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From regions of bliss-the high heaven above-
Where sorrows can never invade him,
He saw her distress, and he beckon'd his love
To ascend, and with joy she obeyed him.

And she who is joined to the spirit she mourned,
Now in bliss; 'tis in vain to deplore her;
For her mem'ry shall live in their bosoms inurned,
Who vowed even in death to adore her.

Whether hero, or lover, or else, matters not,
'Other times-other men shall divine him;'
Let him rest with his love, by the world forgot,

We have hearts large enough to enshrine him."*

In 1836, I received the following account from my fellowpassenger, Captain Masson, on board the Emerald, on our Voyage to America, of his intimate friend and brother-officer in Egypt, Captain Sturgeon :

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ant.

Captain Henry Sturgeon, of the Royal Staff Corps, joined the Royal Artillery the 4th of April, 1796, a second lieutenHe continued in the Artillery till 1803, when he was appointed to a company in the Royal Staff Corps. He was in the expedition to Egypt. He commanded two six-pounders on the 8th of March, 1801. He was an active intelligent officer. He was wounded in the action of the 13th of March."

Captain Masson believes him to have been born in France. His mother was a daughter of Lord Fitzwilliam, and had eloped with his father. An elder brother of his was born in France. His means were ample-at least, he always appeared to have money at his command; it was said he was the natural son of a distinguished nobleman. Captain Sturgeon was of middle size, a smart, active man, a very penetrating eye, pleasing smile, and of elegant address; altogether of a very prepossessing appearance. When in Egypt, he was about twenty-four years of age. On his return to England, he was appointed to the Horse Artillery; subsequently he was quartered at Canterbury with Captain Masson till he was appointed to the Staff Corps. He was killed in Spain, either in Cuidad Rodrigo or Badajoz. In the Duke of Wellington's despatches I find "Major Sturgeon of the Royal Staff Corps," at the storming

* These lines I found appended to a copy of Robert Emmet's speech, printed in Paris on a single sheet.

of Cuidad Rodrigo, particularly noticed in the despatch dated the 20th of January, 1812; in several preceding ones, his services are also made honourable mention of. He was killed in the engagement near Vie Begorre, in 1813.

CHAPTER XVI.

ON Tuesday, the 20th of September, the day of the execution of Robert Emmet, he was visited by Mr. Leonard M'Nally, the barrister, at ten o'clock in the morning, who, on entering the room where Emmet had the indulgence of remaining all that morning in the company of the Rev. Dr. Gamble, the ordinary of Newgate, found him reading the Litany of the service of the Church of England. Permission

was given to him to retire with M'Nally into an adjoining room, and on entering it, his first inquiry was after his mother, whose health had been in a declining state and had wholly broken down under the recent affliction which had fallen on her. M'Nally, hesitating to answer the inquiry, Robert Emmet repeated the question, "How is my mother?" M'Nally, without replying directly, said, "I know, Robert, you would like to see your mother." The answer was, "Oh! what would I not give to see her!" M'Nally, pointing upwards, said, Then, Robert, you will see her this day!" and then gave him an account of his mother's death, which had taken place on the previous day. Emmet made no reply; he stood motionless and silent for some moments, and said, "It is better so." He was evidently struggling hard with his feelings, and endeavouring to suppress them. He made no further allusion to the subject, but by expressing a confident hope that he and his mother would meet in heaven." The preceding particulars were communicated to me by Emmet's early friend, who was then an inmate of Kilmainham jail, Mr. P. An account

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of this interview with "the friend who was permitted to visit him the morning of his execution"-(the name of M'Nally is not mentioned)-was published in the London Chronicle, a ministerial paper, September 24-27. From the peculiar re

lation in which M'Nally stood to the Government (of which he was the secret pensioned agent at the time he was acting as the confidential adviser and advocate of the State prisoners-picking the brains of his duped clients for his official employers,)* the account of this interview must have been published with the sanction of Government; probably by its immediate direction, with the view of serving the character of Lord Hardwicke's administration. The main facts of this account may be considered as correctly stated, and giving faithfully the opinions of Robert Emmet on the subject "of the one thing needful," at the close of his career, with such modifications of his sentiments on other matters as were thought essential to the objects of government. In this account it is stated that Robert Emmet, after expressing some feelings of annoyance at having been searched in the dock, on the preceding evening, as if they suspected him of designing to commit suicide, he reprobated the act of self destruction as one of an unchristian character. He professed to "hold the tenets of religion as taught by the Established Church." He solemnly declared, "his hopes of salvation were not on any merits of his, but through the mediation of the Saviour, who died an ignominious death on the cross. With these sentiments he said it would be absurd to suppose him capable of suicide. What had he to apprehend more than death? And as to the obloquy attached to the mode of death, it could but little affect him, when he considered that Sydney and Russell bled on the scaffold in a similar cause. With respect to his political sen

*The deception practised on Curran by this gentleman was most strikingly and revoltingly exhibited in January, 1798, at the trial of Patrick Finney. MacNally had successfully adopted a suggestion of his colleague to speak against time, in order to give time to produce a witness to invalidate the testimony of the witness, O'Brien. MacNally made a speech remarkably able for its inordinate length, and there was sufficient time expended on its delivery to have the witness sought for, and brought into Court. Curran, in his address to the jury, alluding to the able statement of his friend, giving way to the impulse of his generous feelings, threw his arm over the shoulder of MacNally, and said with evident emotion. "My old and excellent friend, I have long known and respected the honesty of your heart, but never, until this occasion, was I acquainted with the extent of your abilities; I am not in the habit of paying compliments, where they are undeserved." -Tears fell from Mr, Curran as he hung over his friend and pronounced those few and simple words.-Curran's Life.

timents, he could only reassert what he had urged in court. That a separation of this kingdom from Great Britain was his supreme wish; an object which he was conscious could be effected without the aid of France. The measure of connection with France, though urged and adopted by others of the provisional government, he was never a friend to; nor did the plan now accomplished, of having sent an ambassador to France, to negociate for that species of temporary alliance, which Dr. Franklin had obtained for America, ever meet his approbation. He observed, that had he not been interrupted by the court, in the address he thought it necessary to make, he would have spoken as warm an eulogium on the candour and moderation of the present government in this kingdom, as his conception or language were adequate to. When he left this country it was at a period when a great portion of the public mind, particularly that of the party to whom he attached himself, had been violently exasperated at certain harsh proceedings attributed to the administration then in power, for some time previous to the last rebellion. On his recent arrival in this country, he conceived that the measures of the present government must have been nearly similar, until experience convinced him of his mistake. For the polite concessions afforded him, of a private communication with his friend, he expressed his thanks, and would retain a grateful sense of it during the few hours destined for him to live. He exulted at the intelligence of his mother's death, an aged lady, who died since his apprehension, without his hearing of that event, and expressed a firm confidence of meeting with her in a state of eternal bliss, where no separation could take place." A slight discrepancy between the two accounts will be noticed, with respect to the manner that Robert Emmet received the account of his mother's death, and the period likewise of that event. In the first statement no exultation was said to have been expressed by Emmet, and no such ill timed expression, I am convinced, was made, and no such feeling was entertained by him. The period of his mother's death was said to be the day preceding the son's execution. In the latter account the event is spoken of as having taken place since his apprehension, from which it might be inferred it had occurred at an earlier period. But it is not likely the intelligence would not

have reached Robert Emmet, through some channel in the prison, previous to M'Nally's visit.

The death of this amiable exemplary, and high minded lady, whose understanding was as vigorous, as her maternal feelings were strong and ardent, took place at a country residence of the late Dr. Emmet, on the Donnybrook road, at the rear of the Hospital of the Society of Friends. She survived her husband about one year; and, evidently, like the mother of the Sheares's, was hurried to her grave by the calamity which had fallen on her youngest son, who it was vainly hoped, was to have occupied; it could not have been expected he would have filled the vacant place of his brother, Thomas Addis, in the house, and in the hearts of his afflicted parents; of that brother who had been no less vainly looked up to, after the loss of their gifted son Christopher Temple Emmet, with the feelings which animated the Lacedemonian mother when one of her sons had fallen fighting for his country, and looking on the last of them then living she said "ejus locum expleat frater." and that son was taken from them, incarcerated for four years, and doomed to civil death. Thomas Addis Emmet was then

a proscribed man in exile. The father had sunk under the trial, although he was a man of courage and equanimity of mind; but the mother's last hope in her youngest child, sustained in some degree her broken strength and spirit, and that one hope was dashed down, never to rise again when the pride of her life, the prop of her old age was taken from her, and the terrible idea of his frightful fate became her one fixed thought, from the instant the dreadful tidings of his apprehension reached her, till the eve of the crowning catastrophe, when in mercy to her she was taken away from her great misery.

Orangemen of Ireland, and you who were their patrons and protectors in England, behold your work,—your triumphsand the power of the terror of your vaunted rule, in the desolation of the home of this aged virtuous couple, the ruin in which their children were involved, the banishment of one of the brightest ornaments of his profession, and the ignominious death of another, and the last of the illustrious race of Emmet. These are your achievements, miserable infatuated faction, and still more miserable and demented protectors ! What have you gained by all the sufferings you have caused, by all the wrongs which your priviliged licentiousness, and the injustice.

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