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tholic emancipation, amongst the foremost of whom we had the satisfaction to see several dissenting clergymen of great popularity in that country, as Sinclair Kilburne, Wm. Dixon, and T. Birch. It was William Sinclair who moved the two addresses. It is the less necessary for me to detail what passed at this period, as every thing material is recorded in my diary. Suffice it to say, that the hospitality shown by the people of Belfast to the Catholics, on this occasion, and the personal acquaintance which the parties formed, rivetted the bonds of their recent union, and produced in the sequel the most beneficial and powerful effects.

CONTINUATION

Of the Life of THEOBALD WOLFE TONE, by the Editor.

In the preceding abstract, written at Paris, from memory, and amidst the most anxious cares, my father brought down the narrative of his life to the middle of July, 1792. From thence, to his arrival in France, elapsed a space of upwards of three years. I feel it my duty to account and apologize for the scantiness of my materials relative to this period, perhaps the most interesting of his career. It was during that time that, young and unknown, acting against all the power and influence of a party, secure in the long enjoyment of unopposed usurpation and insolent authority, he roused the energies of his oppressed countrymen, and rallied the mass of the people, so long divided by conflicting interests and religious animosities, to assert their national independence.

From the moment he engaged in this cause, he made it a rule to consign in a diary, destined for the sole perusal of his most intimate friends and family, the passing events of the times, his comments upon them, and his own thoughts and actions. Of this spirited and lively journal, we yet possess, and now publish, (Vol. II.) the part which begins at his arrival in France, and extends to the date of the last expedition where he perished. But, on his departure from America, he left in my mother's hands that which contained the diary of his efforts in Ireland, whilst forming the society of the United Irishmen, and acting as Agent and Secretary to the Catholic sub

necessity of union amongst Irishmen of all religious persuasions; to support the emancipation of the Catholics; and, finally, as the necessary, though not avowed, consequence of all this, to erect Ireland into a republic, independent of England. This paper, which they called, very appositely, the Northern Star, was conducted by my friend Samuel Neilson, who was unanimously chosen editor, and it could not be delivered into abler hands. It is, in truth, a most incomparable paper, and it rose, instantly, on its appearance, with a most rapid and extensive sale. The Catholics every where through Ireland (I mean the leading Catholics) were, of course, subscribers, and the Northern Star was one great means of effectually accomplishing the union of the two great sects, by the simple process of making their mutual sentiments better known to each other.

It was determined by the people of Belfast to commemorate this year the anniversary of the taking of the Bastile with great ceremony. For this purpose they planned a review of the volunteers of the town and neighborhood, to be followed by a grand procession, with emblematical devices, &c. They also determined to avail themselves of this opportunity to bring forward the Catholic question in force, and, in consequence, they resolved to publish two addresses, one to the people of France, and one to the people of Ireland. They gave instructions to Dr. Drennan to prepare the former, and the latter fell to my lot. Drennan executed his task admirably, and I made my address. for my part, as good as I knew how. We were invited to assist at the ceremony, and a great number of the leading members of the Catholic committee determined to avail themselves of this opportunity to show their zeal for the success of the cause of liberty in France, as well as their respect and gratitude to their friends in Belfast. In consequence, a grand assembly took place on the 14th July. After the review, the volunteers and inhabitants, to the number of about 6,000, assem. bled in the Linen-Hall, and voted the address to the French people unanimously. The address to the people of Ireland followed, and, as it was directly and unequivocally in favor of the Catholic claims, we expected some opposition, but we were soon relieved from our anxiety, for the address passed, I may say, unanimously a few ventured to oppose it indirectly, but their arguments were exposed and overset by the friends to Ca

tholic emancipation, amongst the foremost of whom we had the satisfaction to see several dissenting clergymen of great popularity in that country, as Sinclair Kilburne, Wm. Dixon, and T. Birch. It was William Sinclair who moved the two addresses. It is the less necessary for me to detail what passed at this period, as every thing material is recorded in my diary. Suffice it to say, that the hospitality shown by the people of Belfast to the Catholics, on this occasion, and the personal acquaintance which the parties formed, rivetted the bonds of their recent union, and produced in the sequel the most beneficial and powerful effects.

CONTINUATION

Of the Life of THEOBALD WOLFE TONE, by the Editor.

In the preceding abstract, written at Paris, from memory, and amidst the most anxious cares, my father brought down the narrative of his life to the middle of July, 1792. From thence, to his arrival in France, elapsed a space of upwards of three years. I feel it my duty to account and apologize for the scantiness of my materials relative to this period, perhaps the most interesting of his career. It was during that time that, young and unknown, acting against all the power and influence of a party, secure in the long enjoyment of unopposed usurpation and insolent authority, he roused the energies of his oppressed countrymen, and rallied the mass of the people, so long divided by conflicting interests and religious animosities, to assert their national independence.

From the moment he engaged in this cause, he made it a rule to consign in a diary, destined for the sole perusal of his most intimate friends and family, the passing events of the times, his comments upon them, and his own thoughts and actions. Of this spirited and lively journal, we yet possess, and now publish, (Vol. II.) the part which begins at his arrival in France, and extends to the date of the last expedition where he perished. But, on his departure from America, he left in my mother's hands that which contained the diary of his efforts in Ireland, whilst forming the society of the United Irishmen, and acting as Agent and Secretary to the Catholic sub

committee. The experience of our former journey had proved what little respect was then paid by the British cruizers to the neutral American flag, and how unsafe it would have been to have carried such papers along with him.

When, at the close of the year 1796, my mother sailed from America to join him, the same reasons still existed. As he had left with Dr. Reynolds, of Philadelphia, an old friend and associate in his political career, an unlimited power of attorney to protect his family and manage their affairs in his absence, she trusted to his charge all our little property in America, amounting to some hundreds of pounds sterling, a select library of six hundred volumes, and, above all, my father's papers, essays, and manuscripts, including those journals, and enclosed in a strong corded and sealed trunk, of which she kept the key. I am pained to add, that this sacred trust, this pledge of confidence and of friendship, he violated by an unpardonable negligence. Neither during my father's life, nor after his death, could our repeated demands, nor our letters and messages, by the most respectable and confidential friends who went to America, procure any answer. At length, in the year 1807, when the state of my health compelled us to undertake a sea voyage, and we came to Philadelphia, we called the unfortunate man to an account: but he could give none; and, reduced by repeated and severe illness, was then tottering on the verge of life. What could we do? Serious as the sacrifice was, in our circumstances, we offered him a full release for the remainder of the property, if he could only put us in the way of recovering the papers. But it was all in vain, for he had them not; he begged me to search his house, and I found the trunk broken open, and empty. With a great deal of difficulty I recovered some fragments dispersed in different hands, and now published. But his journals of the most important and interesting years, of 1793, 1794, and 1795, were irrecoverably gone. The manuscripts of the numerous pamphlets and essays, which my father composed at that time—a great number of which were anonymous, and often ascribed to other hands as well as the materials of a philosophical and political history of Ireland, which he was then compiling, and had already begun to write, were also lost. Dr. Reynolds died within a few weeks, and we were obliged to give up all hopes of discovering them.

By this loss, inappreciable to our feelings, we are deprived of the means of tracing accurately my father's career during those three eventful years, in which he was constantly employed in supporting the spirit of union and independence in his country, and performing, as agent to the Catholic committees, those services which, by their parting vote of thanks, they declared "no gratitude could overrate, and no remuneration overpay." As it is not my purpose to write a history of Ireland, nor a political dissertation on the state of that country under its former, and never to be forgotten, nor forgiven, government, I will merely indicate, from my mother's recollections, and from the scanty materials which we have recovered, a few of those prominent events in which he was then engaged, and which may elucidate some passages in his subsequent memoirs.

Of the journals, which formed the most interesting part of this collection, we have recovered those of October, 1791, with some trifling fragments of an earlier date, those of July, August, September, October, and November, 1792, and part of January and February, 1793. My father states, in his own memoir, that he began to keep them regularly in 1791, when he engaged seriously in the politics of the day. From thence, they extended in a regular series to the middle of 1795, when he sailed for America; but all the remainder, though he frequently refers to them in his other writings, are irrecoverably lost. This loss may be partly supplied by a mutilated abstract of the operations of the General Committee and delegation which carried the petition of the Catholics to England, and of their subsequent negotiations with the Irish Government, from the beginning of December, 1792, to the end of April, 1793. This elegant and lucid report, which we will insert in this portion of his life, as it properly forms a continuation of it, will show how qualified he was to write that history of Ireland which he had begun, and of which it was probably destined to form a part.

Along with these papers, we have recovered his notes of the sittings of the Catholic General Committee, but in a very mutilated state, and written on flying scraps of paper during the debates, along with a few, relating to other periods of his life. These were the materials from whence his journals were afterwards written, when sitting, surrounded by his wife and children, as I yet remember him, in the evening leisure of his