which were made, if they persisted in publishing their denial. Having, by chance, seen a copy of the act in a London newspaper, one of the calumniated parties, Samuel Neilson, prepared a letter of refutation addressed to the editor, stating that there had been no retraction-no expression of sorrow for "unnatural rebellion" no demand for pardon. But that the state prisoners had entered into a treaty with Government, by which they expected to stop the effusion of blood, and to terminate the afflictions of the country. A copy of this letter was sent to Lord Castlereagh; and, as the state prisoners had stipulated for freedom of publication, they did not anticipate any interference on the part of the Executive. This was ridiculous confidence, though, probably taking into consideration the subsequent conduct of that unrighteous body, it was wise not to have stimulated their appetite for oppression. Shortly after Lord Castlereagh had received the communication from Neilson, the latter was visited by two of the Government agents, Mr. Marsden and the indefatigable Cooke, who conveyed to him a message direct from the Lord Lieutenant. He was told, that if he published that letter, it was the firm determination of the Lord Lieutenant to abandon the conditions of the compact and to cause civil and military executions to proceed as before! These were the men who ruled our country at that time, men capable of recording falsehood in their abominable edicts, and of preventing its refutation by threatening the sword and the rope! These were the men against whose unholy rule, treason and rebellion were “unnatural!" This message was not from the remorseless Camden; it proceeded from the lips of Lord Cornwallis. It is, however, but just to him to remember, that he was surrounded by such advisers as Castlereagh; and that he was aided and assisted in the infamy of his conduct by the House of Commons, where propositions, equal in remorseless cruelty to his own, had been repeatedly and gravely made by men who assumed to be peculiarly the friends of the people.' In the long list of oppressions inflicted by the Anglo-Irish Government upon its victims, there is scarcely one of them, more full of refined cruelty than this. The character of men who were dear to the people was traduced in a solemn act of Parliament; they were represented as repentant sinners against their king; as having confessed their flagrant and enormous guilt; and as having implored pardon.

The truth was no where told that they had consented to abandon their country, and to submit to the searching inquisition of two parliamentary committees, for the purpose of saving the lives of their countrymen. Their motive was grossly misrepresented; and when indignant honour would have repudiated the calumny, it was silenced by the threat of resuming the career of decimation, by the aid of drumhead judges and military hangmen. That was, indeed, a time of horror, full of pregnant warning to future Governments, as well as to impatient patriotism; preaching forbearance and mercy to the one, and caution and much endurance to the other. The wise humanity of our days will

not refuse the lesson.

A Government capable of using this artifice, was capable of any wrong. Twenty of the gentlemen who entered into the compact, and who fulfilled its conditions with exemplary correctness, after some interval of confinement in the prisons of Dublin -hateful to them as the scenes of the sufferings, and death of their friends-were transmitted to Fort St. George, in Scotland, where, for four years, they were, in breach of all honour and forgetfulness of all treaties, kept closely imprisoned. The humanity of the governor, Colonel Stuart, a Scotchman, contended with his duty and instructions in rendering their condition at all endurable. In this list of exiles-driven from Ireland by its factious Government-were Thomas Addis Emmett, William James Macnevin, and William Sampson.* After more than four years' imprisonment, those gentlemen, as well as the other prisoners, obtained their freedom, and their subsequent fate will be found detailed at large in Dr. Madden's very interesting memoirs of the United Irishmen, to which I have been so much indebted for the facts in the preceding pages.

It is hoped, that though of necessity, the events growing out of the existence of the society of the United Irishmen, have been but briefly dealt with in this Introduction, its perusal will enable the reader to appreciate more fully the interesting trials which

* Of these three men, the first became the leading member of the bar of New York; the second, one of the first medical men in that city; and the third, an advocate of great distinction in the honourable profession of which Thomas Addis Emmet was the greatest ornament. Is this any comment upon the Government, whose shrewdness found in them unsafe citizens of a state, administered by a Clare and a Castlereagh? A late writer, in speaking of the leaders of the rebellion of 1798, says that they were "almost without exception, shallow, and conceited sciolists." University Magazine (December, 1843), p. 685.

follow. They have been arranged with care; the best reports in all cases have been obtained; and they are printed in the order in which they occurred. Their succession, too, will serve to indicate the progress of the assaults made by Government upon public liberty-from the attack upon the press in the prosecution of Archibald Hamilton Rowan, down to the various trials for high treason with which they sought to consummate their triumph, over the principles and projects, of the United Irishmen. The men with whom this Introduction and these trials are conversant, were, no doubt, traitors; but it is probable that the details, both here and there given, may impart a meaning to that word, more restricted than that which it enjoys in the comprehen sive language of a statute, or in the unlimited phraseology of a court sycophant, or an Irish loyalist. No man will unconditionally defend the rash projects in which they embarked; but let us not be blinded-there is no motive for such meanness now-to the unbounded devotion and disinterested zeal with which they sought, after their own fashion, to serve their country. And let it be always remembered, that if they abandoned the straight and open course of the constitution, it was when an arbitrary, a dishonest, and sanguinary government had made its ancient ways unsafe and perilous to the lovers of civil and religious equality.

ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN.

ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN, the descendant of a distinguished Scotch family, which settled in Ireland, in the reign of James the First, was celebrated for the leading part he took in the struggles of Irish nationality. He was born in London, on the 12th May, 1751 (old style). He was connected with the noble family of Abercorn, and descended from Sir James Hamilton, who was afterwards created Viscount Claneboye, and whose son became Earl of Clanbrassil.*

His father, Gawin Hamilton, had gone to settle in London in 1750, where Archibald Hamilton was born. His name of Rowan was taken, together with the fortune, of his maternal grandfather, who had assumed the care of his education and advancement, and who was a man of sturdy independence, in his notions both of politics, and religion.

The events of Rowan's life, previous to his coming to reside permanently in Ireland, though amusing and strange enough, may be briefly noticed in this place. He received a good education, which was superintended by Mr. Rowan, his grandfather, until his death, in 1767. After this event, Archibald Hamilton Rowan was sent to Wesminister school, where his proficiency was not very great, though he was observed, as a boy, anxious for distinction, as well as for being fond of gaiety; and ready for any frolic, however wild or dangerous. His father took a house in the neighbourhood of the school, and young Rowan met, in his circle, a society from whose teaching it is not improbable that he derived the peculiar political bias, which influenced his future career. Amongst the frequent visitors at his father's house, was Dr. Charles Lucas, the celebrated Irish patriot.

From Westminister, Rowan was removed to Cambridge. Whilst a member of this university, his life was gay and dissipated. He had a command of money, kept hunters, mixed in what is called the best

* Both these titles became extinct on the death of Henry, the third Lord Claneboye and second Earl of Clanbrassil; but the former was revived in 1800, when it was conferred on Sir James S. Blackwood (connected by marriage with the family), together with a sum of £15,000, as a reward for his vote in favour of the Legislative Union. The title of Clanbrassil has been also revived, and is that by virtue of which, Lord Roden (another branch of the family) sits in the House of Lords.