The following is extracted from a letter addressed to Mr. Rufus King from T. A. Emmet, brother to Robert Emmet, on the subject of Mr. King’s interference with the British government, as ambassador from the United States, to prevent the Irish state prisoners of 1798 from emigrating to America:—

“Sir,—In the commencement of our negociation, Lord Castlereagh declared, as a reason for acceding to government’s possessing a negative on our choice, that it had no worse place in view for our emigration than the United States of America. We had made our election to go there, and called upon him to have our agreement carried into execution. In that difficulty, you, sir, afforded very effectual assistance to the faithlessness of the British cabinet. On the 16th of September, Mr. Marsden, then Under Secretary, came to inform us that Mr. King had remonstrated against our being permitted to emigrate to America. This astonished us all, and Dr. M Neven very plainly said that he considered this as a mere trick between Mr. King and the British Government. This Mr. Marsden denied, and on being pressed to know what reason Mr. King could have for preventing us, who were avowed republicans, from emigrating to America, he significantly answered, ‘Perhaps Mr. King does not desire to have republicans in America.’ Your interference was then, sir, made the pretext of detaining us for four years in custody, by which very extensive and useful plans of settlement within these states were broken up. The misfortunes which you brought upon the objects of your persecution were incalculable. Almost all of us wasted four of the best years of our lives in prison. As to me, I should have brought along with me my father and his family, including a brother, whose name perhaps even you will not read without emotions of sympathy and respect. Others nearly connected with me would have come partners in my emigration. But all of them have been torn from me. I have been prevented from saving a brother, from receiving the dying blessings of a father, mother, and sister, and from soothing their last agonies by my cares; and this, sir, by your unwarrantable, unprecedented, and unfeeling interference. Your friends, when they accuse me of want of moderation towards you, are wonderfully mistaken. They do not reflect, or know, that I have never spoken of you without suppressing, as I do now, personal feelings that rise up within me, and swell my heart with indignation and resentment. The step you took was unauthorised by your own government. Whether our conduct in Ireland was right or wrong, you have no justification for yours. The constitution and laws of this country gave you no power to require of the British government that it should violate its faith, and withdraw from us its consent to the place we had fixed upon for our voluntary emigration; neither the president nor you were warranted to prevent our touching these shores.—These remarks I address, with all becoming respect, to ‘the first man in the country.’ Yet in fact, sir, I do not clearly see in what consists your superiority over myself. It is true you have been a resident minister at the court of St. James’; and, if what I have read in the public prints be true, and if you be apprised of my near relationship and family connexion with the late Sir John Temple, you must acknowledge that your interference as resident minister at the court of St. James’s, against my being permitted to emigrate to America, is a very curious instance of the caprice of fortune—but let that pass. To what extent I ought to yield to you for talents and information, is not for me to decide.—In no respect, however, do I feel your excessive superiority.—My private conduct and character are, I hope, as fair as yours—and even in those matters which I consider as trivial, but upon which aristocratic pride is accustomed to stamp a value, I should not be inclined to shrink from competition. My birth certainly will not humble me by the comparison; my paternal fortune was, probably, much greater than yours; the consideration in which the name I bear in my native country was held, was as great as yours is ever likely to be before I had an opportunity of contributing to its celebrity.

“As to the amount of what private fortune I have been able to save from the wreck of calamity it is unknown to you or to your friends; but two thingy I will tell you:—I never was indebted, either in the country from which I came, nor in any other in which I have lived, to any man, further than the necessary credit for the current expenses of a family; and am not so circumstanced that I should tremble “for my subsistence” at the threatened displeasure of your friends. So much for the past and present—now for the future. Circumstances which cannot be controlled, have decided that my name must be embodied into history. From the manner in which even my political adversaries, and some of my contemporary historians, unequivocally hostile to my principles, already speak of me, I have the consolation of reflecting, that when the falsehoods of the day are withered and rotten, I shall be respected and esteemed.—You, sir, will probably be forgotten, when I shall be remembered with honour, or if, peradventure, your name should descend to posterity, perhaps you will be known only as the recorded instrument of part of my persecutions, sufferings, and misfortunes.

Thomas Addis Emmet.”

New-York, April 9, 1807.

MISS CURRAN.

She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps,

And lovers are round her sighing;

But coldly she turns from their gaze and weeps,

For her heart in his grave is lying.