|
FOR MORALITY AND IRISH PATRIOTISM -
ROBERT EMMET 1803
Speech from the Dock
It follows the full text transcript of
Robert Emmet's Speech from the Dock, delivered at
Dublin, Ireland — September 19, 1803.
 |
My Lords, |
I am asked, what have I to say why sentence of
death should not be pronounced on me according
to law?
I have nothing to
say that can alter your predetermination, nor
that it will become me to say, with any view to
the mitigation of that sentence which you are to
pronounce, and I must abide by. But I have that
to say which interests me more than life, and
which you have labored (as was necessarily your
office in the present circumstances of this
oppressed country) to destroy.
I have much to
say, why my reputation should be rescued from
the load of false accusation and calumny which
has been heaped upon it. I do not imagine that,
seated where you are, your minds can be so free
from impurity as to receive the least impression
from what I am going to utter.
I have no hopes
that I can anchor my character in the breasts of
a Court constituted and trammeled as this is. I
only wish, and it is the utmost I expect, that
your Lordships may suffer it to float down your
memories untainted by the foul breath of
prejudice, until it finds some more hospitable
harbor to shelter it from the storm by which it
is at present buffeted.
Were I only to suffer death, after being
adjudged guilty by your tribunal, I should bow
in silence and meet the fate that awaits me
without a murmur; but the sentence of the law
which delivers my body to the executioner will,
through the ministry of that law, labor in its
own vindication to consign my character to
obloquy; for there must be guilt somewhere —
whether in the sentence of the Court or in the
catastrophe, posterity must determine.
A man in my
situation, my Lords, has not only to encounter
the difficulties of fortune, and the force of
power over minds which it has corrupted or
subjugated, but the difficulties of established
prejudice. The man dies, but his memory lives.
That mine may not perish, that it may live in
the respect of my countrymen, I seize upon this
opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the
charges alleged against me.
When my spirit
shall be wafted to a more friendly port, when my
shade shall have joined the bands of those
martyred heroes who have shed their blood on the
scaffold and in the field, in defense of their
country and of virtue, this is my hope — I wish
that my memory and name may animate those who
survive me, while I look down with complacency
on the destruction of that perfidious
government, which upholds its dominion by
blasphemy of the Most High, which displays its
power over man as over the beasts of the forest,
which sets man upon his brother, and lifts his
hand in the name of God against the throat of
his fellow who believes or doubts a little more
than the Government standard — a Government
steeled to barbarity by the cries of the orphans
and the tears of the widows which it has made.
[Here Lord Norbury interrupted Mr. Emmet, saying
that the mean and wicked enthusiasts who felt as
he did, were not equal to the accomplishment of
their wild design.]
I appeal to the immaculate God — I swear by the
throne of Heaven, before which I must shortly
appear — by the blood of the murdered patriots
who have gone before me, that my conduct has
been, through all this peril and through all my
purposes, governed only by the convictions which
I have uttered, and by no other view than that
of their cure, and the emancipation of my
country from the superinhuman oppression under
which she has so long and too patiently
travailed; and that I confidently and assuredly
hope that, wild and chimerical as it may appear,
there is still union and strength in Ireland to
accomplish this noblest enterprise.
Of this I speak
with the confidence of intimate knowledge, and
with the consolation that appertains to that
confidence. Think not, my Lords, I say this for
the petty gratification of giving you a
transitory uneasiness; a man who never yet
raised his voice to assert a lie will not hazard
his character with posterity by asserting a
falsehood on a subject so important to his
country, and on an occasion like this. Yes, my
Lords, a man who does not wish to have his
epitaph written until his country is liberated,
will not leave a weapon in the power of envy,
nor a pretense to impeach the probity which he
means to preserve even in the grave to which
tyranny consigns him.
[Here he was again interrupted by the Court.]
Again I say, that what I have spoken was not
intended for your Lordships, whose situation I
commiserate rather than envy — my expressions
were for my countrymen — if there is a true
Irishman present, let my last words cheer him in
the hour of his affliction.
[Here he was again interrupted. Lord Norbury
said he did not sit there to hear treason.]
I have always understood it to be the duty of a
judge, when a prisoner has been convicted, to
pronounce the sentence of the law; I have also
understood that judges sometimes think it their
duty to hear with patience, and to speak with
humanity; to exhort the victim of the laws, and
to offer, with tender benignity, his opinion of
the motives by which he was actuated in the
crime of which he was adjudged guilty. That a
judge has thought it his duty so to have done, I
have no doubt; but where is the boasted freedom
of your institutions, where is the vaunted
impartiality, clemency, and mildness of your
courts of justice, if an unfortunate prisoner,
whom your policy and not your justice is about
to deliver into the hands of the executioner, is
not suffered to explain his motives sincerely
and truly, and to vindicate the principles by
which he was actuated?
My Lords, it may be a part of the system of
angry justice to bow a man's mind by humiliation
to the proposed ignominy of the scaffold; but
worse to me than the proposed shame, or the
scaffold's terrors, would be the shame of such
foul and unfounded imputations as have been laid
against me in this Court. You, my Lord, are a
judge. I am the supposed culprit. I am a man.
You are a man also; by a revolution of power we
might change places, though we never could
change characters. If I stand at the bar of this
Court and dare not vindicate my character, what
a farce is your justice!
If I stand at this
bar and dare not vindicate my character, how
dare you calumniate it? Does the sentence of
death, which your unhallowed policy inflicts
upon my body, also condemn my tongue to silence,
and my reputation to reproach? Your executioner
may abridge the period of my existence, but
while I exist I shall not forbear to vindicate
my character and my motives from your
aspersions. And as a man to whom fame is dearer
than life, I will make the last use of that life
in doing justice to that reputation which is to
live after me, and which is the only legacy I
can leave to those I honor and love, and for
whom I am proud to perish.
As men, my Lords,
we must appear, on the great day, at one common
tribunal and it will then remain for the
Searcher of all hearts to show a collective
universe, who was engaged in the most virtuous
actions, or actuated by the purest motive, my
country's oppressors, or —
[Here he was again
interrupted and told to listen to the sentence
of the law.]
My Lords, shall a
dying man be denied the legal privilege of
exculpating himself, in the eyes of the
community, of an undeserved reproach thrown upon
him during the trial, by charging him with
ambition, and attempting to cast away, for a
paltry consideration, the liberties of his
country? Why did your Lordships insult me, or
rather, why insult justice, in demanding of me
why sentence of death should not be pronounced
against me?
I know, my Lord,
that form prescribes that you should ask the
question. The form also implies the right of
answering. This, no doubt, may be dispensed
with; and so might the whole ceremony of the
trial, since sentence was already pronounced at
the Castle, before your jury was empanelled.
Your Lordships are but the priests of the
Oracle, and I submit. But I insist on the whole
of the forms.
[Here Mr. Emmet
paused and the Court desired him to proceed.]
I am charged with
being an emissary of France. An emissary of
France! And for what end? It is alleged that I
wished to sell the independence of my country!
And for what end? Was this the object of my
ambition? And is this the mode by which a
tribunal of justice reconciles contradictions?
No! I am no emissary. And my ambition was to
hold a place among the deliverers of my country,
not in power, nor in profit, but in the glory of
the achievement. Sell my country's independence
to France! And for what? For a change of
masters? No, but for ambition! Oh, my country!
Was it personal ambition that could influence
me? Had it been the soul of my actions, could I
not, by my education and fortune, by the rank
and consideration of my family, have placed
myself among the proudest of my country's
oppressors?
My country was my
idol. To it I sacrificed every selfish, every
endearing sentiment; and for it I now offer up
my life. Oh God! No, my Lord, I acted as an
Irishman, determined on delivering my country
from the yoke of a foreign and unrelenting
tyranny, and from the more galling yoke of a
domestic faction, which is its joint partner and
perpetrator in the patricide, for the ignominy
of existing with an exterior of splendor, and a
conscious depravity. It was the wish of my heart
to extricate my country from this doubly-riveted
despotism. I wished to place her independence
beyond the reach of any power on earth. I wished
to exalt her to that proud station in the world.
Connection with
France was, indeed, intended. But only as far as
mutual interest would sanction or require. Were
they to assume any authority inconsistent with
the purest independence, it would be the signal
for their destruction. We sought aid, and we
sought it as we had assurance we should obtain
it, as auxiliaries in war, and allies in peace.
Were the French to
come as invaders or enemies, uninvited by the
wishes of the people, I should oppose them to
the utmost of my strength. Yes, my countrymen, I
would meet them on the beach, with a sword in
one hand and a torch in the other. I would meet
them with all the destructive fury of war; and I
would animate my countrymen to immolate them in
their boats, before they had contaminated the
soil of my country. If they succeeded in
landing, and if forced to retire before superior
discipline, I would dispute every inch of
ground, burn every blade of grass before them,
and the last entrenchment of liberty should be
my grave. What I could not do myself, if I
should fall, I would leave as a last charge to
my countrymen to accomplish, because I should
feel conscious that life, any more than death,
is unprofitable when a foreign nation holds my
country in subjection.
But it was not as
an enemy that the succors of France were to
land. I looked, indeed, for the assistance of
France; but I wished to prove to France, and to
the world, that Irishmen deserved to be
assisted; that they were indignant at slavery,
and ready to assert the independence and liberty
of their country.
I wished to
procure for my country the guarantee which
Washington procured for America. To procure an
aid which, by its example, would be as important
as by its valor — disciplined, gallant, pregnant
with science and experience, who would preserve
the good and polish the rough points of our
character. They would come to us as strangers
and leave us as friends, after sharing our
perils and elevating our destiny. These were my
objects — not to receive new taskmasters, but to
expel old tyrants. These were my views, and
these only became Irishmen. It was for these
ends I sought aid from France, because France,
even as an enemy, could not be more implacable
than the enemy already in the bosom of my
country.
[Here he was
interrupted by the Court.]
I have been
charged with that importance in the efforts to
emancipate my country, as to be considered the
keystone of the combination of Irishmen, or, as
your Lordship expressed it, "the life and blood
of the conspiracy." You do me honor overmuch.
You have given to the subaltern all the credit
of a superior. There are men engaged in this
conspiracy, who are not only superior to me, but
even to your own conceptions of yourself, my
Lord; men, before the splendor of whose genius
and virtues I should bow with respectful
deference, who would think themselves dishonored
to be called your friends, and who would not
disgrace themselves by shaking your
blood-stained hand!
[Here he was again
interrupted.]
What, my Lord,
shall you tell me on the passage to that
scaffold which that tyranny — of which you are
only the intermediate executioner — has erected
for my murder, that I am accountable for all the
blood that has been and will be shed, in this
struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor?
Shall you tell me this, and must I be so very a
slave as not to repel it?
I do not fear to
approach the Omnipotent Judge, to answer for the
conduct of my short life. Am I to be appalled
and falsified here, before a mere remnant of
mortality? By you, too, who, if it were possible
to collect all the innocent blood that you have
caused to be shed in your unhallowed ministry,
in one great reservoir, your Lordship might swim
in it!
[Here the Judge
interfered.]
Let no man dare,
when I am dead to charge me with dishonor. Let
no man attaint my memory by believing that I
could have engaged in any cause but that of my
country's liberty and independence, or that I
could have become the pliant minion of power in
the oppression and the miseries of my
countrymen. The proclamation of the Provisional
Government speaks for our views. No inference
can be tortured from it to countenance barbarity
or debasement at home, or subjection,
humiliation, or treachery from abroad. I would
not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for
the same reason that I would resist the domestic
oppressor. In the dignity of freedom I would
have fought on the threshold of my country, and
its enemy should enter only by passing over my
lifeless corpse.
And am I — who
lived but for my country, and who have subjected
myself to the dangers of the jealous and
watchful oppressor, and the bondage of the
grave, only to give my countrymen their rights
and my country her independence — am I to be
loaded with calumny and not suffered to resent
or repel it? No, God forbid!
[Here Lord Norbury
told Mr. Emmet that his sentiments and language
disgraced his family and education, but more
particularly his father, Dr. Emmet, who was a
man, if alive, that would not countenance such
opinions.]
If the spirits of the illustrious dead
participate in the concerns and cares of those
who are dear to them in this transitory life —
oh, ever dear and venerated shade of my departed
Father, look down with scrutiny upon the conduct
of your suffering son and see if I have, even
for a moment, deviated from those principles of
morality and patriotism which it was your care
to instill into my youthful mind, and for which
I am now to offer up my life.
My Lords, you are impatient for the sacrifice,
the blood which you seek is not congealed by the
artificial terrors which surround your victim.
It circulates warmly and unruffled through the
channels which God created for noble purposes,
but which you are bent to destroy for purposes
so grievous that they cry to Heaven. Be ye
patient! I have but a few words more to say.
I am going to my
cold and silent grave. My lamp of life is nearly
extinguished. My race is run. The grave opens to
receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I have
but one request to ask at my departure from this
world — it is the charity of its silence. Let no
man write my epitaph, for as no man who knows my
motives dare now vindicate them. Let not
prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them
and me repose in obscurity and peace, and my
tomb remain uninscribed, until other times, and
other men, can do justice to my character. When
my country takes her place among the nations of
the earth, then, and not till then, let my
epitaph be written.
I have done.
More History
|
|
