THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 74, 26 September 1874, Page 12

THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER.

Meagheii's subsequent career in Ireland is soon told. He was a regular attendant at the meeting of the Confederation, of which he -was one of the founders, and the fame of his eloquence his manly appearance, and the charms of his youthful frankness contributed immensely towards the growth of the new organization. He always acted with O'Brien, whom he loved in his inmost, soul, but he was reepected and admired by every section of nationalist", the Mitchelites, the Duffyitcs, and we might even say the O'Connellifces, When the country began to feel the influence of the whirlwind of revolution -winch swept over the continent, overturning thrones and wrecking constitutions as if they were made of cardboard, T.T.'agher shared the wild impulse of the hour, and played boldly for insurrection and separation. He was one of the three gentlemen appointed to present the address from Ireland to tho French Republican government in 1848 j and in the speech delivered by him at the crowded' meeting in the Dublin Music Hall before his departure, he counselled his countrymen to send a deputation to the Queen, asking her to convene the Irish Parliament in the Irish capital. "If the claim be rejected," said Meagher, if the throne stand as a barrier between the Irish people and tha supreme right— then loyalty will be a crime, and obedience to the executive will be treason to the country. Depute jour worthiest citizens to appvoach the throne, and before that throne let the will of the Irish people be muttered with digni'y and decision. If nothing comes of this," he added, "if the constitution opens to us no path to freedom, if the Union be maintained in spite of the will of the Irish people, if the governmeuc of Ireland insist on being a government^ dragoons and bombadiers, of detectives and light infantry, then, he exclaimed in the midst of tumultuous cheering, "up with the barricades, and invoke the G-od of Buttles !" While the Bepublican spirit was in full glow in Ireland, Mcaghor astonished his friends by rushing down to Waterford and offering him- . as / candidate for tho post left vacant in parliament by the resignation of O Connell. By this time the Confederates had begun to despair of a parliamentary policy, and they marvelled much to see their yoW orator rush to the hustings, and throw himself into the confusion and turmoil of an election contest. Que le dialle allait il faire dans cette galere muttered his Dublin friends. Was not the time for hustings orations, and parliamentary agitation over now ? Meagher, however, conceived, and perhaps wisely, that he could still do some good ior his country in the House of Commons. He issued a noble address to the electors of lus native city, in which he asked for their support on the most patriotic grounds. " I shall not meddle," he said, " with Jtngnsh affairs. I shall take no part in the strife of parties— all factious are alike to me. I shall go to the House of Commons to insist on .he rights of this country to be held, governed, and defended by its own citizens and by them alone. Whilst I live I shall never rest satisfied until Me kingdom of Ireland has won a Parliamanr, an army, and a navy of her own." Mitchell strongly disapproved of his cor>duct. If Mr Meagher were in Parliament," said the « United Irishm,an! ™ c ? s ?v? v , es w °"l<* be attracted 1 hither once more ; some hope ol justice m.*hb again revive in this too easily deluded people " The proper men to send to Parliament were according to Mitchell, « Sir ? lacemen ' Pensioners, five pound Conciliation Hall Repeals." We have no wish to dictate," concluded Mitchell in an article on the subject, full of the lurking satire aud quiet humour tlmt leavened his writings, but if (he electors of Waterford have any confidence iv us, •wo shall only say that we ace foe Costello ! " " Costello " was defeated, however, but so was Meagher. The Young Inland champion was stigmatized as a Tory by the Whigs, and as a rebel by the Tories ,- if tie people, as Mitchell remarks, had any power ho would have been elected by an overwhelming majority, but the people had no votes, and Sir Henry Winston Barren was returned. Meagher went back to Dublin almost a convert to Mitchell's Tiew*. leaving Whig, Tory, and West Briton to exult over his discomfiture. Wo have already seen what Meagher did when the guage of battle was tnrown down, and) whoa "the day all hearts to weigh" was imagined to have arrived, we have seen how he accompanied O'Brien an his expedition from Wexfovd to Kilkenny, and thence to Tippemry and how on the morning of July 29th, 1848, he left O'Brien at Ballingawy, little dreaming of the tragedy which was to make that day memorable, and expecting to bft nble to bring reinforcements to his leader from other quarters before the crisis came. He failed, however, 1U <. AYU c •.' *? *? vead tho flanjes of insurrection. The chilling news of OBnen a defeat— distorted and exaggerated by hostile tongueswas before him everywhere, aud even the most resolute of his sympathisers had senßo enough to see thnt their opportunity— if it existed at all— had passed away. On the 12th day of August, 1818, Meaehor -was arrested on the road between Clonoulty and Holy cross, in Tipperary. He was walking along in company with Patrick O'DonoHiuo i-iid Maurice R. leyne, two of his intimate friends and fellow-outlaws when a party of police passed them by. Neither of the three -were disguised, but Meagher und Leyno wore freize overcoats, wlrch somewhat altered their appearance. After a short time the police returnedMeagher and his companions gave their real names on biin« interrogated, and they were at once arrested and taken in triumph to J-liurJes. Ihe three friends bore their ill fortuue with what their captors must nave considered provoking nonchalance. Measlier smoked a cigar on the way to the Nation, and the trio chatted as gaily as if they were walking iv btt fety on the free soil of America, instead ot Doing helpless prisoners on their way to captivity and exile Meaghtr stood in the dock at Clonmel a week aft. r O'Brien had quitted it v. convict. He was defended by Mr Wfciteside and Isaac Bint, whose magnificent speech in his defence was, perhaps, the most brilliant display of forensic; eloquence ever heard within the court in winch he stood. Of course the jury was packed (only 18 Catholics were named on a jury panel of 300), and of coarse the Crown carried its point. On the close of the sixth day of the trial, the jury returned into court with a verdict of "guilty," i eeommondiug .the prisoner to mercy on the ground of his youth.

Two days later he was brought back to the dock to receive sentence. He was dressed in his usual slyle, appeard ia excellent health, and bore Inmself— we are told—through the trying ordeal, with fortitude and monly dignity. He spoke as follows : —

' My lords, it is my intention to say a few words only. I desire • that the last act of a proceeding which has occupied so much of the public time should be of short duration. Nor have I the indelicate wish to close the dreary ceremony of a state prosecution with a vaia display of words. Did I fear that hereafter, when I shall be no more the country I tried to serve would speak ill of me, I might, indeed', avail myself of this solemn moment to vindicate my senHments and my conduct. But I have no such fear. The country will iud*e of" those sentiments and that conduct in a light far different from that in which the jury by whom I have been convicted have viewed them and by the country the sentence which you, my lordg, are about topronounce, will be remembered only as the severe and solemn attestation of my rectitude and truth. Whatever be the language in which that sentence be spoken, I know that my fate will meet with sympathy and that my memory will be honoured. In speaking thus, accuse'inenot, my lords, of an indecorns presumption in the efforts I have madem a mat and noble cause. I ascribe no main importance, nor do T claim for those efforts any high reward. But it so happens, and it will everhappen so, that they whohavelived toserve their country— no matter how weak their efforts may have been-are sure to receive the thanks and blessings of its people. With my countrymen I leave my memory my sentiments, my acts, proudly feeling they require no vindication from me this day. A jury of my countrymen, it is true, have found meguilty of the crinio of which I stood indicted. For this I entertain not the slightest feehng of resentment agfticst them. Influenced as th«y must have been by the charge ot the Lord Chief Justice, they cuuld perhaps have found no other verdict. What of that charge? Any strong observations on it I feel sincerly would ill-befit the solemnity of this scene ; but I would earnestly beseech of you, my lord— you who preside on that bench— when the passions and prejudices of this hour have passed away, to appeal to your own cons ence, and ask of it wasyour charge what it ought to have teen, impartial and indifferent between the subject and the crown? My lords, you may deem this language unbecoming in me, and, perhaps, it may seal mv fate • but I am here to speak the truth whatever that may coat—l am here to regret nothing I have ever done, to regret nothing I have ever said— l am here to crave with no lying lip tho life I consecrate to the liberty ot ray country. Tar from it. Even here— here, where the thief, the libertine, the murderer, have left their foot-prints in the dust— here on this spot, where the shadows of death surround me, and from which I see my early grave in an unanointed soil open to receive me— even here, encircled by these terrors, that hope which first beckoned ma tothe perilous sea on which I have been wrecked, still consoles, animates, and enraptures me. No ; I do not despair of my poor old country— her peace, her liberty, her glory. Fo>- that country Icin do no more than bid her hope. To lift this island up— to make her a benefactor to humanity, instead of being, as she ig now, the meanest beggar in the world— to restore her to her native powers and her ancient constitution— this has been my ambition and thia ambition has been my crime. Judged by the law of England, I. know this crime entails upon me the penalty of death ; but the history of Ireland explains that crime and justifies it. Judged by that history, lam nocriminal, you (addressing Mr M'Manus) are no criminal, you (addressing Mr O lJonoghue) are no criminal, and we deserve no punishmentjudged by that history, the treason of which I stand convicted loses all its guilt, has been sanctified as a duty, and will be enobled as a sacrifice. With these sentiments I await the sentence of the court. I havedone what I felt to be my duty. I have spoken now, as I did on every other occasion of my short life, what I felt to be the truth. I now bid farewell to the couutry of my birth— of my passions— of my death ; a country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies— whose factions I sought to quell— whose intelligence I prompted to a lofty aim— whose freedom had been my fatal dream. To that country I now offer as a pledge of the love I bore her, and of the sincerity with which I thought and spoke, and struggled for her freedom, the life of a young heart ; and with that life ttio hopes, the honours, tho endearments of a happy, a prosperous, and honorable home. Proceed then my lords, with that sentence which the law directs— l am prepared to hear it— l trust lam prepared to meeet its execution. I shall go, I think, with a light heart, before a higher tribunal— a tribunal where a Judge of infinite goodness, as well as of infinite justice, wll preside, and where, my lords, many many of the judgments of this world will be reversed." There is little more for us to odd. Meaghor arrived with O'Brien, O'Donoghue, and M'Manus in Van Dieman's Land in October, 1849, and escaped to America in 1852. He started the • Irish News 'in New York, which he enriched by personal recollections of the stirring scenes in which he participated ; but his career as a journalist closed abruptly with the outbreak of the tvar of Secession, when he raised a Zouave Company to join Ccrcoran's 69th Regiment, with which he fought gallantly at Bull's Run. Every one remembers how tho gallantry of the Irish regiment in which Meagher served, saved the Federal forces annihilation on that field of disaster. Subsequently he raised and commanded tho Irish Brigade, which won imperishable laurels •throughout the hard-fought campaigns that ended with the capture of Richmond. When Mr Johnston became President of thn United States, he appointed Meagher to the position of Governor of Mouata Territory, in the far West, a post which he held until his death. Ifis end was sad and sudden. Oho dark wild night in the middle of July, 1867, a gentleman suddenly disappeared from the deck of tho steamer on which he was standing, and fell into the great Missouri, where it, winch its course by tte hills of Montana. - The accident was too sudden for availing assistanco. A sudden slip, a splash, a faint cry, a brief struggle, and all was over ; the hungry waters closed over him, and the rapid rolling current swept away his lifeless corse. The finished scholar, the genial friend, the matchless orator, the ardent | patriot wasuo more. Thomas Francis Meagher w*3 dead.