If it is curious to find the future distinguished scientist causing anxiety to his father for the slow opening of his intellect, it is still more curious to find his little brother Tom causing him anxiety because some incident related by his grandparents seemed to indicate in the tiny boy a selfish disposition. So concerned was the father at some trait of childish prudence related by the grandparents for his amusement that he had thoughts of taking little Tom to Fort George to educate him under his own eyes. Grandmother Emmet has to assure him that what Mary Anne and she said “imported nothing more than to convey to you an idea of the strength of his intellect, for surely you did not suppose that the disposition of a child, not four years old, would do more than to divert you instead of giving you sincere alarm. The share of understanding which he promises to have will be fully sufficient to overcome his little childish dispositions, and without severity he will do what is right by only pointing it out to him.” How groundless were his father’s fears—and how well justified his grandmother’s confidence, the life of Thomas Addis Emmet, junior, sufficiently proves. His nephew and namesake, recalling the happy days he and the other young people of his generation spent in Mr. Emmet’s lovely home, Mount Vernon, New York, tells us that it would not be possible to find a more genial, kindly and charitable couple than Mr. and Mrs. Emmet. “The term charitable could be applied to him in every sense, as it was difficult for him even to suspect a bad motive, and he frequently suffered for his faith in others. Later in life Mr. Emmet became embarrassed on account of the frequent assistance he had rendered supposed friends and from placing too much reliance on their promises.”
It is plain that of the three children confided to their care the favourite of Grandfather and Grandmother Emmet is the youngest, little Christopher Temple. In this delightful little boy whom everybody in kitchen and parlour idolises, is there given back to them the brilliant son they had lost by a premature death? The grandfather clearly thinks so: “Little Temple, should he live for the germs to open, blossom and ripen into fruit, will equal, I think, his namesake uncle.” His grandmother is afraid her partiality for him will be reckoned as due to his name: “I assure you he is as great a favourite with everyone in the family as with me.” “This little Brat is, to be sure, the chief favourite through the house; we, however, do not spoil him, and I assure you that I fondle him less than the others. Mary Anne caresses him more than I do, but at the same time treats him with steadiness; in the kitchen he would be commander-in-chief if we did not prevent it. He is quite a miniature of our dear little Robert, especially when he holds up his hands and says he won’t be bold any more.” Pictures like that of the dear little grandson occur in the grandmother’s letters again and again: now we see him at table, “fighting in dumb show for his share in his grandfather’s claret,” now sturdily claiming his place in his elder brother’s games, now climbing on chairs and prating enough for two, now riding on Mr. Holmes’s back, and asking to be taken on grandmother’s. “I told him that my back was old, but in a little time I offered to take him, he would not, he replied in a tone of great tenderness, ‘because you have a pain.’ The next night I again asked him if he would come on my back, and he at once said he would if I had not a pain.”
Poor little Temple! Like his namesake uncle he was destined to live but a short life. He died of yellow fever, at sea, at the age of twenty-four, being a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy.
It was at Fort George that Jane Emmet’s seventh child, a little girl called Jane Erin, was born. Some months after her birth the State prisoners were released,[[73]] and dispatched on the Government frigate the Ariadne, to Cuxhaven, the port for Hamburg. At Hamburg the prisoners separated, some to go to America, others to Paris, others to Holland, and Dr. MacNevin to Dresden. The Emmets first settled at Brussels where Thomas Addis devoted himself to the education of his children. At Brussels he heard of his father’s death, and was visited by his brother Robert.
[73]. After peace was signed at Amiens in March, 1802. Their imprisonment was changed for banishment.
We know that it was not brotherly affection alone, deep and true as this was, that brought Robert Emmet to Brussels at this juncture. The fact was that all men saw that the peace between England and France was a very “sick” peace indeed, and liable to expire at any moment. The United Irishmen, whose organisation had survived the disasters of ’98, were waiting their chance of a rupture between the two countries to shake off the yoke of England, which the Union had made more intolerable. They had encouragement from some of the most influential men in Ireland. Though not enamoured of France, which they rightly considered had treated them most scandalously,[[74]] they were ready to bargain for French aid “on conditions.” France, on the other hand, was willing to make these terms, her only interest in Ireland being to get in a blow at England through her.
[74]. Thomas Addis Emmet told Colonel Dalton who had been sent to open up negotiations with him on behalf of the French Government in May, 1803, that “France had lost the confidence of Ireland, and the treatment the Irish had received in France, ever since the peace ... had excited even an aversion.” It is well known that Emmet described Bonaparte “as the worst enemy Ireland ever had.” So much for French friendship for Ireland, about which certain people would have us so enthusiastic!
It is not the place to tell here how once more France failed Ireland; how Robert Emmet was suffered to go to his death without a finger being raised to save him; how the Irishmen, who had enlisted in an Irish legion in the service of France, on the distinct promise that Augereau was to command a great expedition to Ireland, were wantonly deceived.
In the autumn of 1804, Thomas Addis Emmet, whose clear eyes even Bonaparte could not long deceive, shook the dust of France from his feet and set sail with his wife and the children who had shared their imprisonment and exile, for New York.
On November the 11th, 1804, Jane Emmet first set foot on American soil on which forty-two years of her life were yet to be spent, and in which she was to find a grave. Her health, which had suffered much during her sojourn in Fort George, and through the agitations and anxieties which attended her life in Brussels and Paris, improved. Her husband whose reputation and talents had secured for him the most distinguished reception at the hands of the noblest men in America, made his way rapidly at the American Bar. The little children from whom she had been separated so long: John, and Tom, and Temple, were restored to her. The little band of seven was subsequently reinforced by two new arrivals: Mary Anne, born in New York in March, 1805, and William Colville, born in the same city in April, 1807.