Mr. Motley wrote a whole library about the Dutch Republic, constituting a standard work among the Dutchmen of today of the history of their people and achievements. Mr. Parkman’s history of the French in Canada is unexcelled. Even that good historian, Mr. John Fiske, never rose above his environment; and I say it is no credit to American historians of the highest class that they have not seen fit to do justice to the patriotism, the sacrifices, the intellectual efforts and the financial contributions which the great body of the Irish people made to secure liberty to the United States. (Applause.)
Wouldn’t it have been a splendid and a generous thing if Motley had written a little of Ireland as he wrote of the Dutch Republic and the New Netherlands; if Parkman had done for Ireland in this country what he did for the French in Canada? And yet, from the earliest times, there came an unending stream to this country from Ireland of the cream of its chivalry and virtue, courage, industry and intellect, and sacrificed it most generously and without hope of reward at the altar of American liberty. (Applause.)
But the “Scotch-Irishman,” as considered, let us look at him. Now we will never understand the history of the Irish in America unless we go back to Ireland. I have a lot of friends among Americans of other stocks who undertake to appreciate the part the Irish have played in the upbuilding of this nation, but they can’t estimate it correctly unless they know something of the history of Ireland itself.
Every race that came to Ireland was assimilated. The Danes came, and those not driven to sea quickly became converted to Irish ideas. The Normans came, and they, too, became assimilated; and the Scotchmen came to Ireland, to the Plantation of Ulster, a subject too broad to be discussed now.
Commencing in 1610 and from that on to the end of the seventeenth century, the Scotchman came to Ireland, and he hadn’t been there long before he became civilized, smoothed, rounded, the heart of him given free play—in equality with the head; he joined the revolutionary societies such as the Irish had in those days, took pot shots at the landlord, and cultivated a sense of humor, conspired against English rule, and, coming to America, became a most bitter Rebel and a valiant soldier in Washington’s army.
Now I intend, at the request of your worthy Ex-President, Mr. Crimmins, who has done so much for this Society, to prepare some facts with reference to the settlement of Ulster, and what the immigrants from Ulster did in America, especially in the Revolutionary War. And I assert tonight, without fear of contradiction from any historian, American or English, that the blundering, unjust and criminal acts of England in Ireland, and especially in the province of Ulster, did more to fill the armies of George Washington with brave soldiers than almost any other cause. (Applause.)
If I were asked to point out one single thing that did more to make sure American liberty than any other, I would speak of the tithing of the Presbyterians in the province of Ulster. When this colony had been planted in Ulster on the “confiscated” lands of the O’Donnells and O’Neils and other septs, when these brave, intellectual, industrious, independent Scotch Celts (for that is what the large majority of them were) brought over to settle this province under promises not kept—and in this connection it should be remembered that these settlers had no part in the conspiracy of Sir Arthur Chichester and Sir John Davies and other English “Civilizers” and land grafters in despoiling the O’Donnells and O’Neils and minor Irish septs of 3,000,000 acres of the best land in Ulster—were confronted with the test oath of Queen Anne applied to Catholics and Presbyterians alike, when they were compelled to pay tithes, the same being taken from their fields of wheat or the corn from their barn, to support a church into which they would not enter in common with their Catholic fellow countrymen, upon emigrating to this country they became American Rebels on every battlefield in the United States. They came to the States before the Revolution in such numbers that in one year twelve thousand Ulster Presbyterian Irish left that province for American ports. The flow of immigration was so continued and so great in volume that it is a matter of record, which anyone can read in the State Papers, that the Presbyterian ministers of the province of Ulster petitioned the King to stop the immigration by repeal of obnoxious laws and alien injustice, or they would have no congregations left in Ireland.
You can trace them today from Londonderry, N. H., and Dublin in the same state, to Donegal in Pennsylvania, and down the whole Appalachian chain into Florida; and everywhere you will find settlements and towns bearing the good old Irish names and founded by these patriots, who stood by Washington and whose motto was, “No surrender to the British Government.” (Applause.)
On that subject alone I hope to be permitted, Mr. President, if I can find the leisure, to present to this Society, with due historical references, the truth of history as regards that period.
During the famine period that I spoke of there was a Cunard ship called the “Cephelonia.” The “Cephelonia” was one of the most celebrated ships of the Cunard line, and, during the famine period, she brought great numbers of Irish immigrants to Boston. One day not many years ago I was talking to a couple of Irish American friends of mine in Boston, when a third man came up and gave the time of day to my friend and passed on. One of my friends turned to the other and said, “Is he a ‘Mayflower’?” and my friend replied, “No, he,” said he, “is a ‘Cephelonian.’ The ‘Cephelonians’ now outnumber the ‘Mayflowers.’”