NATIONALITIES.

Mataura Ensign, Volume 7, Issue 409, 14 November 1884, Page 6

NATIONALITIES.

4. TO THE EDITOR. Sir,— l acknowledge with gratitude the. correction of your correspondent " C.U.G." regal-ding the birth place of Sir John Moore. Some years back 1 read, the history of Ireland by Wrigiit in a very cursory manner. That author, treating of the last Irish Parliament ••ixscrnblr-d on College |GrecD,] goes on to state, " When Mr Egari was ' speaking strongly against the transfer of the Irish Parliament to London, .\.r George Ponsonbv and .Mr Arthur Moore walked out and , immediately returned leading or rather hclp- | ing Mr Grattan in a state of feebleness and debility. The effect wag electric." In a foot note attached to this passage the author states Mr Moore was one of the most respectable merchants of Dublin, and the most ardent of the anti-unionists. He was uncle to the distinguished soldier of that name, the hero of Corunna — Wright's history of Ireland, p. 635. lam sure your correspondent "C.U.G." will admit this to be very misleading. But Sir John Moore himself settles the question of his nationality, so far at least that he was not an Irishman, but in sympathy and feelings for the wrongs of that country, he was more Irish than the Irish themselves. Writing to Lord Holland his experiences of Ireland and its people he states : " I have served and campaigned throughout the greater portion of his Majesty's dominions and I have had to serve in Ireland and witness atrocities that sicken the heart in their contemplation and fill with terror the homes of that peaceful and inoffensive people All over the country the midnight skies are reddened with the flames' of burning cottages, and the glens resound with shrieks of agony, ' vengeance, and despair. Homes desolated, female virtue made the victim of crimes that , cannot be named, the gibbet and triangle . erected in every hamlet — even the very ." temples of God desecrated and given to the torch," &c. Appalled at the infamies of lustful and brutal soldiery and unable to. repress his sympathy, no wonder that the gallant and humane Sir John Moore should have written, "If I were an Irishman I would be a rebel to-morrow." Vide Lord Holland's State Papers and Memoirs of the Whig | Party. lam sure your correspondent will ■ ; agree with me in stating " Humanum est errare sed diibolicurn est perseverare." — I am, etc., J. M. Otama, Nov. 8, ISS4.