LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 11 present I will content myself with giving the following, which is told by John Augustus O’Shea, himself a great friend of Martin’s : — “ I was sitting in the pastor’s parlour at Templederry once, and happened to remark, in reference to some one whose fidelity was doubted, that Mr. Martin considered him a respectable, trustworthy person. 4 Mr. Martin ! that for Mr. Martin’s opinion,’ said Father Kenyon, cracking his fingers. ‘Why, he would find a good word to say for the devil himself.’ There was a general laugh at this sally, and we all turned towards Martin, who was smoking a long pipe. He paused, pondered a few seconds, and then quietly observed, as if a new light had broken upon him, 4 Poor devil, now that I think on it, he may not be so black as he is painted.’ ” He had a pretty wit when he chose to exercise it, but his jokes were always harm- less, and never caused any ill feeling, or left a wound behind. Add to the description I have given of him, a frank, winning smile, and my readers will have a picture of him as he was when he first entered public life. He was not in any sense a remarkable looking man, but he looked to be (as he was) a man who would not be guilty of a mean or unworthy action. There was nothing coarse, aggressive, or 12 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. impetuous about him ; and the dignity of his manner had nothing austere or affected about it. He was a man to know and love, and whose friendship was worth the having : “ One, in suffering all, that suffers nothing ; A man that fortune’s buffets and rewards Hast ta’en with equal thanks.” LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 13 CHAPTER II. 1841—1842. Viceregal declaration anent Repeal Association — Its effect — “ Young Ireland” — The Nation — Davis and his aims—O’ Connell and the Nation — The Young Irelanders — Convivial Meetings. Early in 1841 Earl Fortescue, then Irish Viceroy, made a public declaration that no one who joined the Repeal Association should, in any circumstances, receive office or employ- ment under Government. This declaration was resented by many who did not concur in the policy of the Association. The feeling was strongest amongst the junior members of the Bar ; and at the next weekly meeting of the Association, letters were read from a number of them, enclosing their subscrip- tions, and asking to be enrolled in that body. Amongst those so joining were Thomas MacNevin, John Blake Dillon, Michael Joseph Barry, and Denny Lane, all of whom soon formed part of the inner councils of “ Young Ireland/’ and helped, with either pen or tongue, to win for it the celebrity it speedily acquired. MacNevin and Barry were constant speak- 14 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. ers in the Assoication, and Dillon also spoke, but not so frequently. None of the number had at this time made any position at the Bar, all having been called within two or three years ; but Barry had (in conjunction with Mr. Keogh, afterwards the notorious Judge) been joint author of a work on the Practice of the Court of Chancery that had proved a decided success. The Repeal Association, as a power in the land, was now at the zenith of its popularity. But within this same Association a smaller one had come to be formed composed of very different men, and having as leader Thomas Davis. This little band itwas that came to be known as “Young Ireland but they did not so call themselves ; that title was conferred upon them from outside. Young Ireland respected O’Connell as a man who had per- formed great public services for Ireland ; but they felt no assurance that he was likely to render much more. Nor did they believe that the good he had done was without its mischievous alloy. Normal agitation was hateful to them. The low fever of constant and prolonged political excitement was, in their opinion, wearing out the vigour and wasting the energies of the people. Their policy, broadly stated, was Irish legis- lative independence. Their object was to repeal the Union, not with a view to restore LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 15 the state of things begun in *82 — that Par- liament was, in the words of grand old Robert Holmes, “ a meteor light which flashed across the land — a deceptive vapour which quickly vanished ” — but to create one which should leave Ireland altogether politically apart from England, with a distinct Irish Ministry responsible only to an Irish Parliament. The Young Ireland party felt sure that an ignorant, distracted people, torn by factions, and arrayed in two hostile camps, embittered against each other by both political and sec- tarian hate, could neither win nor retain an independent existence. The two primary duties, then, of Irishmen who loved their country were to educate and to conciliate. With this object in view was established on the 15th of October, 1842 the Nation newspaper, 4 4 to create and foster public opinion in Ireland, and make it racy of the soil.” These words, it is well known, formed the motto of the new journal, and, as is equally well known, its promoters were Thomas Osborne Davis and John Blake Dillon, with its management entrusted to Charles Gavan Duffy. The journal thus founded was des- tined to play an important part in the sub- sequent political history of Ireland. It was not so much a newspaper as a great popular educator — a counsellor and guide. Its office 16 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. was a sort of bureau of national affairs, poli- tical, literary, industrial, and artistic. The editors room was the rendezvous of the “youthful enthusiasts/’ as the politicians of the old school called them. In the pages of the Nation fervid prose and thrilling verse, literary essay and historical ballad, were all pressed into the service of Irish Nationality. The effect exceeded the most sanguine expec- tations, and “ for three years/’ says Mitchel, “ it was, next to O’Connell, the strongest power in Ireland on the National side.” “Whatever was done throughout the whole movement to win Protestant support was the work of Davis. His genius, his perfect un- selfishness, his accomplishments, his cordial manner, his high and chivalrous character, and the dash and impetus of his writings soon brought around him a gifted circle of young Irishmen of all religions and of none, who after- wards received the nickname of ‘Young Ire- land.’ Their head-quarters was the Nation office ; and their bond of union was their proud attachment to their friend. If there had been no Davis, the present writer would not now be dating letters from Tennessee. . u O’Connell knew well, and could count, this small circle of literary privateer Kepealers; he felt that he was receiving, for the present, a powerful support from them — the Nation being by far the ablest organ of the movement ; but he knew also, that they were outside of his influence, LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 17 and did not implicitly believe his confident pro- mises that Eepeal would be yielded to * agitation’ — nor believe that he believed it ; that they were continually seeking, by their writings, to arouse a military spirit among the people ; and had most diligently promoted the formation of Temperance Bands with military uniforms, the practice of marching to monster meeting in ranks and squadrons, with banners and the like ; showing plainly, that while they helped the Eepeal Association, they fully expected that the liberties of the country must be fought for at last. O’Connell, therefore, suspected and disliked them ; but could not well quarrel with them. Apparently, they worked in perfect har- mony ; and during all this ‘ Eepeal Year’ few were aware how certainly that alliance must end. Personally they sought no notoriety ; and the Nation was as careful to swell O’Connell’s praise, and make him the sole figure to which all eyes should turn, as any of his own crea- tures could be. O’Connell accepted their services to convert the 4 gentry’ and the Protes- tants ; — they could not dispense with O’Connell to stir and wield the multitudinous people.”* It was the general opinion at the time that if O'Connell could have foreseen what the Nation would become, he would have crushed it at the beginning ; but it had al- ready grown into a great power in Ireland before even his sagacity saw in it anything * “Last Conquest: Perhaps, 3 ’ pp. 18, 19. B 18 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. but a mere newspaper ; and mere newspapers he believed he could do with as he pleased. No Irish journal had hitherto, with impunity, attempted to thwart his policy, but the Nation was to be (in the words of its pros- pectus) “ unshackled by sect or party ; able, Irish, and independent” Individually, the men associated with it had nearly all qualities to win for them personal influence. Young, well educated, socially agreeable, they were as welcome accessions to the drawing-room as to the literary circle, and they won the admiration, and, to a considerable extent, the support of the educated classes : — “ They were a band of brethren richly graced With all that most exalts the sons of men, Youth, courage, honour, genius, wit well placed — When shall we see their parallels again ?” Charles Gavan Duffy, who has since won both name and fame in two hemispheres, needs no special mention ; he was a strong journalist and able writer. His leaders in the Nation showed remarkable force and vigour, and his ballads have been, as they deserved, collected into a volume which it is no exaggeration to say has a fresh charm at every perusal. It is impossible to read his “ Muster of the North ” without being impressed with the energy and power he could infuse into those ballads. Davis had less nervous vigour, less trench- LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 19 ant directness in his prose ; but his intensely sympathetic nature, his power of imparting to others, by a style of writing emotional in the extreme, but always simple, the feelings that actuated himself, gave him an unri- valled influence over the people whom he addressed through the columns of the Nation. His poetry is full of grace, tenderness, and beauty mingled with a deep and touching pathos, which goes direct to the heart. John Mitchel was another of the early writers for the Nation . He contributed his articles from Banbridge, where he then resided ; those articles were so full of fresh- ness and vigour, that they attracted the special notice of Davis, who at once engaged Mitchel to write a volume for the “ Library of Ireland ” which he had just started. That volume, I need scarcely say, is the “Life of Hugh O’Neill,” which still charms its readers by the fascination of its style, and the literary merit which enhances its value as an historical work. John Blake Dillon, afterwards well known as member of Parliament for Tipperary, was born in 1816. He was calm and thoughtful in disposition, and remarkable for integrity, candour, and intense hatred of deceit and subterfuge. He was very fond of the graver class of studies, amongst the rest Political Economy, a science for which his friend 20 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. John Mitchel had a most profound and undis- guised contempt. He distinguished himself at the Bar both in Ireland and New York, and having returned again to Ireland, died whilst Member of Parliament for Tipperary, on the 15th of September, 1866. Thomas MacNevin was a strange and capricious compound of many qualities. He was born in Galway in 1810, and was about thirty years of age when he joined the Repeal Association. He was of a good family, well educated, and independent in means ; had great conversational brilliancy and wit, and an almost childish love of fun — indeed he had all the evidences of a too sensitively excitable organisation whic h unhappily, at last gave way under the strain it was subjected to. Gavan Duffy, in his “ Young Ireland,” has thus epitomised his melancholy fate : “ J ust before the Secession he disappeared from view; just before the Revolution he was carried to his grave.” But though, like Davis, he died young, he also, like him, did good work during his brief span of activity. He wrote a “ History of the Volunteers of 1782 “A Narrative of the Plantation of Ulster and edited “ The Speeches of Richard Lalor Shed,” to which he prefixed a pithy memoir. He also edited the “ State Trials of Ireland, 1794-1803 besides contributing many articles to the LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 21 Nation , and making numerous speeches, both in the Association, and elsewhere. Those speeches, which he always carefully pre- pared, were peculiarly telling in invective ; as were his newspaper articles by their polished sarcasm. The following extract from his article in the Nation on Lord Brougham will give a very good idea of his style. The occasion was a speech made by Lord Brougham in Parliament on the subject of a grant to Maynooth College : — “Lord Brougham has bestowed one of his paroxysms upon the Catholic priesthood, and has intimated his benevolent intention of tak- ing the future care of their education upon himself. “ Lord Brougham has considerable pretensions as a schoolmaster. He has taught a great many things in his day, and has been a great manufacturer of cheap and expeditious know- ledge. He possesses what Lord Bacon — who may be considered in some respects as one of his models — calls ‘ an infinite agitation of wit/ which spins out laborious webs of something, which, if it be not learning, has all the appear- ance of it. . . . Even the interest of the moment cannot check the incessant jet d'eau of his vituperation. He has had the courage — which is not a usual virtue of his — to attack Sir James Graham. The apostate out of power has fallen foul of the apostate in power. It was bold of the sturdy mendicant to barge the man 22 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. at whose doors he is begging for the alms of office. The discarded official of a party which his absurd and fantastic tricks well nigh de- stroyed ; his whole employment, at least in de- bate, consists in displays of the most furious malignity against his former associates, of the most startling egotism, of the most unjust insinuations, or of open and undisguised imputation. And yet is he not by his conduct vindicating his dismissal from his last place 1 . . . Where is the golden dignity of high rank in Lord Brougham i The ‘ Wretched Pinchbeck of petulance 9 is its substitute. Could any party have kept him ; could any man have hugged such a firework ] He has his finger in every- thing. His incessant activity drives him into every work. In all the graver business of the Legislature he incongruously mixes himself up ; in the most trivial matters he figures. Nothing is too high or too low for him. The lust of judgment is one of his strongest passions. In the Privy Council, in the House of Lords when sitting as a court of last resort, Lord Brougham is never missing. In the same House, in its Legislative sittings, the grave Judge becomes the light comedian. His mask has two faces, the judicial and senatorial ; and no two faces ever were more unlike. He who dispenses justice in the morning, dis- tributes mirth at night, and is not overscrupu- lous in his way of raising that poor reward of middling wit — a laugh. This is Lord Brougham — this was Henry Brougham.”. . . . LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 23 Smith O’Brien (not a man to form hasty opinions) wrote of MacNevin to Davis: “I look upon him as a man of real genius, with great capacity for public affairs.” When Davis died in 1845 MacNevin was engaged on his “ Confiscation of Ulster.” The sad event so affected him that he had scarcely energy left to go on with it ; but his sense of duty to the dead swayed him, and he finished it. It was published in June 1846, and rather severely reviewed in the Nation by Mitchel, who faulted its loose arrangement of facts, and some other blemishes in an otherwise perfect work ; but had Mitchel known that poor MacNevin’ s mind was upset he would never have penned the article which caused him such pain ; so much that he complained to Duffy that the review was unnecessarily severe, but it was merely a desire to encourage MacNevin to do his best that caused Mitchel to animadvert on the execution of the work. Alas ! little did he then know that the end was so near, and that MacNevin’s tasks in this world were done.^He becamelnsane almost immediately afterwards, and died in a lunatic asylum in January, 1848. Other and later accessions to the Young Ireland party were, Thomas D’Arcy M‘Gee, the able administrator who died by the as- sassin’s hand in Canada in 1868 ; Denis 24 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. Florence MacCarthy, well known by his poems'and translations of Calderons dramas ; John Edward Pigot, a cultivated and pleasing writer, of most advanced Nationalist opinions; and Michael Doheny, who harmonised least with his colleagues, principally from a lack of personal sympathy. His social habits differed from theirs. Originally a rural teacher, he had somewhat of the peasant character about him, was careless in dress, and not very polished in manners. But he was a man of undoubted ability ; wrote much for the Nation , his articles (when he wrote naturally, and did not attempt to model himself on Davis) having a more distinctively Irish flavour than those of any other contri- butor; and he made speeches full of cleverness and point, and rich in racy humour. For addressing a gathering of the masses he had no rival amongst the Young Ireland set. He wrote a “History of the American Re- volution/’ and a narrative of affairs in Ire- land, which he called the “Felon’s Track,” and which is described by Gavan Duffy as a “ strangely chaotic performance.” He also wrote some fine poems in the Nation , of which the best are the well known “ Shan van Vocht” and “ O’Niall’s Vow,” which appeared over the signature Eiranach. He also com- memorated the sufferings endured by his wife, in her endeavours to discover him LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 25 when he was escaping from Ireland, in a beautiful poem entitled “The Outlaw’s Wife.” He died in 1862, in New York, whither he had escaped after the disaster at Ballin- garry in ’48. The antithesis of Doheny in every respect was Thomas Francis Meagher, who was par excellence the orator of the party. He was born on the 23rd of August, 1823, in Waterford, of an old Catholic family, and was educated in Clongowes-wood and Stonyhurst Colleges. When he returned to Ireland from the latter place, he threw himself with all the warmth and enthusiasm of his nature into the Na- tional movement, and became known as an occasional speaker at local gatherings. Then he joined the Repeal Association, and after a time, so great a reputation had he gained as an orator, that the mere announcement that he was expected to speak would be sufficient to crowd Conciliation Hall to overflowing. Those speeches, often really magnificent in their eloquence, were, like MacNevin’s, always carefully prepared, but his memory of what he had written was wonderful, so that he never had occasion to use notes, thus giving all the appearance of extemporaneous speaking to what was in reality the product of careful and elaborate composition. Kindly in disposition, and refined — almost Sybaritic — in taste, he enjoyed the intimate 26 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. friendship of both Martin and Mitchel, being, as I have stated, one of the three to whom the latter specially addressed himself on the day of his sentence. Having taken part in the Ballingarry rising in ’48, he, with Smith O’Brien and others, was sentenced to death ; but this extreme penalty was com- muted, and they were transported to Yan Dieman’s Land whence he escaped to America in 1852. Here his brilliant career was, after some vicissitudes, crowned by his attaining the rank of Brigadier- General and receiving the important appointment of Governor of Montana Territory, a post which he held till his death. This event was sad and sudden ; standing on the deck of a steamer which was rounding the hills of Montana one dark and stormy night in July, 1867, he suddenly and unaccountably fell overboard, and the rushing waters of the great Missouri closed over him. Thus perished at the early age of 43, one of the most gifted Irishmen of modern times. Such were some of the men who were in the front rank of the Young Ireland party at this period. They were, as I have said, extremely popular with all classes. Their names were placed, unsought, on the com- mittees of Associations for scientific, liter- ary, or artistic purposes. Ladies of the high- est Tory families sought seats in Conciliation LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 27 Hall to hear their speeches. Distinguished strangers were taken there to see and listen to them. They were “ lionised” to a degree which might well turn the heads of young men, of whom few had passed five and twenty, a time of life when the incense of flattery very readily affects the brain ; but they were singularly free from vanity, or petty jealousies, all working with one accord for their country. From an early date the set supped weekly at each other’s residences, the usual attend- ants being Davis, Duffy, MacNevin, DilloD, Pigot, Barry, O’Hagan, O’Gorman, Lane, McCarthy, Williams, Meagher, Mitchel, M‘Gee, Doheny : generally a dozen being mustered. Those reunions had a charm all their own. The high intellectual converse, not without its graver moments, but far more often gay; the flashing wit that always dazzled, but never hurt ; the rich humour that “ set the table in a roar,” and generally the stirring strains of Irish national song — all combined to constitute a “ feast of reason and flow of soul” rarely equalled, and seldom surpassed. The charm of those evenings used to linger in the recollection of the friends long after the occasion had passed away. 28 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. CHAPTER III. 1842 — 1848 . Martin still at Loughorne — Attention turned to Poli- tics — Smith O’Brien’s Accession to Repeal Association — Its Effect — Martin joins it — Reasons for not doing so earlier — The Repeal Accounts — Infidel Opinions — The Charge Repelled — Memorial to Dr. Crolly — Rupture in Conciliation Hall, and departure of the “ Young Ireland ” Party — Martin severs his connec- tion with Conciliation Hall — The Irish Confederation established — Its Council — Father John Kenyon of Templederry— Mitchel’s opinion of him — Described by J. A. O’Shea — Mitchel and the Famine Policy — Break up in Nation Office — Martin and others leave the Confederation — Martin’s Letter to United Irish- man — Practical aid to the Starving People. When John Martin returned to Ireland the end of 1841, he resumed the same kind of life he had led for the four years immediately succeeding his uncle’s death. His friend, John Mitchel, was at this time living with his wife and family in Banbridge, where he practised as a solicitor for some years. But Martin and he continued their intercourse both by writing and visiting, for Martin was very fond of walking, nothing giving him more pleasure than long walks up the hills and mountains. He was very active, wonder- fully so when we remember the delicacy of LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 29 his constitution, and his suffering from asthma. “ Many a long walk,” says his niece, Mrs. Page, “ 1 have taken with uncle John, and often he would repeat page after page of poetry, for my improvement, and his own enjoyment ; anything that pleased him from Milton to Moore.” The appearance of the Nation was the first cause of his attention being turned to politics ; and when the paper arrived each week from Dublin, he and Mitchel would talk over the articles, and discuss their pro- bable effect on the people. Later, when Mitchel came to write for it himself, he would always ask Martin his opinion of what he had written ; and at other times when (as sometimes happened) he finished an article begun by Davis, he would get Martin to point out where his part of it commenced, for at this period Mitchel’s style had not clearly developed itself, and the traces of Carlyle, whom he was then reading, were more or less apparent. Afterwards, when he had his own paper, his style was fully formed, and could be identified anywhere. The accession of Smith O'Brien to the ranks of the Repealers, and his admission into the Association, made a profound im- pression on Martins mind. Its immediate effect throughout Ireland was to induce a 30 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. number of other Protestants to follow his example. The weekly contributions to the revenue of the Association became consider- ably augmented, and the committee had in their hands a large treasury to be used in spreading aud organising the movement. Smith O’Brien's adhesion took place in October, 1843, and in less than eight months, Martin was also a member. Mitchel, him- self a member also, was delighted, and wrote to Gavan Duffy announcing the joyful news, adding, “ Some join from patriotic motives, and some from party ones ; some from high and some from shaky ones. But if there be a single member of the Association that has joined it for the pure love of justice, and of his native land, that one is John Martin.” * This important step in Martin’s life was not taken until after mature deliberation ; he had all along thoroughly sympathised with the aim of the Association, and it was nothing but diffidence on his part that prevented him from entering it earlier. This was eminently characteristic of him. When he had quite satisfied himself that his not being an actual member might be con- strued into a lack of sympathy with the movement, and when it was demonstrated to him that his joining would cause others to Letter to C. G. Duffy, Banbridge, June 14, 1844. LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 31 do likewise, then he at once made up his mind, and the cause of Repeal had one more open and avowed advocate. He was not a very frequent attendant in Conciliation Hall, and I think he spoke only once or twice before the events which led to the secession of himself and his friends from that body. These events were the refusal of the demand to publish the accounts of the As- sociation, and the new “ moral force ” rules which O’Connell, after his imprisonment, sought to force upon the members. The imprisonment of O’Connell in 1843 left the Repeal Association almost entirely in the hands of Young Ireland, and fired by the gifted Davis, whose early death was an irre- parable loss, they made the most of their op- portunities. The sluggish character of the older members was in striking contrast to the vigour and honest zeal of the Young Irelanders. They hailed Smith O’Brien’s and Martin’s accession with delight, knowing that neither would countenance the corrupt influences that were slowly but surely bring- ing the Association to destruction. When O’Brien joined, as already mentioned, the contributions to its revenue were con- siderably augmented, and as there did not seem to be any increased expenditure, the English Press taunted O’Connell with pocket- ing the people’s money, and not letting 32 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. anybody know what he did with it. To put an end to this reproach, Martin asked that the accounts of the Association be published. The horror with which this request was received had an aspect which^if the matter were less important, would have been ludi- crous. “ Publish the accounts !” they shrieked, “ Monstrous ! 99 and they endeavoured to silence Martin by suppressing his letters, and threatening to expel him from the Association. Then followed the complaint of the Young Irelanders that the National movement was being conducted with too much of a religious bias. O’Connell de- nounced from the platform every measure, prospect, or principle that was not entirely Catholic ; the Catholic Young Irelanders said that in a Catholic Association this would be right and proper ; but they asserted that in an organisation explicitly restricted to a political purpose, and in which Protestants as well as Catholics were engaged, it was quite out of place and wrong. The contention over this issue grew very bitter, and gave rise to the imputation of “ free- thinking,” with which it was sought to stigmatise the Young Ireland party. Indeed, such grave dimen- sions did this charge assume, that a memorial was prepared by the Rev. John Kenyon, repelling the charge of holding infidel opinions levelled against the Young Ire- LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 33 landers ; this memorial was presented to Dr. Crolly, the Primate, at the Presbytery, Marl- borough Street, by Father Kenyon, Father C. P. Meehan* (the illustrious historian of “ The Earls of Tyrone,” and friend of Mangan), and two laymen. “ The work of a historian,” says a recent writer, u is perhaps of all literary occupations the most engrossing. Yet when some national issue required the consensus of the Young Irelanders as a distinct body, Father Meehan would interrupt his labours and enter the noisy arena of politics, for the sole purpose of re- cording his vote. This was the case when the charge of indifference to Religion was untruth- fully made against the writers of the Nation . Father Meehan refuted the accusation as ground- less and calumnious. This was the case also in 1846, when, as a protest against the famous and fatal motion known as the universal efficacy of c Moral Force’ as a panacea for public wrongs in all countries, and under all circumstances, the Young Irelanders in a body quitted Conciliation Hall.” The trafficking with the Whigs brought about the crisis which ended in the complete disruption of the Repeal Association. “ The suspicion is abroad/’ said Meagher, “ that * Dead since the above was written. Another link broken between the men of ’48 and the present generation. C 34 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. the national cause will be sacrificed to Whig supremacy.” He was right. O’Connell drafted the famous “ peace resolutions ” and had them introduced, whereupon there fol- lowed an angry discussion which lasted for two days (27th and 28th July, 1846), culmi- nating in the departure of the Young Ireland party from Conciliation Hall for ever. A very concise narrative of the secession is that given by Smith O’Brien in a letter to Dr. Miley in December, 1846 : — ‘ ‘Negotiations were opened between Mr. O’Connell and the Whigs at Chesham Place. ‘ Young Ireland’ protested in the strongest terms against an alliance with the Whigs. Mr. O’Connell took offence at the language used by Mr. Meagher and others. When I arrived in Dublin, after the defeat of Sir Robert Peel, I learned that he contemplated a rupture with the Nation . Before I went to the County Clare, I communicated, through Mr. Ray, a special mes- sage to Mr. O’Connell, who was then absent from Dublin, to the effect that though I was most anxious to preserve a neutral position, I could not silently acquiesce in any attempt to expel the Nation or its party from the Associa^ tion. Next came the Dungannon election, and the new * moral force’ resolutions. I felt it my duty to protest against both at the Kilrush dinner. Upon my return to Dublin, I found a public letter from Mr. O’Connell, formally denouncing the Nation ; and no alternative was LIFE OF JOHN MAKTIN. 35 left me but to declare that if that letter were acted upon, I could not any longer co-operate with the Repeal Association. The celebrated two-day debate then took place. Mr. John O’Connell opened an attack upon the Nation and upon its adherents. Mr. Mitchel and Mrs Meagher defended themselves in language which, it seems to me, did not transgress the bound, of decorum or of legal safety. Mr. John O’Connell interrupted Mr. Meagher in his speech, and declared that he could not al- low him to proceed with the line of argument necessary to sustain the principles which had been arraigned. I protested against this inter- ruption. Mr. John O’Connell then gave us to understand that unless Mr. Meagher desisted he must leave the Hall. I could not acquiesce in this attempt to stifle a fair discussion, and sooner than witness the departure of Mr. John O’Connell from an Association founded by his father, I preferred to leave the assembly.” Martin came to Dublin when he heard of the secession, to remonstrate with the Asso- ciation. He was, he said in a letter to the Freeman , prepared to abide by the original rules of the Repeal Association, but would not subscribe to any new rules, especially when they were opposed to good sense, and they had no more right to force them upon members than they had to make them wear a livery or subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles. He did not desire to oppose 36 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. O’Connell’s rightful authority, but if he used it to minister to personal grudges, he should be opposed on the grounds of public liberty. This letter the Freeman refused to publish, and Martin then announced his intention of attending the next meeting of the Association, and stating his opinion in 0’ConneH ? s presence. His friends, knowing that he was physically unfit for such an en- counter, and that the sweetness and sim- plicity of his character would be lost on a hostile assembly, dissuaded him from his intention, and induced him to write to the General Committee. He accordingly wrote informing them that he still adhered to the original rules on which the Association was founded, but that he had a decided objection to John O’Connell’s dictatorial conduct, and to the withdrawal of the Nation from the Re- peal Reading Rooms. He received a reply informing him that “ inasmuch as he dis- sented from the resolutions of the Association, he had ceased to be a member.’’ It was not explained what those resolutions w r ere, but as it was evidently desired to get rid of him and his friends, it was seemingly not deemed necessary by the writer to be more explicit. Martin could no longer be restrained from asserting his rights. He attended the next meeting in Conciliation Hall, but O’Connell LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 37 would not allow the chairman to hear him, declaring it to be “ an indescribable liberty and incivility for him to presume to speak there, he not being a member, and that it was an impertinence for him to have written to the Committee under these circumstances.” Now, that he was a member there could be no doubt, he having paid his subscription in February, and received his card of member- ship for the year. Acrimonious personal discussion, however, was so completely foreign to his nature that, seeing it was useless to persevere, he left the Hall. Thus ended Martin’s connection with the Repeal Association and Conciliation Hall. When Mitchel learned what had transpired he wrote to the secretary — Mr. Ray — to know if his name was still on the books as a member, if so to remove it. Thomas Devin Reilly, Meagher, and all his friends did like- wise, as they considered that they were quite justified in separating themselves from a body whose policy was no longer theirs, or that of the majority of the Irish people. The story of those times has been so admirably told by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy his two volumes* that I need do no more than briefly refer to them. On the 3rd of * “ Young Ireland” and “ Four Years of Iiish History.” 38 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. November, 1846, a largely attended meeting convened by the Seceders, was held in the Rotunda, Dublin, for the purpose of remon- strating with the Repeal Association, and making preliminary arrangements for the establishment of a new body to be called the “ Irish Confederation.” Smith O’Brien and Thomas D’Arcy M‘Gee attended, and deli- vered calm, forcible, and conclusive speeches, approving of the determination of the Sece- ders to form themselves into a body in which freedom of discussion would be allowed. The success of this meeting induced them to hold another, which they did on the 2nd of De- cember, with the main intention of replying to the charges that, for several months, had been urged against them from Conciliation Hall, and other places. This meeting — one of the most important ever held in the metropolis — had a numerous and fashionable attendance. The entire ability of the Seceders was put forth, and they then stated that they would meet in January, and announce to the country the course of political action they would recom- mend. Accordingly, on the 13th of J anuary, 1847? the promise made in December was redeemed, and the “ Irish Confederation” fully established; They made no avowal of war, nor did they give any pledge of peace : their object was the Independence of the LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 39 Irish people, and no means to attain that end were abjured save such as were incon- sistent with honour, morality, and reason. The Council of the Confederation was composed of some of the best men then in Ireland, including Duffy, M‘Gee, O'Gorman, Pigot, Doheny, Denny Lane, Mitchel, P. J. Smyth, Barry, O’Hagan, Meagher, Devin Reilly, and Martin. In their ranks Martin found more congenial society than he had met in the Repeal Association. Amongst them he found men earnest, sincere, and single-minded like himself; and by them the full worth of his character was soon appreciated. As a body they did not indulge in much speech-making, but devoted themselves to practical business, organizing Confederate Clubs and the like ; their assembly room in D’Olier Street was plain, the furniture con- sisting only of a table, some chairs, a map of Ireland, and a green flag furled . Martin was a frequent attendant at their meetings, and here he met occasionally a very remarkable man, whose name I have mentioned already, but of whom I have more to tell : this was the Rev. John Kenyon, Parish Priest of Templederry, in Tipperary ; a man of marked individuality and great mental power, and who exercised an extra- ordinary influence over the Young Ire- 40 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. landers. He was previous to this well known to Mitchel, whose intimate friend he was, and when he came to know Martin, he was so struck with the lovableness of his nature, that he was at once drawn to him irresistibly, and their friendship ended only with death. “ True friendship,” says Plato, “ between man and man is infinite and immortal. ,, Father John Kenyon was born in Limerick, in 1812 — the same year as Martin — and was early located in the parish of Templederry, where he remained until he died. His friendship with Mitchel dates from the early days of the Nation , in which paper he wrote many articles over the signature N. N . (formed from the final consonant of each syllable in his surname). He was also an occasional attendant in Conciliation Hall, where he made his first appearance in 1845, during the discussion on the Provincial Colleges Bill. He spoke there again — and to some purpose — on the Peace Resolutions, departing from it with the Seceders. He was a remarkable-looking man, tall, spare, and very scholarly looking ; with pale face, deep-set gray eyes, and a smile that was generally sarcastic. In a letter to Martin in the spring of 1847, Mitchel said of him : — “You would have greatly liked Father Kenyon, and I was very sorry you were not in town. LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 41 He promises to spend a week in Dublin in the course of the summer, when you must be ad- vertised of it, and come up to meet him. Do you know that you have very little idea of the man from his writings ? He is a calm, gentle, good-natured and jovial fellow — is occasionally wild and childish in his glee, sings a great deal, badly, indeed, but heartily, and with right good will. And then, in serious conversation, I think him the very wisest man I ever met. He and Mr. Haughton met several times, argued philanthropy together, and parted with increased respect for one another. In short, as at present advised, I reckon Kenyon the finest fellow, laic or cleric, that I ever knew.” A celebrated writer, John Augustus O’Shea, describes him thus : — ct Truly a man of marked individuality, unique faculties, and noble breadth of intellect — origi- nal, disdaining mere copyism, chockful of energy, strong-willed, a man in advance of his time. In that lone retreat amidst the green hills of Tipperary he was lost. His light was hid under a bushel. In some busy capital where his mental powers would have been kept to polish by constant attrition or competition with those of others, or in the grateful seclusion of some university where he would have had the temp- tation to pursue his favourite studies, and the stimulus of cultured companionship to urge him to excel, he might have done something that would vitalize his memory — that would remain 42 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. with us. As it was, with a soul above his human surroundings, exiled, in a sense, from the circles he would have adorned, removed from the lettered ease that best fits those of his tempera- ment, he lapsed into the weakness of lettered indolence too often, and the ambition that should have ripened into solid achievement became a tonic.” “ Alas! poor Kenyon,” exclaimed Mitchel once, “ his case is to be pitied. There he is high-lifted beyond the herd by his gifts, rarely accomplished; and he will pass away with the generation that knows him. He will leave nothing behind to preserve his name but rumour that fades like a mist.” J Tis true he left no works behind him ; no tomes to tell future generations what a great intellect was here “born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air;” but the memory of his good deeds is kept green in the little hamlet which knew him so long and so well ; and after all, “ Only the actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.” “ While others (says Mr. O’Shea) with not half his knowledge and capacity, his instinct of analysis and his masterful eloquence, w r ere bloom- ing and mellowing under the fostering sun of opportunity, he rusted in semi-oblivion. Al- though the priest has duties and scope for activ- ities everywhere, and Father John Kenyon was XIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 43 a conscientious priest, one cannot help feeling that in a country parish he was out of his ele- ment. He could have done more work and better work elsewhere. To relegate the voice that might fill the aisles of some vast cathedral with its persuasive sound to a remote country chapel is a woful mistake, a mis-application of means to end, a waste of moral dynamics. One does not use the keen scimitar of Damascus where the edge of a homely cleaver is effective. In literature he was catholic in his tastes, but exquisitely nice in his judgments. His intimacy with belles lettres was remarkable, and nothing pleased him more than to hear a group of young friends in the gloaming, when the setting sun was burnishing the hill-tops, read one of Landor’s Imaginary Conversations, or of Shakespeare’s plays. He set Mangan above Moore ; Dante had a potent charm for him, and indeed so had all poetry with the sound stuff and genuine ring in it. He could peruse atten- tively, and inwardly digest with enjoyment, that fund of interesting autobiography, “ Napier’s Recollections,” but amongst lay authors his favourite was Carlyle. He was very fond of music, and would hearken entranced to the weird plaintiveness of an ancient Irish melody or Scotch ballad modulated by emotional touch on the piano. In politics a democrat, he was an aristocrat in his feelings, prejudices, and car- riage ; he loved youth, flowers, and song; the beautiful in humanity, nature, and art.” Princely in his generosity and in his hospi- 44 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. tality, he welcomed many under his hospita- ble roof, especially welcome were the men of '48, and none more so than John Mitchel and John Martin. As a member of the Irish Confederation he did not often visit Dublin, but as Vice- President of the Confederate Club in Temple- derry he was most active and energetic, and his club was one of the finest and best organ- ised in the country. On one occasion at this time, in a friend’s house at Donnybrook where Mitchel was spending the evening, there was intro- duced that interesting game of proposing a question to which one of the company was to fit an impromptu verse bringing in a given word. The question proposed to Mitchel was “ Where was Father Kenyon to-day?” and the word to be brought into his answer was colure (an astronomical term), and he immediately produced the following, intro- ducing the word with consummate skill : — “The motions of this very reverend priest Defy the skill of human calculator ; From north to south he shoots, from west to east, From pole to pole, from colure to equator ; And when you deem you firmly have your eyes on This slippery priest, he’s off beyond tbe horizon.” This serves to show that he was as erratic in his movements, as he was undoubtedly eccentric in his habits. LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 45 When Mitchel became so outspoken in the Nation as to create alarm in the breast of Gavan Duffy, both Father Kenyon and Martin approved of his intention to separate himself from that paper ; but Martin was puzzled for a time to know what Mitchel proposed to do, being of opinion that perhaps he would not care to start a weekly newspaper in opposition to the Nation , and indeed he so expressed himself in a letter to a friend. But when Mitchel explained his intentions and ideas to him, Martin was quite satisfied that the plan of starting the United Irishman was the best, and both he and Father Kenyon had contributions in the first number. I shall give Martin’s letter in its proper place later on, but must now proceed to relate the events which led to this break-up in the Nation office, and the subsequent division in the Irish Confederation ranks. The country had been in the throes of famine for close on two years, and as the Government were not doing anything for the relief of the people who were starving in the midst of plenty — for the harvest of 1847 was abundant and superabundant — Mitchel felt that the people should be roused to resist and shake off the vampire that was drinking their life-blood. “ I had watched the progress,” says Mitchel, “ of the famine policy of the Government, and 46 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN, could see nothing in it but a machinery deliber- ately devised and skilfully worked for the entire subjugation of the island, — the slaughter of a portion of its people, and the pauperization of the rest. Therefore, I had come to the conclusion that the whole system ought to be met with re- sistance at every point; and the means for this would be extremely simple ; namely, a combina- tion amongst the people to obstruct and render impossible the transport and shipment of Irish provisions; to refuse all aid in its removal; to destroy the highways, to prevent everyone, by intimidation, from daring to bid for grain or cattle if brought to auction under 4 distress’ (a method of obstruction which had put an end to church tithes before) — in short, to offer a passive resistance universally, but occasionally, when opportunity served, to try the steel. To recom- mend such a course would be extremely hazard- ous, and was, besides, in advance of the revolu- tionary progress made up to that time by Mr. Duffy, proprietor of the Nation . Therefore, in the beginning of December I announced to that gentleman that I would write in the Nation no more. My friend Thomas Devin Reilly abandoned it also on the same day. “ We still remained connected with the Con- federation ; and in the Clubs and Committee made no scruple to promulgate our views, and to recommend that the people should be advised not to give up their arms, but on the contrary provide more, especially pikes, for any contin- gency ; seeing they might be well assured the LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN* 47 Government sought to disarm them for the same reason that a highway robber disarms his victim. “ Smith O’Brien earnestly remonstrated against this course. It would amount almost to a declaration of war ; and he urged that the country was not 6 prepared 9 for war. Moreover, he honestly believed that the rents were justly due; and that the poor-rates, though a grievous blunder, were really a machinery for relief, not for slaughter. He came hastily up to Dublin and introduced Resolutions into the Confederation, disavowing certain letters written by Reilly and by myself, condemning our sentiments, and protesting against the Club organization being made the medium of promulgating them. “I maintained that no law of the Confedera- tion was violated by what we had done : — that there was no use in an Irish Confederation at all unless it was prepared in so deadly an emergency to advise the general arming of the people, and to make them look for redress of their wrongs to this one agency — the edge of the sword ; — that if they were not prepared to fight pitched battles with the Queen’s troops they were as well prepared as they ever would be ; — that if they were mowed down by shot and sabre they would die a better death than was usual at that period, — for no carnage could be so hideous as the British Famine.” * There was a three days’ debate in the * “ Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps),” pp, 224, 225. 48 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. Rotunda on O'Brien’s Resolutions. Martin came up to Dublin specially to attend, and was unanimously called upon to occupy the chair. The result of the debate was (as is well known) that Mitchel and those who thought with him were outvoted, and accord- ingly they withdrew, as they had previously withdrawn from Conciliation Hall, when they found that their views were not those of the majority. But there was this difference, they never returned to Conciliation Hall, whereas in three weeks they were free to re- turn (and they did return) to the ranks of the Confederation ; thus proving the truth of Mitchel’s words that when they ruled him out “ they were merely backward in their revolutionary education.” From his position as chairman of the meeting Martin was precluded from giving his opinion on the proceedings, but when, on the 12th of February, 1848, the first number of the United Irishman appeared, it contained a letter (already mentioned) from him to the editor, giving his views with regard to the proceedings at the Confederation meeting, and pointing out that, in his opinion, the speakers had one and all missed the point at issue. I cannot do better than give this remarkable letter in extenso : — LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 49 “ Loughorne, Newry, Feb . 8th , 1848. “Dear Sir, — I request insertion in your columns for the following statement of my views respecting the important questions discussed at the late three nights’ meeting of the Irish Con- federation. My office of chairman prevented me from expressing my opinions during the progress of the debate, and at its close it would have been idle for me to occupy the time of the meeting with an attempt at speech-making. “The debate arose out of the publication of certain letters written by Messrs Mitchel and Reilly; and the objects of Mr. O’Brien’s resolu- tions were, first, to declare those letters a breach of the fundamental rules of our Confederation ; and, secondly, to censure opinions held by the writers, or attributed to them, as wrong and impolitic. The first question, viz., whether in seeking the attainment of Irish national inde- pendence, members of the Confederation have the sanction of our fundamental rules in recom- mending or adopting any other than * constitu- tional ’ operations, was, in my opinion, the one properly before the meeting. But the speakers addressed themselves principally to the minor and incidental question of the moral and politi- cal value of particular opinions contained in the letters of Messrs Mitchel and Reilly, or deduced from those letters. And I have little doubt that the vote of Friday night conveyed rather the individual sentiments of the voters upon certain topics suggested by the letters, than any deliberate pronouncement of the meeting involv- D 50 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. ing the fundamental principles of our body. Indeed, it appeared to me that most of the speakers in favour of the resolutions, particularly on the third night of the debate, were labouring (very idly, as I thought,) to discourage the Con- federation from going to war with the English Government next week, or at any fixed date ; and I am sure many members voted in the majority, to signify that they will not at present appoint a day for commencing hostilities. “So far as I am able to understand the argu- ments of the speakers on both sides, the differ- ence as to our fundamental principles is more apparent than real, and arises from the intro- duction in Mr. O’Brien’s resolutions of that exceedingly vague term, ‘ constitutional/ What the English government and the English faction in this country designate the constitution in Ire- land, Irish nationalists pronounce a usurpation . For one Confederate, I have all along (quoting the words of the Dungannon declaration) denied the claim of ‘ any man or body of men, other than the Queen, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, to make laws binding on the Irish people/ Now statutes enacted by the London Parliament are clearly not the laws of the Queen, Lords, and Commons of Ireland ; and, therefore, they are not binding upon me and other Irishmen, who adhere to the Dungannon Declaration, and who regard the ‘Act of Union’ as a usurpation. Our submission to English statutes is under protest against their authority, and depends upon prudential considerations of individual and LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 51 national interests. Whenever the people of Ireland shall have made up their mind to decline further obedience to the English Parlia- ment — whenever there shall have arisen in Ireland a public opinion, resolved on national independence, then, as a matter of course, the very existence of foreign authority in Ireland will be ignored, and the Irish 4 Constitution * will begin to operate. Law, I understand to signify the will of the nation, the common con- sent of the people of a country, regulating their common interests. That national will and common consent may be expressed through any of the varying constitutional forms, from Eussian despotism to American or Swiss democracy. But in Ireland, what is called 4 law ’ is not an expression of our national will — does not pro- ceed from the consent of our people, and only falsely pretends to consult Irish interests. Our 4 law ’ and 4 constitution ’ is the will of a foreign government, delivered to us by fraudulent constitutional forms, and imposed upon us by the force and terror of arms, in the hands of soldiers and police, hired for that purpose by the English government, at our expense. Cor- rectly speaking, therefore, we have no Irish 4 law ’ or 4 constitution ; ’ and Mr. O’Brien’s reso- lution confining the Confederation to 4 consti- tutional operations,’ only seems to introduce confusion into the statement of our principles. 44 But I consider Mr. O’Brien’s real meaning in the use of the term 4 constitutional ’ to be peaceful. In this interpretation of the funda- uRttWStrf of > LUN0 ' UBRAR’f 52 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. mental principles of the Confederation I agree. I have always understood our third rule to describe merely peaceful operations — operations directed to our own countrymen, and intended to bring them into the national ranks. I never pictured to myself our Confederation begging or commanding the English government or any other foreign power to give us independence,, or to help us to independence — never contem- plated our Confederation making war upon the English government for the recovery of our independence — never considered it our part to consult the English government in the matter of our independence. The right policy of the Confederation I have always regarded, and I still regard, as a home policy, and, therefore, a peace policy. What we want is, to get an efficient majority of our countrymen to resolve upon establishing national freedom, and to do it. I believe the will of the Irish nation to be free would not meet any considerable obstruc- tion from foreign enmity and insolence. I do not think so meanly of the good sense of the English people, as to expect that they would permit their government to make war upon the Irish nation. I feel assured that our national^ independence can be vindicated without the firing of a musket. But if, contrary to the opinion I have expressed of the good sense of the English people, their government should make war upon us, to maintain their usurped dominion, after adequate exhibition of our national will in vindication of our freedom ; if LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 53 the English government should act so madly, the Irish nation, fighting in defence of its liber- ties, would be victorious, and the British 6 Empire 5 would be utterly destroyed. Though gifted with very little military learning, I yet know enough to satisfy me that all the dispos- able force of England (I mean of the ‘ Empire ’) would be utterly ineffectual in an attack against the liberties of the Irish nation. Indeed, I think I could make it plain, upon sound military principles, and by historical illustration, that Ireland could successfully resist all the disposable military and naval forces of England, France, and Russia, combined. “ Because I regard the right to bear arms as an inalienable right of citizenship — because I think the possession and use of arms by all the Irish people a principal means of fostering a bold and free spirit among my countrymen — because in our present anarchical condition, under the ruinous influences of foreign mis- government, a volunteer national militia, com- posed of all classes, from the noble to the farm labourer, is the best and only means of restoring and preserving social order and preventing crime; and finally, because the exhibition of our national will might not produce the peace- ful abdication of foreign tyranny, unless as in 1782, an Irish national militia was ready to enforce submission, — for all those reasons I desire that my countrymen, of all classes, should have arms, and practise the use of them. I can perceive no just reason for disarming one class of 54 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. my countrymen, nor any reason at all for such a procedure or design on the part of the disarming classes to rob and oppress the class disarmed. It is only in that sense I can understand a ‘Coercion Act;’ and therefore I hold that the coerced people, or classes, ought to resist in any and every way indicated by a prudent con- sideration of their position and circumstances. “I have thus, in general terms, stated my views regarding two of the subjects discussed at the late meeting of the Confederation — ‘constitutional’ agitation, and the arming of our people. “Regarding the ‘Act of Union’ as a usurpa- tion, and refusing to acknowledge the constitu- tional authority of the London Parliament, I consider myself debarred from pleading for Irish rights in that Parliament. I utterly deny the claim of that Parliament to grant or to withhold Irish rights ; and I hold that the only right method of attaining our freedom is by an adequate exhibition of the will of the Irish people. ‘It is in Ireland the battle of our independence is to be fought.’ But I do not quarrel with my fellow-confederates for en- deavouring to make use of the London Parlia- ment for Irish purposes. For the convenience of individual and class interests, and for the pre- servation of social order, we are obliged to make use of the law courts, and many other institu- tions in Ireland, perverted as they are by foriegn influence. I quarrel with no country- man for endeavouring to use all the constitutional LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 55 forms remaining to us. And whenever it may seem to me honourable and prudent, I am ready to assist my countrymen in using all constitu- tional forms, and if practicable, in taking possession, for national purposes, of all the insti- tutions in Ireland. “ I fondly and firmly believe that there is not any essential difference among my fellow- confederates on the subjects of ‘ constitutional 9 or ‘ non-constitutional 9 operations, and of the right to bear arms. We all agree that the de facto domination in Ireland is a usurpation. We have all for our main object in life to free Ireland from that usurping domination. We all hold that any and every honest and moral means within our reach ought to be used for the attainment of our national independence ; that the people of Ireland have the same right to bear arms as the people of other countries ; that the most 4 legitimate ’ purpose, the most moral purpose, the most sacred purpose, for which a people can use arms, is the defence of their liberties. But Mr. O’Brien and others consider the advice given to the peasantry in Mr. Mitchel’s letter to be calculated to produce a general dis- organization of society, and encourage the per- petration of agrarian murders. On the contrary, in the arming of the peasantry and tenant farmers (the upper classes being already armed), I see no danger of increasing the social confusion in the most disturbed districts, or of encouraging agrarian outrages and murders. And it is my deliberate and solemn conviction, that an 56 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. equitable, and, therefore, final settlement of the class feuds, exhibiting themselves in evictions of peasants and murder of landlords can be compassed only by the formation of an Irish public opinion, founded on the rights and interests of all Irish classes, constituted by all Irish classes, and determined to defend social and national rights, and resist violent social and national wrongs, openly in arms. In other words, I believe that, in the present circum- stances of Ireland, an Irish volunteer militia, composed of all Irish classes, armed, trained, and organized, in the face of the world, is the only means of preventing whole counties of our country from plunging headlong into deeper and darker horrors of social anarchy than Mr. O’Brien has yet dreamed of. “ If the landlords, men of property, will give up their treasonable alliance with the foreign government, and unite with the tenants and peasantry in organizing such a national militia, for the defence of social rights, the preservation of social order, and the prevention of agrarian crimes, whether landlord ‘crimes,’ or tenant * crimes,’ they may, even yet, obtain a safe and honourable position. If they will to the last refuse to fraternise with their fellow-countrymen, and will rather act as the base tools of a foreign tyranny, in robbing, demoralising, pauperising, brutalising, starving their fellow-countrymen, let them take the consequences of their own cowardice and treason ! They know right well that our native land (theirs and ours) has been LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 57 gifted by God with abundance for all the Irish people, from the noble to the peasant; that their rents of £10,000 to £100,000 a year can easily be paid without leaving a peasant hungry, or converting a man into a pauper ; that double our numbers could live here in prosperity and peace — in the dignity of free industry, not the inhuman baseness of pauperism, — provided only they performed their duty to Ireland and to God, by joining all the other Irish classes, and resolving that Irish produce and Irish resources shall be used for Irish purposes — provided they give to their native land the service of the wealth, the social position, the political power, they hold as citizens of Ireland — provided they served Ireland with those hearts of theirs that are nourished by Irish blood. And how long- suffering Providence has been towards those nobles and gentry of ours ! The oppressed masses have been so submissive, so patient, so hopeful against hope. The clergy of the masses have retained so great influence, and, notwith- standing their human horror at the moral and physical destruction systematically operating around them. have still exercised that influence to inculcate religious submission, and to counteract the natural instincts, which would else drive the famishing people like savage wolves at the throats of men of property. But the patience and hopefulness of our ‘ masses ’ are changing into sullen rage. The Christian efforts of their calumniated priests cannot much longer avail ; for the people are being brutalized . The fate of 58 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. property, and men of property, and of order, and law, and civilization, will soon be at the mercy of a mad revolution — unless God shall put it in the hearts of our nobles, and gentry, and middle classes, to do their duty to their native land. “And, with swift destruction approaching our aristocracy, as well as all other Irish classes, we are told that Mr. Mitchel’s stern language concerning the crimes of that class, is calculated to repel or alarm that section of our fellow- countrymen. What a charge of childishness — of idiotcy — is this ! It cannot be that our nobles would refuse to save their country and themselves because one John Mitchel describes them as traitors. Surely ’tis not to please him they are national, or to vex him, anti-national. Surely they will not retain their position of enemies to Ireland in order to substantiate his charges. “Never did our native land so wildly, so despairingly, call upon the aid of her patriots as now. For want of our national independence, famine and plague have been slaughtering our countrymen and our friends by hundreds of thousands. Scenes of havoc have been enacted in Ireland this last year more horrible and more criminal, nationally considered, than the Sep- tember massacres of the French revolution. Famine and plague are still raging among our people, and are like to be permanent institutions in our society. Pauperism has made the interests of two- thirds of us irreconcilable with the LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 59 remaining third, and has placed the different classes of our people, the landlords and the peasantry — the men of property and the men of no property — in such horrible relation to each other, that the death of a whole class would prove the benefit of the remaining classes. It is an internecine civil war under the forms of ‘law.’ “ If we would save our country, we must not content ourselves with shrieking out our horror at assassinations, and crying shame at landlord evictions, and lamenting the destruction of industry and the waste of property. So long as there are circumstances in our political con- dition, placing the vital interests of our different classes in violent antagonism, so long will the deadly strife of our classes continue, and every year it will grow more deadly — that is, our shame, and sin, and misery, will grow the deeper, the more deadly, the more horrible, so long as our ‘ Union ’ shall last. John Martin^ The reader will have seen from the fore- going letter that John Martin’s mind was deeply exercised about the then horrible condition of affairs in Ireland. The misery and starvation of the people, and the greed of the landlords, presented a spectacle which it was impossible to regard with indifference. On every estate might be seen the agents, driving the poor people from their miserable dwellings, pulling down the houses as soon 60 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. as they left, and then refusing the wretched people admittance into the workhouse. Dur- ing this terrible crisis, Martin heavily mortgaged his property in order to raise funds to enable him to give employment to the people of his neigbourhood, who were fast being reduced to a state of beggary ; for Government would do nothing for them, — Sir George Grey, from his place in Parlia- ment, stated that the Government did not intend to submit to Parliament any propo- sition for the renewal of public works or of out-door relief. The interest on these mort- gages continued to be a severe drain upon Martin’s resources as long as he lived, — as a matter of fact, his worldly circumstances never recovered from their effects, for, al- though his income was considerable, he was not by any means a wealthy man. The rents on his property were fixed remarkably lowf and when the famine came, and distress ensued, they were in many cases remitted altogether. How different would the con- dition of Ireland be to-day if such acts of generosity were not so rare ! The influences were now at work which were slowly but surely drawing Martin into the troubled sea of Irish politics. These influences were his friendship with John Mitchel, his compassion for the miseries of the people, and his keen sense of the in- LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 61 justice of much that he saw going on around him. To quote his own words : “ I do not love political agitation for its own sake. At best I regard it as a necessary evil. ... I could not live in Ireland and derive my means of life as a member of the Irish com- munity, without feeling a citizen’s responsi- bility in Irish public affairs.” 62 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. CHAPTER IY. 1848. Death of Martin’s Mother — His love of books— His visits to Mitchel in Dublin and courtship of Miss Mitchel — Letter to Lord Massarene — Letters to Mitchel — Letter to United Irishman forecasting Mitchel’s fate — Meeting of Confederates — Martin’s Speech — Turning point in his career — His resolve — A. M. Sullivan’s opinion — ThomasDevin Reilly — Birth and early Years — Identifies himself with Mitchel — Writes for Nation and United Irishman — Selections from his writings— Escapes to America — His fortunes there — Account of his wife — Death — His character — Poem by Joseph Brenan. Early in 1847 John Martin sustained a great loss in the death of his mother, for whom he had the deepest affection. He was all this time living in Loughorne, from which rural retreat not even the persuasions of his friend John Mitchel had the power as yet to draw him. His brother James was living in Kilbroney, near Rostrevor, and between those two places, and his occasional visits to Dublin, John Martin’s life was at this time mostly passed. His love of books was a great solace to him, and their companionship, and his correspondence with Mitchel and other friends, raised his spirits, and helped him to forget his troubles, and to compose his cares. LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 63 When he came on these occasional visits to Dublin, he generally stopped at the house of his sister, Mrs. Simpson ; but much of his time used to be spent at Mitchel’s house, in Leeson street, where he was always a welcome guest. The two men would sit together talk- ing and reading late into the night, and they were always happy in each other’s society. I may mention that at this time MitcheTs youngest and favourite sister, Henrietta, was staying with him, and this was an additional reason for the frequency of Martins visits there. From the time when they were quite young, Martin had been greatly attracted by the amiability of her disposition, and the charm of her manner, and she had early learned to admire and appreciate the nobility of his nature. After his return from exile they were married, and the bond of union between the two families was thus further cemented. There was here some similarity with the courtship and marriage, after years of exiled imprisonment, of “Eva” of the Nation and Kevin Izod O’Dogherty; each was fortunate in his choice of a wife, and their union was happy, being blest with a love which was mutual, strong, and lasting. During Mitchel’s editorship of the Nation , Martin used to contribute an occasional paper on agriculture, and other matters, and when 64 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. Mitchel started the United Irishman Martin agreed tobe a contributor ; these contributions took the form of letters. As a letter writer Martin was exceedingly good ; he always went so fully into the subject, and his language was invariably clear, simple, and apropos . It has been my valued privilege, and good fortune to have had placed at my disposal many of Martin’s private letters to Mitchel, and to members of his family, and also to Miss Thomson, a lady who enjoyed for many years the intimate friendship of both John Martin and John Mitchel. I shall give some extracts from these letters later on, and I may here state that the reader will gather from them a much better idea of the noble character of the man than any words of mine could give. In the United Irishman of March 4th there is a letter written by J ohn Martin addressed to Lord Massarene, who had advocated in a public speech the passing of a law to confis- cate the estates of the Irish absentee land- lords. I take the following extracts : — “A just and most salutary law. A law which the prostrate and ruined condition of our country urgently demands. A law which must come into operation, if the systematic pillage of Irish wealth is to have any check — if the disaffection and disloyalty of our aristocracy is to receive any reproof or correction — if Irish social diseases LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 65 are ever to be cured — if the utter ruin of a whole nation is to be arrested. “ I think the third part of the rental of our land, seized and carried away, as a direct foreign tribute, year after year, for fifty years and more, — leaving out of account the application of our state revenue to foreign — often to anti- Irish purposes — and omitting the plunder and waste of our Irish resources in a hundred other ways, direct and indirect, — the property of which Ireland has been robbed, by the absentees alone, since the date of the 6 Union ’ swindle, amounts (when calculated as an annuity at compound interest) to above eight hundred millions sterling ! Those absentee rents, if retained for Irish purposes, would have accumu- lated, if not into a money capital of that amount, yet into a capital of national strength, power, and prosperity, represented by the vigorous physical condition of a population consuming, generation after generation, abundance of wholesome food, and therefore happily increasing in numbers ; by the universal extent, and the beneficial results, of industry ; by the flourishing state of art and science ; by great public works, created by the wealth, taste, and ambition of a numerous, rich, and free people. ’Tis madden- ing to think on it. The exaction of that tribute has inflicted upon our people perennial hunger, rags, idleness, beggary, famine, plague ! That robbery, and other systematized robberies, con- tinually proceeding in virtue of the 4 Union,’ aided by the failure of a crop, have slaughtered E 66 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. one million of our people in a single year ! And now pauperism, plague, and starvation — the ministers of the absentee traitors, and of foreign oppression ride over our prostrate land, ‘etio- lating/ brutalizing, and butchering a whole nation — a nation of seven millions ! “ My lord, it is time to make an end of this. You, at least, my lord, as one member of the Irish aristocracy, acknowledge that you hold your wealth, and your rank, and your social influence, of Ireland , and for the service of Ireland. . . . Absentees have no just right whatever to a farthing of their rents. Rent is described as one-third of the gross produce of land. The Irish absentees take more than one-third of the Irish rental, that is, more than one-ninth part of the Irish land produce. It would be equally justifiable to keep a ninth part of the Irish soil in total barrenness, to throw a ninth part of the Irish crop into the Atlantic, to slaughter, annually, a ninth part of the Irish population.” On the 21st March, 1848, Mitchel was first proceeded against by the Government for his articles in the United Irishman , and on the 23rd, Martin wrote to him as follows : — “ Loughorne, Newry, March 23. “My Dear Mitchel,— I see by the news- papers that the parties called ‘The Government * have given you notice that they will ask a jury of Dublin citizens to pronounce your excellent national doctrines worthy of fine and imprison- ment. Considering the political enlightenment LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 67 produced among our countrymen by the recent French Revolution, and the admirable lessons all over the European Continent, this proceeding of the ‘ Government’ men seems ludicrous rash- ness. ’Tis likely they wish to show pluck, by way of proving that they have recovered from the terror indicated by their late military bluster. “ I have read all the articles of the United Irishman , and, of course, those which form the subject of indictment for ‘ sedition.’ All the political sentiments of the United Irishman , as well as those expressed by Mr. O’Brien, and by Mr. Meagher, in their speeches at the Confedera- tion meeting on the 15th instant, I adopt as mine, in the fullest and most unreserved manner. If those sentiments are ‘sedition,’ or ‘blas- phemy,’ or ‘bigamy,’ or ‘suicide,’ or even ‘ Whiggery ,’ or ‘ political economy,’ — still I must adopt them as my sentiments. “I believe the vast majority of the people of Ireland hold those political sentiments, and in- tend to abide by them. The ‘legal safety’ of some five millions of people has always seemed to me a very comical conceit. I hope the five millions will take some steps shortly, to realize it. I am, dear Mitchel, Sincerely yours, John Martin.” In this letter we have the first indication of that courage and resolution which he dis- played not quite three months later. Again 68 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. wriiing to Mitchel, on the 6th of April, he said : — “ I hope those who know me personally know how devotedly I love peace. My temperament and my moral sentiments are altogether adverse to war ; and I confess that I want both the nerve and the ambition that qualify a man to be a soldier. “ One grand hope I draw from the character of the present European revolutions is, that war may eventually be abolished in Europe. But, above all things, I would pray for Irish freedom and prosperity without a bloody struggle. And I now begin to hope for a peaceful issue of our national struggle. My hope rests on the fact that my countrymen are arming, and I trust getting the courage that is needed for establishing our rights. . . . “ It may be that the usurping oligarchy learning from our people’s armed determination the hopelessness of butchering us into submis- sion to futher 1 legal and constitutional ’ atroci- ties, will quietly abdicate their ‘government’ of fraud and force. - But it is plain that the only arguments they can understand are arms in our people’s hands. And let us remember, and let the world know that we seek peace and liberty and our own rights . We ask nothing from England — nothing. We desire no injury to the English people, or to any people. We do not want to rob the English ; therefore, we do not desire to ‘govern’ then. We want peace with all the world, and, therefore, we must LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 69 have justice; the only lasting word of peace. We are ready to proclaim an amnesty. Our hatred towards the English oligarchy, and to- wards the Irish oligarchy, that act as their jackals, will cease as soon as they cease to rob and murder us. We want no disturbance of the settlement of property in Ireland, or of social order, except what is just, and what may be necessary for the existence of our people, as freemen, by their own industry. We want merely to pre- vent any pretended ‘rights of property/ any pretended social order, from being really an im- pious machinery for creating and perpetuating social war — for making the different classes of our people enemies to each other, and setting them to hate, and rob, and murder each other. We would most gladly have a peaceful revo- lution, so that our people might at once be set to work, to make Irish industrial resources supply Irish wants. May history never have to record the bloody horrors that must char- acterize an Irish war of independence ! But, assuredly, if not a peaceful revolution, then a fierce and desperate insurrection must come — and may the God of Justice fight on the side of justice ! “ . . . No slaughtering Suwarrow or Paske- witch ever slaughtered with their cannon-balls and shells, and bayonets, on the scale of na- tional murder, that a Russell and Clarendon can administer. . . . “ Mammon is the spirit which actuates English domination all over the world. Our people are 70 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN* victims offered up to satisfy the horrid cravings of that demon god of theirs. With solemn ‘legal and constitutional’ formalities, our indus- try is stopped and prevented, our property plun- dered, our people kept idle and ignorant m a de vicious and slavish, and almost brutal — made naked and hungry, and starved to death — all to satisfy the cravings of English Mammonism ; and now that our attitude begins to show that we are about to make an end of our slavery, and release ourselves from the clutch of ‘enlightened and paternal’ jobbery — listen to the howlinssof the English priests of Mammon, Times , Chronicle , Spectator , Britannia , Standard. And then most peaceful and Christian gentlemen threaten to starve us, by blockading our coasts with their pirate fleet. And they plot, like friends, as they are, to hound the deluded Orangemen of Ulster, like wolves, at their countrymen’s throats. Let them plot and threaten ; they cannot devise worse horrors for the rebellious Irish than the patient Irish now endure.” All this while the country was anxiously watching the result of the struggle between Mitchel and the Government. On the 13th of May, 1848, he was arrested and impri- soned in Newgate ; on the 16th, Martin wrote a letter, which was published in the United Irishman of the 20th May (the second last number of that remarkable paper), from which I take the following passages : — “ An impression of sacred grief and rage has LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 71 been, as it were, burned into the souls of some Irishmen by the events of the great famine year. Some of those men have devoted their lives to the one object of inducing the survivors of the Irish people to adopt the only effectual means for overthrowing the tyranny under which our country lies desolate — to take up arms in defence of their lives, and to stand upon their inalienable rights. And the chief of those men is John Mitchel. The new policy of Irish patriots, aided by the moral effects of the late French Revolution, having already resulted in changing a noisy and powerless agitation into a formidable national band, the enemies of Ire- land, who could laugh at the old talking system, are obliged to resort to active measures for maintaining their usurped power. . . . Having occupied the Irish law courts with their agents and creatures, the usurping government can generally succeed in getting its wicked will sanctioned by Irish legal form. And therefore it is that John Mitchel, the champion of Ireland, is now in Newgate awaiting his trial as a felon . And this nation will next week behold the spectacle of an Irish jury, — presumed to express the sentiment, and to maintain the rights of the Irish Community, — being asked to brand an Irishman as a felon, to confiscate his goods, and virtually to put him to death, because he has exhorted his countrymen to assert their country’s rights, by just and efficient means, and because they are well disposed to adopt his advice. u If they can compass a conviction in legal 72 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. form, and if they can succeed in transporting an Irish national leader, because he is an Irish national leader — for that is precisely the issue that is joined — then, indeed, they may consider the national movement at an end, for this generation, at least. The spirit of the people will be broken. The most virtuous men in the national party will go, in despair, into voluntary exile. Corruption will decimate the ‘ leaders.’ The hoof of the foreign oligarchy will be fixed firm upon Ireland’s neck for another score of years. “No Repealer must be convicted, as a Re- pealer, under this 4 felony act.’ No Repealer, as a Repealer, must be permitted to leave Ire- land in a convict ship. “John Mitchel is the especial object of the foreign Government’s sentence, because he has done much to weaken the Government’s hold upon Ireland — because the enemies of Ireland dread him more than any other man in Ireland. “He must not be convicted. . . . No fairly- chosen jury of his countrymen can convict him. . . . Let the Irish people think solemnly of their duty in this matter. There must be prompt decision. Before this day week, Ireland will have gained a third, and far more important triumph over the foreign enemy — or the cause of Iiish nationality will be lost for a generation.” Viewed in the light of subsequent events, this letter was quite prophetic in its forecast of the fate of the country after Mitchel’s LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN 73 transportation. The spirit of the people was indeed broken ; voluntary exile and death in foreign graves was the late of the few who could not longer endure the daily and hourly scenes of tyranny and starvation taking place in their unhappy country ; corruption did, alas ! find its way into the remainder of the national party, and once more was to be seen in Ireland the hideous spectacle of the political renegade. Martin foresaw all this, and so he called upon his countrymen to rally round their champion, and see that he was not done to death by the dagger of the “ law ; ” for to pack a jury composed of men known to be politically opposed to the prisoner is nothing but a base and cowardly murder, John Martin was completely ab- sorbed by the approaching “trial,” and had clearly made up his mind what he would do in the event of his friend being convicted, for in a letter written by John Mitchel, from Newgate prison, on the 16th of May, to Miss Downing (“ Mary ” of the Nation), I find the following passage : “ Mr. Martin is going to remove to Dublin.” On Sunday, the 21st of May, there was held in Dublin a great meeting of Con- federates, to protest against jury packing in general, and to endeavour to secure a fair trial for John Mitchel. John Blake Dillon occupied the chair, and several speeches n LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. were made ; but the only speech I need give here is that of John Martin. He said : — ‘‘1 will say a few words, because all the gentlemen who have spoken happen to differ from Mr. Mitchel on some questions. I agree with Mr. Mitchel. But there is no concern here of land tenure, or of any social question, or of forms of government, or of any point of politics. There is just this one simple question — between England, as a tyrant, and Ireland, as a struggling slave. The English Government, which we all agree in regarding as our mortal enemy, has seized upon John Mitchel as their victim ; and, therefore, he is the champion of Ireland. Not because of his talents, or his influence, but because the enemies have selected him as their most dreaded antagonist, therefore he is our champion. They want to give him a felon’s doom — not because of his views about Irish Landlordism, or the form of government for Ireland — but because he is formidable to British tyranny. The object of this meeting is to declare our determination to use all the exertions in our power to get a fair trial for Mr. Mitchel, and the resolution says that the packing of a jury is an assassination. Do you consider it as such] (Cries of Yes, yes.) Are you determined to hold by the opinion ] (Yes, yes.) Then I will trouble you no further : I have no more to say.” The turning point in John Martin’s life had now arrived. He was not so far LIFE OF JOHN MAKTIN. 75 committed to political professions that he might not have drawn back and acted on the tame counsels of expediency, and the world (which admires prudence) would not have thought anything the less of him. But for the world and its ways John Martin cared nothing. His friend was in danger, and his place was at his side, to save him if he could, if not, to emulate his noble example : — “ I care not for the world ; its praise or blame Pass me but lightly by.” Sitting with John Mitchel, in his gloomy cell in Newgate, Martin decided on the course which he would take in the event of his friend being transported, and his paper suppressed. He then and there informed Mitchel that he would start a successor to the United Irishman , and endeavour to supply its place and continue to spread abroad its teachings. “ It was,” says A. M. Sullivan, “ a truly noble resolve, deliberately taken, and resolutely and faithfully carried out. None can read the history of that act of daring, and of the life of sacrifice by which it was followed, and not agree with us that, while the memories of Tone, and Emmet, and Russell are cherished in Ireland, the name of John Martin ought not to be for- gotten.” j In making his choice, Martin knew very 76 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. well to what it must inevitably lead ; but the contemplation of this did not deter him from his resolve. He knew the danger he was braving, and that the path on which he elected to enter led to suffering and ruin ; but he acted with a full consciousness of the situation, — unflinchingly and unhesi- tatingly. I have alluded, at the commencement of this work, to the closing scenes of Mitchels “ trial,” and his confidence that his friends would continue the good work he had begun. We now see that his confidence was justified to the full, as far as John Martin was con- cerned. But in addition to him, there was another equally trusted, and equally worthy of trust, and who ably co-operated with Martin in his new labours, and lent to the fast-dying cause the fire and impetus of his writings. Thomas Devin Reilly worked on bravely while there was any hope of success, and then, when that hope was extinguished, when he saw another friend swept away by the enemy, he exiled himself from his native land. So little is known of this gifted Irish- man, that I may be pardoned for giving a somewhat detailed account of his brief but brave career. He was born in the town of Monaghan, on the 30th of March, 1824. “ To account,” LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 77 says Mitchel, 44 for any strongly moulded character, and for that powerful set of the spring-tide of passion and impulse, which bears a man onward all his life long, seeking one single polar star, — until it either lifts him into the serene of victorious heroism, or plunges him into the gulf of unpitied martyr- dom, or whirls him into the maelstrom of madness, — to account for that, to understand that, — we want to know somewhat more than the parish register imparts. The foundations of his life were laid of old : he is the child of history and heir of all the ages.” His family was a very ancient Irish one, tracing back to the O’Raghaillaighs (O’Reillys), of the days of Niall of the Nine Hostages. The vicissitudes of this ancient family were many and great ; and having been robbed by the English of their territory and possessions, and crushed by the penal laws, their condition was low enough when O’Connell, 44 like a mediator and saviour/’ dawned upon Ireland. In his twentieth year we find him a stu- dent in Trinity College, Dublin ; but he did not pursue his studies to the extent of obtaining a degree. From his boyhood he had been a greedy devourer of books, his reading being almost as varied and extensive as Davis’s. The history of his own land and 78 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. of his own clan were familiar to his mind ; and amongst the youths who most eagerly drank in the fiery draughts of revolutionary intoxication, which flooded the columns of the Nation in the days of ’43, there was no more eager and passionate devotee than Thomas Devin Reilly. While he was yet a student in College, momentous events were taking place in Ireland. The Clontarf meeting was sup- pressed, O’Connell was imprisoned, and, worse than all, Davis died. Then came the famine, with all its attendant horrors, bowing the people to the dust, and the promptings of despair rather than hope which goaded the leaders of the people. “ Reilly, his heart bursting with proud indignation, and a sort of sacred rage, flung off his student’s gown and threw himself into the wreck of the cause, resolved to do his part in retrieving it, or failing that to die.” From the first he identified himself with Mitchel in his policy ; being equally outspoken in his writings and in his speeches. He was a member of the Repeal Association for some time previous to the Secession in July, 1846 ; and on the departure of the Seceders, he also severed his connection with Conciliation Hall. On the establishment of the Irish Confederation he became a member, and was elected to a place on its council. When the differences LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 79 arose in that body, he voluntarily resigned this position, and in doing so said : — “ I would cheerfully sacrifice much more than the position of an acting member of your coun- cil, and the political intercourse which I have enjoyed with those, who, during the past year, laboured with me, and for the great majority of whom I beg now to express sentiments of grateful respect, to preserve the Confederation, and prevent further division in its ranks.” It was in October, 1845, that he first became a contributor to the Nation, and for two years he continued to write for it. During those two years he became a close friend of Mitchel’s, and was a frequent and welcome visitor at his house ; and, like him, the great aim of all his writings and actions during those years, was to excite the people to insurrection, for he saw that they were perishing by famine and fever — perishing more miserably than shot or sword could slay, and he could not bear the thought that the people of Ireland should melt off the face of the earth before the most atrocious of all enemies, and make no resistance. When Mitchel separated himself from the Nation in December, 1847, Reilly did like- wise, and contributed to the United Irish- man, while it lasted. Some of his best writings appeared in this paper, and for this 80 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. reason, — in the Nation he was under a certain restraint, owing to the less advanced views held by Gavan Duffy; but in the columns of the United Irishman , he was free to pour forth to the full the torrent of passion and fierce enthusiasm which burned within him. Those articles are brilliant but bitter, glowing with triumph over the daring deeds of other nations, darkened with shame and wrath at the abject dulness of his own. In the first number of the United Irishman , he had an article entitled the “ Sicilian Style,” celebrating the Revolution which had just taken place in Sicily. After recounting how the island had been invaded, and made into a province for Naples, and how, under the alien rule, the nobles had become absen- tees, and the peasants, reduced to the state of slaves, had lost all their natural dignity and independence, and become, under such ‘government/ starved, ignorant, and imbecile, how her manufactures died away, her sul- phur mines were let to English speculators, and the proceeds transferred to the Neapoli- tan treasury, he proceeded : — “But the famine of ’47 came on Europe. Sicily, like every other most fertile island under foreign rule, wasted and pined away. The Sicilians grew corn for Naples — and starved. “Meantime, from Rome came a voice, ‘To arms!’. It crossed the Apennines, and passed LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 81 into Calabria. The blood of the Bandieras was avenged. It crossed the Strait of Messina, and half of Sicily rose in local insurrections. Troops were poured into the Island — the Viceroy be- came a dictator — a Coercion Bill was enacted against the Sicilians. The Neapolitan minister for Sicilian affairs gave as his reason, that en- lightened England had just done the same ! That insurrection, too, was quelled. But not the wrongs or the spirit which excited it — not the sufferings of the people. At last, some twenty days ago, a few disjointed riots took place. The spirit of resistance spread. A journal is started on the minute — clubs are formed — men assemble in array; and after a bold struggle, the Neapolitans are driven from the city. There is a lull. Then, in the silence of night, a crash is heard, and ball and shell ricochet down the Via Toledo. The citizens bear it well. One glorious woman, Maria Testa Di Lana, dons a man’s coat over a hero’s heart, and heads a detachment. The attacking Neapo- litans are driven back, position after position, fort after fort, castle after castle is carried, amid the death-groans of five thousand foreigners, and the 6 flag of Naples flieth ’ — nowhere. . . . “ There will be no famine in Sicily more. The dwellers in Concha d’Oro, on Etna’s side, all clustering with flowers, or in the valley where & Milton found his Paradise, ‘ that fair field of Enna,’ will in future grow their corn, and eat it. “There is another ‘United Kingdom’ in the world — another fertile island still robbed by F 82 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. foreigners, still ruled by a military Viceroy, still cowed in famine under a Coercion Act. Know ye that land, slaves % . . . Traverse the earth round and round, up and down, from Nova Zembla to the Antarctic Sea, and find, if you can, a second people snivelling in ‘legal and constitutional operations/ That style they call Irish ’ 9 Many a people in bondage such as the Irish endure would be roused to a pitch of desperation by such fiery writing as this, and hurl the tyrant from their shores or die in the attempt. But though the parallel drawn between Sicily and Ireland holds good up to a certain point, it stops there. Ireland is just as fertile a country as Sicily ; she has been invaded and made into a province by the English as was Sicily by the Neapolitans ; she has an absentee nobility and landed gentry whose rents, dragged from the people, are spent abroad ; her peasantry have lost much of that dignity which can be felt only by the free; her manufactures have been made to die away, and her golden harvests have been systematically carried off from her shores to fatten the English while the Irish starved : — but when it came to remedy this, the parallel between the two countries ceased. Ireland is too divided a country to achieve her freedom by an insurrection ; and it was only when they had made the hazard LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 83 of the die that Reilly, Mitchel, Martin, and the others were convinced of this. But, to their honour, they stood the cast their rash- ness played ; they did not cry peccavi , and weigh down the Bonnet Rouge with a fine tassel of British prudence, but, with voice and pen, bade their countrymen hope on, and try to lay hold of the industries and de- velop the resources of their country, and to labour to effect that union amongst them- selves without which there can be no real future for Ireland. Reilly had been a diligent student of all European history, a warm admirer of Louis Blanc ; had traced the Italian Carbonari through all their conspiracies; so that every sympathy of his ardent nature was aroused by the news of successful revolution that came week after week — news that he thought would have the effect of rousing Ireland from her apathy and despair. At last came the February Revolution in France, and the flight of Louis Philippe from an enraged and determined people ; and Reilly, Mitchel, and the other Confederates returned to the ranks of the Irish Confederation from which they had been outvoted a few weeks previous ; but now their opinions were all in harmony, and for a time at least, “ moral force” and “ com- bination of classes’' were disregarded. Much of Reilly’s best writing and speaking was 84 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. done at this time ; and, perhaps, the ablest article ever writen by him was that entitled 4 ‘ The French Fashion , 1 ” which appeared in the United Irishman of the 4th March. This article may be said to be the most celebrated he ever wrote, for in addition to its own excellence, it was one of the produc- tions which formed part of the indictment against Mitchel, who said of it that he “ was proud to undergo all the responsibility, legal, personal and moral, of one of the most telling revolutionary documents ever penned ; full of suppressed fire, and ornate with a sort of grim playfulness.” As, in a previous volume,* I have given many extracts from the best of Reillys speeches and writings in Ireland, I need not give this article in extenso , but will select a few paragraphs : — “ Ten days ago, a monarchy of eighteen years, resting on a fortress of leagues, on detached forts of the most elaborate construction, and illimitable resources in ammunition and artillery; with 100,000 armed mercenaries waiting on its nod ; with a suborned legislature ; and a devotedly unscrupulous press ; with telegraphs concentrating in its hand an omnipresent sur- veillance over twenty-five millions of men ; with railroads ready at its beck, to sweep down vengeance upon every point under its sway, from the alleys of the capital to the remotest * “ Life of John Mitchel’’ ( Dublin : Duffy.) LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 85 • frontier ; with laws and systems fitted, and more nicely fitted to its hand ; strong in the fulness of its treasury ; strong in the prestige, consequent on a rule upheld by terror, vindi- cated by gaols, by police insurrections, by periodical massacres, by perennial blood; stronger in the aid of that same foreign alliance, which, single handed, beat its entire nation, and con- quered its capital — ten days ago, this monarchy held France in its grip of iron, and prepared to smother, in the heart of Paris, that liberty which was won in July, at the graves of ten thousand martyrs. . . . “ Now in Paris, in all France, there is not a vestige of it left — not a prestige, not a bauble, not a gilded chair — no, not even a red ribbon, or bit of sovereign toggery of any sort. That outwardly mighty monarchy, resting on stone, and iron, and blood, has fallen miserably and contemptibly. The people it tyrannized over awoke on Tuesday last, moved a muscle or two, and finds these eighteen years were all a trance ; it finds that this government, this hated dynasty, for eighteen years lying on its breast, cramping and terrifying it, was a horrid nightmare, and no more, which tumbled off at the first spasm of energy, the first symptom of life, into doubt obscurity, ‘the road to Treport,’ the Britisl: Channel, or the Ebon gate of Hell. “ And now from the Seine banks, the children of the great nation raise up once more the hymn of European freedom, Vive la Republique ! . . . For the will of the people is indomitable. Here 86 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. this man, Louis of Orleans, had the strongest tyranny in his hands the world has ever seen. During all that time this Republican party, those men who now form the provisional govern- ment, have been dogging his steps — defying him and his law — stamping their hatred with their blood — rising victorious from every defeat, and, bleeding and broken, still pushing him to the wall, and daring him to the combat again. He saw his enemies, knew them man by man, and knew that issue was joined. Waiting this issue for weeks, prepared for it, he hurries it, it comes upon him of his own seeking, — and lo ! the millionaire King, the wisest tyrant in Europe, not cowardly at all, fought in the nest he feathered and the castle he builded, against a disarmed and unorganized people for one hour and a half, then flung them the crown without the head, and fled in terror. . . .” He then proceeded to show how the French lesson could be applied to Ireland ; how the city of Dublin, being divided by the Liffey as is Paris by the Seine, the quays, bridges, and streets could all be turned to the use of the people if only they were will- ing and united; he showed how the French had almost everything against them in the struggle. “Moreover,” he added, “they were disarmed, unorganized, in distress, without employment, without leaders, without a ‘ single great leader LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 87 of the French people.’ Yet, strange to say, not even this terrified the Parisians. . . . “ But this is not alone a lesson to us — it is a fact, an historic fact, which will shake all Europe, and materially, for good or ill, change the position of Ireland and her masters. “Some other time we may linger on the glorious days of February, 1848 — for the present we must dive into the future.” But, as we know, the future did not bring forth what he longed for in Ireland ; — on the contrary, while he saw foreign nations resolutely freeing themselves, and that against overwhelming difficulties, over Ire- land had settled a deeper and darker pall than ever. This apathy was killing him. “ Every city in Europe,” he wrote, “ has now asserted the rights of its citizens to the Franchise of arms — we here in Dublin are the last. It is time, high time, to think of it — and from the Irish Confederation has come the initiative in this.” So wrote and laboured Devin Reilly — and not wholly without effect. The Confederate Clubs of Dublin became -thoroughly imbued with the revolutionary spirit, and if it depended on them alone, something might have been achieved. But the “ Government ” closed with Mitchel, as, five years before, they had closed with O’Connell, and from that hour the cause, as Martin had predicted, 88 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. was lost. We all know the result : Mitchel’s transportation ; the baffled attempt at insur- rection shortly afterwards in Tipperary, and the arrest of some and the flight of others of the leaders from the country. Finding all over, and all lost, poor Reilly, with heavy heart, made his way, after some surprising escapes, in the guise of a frieze-coated emi- grant, to the hospitable shores of America. With his father (a solicitor, who held an office under the Government), he had not been on good terms from the time of his throwing in his lot with the people, and, therefore, he had not any strong ties to induce him to remain in Ireland, so the remainder of his short life was spent in the free land of America. He is thus described by Mitchel, who en- tertained for him a deep affection : — “ A young man, — stature, five feet eight inches ; complexion, xanthous ; eyes blue, hair yellow, temperament nervo-sanguineous, Celtic Irish by descent, American by adoption. Linked and wedded to a cause which for his life-time at least was a defeated cause, and still lies in mourning. Who, in all the wild activity of his varied life, never aimed low; never spoke falsely; never made any league offensive or defensive with cant ; never lent his pen or his voice to the service of baseness.” Arrived in America, Reilly threw himself LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 89 with all his energy into politics and journal- ism. The first thing he did was to establish a paper called the People ; this was succeeded by another called the Protective Union . After some time he gave this up, and became principal contributor to the Whig Review . For some time he continued at this, but his financial condition was not much benefited by it ; and after much suffering and many privations, he finally found his true place as Editor of the Democratic Review. “ Of all his publications in America,” says Mitchel, “ perhaps the best are contained in the two volumes of the Democratic Review , in which he devoted himself heart and soul to promote the election as President of General Pierce, and I know no reason why I should not avow that the friends of Devin Reilly are proud of the efficient literary aid which he brought in sup- port of one of whom the Annals of this Republic will record that he was one of the purest magistrates, and most accomplished men who ever sat in the presidential chair ; Reilly was honoured with his confidence and friendship to the last.” While editor of the Democratic Review , Reilly corresponded with Mitchel, then a “ ticket-of-leave man ” in Bothwell, Van Diemen’s Land. In the “ Jail Journal,” under date January 7, 1853, is the following passage : — 90 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. “ Letter from Reilly ; very welcome to me, though it has been long on the way.* He writes from New York, where he seems to have endured many a struggle and agony that might well have crushed arid subdued any less fiery spirit. Truly, we think our own case hard, chained here under the southern cross; yet, on the whole, our poor friends who escaped the talons of British law, have had a far worse time of it. “ The letter is in his usual style, glowing now with a wild, rollicking eloquence, melting with brotherly tenderness (for we are brothers in- deed), raging with the savage indignation that gnaws his heart — full of hope, full of despair ; merry and miserable. I have read it with much laughter ; and if I had yet tears to shed they would have flowed over it. . . . “He is now, I perceive, writing in the Demo- cratic Review ; and from the tone of much of his letter I perceive that he is exerting every nerve of body and brain, labouring as did never Hercules in his combat with the Hydra of Lerna. — He gives a sad account of himself before the reviewing came. He says, 6 When I received that letter of yours, I was in the depth of poverty and misery of mind, yet struggling to compass this position I have now attained. My heart was too sore, and I was too anxious to tell you some good news, to answer it. Then, as the prospect brightened, and I saw before me an eventual success in my efforts to get the * The letter was dated “ New York, April 24th, 1852. LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 91 Revieiv , I began to scribble and scrawl, in fits and starts, my plans ; and the accumulated bulk of prospective intentions is now in part condensed in the columns thereof.’ “ He has found an Irish wife, too, in America ; and in all his ‘soreness of heart,’ his poverty and misery, this treasure of a wife seems to be his best guardian, guide, and tower of strength. On her is lavished all the passionate tenderness of his exaggerative nature. In doleful strain he goes on : ‘In my worst misery I lost my boy called after you; then in my first month of editing I had to rise from my writing to bury my little daughter. I thought God, or fate, was going to strip me bare of all for the combat, — and that long ill health, fretting, poverty, and these accumulated sorrows, were about to deprive me of even my wife.’ “ Here follows a record of more, and more touching sorrows ; but let them be sacred. God or fate never smote a stouter heart ; and from that sore smiting, stripping bare, and crushing fall to earth, the young earth-born Titan will spring up more Titanic still.” The Irish wife here alluded to was a Miss Jennie Miller, a young, handsome, and accomplished Irish Protestant lady of good family in Ulster, who, with her sister, emi- grated to St. John's, N ew Brunswick. But it was in Boston she met and was married to Devin Reilly, while he was still struggling with adverse fate. They were both very young 92 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. then — she only nineteen, he twenty- four. “ Our struggles/’ said Mrs. Reilly to the pre- sent writer, “ through our short lives together were great, but love and affection were un- bounded ; poor fellow ! if from where he is he could look down and see other struggles that have been made by those he held dearest in life, heaven would be no heaven to him. We had a suite of four rooms in a nice little house in Brooklyn. The exchequer was not always in the ascendant, but we had always ample for a glorious Sunday dinner; and for months Meagher, Savage, P. J. Smyth, and Joseph Brenan always came to dinner on Sunday. Oh, those dinners were veritable ‘ feasts of reason and flow of soul.’ To see those men set the table, lay the cloth, and toss up a coat to see who would go to the pump for water — it was about half a block from the house, and we could not keep a servant. On one occasion it fell to Devin’s lot to go, poor dear love ! he never carried a bucket before, but he manfully took it while all the others were in roars of laughter, and just as he was pumping, came down the street three gentlemen to see him, but on seeing him they turned up another street and avoided him, and when he came in and told the circumstance there was untold mirth. Half an hour afterwards they came in, and finding such company, they never LIFE OF JOHN MAKTIN. 93 left until the small hours of the morning. They were Sidney Webster, the President's private secretary, and Dudley Mann, Secre- tary of State, and a friend . They had come to offer Devin the chief editorship of the Union , the President’s paper. He took control of it, and kept it until that awful morning when he breathed his last. We had then over- come all our difficulties, had a lovely house, kept three servants, and two horses, and our lives were passed joyfully.” That is the story of their married life as told to me by Mrs. Reilly ; “ and,” she added, “ for thirty - eight long years I have struggled and kept his name glorious, and God only knows the struggle.” Mrs. Reilly had many friends, and foremost amongst them was the late John Boyle O’Reilly, who obtained for her her position in the Treasury Department, Wash- ington, which she retained until her death. She always spoke highly of John Boyle O’Reilly, of whom she said to me, “He was a very gentle man, and very unlike Mitchel ; I do not ’ think he could have borne all that was heaped on Mitchel’s head and heart.” Meagher, who was god- father to their little daughter Molly, she described as a delightful fellow — “ for six weeks he was the guest of Devin and I when he first came to New York, and I had ample opportunity of knowing him thoroughly. 94 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. Then when his first wife came from Austra- lia I was her close companion until she left New York with her father for Ireland.” Mitchel, for whom she had an incense admiration, presented her with his portrait, and this and other trophies of the esteem in which she was held by those great men she cherished and prized very dearly. She was a woman of considerable culture, and in addi- tion to taking a keen interest in both the politics of her native and adopted country, she was conversant with a wide range of literature. In this her tastes were ca- tholic ; amongst her favourite authors were Scott, Bulwer, Owen Meredith, Thackeray, Dickens, and amongst poets Shelley, Camp- bell, and Pope, but Byron was her ideal, next to whom she placed Moore. She could enjoy the works of the present-day humorists, for she had a keen sense of the humorous and ridiculous side of things. She had a fund of humour, anecdote, and reminiscence, and was always the centre of her social circle. Early in 1892 her health began to fail. Writing to me in May of that year she said, “ I feel I am not getting stronger, that there is no denying ; and so many of my old friends are dropping off that I cannot help feeling that my hour is not far off. Dear friend,” she added, ‘‘write to me very often.” On the 16th July she wrote: “I have been ill LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 95 for the past three weeks, and am going to Colonial Beach as guest of Mrs. Frank Schwarz, wife of the Mayor of the city.” Writing again on the 20th Jul} r , she said: “ The doctor says I will be all right in a few weeks, — I am still waiting for these few weeks, — write soon.” This was the last letter I ever received from her. Nine days later — 29th July, 1892 — she was dead. After an impressive funeral ceremony in St. Peter’s Catholic Church, Capitol Hill, Washington (she became a Catholic on her marriage), her remains were laid to rest by the side of her husband and daughter in Mount Olivet Cemetery. Mitchel’s prophecy that Reilly would spring up more Titanic still was not fulfilled. Neither was the joyous meeting which he anticipated destined to take place : “ In less than a month I shall see my mother, and brother, and sisters, and Reilly, mine ancient comrade.”* After working on the Democra- tic Review for about two years, Reilly moved to Washington, where he became, as already mentioned, chief editor of the Union . With this paper, he remained connected until his death, which event was sad and sudden. I will give the account of it in the words of his best and dearest friend, Join! Mitchel : — * “Jail Journal,” page 309. 96 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. “When a boy of fifteen, in Dublin, he had been attacked by a fit of some kind resembling apoplexy. His physician then informed him that a similar stroke would fall upon him when double that age — namely, about his thirtieth birthday, and that it would probably be fatal. While he was busily engaged on the Washington Union , and fast rising in the estimation of the public as a political writer, just beginning to surmount his difficulties of a pecuniary kind, surrounded by friends; his dear wife always at his side, and his little daughter every morning and evening playing at his knee, the month of March, ’54, came upon him. His thirtieth birth- day was to fall on that month ; and he knew his fate was come. He was in his ordinary health; but told his wife he must die. He often started up, threw open the window, and said the room smelled of Death. To his power- ful imagination everything was an omen of doom ; and at night he heard the Banshee of his clan wailing along the shores of the Potomac. On the fifth night of the month, he called his household around him, filled a bumper, and there, standing on his own floor, looking calmly into his early grave, with a bold and sunny smile upon his lips, and tears streaming down his face, he pledged his last toast — Old Ireland ! The tale is told. After that touching good- night to ‘ Old Ireland,’ he retired to rest in his usual health. ... In the morning he was dead.” Thus died, in his thirtieth year, one of the LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 97 best and bravest of Ireland’s sons. Truly, his death was strange, as his life had been : “ Death takes us by surprise, And stays our hurrying feet ; The great design unfinished lies, Our lives are incomplete.” The news of his sudden death was a great blow to Mitchel, who loved him almost as a brother ; his grief was too deep for many words, and this is how he mentions the sad event in his “ Jail Journal ” : — “ Thomas Devin Reilly is dead. The largest heart, the most daring spirit, the loftiest genius, of all Irish rebels in these latter days, sleeps now in his American grave.” In Mount Olivet Cemetery, in Washington, they buried him. A few days before he died he expressed a wish to be buried on the slope of a green hill, where his feet could feel the dew, and his eyes look up to the stars. Thomas Davis expressed a similar wish, and it was very characteristic of the two men ; for they had a loving sympathy with all the beautiful things of earth, and a brave upward look for every thing grand in God’s universe. This wish suggested to his friend Joseph Brenan,* the idea of thefollow- * The same whom Mangan styled his “ friend, and more than brother.” He was born in Cork, November G 98 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. in g poem, which appeared in the New York Citizen of the 1st July, 1854 : — “ ‘When the day has come, darling, that your darling must go From the scene of his struggles, of his pride, and his woe, — Lay him on a hill-side with his feet to the dew, Where the soul of the verdure is faintly stealing through — On the slope of a hill with his face to the light, Which glows upon the dawn, and glorifies the night ; For the grand old mother, nature, is mightier than death, The subtle Irish soul of which the beautiful is breath; Which nestles and dreams in the solemn sounding trees, And flings out its locks to the rapture of the breeze, — And ’twill crave for God’s wonders, from the daisy star close by, To the golden scroll which sparkles with his scripture * in the sky.’ “God rest you, Devin Reilly, in the place of your choice, Where the blessed dew is falling and the flowers have a voice ; Where the conscious trees are bending in homage to the dead, And the earth is swelling upward, like a pillow for your head ; 17, 1828 ; entered journalism in 1847, and edited the Irishman in 1848. In October, 1849, he emigrated to New York. In 1851 he married a sister of the Irish refugee, John Savage, and moved to New Orleans. After writing for the New Orleans Delta, he became editor of the New Orleans Times, and died in that city, 28th May, 1857. LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 99 And His rest will be with you, for the lonely seeming grave. Though a dungeon to the coward, is a palace to the brave, — Though a black Inferno circle, where the recreant are bound, Is a brave Valhalla pleasure-dome where heroes are crowned ; Oh ! God’s rest will be with you, in the congress of the great, Who are purified by sorrow, and are victors over Fate ; Oh ! God’s rest will be with you, in the corridors of fame, Which, was jubilant with welcome, when Death named your name. 4t Way ’mongst the heroes for another hero soul ! Room for a spirit which has struggled to its goal ! Rise, for in life he was faithful to his faith, And entered without stain, 5 neath the portico of death, And his fearless deeds around, like attendant angels stand, Claiming recognition from the noble and the grand ; Claiming to his meed — who from fresh and bounding youth. To the days of manly trial, was truthful to the truth — The welcome of the hero, whose foot would not give way, ’Till his trenchant sword was shivered in the fury of the fray ; And brave will be that welcome if the demi-gods above Can love with a tithe of our humble mortal love ! “ ‘Lay me on a hill-side with my feet to the dew, Where the life of the verdure is faintly stealing through ; On the slope of a hill, with my face to the light, Which glows upon the dawn, and glorifies the night ; 5 100 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. Would it were a hill-side in the land of the Gael, Where dew falls like tear-drops, and the wind is a wail ; Where the winged superstitions are gleaming through the gloom, Like a host of frighted Fairies, to beautify the tomb. On the slope of a hill, with your face to the sky, Which clasped you like a blessing in the days gone by; When your hopes were as radiant as the stars of the night, And the reaches of the Future throbbed with con- stellated light. “ Have you seen the mighty tempest, in its war- cloak of cloud, When it stalks thro’ the midnight, so defiant and proud ; When ’tis shouldering the ocean, till the crouching waters fly From the thunder of its voice and the lightning of its eye; And the waves, in timid multitudes, are rushing to the strand, In a vain appeal for succour from the buffets of its hand ? Then you saw the soul of Reilly when, abroad in its might, It dashed aside, with loathing, all the creatures of the night ; ’Till the plumed hosts were humbled, and their crests, white no more, Were soiled with the sand, and strewn upon the shore ; For the volumed swell of thunder was concentred in his form, And his tread was a conquest and his blow was like a storm. “ Have you seen a weary tempest, when a harbour is near, And its giant breast is heaving from the speed of its career ; LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 101 How it puts off its terrors, and is timorous and weak, As it stoops upon the waters, with its cheek to their cheek ; As it broods like a lover, over all the quiet place, ’Till the dimpling smiles of pleasure are eddying in its trace ? Then you saw the soul of Reilly when ceasing to roam, It flung away the clouds, and nestled to its home ; When the heave and swell were ended, and the spirit was at rest, And gentle thoughts like white-winged birds, were dreaming on its breast ; And the tremulous sheets of sunset, around its couch were rolled, In voluptuous festooning of purple, lined with gold. 4i Oh ! sorrow on the day when our young apostle died. When the lonely grave was opened for our darling and our pride ; When the passion of a people was following the dead, Like a solitary mourner, with a bowed, uncovered head ; When a Nation’s aspirations were stooping o’er the dust ; When the golden bowl was broken, and the trench- ant sword was rust ; When the brave tempestuous Spirit, with an upward wing had passed, And the love of the wife, was a widow’s love at last; Oh ! God rest you, Devin Reilly, in the shadow of that love, And God bless you with His bliss, in the pleasure dome above, Where the heroes are assembled, and the very angels bow To the glory of Eternity, which glimmers on each brow. 4i ‘Lay me on a hill-side with my feet to the dew, Where the life of the verdure is faintly stealing through ; 102 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. On the slope of a hill, with my face to the light, Which glows upon the dawn, and glorifies the night;* Would it were a hill-side in the land of the Gael, Where the dew falls like tear-drops, and the wind is a wail — Where the winged superstitions are gleaming through the gloom, Like a host of frighted Fairies, to beautify the tomb ! On the slope of a hill, with your face to the sky, Which clasped you like a blessing in the days gone by ; When your hopes were as radiant as the stars of the night, And the reaches of the Future throbbed with con- stellated light.” “ In Washington City,” said Mitchel, speaking of him in a lecture he delivered in New York, in 1856 — “In Washington City, he sleeps in a nameless and noteless grave. Let us set up, at least, a stone over that proud young head, that when Irishmen in America are visiting the tombs of their many patriots, who have found a shelter and last resting-place on this free soil, they may know where they can lay a shamrock on the grave of Devin Eeilly.” Twenty-five years afterwards (in May, 1881), the Irishmen of Washington carried out this suggestion, and erected over his grave a magnificent monument, surmounted by a Celtic Cross. Such is the sad life-story of this brilliant Irishman. Inveterate and desperate revo- lutionist though he was, with his friends, and in the family circle he was mild and gentle in the extreme — in this his character LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 103 strongly resembled Mitchel’s. He was neve r ungenerous to an enemy or false to a friend ; and though he was not blessed with much of the world’s goods, he was never known to refuse to succour the needy and the poor — indeed, in this respect he was generous to a fault. His writings only show one side of his character, or as Mitchel express es it, “A review of his public efforts shows only half the nature of the man.” But with the exception of those writings (which it is to be regretted have never been col- lected together) he left nothing behind him to hand his name down to posterity. Having linked his fate with a defeated cause, the world is apt to forget him (as it prefers rather to dwell upon those who have been linked with success) ; — and it is to keep his memory green in the hearts of his countrymen that I have lingered so long over his career ; and also because I think there is in his story much that is worthy of being told. “ His was the troubled life, The conflict and the pain, The grief, the bitterness of strife, The honour without stain.” To quote the words of Thackeray, “If the best men do not draw the great prizes in life, we know it has been so settled by the or- dainer of the lottery. We own, and see daily how the false and worthless live and prosper, 104 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. while the good are called away, and the dear and young perish untimely, — we perceive in every mans life the maimed happiness, the frequent falling, the bootless endeavour, the struggle of Eight and Wrong, in which the strong often succumb and the swift fail.” “ So when a great man dies, For years beyond our ken The light he leaves behind him lies Upon the paths of men.” LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 105 CHAPTER V. 1848 ( [continued ). Martin removes to Dublin and establishes the Irish Felon — Its contributors — Letter — Article by Devin Reilly — Lalor’s Letter — The Felon Club — Warrant for Martin’s Arrest — He gives himself up — Impris- oned in Newgate — Letter to Lord Clarendon — Seizure of the Felon — Martin’s last article — Letter to Mr. Zacariah Wallace— The “Trial” — Isaac Butt’s Speech for the defence — The Verdict — Speech of the prisoner and Sentence — Letters to Gravan Duffy — Transported to Van Diemen’s Land. In the last chapter I mentioned how John Martin had resolved upon his course of action in the event of the suppression of the United Irishman , and the transportation of its editor. Accordingly, when the 6 ‘ law” had done its worst and sent John Mitchel to a “ felons ” doom, he returned home to Loughorne, and proceeded to settle his affairs there prior to removing permanently to Dublin. For, in deciding upon establishing a paper to con- tinue the teaching begun by the United Irishman , he was determined to put his whole heart and soul into his new labours, and if success did not attend his efforts, he could at least say it was not for want of the will he had failed. / 106 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. The task he had set himself was no light one. Experience of journalism he had none ; and it may be said that he was not by nature fitted for such occupation. No one knew all this better than he did, but still he was nothing daunted. “I acknowledge,” he said afterwards, “ that I was but a weak assail- ant of the English power, being neither a good writer nor an orator;” but he was roused to a pitch of desperate resistance by the bold- ness of the enemy, and came to the conclu- sion that a firm stand should be made against them, and that if no other would do this he would. Returning from Loughorne to Dublin he took possession of the office in Trinity Street from which the United Irishman used to be issued, and with the assistance of his friends, Devin Reilly and James Finton Lalor* (who left his home in Abbeyleix to give Martin all the assistance in his power), the Irish Felon was established. Its career was brief — last- ing only for five weeks; but the “ Government” could not any longer endure such open and avowed “ sedition” as for those five weeks filled its columns. The five numbers of the Irish Felon contain some really fine writing, both Devin Reilly and Lalor (whom Mitchel * Eldest son of Mr. Patrick Lalor of Tinakill, Abbey- leix, leader of the Anti-Tithe agitation. He died 29th December, 1850. LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 107 regarded as the most powerful political writer in the Irish cause, Davis alone ex- cepted,) puting forth their best energies ; and besides those, it had for contributors, Thomas Francis Meagher, Joseph Brenan, “Eva” (Mrs. Kevin Izod O’Dogherty), and others. The new paper had for its mottoes the words of Wolfe Tone which Mitcliel used for his paper, and the following extract from Mitchel’s speech in the dock : — “ Neither the jury, nor the judges, nor any man in this court, presumes to imagine that it is a criminal who stands in this dock I have acted all through this business under a strong sense of duty. I do not repent of any- thing I have done; and I believe that the course I have opened is only commenced.” And also Robert Holmes’ words of defiance : “ Let her Majesty’s Attorney-General do his duty to his Government, I have done mine to my country.” The first number was issued on the 24th of June, 1848, and contained a letter written by John Martin, clearly setting forth his purpose and position. I select from it the following paragraphs: — “At the time when John Mitchel lay in Newgate prison, expecting what fate Lord Clarendon’s ‘ loaded dice 9 might bring, I stated it as my opinion, that if the Irish people per- 108 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. mitted the English Ministry to consummate his legal murder, the national cause would be ruined for this generation. The transportation of a man, as a felon, for uttering sentiments held and professed by at least five-sixths of his countrymen, seemed to me so violent and so insulting a national wrong, that submission to it must be taken to signify incurable slavishness. The English Government, the proclaimed enemy of our nationality, had deliberately selected John Mitchel to wreak their vengeance upon him, as representative of the Irish nation. By indicting him for ‘ felony 9 they virtually indic- ted five-sixths of the Irish people for 4 felony/ By sentencing him to fourteen years’ transpor- tation to a penal settlement, they pronounced five-sixths of the Irish people guilty of a crime worthy of such punishment ; and they declared that every individual of the six millions of Irish Bepealers who escapes a similar doom, escapes it not through right and law, but through the mercy or at the discretion of the English Minis- ter. The audacity of our tyrants must be acknowledged. They occupy our country with military force, in our despite, making barracks of our very marts and colleges, as if to defy and challenge any manly pride that might linger among our youth. They pervert our police force into an organization of street bullies, as if to drive all peace-loving, industrious citizens into the ranks of disaffection. They insult the poor dupes of 4 legal and constitutional’ agitation, and rudely open their eyes to the real nature of LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 109 foreign rule, by such an outrage upon public decency and justice as this ‘ trial,’ aggravated as it must be by the official meanness, brutality, hypocrisy, and perjury, requisite for effecting their object. They took measures to provoke the active hostility of all Irishmen who loved justice, or respected religion. They defied and challenged all parties of the Irish people ; and I did think that such a challenge could not honourably or prudently be refused, and that the abject submission of the Irish people in that matter might destroy the national cause for this generation. . . . “For enabling them to overthrow foreign tyranny, the people of Ireland want only a defiant, determined spirit, and the small measure of common sense which is needed to make men who have a common object co-operate in the attempt to secure it. . . . “ I do not love political agitation for its own sake. At the best, I regard it as a necessary evil ; and if I were not convinced that my countrymen are determined on vindicating their rights, and that they really intend to free them- selves, I would at once withdraw from the struggle, and leave my native land for ever. . . “ So long as the c Government ’ presumes to injure me and those in whose prosperity I am involved, I must offer it all the resistance in my power. But if I despaired of successful resist- ance, I would certainly remove myself from under such a 6 Government’s ’ actual authority. I cannot be loyal to a system of meanness, terror, 110 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. and corruption, although it usurp the title and assume the forms of a ‘ Government.’ “ That I do not now exile myself, is a proof that I hope to witness the overthrow, and assist in the overthrow, of that most abominable tyranny the world now groans under — the British Imperial system. “ To gain permission for the Irish people to care for their own lives, their own happiness and dignity — to abolish the political conditions which compel the classes of our people to hate and to murder each other, and which compel the Irish people to hate the very name of the English — to end the reign of fraud, perjury, corruption, and ‘Government’ butchery, and to make law , order, and peace possible in Ireland, the Irish Felon takes its place among the com- batants in the holy war, now waging in this island against foreign tyranny. In conducting it, my weapons shall be the truth , the whole truth , and nothing but the truth.” The same number also contained an article written by Devin Reilly, and addressed to Lord Clarendon. It dealt chiefly with the events connected with Mitchel’s “ trial 5 and transportation, and was fierce in its denun- ciation of the shameful practices by w T hich that conviction was secured. I will give a few extracts from it : — “That I am compelled to address you now, my lord, you are the sole cause. You have not LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. Ill forgotten how he, whose humble follower I am, used, much to your terror and uneasiness, week by week, to tell you all our secrets, one by one, without equivocation or bombast — a plan I promise you to follow to the best of my ability, while this hand remains without a weapon or a hand-cuff. But an eminent diplomatist, like your lordship, a mild and equable chief governor, who can walk from that den of conspirators you call your privy council, with the blood of men marked out for slaughter clotting around -your soul, into a philosophic re-union of bullock- feeders and men-starvers, and there talk blandly and glibly of the ‘state of the country’ you wilfully devastate — a man like you, who can plot in your chamber with that recreant bravo you call your ‘ Catholic Attorney-General,’ and his sheriffs, and his jurors, to take away honest men’s liberties and lives ; and then ride out in gilded caparison, with the tailoring of a soldier on you, and look heaven in the face, and man — a ‘ Lord Lieutenant,’ I say, with a convenient conscience of that kind, might forget the trucu- lent, base, and cowardly manner in which you have done into the slavery of the hulks in a distant land, your mortal enemy, and my friend. I will take care you shall not. Step by step, and week by week, free or chained, with pen in hand, by word of mouth, in prayer to God, I will repeat your infamy, and make others repeat it, till the Irish winds that whistle round you by day, and the serpent conscience which coils round you by night, scowling on you, shall 112 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. alike hiss in your ears the one word — ‘assassin.’ . . . And if, my lord, we, of this paper, cannot e^ual our predecessor in power and effect, it is the difference of talent, not of will. Yes, you have transported one man — but you have raised up a hero, a beacon-light to thousands on thou- sands, a true man to a nation lost in idol-worship, an inspiring example to a dispirited race.” I have said that James Finton Lalor left his home in Abbeyleix, and came to Dublin, to work with John Martin on the Irish Felon . On the 21st of June, he wrote a letter to Martin, stating the principles and conditions on which he intended to co-operate with him. This letter is rather lengthy to give in its entirety, so I will merely select a few of the salient passages : — “ In assenting to aid in the formation and conduct of a journal intended to fill the place and take up the mission of the United Irishman , I think it desirable to make a short statement of the principles and conditions, public and per- sonal, on which alone I would desire to be accepted as a partner in this undertaking. . . . In the first place, and prior to everything else, I feel bound to state that I join you on the clear understanding that I am engaging, not in a mercantile concern, nor in any private specu- lation or enterprise whatever, but in a political confederacy for a great public purpose. Money must not be admitted among our objects or LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 113 motives ; and no money must be made by those, or any of those, concerned in the conduct of this journal. You, and I, and each, and all of us, must determine to leave this office as poor as we entered it. This condition is more im- portant than may appear on first view ; and I believe it absolutely requisite to make and insist on it as a principle of action. You may not, and indeed cannot, be aware of all its necessity, nor of many of the motives and grounds on which I desire to have it entered as an article of agreement between ourselves, and between us and the public. In a letter intended for publication (if you see fit), I do not for the present think proper to give any full statement; but in private, I feel assured that I shall be able to satisfy your mind on this matter. To estab- lish an ordinary newspaper on the common motive of vesting a' capital to advantage is, doubtless, quite legitimate. But to found such a journal as the Irish Felon , on the views which you and I entertain, for the mere purpose, in whole or in part, of making a fortune or making a farthing, would be a felon’s crime indeed, deserving no hero’s doom, lamented death or honoured exile, but death on the scaffold, amid the scoff and scorn of the world. For years we have seen men in Ireland alternately trading on the Government, and trading on the country, and making money by both ; and you do not imagine, perhaps, to what a degree the public mind has been affected with a feeling of suspicion by the circumstance — a feeling deepened, ex- H 114 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. tended, and justified by all we see or know of ourselves. . . . For ourselves — I say nothing of others — let us aim at higher and better rewards than mere money rewards. Better and higher rewards has Ireland in her hands. If we suc- ceed, we shall obtain these ; and if we do not succeed, we shall deserve none. In cases like this, the greatest crime that man can commit is the crime of failure. . . . “And, for my part, I enter the Felon office with the hope and determination to make it an armed post, a fortress for freedom to be, perhaps, taken and re-taken again, and yet again ; but never to surrender, nor stoop its flag, till that flag shall float above a liberated nation. . . . My purpose is not to repeal the Union, nor to restore ’82. Not to repeal the Union, but to repeal the con- quest, — not to disturb or dismantle the empire, but to abolish it utterly for ever, — not to fall back on ’82, but act up to ’48 — not to resume or restore an old constitution, but to found a new nation, and raise up a free people, and strong as well as free, and secure as well as strong, based on a peasantry rooted like rocks in the soil of the land — this is my object, as it is yours ; and this, you may be assured, is the easier, as it is the nobler and the more pressing enterprise.” The first step decided upon by Martin, Brenan, and Lalor, was to establish a “ Felon Club,” which was to be a semi-military organi- zation, having the Felon office as its centre. LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 115 “ Our object is to gather together a number of men competent to lead in cases of necessity, and a staff of contributors competent to take the conducting of this journal, if its present conductors should be removed by death or exile. The Felon has not been established for the mere purpose of speculating, or theorising, or teaching, but for that of acting too.” All this while the famine was raging terribly throughout the country — ejectments were being served — houses pulled down, houseless peasants dying by the roadside, while the police and military were escorting convoys of grain and provisions to the sea- side, to be carried over to England. “ Wait until the harvest,” had been the cry when Mitchel called for immediate action, but the British Government thought it wisest not to wait until the harvest, and they resolved to bring matters to a crisis at once. Accord- ingly, the usual summary measures, when Ireland is the subject, were resorted to. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, and before the third number of the Felon saw the light, a warrant had been issued for the arrest of Martin. Numerous warrants were also placed in the hands of the police, and in every town and village in Ireland sudden arrests were made. The presidents, secre- taries, and organizers of clubs being all known 116 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. by the police, no difficulty was experienced in arresting them. Now, at least, the time so long talked of had come. “The long-talked-of harvest,” wrote Joseph Brenan, “is approaching, and, I ask you, are you prepared to reap it 1 ? Are we to have another year of Soyer soups and Skibbereen corpses, of foreign alms and home extortion, of paupers choking in crammed workhouses, and skeletons ministering at public works, of famine eating the flesh off our bones, and fever rotting the blood in our veins ; of ministerial congratu- lations on our forbearance, and the contempt of the world for our cowardice.” The time had come, but not the will of the people. They were willing when Mitchel called for a rising, and the “ leaders of the people” said “wait ” — now the leaders were willing, but the people did not respond. “ In May,” says A. M. Sullivan, “ they had prevented a rising; now they found the country would not rise at their call.” When the warrant was issued for Martin’s arrest there was a Commission then sitting in Dublin, and the Government wanted to have his trial take place at it ; but Martin knowing that this would not admit of his having anything like a fair trial, kept out of LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 117 the way until Saturday, the 8th of July, on which day (the Commission having closed the day previous) he proceeded to the Head Police Office, and informed the presiding magistrate that he had come to surrender himself, to answer the charge which he understood was made against him. The magistrate there informed him that he had no authority to take him into custody, and referred him to College Street Police Office. The presiding magistrate here was a Mr. Tyndal, and the sergeant in charge of the warrant having been found, the following colloquy took place : — “Mr. Tyndal — Are you aware, Mr. Martin, of the informations which have been sworn against you] “ Mr. Martin — I am aware that informations have been sworn against me, but I don’t know the nature of them. “ Mr. Tyndal — We will have them read for you. “Mr. Martin — I do not know what the speci- fic charge is. I am given to understand that I am charged with felony under the new Act of Parliament, but I do not know for what particu- lar article. “Mr. Tyndal — The different articles which are the subject of the prosecution are set out in the informations.” The clerk then read the portions of the 118 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. informations which specified the several articles set out. The articles were Lalor’s three letters, from which I have given ex- tracts ; Brenan’s article on the reaping of the harvest, and a song written by John Mitchel’s son, entitled: “A Song for the Future/'* Mr. Tyndal then informed Martin that as the informations stated it to be his (Martin’s) intention to depose Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen from her style, honour, and royal name, and to levy war against her, it would be his duty to send him for trial. “Mr. Martin — Perhaps you will allow me to mention — for I understand it is the only way I can communicate it to the public — that I have kept myself out of the way of the persons who, I understand, had a warrant against me, for the last few days, for this reason : I wanted to get something like a fair trial, and I apprehend that I could not have had anything like a fair trial, or any chance at all of such, if I were tried at the Commission which was sitting last week, and which closed on Friday. I have nothing more to say. I thought that, perhaps, the public might suppose I was afraid to meet the consequences of my own acts, which I am not. I understand that I am to be indicted, under the felony act, for certain writings which appeared in the Felon See “Life of Mitchel,” page 165 (Dublin, Duffy). LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 119 newspaper. I acknowledge that the paper is my property, and that I am responsible for the writings both legally and morally. I am now ready to go wherever the magistrate pleases.” Martin was then conveyed to Newgate Prison, where he remained a prisoner until the 15th of August, when the adjourned Com- mission resumed its sitting. But, though a close prisoner, he continued to write for his paper, and his articles were none the less strong from being penned within prison walls. In the next issue of the Felon — that for the 15th July — he had a letter to Lord Clarendon, whom he addressed as follows : — “You have me now in the hands of your jailors, here in Newgate, waiting your pleasure as to my 4 trial,’ by and before your sheriff, and his assistant jury -packers, your select Castle tradesmen, your lawyers, and your judges, and your detectives, and your dragoons. You have the ‘law’ entirely on your side, and at your command ; indeed, the 4 law 9 is at your own making, and the interpretation thereof is just whatever your lordship pleases. I have no authority over the statute-book — I have no judges at my disposal — I have not a pound sterling of the public money, to expend upon tradesmen of the jury-class — I have not — and the greater is my loss — a single company of infantry, or a single troop of dragoons at my command. . . . 120 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. “ I confess that even I myself, large as was my belief in the unfairness and meanness neces- sary for tyranny in the abstract, and more particularly for British tyranny, and most of all for Whig tyranny — even I was unprepared for the dastardly advantage you insist on against me. Your lordship is aware that I refer to your proceedings for stopping the issue of my newspaper pending my ‘ trial.’ . . . Your con- duct in this matter of my newspaper has a very ugly, vindictive aspect. ... I do think it a very grievous injustice to be prevented from saying what I think fit, in explanation of my own doctrines, and in vindication of my character. . . . The ‘British Constitutional’ doctrine, that every accused man is innocent, in the eye of the law, till a jury find him guilty , is very good for Britons. The ‘freedom of the press’ is also a very excellent institution for Britons. But in Ireland, every man you think fit to accuse ought, by the act of accusation, to be pronounced guilty, and to be treated accord- ingly.” The next number of the Felon was the last. Lord Clarendon, having Martin secure in Newgate, had caused the office of the paper to be ransacked by the police, and J oseph Brenan, who was conducting its business, arrested and returned for trial. But in Newgate or out of it — in a penal colony or a free man in his own land — Martin would ever be moved and actuated LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 121 by the one engrossing idea — Ireland for the Irish, and an end — a whole, entire, and per- petual end — to English Maw/ 6 Government/ and authority in Ireland. That the cells of Newgate had not lessened his hatred of British rule, nor the prospect of Bermuda increased his admiration of the British con- nection, the following passages front}, his article in the last number of the Felon amply testify : — “TO THE MEMBERS OF THE REPEAL CLUBS OF IRELAND. “ Brother Irishmen, — I address you, it may be, for the last time. While yet I have the means and opportunity of communicating with you, let me offer you my advice as to the posi- tion you ought to take with regard to the proclamations directed against you and against Ireland by the foreign tyrants. My advice is, that you stand to your arms. Stand to your arms ! Attack no man or men — offend no man or men; offer forgiveness, and peace, and brotherhood to all your countrymen — even to those of the foreign faction ; be calm and patient with the very officials of the English tyranny ; but stand to your arms ! — defend your lives — vindicate your rights as men, and the rights of our dear native land. Oh ! as you have the spirit of men, to revolt against our country’s 122 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. shame and slavery — the hearts of men, to feel for our people’s misery — as you love justice and hate oppression — as you love and fear the God of whose righteous decrees British rule in Ire- land is a dire violation ; stand firm, and yield not an inch of ground to the threats and rage of our alarmed tyrants ! Let them menace you with the hulks or the gibbet for daring to speak or write your love for Ireland. Let them threaten to mow you down with grape shot, as they have massacred your kindred with famine and plague. Spurn their brutal 1 Acts of Parliament ’ — trample upon their lying Pro- clamations — fear them not ! “ The work you have undertaken is to over- throw and utterly destroy English dominion in Ireland. That work must be done. It must be done, at any risk, at any cost, at any sacrifice. Though hundreds of us be torn from our fami- lies, and from the free air, to be shut up in the enemy’s dungeons, or sent in chains to his felon islands — though thousands of us be butchered by the enemy’s cannon and bayonets, and our streets and native fields be purpled with our blood — never shall the struggle for Irish free- dom cease but with the destruction of that monstrous system of base and murderous tyranny, or with the utter extermination of the Irish people ! But the God of Justice and Mercy will fight in your defence. Think of the famine massacre — of the famine murders per- petrated every day — of the thousands of families driven, houseless and desperate, to ruin — of the LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 123 millions of your kindred compelled to a life of degradation, vice, and crime — excluded from all the benefits of civilization, and exposed to all its evils — children born into misery, for want of food stunted in their growth of both mind and body — a race, whose normal condition is disease of mind and body — more wretched than savages for wanting the happy ignorance of savages ! Think of the canker of hatred be- tween class and class, and sect and sect, which is continually gnawing at the heart of our nation ! Think of all the shame, and suffering, and sin of Irish slavery ! And when the ‘ Government’ gang, who have done all this wickedness, pre- pare to assail you with their butchering knives, that when you are slaughtered, they may carry on their work of desolation undisturbed — stand to your arms ! — resist to the death ! — better a hundred thousand bloody deaths than to leave Ireland another year disarmed, cowed, and defenceless, to the mercy of that fiendish des- potism.” This was the last article Martin wrote for the Irish Felon . In it he rose to a pitch of enthusiasm not shown in any of his previous writings, and the jury marked their sense of its power to stir the people’s feelings by • making it alone the basis of his conviction. The following letter addressed by John Martin to Mr. Zacariah Wallace, editor of the Anglo Celt , may be of interest here : — 124 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. “ Newgate Prison, Friday Night, August 1 1th, 1848. “ My Dear Sir, — In reply to your very friendly letter received by me this morning, the best thing I can say to you first is that the jury in the first of our trials (Mr. O’Dogherty’s, as it happens) have disagreed so far, and are locked up for the night with no expectation of an agreement. This is a heavy blow against the ‘Government’ faction at the outset. Their panel is, of course, very wickedly packed against us, and even without packing outrageously, the slander of us in all the Government papers, while our own are suppressed, and the general panic in the country, might place us at great disadvantage with the jury class. If, then, they fail in getting convictions against us, the spirit of the Repealers may yet rise ; and, at any rate, the ‘ Government ’ will be puzzled as to their next move. “The most important of all the cases is Mr. Duffy’s, and we are anxious as to the result in it. I think the Government will indict for treason in his case, and, perhaps, for mine. But without very effective packing, they can hardly hope for verdicts. “ At all events, my friends and I are quite prepared to meet the fate that may be in store for us. We have been in sure expectation of transportation for the last fortnight, and I do not fear that any one of us will yield one hair’s breadth of our principles, or shrink from the penalty we are to undergo for maintaining them. LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 25 For your offer of assistance, I shall ever feel truly grateful. But I do not see any way in which you can serve me at present, “ I am in good health, and I have not a bad conscience, and therefore I really feel contented so far as I am personally concerned. I remain, dear Sir, Gratefully yours, John Martin.’’ The last number of the Irish Felon ap- peared on the 22nd of July, 1848, and on Tuesday, the 15th of August, John Martin’s “ trial ” commenced in Green Street Court- house, the indictment being for treason-felony. The farce of a “ trial ” was spread over three days, and during the whole of this time John Martin’s brother, James,* was constantly by his side, listening to the proceedings with the anxiety and solicitude which a brother alone could feel, every line of his countenance revealing the absorbing interest with which he regarded the issue. The services of Sir Colman O’Loghlen and of Isaac Butt (then fast rising into fame) had been retained for the defence, and cer- tainly if the minds of the jury were capable of being moved to a consideration of the * Died at his residence, Routhwaite, Manitoba, 18th February, 1893, aged 72. 126 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. justice of the case, their verdict would have been one of acquittal — but it was not to be ; Lord Clarendon had taken care that in em- panelling a jury no mistake should be made ; and the verdict was ready before the “ trial ” began. When Isaac Butt rose to address the jury on behalf of the prisoner, the court was hushed into breathless silence, eagerly await- ing the eloquent address they felt assured they were about to hear. He said : — “ May it please your lordships, and gentlemen of the jury, I am counsel for the prisoner, John Martin. I believe it is my solemn duty, and the duty of those whom I have the happiness to be associated with as counsel in this case, not merely to protect individuals whom we defend, but to protect, as far as our efforts can, the constitution and the law, from any danger, either from the course of the evidence or what may be established by the verdict of a jury. And with that reverence which becomes me, and the solemnity that I feel not unsuited to this scene and this occasion — believing, as I do, that not merely the individual who is here on his trial before you, but to some extent the liberties of your country, protected in these Courts of Justice, are upon their trial — I do humbly and reverentially implore of the Great Judge, of whose perfect tribunal every human judgment seat is, after all, but an imperfect representation, that every part of this solemn LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 127 tribunal may rightly adjudicate ; that to the judges upon the bench, wisdom may be given from Him, without whose knowledge and will not a sparrow can fall to the ground ; that the scales of justice may be held by you with a steady and unshaking hand, and that you may be enlightened to do justice to the prisoner at the bar, according to the established rule of English law, by which alone you have a right to try him ; and that this trial may be so con- ducted, that the constitution and liberties of our country may come unscathed and unperilled through it. “ Gentlemen of the jury, you have a solemn duty to discharge — a duty, if my view of the question be right, requiring from you, what I trust you do possess, a high degree of intelli- gence, requiring from you to apply your minds closely to the precise charge you will have to try, and requiring from you what I do believe you will endeavour to possess, a freedom from prejudice, an absence of alarm. “ In the first place, I will tell you two things to which my client is entitled at your hands. I have told you that he is entitled to be tried by the rules of English law, and I ask but two things for him in this trial — I was wrong in saying I ask, I emphatically demand from you two things for him — I demand from the judges — I demand from you, who are to decide to-day on his destiny for life, that you do try him upon two great principles of English law, and one of these is that you do find him 128 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. guilty of the precise charge brought against him in this indictment, or wholly acquit him from guilt. And the other is, that you must be satisfied of his guilt of that charge — and, observe me, of no other charge or offence against any law, human or divine — by the evidence in this case, and by that alone. And that you be satisfied of it, not by inference, or speculation, but by certain demonstration, such as will carry conviction to your own mind, not that you may convict him, but that it is utterly impossible for you as honest men to acquit him.” He then went at length into the charges brought against Martin, and the evidence adduced in support of them, scouting the idea that he had any intention expressed or implied of levying war against the Queen. Continuing, he said : — “ My client has discharged what he conceived to be his duty in what he wrote. He is a northern, a native of the County Down, and a Presbyterian in religion ; and from his birth- place, and perhaps from the people among whom he lived, he imbibed the principles of liberty and independence. He is not a penni- less adventurer seeking, as the Attorney-General attempted to throw out, for the spoil of the lands of others. He has lands of his own. Left a competence in landed property, he re- sided on that property, and I believe he dis- charged his duties to their full extent as a LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 129 landlord and a gentleman, with benefit and advantage to his tenantry and neighbours. He is not an uneducated man. He passed through that University that has qualified so many others to discharge their several parts on the scene of life. He is a young man — not more than thirty years of age — and having graduated there, he returned to live on the little patri- mony of his ancestors “ My client saw the starvation and destitution of the people in the country, and knew the extent of misery and suffering that resulted from want of food. If a man was to reflect upon the thousands that have perished — starved to death — to look upon the roofless hovels of Skibbereen, and fancy the starved spectres of the people beckoning to tell them to keep the harvest at home for the use of the people dur- ing the next year, it might be wrong to give way to the impulse that such a reflection might give rise to, but a man would not be guilty of the offence in this indictment for that. “ Then as to English dominion in this country. Have we English dominion here] Is Irish opinion respected in the Imperial legislature ] Are your opinions or mine respected there ? Look at the condition of this country. Is it prosperous ] Look at the state of our own city. Look at your Linen-hall — it is an emblem of the country — one-half of it a barrack, and one- half a poorhouse. You cannot judge of the intentions of a man in such a case as this, with- out judging of the circumstances of the country. I 130 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. If there is a general bankruptcy among those who were once rich, and starvation amongst the people, there must be something wrong. If there be misery and ruin in this country, and that you can see no cause for strong and excit- ing language, you will not truly try this question. “ It is not on light grounds that a man should be deprived of his liberty, for ever prevented from looking on the sun, and sent to herd with murderers or felons ; and I trust — nay, I am confident — that nothing but the clearest evi- dence would induce you to pronounce the doom of final separation between my client and his friends. If, on a calm consideration of the evidence, you could believe my client guilty of the charge laid in the indictment, of course it would be your duty to say so ; but it should be a verdict not founded on speculation or on impulse, but on evidence coercive to your minds. You are trying my client upon the evidence, and upon that alone, and for the sake of the constitution I implore of you to bear that in mind. If you do not observe that plain and necessary rule — if you do not make the evidence, and the evidence only, your guide in forming your ver- dict, deeply as I care for the interest of my client, I would forget his case in the deeper feeling for the liberties of my country. “ If you decide this case upon the views or principles laid down by the Crown, or otherwise than upon a calm and rational view of the evidence submitted to you, and a due and care- LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 131 ful consideration of the whole case, the liberties of the country may be looked upon as sacrificed, unless the verdict of another jury shall redeem them from the perils in which they would assuredly be placed.” Mr. Butt having concluded his speech (which was received with applause), the counsel for the Crown replied, and Baron Pennefather proceeded to charge the jury. He reviewed all the evidence at considerable length, and dwelt largely on the crime (as he put it) of counselling armed resistance to the “ law.” At eight o’clock, on the evening of Thursday, August 17th, the jury came into court with their verdict of guilty, which they accompanied with a recommendation of the prisoner to mercy — as if, being guilty, he was entitled to any mercy ; but they knew in their innermost consciences that he was innocent of any crime whatever — that there was no law properly so called in Ire- land at the time — aud that in advising the people as he did, Martin was only doing what it was clearly the duty of every true Irishman to do. On the following morning, Martin was brought up to receive his sentence, and was asked, after the usual formula, if he had anything to say against sentence being pro- nounced upon him. Looking around the court-house in a calm, composed, and digni- 132 LIFE OF JOHN MAKTIN. fied manner, he spoke in clear, unfaltering tones as follows : — “ My Lords, — I have no imputation to cast upon the bench, neither have I anything to charge the jury with, of unfairness towards me. I think the judges desired to do their duty honestly as upright judges and men; and that the tw T elve men who were put into the box, as I believe, not to try, but to convict me, voted honestly, according to their prejudices. I have no personal enmity againt the sheriff, sub-sheriff, or any of the gentlemen connected with the arrangement of the jury-panel — nor against the Attorney -General, nor any other person engaged in the proceedings called my trial ; but, my lords , I consider that I have not yet been tried . There have been certain formalities carried on here for three days regarding me, ending in a verdict of guilty ; but I have not been put upon my country , as the constitution said to exist in Ireland requires. Twelve of my countrymen, indifferently chosen/ have not been put into that jury-box to try me; but twelve men who, I believe, have been selected by the parties who represent the Crown, for the purpose of convicting and not of trying me. I believe they were put into that box because the parties conducting the prosecution knew their political sentiments were hostile to mine, and because the matter at issue here is a political question — a matter of opinion, and not a matter of fact. As to the charge which I make with respect to the constitution of the panel, LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 133 and the selection of the jury, I have no legal evidence of the truth of my statement, but there is no one who has a moral doubt of it ; every person knows that what I have stated is the fact, and I would represent to the judges, most respectfully, that they, as upright and honour- able men and judges, and as citizens, ought to see that the administration of justice in this country is above suspicion. “ I would be thankful to the Court for per- mission to say a few words in vindication of my character and motives, after sentence is passed. “ Baron Pennefather — No, we will not hear anything from you after sentence. “ Chief Baron Pigot — We cannot hear any- thing from you after sentence has been pro- nounced. “Mr. Martin — Then, my lords, permit me to say that, admitting the narrow and confined constitutional doctrines which I have heard preached in this Court to be right, I am not guilty of the charge according to this Act . I did not intend to devise or levy war against the Queen, or to depose the Queen. In the article of mine on which the jury framed their verdict of guilty, which was written in prison, and published in the last number of my paper, what I desired to do was this : to advise and encour- age my countrymen to keep their arms, because that is their inalienable right, which no Act of Parliament, no proclamation, can take away from them. It is, I repeat, their inalienable right. I advised them to keep their arms ; and 134 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. further, I advised them to use their arms in their own defence, against all assailants — even assailants that might come to attack them, unconstitutionally and improperly using the Queen’s name as their sanction. My object in all my proceedings has been simply to assist in establishing the national independence of Ire- land, for the benefit of all the people of Ireland — in fact for all Irishmen. I have sought that object : first, because I thought it was our right — because I think national independence is the right of the people of this country; and secondly, I admit that being a man who loved retirement, I never would have engaged in politics did I not think it necessary to do all in my power to make an end of the horrible scenes that this country presents — the pauperism, starvation, crime, and vice, and the hatred of all classes against each other. I thought there should be an end to that horrible system, which, while it lasted, gave me no peace of mind ; for I could not enjoy anything in my native country so long as I saw my countrymen forced to be vicious — forced to hate each other — and de- graded to the level of paupers and brutes. That is the reason I engaged in politics. I acknowledge, as the Solicitor-General has said, that I was but a weak assailant of the English power. I am not a good writer, and I am no orator. I had only two weeks’ experience in conducting a newspaper when I was put into jail ; but I am satisfied to direct the attention of my countrymen to everything I have written LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 135 and said, and to rest my character on a fair and candid examination of what I have put forward as my opinions. I shall say nothing in vindication of my motives but this: that every fair and honest man, no matter how prejudiced he may be, if he calmly considers what I have written and said, will be satis- fied that my motives were pure and honour- able.” Martin having concluded this clear and simple statement, the judge proceeded to pass sentence. In the course of the remarks which he deemed it necessary to make, he referred to the recommendation to mercy which had come from the jury, whereupon Martin interrupted him, saying : — “ I beg your lordships’ pardon, I cannot con- descend to accept 4 mercy,’ where I believe I am morally right. I want justice — not mercy.” J ustice ! when did a political prisoner in Ireland ever get justice ? Never ! And Martin, like every other political prisoner, looked for it in vain. “The sentence of the Court is, that you, John Martin, be transported beyond the seas for the term of ten years.” So spoke the judge, and then the wretched travesty was over. Martin heard the sentence with perfect composure, but the faces of his brother and 136 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. friends standing by, showed signs of deep emotion. Several of his tenantry had come to Dublin to be present at his trial, and, as they confidently hoped, at his acquittal. When they heard the sentence they could scarce believe but that they were dreaming — J ohn Martin a condemned felon ! — impossible! They could not believe it — that he who had devoted himself to an effort to redress the wrongs of his countrymen, and to make peace and prosperity possible in the land, should be accused and pronounced guilty of inciting to crime ; it was too ridiculous — it was monstrous ; but such was the sorrowful fact. “ Remove the prisoner,” were the next words they heard, and John Martin was car- ried off from before their eyes, to a convict’s cell in Newgate. His brother, James, was so stunned, stupefied, and amazed by what he had heard that he rushed out of the court, and drove to the residence of Mr. Water- house, the foreman of the jury, and accused him of having bullied the jury into bringing in a verdict of guilty, and then and there he challenged him to mortal combat. Mr. Waterhouse, however, declined to do any- thing so rash, and had Mr. Martin arrested ; next day he was brought before the Court, and so shocked was the judge at the occur- rence that he sentenced him to a month’s LIFE OF JOHN MAETIN. 137 imprisonment, besides binding him over to keep the peace to all Her Majesty’s subjects for a period of seven years. From Newgate John Martin was removed to Richmond Prison, and while there he wrote the following letters to Gavan Duffy, who was then in prison awaiting his approaching trial : — “Dear Duffy, — Don’t think me troublesome if I remind you of a little job that I consider proper to be done by you for yourself and all of us. And I mention it lest by any chance you should overlook it in the bustle of your trial. “ It is to declare on behalf of all of us that the legal quibbling that we have permitted our lawyers to employ in our defence, was permitted solely and entirely because of the jury-packing , and the general perversion of the administration of justice employed by the Crown against us. “ Had we only got fair juries according to the Constitution, every man of us was ready to lay bare our inmost hearts for the scrutiny of our fellow-countrymen. We would have given no trouble to the Crown, and entailed no cost upon the country in careful framing of indict- ments, nice attention to formalities, obtaining of evidence. We would have fully admitted all our acts, have served as witnesses against our- selves, have assisted the Crown to make out the cases against us. “For our characters, and in solemn denuncia- 138 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. tion before the world of the real nature of the Crown prosecutions, such a statement ought to be recorded before the close of the State trials of 1849. And you are the man upon whom it falls to do this. “Were I you, I would protest against the legality of the proceedings immediately after your jury is packed and sworn, and state that the speech of your Counsel was designed by you as your moral defence only. Your chance would not be the worse for the protest. “ By-the-bye, speaking of chances, if you could do it with bitter seriousness enough, you might propose to save time and breath, and forms and harassing proceedings of all sorts, by substituting a literal and real toss of the dice- box, instead of the metaphorical one — giving the Crown, as a loyal subject ought, very large odds, say 100 to 1. “ Well, at the worst, I hope you will get over to us here for a month or so, and get your health recruited, and it will go hard with us if we don’t plot some recovery for Ireland yet. Ever yours, J. M.” “ December 13 th, 1848. “My Dear Daffy, — For more than a week past, I have been spending part of every day in the uncomfortable company of a bad conscience. This troublesome visitor is so rude as to pinch me and sting me with a feeling of the social enjoyment of us traitors and felons here in LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 139 Kichmond, from which you are so long separated. For the last ten or twelve days (as probably you have been made aware), we are permitted sufficient intercourse with each other. Any of us may visit the lodging of any other of us, from breakfast-time till 9 at night. And when some three or four of us are met, and engaged in friendly chat and interchange of thoughts, about subjects so dear to you, I can’t help recol- lecting with vexation that you are so solitary — I mean as respects your patriotic confederates, for of course I know that you are still permitted the society of your wife, and some of your nearest relatives — and I can’t help blaming my- self because I have not attempted in some measure to communicate to you a portion of our treasonable enjoyment. For instance, to tell you something of the late unfortunate move- ment in Tipperary, which I have had described and detailed to me by Meagher and M ‘Manus, and which you must be longing so much to hear from the mouths of the chief actors themselves. In short, I am angry at myself because I have not, for a very long time, bestowed any portion of my tediousness upon you, and so I scribble you this sheet. “ But, as you must be absorbed just now in the concerns of your approaching 4 trial,’ I shall postpone my intended narrative of theBebellion of ’48, and my reports of our nodes Ambrosiana {alias treasonable conversations), and proceed to talk about the subject of more pressing in- terest. I was and am proud of your notices . 140 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. I feel that the plan of defence adopted or per- mitted by the rest of us was not only wanting in provision for resisting the main body of the enemy’s force — his jury-packers — but also want- ing in moral dignity and suggestive of moral injury to our cause. So long as the enemy is free to pack, all pretence of resistance is of course quite useless. And to leave our cases in the hands of mere technical lawyers, who will exert themselves only or mainly to persuade the jurors that the facts in the indictments against us are not legally proven, or even that such facts, if legally proven, do not lie incontestably within the technical comprehension of the Act of Parlia- ment (and may the curse of God light and rest upon their Acts of Parliament against Ireland ! Amen ! and Amen !) to adopt merely a ‘ legal ’ defence, remonstrating with political enemies that there is some neglect of form in the process against us, some technical defect which forbids them to convict us in due course of law, and encouraging our political friends with sugges- tions of the same formal and technical defects, the same happy accidental slips of our persecu- tors, which permit them to acquit us, also in due course of law — to omit and avoid the moral, constitutional, and political vindication of our acts — of the many acts charged in the indict- ment — to offer such defence, and omit such vindication, while it cannot avail us before a packed jury and a hostile court, does surely tend to place us in the attitude of denying the faith that is in us, or, at least, of submitting to LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 141 a charge of distrust in the claims of that faith upon the hearts and minds of our fellow-citizens. Now, you may recollect to my shame, that I have all along been maundering in this sort of strain — talking mighty big about real constitu- tion and real law — and yet, I was too lazy and too cowardly to act in accordance with my own principles when I was to be put upon the country. But you, whom I used to scold for not fully agreeing in my doctrines about ‘law’ and ‘constitution,’ are taking the manlier, more citizen-like, and (may heaven grant !) the more effectual course of proceeding. I hope you will be enabled to carry out your plan, though your lawyers should endeavour to dissuade you from the thorough execution of it. I know you can- not prevent the enemy from packing — you cannot take away his power to pack. But you can expose his swindling, his lying, his iniquity, his baseness, his mean cowardice. You can denounce his conspiracy against our institutions, his nefarious attempts to excite disaffection against monarchy, constitution, law, order ; his efforts to demoralize, and degrade, and brutalize our people, by turning their own national and social defences into weapons of attack upon their own happiness. And you can also protest against his villainy, by refusing to sanction the packing, and the other vile mockeries of justice, with your consent and participation in the pro- ceedings. “You must submit , but you need not consent. If the enemy will pack, as I think indeed he 142 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. must, you can, from the dock, denounce his Court, and separate yourself from participation in the illegality. And, notwithstanding the very brilliant advocacy which I am sure Butt is prepared to offer in your behalf, I think you ought to decline all defence before the packed jury. I do say this deliberately. Your chance of a disagreement will not be lessened. If fortune should place in the box an anti-national- ist of any tincture of generosity, your chance would be increased. And if a lucky mistake should admit a juror with some secret love of Irish freedom, surely your dignified and stern protest against the vile practices of our tyrant will not lose you his favourable sympathy. Indeed, the only thing to regret in such a course is the loss of Butt’s speech, which I would con- jecture will be a panegyric upon Young Ireland, or rather the Nation . But at the passing of sentence (in case you must be victimized), you could, and you ought to say a good deal yourself upon the course you have held for the last six years. And though you know, Duffy, that I am so unfortunate as to differ from you upon many points of policy, and upon, at least, one serious matter of personal feeling, I am proud to acknow- ledge in you, after the glorious Davis, the father of the Irish National party and the chief writer of the party. But for the Nation , which your gene- rous boldness, and your fixedness of purpose, and your able pen have maintained for the last six years, as the standard and rallying point for patriotism, every one of us Confederates, even LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 143 Mitchel, would have remained in dull, hopeless obscurity. We would, doubtless, have grumbled at our firesides, and bemoaned our fate in being born Irish slaves, or probably some of us would have gone into exile rather than remain sub- jects of the foreign tyrant, but that would not have been an Irish National party, we would not have caught the inspiration of hope; we would not have enjoyed the happiness of look- ing forward to the prospects of our country’s freedom, and the happiness of working for the liberation of our country. And slight or even valueless as my own endeavours to work have been, I assure you, and you will readily believe, that I count imprisonment for ten years a very • cheap purchase for the enjoyment I have had in those attempts to work. And this enjoy- ment I owe in great measure to you. J. M.” Shortly afterwards, John Martin was shipped off to Van Diemen’s Land, on board the Elpliinstone , and thus terminated the first period of his life as an Irish patriot. “No country,” says John Mitchel, “is hope- lessly vanquished whose sons love her better than their lives.” Happy the country which can produce men so pure, so disinterested, and so brave as “honest John Martin.” 144 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. CHAPTER VI. 1849—1864. News of Martin’s Conviction reaches Mitchel — His Reflections — Arrival of the “ Elphinstone ” in Van Diemen’s Land — Ticket - of - Leave — Letter from Mitchel — Life in Van Diemen’s Land — Arrival of P. J. Smyth — “ Conditional Pardon ” granted — Let- ter to Miss Thomson — Arrival in Paris — Uncondi- tional Pardon and Visit to Ireland — Death of Sister- in-law and Brother — Comes to live in Kilbroney — Mitchel in Paris, and Martin’s Visit — Letters to Miss Thomson — State of Ireland during Martin’s exile — The O’Donoghue — The National League — Letters to Miss Thomson — League Publications — The O’Donoghue deserts the League — Letters to Miss Thomson — Death of Smith O’Brien. The news of John Martin's conviction and transportation reached John Mitchel (then in Bermuda) on the 30th of September, 1848, whereupon the following reflections occur in his Jail Journal: — “ John Martin found guilty of felony (by a well-packed jury of Castle-Protestants), and sentenced to ten years' transportation ! I am very glad of this, because Martin is simply the best, worthiest, and most thoroughly high-minded man I ever knew ; and because he has a large circle of acquaintances, who are all aware of his LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 145 worth. One could not wish British law in Ire- land a more damaging, damning sort of * vindi- cation ’ than thus to he compelled to send such men, by such methods, to its hulks. Go on, brave Law ! There is nothing like vigour. John Martin a convict ! John Martin in the hulks ! Dragged away from the green shades and fertile pleasant places of Loughorne, and made one of a felon ship’s-crew at Bermuda or Gibraltar. Who and what is this John Martin ? A political adventurer seeking to embroil the State, in hope of somehow rising to the surface of its tossing waves 1 ora needy agitator, specu- lating on a general plunder 1 or a vain young- man, courting puffs, paragraphs, and notoriety 1 or a wild Jacobin, born foe of order, who takes it for his mission to overthrow whatever he finds established, and brings all things sacred into con- tempt 1 ? Great God ! Thou knowest that the man on earth most opposite to these is John Martin, the Irish Felon. By temperament and habit retiring, quiet, contented, and who has lived al- ways for others, never for himself ; his pleasures are all rural and domestic ; and if there be any one thing under the sun that he heartily scorns, it is puffery and newspaper notoriety. All he possesses (and it is enough for his moderate wants) is landed property in fee-simple, which a social chaos would assuredly whirl away from him. Instead of being a Jacobin, and natural enemy of law, property, and order, he venerates law beyond all other earthly things — cannot bear to live where anarchy reigns ; would for ever prefer K 146 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. to bear with unjust institutions, corruptly ad- ministered, if not wholly intolerable, rather than disquiet himself and others in a struggle to abo- lish them. But in the exact proportion in which this man reveres law, he loathes and spurns the fraudulent sham of law. He respects property, — his own and other men’s — while it subsists ; but he knows that when a large proportion of the people in any land lie down to perish of want, by millions, (or were it only by thousands or hundreds,) there is no property any longer there — only robbery and murder. Property is an institution of society — not a Divine endowment, whose title-deed is in heaven ; uses and trusts of it are the benefit of society; the sanction of it is the authority of society ; but when matters come to that utterly intolerable condition they have long been in Ireland, society itself stands dissolved — a fortiori — property is forfeited; no man has a right to the hat upon his own head, or the meal he eats, to the exclusion of a stronger man. There has come, for that nation, an abso- lute need to re-construct society, to re-organise order and law, to put property into a course whereby it will re-distribute itself. And inas- much as needful re-creations never have been, and never will be accomplished, without first tumbling down, rooting up, and sweeping away what rotten rubbish may remain of the old ven- erable institutions, why, the sooner that business is set about the better. If we must needs go through a sore agony of anarchy before we can enjoy the blessings of true order and law again, LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 147 in the name of God let us go through it at once ! .. . . John Martin is an Irishman, and can never endure to have 6 laws’ made over his country by and for a foreign people ! To make that out- rage impossible, he accounts the first duty of all Irishmen. . . . And so we are a pair of trans- ported felons. Be it so : — better a transported felon than a quiet slave, or a complaisant ac- complice in murder. Mine ancient comrade ! my friend ! my brother in this pious felony — whithersoever thou art now faring in the fetters of our pirate foe, I hail thee from far across the Atlantic flood, and bid thee be of good cheer.” The Elphinstone arrived in Van Diemen’s Land the end of November, 1849 ; and John Martin was after a short time granted “ticket of leave,” with liberty to reside in the vill- age of Bothwell. This village of Bothwell is described by Mitchel in his Jail Journal as “ containing about sixty or seventy houses ; has a church where clergymen of the Church of England and of Scotland perform ser- vice, one in the morning and the other in the evening of Sunday ; has four large public- houses or hotels, establishments which are much better supported on the voluntary system, and have much larger congregations than the church ; has a post-office, and several carpenters’ and blacksmiths’ shops, for the accommodation of the settlers who live in the 148 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. district, and a police office and police barrack, with the police magistrate of the district pre- dominating there/' The following letter from Mitchel to Mar- tin will be of interest here : — “ The Neptune Hobart Town, 6th April , 1850, “My dear and worthy friend John ! — Here I am, rather weak and sick, but as bold as a thousand elephants. All the Neptunians are landed here free men, i except Mitchel/ Doubt- less by reason of that convict’s more atrocious crimes. I have heard of you and your where- abouts, and that you are well, and that Meagher is well — long life to him ! and I merely write this to-day to tell you what I am about here, deferring all more detailed communication until you and I meet some of these mornings on the opposite banks of the stream dividing our districts. I have just received an intimation that I am to have the ‘ticket of leave’ granted me, and my choice of half a dozen 4 districts’ to live in, excluding carefully all the districts where any Irish felon already resides. This is too bad, you know. I have now been twelve months on board this damned, and trebly damned ship — all but sixteen days, and between that and ten months previous solitary confine- ment at Bermuda, I feel that my health has got a hard blow. In fact I have been all that time enduring the most desperate assaults of the LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 149 asthma demon, and though determined on fighting him to the last I have had the worst of it and am severely punished. Well, bethinking myself that all this might be regarded as entitling me to some consideration, and further, that if you and I were allowed to take up house together, we might in various ways help each other to pass the heavy days — I have actually applied to be allowed to go and live at Bothwell. I am told that it is possible this may be allowed. If so , my dear fellow, it will be a great point. What I would propose is that you and I should in that case begin and actually till the land, not according to Smith of Deanston, but by the precepts of Columella and Virgil. I have but £100 in the Southern hemisphere, you must have far more I suppose, and undoubtedly we could compass a little farm and build a hut of good dry gum trees. But perhaps our too anxious friends won’t allow it ; in that case I must only go to the Hamilton district and go to see you sometimes. I have not heard from my people for five months. It will take at least a week for you to tell me all I have to hear from you. — I am a full two years in arrear of contemporary history, you know. — Farewell. J. M.” In this same month of April, 1850, Mitchel, having arrived in Van Diemen’s Land, ac- cepted the “ ticket of leave,” having learned that Martin and the others had done so. He likewise settled in Bothwell, and under date 150 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 12th April, 1850, I find this passage in tho Jail Journal : — “ Sitting on the green grass by the bank of a clear, brawling stream of fresh water. Trees waving overhead; the sunshine streaming through their branches, and making a tremulous network of light and shade on the ground. It is Bothwell, forty-six miles from Hobart Town,, from the Neptune and the sea, and high among the central mountains of Van Diemen’s Land* Opposite sits John Martin, sometime of Lough- orne, smoking placidly, and gazing curiously on me with his mild eyes.” It was an unwonted indulgence on tho part of the Government to allow the two “ felons ” to live together : it certainly was strange that the two friends after being separated for nearly two years should come together again at the other side of the globe. Martin’s life in Van Diemen’s Land was, taken altogether, uneventful. In company with Mitchel he visited Meagher and O’Dogherty ; and together they roamed over the country, admiring the scenery (as they used of old when at home in Ireland), and not infrequently enjoying pleasant re- unions at the houses of friendly colonists. For the first three or four months after the arrival of Mitchel, Martin and he lodged in the village ; but after a few months they left LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 151 this lodging and took a small cottage about six miles distant, and here they continued to reside together, leading the kind of life I have described above, until the summer of 1851, when Mitchel, having been joined by his family, took a larger cottage about four miles distant ; but the friendly intercourse was still kept up, and Martin used to be almost as often at Nant Cottage (where Mitchel lived) as his own. When Patrick Joseph Smyth arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in January, 1853, com- •missioned by the Irish Directory at New York to effect the escape of one or more of the prisoners, the plan embraced not alone Mitchel, but Smith O’Brien and Martin ; but they decided that it would be best for Mitchel to effect his escape first, and ac- cordingly deferred making any attempt at escape themselves until later. I find in a private letter from John Mitchel to Martin, written in San Francisco, and dated 15th October, 1853, the following reference to their projected escape : — “ As to O’Brien, I hear from Smyth that all hope of the Queen’s ‘ pardon’ is over. Therefore he must absolutely be got out of the enemy’s hands, and I will not be long in New York before something will be set on foot for that purpose I hope you feel tempted to make your escape.” 152 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. But eventually they did not need to make this attempt, as the Government voluntarily granted them a “ conditional pardon ” in 1854. The condition was that they should not visit any portion of the United Kingdom. Martin, O'Brien, and O’Dogherty availed themselves of this “ conditional pardon,” and without delay they sailed for Europe. Before quitting this part of Martin’s history it may not be uninteresting to give the following letter of his to Miss Thomson, descriptive of Mitchel’s escape and subse- quent adventures : — Both well, Van Diemen’s Land, Monday , 18 th July, 1853. “My dear Miss Thomson, — The friendly sympathy you have uniformly expressed (in your letters to Mrs. Mitchel) for all Irish patriots, of whom I claim to be one, assures me that you will regard the boldness of this address with indulgence. — When I was taking leave of Mrs. Mitchel, last Thursday, her last injunc- tions were that I should write on her account to you, to Mr. Hill Irvine, and to Mr. Thomson (the gentleman who so befriended her and the children during the voyage of the ‘Condor 5 ). Mrs. Mitchel’s time had been so fully occupied up till the day of her departure, in the prepar- ations for the voyage, and in winding up her affairs in Van Diemen’s Land, that she could not find an hour for writing to any friend. “ Long before this letter can reach you, you LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 153 will have heard that Mitchel escaped from captivity upon the 9th June last. I have sent you a newspaper containing his own brief account of the transaction at the police office, upon the occasion of his formal revocation of his parole, and renunciation of his 4 comparative liberty/ “ Immediately on coming out from the office, he and his friend Mr. Smyth mounted their horses, which Johnny was holding in readiness in the street hard by, and rode rapidly away from the township. The magistrate and the two police clerks, in their zealous haste to pur- sue and apprehend Mitchel, jammed themselves in the office doorway. The district constable was drilling his men at the police-barracks which stands on the opposite hill across the Clyde, about 400 yards distant from the police- office. The constable on duty in the street before the office was holding two gentlemen’s horses, the magistrate shouted upon his men and upon the spectators to ‘ seize that man/ but no official was prompt enough, and no non- official evinced any inclination to oppose or obstruct Mitchel’s movements. Constables were mounted upon horses pressed by the magistrate into ‘Her Majesty’s Service,’ and sent with despatches to Hobart Town and to other places, and, no doubt, every exertion has been made by the authorities to recapture the fugitive; but they have not obtained any traces of him, so far as I know, and before this time you will have heard of his safe arrival in America. 154 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. “About a mile outside the township (i.e. r village) Mitchel was met by his guide for the first day and night of his flight. This was a ‘native youth/ 6 feet 1 in height, 16 stone in weight, a bold and excellent horseman, a most experienced, and almost unrivalled 4 bushman,’ as generous and good-natured as he is big, and altogether a right good fellow, and right proud of his office. They rode all day through very wild bush, avoiding all tracks, and they spent the night in the bush. It was bitter frost, and they had no great coats, no food, and no drink. They lit a great fire, and besides it their only creature-comfort was one cutty-jpipe which they smoked alternately till the long-expected day- dawn came to their relief. I ought to mention (in vindication of the guide’s character as a bushman) that it was Mitchel’s own choice to remain in the bush. They were, as the guide perfectly knew, within three miles or so of the house where they had proposed to spend the night. But there was no moon, and it was the face of a mountain (or ‘tier’) they were de- scending, the ground all covered with mosses and fragments of greenstone rock (the hardest, and sharpest, and ruggedest) and with fallen gum trees, and brushwood, and rubbish, Mitchel feared that either his horse or himself might break a limb, and he wisely preferred to bivouac under the frosty sky. The poor horses had the worst of it, tied to a ‘ honey-suckle tree,’ with no shelter but its branches. Next day, after hospitable attention to their horses and them- LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 155 selves, another ‘native youth’ appeared to supply fresh horses and guidance onwards. And all the time of his concealment there was no lack of generous friends (most of whom he had never even seen before) to give every assistance and service that the case required. “Immediately after Mitchel’s flight from Both- well, our good neighbours came to visit Mrs. Mitchel, and to offer her their sympathy and their services. It seemed to be a rivalry be- tween the ladies which should do the most work in aid of the preparation for the voyage. Of course there was a great deal to do, there are so many children, and they are so lively and such tearing romps, and the servants here are so bad that the mistress must do most of the housework herself, and often attend the ‘Government women’ (convict servants) besides, and tailors and dressmakers will hardly ever work since the gold discoveries. But Mrs. Mitchel and her fair friends were most energetic and persevering. “Mr. Smyth, whom your recollection of the Confederation may enable you to recognise as P. J. Smyth, the confidential friend and com- panion of Meagher, remained to help Mrs. Mitchel in winding up her affairs, and to accompany her and the children from Nant Cottage. He is a most valuable friend. Mr. MacNamara, the owner of the ‘Emma,’ by which Mr. Mitchel sails to Sydney, is also a warm friend of ours. Mrs. Mitchel was to embark at Hobart Town on Saturday last. At 156 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. Sydney she would take passage by the first good ship for San Francisco. There Mr. Mitchel himself would relieve Mr. Smyth of his charge. “This is a very hurried and unsatisfactory account, but I trust you will soon receive a letter from Mrs. Mitchel herself giving you all the interesting particulars. “ In the meantime and ever, Believe me, dear Miss Thomson, Your friend and servant, John Martin.” Smith O’Brien accompanied Martin, and together they sailed in the Noma from Mel- bourne to Ceylon ; at this port they parted, O’Brien going northward to Madras, and from thence to Paris, and on to Brussels where he was joined by his wife and family. Martin preferring the overland route, came on via Aden, Cairo, Alexandria, Malta, and Marseilles to Paris, where he arrived towards the end of October, 1854. Here he took up his residence, and awaited such time as the Government would see fit to make the “ pardon” unconditional ; this they did in June, 1856, and immediately Martin came over to Ireland to visit his family from whom he had been separated for eight years. But he did not intend to remain in Ireland. He had resolved that so long as England ruled Ireland, and that against the will of LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 157 the Irish people, so long would he remain ab- sent from the country ; as his efforts towards removing the foreign tyranny had been of no avail. After a stay of a few months he returned to Paris, intending to reside there for the remainder 'of his life; but it was not to be. In October, 1858, his sister-in-law died, and he came over to be with his brother Kobert in his troubles, but only to find him dying r and within a week he too was dead. A sacred duty now devolved upon John Martin — the guardianship of his orphan nephews and nieces, and this duty he could only discharge properly by living with them. Accordingly he terminated his voluntary exile, and came to live in Kilbroney, Rostrevor. I may dis- miss this part of his history by saying that he discharged his duties as guardian with the most scrupulous fidelity, and in the occu- pations which they entailed he found the best support against the failure of his hopes for Ireland, and the faithlessness of some of his former friends. In October, 1859, John Mitchel arrived in Paris from New York, and Martin went over to see him. This was their first meet- ing since they parted at Nant Cottage on that eventful June morning, six years pre- vious, and of course they had much to say to each other, so they talked and smoked as of old. 158 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. The visit lasted nearly a month, Martin returning home to Ireland early in November. In a letter which he wrote to Miss Thom- son, in September, 1860, I find the following literary comments which may interest the reader : — “ . . . . When trying to learn German in Van Diemen's land, I read several of Korner’s songs, and liked them so well that most of the lines cling to my memorj 7, yet. He never puffs, nor boasts, nor poses, nor deceives either his country- men or himself. The dreadful reality is there before him, but he looks at it unflinchingly, and goes straight on in the path of honour and duty. . . . Callanan’s Gouganne Barra is a fine poem . . . Longfellow sings gracefully and musically, and in Evangeline and elsewhere he deserves higher praise than foif mere taste, grace, and melody ; but he irritates a plain reader by his affectation of strange forms of expression, strange rhythm, strangeness of every sort for the sake of strange- ness. Tennyson, and the rest of the poets, rhymers, and blank verse spinners of the present time seem to do the same. ‘ Shamrock ** is always good. There is more poetry in ‘ Shamrock’ than goes to make a hundred poets who get their verses printed in books, and bought by the literary world. He is good in every sense : the true and the beautiful unite with his goodness. His Hospital Patient is very touching and beautiful.” Richard D’ Alton Williams. LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 159 John Martin took a deep interest in the preservation of the Irish language. Writing again to the same lady in December, 1860, (she was then staying at Biarritz in the Basses Pyrenees) he says : — “As to Irish spelling I agree with all you say. I wish we could obtain some general instruction of our young peasantry (and all other classes) in Irish. Are you aware of my donation of £200 to that committee of the Academy and Archaeological Society which pretends to be aiming at the preparation and publication of a complete Irish Dictionary ] Two years next New Year's day they will have had my donation in their hands, and I think seven years the donation of- the late Mr. E. Hudson for the same purpose, and what progress do you think have the Irish literary and scientific Aristocracy made in this national work which they have taken in charge 1 Why they have really agreed at last upon the wording of a prospectus, and got it printed, and distributed among the better classes of Ireland as per Thom's Almanac with an application for subscriptions to raise the £600 still needed for the preliminary part of the work of the Dictionary. And what response, think you, have our better classes made to the appeal — so far as I am aware not a pound sterling has come in as yet, and the circulars were sent in May last or there- abouts. — Now I am as ignorant of Irish myself as is the Emperor of China, yet I would really do a great deal in order to get the Dictionary 160 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. prepared and published. Curry and O’Donovan are the only men in Ireland whose services for such a work all competent persons judge to be the most valuable — in fact to be indispensable — and they are both old, and they are anxious to get at the work, and nothing keeps them back now but want of money. I am thinking of at- tempting myself to get the money raised and the work done in spite of our aristocracy of literature and science. “ But I am running to such length upon this subject that I am leaving no room to speak of O’Brien’s letter upon the French invasion. I don’t agree with him. He and I have some private correspondence upon it, and the more we write the further we seem to get asunder. It is very sad to me, for there is nobody with whom I would rather agree to co-operate than with O’Brien. I intend to write a letter for publication to give my sentiments, and I ought to have written it immediately upon the appear- ance of his, but I am depressed with the disunion of our Nationalists — so few of them can differ in opinion and yet co-operate in the cause — so few of them can treat the differences of other Na- tionalists with respect and courtesy: there is so little tolerance or kindliness. — We should discuss our differences with mutual respect, and not forget that weare all equally Nationalists, and all aiming at the same end. But ’tis useless to comment, and useless to remonstrate, — divide, repel, seems the chosen motto of Irish Nation- alists. LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 161 “ I knew a good deal about your present local- ity (Biarritz) some years ago, having spent the winter of ’56-’57 at Pau, in company with my sister and her husband. My sister was then ill of the consumption of which she died the next year. I, too, remarked the resemblance in the countenance of the people in that part of France with our Celtic Irish; and in 1854, when I landed at Marseilles on my return from Austra- lia, and first set foot in France, I thought the look, and manner, and voice of the common people very Irish.” During the eight years Martin had been absent from Ireland many important events had occurred, — events which have made an indelible mark on the page of Irish history. The hunger and the fever of the black ’47 had left a legacy of misery and want to the survivors. The landlord continued to rack- rent and evict, aided in his unrelenting tyranny by the civil and military authority. Then arose the “ Tenant League/’ the his- tory of the decline and fall of which has been so ably narrated by A. M. Sullivan in his New Ireland . To this succeeded the black spectre of Fenianism which has worked such misery and ruin for Ireland ; and which un- fortunately numbered among its supporters three such distinguished men as Charles J. Kickham, John O’Leary, and Thomas Clarke Luby. “ Those who knew Kickham’s gentle, 162 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. amiable nature, 1 ” says A. M. Sullivan, “ his modest and retiring character, his undemon- strative ways, marvelled greatly to find him in the forefront of such an enterprise as the Fenian movement.” There was not so much cause for wonder at Messrs. Luby and O’Leary; they were intellectually and politically of the type of Wolfe Tone and Emmet, and had been always noted for their revolution- ary tendencies. But the men who led, or most largely influenced Irish national politics from 1860 to 1865, were Smith O’Brien, John Martin, and The O’Donoghue. O’Brien did not, indeed, take any very active part in public affairs ; but he was recognised and referred to as the chief of the national party. His opinion and advice were always sought ; and, through letters published from time to time in the Nation , he exercised no incon- siderable influence on passing events. He had been, on his return to Ireland, tendered the representation of an Irish constituency in Parliament, but he declined to resume any prominent position in public life. During the summer of 1858 he took a quiet tour through the country, anxious to see what changes had occurred during the ten years he had been an exile. He was welcomed with manifestations of respect and esteem ; but he deprecated any attempt at “ public demon- strations” in his honour. Replying to an ad- LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 163 dress which the people of Clonmel insisted upon presenting him with, he assured them that although not intending to take any active part in politics again, he maintained as firm and as unshaken as ever the principles for which in 1848 he was prepared to lay down his life. The O’Donoghue was a man of a very dif- ferent stamp to either John Martin or Smith O’Brien. He was born about the year 1830 ; he claimed kinship with O’Connell, and his title of Celtic chieftainship had come down to him through an ancestry of at least four hundred years. He was of a dashing, cour- ageous disposition, hut was very vain. He made his first appearance in public life as candidate for Tipperary, in 1857. Coming out under the auspices of the celebrated George Henry Moore, he carried all before him, and went at once to the front rank in national politics. He proved a success both as a Parliamentary orator and a platform speaker. Many of his best speeches were delivered within the historic walls of the Rotunda. In Parliament he aided greatly by his eloquence the struggle for Disestablish- ment and Tenant Right. About the year 1869 he married a daughter of Sir John Ennis, sometime member of Parliament for Athlone. By this marriage he had one child, a son, who still lives. It is as joint founder 164 LIFE OF JOHN MAE, TIN. with John Martin of the National League that he finds mention in this work ; and therefore I can the more readily pass over the latter years of his political life, which are not pleasant to dwell upon. He ex- changed Tipperary for the now defunct borough of Tralee ; gradually he fell away from his old friends and associates, becoming in the end a mere Whig, and disappearing finally from public life when Tralee was dis- franchised by the Reform Act of 1885. He died alter a brief illness, at Ballynahown Court, Athlone, on the 7th October, 1889. “ Generous Ireland/' said a writer at the time, “ the most forgiving of nations, will forget the aberrations of The O’Donoghue, and will find a niche for him in her Temple of Fame, as one who in his own time and his own w 7 ay loved and served his country/’ The formation of the National League was the outcome of a desire to counteract the rapidly increasing influence of Fenian- ism. Writing to Miss Thomson on the 4th of May, 1861, John Martin said: — “ An attempt is made just now to organise the country on a different plan — the plan of a ruling Directory with absolute pow r er. Such Directory of ccurse to he composed of men in whom the country has implicit confidence. The difficulty is to find such men; but Messrs. Moore, O’Doncghue, Dillon, and myself have LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 165 had a consultation on the subject: Mr. Moore being the convener.” Writing to the same lady on the 10th of January, 1864, he said : — “ As to Repeal or Separation I still think that I am in the right; and my opinion has never changed, that I am aware of, since I be- came a declared Nationalist I think there is a better chance of England yielding to our National demands now, if made by the nation, than there was before ’48 The progress of denationalisation is very rapid at present. Emigration carries off the best of each year’s generation, and leaves a larger and larger proportion of the spiritless, feeble, or corrupt, ready to be anglicised and enslaved. Can you devise or imagine any way for com- batting this denationalisation more proper than by associating in a league against it such Irish men and women as think it an evil ? Can such an association exist except as a protest against our subjection to England, and an attempt by any practicable means to bring that subjection to an end? Will not such an association be most efficient if all nationalists in Ireland join in it; and may not all of them join if it professes the object which all of them seek, no matter how they may differ as to the right way of ob- taining or securing it Nevertheless I have but little hope of obtaining a general adhesion of nationalists, and perhaps I have been unwise in attempting the thing.” 166 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. From the time he returned to Ireland until now Martin had not taken any active or prominent part in politics, and probably he would have continued to live in quiet retirement, but that he could not resist the pressure brought to bear on him to once more give his voice and influence to the service of the National cause. It will be seen from these letters the way in which he considered that cause could best be served. Accordingly, towards the end of January, 1864, in conjunction with The O’Donoghue, he established a Repeal society called the “ National League/’ Writing to Miss Thomson on the 4th February, he says : — “. . . . By the Nation which I have sent you will see that The O’Donoghue and myself have actually committed ourselves to the attempt of a new association. We have rented rooms for our Committee in D’Olier Street, opposite to the old room of the Council of the Confederation. The rooms will not be ready until the 12th. As soon as we get into them we must agitate our best to procure adhesions and to circulate docu- ments. But except the editors of the News , Nation , and Irishman , no men of political influ- ence in Dublin will co-operate with us at the beginning, and very few in the country. The O’Donoghue urged that the attempt should be made, and / have been saying all along that I am willing to come forward with such national- LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 167 ists as may agree with me. So he and I have made the plunge. If the others won’t plunge also we can’t help it. So long as I, and those acting with me, do nothing in itself dishonour- able, or unworthy of Irish patriots, I care little for the disgrace which the world heaps upon those who fail ; — let the world please itself, and let me. But I feel that I ought to do nothing, however innocent in itself, which might preju- dice the national cause ; and some of my friends argue that an unsuccessful movement — an attempt to stir the people when they won’t be stirred — will prejudice our cause. I don’t think so. It may destroy any little political reputa- tion that John Martin enjoys, and may lessen the credit of The O’Donoghue. But these gen- tlemen being content to abide the issue, what more is to be said ]” “The establishment of the National League as an open and non-Fenian National organisa- tion, appealing to public opinion, gave great offence to the Fenian leaders. Fenians attended at its meetings and sought to disturb or com- promise the proceedings by cries for a ‘ war policy,’ ‘rifles are what we want,’ and suchlike. It was naturally expected that, steadily assailed in this way, the League must give up. But John Martin intimated that he knew these tactics, and those who were practising them. He told the Fenians to go their road, he would go his, and would not be hindered by them. With much struggle he held his ground through all 168 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. the troubles and terrors of 1865, and a good part of the following year. In August, 1866, the then leaders of the Fenian operations, fail- ing in putting down the League meetings by interruptions, groans, and cries, gave the word for more violent measures. A body of Fenians poured into the League Hall one evening, and on being rebuked by Mr. Martin for their con- duct, assailed him with volleys of eggs and other missiles, dispersing the assemblage in great disorder.”* It was certainly under dreariest discourage- ment that John Martin once more embarked in politics ; but, nothing daunted, he set to work bravely, organising the League, and getting documents printed, the expenses of wh’ch in many instances he bore exclusively. The first of these publications was entitled “ Declaration of Irish Grievances,” and set forth briefly in thirteen divisions, the reasons why Ireland should have the making of her own laws. Then followed their first yearly report, which was issued in February, 1865 ; and which was more hopeful in tone than the second report, issued on the 6th February in the year following, from which I take the following paragraphs : — “ At the close of our second year we are still unable to report that the League has succeeded in obtaining such recognition and support among * “ New Ireland,” by A. M. Sullivan, pp. 249-250. LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. 169 Irish Nationalists as would be required for en- abling us to perform any considerable service to the national cause. “ In Ireland, during the last twelve months, the contributions to our funds have been small in amount, and but few names have been added to our list of members. “In Australia, however, there has not been a stop to the generous movement in support of the League which we had the pleasure of ac- knowledging in our report of last year.” This report, which covered ten pages, con- cluded by stating that the members of the League did “ not feel that they would be justified in so far yielding to the discourage- ments of the times as to dissolve or suspend their Association ; and that, so far as their resources enabled them, they intended to maintain the League as a public and standing protest against the Union and as a nucleus of Irish Nationality/’ These reports were all drawn up and signed by John Martin, upon whom, indeed, most of the work devolved. The presiding officers in 1866 were: — W. J. O’Neill Daunt; Very Rev. Canon Murphy P.P., Youghal; Jere- miah R. Hodnett, Solicitor, Youghal ; The O’Donoghue, M.P., and John Martin. The third annnal report, issued 19th Feb- ruary, 1867, had still to lament the want of active co-operation and sympathy on the part 170 LIFE OF JOHN MARTIN. of the people of Ireland ; but its list of pre- siding officers told a sad tale : here it is : — W. J. O’Neill Daunt ; Very Rev. Canon Murphy ; Rev. P. Quaid, P.P., Clare ; Thomas A. P. Mapother, Kilteevan, Roscommon ; and John Martin. It will be seen that the name of The O’Donoghue is missing. He had been of very little assistance from the outset (al- though it was mainly on his solicitations that Martin had consented to establish the League), and impatient of results which were slow in coming, he abandoned the enterprise to its fate. The following extracts from letters of Martin to Miss Thomson, who continued to take the deepest interest in the League, will enable the reader to judge under what diffi- culties and trials he bravely struggled on : —