been remarkable from the earliest period for their aptitude as soldiers. The impulsive ardor and quickness of intellect which they exhibit in the social relations of life, eminently fit them to learn the arts and discipline of war, and impel them onward in the hour of strife with fervent and irrepressible zeal. Does not history confirm. the truth of the assertion? After the treaty of Limerick, in sixteen hundred and ninety-one, the gallant Sarsfield and some four thousand of his companions, despairing of liberty in their native land, migrated to other countries in Europe. The exodus continued during the eighteenth century. Nearly all these exiles adopted a military career, and were formed into regiments and brigades under Irish commanders. They performed prodigies of valor in the armies of Austria, France and Prussia.

A learned historian who wrote in the last century, estimates the number of Irishmen that have died in the military service of France at six hundred thousand. When Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary, instituted fifty crosses of the legion to be given to men who should most distinguish themselves in her wars, forty-six were won At the battle of Fontenoy in and worn by natives of Ireland. seventeen hundred and forty-five, the ready sagacity of an Irish general, seconded by the gallantry of his troops, secured a magnificent triumph for the House of Bourbon, and saved from subjugation the country of his adoption. Within the last fifty years, the soldiers of the Emerald Isle have inscribed the renown of their prowess and resistless courage on the plains of Waterloo and the crumbling walls of Sebastopol.

We have now traversed a wide track of history, and glanced at some of the prominent events and illustrious names that are radiant links in the chain which unites the sad yet glorious past to the living present of Ireland. Nearly all the persons mentioned sprang from the ranks of the people, and may be deemed representative men of the day and generation in which they liv

ed. In their respective careers we trace much of the genius and Universal weakness, errors and virtues, of the Irish character. experience teaches us the lesson that we must judge of a nation by the qualities of its popular leaders. Thus France, in the last seventy-five years, has experienced the throes of three great revolutions, and the ruling spirits who conducted the several movements differ not more widely, than did the temper and intelligence of the French at the date of these revolutions. In Robespierre, Danton, Leinthon, and Murat, we have types of the fierce and sanguinary disposition of the French populace toward the close of the eighteenth century; while in Lafayette, and his compeers in eighteen hundred and thirty, and still later in Cavaignac and Lamartine, we have representatives of the higher intelligence and How many centuries must purer morality of the same nation.

elapse before Russia will produce a Goldsmith, a Sheridan, a Burke, or an Emmet? Certainly the Irish, as a people, are not imbued with the qualities-sordid virtues, if the term may be allowed-of a purely trading community. A prudent regard for the accumulation

of wealth and worldly wisdom are not among their distinguishing traits; but in the absence of such qualities, we find piety, hospi tality, charity for the afflicted, love of country, devotion to liberty, a contempt for death, and fidelity to their moral and honorable obligations, at every place and in all classes in Ireland. These are the virtues which a Cato or Lycurgus would cherish in a race, and constitute the basis of independence and a grand nationality. A country may be rich in mines of gold and silver-in all the treasures of earth and sea; its navies may ride the billows of every ocean from the polar circles to the equator; iron-clad citadels and immense armies protect its frontiers; yet, unless the noble qualities, the more exalted virtues we have recited, enter into and form the national character, it can never preserve liberty and tranquillity at home, enjoy an enduring prosperity, or repel the aggressions of mere warlike nations.

But why comment further on the elements of Irish character? You who have sprung from, or resided amongst the noble peasantry of the Emerald Isle, and all in whose veins there is a drop of Milesian blood, must feel that in their inmost hearts are altars where live the glowing embers of the sacred flame which has shed the halo of an immortal renown on the pathways of Erin. We have seen that Ireland possesses an ample population and all the physical resources. needed to maintain the rank of an independent government. History demonstrates that her people are endowed with a degree of capacity, intelligence and virtue that will compare favorably with any nation of ancient or modern times. One question alone remains for consideration-have the people of Ireland ever surrendered to the English Government their natural and inherent rights, or have they committed any act whereby they justly forfeited their claim to nationality? The advocates of Irish independence base their arguments upon a platform of indisputable facts. They point to the Declaration of Independence made by the Irish House of Commons on the 16th of April, 1782, and ratified the same year by the King and Parliament of Great Britain. They ask when and where did Ireland surrender that Magna Charta of her freedom, or relinquish to England the privileges acknowledged and secured by it?

It is a proud satisfaction to review the circumstances which preceded and attended the Act of Independence. England was engaged in a war with Spain and France; the fleets of the latter power infested the channel and seas which surround the British coast. The result of the American war had not only wrested from England the fairer portion of her domains in the New World, but had seriously impaired the prestige of her ancient military renown. The debt of the Empire had been largely augmented, its resources diminished, and taxes of every description ruinously multiplied. Everywhere in the British dominions was a restless and rebelious spirit which boded evil to the trembling house of Hanover. was the hour of England's necessity-and here was Ireland's opportunity. The people of Ireland instantly seized upon the occasion. Never did a nation exhibit a more determined zeal in the cause of

This

Liberty. The streets of the Metropolis presented a truly gorgeous appearance on the day which witnessed the Declaration of Irish Independence. Learned societies and civil associations, with banners and suitable devices, marched along the principal avenues to assemble in compact array before the Hall of the National Assembly; Battalions of the Irish volunteers, splendidly armed and uniformed, escorted the civil procession. The Reverend Clergy, Protestant and Catholic, walked in the ranks of the people, and hallowed the occasion with prayers and benedictions. A sublime scene was presented in the House of Commons. An immense gallery, supported by Tuscan pillars, surrounded the Chamber. Here was gathered the elite of the beauty and chivalry of Ireland. In the rotunda, below, the representatives of the Kingdom were assembled. It was a solemn hour in the life-time of a nation. A step was to be taken towards freedom. An act was meditated, which if resisted by the Government, entailed on the land all the horrors of war. In success there was permanent glory; in failure irretrievable disaster. The illustrious Grattan was by general consent the leader of the patriots. After an oration which has been pronounced the most luminous, brilliant and effective ever delivered in an Irish assembly, he concluded by moving in the address to the King, a declaration to the effect that Ireland could be bound only by laws enacted by an Irish Parliament. It was carried without a dissenting voice, and ratified the same year by the English Government. In the first month of the

subsequent year, the Imperial Parliament, in order to remove all doubt on the subject, enacted a statute whereby it was solemnly declared: "The right claimed by the people of Ireland to be bound only by the laws enacted by his Majesty and Parliament of Ireland, in all cases whatever, shall be, and is hereby declared to be, established and ascertained forever, and shall at no time hereafter be questioned, or questionable."

We percieve in these measures all the essential elements of a treaty, a compact between distinct and sovereign nations, an act by which England recognized the independence of Ireland, and renounced forever all Legislative pretension. For eighteen years after the passage of this celebrated measure, the Island enjoyed an interval of tranquillity, liberty and prosperity. But, alas! the days of Erin's happiness were numbered. This repose was only the treacherous calm that precedes the tempest-the unnatural sleep which ends in final dissolution. The Imperial Government, under the administration of William Pitt, had resolved to subvert the liberties and destroy the nationality of Ireland. The awakened culti vation, growing manufactures, and expanding trade of Ireland, competed too successfully with similar pursuits in England. Lord Cornwallis was then Viceroy, and Lord Castlereagh, afterwards Marquis of Londonderry, Secretary of State for Ireland. Cornwallis was noted only as a courageous, but unsuccessful soldier, who had command in America and the East Indies; Castlereagh distinguished as a man of commanding presence and seductive address, with a consummate talent for intrigue and diplomacy.

Such were

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the men whom the English Minister selected to devise means for the subversion of Irish Independence. Their vocation was the same, but on the award of impartial history the infamy of one far exceeds any odium which may be attached to the other. The Lord Lieutenant was a native of England, and naturally regarded the interest of that Kingdom and the wishes of "Majesty," as paramount considerations. Then, too, as a soldier, his first duty was obedience to the orders of his government. But for Castlereagh, charity can devise no apology. He was a native of the Island, had been a patriot, was a nobleman whose wealth placed hiin above all sordid temptation, and whose ancestral honors identified him with the glory and liberties of his country. Wickedly, deliberately, and with a resolution which never faltered, Castlereagh labored to subvert the freedom of Ireland. He succeeded! Yet a signal retribution awaited him even in this life. In after years, conscience harrowed his soul and allowed him no repose. In parliament, at the banquet, in the Court, amid scenes of splendor and gayety, spectres of his murdered victims pursued the wretch; in his slumbers he heard the curses of the country he betrayed, and a voice bade him, like the tyrant of Scotland, "sleep no more. The means which the Lord Lieutenant and his Secretary adopted to effect the passage through the Irish Parliament of the 'Act of Union, were just such as might have been expected, and are familiar to all who have studied the annals of that period. Intimidation and bribery constituted their entire system. The first was intended for the nation at large. In pursuance of the project, the standing army was suddenly increased from fifty thousand to one hundred and seventy thousand men. A reign of terror was inaugurated on the ruins of constitutional liberty. The writ of habeas corpus was suspended, and martial law declared at the pleasure of the Lord Lieutenant; public meetings were often dispersed at the point of the bayonet; persons were arrested without judgment of court or process of law, and incarcerated in loathsome dungeons until death released them, or the caprice of their tyrants opened their prison gates. An army of informers and spies, issuing from the Vice Royal Palace in Dublin, swarmed through the land, and diffused over all circles of society an atmosphere of dread and suspicion. We learn that during two years which immediately preceded, and in the course of the six years subsequent to the "Act of Union," more than one hundred thousand persons, accused of political offences, died in prison and upon the scaffold, or were transported in convict ships to the penal settlement of Australia. We shudder at the excesses of revolutionary France; we mourn over the fallen liberties of Poland; we execrate the cruelties of Austria to the States of Italy and Hungary; but we forget that in our own age the government of his most Christian Majesty, George III inflicted on the people of Ireland atrocities beside which the cruelties of Russia and Austria appear like gracious deeds of mercy. While armed force was used to overawe the popular mind, and coerce the nation into submission, the subtle arts of corruption were applied to the nobles

and the Irish House of Commons. Immense sums of money, ranging from ten thousand to twenty thousand pounds sterling, were paid for the vote of a single borough in Parliament. Of the one hundred and eighty members who voted in the House for the Union, history has perpetuated the names of more than one hundred and forty who were bribed, and the price which each received for the desertion of his God, the betrayal of his country, and the sacrifice of his honor. The act to establish a "Legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland," was adopted. By the passage of it, the Magna Charta of Irish liberty was annulled, the independence of the nation was abrogated, and the entire legislation of the Kingdom transferred to the Parliament at Westminister. No impartial reasoner will contend that a statute wrested by intimidation and fraud from a reluctant nation, carries with it any moral sanction. It is a principle of jurisprudence, acknowledged by the law of nations and maintained in the municipal code of every enlightened people, that fraud or violence annuls all obligations; their taint, like the touch of the leper, is mortal and incurable. From the day of its passage until the present hour, Ireland has never forgotten the means that were employed to procure the "Union," nor abated her opposition to the measure. The cherished ambition of O'Connell's heart was to repeal it. Russell and Emmet sacrificed their lives to destroy it; and fifty years later, Smith O'Brien and his noble associates suffered banishment rather than submit to it. Ireland has seen since the enactment of the law, and traceable directly to the malign influence of it, her manufactures perish, her trade decline, her revenues drained from their native shore, and her children driven from their homes by the demons of want and penury to wander over the face of the earth.

The last and most terrible misery which the Union has inflicted on unhappy Ireland, occurred within our own recollection. Who can forget the wretchedness of Ireland in the years of her famine. Who will forget that the English Government was warned months in advance of the impending calamity; and that the statesmen of Ireland petitioned the Court and Cabinet of St. James to prohibit the export of cereals from the Island, and that the peasants and laboring men entreated their Imperial tyrants for relief; not for alms but for work, and the means of supporting life as the wages? The appeal was unheeded. At first the deaths were few, then increasing, until each revolving day beheld the corpses of hundreds, who famished from absolute want and the diseases attendant on it. Then Ireland, the Niobe of nations, forsaken by her rulers, smitten by the rod of famine and the breath of pestilence, uttered a cry of anguish at which the world grew pale.

We need not linger on those days and scenes of unparalleled suffering. We know, however, that they form only a chapter in the annals of English connection with Ireland, and that every page of the volume is replete with acts of violence and misgovernment. The footprints of the Norman and Saxon may be traced in blood on the shores of Erin. Every mountain, glen, or moldering ruin