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Wolfe Tone ON BEING
FOUND GUILTY
November 12, 1798
I mean not to give you the trouble
of bringing judicial proof to convict me legally of having acted
in hostility to the government of his Britannic majesty in
Ireland. I admit the fact. From my earliest youth I have
regarded the connection between Great Britain and Ireland as the
curse of the Irish nation, and felt convinced that, while it
lasted, this country could never be free nor happy. My mind has
been confirmed in this opinion by the experience of every
succeeding year, and the conclusions which I have drawn from
every fact before my eyes. In consequence, I was determined to
employ all the powers which my individual efforts could move, in
order to separate the two countries. That Ireland was not able
of herself to throw off the yoke, I knew; I therefore sought for
aid wherever it was to be found. In honorable poverty I rejected
offers which, to a man in my circumstances, might be considered
highly advantageous. I remained faithful to what I thought the
cause of my country, and sought in the French Republic an ally
to rescue three millions of my countrymen.
Attached to no party in the French
Republic—without interest, without money, without intrigue—the
openness and integrity of my views raised me to a high and
confidential rank in its armies. I obtained the confidence of
the executive directory, the approbation of my generals, and I
will venture to add, the esteem and affection of my brave
comrades. When I review these circumstances, I feel a secret and
internal consolation, which no reverse of fortune, no sentence
in the power of this court to inflict, can deprive me of, or
weaken in any degree. Under the flag of the French Republic I
originally engaged with a view to save and liberate my own
country. For that purpose I have encountered the chances of war
among strangers; for that purpose I repeatedly braved the
terrors of the ocean, covered, as I knew it to be, with the
triumphant fleets of that power which it was my glory and my
duty to oppose. I have sacrificed all my views in life; I have
courted poverty; I have left a beloved wife unprotected, and
children whom I adored fatherless.
After such a sacrifice, in a cause
which I have always considered—conscientiously considered—as the
cause of justice and freedom, it is no great effort, at this
day, to add the sacrifice of my life.
But I hear it is said that this
unfortunate country has been a prey to all sorts of horrors. I
sincerely lament it. I beg, however, that it may be remembered
that I have been absent four years from Ireland. To me those
sufferings can never be attributed. I designed by fair and open
war to procure a separation of two countries. For open war I was
prepared, but instead of that a system of private assassination
has taken place. I repeat, while I deplore it, that it is not
chargeable on me. Atrocities, it seems, have been committed on
both sides. I do not less deplore them. I detest them from my
heart; and to those who know my character and sentiments, I may
safely appeal for the truth of this assertion: with them I need
no justification. In a case like this success is everything.
Success, in the eyes of the vulgar, fixes its merits. Washington
succeeded, and Kosciusko failed.
After a combat nobly sustained—a
combat which would have excited the respect and sympathy of a
generous enemy—my fate has been to become a prisoner, to the
eternal disgrace of those who gave the orders. I was brought
here in irons like a felon. I mention this for the sake of
others; for me, I am indifferent to it. I am aware of the fate
which awaits me, and scorn equally the tone of complaint, and
that of supplication. As to the connection between this country
and Great Britain, I repeat it—all that has been imputed to me
(words, writings, and actions), I here deliberately avow. I have
spoken and acted with reflection, and on principle, and am ready
to meet the consequences. Whatever be the sentence of the court,
I am prepared for it. Its members will surely discharge their
duty—I shall take care not to be wanting in mine.
I wish to offer a few words
relative to one single point—the mode of punishment. In France
our emigrees, who stand nearly in the same situation in
which I now stand before you, are condemned to be shot. I ask
that the court adjudge me the death of a soldier, and let me be
shot by a platoon of grenadiers. I request this indulgence
rather in consideration of the uniform I wear—the uniform of a
chef de bridage in the French army—than from any personal
regard to myself. In order to evince my claim to this favor, I
beg that the court may take the trouble to peruse my commission
and letters of service in the French army. It will appear from
these papers that I have not received them as a mask to cover
me, but that I have been long and bona fide an officer in
the French service.
I have labored to create a people
in Ireland by raising three millions of my countrymen to the
rank of citizens. I have labored to abolish the infernal spirit
of religious persecution, by uniting the Catholics and
Dissenters. To the former I owe more than ever can be repaid.
The services I was so fortunate as to render them they rewarded
munificently; but they did more: when the public cry was raised
against me—when the friends of my youth swarmed off and let me
alone—the Catholics did not desert me; they had the virtue even
to sacrifice their own interests to a rigid principle of honor;
they refused, tho strongly urged, to disgrace a man who,
whatever his conduct toward the government might have been, had
faithfully and conscientiously discharged his duty toward them;
and in so doing, tho it was in my own case, I will say they
showed an instance of public virtue of which I know not whether
there exists another example
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