Neilson and her husband. Five fair children, four girls and a boy, came
to grace their fireside. The girls were Anne, Sophia, Jane, and Mary.
Very dear were they to their father, and very touching the letters he
was to address to them from prison when the “hard service” of the Poor
Old Woman was to sever him from them during sorrowful years. Anne and
Sophia were old enough to bear their heroic part among the “Women of
’Ninety-Eight,” and many of the most thrilling and interesting incidents
which Dr. Madden gathered into his precious books were actually
witnessed, and related to him by them. They spent much time during the
troubled period with the wife of Oliver Bond in Dublin, and were by that
means right in the centre of things, so to speak. Dr. Madden was deeply
touched by the passionate devotion they showed to their father’s memory,
when about half a century after his death, he sought from them the
materials for his memoir.
But dear as the girls were, the boy was the light of his life. William
Bryson Neilson, the only son of Samuel and Anne Neilson, was born in
1794 and, by all accounts, was an extraordinarily gifted boy. We shall
hear much of him in the following pages, and find no little interest in
the story of the days he spent with his father in the stern old northern
fortress of Fort George, which his presence made for poor Sam Neilson
almost a place of delight.
The “good years,” as perhaps Anne Neilson was inclined to call them,
from their contrast with the years which followed, came to an end—with
so much else—at the outbreak of the French Revolution. Neilson had
retained from his old “volunteer” days a strong attachment to Liberty,
which he then interpreted in the terms of the English Revolution of
1689. The French Revolution gave the word a new meaning for him, and the
other dissenters of Belfast who shared his views. The “Rights of Man”
became the Koran of Belfast, as Tone pleasantly observes, and Sam
Neilson set himself with that logical sequence, which, with him, made
energetic action follow principle, to secure these “Rights” for his own
oppressed countrymen.
From 1791, politics absorbed Neilson, and his business was much
neglected, and finally had to be abandoned. Many anxious moments must
have been poor Anne Neilson’s during those stirring days when her
husband, with Tone and Russell and Henry Joy MacCracken, was making
history. We Irish Catholics ought to cherish a special reverence for her
memory, and pay her at least a posthumous gratitude, for it was at her
expense that her husband worked for us. He was the first man in Belfast
to put Catholic Emancipation in the forefront of the Republican party’s
programme, and to make of it, with Parliamentary Reform, the principal
plank in the platform of the _United Irishmen_—the honour of whose
foundation he shares with Tone.
In 1792 there was established in Belfast to preach the doctrines of the
new society a memorable paper, _The Northern Star_. Of this paper, to
the finances of which he had liberally contributed, Neilson was
appointed the editor. Eventually he became the sole proprietor—with
disastrous results to his financial position. The paper was repeatedly
the object of legal proceedings, and apparently to escape the
consequences of these, the other shareholders got rid of their interest
in it. Madden tells us that “the various prosecutions carried on against
it had obliged Neilson to dispose of all his property, and to relinquish
his business in order to meet the enormous expenses attendant on these
proceedings, and the unexpected demands arising from them. The other
proprietors, shortly after the prosecutions, disposed of their shares to
Neilson, and thus encompassed with peril he became the sole proprietor
of the paper. In 1792 the printer and proprietors had been prosecuted
and acquitted. In January, 1793, six informations were filed in King’s
Bench against them for seditious libels, and in November, 1794, they
were prosecuted for publishing the address of the United Irishmen to the
Volunteers.”
It was not alone through the medium of the _Northern Star_ that Neilson
served the cause of the Catholics. He was active in his efforts to
compose the differences between the Catholics and the Presbyterians, and
to lay the feuds of the Peep o’ Day Boys and the Defenders. We learn
from Tone’s diary that both Neilson and his wife were of the party which
accompanied John Keogh and the other Catholic delegates, on their return
from Belfast in July, 1732, to Rathfriland in order to meet some
gentlemen of the neighbourhood with a view to restoring peace between
the rival religious parties. He took part, with Tone and Keogh, in a
similar expedition a month later. He was intensely interested in the
work of the Catholic Committee and the plans for the Catholic
Convention.
It was probably in this connection that he became so intimate with Luke
Teeling, of Lisburn, and his family, though their relations dated from a
still earlier period when both men were working heart and soul to return
to Parliament, as representative of the Co. Down, that ardent Reform
candidate, the Hon. Robert Stewart—better known to history as Lord
Castlereagh.
In 1795 the terrible condition of affairs in the County Armagh, where
the Catholics had been subjected to a barbarous persecution at the hands
of the Peep o’ Day Boys without the slightest attempt on the part of the
authorities, either to protect them or to restrain their savage
aggressors, was rapidly reaching a tragic climax. Young Charles Teeling,
then a lad of seventeen, got information that the Catholics, convinced
that they could not be worse off than they were, were preparing to take
the field openly against their intolerant foes. Relying on the influence
which his family, from its standing, enjoyed among the Catholics of
Armagh, he set off from Lisburn, without informing any one, in the hope
of inducing the Defenders to desist from their disastrous purpose.
He had not gone far, however, when he felt the need of some more mature
and experienced head than that which sat on his own seventeen-year-old
shoulders. His mind could suggest “none more desirable for the purpose
than Samuel Neilson. He was the ardent patriot, the decided enemy to
oppression in every shape and in every form; and the strenuous advocate,
at all times and seasons, for the unqualified admission of his excluded
fellow-countrymen, to their full participation in the blessings of civil
and religious liberty. He was at the head of the, then, only liberal
Press in Ulster; and his political influence however extended, was not
more than commensurate with his labours in the public cause.”
Teeling wrote to Neilson begging him to meet him in Portadown and thence
to accompany him to the scene of the disturbances. Neilson complied
without delay, but before he reached Portadown he was met by Teeling
with the news that the Battle of Diamond had been fought, and that their
intervention was too late.
In September, 1796, both Teeling and Neilson with Russell and others
were arrested, conveyed to Dublin and lodged in Newgate and Kilmainham.
A few weeks afterwards the two McCrackens were added to the company of
Northern prisoners.
After a few months Lord O’Neill obtained from Government permission for
the prisoners to see their wives. Charles Teeling informs us of his
surprise at finding that Neilson was not disposed to avail himself of
this permission. “Neilson had a tender affection for his wife, and she
merited all the respect and attachment he could feel; yet he positively
prohibited her visiting his prison. ‘I cannot,’ said he, ‘suffer you to
undertake a long and fatiguing journey at this season of the year to
visit me in my cell. Here your nerves will be shocked by the brutality
of a turnkey, and at the Castle your pride will be wounded by the
insolence of a minion in office.’ His prohibition, however, did not
avail. He addressed his letter through the usual channel, the office of
the Secretary of State; but the faithful partner of his affections had
already procured an order of admission to the prison.”[78]
Footnote 78:
Teeling’s “Personal Narrative,” pp. 29, 30.
During the seventeen months for which her husband’s captivity lasted,
Mrs. Neilson and her elder daughters spent much time in Dublin, where
the hospitable homes of James Dixon, of Kilmainham, and Mr. and Mrs.
Oliver Bond, were ever ready to receive them.
It is sad to relate that the nervous strain to which the prisoners in
Kilmainham were subjected told on the temper of most of them, and in the
irritation of their spirits they quarrelled with each other. A serious
estrangement broke out, in particular, between Neilson and Henry Joy
McCracken. But Margaret and Mary McCracken and Mrs. Neilson, using their
gentle womanly influence, succeeded in effecting a reconciliation.
On February 22nd, 1798, Neilson was liberated on bail on condition “that
he should not belong to any treasonable committee.”
The long confinement, the anxiety about his family, the grief and rage
he felt at the news of the ruin of his property, and the suppression of
his paper had told heavily on Neilson’s bodily and mental health. He
came out of prison a wreck of his former self. His kind friend, Mr. John
Sweetman, took him to his country house and lavished on him every care
which might restore him. But the times were unpropitious for the “rest
cure” which poor Neilson’s shattered nerves demanded.
Three weeks after his release, on March the 12th, 1798, the Government
swooped down on the leaders of the United Irishmen and by midnight of
that memorable day had all of them, practically, with the single
exception of Lord Edward, safe under lock and key. John Sweetman was
arrested at his brewery in Francis Street—and it became known to Neilson
that his own re-arrest was merely a matter of time.
Neilson considered that the Government’s breach of faith towards him
absolved him from his engagement to them—and from this time forth he
threw himself, with a feverish energy his debilitated frame could ill
support, into the service of the Union. According to his own statement,
“he was very active in procuring that the vacancies caused by the arrest
at Bond’s should be filled up, attended several committees belonging to
the union, delivered some messages from Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and
together with his Lordship, was stopped by a patrol near Palmerstown,
and liberated after being a short time in custody, owing to the
ignorance of the officer respecting our persons.” A Northern delegate
reported at a provincial meeting in Belfast that Neilson “was riding
almost night and day, organising the people; and scarcely any person
knew where he slept.”
During the time between March the 12th and Lord Edward’s arrest on May
the 19th, Neilson constantly visited his Lordship at his various places
of concealment. Miss Moore long afterwards told Dr. Madden that “no
matter how depressed Lord Edward was, the appearance of Neilson always
brightened him up.”
On the day Lord Edward was arrested at Murphy’s, Neilson visited him and
told him that he had seen a party of soldiers pass up the street. He
dined with Lord Edward and, according to Murphy, as soon as the dinner
was over hurried away, as if a sudden recollection had occurred to him,
leaving the door open behind him. Through this door an hour later
entered Major Sirr and his party. “Lord Edward’s arrest following so
immediately Neilson’s exit, his restlessness during dinner, his
‘fidgety’ demeanour at the moment of leaving the house, and the strange
circumstance of the door being found open by Major Sirr, were
circumstances that caused Neilson’s conduct to be freely canvassed; and
those who were in the secret of the treachery which really led to the
capture of the prisoner took care to let suspicion light and rest on
those whom it was thought desirable to bring into odium with their own
party. Neilson and Murphy were made the scape-goats of the infamy of the
memorable F. H. whose initials have finally been identified with the
name of Francis Higgins, one of the worst men of the worst period of our
history.”
It makes our heart bleed for poor Anne Neilson and her children when we
think of this terrible imputation being cast on him whose only fault was
that he loved his country before all else!
On the night of May the 23rd, that fixed for the general rising, Neilson
was re-arrested outside Newgate, where he was reconnoitring, with a view
to leading an attack on this Irish Bastille, and inaugurating the
projected Irish Revolution after the French model, by the liberation of
Lord Edward and the other chiefs imprisoned in it. Unfortunately Neilson
was too well known to the prison authorities for his presence in the
neighbourhood not to excite suspicion. He was taken prisoner by a file
of soldiers after a desperate resistance and lodged in gaol in a
pitiable condition of body, but his mind more determined to resist
tyranny than ever. Grattan told his son that when Neilson was taken, his
clothes were torn off him, his body wounded all over by the soldiers
hacking at him, he was cut and scarred in upwards of fifty places, and
was only saved by the number of his assailants.
On June the 26th, bills of indictment were sent up for high treason
against Samuel Neilson, the two Sheareses, John McCann, William Michael
Byrne, and Oliver Bond. Counsel were named by all the prisoners except
Neilson, who refused to name any. We find in the Life of Grattan by his
son a graphic description of the scene in court to which Neilson was
brought heavily ironed. “When brought into court the noise of his
entrance was like the march of men in irons. He was called on to plead,
and asked if he had anything to say; he replied in a stentorian voice,
‘No! I have been robbed of everything—I could not fee counsel; my
property—everything has been taken from me,’ and he turned away. But he
came again to the front of the dock, and said, ‘For myself I have
nothing to say; _I scorn your power, and despise that authority that it
shall ever be my pride to have opposed_; but I may say—not that I value
it—why am I kept with these weighty irons on me, so heavy that three
ordinary men could scarcely carry them? Is it your law that I should be
placed in irons, and in such irons?’”
The execution of the Sheareses took place on July 14th, that of McCann
on the 19th. In order to save the lives of Byrne and Bond, Neilson with
some others of the State prisoners consented to enter into terms with
Government. Byrne, in spite of these negotiations, was executed on July
28th, and Oliver Bond died, under very suspicious circumstances, after
having been respited.
The circumstances attending Bond’s death, and the chagrin caused by the
Government’s perfidy with regard to the compact (which they not only
broke in the most flagrant manner, but represented, in their account of
it to the public, in a way most injurious to the prisoners’ honour) had
a very bad effect on poor Neilson. He was literally at death’s door when
the word came from the Castle on March the 18th, 1799, that the State
prisoners were to be deported to an unknown destination on the following
morning.
John Sweetman’s diary gives a most harrowing account of Neilson’s
condition during the journey to Fort George. He got delirious on the
very night the _Ashton Smith_, with the prisoners aboard, sailed from
Dublin Bay. The prisoners had to take two hours’ watches by his bedside
to restrain his violence. Dr. MacNevin, as a medical man, warned the
Captain of the likely consequences if something were not done for the
unfortunate patient, and a petition was sent for leave to have him
landed at Belfast, where the boat put in to take more prisoners. But it
was all in vain.
Fortunately Neilson’s condition improved after a day or two, and his
unfortunate companions were spared at least acute anxiety on his
account. They had plenty of discomforts to put up with, without that. A
heavy gale came on as they approached Ailsa, and presently it increased
to a rank storm. “The sea broke clear over us, and poured into the hold;
several of the berths were drenched with water. Mine was completely
flooded by the bilge-water, which came up between the timbers and
through the ceiling. All the trunks were knocked about, and most of the
crockery broken. The hold exhibited a most confused scene.” Later on
they were nearly ship-wrecked.
From Greenock the prisoners were conveyed by coach to Fort George, which
they reached on April 9th, having been eleven days on the sea-journey
and ten days on the land journey.
Dr. Dickson’s narrative gives us a graphic description of the first
impressions of Fort George. “Our entrance might be called solemn. The
very aspect of the place made it so to me, who had never before seen a
regular fortification. A numerous guard was drawn out, and a multitude
assembled—which included a great part of the rank and fashion of the
country. Through them and the guards our coaches drove to a stair, up
which we were conducted to the rampart, and thence along a wooden
bridge, thrown across the street on our account, to the third floor of
the garrison, and shown into a spacious room where we found an
uncommonly large grate filled with a blazing coal fire.
“We had not enjoyed this many minutes, when Lieutenant-Colonel Stuart
(the lieutenant-governor), the fort-major, and some other officers made
their appearance. Panting as we were with anxiety to know our fates,
their minds did not seem to be much more at ease than ours. After a few
polite inquiries concerning our journey, health, accommodations, etc.,
the lieutenant-governor, taking a paper from his pocket, said:
‘Gentlemen, it is necessary that I should read to you the orders I have
received from Government; though I assure you to me a very painful
task.’ That he felt it such was evident from the tremulous voice and
interrupted breath with which he performed it. On perceiving the
indignation which these orders excited, expressed by every countenance,
and hearing it from one tongue: ‘Gentlemen,’ said he, ‘as a _servant of
government_ I cannot hear reflections on _government_. I own I cannot
reconcile your appearance and these orders—yet I must obey them.
However, it shall be your own fault if ever they are executed with
severity.’ On this, he and the other gentlemen retired seemingly, and as
I believe really, affected with our situation.
“Soon after, our table was handsomely laid out and a good dinner of
_five dishes_ served up. We had two servants to attend us. Our allowance
of drink was one dozen of porter, one of ale, and ten bottles of port.
And we were informed that we might have tea in the evening, or a cold
supper with a bottle of porter or ale for each, as we should choose.
“After dinner, twenty rooms, between sixteen and eighteen feet square
each, were allotted to us by ballot, sixteen of which were laid with
brick over the boarden floor. On taking possession we found them clean,
airy, dry, well plastered and ceiled, with windows sufficiently large,
well glazed and secured on the outside with iron bars. In each room was
a neat four-posted bed with good curtains, palliasse, mattress, sheets,
one under and three upper blankets, a cotton coverlet, bolster, pillow,
a rush-bottomed chair, and small oaken table; a bottle and basin,
fire-irons, coal-box, candlestick, snuffers and extinguisher—all
entirely new and good in their kind. To these were afterwards added a
bell on the outside of each door, with two pulls on the inside, one at
the fireplace and one at the bed, that in case of sickness, fire, or
alarm, our keepers might be roused, and assistance procured. Four
invalids were exempted from duty, for our service, and allowed double
pay; two to make our beds, keep our rooms clean, and do other services;
and the other two to keep our knives, forks, spoons, etc., as they ought
to be, bring our provisions from the inn and attend at table. Each of us
had a captain’s allowance of coal and candle, nor did we burn a dipped
candle except for one fortnight during my residence in the fort. For our
health equal provision was made.”
The prisoners were allowed to exercise on the ramparts, and from that
point of vantage they were entertained “with a widely extended scenery,
as variegated, wildly great and rudely picturesque, as water, moor,
mountain cultivated fields, one large handsome town, several villages, a
few gentlemen’s seats, some good farm-houses, thriving plantations of
great extent, Culloden _with all its recollections_, a considerable
succession of trading and other vessels, a constant paddling of ferry
and fishing boats, and a long and lofty ridge of the Scottish Alps at a
distance, exposing their bare heads and naked shoulders to the pitiless
storms, could present to an eye accustomed to tame and temperate
regions.”
The Governor, who was of royal Stuart blood, treated his prisoners with
every consideration. On his own responsibility he allowed the
relaxation, or removal of the several restrictions imposed on them by
the Duke of Portland, at the instigation of Castlereagh, and obtained on
his own initiative various privileges and comforts for them. Thus when
the fine weather came in May they were allowed to bathe. Permission to
subscribe to certain newspapers was accorded them, and they were also
permitted to buy books. Gradually the restraints that were placed on
their intercourse were removed, and they had the liberty of each other’s
apartments, and permission to amuse themselves as they pleased, within
the bounds prescribed, from eight in the morning till nearly nine in the
evening.
But the most precious privilege accorded them was the permission to have
some of their family with them. Roger O’Connor was the first to enjoy
this privilege, and it was next availed of by Thomas Addis Emmet. It was
probably kind Mrs. Emmet, who suggested to Samuel Neilson that he should
apply for leave to have his little son with him, promising to “mother
him like one of her own children.” An opportunity was found when the
wife and niece of Mr. Cuthbert, one of the other prisoners, travelled to
Fort George, and William Neilson arrived, in their charge, some time in
July, 1801.
The letters addressed by Samuel Neilson to his wife and children from
Fort George, and carefully preserved by the tender piety of his
daughters, exhibit him, as a husband and father, in a very favourable
light. He is deeply concerned about his children’s education, of which
he would make religion the foundation, and a certain stoicism and the
unflinching acceptance of life’s sternest realities, the backbone. Even
when he was in Newgate, awaiting his fate, which seemed then likely to
be that of the Sheareses, McCann and Bond, the direction of the
children’s education is of supreme interest to him. “Oh, let me entreat
you once more to rear them hardily, to do everything in the house in
turn. To William, reading, writing, English well—no other language nor
dancing; to the girls the same, with knitting and sewing, but no tambour
nonsense. Let their dresses be plain and homely, befitting their state;
and of all things labour to form their minds by curbing pride and
inciting to virtue and industry, not by scolding and whipping or
cajoling, but by _emulation_, which is by far the safest and surest
incentive to exertion.” He warns his wife to guard them against foolish
fears, whether of “ghost and fairies and hobgoblins,” or of fever. The
remedy he proposes against either is the inculcation of a perfect trust
in God. “Let then the children learn that God alone is present
everywhere, and that darkness is subjected to his power.” And again:
“impress upon them without ceasing this great truth—that Providence
cares for all its creatures.” One loves to quote the educational maxims
he lays down for his children for their soundness, and universal
applicability:
“There is no part of education more essential than that which gives an
early knowledge of the world; but above all it is necessary to keep the
young mind _employed_, not to forced tasks or unreasonable attention,
but to something (either of utility or amusement, and these can easily
be united) so that the mind be not left to wander, and to become
familiarised with the frivolity that is the fashion of the age; for that
will certainly cause it to take a wrong direction. I hope you are also
fully sensible that the only useful control is that over _the feelings_,
not that which arises from _personal dread_.”