A special commission was opened to try Emmet and nineteen other prisoners in Dublin, on the thirty-first of August, 1803, under Lord Norbury, Mr. Finucane, and Barons George and Daly. Mr. Standish O’Grady was the attorney general.
Of these nineteen, one was acquitted, and another reprieved; the rest were convicted and executed on the evidence of various witnesses.
Amongst the unfortunate men convicted were some of the principle associates of Emmet in the insurrection. Mr. Russel was the son of an officer of reputation in his majesty’s service, and who, having retired, enjoyed an honourable retreat in the situation of master of the royal hospital for veterans at Kilmainham, near Dublin. He was placed early in the army, and served at Bunker’s Hill, and the subsequent campaigns in North America. After the peace, he either retired on half pay, or his corps was reduced. He was affectionate and tender-hearted, and possessed every feeling and sentiment of the gentleman. After the arrest of Emmet, Russel introduced himself clandestinely into Dublin, with a view to rescue his friend, if possible, under favour of some commotion. About two days after his arrival, it became known that some person was mysteriously secreted in the immediate vicinity of the castle. Information to this effect having been conveyed to Major Sirr, that officer proceeded to the examination of a house in Parliament-street, where he was found, and to whom Mr. Russel, though well armed, surrendered without resistance. It was supposed that he was, in this act, influenced by a religious scruple. He was immediately transmitted to Down Patrick, in the north of Ireland, where he was shortly after brought to trial, and upon the clearest evidence of his treason, convicted.—After his trial, he manifested all that wildness of religious enthusiasm, which had for some time formed the prominent feature of his character. On conviction, he addressed the court at great length, and with remarkable firmness. He declared his adherence to the political opinions for which he was about to suffer, and touched, in a tender point, the gentlemen of the county of Down, by whom he was surrounded. These gentlemen, although latterly become more anxious to secure their property than to preserve the circle of their liberties, had been foremost in the outcry for parliamentary reform and political independence. Russel reminded them of this circumstance, and declared that he was doomed to suffer for endeavoring to put into execution the lessons imbibed amongst them.
A man of a different stamp was Dwyer. This man, at the head of a gang of deserters and banditti, had remained in arms from the period of the rebellion of 1798, obstinately rejecting repeatedly proffered mercy, and who dexterously eluding all pursuit, had sustained himself under the protection of the almost inaccessible fastnesses of the Wicklow Mountains. His party did not ostensibly exceed twenty, but he was supposed to possess unbounded influence over the peasants of the district, so that a large body, on any notable undertaking, was within his means of command. Dwyer and his band of outlaws afterwards submitted, on the stipulation that their lives should be spared.
On Mr. Emmet’s trial, the several facts and circumstances already narrated, were fully proved. He called no witnesses, and was found guilty. Previous to the judge’s charge to the jury, Lord Conyngham Plunket, who was then king’s counsel, and conducted the prosecution against Mr. Emmet, made a speech of considerable length, and in the severest tone of legal and political asperity, detailed the consequences that would affect all social order, were such opinions as Emmet entertained allowed to have any countenance from the mildness of the laws, or the mistaken lenity, which is often exercised by the authority vested in the sacred person of majesty.
When Mr. Emmet was put to the bar, and called upon by Lord Norbury to offer what he had to say why sentence of death and execution should not be awarded against him according to law, he rose with great firmness and composure, and delivered a speech of remarkable force and ability. His appeal to the memory of his parent was most affecting:—“If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the cares of those who are dear to them in this transitory life, oh! ever dear and venerated 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.”
In remarking on the language of the counsel for the crown, Mr. Emmet said, that “In their early intimacy, he had actually inculcated into his mind those principles for which he was now about to suffer.”
The following is the copy of a letter from Mr. Emmet to Mr. Richard Curran:—
“My dearest Richard:—I find I have but a few hours to live, but if it was the last moment, and that the power of utterance was leaving me, I would thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generous expressions of affection and forgiveness to me. If there was any one in the world in whose breast my death may be supposed not to stifle every spark of resentment, it might be you. I have deeply injured you—I have injured the happiness of a sister that you love, and who was formed to give happiness to every one about her, instead of having her own mind a prey to affliction. Oh! Richard, I have no excuse to offer, but that I meant the reverse: I intended as much happiness for Sarah as the most ardent love could have given her. I never did tell you how much I idolized her: it was not with a wild or unfounded passion, but it was an attachment increasing every hour, from an admiration of the purity of her mind, and respect for her talents. I did dwell in secret upon the prospect of our union. I did hope that success, while it afforded the opportunity of our union, might be the means of confirming an attachment, which misfortune had called forth. I did not look to honours for myself; praise I would have asked from the lips of no man; but I would have wished to read in the glow of Sarah’s countenance, that her husband was respected.
“My love, Sarah! it was not thus that I thought to have requited your affections. I did hope to be a prop round which your affections might have clung, and which would never have been shaken, but a rude blast has snapped it, and they have fallen over a grave.