His trial came on, at the sessions-house, Green-street, Dublin, September the 19th, 1803, before Lord Norbury; and the evidence being conclusive, his conviction followed. When called upon in the usual way, before passing sentence, he addressed the Court as follows:—
“I am asked if I have anything to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced upon me. Was I to suffer only death, after being adjudged guilty, I should bow in silence; but a man in my situation has not only to combat with the difficulties of fortune, but also the difficulties of prejudice: the sentence of the law which delivers over his body to the executioner, consigns his character to obloquy. The man dies, but his memory lives; and that mine may not forfeit all claim to the respect of my countrymen, I use this occasion to vindicate myself from some of the charges advanced against me.
“I am charged with being an emissary of France:—’tis false! I am no emissary—I did not wish to deliver up my country to a foreign power, and least of all, to France. No! never did I entertain the idea of establishing French power in Ireland—God forbid! On the contrary, it is evident from the introductory paragraph of the Address of the Provisional Government, that every hazard attending an independent effort was deemed preferable to the more fatal risk of introducing a French army into the country. Small would be our claims to patriotism and to sense, and palpable our affectation of the love of liberty, if we were to encourage the profanation of our shores by a people who are slaves themselves, and the unprincipled and abandoned instruments of imposing slavery on others. If such an inference be drawn from any part of the proclamation of the Provisional Government, it calumniates their views, and is not warranted by the fact.—How could they speak of freedom to their countrymen? How assume such an exalted motive, and meditate the introduction of a power which has been the enemy of freedom in every part of the globe? Reviewing the conduct of France to other countries, could we expect better towards us? No! Let not, then, any man attaint my memory by believing that I could have hoped for freedom through the aid of France, and betrayed the sacred cause of liberty, by committing it to the power of her most determined foe: had I done so, I had not deserved to live; and dying with such a weight upon my character, I had merited the honest execration of that country which gave me birth, and to which I would have given freedom.
“Had I been in Switzerland, I would have fought against the French—in the dignity of freedom, I would have expired on the threshold of that country, and they should have entered it only by passing over my lifeless corpse. Is it, then, to be supposed, that I would be slow to make the same sacrifice to my native land? Am I, who lived but to be of service to my country, and who would subject myself to the bondage of the grave to give her independence—am I to be loaded with the foul and grievous calumny of being an emissary of France? My Lords, it may be part of the system of angry justice to bow a man’s mind by humiliation to meet the ignominy of the scaffold; but worse to me than the scaffold’s shame or the scaffold’s terrors, would be the imputation of having been the agent of French despotism and ambition; and while I have breath I will call upon my countrymen not to believe me guilty of so foul a crime against their liberties and their happiness.
“Though you, my lord, sit there a judge, and I stand here a culprit, yet you are but a man, and I am another; I have a right therefore to vindicate my character and motives from the aspersions of calumny; and as a man to whom fame is dearer than life, I will make the last use of that life in rescuing my name and my memory from the afflicting imputation of having been an emissary of France, or seeking her interference in the internal regulation of our affairs.
“Did I live to see a French army approach this country, I would meet it on the shore with a torch in one hand and a sword in the other—I would receive them with all the destruction of war! I would animate my countrymen to immolate them in their very boats; and before our native soil should be polluted by a foreign foe, if they succeeded in landing, I would burn every blade of grass before them, raze every house, contend to the last for every inch of ground, and the last spot on which the hope of freedom should desert me, that spot I would make my grave: what I cannot do, I leave a legacy to my country, because I feel conscious that my death were unprofitable, and all hope of liberty extinct, the moment a French army obtained a footing in this land. God forbid that I should see my country under the hands of a foreign power. If the French should come as a foreign enemy, Oh! my countrymen! meet them on the shore with a torch in one hand, a sword in the other: receive them with all the destruction of war; immolate them in their boats before our native soil shall be polluted by a foreign foe! If they proceed in landing, fight them on the strand, burn every blade of grass before them as they advance—raze every house; and if you are driven to the centre of your country, collect your provisions, your property, your wives, and your daughters; form a circle around them—fight while but two men are left; and when but one remains, let that man set fire to the pile, and release himself, and the families of his fallen countrymen, from the tyranny of France.
“My lamp of life is nearly expired—my race is finished: the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. All I request, then, at parting from the world, is the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man, who knows my motives, dare vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them; let them and me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain undescribed, till other times and other men can do justice to my character.”
Judgment was then passed on him in the usual form, and he was ordered for execution. On his return to Newgate he drew up a statement of the insurrection, and the cause of its failure, which he requested might be sent to his brother, Thomas Addis, who was then at Paris.
The unfortunate young man, on the night before his execution, wrote to Mr. Curran and his son Robert, excusing himself for his conduct towards Miss Curran, and the firmness and regularity of the original hand-writing contain an affecting proof of the little influence which the approaching event exerted over his frame. The same enthusiasm which allured him to his destruction enabled him to support its utmost rigour. He met his fate with unostentatious fortitude; and although few could ever think of justifying his projects or regretting their failure, yet his youth, his talents, and the great respectability of his connexions, and the evident delusion of which he was the victim, have excited more general sympathy for his unfortunate end, and more forbearance towards his memory, than is usually extended to the errors or sufferings of political offenders.
Moore, the celebrated Irish bard, has lamented his fate in the following melody:—