Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor; let no man attaint my memory, by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country's liberty and independence; or that I could have become the pliant minion of power, in the oppression and misery of my country. The proclamation of the Provisional Government speaks for our views; no inference can be tortured from it to countenance barbarity or debasement at home, or subjection, humiliation, or treachery from abroad. I would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the foreign and domestic oppressor. In the dignity of freedom, I would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and its enemy should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. And am I, who lived but for my country, and who have subjected myself to the dangers of the jealous and watchful oppressor, and the bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights, and my country her independence, am I to be loaded with cal umny, and not suffered to resent it? No; God forbid! Here Lord Norbury told Mr. Emmet that his sentiments and language disgraced his family and his education, but more particularly his father, Dr. Emmet, who was a man, if alive, that would not countenance such opinions. To which Mr. Emmet replied: If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and cares of those who were dear to them in this transitory life, O ever dear and venerated shade of my departed father! look down with scrutiny upon the conduct of your suffering son, and see if I have, even for a moment, deviated from those principles of morality and patriotism which it was your care to instil into my youthful mind, and for which I am now about to offer up my life. My lords, you are impatient for the sacrifice. The blood which you seek is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim — it circulates warmly and unruffled through the channels which God created for noble purposes, but which you are now bent to destroy for purposes so grievous that they cry to heaven. Be yet patient! I have but a few more words to say I am going to my cold and silent grave-my lamp of life is nearly extinguished - my race is the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I run have but one request to ask at my departure from this world: it is - THE CHARITY OF ITS SILENCE. Let no man write my epitaph; for, as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me rest in obscurity and peace; and my tomb remain uninscribed, and my memory in oblivion, until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done. FUTURE POLICY OF IRISH NATIONALISTS. The following masterly address on the "Future Policy of Irish Nationalists," which he delivered in Mechanic's Hall, Boston, on December 8, 1878, before his departure for Ireland, being his first great effort in oratory, and a clear exposition of the reasons for unity of action amongst all classes of Irishmen, we give in full: - T would be difficult to conceive a position more unenviable than that in which an Irish Nationalist places himself when he attempts to review the past of his party in order to point out what he believes to have been rash or impolitic in its career. A criticism of the wisdom of an action that has failed or a line of conduct which has been injudicious, is at once construed into disloyalty to the principles or party which may have prompted such action by a sincere but improuent resolve. But when he expresses himself dissatisfied with the narrow sphere of a policy which tends to exclude from National labor every one but a pronounced Separatist, and adds his belief that a change of tactics would turn the exertions of sincere Irishmen, though now pronounced Separatists, into the National cause, he is at once assumed to have "forfeited his principles," and to be on the high road to West-Britonism. In consequence of this proneness of the Irish mind to hasty and uncharitable deductions, men (who think while working in Ireland's cause) are deterred from condemning what they know to be injudicious, lest they should find themselves ostracized from its ranks for their anxiety to see it directed the surest way to success. In my humble opinion, a want of moral courage belittles a man far more than a deficiency in the physical article, and that real cowardice consists in dreading the sentimental consequences of an upright, honest action. It has ever been the practice to pander to the popular prejudices of our country, by hyperbolical eulogies on everything |