Page:A Memorial of John Boyle O'Reilly from the City of Boston.djvu/25

Rh of America than these great statesmen loved that which they had created and which they saw around them. We feel so much for him as a citizen that we almost forget he was born in another clime. He assimilated himself so perfectly amongst us that we hardly turned to remember that he came to us an exile, a fugitive, a man whom the oppressors of Great Britain had tried to brand as a felon, and to put the mark of ignominy upon him, because he was a patriot and loved his people.

The same spirit which actuated Sam Adams and John Hancock and all our great revolutionary sires when they rose to arms, burned within his breast, when, as a boy, he threw his life, his fortune, and his future into the cause of Ireland. They succeeded, and he failed, but was not crushed. I am reminded, too, of a marked and striking similarity between him and Lafayette. Lafayette threw his young sword and his boyhood, here, into the cause of liberty; O'Reilly did the same, not in Ireland, but for the liberty of Ireland.

Lafayette, in his struggle for the liberty of France, was captured and made a prisoner, and an effort was made to crush out his young life and to crush out liberty with him. Boyle O'Reilly, under similar circumstances, was made a prisoner in Australia for the same effort and the same purpose. Both escaped from prison, and I am proud to say that both owed to America the effort and organization that enabled them to escape. O'Reilly had a frank and genial