Looking along the course of Irish history, it is easy to point out
certain periods in which England could have found an opportunity for
making terms with the Irish nation, healing some of the old wounds and
mitigating in some degree the burning sense of wrong and the desire of
vengeance that rankled in the hearts of the Irish race. There were lulls
in the struggle, intervals of gloomy calm, occasions when the heart of
Ireland might have been touched by generous deeds, and when the offer of
the olive branch, or even a few of its leaves, would have had a blessed
effect. But England never availed of them--never for an instant sought
to turn them to good account. She preferred when Ireland was defeated,
prostrate, and forlorn, to taunt her with her failure, scoff at her
sufferings, and add to her afflictions. Such was her conduct during the
mournful time that followed on the attempted insurrection of 1848.
It was an appaling time, in whose death-laden atmosphere political
action was impossible. The famine had made of the country one huge
graveyard. A silence fell upon the land, lately so clamorous for her
rights, so hopeful, and so defiant. The Repeal organization spoke no
more; the tramp of the Confederate Clubs was no longer heard in the
streets; O'Connell was dead; the Young Ireland leaders were fugitives or
prisoners; and the people were almost bewildered by a sense of their
great calamity. Then, if England had stooped to raise her fallen foe,
offered her some kindly treatment, and spoken some gracious words, the
bitterness of the old quarrel might have been in some degree assuaged,
even though its cause should not be entirely obliterated. But England
did not choose to take that politic and Christian course. She found it
much pleasanter to chuckle over the discomfiture of the Irish patriots,
to ridicule the failure of their peaceable agitation, to sneer at their
poor effort in arms, to nickname, and misrepresent, and libel the
brave-hearted gentleman who led that unlucky endeavour; and above all to
felicitate herself on the reduction that had taken place in the Irish
population. That--from her point of view--was the glorious part of the
whole affair. The Irish were "gone with a vengeance!"--not all of them,
but a goodly proportion, and others were going off every day. Emigrant
ships clustered in the chief ports, and many sought their living
freights in those capacious harbours along the Atlantic coast which
nature seemed to have shaped for the accommodation of a great commerce,
but where the visit of any craft larger than a fishing smack was a rare
event. The flaming placards of the various shipping-lines were posted in
every town in Ireland,--on the chapel-gates, and the shutters of closed
shops, and the doors of tenantless houses; and there appeared to be in
progress a regular breaking up of the Irish nation. This, to the English
mind, was positively delightful. For here was the Irish question being
settled at last, by the simple process of the transference of the Irish
people to the bottom of the deep sea, or else to the continent of
America--nearly the same thing as far as England was concerned, for in
neither place--as it seemed to her--could they ever more trouble her
peace, or have any claim on those fruits of the Irish soil which were
needed for the stomachs of Englishmen. There they could no longer pester
her with petitions for Tenant Right, or demands for a Repeal of the
Union. English farmers, and drovers, and labourers, loyal to the English
government, and yielding no sort of allegiance to the Pope, would cross
the Channel and take possession of the deserted island, which would
thenceforth be England's in such a sense as it never was before. O
magnificent consummation! O most brilliant prospect, in the eyes of
English statesmen! They saw their way clear, they understood their game;
it was to lighten in no degree the pressure which they maintained upon
the lives of the Irish people, to do nothing that could tend to render
existence tolerable to them in Ireland, or check the rush of emigration.
Acting in conformity with this shallow and false estimate of the
situation, they allowed to drift away unused the time which wise
statesmen would have employed in the effectuation of conciliatory and
tranquilising measures, and applied themselves simply to the crushing
out from the Irish mind of every hope of improved legislation, and the
defeat of every effort to obtain it. Thus when the people--waking up
from the stupefaction that followed on the most tragic period of the
famine--began to breathe the breath of political life again, and,
perceiving the danger that menaced the existence of the peasant classes,
set on foot an agitation to procure a reform of the land-laws, the
government resolutely opposed the project; defeated the bills which the
friends of the tenantry brought into parliament; and took steps, which
proved only too successful, for the break up of the organization by
which the movement was conducted. And then, when Frederick Lucas was
dead, and Mr. Duffy had gone into exile, and the patriot priests were
debarred from taking part in politics, and Messrs. John Sadlier and
William Keogh were bought over by bribes of place and pay, the
government appeared to think that Irish patriotism had fought in its
last ditch, and received its final defeat.
But they were mistaken. The old cause that had survived so many
disasters was not dead yet. While the efforts of the Tenant Righters in
Ireland were being foiled, and their party was being scattered, a couple
of Irishmen, temporarily resident in Paris, fugitive because of their
connexion with the events of '48, were laying the foundations of a
movement more profoundly dangerous to England, than any of those with
which she had grappled since the days of Wolfe Tone and Lord Edward
Fitzgerald. Those men were John O'Mahony and James Stephens.
Since then their names have been much heard of, and the organization of
which they were the originators has played an important part in Irish
history. But at the period of which we are now writing, the general
public knew nothing of O'Mahony or of Stephens beyond the fact that they
were alleged to have taken some part in the recent insurrectionary
demonstrations. Stephens, who was then a very young lad, had been
present at the Ballingarry attack, and had been severely wounded by the
fire of the police. He managed to crawl away from the spot to a ditch
side, where he was lost sight of. A report of his death was put into
circulation, and a loyal journal published in Kilkenny--the native town
of the young rebel, who in this instance played his first trick on the
government--referred to his supposed decease in terms which showed that
the rule _de mortuis nil nisi bonum_ found acceptance with the editor.
The following are the words of the obituary notice which appeared in the
_Kilkenny Moderator_ on or about the 19th of August, 1848:--
"Poor James Stephens, who followed Smith O'Brien to the field, has
died of the wound which he received at Ballingarry whilst acting as
aide-de-camp to the insurgent leader. Mr. Stephens was a very
amiable, and apart from politics, most inoffensive young man,
possessed of a great deal of talent, and we believe he was a most
excellent son and brother. His untimely and melancholy fate will be
much regretted by a numerous circle of friends."
It is said that his family very prudently fostered this delusion by
going into mourning for the loss of young James--the suggestion of which
clever ruse probably came from the dear boy himself. A short time
afterwards he managed to escape, disguised as a lady's maid, to France.
As one may gather from the paragraph above quoted, the family were much
respected in the locality. Mr. Stephens, father of the future C.O.I.R.,
was clerk in the establishment of a respectable auctioneer and
bookseller in Kilkenny. He gave his children a good education, and sent
young James to a Catholic seminary with a view to his being taught and
trained for the priesthood. But circumstances prevented the realization
of this design, and before any line of business could be marked out for
young Stephens, the political events above referred to took place and
shaped his future career.
John O'Mahony was a different stamp of man. He belonged to the class
known as gentlemen-farmers, and of that class he was one of the most
respected. His family owned a considerable tract of land in the southern
part of the County of Tipperary, of which they had been occupants for
many generations. He was well educated, of studious habits, and
thoroughly imbued with patriotic feeling, which came to him as a
hereditary possession. When the Young Ireland leaders were electrifying
the country by their spirited appeals to the patriotism and bravery of
the Irish race, and the population in all the chief centres of
intelligence were crystalizing into semi-military organizations,
O'Mahony was not apathetic or inactive. One of the strongest of the
Confederate clubs--which were thick sown in the contiguous districts of
the Counties of Cork, Waterford, and Tipperary--was under his
presidency; and when in July, 1848, the leaders of the movement
scattered themselves over the country for the purpose of ascertaining
the degree of support they would receive if they should decide on
unfurling the green banner, his report of the state of affairs in his
district was one of their most cheering encouragements.
A few days afterwards the outbreak under O'Brien occurred at
Ballingarry. The failure of that attempt, and the irresolute manner in
which it was conducted, had disheartened the country, but the idea of
allowing the struggle to rest at that point was not universally
entertained by the leaders of the clubs; and John O'Mahony was one of
those who resolved that another attempt should be made to rally the
people to the insurrectionary standard. He acted up to his resolution.
On the night of the 12th of September there were signal-fires on the
slopes of Slievenamon and the Comeragh mountains, and the district
between Carrick-on-Suir and Callan was in a state of perturbation. Next
day the alarm was spread in all directions. The gentry of the disturbed
districts rushed into the nearest towns for protection; police from the
outlying barracks were called in to reinforce the threatened stations,
and troops were hastily summoned from Dublin and the neighbouring
garrisons. Meanwhile parties of the insurgents began to move about. One
proceeded to the police station at the Slate-quarries, and finding it
deserted--the policemen having retired on Piltown--burned it to the
ground. Another attempted the destruction of Grany bridge, to delay the
advance of the soldiery. A third proceeded to attack the Glenbower
station. The defenders of the barracks were in a rather critical
position when another party of police, on their way from the
Nine-Mile-House station to Carrick, came upon the spot, and the combined
force speedily put their half-armed assailants to flight, with a loss to
the latter of one man severely wounded and one killed. An attack was
made on the barrack at Portlaw, but with a like result; two men were
stricken dead by the bullets of the police. The people soon afterwards
scattered to their homes, and the soldiery and police had nothing to do
but hunt up for the leaders and other parties implicated in the
movement. John O'Mahony narrowly escaped capture on three or four
occasions. He lingered in the country, however, until after the
conviction of the state prisoners at Clonmel, when it became clear to
him that the cause was lost for a time; and he then took his way to
Paris, whither several of his fellow outlaws, for whose arrest the
government had offered large rewards, had gone before him.
In that famous centre of intellect and of intrigue, the focus of
political thought, the fountain-head of great ideas, John O'Mahony and
James Stephens pondered long over the defeat that had come upon the
Irish cause, and in their ponderings bethought them that the reason of
the failure which they deplored was to be found in the want of that
quiet, earnest, secret preparation, by means of which the Continental
revolutionists were able to produce from time to time such volcanic
effects in European politics, and cause the most firmly-rooted dynasties
to tremble for their positions. The system of secret conspiracy--that
ancient system, "old as the universe, yet not outworn"--a system not
unknown in Ireland from the days of the Attacots to those of the
Whiteboys--the system of Sir Phelim O'Neill and of Theobald Wolfe
Tone--that system, as developed, refined, and elaborated by the most
subtle intellects of modern times, those two men proposed to propagate
among the Irish race at home and abroad. They divided the labour between
them. O'Mahony took the United States of America for his field of
action, and Stephens took the Old Country.
It was in the year 1858 that the first symptoms indicative of the work
to which James Stephens had set himself made their appearance in the
extreme south-west of Ireland. Whispers went about that some of the
young men of Kenmare, Bantry, and Skibbereen were enrolled in a secret
sworn organization, and were in the habit of meeting for the purpose of
training and drilling. Indeed the members of the new society took little
pains to conceal its existence; they seemed rather to find a pride in
the knowledge which their neighbours had of the fact, and relied for
their legal safety on certain precautions adopted in the manner of their
initiation as members. When informed firstly by well known nationalists
in a private manner, and subsequently by public remonstrances addressed
to them by Catholic clergymen and the national journals, that the
government were on their track, they refused to believe it; but ere long
they suffered grievously for their incredulity and want of prudence. In
the early days of December, 1858, the swoop of the government was made
on the members of the "Phoenix Society" in Cork and Kerry, and arrests
followed shortly after in other parts of the country. The trials in the
south commenced at Tralee in March, 1859, when a conviction was obtained
against a man named Daniel O'Sullivan, and he was sentenced to penal
servitude for ten years. The remaining cases were adjourned to the next
assizes, and when they came on in July, 1859, the prisoners put in a
plea of guilty, and were set at liberty on the understanding that if
their future conduct should not be satisfactory to the authorities, they
would be called up for sentence. Amongst the Cork prisoners who took
this course was Jeremiah O'Donovan (Rossa), whose name has since then
been made familiar to the public.
Those events were generally supposed to have extinguished the Phoenix
conspiracy. And many of Ireland's most sincere friends hoped that such
was the case. Recognising fully the peculiar powers which a secret
society can bring to bear against the government, they still felt a
profound conviction that the risks, or rather the certain cost of
liberty and life involved in such a mode of procedure, formed more than
a counterpoise for the advantages which it presented. They were
consequently earnest and emphatic in their endeavours to dissuade their
countrymen from treading in the dangerous paths in which their steps
were dogged by the spy and the informer. The Catholic clergy were
especially zealous in their condemnation of secret revolutionary
societies, urged thereto by a sense of their duty as priests and
patriots. But there were men connected with the movement both in America
and Ireland, who were resolved to persevere in their design of extending
the organization among the Irish people, despite of any amount of
opposition from any quarter whatsoever. In pursuit of that object they
were not over scrupulous as to the means they employed; they did not
hesitate to violate many an honourable principle, and to wrong many an
honest man; nor did they exhibit a fair share of common prudence in
dealing with the difficulties of their position; but unexpected
circumstances arose to favour their propagandism, and it went ahead
despite of all their mistakes and of every obstacle. One of those
circumstances was the outbreak of the civil war in America, which took
place in April, 1861. That event seemed to the leaders of the Irish
revolutionary organization, now known as the Fenian Brotherhood, to be
one of the most fortunate for their purposes that could have happened.
It inspired the whole population of America with military ardour, it
opened up a splendid school in which the Irish section of the people
could acquire a knowledge of the art of war, which was exactly what was
needed to give real efficacy to their endeavours for the overthrow of
British dominion in Ireland. Besides, there appeared to be a strong
probability that the line of action in favour of the Southern States
which England, notwithstanding her proclamation of neutrality, had
adopted from an early stage of the conflict, would speedily involve her
in a war with the Federal government. These things constituted a
prospect dazzling to the eyes of the Irishmen who had "gone with a
vengeance." Their hearts bounded with joy at the opportunities that
appeared to be opening on them. At last the time was near, they
believed, when the accumulated hate of seven centuries would burst upon
the power of England, not in the shape of an undisciplined peasantry
armed with pikes, and scythes, and pitchforks, as in 1798--not in the
shape of a half famished and empty-handed crowd, led to battle by
orators and poets, as in 1848, but in the shape of an army, bristling
with sharp steel, and flanked with thunderous cannon--an army skilled in
the modern science of war, directed by true military genius, and
inspired by that burning valour which in all times was one of the
qualities of the Irish race. Influenced by such hopes and feelings, the
Irish of the Northern States poured by thousands into the Federal ranks,
and formed themselves into regiments that were at the same time so many
Fenian circles. In the Southern army, too, there were many Irishmen who
were not less determined to give to their native land the benefit of
their military experience, as soon as the troubles of their adopted
country should be brought to an end. Fenianism, with that glow of light
upon it, spread like a prairie-fire through the States. The ranks of the
organization swelled rapidly, and money contributions poured like a tide
into its treasury. The impulse was felt also by the society in Ireland.
It received a rapid development, and soon began to put on a bold front
towards the government, and a still more belligerent one towards all
Irishmen who, while claiming the character of patriots, declined to take
part in the Fenian movement or recommend it to their countrymen. In
November, 1863, the brotherhood started the _Irish People_ newspaper in
Dublin, for the double purpose of propagating their doctrines and
increasing the revenues of the society. James Stephens was the author of
this most unfortunate project. The men whom he selected for working it
out were Thomas Clarke Luby, John O'Leary, and Charles Joseph Kickham.
From the date of its establishment up to the mouth of September, 1865--a
period of nearly two years--the _Irish People_ occupied itself in
preaching what its editors regarded as the cardinal doctrines of the
society, which were:--That constitutional agitation for the redress of
Ireland's grievances was worse than useless; that every man taking part
in such agitation was either a fool or a knave; that in political
affairs clergymen should be held of no more account than laymen; and
that the only hope for Ireland lay in an armed uprising of the people.
These doctrines were not quite new; not one of them was absolutely true;
but they were undoubtedly held by many thousands of Irishmen, and the
Fenian society took care to secure for the journal in which they were
advocated, a large circulation. The office of the _Irish People_ soon
came to be regarded as, what it really was, the head quarters of the
Fenian organization in Ireland. To it the choice spirits of the party
resorted for counsel and direction; thither the provincial organisers
directed their steps whenever they visited Dublin; into it poured weekly
from all parts of the country an immense mass of correspondence, which
the editors, instead of destroying after it had passed through their
hands, foolishly allowed to accumulate upon their shelves, though every
word of it was fraught with peril to the lives and liberties of their
friends. In their private residences also they were incautious enough to
keep numerous documents of a most compromising character. There is but
one way of accounting for their conduct in this matter. They may have
supposed that the legal proceedings against them, which they knew were
certain to take place at one time or another, would be conducted in the
semi-constitutional fashion which was adopted towards the national
journals in 1848. If the staff of the _Irish People_ had received a
single day's notice that they were about to be made amenable to the law,
it is possible that they would have their houses and their office
immediately cleared of those documents which afterwards consigned so
many of their countrymen to the horrors of penal servitude. But they saw
no reason to suppose that the swoop was about to be made on them. On the
fifteenth day of September, 1865, there were no perceptible indications
that the authorities were any more on the alert in reference to Fenian
affairs then they had been during the past twelve months. It was Friday;
the _Irish People_ had been printed for the next day's sale, large
batches of the paper had been sent off to the agents in town and
country, the editors and publishing clerks had gone home to rest after
their week's labours--when suddenly, at about half-past nine o'clock in
the evening, a strong force of police broke into the office, seized the
books, manuscripts, papers, and forms of type, and bore them off to the
Castle yard. At the same time arrests of the chief Fenian leaders were
being made in various parts of the city. The news created intense
excitement in all circles of society, and more especially amongst the
Fenians themselves, who had never dreamed of a government _coup_ so
sudden, so lawless, and so effective. The government had now thrown off
the mask of apathy and impassiveness which it had worn so long, and it
commenced to lay its strong hand upon its foes. Amongst the men who
filled the prison cells on that miserable autumn evening were John
O'Leary, Thomas Clarke Luby, and Jeremiah O'Donovan (Rossa). Before the
crown was ready to proceed with their trial, the third editor of the
paper, Charles J. Kickham, was added to their company, having been
arrested with James Stephens, Edward Duffy, and Hugh Brophy, on the 11th
November, at Fairfield House, near Dublin.
On Monday, November 27th, 1865, the state trials commenced before a
Special Commission in the Courthouse, Green-street--the scene of so many
a previous grapple between British law and the spirit of Irish
patriotism. Mr. Justice Keogh and Mr. Justice Fitzgerald were the
presiding judges. There was a long list of prisoners to be tried. James
Stephens might have been honoured with the first place amongst them,
were it not that two days previously, to the unspeakable horror and
surprise of the government and all its friends, he had effected his
escape, or rather, we might say, obtained, by the aid of friendly hands,
his release from Richmond prison. In his regretted absence, the crown
commenced their proceedings by placing Thomas Clarke Luby in the dock to
answer to a charge of treason-felony.
He stood up to the bar, between the jailors that clustered about him, a
quiet-faced, pale, and somewhat sad-looking man, apparently of about
forty years of age. A glance around the court-house showed him but few
friendly faces--for, owing to the terrors felt by the judges, the crown
prosecutors and other officials of the law, who dreaded the desperate
resolves of armed conspirators, few were admitted into the building
except policemen, detectives, and servants of the crown in one capacity
or another. In one of the galleries, however, he recognised his
wife--daughter of J. De Jean Fraser, one of the sweetest poets of the
'48 period--with the wife of his fellow-prisoner, O'Donovan Rossa, and
the sister of John O'Leary. A brief smile of greeting passed between the
party, and then all thoughts were concentrated on the stern business of
the day.
There was no chance of escape for Thomas Clarke Luby or for his
associates. The crown had a plethora of evidence against them, acquired
during the months and years when they appeared to be all but totally
ignorant of the existence of the conspiracy. They had the evidence of
the approver, Nagle, who had been an employè of the _Irish People_
office and a confidential agent of James Stephens up to the night of the
arrests, but who during the previous eighteen months had been betraying
every secret of theirs to the government. They had the evidence of a
whole army of detectives; but more crushing and fatal than all, they had
that which was supplied by the immense store of documents captured at
the _Irish People_ office and the houses of some of the chief members of
the conspiracy. Of all those papers the most important was one found at
the residence of Mr. Luby, in which James Stephens, being at the time
about to visit America delegated his powers over the organization in
Ireland, England, and Scotland to Thomas Clarke Luby, John O'Leary, and
Charles J. Kickham. This, which was referred to during the trials as the
"executive document," was worded as follows:--
"I hereby empower Thomas Clarke Luby, John O'Leary and Charles J.
Kickham a committee of organization, or executive, with the same
supreme control over the home organization, England, Ireland, and
Scotland, as that exercised by myself. I further empower them to
appoint a committee of military inspection, and a committee of appeal
and judgment, the functions of which committee will be made known to
every member of them. Trusting to the patriotism and abilities of the
executive, I fully endorse their actions beforehand. I call on every
man in our ranks to support and be guided by them in all that
concerns the military brotherhood.
"J. STEPHENS."
Not all the legal ingenuity and forensic eloquence of their talented
counsel, Mr. Butt, could avail to save the men who, by the preservation
of such documents as the foregoing, had fastened the fetters on their
own limbs. The trial of Mr. Luby concluded on the fourth day of the
proceedings--Friday, December 1st 1865--with a verdict of guilty. The
prisoner heard the announcement with composure, and then, in response to
the question usual in such cases, addressed the court as follows:--
"Well, my lords and gentlemen, I don't think any person present here
is surprised at the verdict found against me. I have been prepared
for this verdict ever since I was arrested, although I thought it my
duty to fight the British government inch by inch. I felt I was sure
to be found guilty, since the advisers of the Crown took what the
Attorney-General was pleased the other day to call the 'merciful
course.' I thought I might have a fair chance of escaping, so long as
the capital charge was impending over me; but when they resolved on
trying me under the Treason-Felony Act, I felt that I had not the
smallest chance. I am somewhat embarrassed at the present moment as
to what I should say under the circumstances. There are a great many
things that I would wish to say; but knowing that there are other
persons in the same situation with myself, and that I might allow
myself to say something injudicious, which would peril their cases, I
feel that my tongue is to a great degree tied. Nothwithstanding,
there are two or three points upon which I would say a few words. I
have nothing to say to Judge Keogh's charge to the jury. He did not
take up any of the topics that had been introduced to prejudice the
case against me; for instance, he did not take this accusation of an
intention to assassinate, attributed to my fellow-prisoners and
myself. The Solicitor-General in his reply to Mr. Butt, referred to
those topics. Mr. Barry was the first person who advanced those
charges. I thought they were partially given up by the
Attorney-General in his opening statement, at least they were put
forward to you in a very modified form; but the learned
Solicitor-General, in his very virulent speech, put forward those
charges in a most aggravated manner. He sought even to exaggerate
upon Mr. Barry's original statement. Now, with respect to those
charges--in justice to my character--I must say that in this court,
there is not a man more incapable of anything like massacre or
assassination than I am. I really believe that the gentlemen who have
shown so much ability in persecuting me, in the bottom of their
hearts believe me incapable of an act of assassination or massacre. I
don't see that there is the smallest amount of evidence to show that
I ever entertained the notion of a massacre of landlords and priests.
I forget whether the advisers of the crown said I intended the
massacre of the Protestant clergymen. Some of the writers of our
enlightened press said that I did. Now, with respect to the charge of
assassinating the landlords, the only thing that gives even the
shadow of a colour to that charge is the letter signed--alleged to be
signed--by Mr. O'Keefe. Now, assuming--but by no means admitting, of
course--that the letter was written by Mr. O'Keefe, let me make a
statement about it. I know the facts that I am about to state are of
no practical utility to me now, at least with respect to the judges.
I know it is of no practical utility to me, because I cannot give
evidence on my own behalf, but it may be of practical utility to
others with whom I wish to stand well. I believe my words will carry
conviction--and carry much more conviction than any words of the
legal advisers of the crown can--to more than 300,000 of the Irish
race in Ireland, England, and America. Well, I deny absolutely, that
I ever entertained any idea of assassinating the landlords, and the
letter of Mr. O'Keefe--assuming it to be his letter--is the only
evidence on the subject. My acquaintance with Mr. O'Keefe was of the
slightest nature. I did not even know of his existence when the
_Irish People_ was started. He came, after that paper was established
a few months, to the office, and offered some articles--some were
rejected, some we inserted, and I call the attention of the legal
advisers of the Crown to this fact, that amongst the papers which
they got, those that were Mr. O'Keefe's articles had many paragraphs
scored out; in fact we put in no article of his without a great deal
of what is technically called 'cutting down.' Now, that letter of his
to me was simply a private document. It contained the mere private
views of the writer; and I pledge this to the court as a man of
honour--and I believe in spite of the position in which I stand,
amongst my countrymen I am believed to be a man of honour, and that
if my life depended on it, I would not speak falsely about the
thing--when I read that letter, and the first to whom I gave it was
my wife, I remember we read it with fits of laughter at its
ridiculous ideas. My wife at the moment said--'Had I not better burn
the letter?' 'Oh no,' I said, looking upon it as a most ridiculous
thing, and never dreaming for a moment that such a document would
ever turn up against me, and produce the unpleasant consequences it
has produced--mean the imputation of assassination and massacre,
which has given me a great deal more trouble than anything else in
this case. That disposes--as far as I can at present dispose of
it--of the charge of wishing to assassinate the landlords. As to the
charge of desiring to assassinate the priests, I deny it as being the
most monstrous thing in the world. Why, surely, every one who read
the articles in the paper would see that the plain doctrine laid
down there was--to reverence the priests so long as they confined
themselves to their sacerdotal functions; but when the priest
descended to the arena of politics he became no more than any other
man, and would just be regarded as any other man. If he was a man of
ability and honesty, of course he would get the respect that such men
get in politics--if he was not a man of ability there would be no
more thought of him than of a shoemaker or any one else. This is the
teaching of the _Irish People_ with regard to the priests. I believe
the _Irish People_ has done a great deal of good, even amongst those
who do not believe in its revolutionary doctrines. I believe the
revolutionary doctrines of the _Irish People_ are good. I believe
nothing can ever save Ireland except independence; and I believe that
all other attempts to ameliorate the condition of Ireland are mere
temporary expedients and make shifts----"