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ber. At an early hour upon that morning the sentinel who watched in his room having approached to awaken him, found him with his throat cut across, and apparently expiring. A surgeon was immediately called, who, on examining the wound, pronounced it not mortal, though extremely dangerous; to which Mr. Tone faintly answered, "I find, then, I am but a bad anatomist." The wound was dressed, with the design of prolonging life till the hour of one o'clock, the time appointed for his execution. In the interval a motion was made in the court of King's Bench by Mr. Curran, on an affidavit of Mr. Tone's father, stating that his son had been brought before a bench of officers, calling itself a courtmartial, and by them sentenced to death. "I do not pretend to say," observed Mr. Curran, "that Mr. Tone is not guilty of the charges of which he was accused; I presume the officers were honourable men; but it is stated in the affidavit, as a solemn fact, that Mr. Tone had no commission under his majesty, and therefore no court-martial could have cognizance of any crime imputed to him, while the court of King's Bench sat in the capacity of the great criminal court of the land. In times when war was raging, when man was opposed to man in the field, courts martial might be endured; but every law authority is with me while I stand. upon this sacred and immutable principle of the constitution-that martial law and civil law are incompatible; and that the former must cease with the existence of the latter. This is not the time for arguing this momentous question. My client must appear in this court. He is cast for death this day. He may be ordered for execution while I address you. I call on the court to support the law. I move for a habeas corpus to be directed to the provostmarshal of the barracks of Dublin, and Major Sands to bring up the body of Mr. Tone."

Chief Justice.*"Have a writ instantly prepared."

* Lord Kilwarden.-0.

Mr. Curran." My client may die while this writ is preparing."

Chief Justice." Mr. Sheriff, proceed to the barracks, and acquaint the provost-marshal that a writ is preparing to suspend Mr. Tone's execution; and see that he be not executed.”

The Court awaited, in a state of the utmost agitation, the return of the Sheriff.

Mr. Sheriff." My lords, I have been at the barracks, in pursuance of your order. The provost-marshal says he must obey Major Sands. Major Sands says he must obey Lord Cornwallis."

Mr. Curran. "Mr. Tone's father, my lords, returns, after serving the habeas corpus: he says General Craig will not obey it."

Chief Justice." Mr. Sheriff, take the body of Tone into your custody. Take the provost-marshal and Major Sands into custody: and show the order of this court to General Craig."

Mr. Sheriff, who was understood to have been refused admittance at the barracks, returns. "I have been at the barracks. Mr. Tone, having cut his throat last night, is not in a condition to be removed. As to the second part of your order, I could not meet the parties."

A French emigrant surgeon, whom General Craig had sent along with the Sheriff, was sworn.

Surgeon."I was sent to attend Mr. Tone this morning at four o'clock. His windpipe was divided. I took instant measures to secure his life, by closing the wound. There is no knowing, for four days, whether it will be mortal. His head is now kept in one position. A sentinel is over him, to prevent his speaking. His removal would kill him."

Mr. Curran applied for further surgical aid, and for the admission of Mr. Tone's friends to him. Refused.

Chief Justice. "Let a rule be made for suspending the execution of Theobald Wolfe Tone; and let it be served on the proper person."

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The prisoner lingered until the 19th day of November, when he expired, after having endured the most excruciating pain;* and with his fate shall close the account of the part which Mr. Curran bore in the public transactions of this calamitous year.

* Mr. Tone had reached only his thirty-fourth year. His father was an eminent coachmaker in Dublin: he had sixteen children (thirteen sons and three daughters), of whom only five attained the age of maturity, and whose fates afford a singular instance of the wanderings and calamities of a single family. Theobald died as before related. Matthew was executed the same year, in Dublin barracks, for high treason: it is said that no more than five persons were present at the execution. William was killed in India, a major in Holkar's service. Arthur accompanied his brother Theobald to America; and was subsequently, at the early age of eighteen, appointed to the command of a frigate in the service of the Dutch republic: he is supposed to have perished at sea, as no account was ever after received of him. Mary was married to a foreign merchant, and died at St. Domingo. Their aged mother survives, and now [1819] resides in Dublin. After the death of Mr. Wolfe Tone, his widow and infant children were protected by the French republic; and, on the motion of Lucien Bonaparte, a pension granted for their support.-C.

CHAPTER XIII.

Effects of the Legislative Union upon Mr. Curran's mind-Speech in Tandy's case-Speech in behalf of Hevey-Allusion in the latter to Mr. Godwin-Mutual friendship of Mr. Curran and Mr. Godwin.

MR. CURRAN'S history, during the eight remaining years of his forensic life, consists almost entirely of the causes of interest in which he was engaged. He was no longer in Parliament when the question of the Union was agitated and carried. This measure, which he had always deprecated as ruinous and disgraceful to his country, completed those feelings of political despondency to which the scenes of the rebellion, and the uniform failure of every struggle to avert them, had been habituating his mind. With the Union, which he considered as "the extinction of the Irish name," all his long cherished hopes for Ireland vanished for ever. From this last shock to his affections and his pride he never recovered. It was ever after present to his imagination, casting a gloom over all his political speculations, and interfering with the repose of his private hours. This sensibility to what so many others bore with complacency as a mere national disaster, will, perhaps, be ridiculed as affected, or doubted as incredible; but those who best knew

*Years before, while in Parliament, he had thus predicted the results of an Union :"It is very easy to conceive, that in case of such an event the inevitable consequence would be, an union with Great Britain. And if any one desires to know what that would be, I will tell him: It would be the emigration of every man of consequence from Ireland; it would be the participation of British taxes without British trade; it would be the extinction of the Irish name as a people. We should become a wretched colony, perhaps leased out to a company of Jews, as was formerly in contemplation, and governed by a few tax-gatherers and excisemen, unless possibly you may add ƒiƒteen or twenty couple of Irish members, who might be found every session sleeping in their collars under the manger of the British Minister."-M.

JAMES NAPPER TANDY.

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him can attest the sincerity and extent of his affliction. It was so deep, that he began seriously to meditate a final departure from Ireland.* At one time he looked towards America, at another to the English bar; but the better influence of duties and old attachments prevailed over these suggestions of melancholy, and he remained to conclude his fortunes on the scene where they had commenced.

CASE OF JAMES NAPPER TANDY.

ONE of Mr. Curran's speeches, which has been omitted in all the editions of the published collection, was that in behalf of Mr. James Napper Tandy. Mr. Tandy had been a conspicuous member of the early societies of United Irishmen. In 1795, he was indicted for High Treason, and fled to the Continent, where he became an officer in the French service. He was one of the persons excluded from the benefit of the bill of general amnesty, which was passed after the suppression of the rebellion of 1798. The other particulars of his case may be sufficiently collected from Mr. Curran's statement. The trial took place in the King's Bench, before Lord Kilwarden and the other judges of that Court, on the 19th of May, 1800.

Mr. Curran (for the prisoner)." My lords, and you, gentlemen

"That country (as he observes in one of his latest speeches at the bar) of which I have so often abandoned all hope, and which I have been so often determined to quit for

ever

Sæpe vale dicto, multa sum deinde locutus,
Et quasi discedens oscula summa dabam,
Indulgens animo, pes tardus erat."

+ It is to be found in Davis's edition.-M.

Speech in Judge Johnson's Case.

Napper Tandy had been a merchant in Dublin, of good family, and became an active member of the Corporation fully twenty-five years before 1798. In the struggle for Irish Independence, he commanded the Artillery of the Volunteers, and had his guns cast with "Free Trade or else" upon them. He led the Radical party in the Corporation, in 1790, and was much mixed up with the United Irishmen from 1791. He fled to America, from prosecution, in 1794, left it in 1798, and headed the Irish Government's list of persons to be held as traitors, if they did not come in to be tried before December 1799. Eventually, he was seized at Hamburgh, (a neutral German city) deported to Ireland,

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