Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/292

 unburied corpses. A population larger than that of some Free States of Europe was destroyed by these inhuman deaths.

The Prime Minister of England, looking upon the desolation which has made our country a graveyard and a lazar house, tells us that he will resist our just claims for the management of our own affairs with the sword of the Empire. How can we answer but with the sword of Ireland? If famine has weakened the right arm of the people it has not paralysed His arm who rules the destinies of battles and fights by the side of the oppressed. Shall we tamely submit to see the last remnant of the Irish race and name sacrificed to the greedy and insolent spirit of English dominion? With God's blessing, no. We will sustain our natural right to this island against all enemies. All Ireland, from sea to sea, is arming and organising to uphold and enforce this right. The example of popular success throughout Europe, the threatening aspect of foreign nations, the sympathy of the English masses, and the triumphant justice of our cause may give us a peaceful victory. Heaven send it! But if not my conscience is clear that we are able and entitled to take it. This is my belief. I seek no ingenious form of expression to shroud the naked thought. If we cannot save our country by peace, I am for war. And that we may save it by peace or war, I am for the universal arming and organisation of the people.

This was the concluding paragraph:—

"This was the creed of the Nation. I am entitled to answer for myself and my fellow-labourers alone; but I believe it is substantially the creed of the Irish Confederation. They do not demand Republicanism—they demand the legislative independence of Ireland, and will guard it jealously if it come by free negotiation. If independence must come by force, a Republic is inevitable and welcome. But in a free Parliament or a free Congress the rights of private property, the just rights of every class in the State will be sacred. I proclaimed at the opening of this movement, and I will practise to the end of it—to the last throes of revolution—a national amnesty; full forgiveness of the past—the quarrels of yesterday, the quarrels of three hundred years."

I had liberated my mind, it might be at the penalty of