[72]. Madden’s “United Irishmen” (Second Edition), Third Series, pp. 51-53. Madden learned these particulars from Jane Emmet’s children in America, and her brother John Patten.
In October, 1798, Jane Emmet’s sixth child, Christopher, was born, and it seems probable that having returned to her home for the occasion, it was not considered prudent for her to go back to the hardships of Kilmainham. Moreover, ever since the State Prisoners had, in order to save effusion of blood, entered into terms with Government in July, 1798, it was expected that Emmet and his fellow-prisoners would soon be allowed to go to America. Rufus King, however, the resident minister of the United States in London, interfered to prevent the execution of these designs—and one more “scrap of paper” was torn into fragments. Instead of being set at liberty and allowed to emigrate to the United States, in accordance with Government’s formal pledge, the Irish State Prisoners were kept in gaol for no less than four years longer.
On March 18th, 1799, the prisoners were notified to prepare for embarkation to an unknown destination the following morning. When the news reached the Emmet household Mary Anne Emmet, acting with that spirit which showed her the true sister of Thomas Addis and Robert, hastened to the Castle and obtained an interview with Lord Cornwallis. The viceroy was touched by her pleading, and assured her that no harm should come to her brother, but he would give her no information as to “the place of security” whither Government’s apprehension of a foreign invasion impelled them to send the State Prisoners. With the scanty comfort conveyed in Cornwallis’s promise that her brother’s treatment, as well as that of his companions, should be all his friends and theirs could desire, Mary Anne Emmet returned to her parents. She was allowed to visit her brother for a short time in Kilmainham that evening to take the farewell of him which was destined to be her last.
In another place we shall learn something of the adventures of the twenty State prisoners who sailed from Dublin Bay on March the 19th and reached their destination, Fort George, in the extreme north of Scotland, on April 9th, 1799, and of their life in that fortress during the years of their confinement in it.
As may be expected, Jane Emmet made every effort to obtain permission to join her husband in Fort George, and her hopes of success were stimulated by the fact that others of the State prisoners, especially Roger O’Connor, were allowed to have their families with them. The Irish Government, however—in other words, Lord Castlereagh—put every obstacle in her way, and it was only when she made personal application to the Duke of Portland that she obtained the consent she sought. In August, 1800, escorted by her brother, John Patten, and accompanied by her three elder children, Robert, Margaret and Elizabeth, she arrived in Fort George. She left her three younger children, John Patten, Thomas Addis and baby Christopher, in the charge of their grandfather and grandmother, Dr. and Mrs. Emmet, at Casino, Milltown.
The son of one of the little boys thus left behind has culled for us from the family correspondence the letters written by old Mrs. Emmet to her son and daughter-in-law in Fort George, and though the regrettable loss of the letters of Thomas Addis to his parents and those of Jane Emmet to her mother, Mrs. Patten, leaves the correspondence incomplete, nevertheless sufficient remains to help us to make a connected story.
It was not her husband only whom the arrival at Fort George of Mrs. Emmet and her charming children made happy. All the prisoners were delightfully excited by the event, and every man of them became their devoted slave from the beginning. Each one was anxious to lend a hand in the education of the children. Dr. MacNevin, whose Continental education had rendered him an accomplished linguist, taught them French; Hudson and Cormick gave them music lessons. When little William Neilson joined the children some months later, Fort George became a regular academy. Thomas Addis Emmet, himself, was the head-master, and his mother jokingly refers to Jane as his usher—but all the prisoners were eager to secure a post in the school—Dr. Dixon, M. Dowdall, Tennant. There were charming theatrical entertainments, too, wherein the children acted, and concerts at which Robert Emmet and William Neilson displayed their skill on the flute. Samuel Neilson’s letters to his wife never omit a reference to Mrs. Emmet and her “delightful children.” It was probably Mrs. Emmet who suggested to him to send for his little son, and when the boy arrived she mothered him exactly like one of her own children. Once the lad fell ill, and Mrs. Emmet’s attentions to him won the fervent gratitude of the poor father: “her kindness went beyond what could possibly be expected. Fruits, sweetmeats, jellies—everything she could think of were sent, and her own personal attendance and advice were superadded.”
The Governor of the Fort, the chivalrous old Scottish nobleman and soldier, Colonel Stuart, was won over by the sweet womanliness, and the maternal and conjugal devotion of Mrs. Emmet. Very shortly after her arrival he signified to her husband that, for the sake of her health, to which proper exercise was necessary, he would take it upon himself to allow her husband to accompany her on walks outside the enclosure of the fortress. When Roger O’Connor and his wife and family left Fort George, the Governor turned over their suite of rooms to Mrs. Emmet. Once a fire broke out at night. The Governor was called up, and on ascertaining that no danger was to be apprehended, he instantly ran to Emmet’s apartment to remove his apprehension for himself and his family; and the next day the following note was addressed to Emmet:
“The lieutenant-governor’s compliments to Mr. Emmet. He hopes Mrs. Emmet suffered no inconvenience from the alarm of fire which was given last night. As the idea of being locked in may occasion a disagreeable sensation to a lady’s mind, in case of any sudden occurrence (though the lieutenant-governor flatters himself that none in future will arise), he will give directions that the passage door leading to Mr. Emmet’s apartments shall not in future be locked, being convinced Mr. Emmet would make no improper use of all the doors being left open.”
The letters which came from Casino were eagerly welcomed by Jane Emmet and her husband, telling, as they did, so much that they longed to know of the little ones left behind. John is Grandmother Patten’s favourite, and when he goes to visit her he comes back the proud possessor of “new clothes and a great number of Buttons.” “He felt very visibly the importance he had acquired by his visit to town, for as soon as he returned he desired John Delany should be brought in to play with him, as his grandmamma had always a boy on purpose to play with him.” John’s slowness, to which there are frequent allusions in the letters, seems to have caused a little anxiety to his father, so his grandmother is eager to do him justice. “He does not, I assure you, want either observation or intellect, he has great natural justice and a very open good-natured temper.” We learn from his grandfather that he is at “a crown and a quarter school, where he tells me he makes great proficiency, four or five lessons a day in his A, B, C, but as yet he does not couple them very accurately. John, however, is a very well-disposed, well-tempered child, and if he does not mount into the Empyrean galaxy, he will always keep the Milky Way of life, and never tread on thorns.” On another occasion John is at his grandmother’s elbow while she is writing to father and mother and he expressly desires her to tell them that “he is a very good boy; that he has gotten a new spelling book from his grandmamma Patten, and that he will take care and get his lessons well.” All this Grandmamma Emmet is sure “he has sincere intentions of performing, tho’ I must confess that in his old spelling-book he is not very brilliant. He, however, I am told, performs the part of an usher in the school, and acquits himself with great propriety.... John, I think, is much better at school, it helps to enliven him and in some measure open his ideas; he does not learn any bad habits, and he is very fond of it; at home he would be apt to grow sluggish.” As John had not completed his fifth year at the time these letters were written, we need not share too acutely his absent father’s anxiety about him—especially as we from our point of vantage, some six score years later, discern in John one of the most brilliant men of his time. When he died—in the prime of his manhood, at the age of forty-six, his colleagues of the University of Virginia, where he was Professor of Chemistry and Materia Medica, paid tribute to him as “the inventive and learned, the ingenuous and high-souled John Patten Emmet, one of the earliest supports and one of the brightest ornaments of this University.”