took dynamite to bed with him. [Laughter and cheers.] But this very
thing England used in all her wars, and now had tons of it in Woolwich.
Mr. Parnell told them two years ago that he had all the resources of
civilization at command. He meant then that he only wanted an excuse to
send over more of this destructive material. [Laughter and applause.]
Scientific warfare alarmed England, and she would like Ireland to
keep petitioning and not go to arms. Then they were asked, while they
had the Coercion Acts, to come out and fight in honorable warfare.
[Laughter.] He would rather fight in the open field if allowed, but
the speaker went in for fighting the devil with his own weapons.
[Applause.] He would not wish to hurt an Englishman, but there was
no other way to root English government from Ireland. [Cheers, and a
voice: ‘Yes, and we will root them out.’] He would show that it would
cost England more to hold Ireland than it was worth. [Cheers.] After
England had passed all her stringent laws, the recent explosions had
occurred. Until England gave up Ireland, dynamite would go in....
There might be some who did not like to deal with dynamite, but they
only wanted it done secretly. They said the speaker blew too much.
[Laughter.] Well, he had to blow a bit to get them in. He had to make
a noise, or else he would not get any aid for the men who are fighting
England so as to make her understand it would be advisable to give
Ireland a Parliament like that of 1801. [Cheers.] When they had that,
he would rest for a time. But if she wished to stop the dynamite
work in London, let her give Ireland justice. Till she did that, he
would ask the people of Boston to give all the aid they could.... In
conclusion, he asked his audience to do something to help the brave
men working for the liberty of Ireland. He said there were to-day
Irishmen working for the cause in England who had never seen America;
but the scare they were giving England in the heart of London was doing
more than twenty thousand men in the field. He did not like dynamite,
and the English did not [laughter]; but he had no objection that the
Irishmen in London or in Ireland should use all the dynamite they
could get. [Applause.] England had done all she could with fire and
sword to exterminate the race in Ireland. Why, she had sold the Irish
people as slaves. England had banished the Irish people, and she kept
doing it. He asked the chairman, if his family had been separated and
forced to go to a strange country by the work of a Government, would he
object to using dynamite, or hell-fire itself? [Great applause.]”
University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge
Transcriber’s Note
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation have been standardized but all other spelling and
punctuation remains unchanged.