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Probably the artist has executed this characteristic scene pertaining to the destructive proceedings which were so significant of the rebellion—con amore; it is sufficiently marked by George Cruikshank’s peculiar genius for conveying a full sense of boisterous exuberance, wherein the tragic marches hand-in-hand with the grotesque, and humour of the broadest contrasts with terrible episodes, which weirdly impress the imagination. In short, this picture may be regarded as the typical contribution of the gifted illustrator to Maxwell’sHistory, and, as such, speaks sufficiently for itself, telling its moving tale with that native force and graphic directness Cruikshank had always at command.
It may be realised that, to gratify their native love of fun, an Irish mob finds in the humours of any given situation the satisfaction of comic relief in contrast to absolutely grim terrorism; appreciative touches of these congenial qualities are conspicuous throughout Cruikshank’s vividly pictorial realisations of the episodes of the rebellion of 1798. Herein souvenirs of the humorous touches of the amenities of Donnybrook Fair lend their spice of rough fun to relieve the gloomier horrors inseparable from the subject, while the spirit of general destruction is in full swing, and the intoxicating influence of wantonly wrecking everything at hand, or within reach, is producing chaos and spreading annihilation around; the whole spectacle of reckless ruin to characteristically conclude with a grand conflagration of everything destructible, to put the final touches to the tableau.
EMMETT PREPARING FOR THE INSURRECTION
Two names most intimately connected with the Irish Rebellion are surrounded by an atmosphere of sentiment and the glamour of romance, which endears their memories to their admirers at this distant date. The untoward fate of one, the unfortunate enthusiast Lord Edward Fitzgerald, commences the history of the insurrection; the last, Robert Emmett, comes to complete the story, his episode almost as an anticlimax. Both were lives of promise, miserably thrown away, and it is recognised that both these victims rebels destroying a house furniture of misapplied talents were worthy of a better fate, and capable of higher things.
Robert Emmett was the son of a respectable physician in Dublin, and was the younger brother of Thomas Adis Emmett, a gifted barrister who had been a conspicuous member of the rebel Directory in the fateful 1798. Robert Emmett was by natural gifts qualified to figure as a hero of romance, and his name is so regarded by sympathisers, even after the lapse of a century, wherein his fame has fitfully survived. He was a young man of fine talents rather than solidity of judgment, possessing uncommon eloquence, and no inconsiderable portion of courage and activity. He was not unqualified for the part he had undertaken, and for a service so pregnant with difficulty and danger his sanguine temperament was a necessary adjunct. He had quitted Ireland after the unfortunate termination of the former conspiracy, and resided in different parts of the Continent, but principally in France, till Christmas 1802, when he returned to his native country, filled with ambitious projects of an unreasonable and uncompromisingly revolutionary nature.
‘A quotation from one of his speeches, when a lad at Dublin University, proves the early political bias of his mind. After a brilliant eulogy on the French republic, he concluded with a remark sufficiently expressive:—“When a people, advancing rapidly in knowledge and power, perceive at last how far their government is lagging behind them, what then, I ask, is to be done in such a case? Why,pull the government up to the people!” The consequences of indulging in such language at such a time may be imagined—Emmett was struck off the College roll.’—Memoir of Robert Emmett.
On his arrival in Ireland he first went into a state of the most perfect obscurity at the house of a Mrs. Palmer, at Harold’s Cross, where he assumed the name of Hewitt. The nature of his mission did not admit of his remaining in this retreat longer than was necessary to mature his plans and form his connections. About the end of April, a house and premises of some extent, formerly a malt-house, and which had been long unoccupied, were taken in Marshall’s Alley, Thomas Street, sufficiently obscure to escape detection, and yet near enough to the heart of the city to effect the most desperate purposes. In this place Emmett lodged for nearly two months, with no better accommodation than apaillasse, and surrounded by from fourteen to twenty associates. A depot of arms was here formed on a large scale; muskets and other weapons were procured from time to time to a considerable amount, and a large manufacture of pikes was secretly carried on. There was a group of tailor hands employed in making rebel uniforms of green.
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‘One of these dépôts was set apart for the manufacture of gunpowder and the construction of weapons. Some idea of the industry with which Emmett accumulated these implements of deadly vengeance, and his sanguine reliance upon thousands responding to the tocsin of insurrection, may be formed from the catalogue of the contents of his magazine:—It comprised forty-five pounds of cannon-powder, in bundles; eleven boxes of fine powder; one hundred bottles filled with powder, enveloped with musket-balls and covered with canvas; two hundred and forty-six hand grenades, formed of ink-bottles filled with powder and encircled with buck-shot; sixty-two thousand rounds of musket-ball cartridge; three bushels of musket-balls; a quantity of tow mixed with tar and gunpowder and other combustible matter, for throwing against woodwork, which when ignited would cause an instantaneous conflagration; sky-rockets and other signals, etc.; false beams filled with combustibles, with not less than twenty thousand pikes.
‘The conspirators occasionally pressed not only horses but men into their service, and forced the latter to work at different employments necessary for the object in view while confined in the depot. At the same time stores of arms and gunpowder were deposited at the residences of others of their accomplices in convenient stations of the city. The whole of the conspiracy had, however, been nearly overthrown and exposed by an explosion which took place in Patrick Street. By the ability of the conspirators, or the security of their adversaries, the accident was overlooked, or at least represented as unconnected with any treasonable design. Emmett once more changed the place of his concealment, apprehending the explosion would lead to untimely disclosures, removing to one of his dépôts situated in Mass Lane. “Here he strove to make, as far as possible, by increased exertions, amends for the recent loss. So restless was he, that he sought no further repose than that he derived from occasionally reclining upon a mattress, placed in the midst of the workmen, from which he could by night and day observe the progress of, and direct and animate their labours.”
EMMETT PREPARING FOR THE INSURRECTION
‘At length the preparations were complete, or the funds of the conspirators exhausted, and the 23rd of July 1803 was appointed for a general insurrection. Though the persons immediately connected with the principals in the plot—Emmett, Dowdall, and Quigley—did not exceed from eighty to one hundred persons, they were so far misled as to the state of the public mind, that they expected the spirit of rebellion would pervade the kingdom. The stopping of the mail-coaches was to be the signal of revolt in the country. The immediate object of the insurgents in the metropolis was the castle (“as it was felt that to have command over the seat they might speedily secure the power of government”), and the vicinity of the depot in Thomas Street was calculated to favour the intended enterprise against this seat of the government. Various rumours had been afloat for a. few days previous, that “a rising,” as it was termed, was intended; but the reports were so contradictory that the government was unable to take any measures of precaution further than the doubling of patrols in certain stations. Towards dusk on the 23rd of July, Emmett prepared for the anticipated action by superintending the distribution of arms and ammunition (of which he had a large supply) amongst the multitude that had congregated before the headquarters of the projected rebellion. But we must not omit to mention that previous to the evening the ill-success of the enterprise had been omened forth by the retreat of the Kildare men, who, after marching into the capital, were fortunately persuaded by their leaders to disband and return home.’ What ensued has been graphically described by one of Emmett’s coadjutors:—
‘About six o’clock Emmett, Malachy, one or two others, and myself put on our green uniform, trimmed with gold lace, and selected our arms. The insurgents, who had all day been well plied with whisky’ (this paragraph is most significant), ‘began to prepare for commencing an attack upon the castle; and when all was ready, Emmett made an animated address to the conspirators. At eight precisely we sallied out of the depot, and when we arrived in Thomas Street the insurgents gave three deafening cheers.
‘The consternation excited by our presence defies description. Every avenue emptied its curious hundreds, and almost every window exhibited half a dozen inquisitive heads, while peaceable shopkeepers ran to their doors, and beheld with amazement a lawless band of armed insurgents, in the midst of a peaceable city, an hour at least before dark. The scene at first might have appeared amusing to a careless spectator, from the singular and dubious character which the riot wore; but when the rocket ascended and burst over the heads of the people, the aspect of things underwent an immediate and wonderful change. The impulse of the moment was self-preservation, and those who, a few minutes before, seemed to look on with vacant wonder, now assumed a face of horror, and fled with precipitation. The wish to escape was simultaneous; and the eagerness with which the people fled before us impeded their flight, as they crowded upon each other in the entrance of alleys, courtways, and lanes; while the screams of women and children were frightful and heart-rending.
‘“To the castle!” cried our enthusiastic leader, drawing his sword, and his followers appeared to obey. But when we reached the market-house our adherents had wonderfully diminished, there not being more than twenty insurgents with us.
‘“Fire the rocket!” cried Malachy.
‘“Hold awhile,” said Emmett, snatching the match from the man’s hand who was applying it. “Let no lives be unnecessarily lost. Run back and see what detains the men?”
‘Malachy obeyed, and we remained near the market-house, waiting their arrival, until the soldiers approached.’
THE MURDER OF LORD KILWARDEN
Thus far Emmett was with his deluded followers, and the work was less bloodthirsty; but the hordes armed by their enthusiastic and visionary general of the moment were of a combustible nature, and having weapons in their hands, speedily began ruthlessly murdering innocent people:—‘The conspirators assembled previously in the depot did not exceed the number of fifty, but pikes and other weapons were liberally dispersed among the mob, and the insurgents soon swelled to the amount, it is said, of about five hundred. The night was dark, and the scene is described as tremendous; groups of pikemen and other insurgents were dispersed in various parts of the vicinity of the scene of action, while others were calling out for arms, and led in crowds to the grand depot. Directly these mob-valiant ruffians secured their weapons, they set about employing them to deadly purpose.
It was thus that the life of Lord Kilwarden, the eminent and venerable chief-justice, was wantonly taken. Driving to the castleviaThomas Street, the carriage, unhappily for its inmates, fell into the thick of the rebels at the beginning of their excited career. It is related that the judge had formerly tried and sentenced to death a youth, convicted of treason, who, unlike his confederates, refused to accept pardon upon the condition of leaving the country. After the death of this misguided lad, his relatives, readily listening to every misrepresentation which flattered their resentment, became persuaded that the attorney-general had selected the youthful victim in question to suffer the utmost severity of the law (his companions having consented to expatriate themselves). One of his family connections, a person named Shannon, was an insurgent on the 23rd of July; and when Lord Kilwarden, hearing the popular cry of vengeance, exclaimed from his carriage, “It is I, Kilwarden, chief-justice of the King’s Bench!”
“Then,” cried Shannon, “you’re the man that I want!” and plunged a pike into his lordship’s body.’
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The narrative as related by one of those present is as follows:—
‘It was during the height of the insurrection that the venerable magistrate, accompanied by his daughter, Miss Wolfe, and his nephew, a clergyman, arrived in Thomas Street in his way from his country-house to the castle. Lord Kilwarden and Mr. Wolfe, his nephew, were inhumanly dragged from the carriage and pierced with innumerable mortal wounds by the pikemen. Before he expired he was rescued by a party of military and of the police; and hearing some violent expression employed as to the punishment of the rebels, he had only time, before he breathed his last, to prefer a petition “that no man might suffer but by the laws of his country.” Such a death was more honourable than that of a commander who dies in the arms of Victory, and who possibly acts a part to secure a posthumous reputation. Miss Wolfe, by the humanity or the heedlessness of the mob, effected her escape, and, on foot and unattended, was one of the first who arrived at the castle to give notice of the horrors of the night. Colonel Browne, a gentleman greatly respected, was another victim of the multitude, and was assassinated in the same brutal and cowardly manner. On the first alarm he repaired to join his regiment, but uninformed of the precise station which was occupied by the rebels, he unfortunately, in the darkness of the night, fell in with the main body; he received a shot from a blunderbuss, and was almost immediately hewn to pieces.
‘Every casual passenger who was not murdered was forced to join the insurgents and armed with a pike. This happened even to some gentlemen of rank and character. The first check which the rebels experienced was from Mr. Edward Wilson, a police magistrate, who, at the head of only eleven men, had the courage to approach the scene of insurrection. He had hardly arrived at the spot before he found his little party surrounded by a body of nearly 300 pikemen. Undismayed by their hostile appearance, he called upon them to lay down their arms or he would fire. The rebels appeared somewhat confused, but one of them, bolder than the rest, advanced, and with his pike wounded Mr. Wilson in the belly, but was instantly shot dead by the wounded magistrate. The fire from his men threw the rest of the body of assailants into some confusion, but they presently opened to the right and left to make way for such of their party as had firearms, when Mr. Wilson thought it prudent to retreat towards the Coombe. The rebels soon after met with a more formidable assailant in Lieutenant Brady, of the 21st Fusileers, who, at the head of only forty men, had the gallantry to advance to the attack. He subdivided his little force into smaller parties, and though assailed by bottles and stones from the houses, and with shot from the alleys and entries, kept up so warm and well-directed a fire that the insurgents, numerous as they were, soon fled in different directions. Lieutenant Coltman, of the 9th regiment of foot, also at the head of only four men of his own regiment and some yeomanry of the Barrack division in coloured clothes, in all but twenty-eight, hastened to the scene of action, and was successful in dispersing the mob, and securing some of the most desperate of the offenders.
‘The military now poured in from all quarters; the rebels were routed with considerable slaughter, and, before twelve, the insurrection was completely quelled.’
The brief and sanguinary affray, which was fully detailed in the evidence given on the trial of the chief conspirator, we think will bear us out regarding the in competency of the leaders and the general inefficiency of an Irish mob. More was in Emmett’s favour than he was entitled to have expected. The government, although rumour was rife with alarm, had turned a deaf ear to every attempt to awake it from its culpable security. The detective police of that day, a crew of mercenary bloodhounds, showed that within the heart of the city treasonable plans could be matured, and not a functionary suspect it. To stimulate Sirr and his myrmidons to exertion, crime was not to be prevented but committed, and a regular price must first be placed upon the offender. The apathy of the government and the imbecility of the conspiracy were worthy of each other. On the night of the 23rd of July one hundred determined men, by a well-arrangedcoup de main, might have easily obtained possession of the castle.
Even with that success, twelve hours would have ended the treasonable triumph. More blood might have been shed, but the end would have been the same, and by noon the next day the insurrection would have terminated as it commenced—in slaughter.
TRIAL, CONVICTION, AND EXECUTION OF ROBERT EMMETT
The madly infatuated leaders of this desperate and futile attempt contrived to evade their deluded followers before the crisis of the outbreak, in spite of their conspicuous uniforms and trappings. Favoured by the darkness, Emmett and his lieutenants, decked in their warlike panoply, contrived to escape from the city which their rash enterprise had stirred into wild excitement, and headed to that haunt of outlawed and desperate malefactors, the mountain range of Wicklow, where they foiled to raise the late rebels. Under this rebuff, for better security, the party separated, each adopting the best means within his power to evade the now uplifted hand of outraged justice. Emmett, it is said, might possibly have quitted the country in a fishing boat, but his wild and ardent attachment to a daughter of the celebrated Curran induced him to return to the metropolis and seek a parting interview with his mistress. None but a madman would have risked the dangerous experiment; but Emmett appears to have been influenced in all his actions by the wildest impulse, and, accordingly, he regained the city safely, and again took up his quarters in his old concealment, Harold’s Cross. Here he was tracked by the bloodhound who had successfully trapped Lord Edward Fitzgerald and the many misguided enthusiasts who had similarly played with treason under mistaken ambition.
Arrested by Town-Major Sirr on the 25th of August, a special commission was immediately issued, Lord Norbury presiding. The evidence was clear, decisive, and direct, and went over and unmistakably proved the facts as already described.
The story of Emmett’s arrest, as related by Major Henry Charles Sirr, appropriately closes the history: ‘I went, in the evening of the 25th of August, to the house of one Palmer. I had heard there was a stranger in the back-parlour. I rode, accompanied by a man on foot; I desired the man to knock at the door. He did, and it was opened by a girl. I alighted, and ran directly into the back-parlour. I saw the prisoner sitting at dinner; the woman of the house was there, and the girl who opened the door was the daughter of the woman of the house. I desired them to withdraw. I asked the prisoner his name; he told me his name was Cunningham. I gave him in charge to the man who accompanied me, and went into the next room to ask the woman and daughter about him; they told me his name was Hewitt. I went back and asked how long he had been there? He said he came that morning. He had attempted to escape before I returned, for he was bloody, and the man said he knocked him down with a pistol. I then went to Mrs. Palmer, who said he had lodged there for a month. I then judged he was a person of some importance. When I first went in there was a paper on the chair, which I put into my pocket (Emmett’s fervid proclamation). I then went to the canal bridge for a guard, having desired him to be in readiness as I passed by. I planted a sentry over him, and desired the non-commissioned officer to surround the house with sentries while I searched it. I then examined Mrs. Palmer, and took down her account of the prisoner, during which time I heard a noise, as if an escape was attempted. I instantly ran to the back part of the house, as the most likely part for him to get out at; I saw him going off, and ordered a sentinel to fire, and then pursued him myself, regardless of the order. The sentry snapped, but the musket did not go off. I overtook the prisoner, and he said, “I surrender!” I searched him, and found some papers upon him.’
On the witness expressing concern at the necessity of the prisoner’s being treated so roughly, the prisoner observed, ‘that all was fair in war.’ The prisoner, when brought to the castle, acknowledged that his name was Emmett.
In his address to the jury Mr. Conyngham Plunket, as counsel for the Crown, laid stress upon the revolutionary proclamation drawn up by Emmett, and pointed out the condemnatory nature of this incendiary document:—
‘Under what circumstances is he taken? In the room in which he was, upon a chair near the door, is found an address to the government of the country, and in the very first paragraph of that address the composer of it acknowledges himself to be the head of a conspiracy for the overthrow of the government which he addresses, telling them, in diplomatic language, what conduct the undersigned will be compelled to adopt if they shall presume to execute the law. He is the leader, whose nod is a Fiat, and he warns them of the consequences!
‘And how was this revolution to be effected? The proclamation conveys an insinuation that it was to be effected by their own force, entirely independent of foreign assistance. Why? Because it was well known that there remained in this country few so depraved, so lost to the welfare of their native land, that would not shudder at forming an alliance with France, and therefore the people of Ireland are told, “the effort is to be entirely your own, independent of foreign aid.” But how does this tally with the time when the scheme was first hatched—the very period of the commencement of the war with France? How does this tally with the fact of consulting in the depot about co-operating with the French, which has been proved in evidence? But, gentlemen, out of the proclamation I convict him of duplicity. He tells the government of the country not to resist their mandate, or think they can effectually suppress rebellion by putting down the present attempt, but that “they will have to crush a greater exertion, rendered still greater by foreign assistance”; so that upon the face of the proclamation they avowed, in its naked deformity, the abominable plan of an alliance with the usurper of the French throne to overturn the ancient constitution of the land, and to substitute a new republic in its place.’
CONCLUSION OF EMMETT’S EXALTED DEFENCE
After the verdict of guilty was pronounced, the clerk of the Crown asked the condemned ‘what he had to say why judgment of death and execution should not be awarded against him according to law?’ Emmett, without precisely defending himself, calmly proceeded to pour forth an eloquent impassioned attack upon the executive. The concluding passages convey the general tendency of his exalted oratory:—
‘I have been charged with that importance in the efforts to emancipate my countrymen as to be considered the keystone of the combination of Irishmen, or, as your lordship expressed it, “the life and blood of the conspiracy.” You do me honour overmuch—you have given to a subaltern all the credit of a superior. There are men engaged in this conspiracy who are not only superior to me, but even to your computation of yourself, my lord; before the splendour of whose genius and virtues I should bow with respectful deference, and who would think themselves disgraced to be called your friend, and who would not disgrace themselves by shaking your blood-stained hand. [Again the judge, as frequently in the course of this bitter harangue of Emmett’s, felt called upon to interrupt him.]
‘What, my lord, shall you tell me on the passage to that scaffold which that tyranny, of which you are only the intermediary executioner, has erected for my murder, that I am accountable for all the blood that has and will be shed in this struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor? Shall you tell me this, and shall I be so very a slave as not to repel it?
‘I do not fear to approach the Omnipotent Judge, to answer for the conduct of my whole life, and am I to be appalled and falsified by a mere remnant of mortality! By you, too, who, if it were possible to collect all the innocent blood that you have shed in your unhallowed ministry in one reservoir, your lordship might swim in it. [Here the judge interfered.]
‘Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonour; let no man attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but of my country’s liberty and independence, or that I became the pliant minion of power in the oppression or the miseries of my countrymen. 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 present domestic oppressor. In the dignity of freedom I would have fought on the threshold of my country, and its enemies should only enter 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 calumny and not suffered to resent or repel it?
‘If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and cares of those who are dear to them in this transitory life, O ever dear and venerable 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 that surround your victim; it circulates warmly and unruffled through the channels which God created for nobler purposes, but which you are bent to destroy, for purposes so grievous that they cry to heaven. Be ye patient! I have but a few words more to say. I am going to my cold and silent grave—my lamp of life is nearly extinguished—my race is run—the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom! I 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 repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, 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!’
Execution followed fast upon conviction, and Emmett suffered the penalty of high treason on the following day. The scene of his crime was chosen as the place of his punishment, and in Thomas Street the unfortunate gentleman met his fate with a calm and manly resignation, which elicited the sympathy of all who witnessed the painful occurrence.
If any sparks of disaffection lingered in the country, the mad outbreak of this deluded man finally extinguished them. The democratic feeling ten years before rife in the north of Ireland, and prevalent among the Presbyterians, had, long before Emmett’semeute, been generally repudiated; a political change had been wrought rapidly in Ulster, and the educated and intelligent portion of the kingdom, whom American connection and French example influenced for a time, had detected the unsound principles of theoretic liberty, and disowned the rotten foundations upon which mob-governments are superstructed. When Russell, an early example of the republican school, attempted to operate coincidently with Emmett’s deluded attempt in the north, not half a dozen fools could be found to listen to delusory principles which had been tested and found wanting; and when he later suffered the extreme penalty of the law at Downpatrick, the utmost charity to which his quondam admirers reached was to declare that he was insane—a conclusion no doubt correct.
THE END