the only one, as I have said, entrusted with my secret, called to pay us a morning visit, and had not been long in the room, conversing with my mother, when looking significantly at me, he said, " Well,

you saw

دو

Here he stopped; but the mother's eye had followed his, with the rapidity of lightning, to mine, and at once she perceived the whole truth. "That Letter was yours, then?" she asked of me eagerly; and, without hesitation, of course, I acknowledged the fact; when in the most earnest manner she entreated of me never again to have any connexion with that paper; and, as every wish of hers was to me law, I readily pledged the solemn promise she required. Though well aware how easily a sneer may be raised at the simple details of this domestic scene, I have yet ventured to put it on record, as affording an instance of the gentle and womanly watchfulness, the providence, as it may be called, of the little world of home,-by which, although placed almost in the very current of so headlong a movement, and living familiarly with some of the most daring of those who propelled it, I yet was guarded from any participation in their secret oaths, counsels, or plans, and thus escaped all share in that wild struggle to which so many far better men than myself fell victims.

in the month of March, 1798, we found, to our astonishment and sorrow, that he was one of the number.

To those unread in the painful history of this period, it is right to mention that almost all the leaders of the United Irish conspiracy were Protestants. Among those companions of my own alluded to in these pages, I scarcely remember a single Catholic.

In the mean while, this great conspiracy was hastening on, with fearful precipitancy, to its outbreak; and vague and shapeless as are now known to have been the views even of those who were engaged practically in the plot, it is not any wonder that to the young and uninitiated like myself it should have opened prospects partaking far more of the wild dreams of poesy than of the plain and honest prose of real life. But a crisis was then fast approaching, when such self-delusions could no longer be indulged; and when the mystery which had hitherto hung over the plans of the conspirators was to be rent asunder by the stern hand of power.

But

Of the horrors that fore-ran and followed the frightful explosion of the year 1798, I have neither inclination nor, luckily, occasion to speak. among those introductory scenes, which had somewhat prepared the public mind for such a catastrophe, there was one, of a painful description, which, as having been myself an actor in it, I may be allowed briefly to notice.

It was not many weeks, I think, before this crisis, that, owing to information gained by the college authorities of the rapid spread, among the students, not only of the principles but the organisation of the Irish Union*, a solemn Visitation was held by Lord Clare, the vice-chancellor of the University, with the

66 a

* In the Report from the Secret Committee of the Irish House of Lords, this extension of the plot to the College is noticed as desperate project of the same faction to corrupt the youth of the country by introducing their organised system of treason into the University."

view of inquiring into the extent of this branch of the plot, and dealing summarily with those engaged in it.

Imperious and harsh as then seemed the policy of thus setting up a sort of inquisitorial tribunal, armed with the power of examining witnesses on oath, and in a place devoted to the instruction of youth, I cannot but confess that the facts which came out in the course of the evidence, went far towards justifying even this arbitrary proceeding; and to the many who, like myself, were acquainted only with the general views of the Union leaders, without even knowing, except from conjecture, who those leaders were, or what their plans or objects, it was most startling to hear the disclosures which every succeeding witness brought forth. There were a few,—and among that number, poor Robert Emmet, John Brown, and the two ******s†, whose total absence from the whole scene, as well as the dead silence that, day after day, followed the calling out of their names, proclaimed how deep had been their share in the unlawful proceedings inquired into by this tribunal.

But there was one young friend of mine,

† One of these brothers has long been a general in the French army; having taken a part in all those great enterprises of Napoleon which have now become matter of history. Should these pages meet the eye of General * they will call to his mind the days

we passed together in Normandy, a few summers since; -more especially our excursion to Bayeux, when, as we talked on the way of old college times and friends, all the eventful and stormy scenes he had passed through since seemed forgotten.

whose appearance among the suspected and examined as much surprised as it deeply and painfully interested me. He and Emmet had long been intimate and attached friends; their congenial fondness for mathematical studies having been, I think, a far more binding sympathy between them than any arising out of their political opinions. From his being called up, however, on this day, when, as it appeared afterwards, all the most important evidence was brought forward, there could be little doubt that, in addition to his intimacy with Emmet, the college authorities must have possessed some information which led them to suspect him of being an accomplice in the conspiracy. In the course of his examination, some questions were put to him which he refused to answer,-most probably from their tendency to involve or inculpate others; and he was accordingly dismissed, with the melancholy certainty that his future prospects in life were blasted; it being already known that the punishment for such contumacy was not merely expulsion from the University, but exclusion from all the learned professions.

The proceedings, indeed, of this whole day had been such as to send me to my home in the evening with no very agreeable feelings or prospects. I had heard evidence given affecting even the lives of some of those friends whom I had long regarded with admiration as well as affection; and what was still worse than even their danger,—a danger ennobled, I thought, by the cause in which they suffered,— was the shameful spectacle exhibited by those who

had appeared in evidence against them. Of these witnesses, the greater number had been themselves involved in the plot, and now came forward either as voluntary informers, or else were driven by the fear of the consequences of refusal to secure their own safety at the expense of companions and friends.

**

I well remember the gloom, so unusual, that hung over our family circle on that evening, as, talking together of the events of the day, we discussed the likelihood of my being among those who would be called up for examination on the morrow. The deliberate conclusion, to which my dear honest advisers came, was that, overwhelming as the consequences were to all their plans and hopes for me, yet, if the questions leading to criminate others, which had been put to almost all examined on that day, and which poor * alone had refused to answer, I must, in the same manner, and at all risks, return a similar refusal. I am not quite certain whether I received any intimation, on the following morning, that I was to be one of those examined in the course of the day; but I rather think some such notice had been conveyed to me; and, at last, my awful turn came, and I stood in presence of the formidable tribunal. There sate, with severe look, the vice-chancellor, and, by his side, the memorable Doctor Duigenan, — memorable for his eternal pamphlets against the Catholics.

The oath was proffered to me. "I have an objection, my Lord," said I, "to taking this oath." "What is your objection?" he asked sternly. “I