Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/151

 what the reformers of Victoria had won for their colony. Victorians were not contented with having their affairs managed in a distant city by ill-informed or indifferent persons, and why should Irishmen be content? The Australians had succeeded and the Irish had failed, but let them not forget that they succeeded mainly by the aid of two potent allies, with whose aid Ireland also would have succeeded the Atlantic and the Pacific. As respects the invitation to a public banquet, I had left home intending as soon as I felt strong enough to resume the practice of my profession, and this was still my purpose, but it was not in my nature to be indifferent to public interests or sink into any sordid apathy. I therefore gladly accepted an invitation which gave me an opportunity of becoming more familiar with the public men and interests of the colony.

The dinner was a notable success. Two hundred persons was the largest number for which accommodation could be found, and an overflow dinner had to be provided for in another chamber. Mr. O'Shanassy presided, and the attendance was very representative of the community. Of my speech I need only notice one paragraph, of which I never was allowed to hear the end: "I recognised," I said, "that this was not Ireland but Australia—Australia, where no nationality need stand on the defensive, for there was fair play for all. In such a land I could be, what I believed nature intended me to be if national injustice and fraud had not turned my blood into gall, a man who lent a willing and cheerful obedience to the laws, as the guardian of public and private rights, and who desired no more than to be permitted to live in peace under their protection. But let me not be misunderstood," I added. "I am not here to repudiate or apologise for any part of my past life. I am still an Irish rebel to the backbone and to the spinal marrow. A rebel for the same reason that John Hampden and Algernon Sydney, that George Washington and Charles Carroll of Carroltown were rebels—because tyranny has supplanted law in my native country. I would not be tempted by all the gold in Australia to repudiate my share in a struggle which was as just and holy a one as ever was lost or won in this world. But having been a good Irishman in my old home