‘The base and cowardly conduct of the Irish proprietors in deserting the country, though at the moment a grievance, was absolutely productive of good. Their large domains were parcelled out to humble cottages; farms were divided and subdivided; cabins every where raised their unostentatious roofs; and every floor was blessed with a numerous progeny.
‘Ireland has been forced into agriculture;[[1]] and, this still farther tends to increase the population, and to give her that political importance she never could have acquired if the people had been immured in mineral dungeons, or confined to the fetid vapours of a manufacturing bastile. Rural labour is not more conducive to the health of the body, than it is beneficial to the exercise of the mind; and we always find the agriculturist superior to the mechanic not only in physical strength, but in moral energy. The one is a natural soldier, who commands respect, and exacts consideration; while the other is a mere animated machine, whose ideas serve but as internal wheels to keep his hands in motion. His frame is distorted, his mind crippled, and his courage annihilated: but the agriculturist is a man such as nature intended—fearless, active and resolute; the air he breathes ensures him health; the ground he tills supplies him with sustenance; and his occupations make him moral, hardy, and brave. This is the copy of a million portraits, and they are all found in Ireland.
‘The aspirations of civilized man after freedom are coeval with his existence. His rights, like the mountain torrent, may be diverted from their original channel, but cannot be effectually impeded in their course. Dams may be raised to stop the coming stream; but, if the congregated waters cannot find another way to the place of their destination, they will burst through every opposition, and overwhelm in destruction all the works of lordly and presumptive man.’
‘But we find,’ observed a bystander, ‘that very populous countries have continued in slavery.’
‘Numbers,’ rejoined Emmet, ‘whose minds are more enslaved than their bodies may submit to injustice; but numbers inspired with intelligence never can. The Irish people are not only shrewd, but informed; and for this good, as well as for every other blessing they possess, they are indebted to the folly and wickedness of their governors, Divide et impera has long been the maxim of those who oppressed us; but the result has been the reverse of their anticipations. The continued agitation, faction, and discord, consequent upon such a system of legislation, produced their moral effects, and, like the vivid lightning, served to purify the element they disturbed. The political whirlpool has drawn within its vortex every man in Ireland; discussion has been universally provoked; and the passions have been enlisted in the general conflict. The human intellect has been propelled, vulgar errors corrected, and the spirit of enquiry and investigation has gone abroad.
‘To reason upon the political state of his country, has long been the propensity of the Irish peasant; and, from continually thinking upon that subject, he has at length learned to think right. He not only knows his degraded condition, but is well acquainted with the cause. There is not a subject connected with the country, on which he cannot give an accurate opinion; he knows, as well as any man in the Castle, the purpose of every measure of Government, whether it be to enrich a spendthrift nobleman by a job, or coerce the unfortunate peasantry by an Insurrection Act.
‘I know my countrymen: I have conversed with them, and have found them practical philosophers. Their sentiments are the pure emanations of acute minds, instructed in the school of nature, and taught by adversity. They are, in consequence, generally correct, and, without any great exertion of thought, are frequently profound. How often have I seen them smile at the abortive efforts of their friends, who endeavour to procure them redress in a constitutional way, while, at the same time, they have told me very pertinently, and very truly, that they expected no concession from Government, until they were able to insist on it!’
During this address, Emmet’s fine manly countenance glowed with an enthusiastic ardour, and he delivered himself with as much animated fervency as if he were addressing a numerous, but distracted assembly, which he wished to persuade. His words flowed with a graceful fluency, and he combined his arguments with all the ease of a man accustomed to abstract discussions.
His amiable and esteemed character gave an elevating influence to the fame of the society of which he was the leader—many of whom, though of equal talents and respectability, were inferior in that fine sensibility of heart, and constancy in friendship, which gained him the love and esteem of all who knew him. Nor was it only for his bland manners and fine sensibilities of heart, and constancy in friendship, and firmness in principle; he ranked amongst the highest of its gifted sons, who display its fertile genius and its social spirit, who introduce the name of Ireland to the respect of the world.
Commensurate with his value to relatives and friends, and to his native city, was the appalling sensation that pervaded his country on the occasion of his lamented death. It is not, then surprising that his removal in one unexpected moment from this busy life’s vocations, to the oblivious silence of the tomb, should produce, as it did, a general burst of sorrow, and a common sense of bereavement.