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 A SHOfiT SKETCH 
 
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 OF THB 
 
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 rOB. MOMTRKAL (WEST), LATE M1NI8XKR OB> AORICULTUHK AND IMSIIORATION 
 FOB CANADA, &C., &C., &C 
 
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 HENRY J. O'C. CLARKE, Q.C. 
 
 ^♦-♦-♦< 
 
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 PRINTED BY JOHN L O V E L L, g x. NICHOLAS STREET 
 
 1868. 
 
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 ►♦-♦-♦< 
 
 Sir, 
 
 From among tho thousands of !di»©w« ft-ienOs of the late 
 Hon. Thomas D'Arcy McGee in Canada, I beg leave to dediaatc this 
 «mple '' Sketch of Ms Life" to you, whose friendship he valued above 
 all others, and well he might, for a more manly, sincere, disinterested 
 friend he never had, and no other man ever could have in this world. 
 
 As an Irishman, I feel that it is an honour paid to his memory, who 
 was my friend, to acknowledge, even in this humble manner, your liberal 
 and firm support, as a friend and constituent of our great Irish Cana- 
 dian ^States3ian AND Orator, of whom we are so proud, tiirou^ 
 good report and evil report, during liis brilliant political career in 
 Canada, up to the time of his sad and sorrowful death. 
 
 Ever faithfully your obdt. servt. 
 
 Henry J. O'C. Clarke. 
 
 Montreal, 1st December, 18G8. .' ^ 
 
I 
 
 1 
 
 >^ -'J 
 
 ) 
 

 Part I. 
 
 " Ilis life was go'itlp, and tlio Plemonts 
 So minglcnl in him, that nature nti^lit ^tand up 
 And say to all the world, 37//.^ vasi a man.'" 
 
 SHAKESI'EAKK. 
 
 f 
 
 FAR away t'rom that glorious, but unhappy Isle, where he dreamt 
 away the bright fleeting hours of his childhooJ ; ftir away i'roni 
 tho home of his clearest hopes, of his highest aspirations ; far away 
 from the green church-yard where the white ashes of his revered parents 
 lie clasped in the friendly embrace of the land of their birth ; in the 
 new world, far over the sea, in the land of his adoption, high up on the 
 sunny side of beautiful " Mount I^oyal,^^ which, sloping towards the far- 
 famed St. Lawrence, laves its foot in the limpid waters of the inajestic 
 rirer, overlooking the beautiful city of Montreal; where for years his 
 voice was the most potent, his smile the most friendly, his influence in 
 all thao was most noble, patriotic, and good, was most felt, sleeps the 
 greatest pcet, orator, statesman, historian, the best, the trutst friend, coun- 
 sellor, and guide of the Irish race in America. His grave is bedewed by 
 a young nation's tears; his memory lives, and shall live in that young 
 nation's heart ; his name and fame will cast lustre on the pnges nf her 
 history, and his life labours will stand forth as an example worthy of 
 emulation to future millions. 
 
 Thomas D'Arcy McGec was not descended from a long line of noble 
 ancestors; no human power or patent secured to him a noble name or 
 hereditary estate; he was simply the son of an honest man, and a truly 
 good woman, and the pat,ent which ennobled him was the gift of God him- 
 self. He was born at Carlingford, Ireland, on the 13th of April, 1825 ; 
 
c 
 
 his father wa.s at the time employed in the coast guard service, in which 
 he continued to the time of his death, which took place about two years 
 ago (1867) ; his father's name was James McGec. While stationed at 
 Belfast he made the ■xcquaiutancc of and married Miss Dorcas Morgan ; 
 they removed, in a short time after their union, to Carliiigford, where 
 the subject of our sketch was born. Both on the father and mother's 
 side, Mr. McGce was descended from families remarkable for their devo- 
 tion to the cause of Ireland ; his mother's grandfather was one of the 
 most active men of the rebellion of 1798, as was also his father's 
 brother ; and, with the exception of his father, all the men of the families 
 on both sides, were " United Irishmen," During the time of that dread- 
 ful rebellion, the giandfather of Mr. McGce'.s mother was for a long time 
 held a state prisoner ; and although he escaped with his life, all his pro- 
 perty was swept away, and the family in consequence became in>pover- 
 ished, but not to such a degree as to prevent the mother of IMr. McGee 
 from receiving a very good education. She was a woman of unusual 
 refinement, and of deep religious feeling; her great object was to instill 
 into the minds of her children their duty to God, first, and next to 
 instruct them in the rucimcnts of a sound English education. An 
 Irisliwoman in heart and feeling, she impressed on her first born son that 
 undying love for Ireland which clung to hiiu throughout his life. In 
 1833 Mr. James McGcc was ordered to Wexford, and there in that year 
 ho lost his wife. Thomas D'Arcy was then only eight years of age, but 
 so well had his good mother laboured to improve his mind, that at that 
 tender age, although he had never spent a day at school, he was very^far 
 advanced for a child of his years, not only in the rudiments of learning, 
 but the substantial foundation of a moral and religious education had 
 also been laid in his youthful mind, and those lessons learnt in his early 
 childhood at his mother's knee, impressed on his memory by his good 
 mother's example and precept, were never forgotten'in his after life. Amid 
 the storms and whirlwinds of revolution and party strife, amid the trials, 
 pleasures, victories, disappointments and dangers which marked his most 
 eventful career, his mother's early lessons of piety deeply impressed on 
 his child's lieart with her smiles and tears, were ever present to his mind, 
 and influenced, in a marked degree, the conduct of his whole life. After 
 his mother's death Thomas was put to school, and it is needless to say, 
 was remarked for the ease and rapidity with which he mastered his 
 lessons and outstripped his comrades in the various branches taught in the 
 Wexford school. Mr. McGee never had i regular classical education ; his 
 father could not afford him the opportunity from his very limited means ; 
 and a man endowed with less talent than him would never, with the scanty 
 
 \ 
 
 • i 
 
 * 
 
means of acquiring knowledge at his commanil, have risen above medio- 
 crity ; but great minds burst the chains which would confine lesser ones, 
 and freeing tliomselves, soar far above the slavery of circumstances, of 
 birth, and opportunity, and in their flight upwards scatter lessons of wis- 
 dom which tond to improve mankind and to illustrate the power of the 
 Creator. Select the greatest names recorded cf the rulers, instructors, or 
 benefactors of mankind, those names which I ong to no one nationality 
 or creed, but which arc the common property of the human family ; the 
 brightestlights of civilization, the great moralists, the good Samaritans of 
 our race ; the great reformers of the world, the great discoverers ; those 
 men who have almost annihilated time and space, and rendered the earth, 
 the air^ and the waters, the slaves of man ; those philosophers who have, 
 as it were, turned nature inside out in their researches after all that is 
 useful, profitable, or instructive ; — and you wilHind that their Oxford or 
 Cambridge was a hill side, a workshop, or r <rarret ; their library the great 
 book of nature, fresh from the hand of the mighty printer, who has im- 
 pressed on its pages all that is instructive, lovely, awful, or sublime; 
 their instructor, the spirit of omnipotence, leforc which all that was 
 earthy in their nature beeauie subservient to the God-like principle im. 
 planted in their souls and among their fellow men ; they become the 
 chosen instruments of God to advance and elevate the human family. 
 
 While still a boy at school Thomas became a member of a Juvenile 
 Temperance Society, established by Father Mathew, in Wexford, and he 
 soon became a prominent member. Never, in all his future glorious 
 career, did the statesman or orator feel the same glow of pride that he did 
 as a boy, when the great apostle of Temperance patted him on the head 
 and praised his first effort at public speaking, before a large audience at a 
 temperance meeting. The ice was broken, the unlocked treasures of his 
 great mind began to pour forth, and the boy orator charmed his fellow 
 members with his speeches in the cause of temperance during the follow- 
 ing three years — so that liis earliest eiforts were devoted to the advance- 
 ment and happiness of liis fellow-men. Who can say, may not the 
 bread thus cast on the waters in his early youth have returned to liim 
 after many days. During the years '40, '41 and '42, till he left Ireland, 
 the speeches of " little Tommy McGee^' were looked forward to as a great 
 treat at the temperance gatherings in Wexford, and he had advanced the 
 cause of temperance very greatly by his fresh youthful eloquence. Al- 
 though only in his 17th year, young McGee had already begun to feel 
 keenly the hopeless condition of his country; he had heard aii the most 
 celebrated Irishmen of chat most exciting time speak on the position and 
 hopeless prospects of his beloved country. He had devoured every book 
 
8 
 
 ho could lay his hands on that opened up to him the lories, tho 
 triumphs or the beauties of her history— -he had wept over her deep 
 misfortunes, and grown palo with just indipniation at her mis-govern- 
 ment and oppression ; ho was an anxious spectator of tho ;j;reat Repeal 
 movement, and could scarcely curb his strong desire to plunge 
 into tho wild excitement of the day; for his dreams were of his 
 country, her advancement tho throat object of his life, to achieve somo 
 victory for her his greatest ambition. Soon he became convinced that there 
 was no prospect of his hope being realized by his remaining at home. 
 What then! must he leave HOME? must )ic leave IRELAND? The 
 very thought was dreadful, the struggle long and hard ; l)is sisters, his 
 brothers, all ! must be left behind ; but while the brave boy was struggling 
 with his feelings, the linger of destiny was waiving him onward to tho 
 future field of his labours, of his victories ; imperceptibly but steadily ho 
 was impelled forward ; within his breast was a mine of wealth with which 
 to enrich future generations, but tho ore must pass through the refining 
 process of hard experience to rid it of the dross of local prejudice and in- 
 experience which incased it; the Laboratory of the Great World must be 
 employed to prepare the glowing youth for the work before him ; he must 
 first pass through the ordeal of hopes deferred, and plaii^*, the offspring of 
 impetuous youth and inexperience-defeated. The hour for his departure is 
 at hand ; with a bursting heart he kneels for the last time, at his mother's 
 grave ; how fervently he prays for guidance and strength, how solemn must 
 have been that moment, and yet even in that solemn moment IRELAND 
 is uppermost in his mind, her oauso as he then understood, or rather 
 misunderstood it, is the great object uppermost in his heairt, and there at 
 that moment, the most deeply solemn of his life, he pledges himself to 
 devote his life to the cause of his country. The last kiss to his sisters, the 
 last embrace to his brothers is soon given, and with his sorrowing father's 
 blessing for his safety, his only fortune he embarked for America on the 
 Sthdayof April, 1842. 
 
 What the feelings of that young Irish boy were as he stood on the 
 ship's deck and saw his idolised country fading from his view, cannot bo 
 felt by any one of a less warm and enthusiastic nature ; one great object, 
 however, upheld him, consoled him, for his present severance from his 
 country and family. Was he not sailing to that land where Liberty had 
 permanently erected her THRONE ; was he not speeding to America to 
 breathe the pure air of freedom under the magic influence of that glorious 
 flag studded with stars, which proclaims Welcome, Protection, Liberty 
 and equal rights to the down-trodden (White ?) millions living in slavery 
 in the worn-out monarchies of the old world. What bright dre'ims, what 
 
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9 
 
 « 
 
 glorious visions of the flowery future fill the ar^ont mind of the youngs 
 enthusiast during the voyage to America. Droom on, hoy ; enjoy your 
 hright dreams while yuu may ; too soon, alas ! your aerial structures will 
 be shattered into splinters, and as you stand amid the sad, hard realities 
 of Niativcism, Know-nothing i am and anti-Trishism, striving to stem the 
 seething current of illiberality, bigotry and injustice which threatens to 
 overwhelm your countrymen and co-religionists 'n the Laud of Liberty, 
 you will weep over those happy visions of your boyhood, and repent the 
 generous but rash impulses of your youth and early manhood. 
 
 It is a strange coincidence in the life of Mr. McGec, that although ho 
 left Ireland for the United States, ho passed through Canada on his way 
 thifher, and often in conversation with the writer, has ho described the 
 deep impression made on his mind by the magnificence and grandeur of 
 the scenery of the river St. Lawrence as ho sailed up to Quebec, his 
 astonishment on visiting the fortifications of the Canadian Gibraltar, how 
 favourably ho was impressed with the appearance and prosperity of the 
 city of Montreal, how often has he not laughed at the deep regret ha felt 
 that so splendid a country should be subject to the hated power of Great 
 Britain, and its population crushed under the " iron heet, " of the op- 
 pressor of his race — the boy was still dreaming. 
 
 Passing through Canada he went on to Providence, R.I., where ho 
 met a hearty welcome from his aunt. After spending a few days witii her 
 he started for Boston and arrived there a few days before the fourth of 
 Juhf, 1842. 
 
 The glorious fourth, In Bosto" burst on the mind of the young 
 enthusiast with all its grandeur of music, firing of guns, and noisy display, 
 and as he stood and heard the ^' orator^' of the day deliver his fixed 
 speech, after the reading of the Declaration of Independence before the 
 assembled multitude gathered in front of Faneuil Hall, he was so carried 
 aw by the glowing description of the freedom and equality secured 
 to f^e down-trodden of the world by the constitution of the United 
 States, that after the speaker had concluded, the boy orator mounted on the 
 front seat of a cart and poured forth such a stream of fervid oratory and 
 honeyed eloquence as produced a marked effect on the great multitude. 
 For over half an hour the sea of upturned faces listened to the youth and 
 drank in the soul-stirring words as they fell from his lips ; the applause 
 which greeted him was most enthusiastic, and he who stood in that vast 
 multitude a short time before a total str;. iger, unknown and friendless, 
 at the close of his first effort on American soil found himself surrounded 
 by ten thousand friends. Who is he ? was the question asked from one 
 to another, but none could tell. " Oh !" said one in the crowd, " he is u 
 
10 
 
 ill! 
 
 i ! I 
 
 little curly headed Paddy !" "I wish to God, then," repKed another, " that 
 such little curly headed Paddies as that would come to us by whole ship 
 loads, any country may feel proud of that youth." The man who last spoke 
 is the present General B. Butler, and he himself related the circumstances 
 above mentioned to the brother of that "little curly headed Paddy," 
 Col. James McGee, when they met on the field during the late war. 
 
 On the morning following the fourth, young McGee, before staiang on 
 his return to R.I., entered the store of the proprietor of the " Boston 
 Pilot" to purchase a book to read on the way, and was immeuiately 
 recognized by the proprietor, who asked him if he was not the young man 
 whe had spoken the day before. Mr. McGee replied in the affirmative ; a 
 conversation ensued, which led to his being offered a position on the 
 Fifot ; he accepted and entered on his new duties at once. During the fol- 
 lowing year he was engaged as travelling agent and special correspondent, 
 and while so occupied he had the opportunity of lecturing in all the principal 
 places which he visited, and although so young, his eloquent and masterly 
 manner of handling his subjects, won the admiration and applause of 
 thousands. At the end of the year he had so impressed the proprietors 
 of the Pilot with his ability, and had so materially advanced the in crests 
 and character of the paper, that he was offered the position and engaged 
 as editor jointly with the late Mr. Walter J. Walsh. Now indeed com- 
 menced that brilliant career as a journali^it which soon placed him in 
 the highest and foremost rank of the " fourth estate " on the American 
 continent. His writings were fresh, brilliant and telling ; his pen soon be- 
 came the dread of the enemies of his country and race in the United 
 States; his boyish dreams were melting away before the heat of Re- 
 publican Liherty, before the illiberality of Know Nothingism, before the 
 cant and hypocrisy of Puritanical New England. Who having read 
 his articles published in the Boston Pilot of that day, does not remember 
 the deep Jiipression they productu on the public mind ? Those were tne 
 times when the Pilot waa looked upon as the great exponent of Irish 
 views ; it was read in ev)ry part of the Unite''. States and British America 
 as an authority on all matters connected with the interests of the Irish 
 peoplf , and on the great questions of the tin? 3. Repeal, in the columns of 
 the Pilot, was advocated and defended in a most masterly manner, and the 
 enemies of the cause detested, whilst the Repealers, that is to say, the whol^ 
 Irish people in America read it with enthusiasm and clung to its teachings 
 as to Gospel truth. Mr. McGee stiil found time to deliver lectures on a 
 great diversity of subjects directly or remotely connected with Ireland 
 and the advancement of the Irish cause, and nothing more conclusive need 
 be said as to the great success which rewarded his efforts in that most 
 
11 
 
 diflficult career, than to state the simple fact, that he was hailed by all 
 parties as oue of the most popular lecturers of the day — that day when 
 such men as GILES held vast audiences in charmed admiration, when 
 BROWNSON spoke to men's souls and held thousands spellbound with 
 his profound subjects. It was in fact the very strongest test of the young 
 lecturer's eloquence and ability that can well be imagined, and he proved 
 himself equal to the occasion, and established a name as a lecturer which 
 will live. In the meantime Mr. McGee's fame as a journalist had extended 
 far beyond the reach of his voice as a lecturer ; in the heart of Great 
 Britain he was not unknown, his writings were read and discussed in the 
 clubs, and the leading men of the day looked to the columns of the Boston 
 Pilot for authority on the Irish questioi; as viewed in America. Yet dearer 
 to the young Irish exile's heart was the knowledge that in the capital of his 
 beloved home, his efforts were known, felt and appreciated ; at the Repeal 
 meetings the great chief O'Connell referred to them with pride and grati- 
 tude as the " inspired writings of a young exiled Irish boy in America." 
 And in the home of his heart's best devotion the name of Thomas D'Arcy 
 McGee was greeted with cheers by his gi'ateful countrymen. The great 
 Ilepeal meetings in Ireland gave the government of the day a great deal 
 of uneasiness ; Daniel O'Connell was looked upon with aversion if not 
 with actual dread. At his call thousands and tens of thousands could be, 
 and often were, assembled at any given point to hear the greatest and 
 most successful political agitator the world ever saw. Monarchs 
 and kings can command, with she force at their disposal, the 
 attention and submission of their subjects; but Daniel O'Connell's 
 tongue was the only force at his command, and such was the power 
 with which he wielded that two-edged sword, that with it ak e he 
 controlled millions of people who had faith and trust in him ; and such 
 was his influence that he could at any moment lead to the field of battle 
 a million of his people ; such was not his object, nor did he ever, during 
 his long political life, even recommend any other course than that of peace 
 and recourse to legal measures only to secure the great object of his 
 labours. He secured Catholic Emancipation by legal means, and he 
 had every jiope of securing " Tlie Repeal of the Union" in the same 
 manner, but the folly of the Young Ireland Party defeated his 
 plans. It is needless to say that the government was anxiously on the 
 watch for an opportunity to get rid of O'Connell at Icp.st for a time — if 
 they could not manage to send him away for life. The Castle people 
 became alarmed at the almost superhuman power and influence he ex- 
 ertc'- over the Irish nation. What was to be done? He must be got 
 rid of in some way, this being the desire of the government. The 
 
:!ii 
 
 government did not take long to make an opportunity ; and as might 
 be expected, O'Connell was tried, he was convicted, as a matter of 
 course, the government of that day in Ireland knew well how to manage 
 jury trials, and he was imprisoned. The news of his imprisonment 
 aroused the deep indignation of all classes of society at home and 
 abroad ; it was an admission of weakness on the part of the govern- 
 ment. The news sped far r^nd wide, and whilst a cry of despair at 
 the temporary loss of their leader arose from the hearts of the millions 
 of Irishmen at home, the cry was taken up in America by the Irish 
 there, who were backed up by the hypocritical Republicans, who pre- 
 tended friendship for Ireland and Irishmen, while they were in reality 
 only striving — as mortal enemies of England — to madden their Irish 
 fellow citizens on, if need be, to their own destruction. The Yankee had 
 no love for Irishmen, nor sympathy for ''icir cause; the secret object of 
 the Yankee was to satisfy his personal hatred of Great Britain. On none 
 did the sad news fall with greater force than on our young Irish editor in 
 Boston. At all the public meetings, he spoke with deep feeling, whilst his 
 burning condemnation, in the columns of the " Boston Pilot,'' of the out- 
 rage offered to his great countryman, and to the cause of which he was the 
 life and soul, produced a most profound sensation. Its effect was not cun- 
 llned to the United States and British America ; it was deeply felt in Great 
 Britain and Ireland, the leading men of the day read it with attention. So 
 deep was the impression made on the mind of Mr., now Sir John Gray, who 
 was at that time at the helm of the -' Freeman's JournaV in Dublin, so 
 struck wa.^ he with the power and force of the arguments used, so elated 
 at the deadly effect of the bitter sarcasms and pointed home thrusts 
 launched at the government of the day, that he immediately wrote to Mr. 
 IMcGee, offering him a position as Editor of the " Freeman s Journal." 
 What joy to the heart of the young Irish exile — his country calls for his 
 assistance. Now must soon begin to dawn the day of her prosperity, for 
 surely the darkest hour of her history is the present. Her legal rights 
 trampelled under foot, her only legal means to regain those rights denied 
 her, whilst her greatest champion is consigned to a prison like a 
 malefactor who had stolen his neighbour's goods or taken his neighbour's 
 life, his only crime being that he dared to exercise the rights and privileges 
 of a British subject, and to claim at the foot of the throne, for himself and 
 for his country, those rights which are secured to every British subject 
 by British law. Yes, I repeat it, in no other country are the ights of 
 the subject more thoroughly secured than in England, but I shame to say 
 it, English law was perverted by Irish officials, and the country groaned 
 under the unnatural pressure of her miseries. Here was a glorious work 
 
lift 
 
 for youug McGee, tc assist in relieving his country. Mr. Gray's offer, so 
 flattering, was gladly accepted, and bidding adieu to America and his 
 thousands of friends, the youthful Journalist, not ynt twenty, sailed for 
 his native land in 1845. ' > /' i - > • » :. ; 5 o- 
 
 't'i. 
 
 ■'■'<(■>■ 
 
 r\RT IT. - 
 
 ON his arrival in Dublin, Mr. McGec was received with every mark of 
 respect and friendship by the leading men of the Irish party ; Mr. 
 Gray, however, not being at the moment prepared to give up to him the 
 editorial chair of " The Freeman,^^ he was sent ^o London, as the special 
 correspondent of that journal. There he had every opportunity of becoming 
 thoroughly acquainted with the Tfish members of parliament, and with 
 their views on Irish matters. It was at a time when the Irish people were 
 living in a perpetual round of the greatest excitement : Repeal was their 
 watchword; and O'Connell their idol, the National heart was throbbing 
 with hope, and the last shilling was willingly ofl'ered by Ireland's sons 
 and daughters, to defray the expenses of the Irish cause ; O'Connell was 
 becoming daily bolder in his demands for Repeal, the government was 
 becoming thoroughly alarmed at the attitude the Irish question was as- 
 suming. Mr. McGee was not an idler, he wrote masterly letters to " The 
 Freeman,^' but not satisfied with that, he soon became a correspondent of 
 the" Dublin Nation," and, in fact, in the latter journal he took a greater 
 interest than in the former, so much so that at the end of little over one 
 year, he was recalled to Dublin by Mr. Gniy, and an explanation which 
 was demanded of him by that gentleman, led to his cutting his connexion 
 with " 7'Ae Freeman." To those who have not taken the trouble to un- 
 derstand how matters stood at that time, let us just say, " The Freeman " 
 was the exponent of the views of the Repeal or Old National party, with 
 O'Connell as their leader; " The Nation " was also a great admirer of 
 O'Connell, but it did not agree with him on several points of his policy ; 
 he was old. wise, and rendered cautious by experif.nce in the great battles 
 of political life, he wished to keep the sword in its scabbard, conveniently 
 at hand and ia view, to show what could be done in case of necessity or 
 in the event of legal means not proving successful to obtain the great 
 national object of his political life. O'Connell would never appeal to arms 
 save as a last chance for National life, after all other means had been tried 
 and failed. The younger blood in which the " Nation " was printed 
 would at once draw the sword and appeal to the God of Battles. " The 
 
14 
 
 Freeman " was an old philosopher, " The Nation " was a hot-headed 
 young enthusiast. 
 
 On his ceasing his connexion with " The Freeman,'' Mr. McGee be- 
 came one of the four editors of the " Nation :" Charles Gavin Duffy, as 
 senior, Thomas D'Arcy McGee, John Mitchell, (at present editor of the 
 '^ Irish Citizen " of New York, and as bitterly opposed to Great Britain 
 as ever he was in his early youth) and Thomas D. Reilly, who was after- 
 wards editor of " the Democratic Revieio " of New York, and now dead. 
 The columns of the Nation were also enriched with the brilliant and 
 soul-stirring notes of Thomas Davis — whilst the glorious fancies of such 
 men as Thos. Francis Meagher, Richard O'Gorman, Terence B. McManus, 
 and many others of equal or nearly equal powers of mind — made its 
 columns a collection of the most brilliant gems of thought, the most lofty 
 views on Nationality, the most crushing denunciations of wrong, the bold- 
 est and most independent demande for National equality, in Religion, in 
 Government, in everything that would tend to make a Nation great and 
 prosperous. Looking back to those days, and holding the " Nation" 
 before the eyes of the great world, we have no hesitation in saying that, 
 never in the history of journalism, has The Nation of that day been 
 equalled in brilliancy of thought and independence of utterance. And 
 while condemning the rashness of the leaders of The Young Ireland 
 party, we cannot but admire the array of celebrated men of which it was 
 composed, Charles Gavin Duffy, who was pronounced by the " Uhivers 
 de Paris," to be " One of the greatest, if not the greatest of living 
 Editors," William Smith O'Brien, of noble blood, the glowing and unselfish 
 patriot who was fighting Ireland's battles on the floor of the British House 
 of Commons, side by side with O'Connell, both Catholic in their views, 
 the former a Catholic Protestant, demanding for his countrymen 
 (Catholic) their rights as British freemen, the latter a Protestant 
 Catholic, ever protesting, with all the great powers of his great mind, 
 against the reign of bigotry and oppression which held, and alas ! still 
 holds, to a great extent, his countrymen, of all creeds or sects save 
 one, fettered, soul and body, in abject slavery. O'Brien appealed to the 
 excitable passions of the Irish people. ButO'Connell's appeals were directed 
 to the heart of the great English Nation — that heart which is not surpassed 
 in its deep admiration of justice and fair play, by that of any other 
 nation on the face of the earth. As an Irishman, with Irish sym- 
 pathies, and an Irishman's prejudices, we proudly admit that an appeal , 
 was never yet made to the great English Nation , advanced and sup- 
 ported by just and legal means, by moral force, by force of reason, by 
 argument a 
 
 i 
 
 3gl 
 
 by an appeal 
 
 strong for justice 
 
15 
 
 
 a ^- 
 
 weak, that it was not hsard, listened to, and granted, not grudgingly, 
 but generously, and with that genuine pleasure which sinks deep into 
 the hearts of the recipients of such proofs of English justice ; from 
 the day when the sturdy Barons wrenched *' Magna Cliaria" from 
 a king who was at *^heir mercy, to the present, the English people never 
 abused their power ; they always proved true to the Golden Rule. It 
 was not the British Government that repealed the Penal Laws, the English 
 people ordered it, and the Government had to obey. The English people 
 demanded emancipation for their Irish fellow subjects, and the Govern- 
 ment had to obey, though some of its members dared not live to face the 
 terrible consequences of releasing Ireland from her chains. Oh ! great 
 men, oh ! little mortals, how short a distance do you see into the future. 
 Ireland was emancipated in 1829. Where are the dreadful con,<:3equences 
 which your foolish fears foreshadowed ? Where are the dreadful results 
 which you foretold? The oonsequencto are that all true Irishmen, 
 Catholic and Protestant, became bound by tics nf aflFection to the Empire ; 
 and the results, dreadful to England's enemies only, are that the mos-t 
 loyal people in Ireland to-day, are the children of those former enemies of 
 your own making, who were freed from the chains with which ignorance 
 and bigotry had bound them by the voice of the great English Nation. 
 Could the people of Ireland but control their personal hatred of each 
 other, and combine together in demanding their rights, and let the world 
 see that the demand was made by a nation, and not by a mere sect or 
 party, just so surely as the Emancipation Bill was carried by English 
 votes in 1829, all the other just and reasonable demands of Ireland would 
 be cheerfully given if demanded by a United National Voice, but, alas ! 
 Irelapd's worst enemies are her own sons, her heart bleeds at the sight of 
 her children's unnatural conduct towards each other. O'Connell was 
 entrapped, not by English spies, but by Irish spies in the employ of the 
 Irish officials in the Castle at Dublin. He was dogged in every step of 
 his daily life, his words were weighed with the greatest nicety, indictments 
 were laid against him. The government would never have dared to pro- 
 secute O'Connell had the Irish themselves been true to him and to each 
 other, but the folly of his youthful rivals for power, weakened the national 
 party, and the officials at the Castle gained strength as his influence with 
 the masses was weakened by hot headed youths, possessed with talents of 
 the very highest order, but filled with republican ideas, their folly very 
 materially strengthened the hands of the Crown, and O'Connell was tried, 
 convicted and cast into prison. Then, indeed, could the Young Ireland 
 party cry out to the Irish Nation with great force and justice. Look now 
 where your moral force leads you, your legal demands for legal redre.«s 
 
16 
 
 arc treated with worse thun contempt, your chosen counsellor and guide, 
 your champion of peace, is thrust into prison, and you must be a Nation 
 of slaves and cowards if you tamely submit any longer to such treat- 
 ment ; from the time when O'Connell was imprisoned in '44 the Young 
 Irelanders with tongue and pen lashed the Irish people into a state 
 of frenzy; the priests stood between the leaders and th-^ people, but 
 the National pride was up, the National spirit rose to boiling point 
 at last, and before cooling time was allowed to the Nation, Young 
 Ireland had changed its name to " THE IRISH CONFEDERA- 
 TION," and with William Smith O'Brien as its chief, and Thomas 
 D'Arcy McGee, as secretary, it sprung into existence in February, '47, 
 at the very moment when the outraged feelings of the nation made its 
 millions dangerous. The new "National party was hailed with acclama- 
 tion by the hot-headed youth of the country, and the youthful confeder- 
 ation was applauded on to revolution by Great Britain's enemies in all 
 parts of the world, more particularly in the United States of America, 
 where the cry of " '44 or fight" was easily changed for that of " Ireland 
 and the Irish." The men who composed the leaders of the ^' Irish 
 Confederation'^ are known in our day, and many of them are recognized 
 as men of most undoubted talent, men who have rendered their names 
 famous by their learning and political ability, by their powers in th6 senate 
 and their heroism on the battle field, men such as are fit to lead or guide 
 the destinies of nations, and consolidate the thrones of Empires. One 
 of the Irish rebels of '48, after being several times tried and condemned 
 for sedition and so called disloyalty in Ireland, Charles G. DuflFy, left 
 his country in disgust, and with his great abilities, if not entirely, at least 
 in a very great degree, contributed to the establishment and consolidation 
 of the power of Great Britain in far away Australia, and he is now living in 
 his own native land, the honored pensioner of a grateful nation,resting after 
 his successful labours in Britain's cause. Thomas Francis Meagher, on the 
 bloodiest of bloody fields, whei'e tens of thousands fell during the great 
 civil war in the United Statas. proved himself worthy of the name 
 which he received in '48 as an Irish rebel, " Meagher of the Sword," 
 Amid^the carnage and the roar of battles he sustained the reputation of 
 his country, and rendered the name of the " Irish Brigade" immortal. 
 Need we remind the reader of O'Gorman, of Mitchell, or mention that of 
 Davis and the others? No, history will do justice to the reputation of 
 the young Irishmen who formed " 2he Irish Confederation." Their 
 honest true hearted leader, William Smith O'Brien, once sentenced to 
 be hanged like a murderer, then branded as on outlaw and sent to herd 
 with all the villains and cut-throats that were the inhabitants of a penal 
 
 :l 
 
■' ' 17 ' -■ ' - , 
 
 colony in New South Wales, now sleeps in the silent grave, and the voice 
 of Loi/al Ireland, of generous England, demands that a monument shall 
 perpetuate his memory and his virtues to future ages, as a man who lived 
 and suffered for his country — that country which " lie loved, not toiseli/ 
 hut too zcell," — and Thomas D'Arcy McGee, the secretary, one of the 
 most prominent, the youngest in years of them all, he who left his native 
 ¥ land with a reward offered for his head in '48, lied for British principles 
 
 \ f in his adopted country, by the hand of a vile assassin, and the British 
 
 army assisted at his funeral, and the greatest among the most prosperous 
 of Britain^s Colonial Empire, mourns his death as a national misfortune. 
 The latter years of his life, nay, the last words he ever uttered, were 
 directed to the advancement of British principles, and to calm the passions 
 of parties. The youthful " Hotspur " of '48 was the peacemaker of '68 ; 
 ^' we xcill conquer you vnth Jcindness " was the only threat he would offer 
 to the enemies of the Canadian Confederation. 
 
 Several causes led to the revolution of '48, in Ireland. O'Connell's 
 imprisonment, ill-judged, if notili^-'al, was one of the causes; he the 
 chief, the leader o*' the Irish ptv 'e, had had for years, a double 
 battle to fight — he had to fight for Lit; country's rights, by legal and 
 legitimate means, by appeals to the Government and people of England, 
 and by petitions to the Throne. His bloodleso battles were fought on the 
 floor of the House of Commons, and through the press of the country ; 
 his armies were composed of the tens of thousands who met in legal meet- 
 ings in every part of the Empire, to demand their legal rights in a legal 
 manner; his only arms were the laws of Great Britain, and his own povrer- 
 ful and ccnvinclug eloquence to appeal to those laws. And now, long after 
 he iii'S passed away, his language is quoted b„' the liberal sons of England, 
 demanding for their fellow subjects in Ireland, those rights for which 
 O'Connell laboured during his whole life. The other battle which he 
 had to fight was against the Young Ireland jmrty, to curb their passions, 
 to keep them in check, and prevent an appeal to illegal means on their 
 part. Oh, glorious O'Connell, type of patriotism and unselfish devotion to 
 your country's cause, how you" soul must have been rent by the rashness 
 and* thoughtless folly of those inexperienced and hot lieaded enthusiasts, 
 who, in their boyish frenzy, were destroying the result of your life's 
 labours, and in their madness rushing on to their own and their country's 
 7 ~" destruction ; in vain did you warn them of their folly, in vain did your 
 eloquent tongue keep ringing in their ears " an illegal act on your part 
 is a victory for your aiemies ;" in vain did you try with all the power of 
 your mind and soul to save thefll and your country from the terrible con- 
 sequences of their madness ; in vain all your efforts — the youths who had 
 
 B 
 
clustered around your knee and received from your eloquent lips their first 
 lessons in eloquence and politics, the sons of your adoption who had been 
 trained to their country's service and their country's cause by your fost- 
 ering care, the champions chosen by you to fight Ireland's battles after 
 you should have passed away from the scene of your patriotic labours, 
 those ungrateful sons whom you had cherished in your heart of hearts, 
 treated your lessons of wisdom with contempt, and your great heart was 
 broken, their every folly was a dagger, and in their madness they stabbed 
 you to death ; your lofty soul bore up under the insult of incarceration 
 within the polluted walls of a prison, you patiently bore the companionship 
 of criminals, for your country 's caure demanded the sacrifice. Bat the ingra- 
 titude of your own chosen disciples weighed heavier on your heart and head 
 than the weight of fourscore years ; the cup was a bitter one, alas ! too 
 bitter ; their hands held it to your lips, and your soul, in horror at the unfi- 
 lial act, burst the case of clay which enclosed it, and sought in the bosom of 
 its God peace and rest. 
 
 O'Connell's death left the unfortunate people of Ireland without a 
 leader. The ship was drifting helplf ly about ; the masterhand, which for 
 years had held the wheel, was ooid in death, and unfortunately that hand 
 was replaced by inexperience and youthful folly. The people's mind 
 was for some time past being, by slow, but none the less certain, degrees, 
 trained to look on revolution as a national necessity. Duffy, McGke, 
 Mitchell and Reilly, daily wrote articles in the " Nation,'^ which made 
 the Irish blood boil ; books, too, i^^Duj^ys library of Ireland") were written 
 by the master spirits who were leading them on to revolution, to stir up the 
 nation's heart with the glories and victories of the past. Davis roused 
 up the nation to madness with his songs and poetry. " Who fears to speak 
 of '98 " became a household word, and the effect was magical. McGee 
 delivered his celebrated lectures : " The Golden link of the Croion,^' and 
 the national heart beat fast at his glowing language and bold utterance 
 of revolutionary ideas. Meagher and all the prominent members of 
 " The Confederation " travelled over the island far and wide, holding 
 public meetings and addressing the people on subjects calculated to 
 produce the desired object. The people of Ireland, no longer restraiticd 
 by the wise counsels of the venerable champion of Repeal, but maddened 
 by the eloquence of the hot-brained writers, orators and poets who composed 
 " The Confederation,'^ were rapidly led on to that climax of folly, a 
 revolution against the government. A revolution in all countries is 
 a difficulty, in Ireland it is an impossibility, for, even supposing that the 
 government is not prepared to meet the out- burst, The Church in Ireland 
 can always control the millions ; the best British fortification in Ireland 
 
 ^< l~«y -s 
 
 ' 
 
1-; ' 
 
 19 
 
 is the — by some parties greatly, wrongfully abused — College of MAY- 
 NOOTH ; every blaek coated soldier sent forth from its doors to instruct 
 the people is better than a British regiment to the government. Irishmen, 
 as a general rule, are not afraid to risk and lose their lives in any 
 mad enterprise, so long as the sacred name of nationality seems to 
 sanction it ; but when the soldier of " Maynooth " stands forward, as he 
 always does, and tells them with the authority of the Church, " that they 
 are on the road not to victory and liberty, but to destruction and 
 death ;" and when he adds to this a picture of the imrra recejytionvilnch. 
 will await those who, going against the commands of the church, may 
 lose their lives in the forbidden contest, there are few indeed who will not 
 submit to the counsels of the good faithful priest, when the sight of 
 bayonets would but madden them. 
 
 The leaders of the so-called rebellion of " '48," were not prepared for 
 the outbreak at the time it occurred. Their plans, if they had any fixed, 
 were not matured ; they were impelled to the rash act by the misery and 
 distress of their unfortunate country. Yes, the great immediate cause of 
 the outbreak was want of BREAD. Poor Ireland, what pen can attempt 
 to describe her sufiferings at that time ? language cannot convey even a 
 faint idea of the state of despair to which that unfortunate country was 
 reduced. The angel of death flapped his broad black pinions over the 
 land, accompanied by his two terrrible coadjutors, gaunt famine and reeking 
 pestilence — all the elements seemed to have combined to render her 
 situation miserable. Tens of thousands of once strong men were struck 
 down by famine and died, aye, died of starvation ! in sight of the rich 
 fields of their country ; their dead bodies were, in many instances, devour- 
 ed by the starving survivors, or left exposed and putrefying in the glare 
 of day — strong men no longer, the sons of Ireland, with starting eyes 
 and famished frame, called on their leaders to save them or give them a 
 chance to die Uke men ; starving Irish mothers clasping their starving little 
 ones to their pinched up breasts, cried for aid to the leaders of Ireland. And 
 pestilence was not idle, that certain companion of the starving, the dreadful 
 typus fever had reduced Ireland to the condition of a loathsome charncl 
 house — Ireland in "48," was no longer a nation of stalwart men and women ; 
 Ireland in "'48" was a nation of shadowy skeletons, tottering onward to 
 the grave ; Ireland in "48" lay bleeding, she was in the very throes of 
 dissolution ; the grip of death was fastening on her throat, and she 
 shrieked in her despair for aid. The winds bore her piercing shrieks on 
 their wings, far over the waves, to the new world, and her faithful chil- 
 dren, with heart and hand, promptly responded to her appeal— nor 
 must it ever be forgotten that the American people came generously 
 
M 
 
 forward to her assistance. — Ilcr cry pierced to the hearts the members 
 of '* The Confederation^^ — to arms! was now their cry, they could eee 
 no other way of releasing their country, and of assisting their starving 
 fellow countrymen, and reckles? of the consequences to themselves or to 
 others, they rushed madly on, and the starving Irish nation would have 
 staggered them. But the faithful soldier of *' MaynootJi," the faithful 
 Irish priest was on duty there, combatting against their raadnes, fighting 
 against despair and death. Oh ! noble soldier of the cross, noblest and 
 bravest of Ireland's heroes, no reward but that which God alone will 
 bestow, can recompense thy devotion to the true cause of Ireland, of 
 humanity, the cause of God — thy greatest battles were fought where God 
 and Ilis angels alone could witness the struggle, and angels alone could 
 sing thy praise. 
 
 The French Revolution in 1848 gave the Irish hope. " The Con- 
 federation" looked to France for some assistance; meanwhile, the 
 loaders had gone to far to retreat. Mitchell had been tried, convicted, 
 and sentenced for sedition, and was already on his way to Bermuda. 
 The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended with indecent haste. William 
 Smith O'Brien was lieeing from the Constables, and his starving 
 followers rushed to SticJcs ! for they were the only arms they had to 
 protect him against the Constables, or to make war against the rrmies 
 of the greatest power in Europe. An army was watching their every 
 movement — not an army of Britain's brave soldiers, no, it was only an 
 army of informers and spies — most of them recruited from that unfortu- 
 nate country, which has been fittingly called '' the paradise of informers." 
 Mr. McGee was one of fire chosen (at a mectin<r called for that pur- 
 pose) in DubUn, to Revolutionize Ireland, and call the tottering remains 
 of its population to arms. It was against his own opinion, but he had 
 to submit to the decision, or be branded as a traitor to the cause of 
 Irish independence. After a tour through Ireland, he was ordered to 
 Glasgow, on the eve of the intended revolution, to organize an expedition 
 in Scotland, to act with the army of independence in Ireland, and thus 
 divide the force which would be sent to crush out the rebellion. Rebel- 
 lion ! why, it did not even attain the dignity or proportions of a good 
 faction fight ; it was a mere fiasco, a ridiculous compound of stupidity and 
 folly ; the bursting of a soap bubble, a miserable failure wherein inform- 
 ers and a few policemen were mixed up with a mob of starving men 
 without arms, numbering a few hundreds at most ; the grand battle was 
 fought, AND NOBODY HURT, in a vulgar cabbage garden. The 
 leaders of the revolution ! of '48 then retreated in *' most admired 
 disorder," before the grand army of informers, and were most ingloriously 
 
 .. 
 
 
21 
 
 r 
 
 picked up ono by one at railway ilepot><, and other craftily chosen 
 places of safety of a similar kind. O'Brien, Meagher, McManuy, and 
 O'Donohue were tried for treason, found j];uilty, and sentenced to bo 
 hanged, drawn and ([uartered, which dreadful sentence was, afterwards, 
 as might easily be expected, commuted to penal servitude in Australia ; 
 in fact Britain could scarcely refrain from laughter at the ridiculous 
 termination of the great revolution of '48. And wo could feel disposed 
 to look back on the whole matter as a subject of ridicule, were it 
 not for the dreadful results to poor Ireland. Great Britain withheld her 
 assistance, in a very great measure, from the starving people of the coun- 
 try, on account of the madness of " The Confederation;'^ and whilst 
 Britain smiled at the termination of the farce, the face of Ireland was 
 seared with burning tears, over the graves of a million of her children 
 who died of starvation and pestilence. Every ship leaving the shores of 
 Ireland carried away hundreds of the population to find graves beneath 
 the Atlantic wave, or homes in the United States, or Canada. Yes, tho 
 madness of the Young Irelanders in '48, together with famine and pes- 
 tilence, gave to the United States and Canada over a million of popula- 
 tion, and heaven's portals, we trust, were opened to receive as true and 
 faithful martyrs as any of those that the persecutions under the emperors 
 of pagan Rome ever gave to the early Christian Church. 
 
 Mr. McGee was still in Glasgow when the bubble burst, but at once 
 hastened back to Ireland on receipt of the news. lie came to Donegal, 
 and, on his arriv d there, found his own name figuring in the " Hue and 
 Crify^ with a large reward offered for his apprehension. After many dan- 
 gers and risks he finally escaped, through the assistance of the late Arch- 
 bishop Maginn, in a merchant vessel, bound for Philadelphia, disguised 
 as a priest. lie afterwards wrote a life of the good Bishop in gratitude 
 for his friendly aid in the hour of peril. Mr. McGee left behind him at 
 that time his youthful wife — (he had married Miss Mary Caffrey in 
 1847), and, with a heart almost broken, he was obliged to leave her 
 whom he had sworn to protect, at a time when she most needed his 
 care — but she urged his departure, and blessed the ship that bore him 
 away from her to a place of safety. Once move away for the land of free- 
 dom. No longer tlie enthusiastic boy of seventeen, with his bright dreams 
 and his rose-coloured pictures of the future, who left Ireland a few short 
 years ago— now he stands on the ship's deck, straining his eyes to catcli 
 the last fleeting glance of that land, where his youthful dreams of inde- 
 pendence have been s</ rudely broken — that land where his unfortunate 
 fellow-countrymen are plunged in the deepest despair. Disappointed and 
 spirit-broken he stands there, in experience an old man at the age of 
 twenty-three years. 
 
22 
 
 Part III. 
 
 ALMOST immediately on Iuh arrival in Philadelphia Mr. McGee 
 published his celebrated letters on the causes which led to the 
 failure of the revolution in Ireland, in which his remarks on the 
 conduct of the Irish priesthood, in relation to previous and the then late 
 rebellion, gave mortal offence to a great majority of the Irish Catholics 
 of the United States. Then commenced the celebrated paper war 
 between that truly great and good man, Archbishop Hughes of Now 
 York, and himself. Fiercely did the battle rage between the greatest 
 Catholic champion in the United States and the ex-rebel. The contest 
 was long and fierce. The Bishop spoke for millions of Irish Catholics 
 who had faith and confidence in him, — he spoke with the authority of a 
 Catholic Bishop, and his condemnation of tlio revolutionary doctrines and 
 almost infidel teachings of the young Ireland party was most withering. 
 That party, a member of which had proclaimed, " If the altar stand 
 
 IN THE WAY OP LIBERTY, DOWN WITH THE ALTAR," neVCr COuld hopc 
 
 to gain or secure the sympathy of the Loman Catholic priesthood, and 
 once condemned by that faithful body of self-devoted men, it could only 
 prove a failure. Mr, McGee, during his eventful life, encountered and 
 fought with many of the most prominent men of our time, but never 
 did he make a greater mistake than he did when he crossed swords with 
 the great Archbishop. He fought bravely, desperately, but withou' 
 effect, — he was crushed beneath the powerful arguments of his antagonist ; 
 his eloquence, his wit, his proofs were swept away by John, Arch- 
 bishop of New York, with as much ease as a child's house of cards is 
 blown down by the summer breeze ; and in the end, Thomas D'Arcy 
 McGee had to bow down his head in humility before the great churchman, 
 and acknowledge himself conquered and in error. His enemies have often 
 twitted him with his defeat. The Fenian faction cast it up to him, even 
 a short time before his death, but Thomas D'Arcy McGee, as an Irishman 
 and as a Catholic, could point to his apology to Archbishop Hughes as 
 one of the most praiseworthy acts of his life, — it was manly, it was 
 honourable, it was the act of contrition of a great-souled Irish Catholic 
 who, in the moment of defeat, in his bitterness of heart had, for a 
 time, forgotten the respect due to God's anointed. In his despair 
 he had rushed into error, and having continued to defend his 
 errors and false doctrines for two years against the greatei't Catholic 
 authority in America, through the public press and through his own 
 paper, the Nation, which he had established in New York in the fall of 
 '48, for that purpose — having drawn upon himself the eyes of the civilized 
 
 d 
 
23 
 
 
 •world ns the opponent of the great Archbishop- -how terrible must have 
 been the struggle between his pride of heart and his duty as an Irish 
 Catholic, before he could school himself to bend lc*v before his opponent, 
 and not only declare himself defeated, bufc sue for pardon of his errors. 
 Yet what was there, after all, so singular in the sacrifice, to a faithful Irish 
 Catholic? but little more than is required at the hands of a child 
 who has been wayward and disobedient towards his father : the contest is 
 unnatural, the contrition natural, the reconciliation sweet, and the great 
 Bishop and the once impetuous McGee became friends, and the latter 
 Uved to utter words teeming with eloquence and feeling on the death of 
 the former. The defeated rebel no longer, but the universally 
 admired and respected statesman of Canada, Thomas D'Arcy McGee, at 
 a crowded assembly in the city hall, Montreal, spoke " High words of 
 power and praise to the glory of the dead," and declared that the 
 Catholic Church and the Irish in the United States had lost, in Bishop 
 Hughes' death, their greatest champion and truest friend. 
 
 To give anything like a history of Mr. McOee's caroor and labours in the 
 United States would fill volumes, and we have no doubt volumes will 
 hereafter be written on the subject which will prove both interesting and 
 instructive to generations yet to come, but want of space, no less tiian want 
 of time, compels us to pass over with a mere cursory glance, the years inter- 
 vening between his arrival in Philadelphia after his flight from Ireland in 
 '48, to the date of his quitting the great republic in 1856, for Canada. 
 Those years were passed by him, to a great measure, in literary pursuits ; 
 he became one of the most popular lecturers of the day, at the same time 
 that he wielded his pon as an editor, with such marked abihty, that his 
 name became famous in America and Europe. His writings secured the 
 attention of the political leaders of the great contending parties in the 
 United States, and many were the offers of place and profit made to him 
 to secure the services of his tongue and pen ; but Thomas D'Arcy McGee 
 was not an office hunter, and his big heart never gave place to a selfish or 
 sordid motive : he was too generous, too hcaourably independent to barter 
 what he considered right and justice to self-aggrandisement or self 
 interest ; and thus ho lived for eight years in the United States, where 
 men of the most ordinary abilities were making fortunes by the barter 
 and sale of their political principles, as stump orators in election contests 
 or as the selfish but servile tools of no less selfish political leaders. 
 The know-nothing cry was then at its height; everything Iri«h was 
 cried down by the so-called native American party; foreignera were 
 looked upon as the natural enemies of the would-be rulers of the des- 
 tinies of the United States. North and south the cry was loud and 
 
24 
 
 persistent, and whilst Liberty to all mankind was proclaimed as the 
 motto, the political faith of the great Republic, the most illiberal, nay, 
 the most disgracefully unjust system of tyranny and oppression, was 
 practised towards the citizens of foreign, and more particularly of Irish 
 origin : most brutal acts of violence wo 3 perpetrated against defenceless 
 strangers, in the new home to which they had been allured by promises 
 of liberty and equality. Almost Ingle handed, McGee threw himself 
 into the van, loud rang his voice above the din of battle as the 
 defender of his countrymen, as the champion of equal rights for the 
 down-trodden and oppressed foreigners of all nations and creeds in the 
 L nitod States. His undaunted courage, his brilliant talents, his masterly 
 arguments, his unceasing and persistent onslaughts against the unscru- 
 pulous leaders of the New England fanatics, made his name the terror 
 and the dread of that vile junto of bigots and zealots who dared to 
 display as their motto-" extermination to all foreigners." Irishmen, Irish 
 citizens of the United States cf America, you who are now enjoying the 
 fruits of the Irish patriot's labours in cause of the Irish liberty and 
 equality on the continent of America, you for whose benefit he sacrificed 
 eight years of his fresh glorious manhood, you for whose children's 
 prosperity, happiness and independence he sacrificed the best years of his 
 life, look back to the time when he was your champion and your depen- 
 dence in the hour of your greatest peril, and if your souls still retain 
 any of the generoup characteristics of your race, drop a tear over the 
 bloody grave of Thomas D'Arcy HcOee, and teach your children to 
 revere his memory as that of a true patriot who lived and died for 
 Ireland, for Irish liberty, for the advancement and prosperity of the Irish 
 race. 
 
 Although in America, Mr. McGee's heart was in Ireland. He corres- 
 ponded regularly with his friend, Charles G. Dufiy, his former chief in 
 the Editorial department of the Dublin Nation ; they had fought many 
 a hard battle during the Revolutionary excitement in Ireland, and were 
 very much attached to each other. In 1850, Duffy invited McGee to return 
 home and once more take a share in The NaHon as one of its editors. 
 Only too glad to embrace the opportunity thus afforded him, Mr. McGee, 
 ever prompt, if not impulsive in his decisions, at once sold out his iVew 
 York Nation, and started for Boston, with the object of sailing imme- 
 diately for his beloved country — having written to Mr. Duffy to that 
 effect-but his hopes were doomed to sad disappointment. The madness of 
 his '48 escapade was still fresh in the mind of the Government at home, 
 and, fortunately for him, Sir Colman O'Laughlan, one of his old and 
 tried friends, who from his position was aware of the danger which 
 
 ir 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 I 
 
 4 A, 
 
t 
 
 I 
 
 ^ T " 
 
 25 
 
 awaited McGee, should he return so soon, wrote, warning him that hisf 
 liberty, if not his life, might be the forfeit of his return to the scene of 
 his former folly. Almost stunned by the blow, without much means at 
 his command, it is difficult to realize his position at that time. For a 
 short period he felt disheartened, and almost despairing of ever being 
 able to retrieve his fallen fortunes ; but courage, bra^e heart, cowards 
 only give way to despair and sink under difficulties. A few short 
 months spent in renewing former friendships and making new friends, 
 in delivering lectures to large and delighted audiences in Boston, and 
 producing masterly contributions for the columns of the Pilot, and he 
 was himself again, and once more found himself in the Editorial chair. 
 ^' The American CdV was ushered into existence in August, 1850, 
 and he continued to edit and publish that paper in Boston till 1851, 
 when his old friends in New York clamored loudly for his return to 
 their midst. His absence from among them had been very deeply 
 felt ; the enemies of his countrymen were becoming more infiolent and 
 despotic, for want of a strong will and eloquent pen to keep them ia 
 check. The appeal to McGee was not made in vain ; wherever his coun- 
 try or his countrymen required his services, he never refused to answer 
 the call ; so, packing up, as he himself expressed it, his " traps," he moved 
 with The American Gelt to New York in the fall of the year. Again he . 
 stood forward as the champion of the foreigners, as the know-nothing. . 
 stump orators were wont to call all adopted citizens, and the great 
 services he rendered that class of the community cannot now be well un- 
 derstood. In other countries a span of thirteen years is only an infancy, 
 in the United States 'tis an age ; the rapidity witli which men and parties 
 change and pass away cannot be understood by the steady conservatives 
 of other countries. A man is a bright star of the American nation one day, 
 and words cannot express the ntitional hatred of him the next ; to-day wc 
 find him quietly attending to his duties as a farmer, a shop-keeper, or a 
 mechanic ; to-morrow he may bo leading the national armies of tens of 
 thousands to victory ; soon he may be seated in the Presidential chair, 
 dictating terms of peace or war to foreign nations ; or, in the heat of party 
 strife, smarting under the crushing defeat of a general election, he may 
 be found at the head of millions, proclaiming to the world that the unity 
 of the Great Republic is at an end, and whilst trampling under foot the 
 flag for which Washington fought and gained immortal fame, may be 
 found unfurling another flag, as the rival of the stars and stripes, to the 
 gaze of an astonished world. 
 
 In the United States of America, men become prominent, popular and 
 famous, in a few months, and, whilst their fortunate star is in the ascen- 
 
26 
 
 dant, they do well to enjoy all they can of popular praise and adulation, 
 if they like that sort of excitement ; for, rapidly as the popular favour and 
 admiration is secured, still more rapidly is the popular mind liable to 
 forget to-day its idol of yesterday ; popularity may be attained in a few 
 months, and at anytime it can with certainty be lost in a few short hours. 
 This IS not to be wondered at. American forests disappear, and cities 
 spring up in their stead like magic. Broad prairies, the hunting ground of the 
 savage and the pastv reof the buflFalo, in a few short years, by the indomitable 
 energy of the settler, become covered with the happy omes of men, yielding 
 not only plenty for the support of the homesteads of those who reclaimed 
 them, but, with the assistance of all the most perfect combinations of 
 inventive skill and mechanical ingenuity, —the railroad, the canal, the clip- 
 per ship and the ocean steamer, curniag golden crops into the granaries of 
 the Old World, with which *,o feed her millions from the superabundance 
 of their prairie harvests. The greatest men cannot expect to be long 
 remembered in such a couutry ; the march forward is too rapid; the most 
 extraorainary events of to-day will be forgotten in the greater events of 
 to-morrow, and the events of yesterday seem but the ghosts of the past 
 in that mighty republic, vhose four score years of existence have given to 
 the world an example of most extraordinary progress, and secured to 
 mankind more real liberty, prosperity and happiness, than a thousand 
 years of Old World exertions could ever hope to secure. To the 
 advance of men and change of measures since Mr. McGee left the 
 United States, it is not surprising, then, that his name and labours should 
 have been to a great extent forgotten at the present day. But some of 
 his exertions in the cause of his fellow men are still bearing rich fruits. 
 The Irish race, still progressing, owes in a great measure its present posi- 
 tion to Thomas D'Arcy MoGee. Those excellent educational establish- 
 ments for adults in New York, the night schools, were first established 
 through his unaided exertions, and, from a small beginning, they can 
 now be counted by dozens, not only in New York city, but throughout all 
 the large cities of the Union ! For that one result of his great forethought 
 in the cause of the poorer classes, how many thousands owe to his 
 memory their life-long gratitude. For his exertions in the United States, 
 in the cause of immigration, the Irish and German nations owe him their 
 thanks. Alas ! how have his countrymen repaid him ! But history 
 will yet do justice to his memory and make future generations of Irishmen 
 blush for the ingratitude of their ancestors of the present generation. 
 
 In his work on " The Irish in America," very recently published, John 
 Francis Maguiro, M.P. for Cork, gives the following striking example of 
 the benefit of McGee's night schools to the Irish in New York : 
 
27 
 
 " A great strapping Irishman who would be called at home ' a splendid 
 figure of a man' landed at ' Castle Garden^ about 15 years since; he 
 neither knew how to read nor write, but he was gifted with abundact 
 
 natural quickness and he was full of energy and ambition Ho 
 
 saw other men, dull plodders, with 'not one half his own gumption,' 
 pushing their way up the social ladders, and why ? Bf * i tse they coul^'. 
 read and write; because they had the 'learning. ' r'), ; ,.aas! he had 
 
 not Then he would have it; that he was . .i»tid on, so the large 
 
 Irishman sat down on a form in a night jlio'^ , and commenced to learn 
 his A, B, C; and with tongue •^'^py^xwccty driven o";i. uot one cheek, 
 struggled with his ' pot hook.- r. t hangers,' the fii^t efforts of the polite 
 
 letter writer Many a time did tbo poor fellow's courage begin to 
 
 fail, but he would not be beaten. .. .; did not fail; with the aid of a 
 fellow student, more advanced than himself, he drew out his first con- 
 tract, which was for a few hundred dollars. This was accepted; and 
 bein^ executed in a most satisfactory manner by the young contractor, 
 who himself performed no small part of the work ; it was his first great 
 step in life ; contracts for thousands of dollars, and hundreds of thousands 
 of dollars, following more rapidly than in his wildest dreams he could 
 have imagined possible. This self-made man quickly adapted himself to 
 the manners of the class to which he had so laboriously and creditably 
 raised himself, and no one who converses with the shrewd, genial, oft- 
 handed Irishman, who drives his carriage, lives in fine style, and is 
 educating his young family with the utmost care and at great cost, could 
 suppose that he was the same rough giant who a few years before sat 
 upon the form of a night school, heavily plodding at words of two syl- 
 lables, and with tongue fiercely driven against his cheek, scrawled on a 
 slate his first lessons in writing." 
 
 How many thousands in like manner owe their position in the United 
 States to-day to " McGets night achooUy The average attendance at the 
 night schools of New York city alone is now 20,000 as appears, by the 
 latest returns. y ^r , 
 
 In the fall of 1851, Mr. McGee, at the urgent solicitation of the late 
 Bi&hop Tieman, of Buffalo, removed with his paper to that city, the great 
 object being to encourage the tide of immigration to the West and particu- 
 larly the Irish immigrants. His stay in Buffalo was very short, however, 
 for we find him back in New York in the following year, where he 
 continued to publish his ^^ American Celt and adopted Citizen,'' till 
 1857. From 1851 up to '57, Mr. McGee made several lecturing tours 
 through the Eastern and Western States, and was everywhere received, 
 with every demonstration of pleasure by his countrymen and the general 
 community, — ho was looked upon as a teacher of the people, and his elo- 
 
28 
 
 quence won for him tens of thousands of ardent admirers, not to say 
 friends. At length he was invited to lecture in Canada before the 
 " Young Men's St. Patrick's Society of Montreal^ He accepted the in- 
 vitation, and the thrill of pleasure which filled the delighted minds 
 of his vast audience on that occasion, to this day is recalled by many of 
 the friends who now mourn his untimely death. Once heard in Canada, 
 all the principal cities east and west called on him for a lecture at least, 
 or a course of lectures, if possible. And thus he travelled over Canada, 
 New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and lectured to large audiences in 
 every one of those places. It is needless to say to those who knew Jlr. 
 McGee, that, during his lecturing tours through the various Provinces 
 which now constitute "the Dominion of Canada," his great mind 
 was not idle; with the eye of a far-seeing statesman he looked on the 
 British Provinces, and remembered the fable of the " Bmidle of StirJcs.'^ 
 It was at that time tliat he first conceived the plan of uniting the whole 
 of the British North American Provinces under one Government ; and 
 we feel convinced that the idea never entered into his mind of their annex- 
 ation to the United States, after he had seen for himself the real position 
 of the people of Canada. In his rambles he met, and conversed with 
 the most prominent people of all sections of the Provinces, and he soon 
 came to the conclusion that annexation to the United States would be 
 the greatest misfortune that could overtake Canada. He who had been 
 an advocate for the liberty and equality of his fellow countrymen in 
 Great Britain, and in the United States, found the Irish people in 
 Canada enjoying all the liberty that man can desire — liberty of speech, — 
 which he himself freely used, although an ex-ret el, in his lectures — 
 liberty of conscience for all — and the most perfect equality reigning in 
 our community. For here no mere mockery of freedom is held up to 
 view ; here, freedom, in its sweet reality, is enjoyed by the humblest, as 
 well as by the wealthiest classes of our community. No aristocracy of 
 birth here usurps the power in the government ; nor are the places of 
 emolument reserved for the younger sons or protegees of bankrupt noble- 
 men. The poor man's son, the son of the farmer or mechanic, has 
 means afforded him of being educated, and his own energy and industry, 
 if properly directed, open up to him in after life the very highest 
 positions in his country. Yes, here we acknowledge no other aris- 
 tocracy save that of merit, and that true nobility — the nobility which 
 springs from educated talent and honest ambition, — and that man who 
 can show as his record an honest name, combined with energy and educa- 
 tion, we honour and trust far more than if he could trace back his ftmiily 
 record to the time when, two thousand years ago, his savage ancestors 
 bathed their nuked bodies in the blood of their savage foes — as proof of 
 
 :Jb3rai' 
 
39 
 
 ''Jfm^ 
 
 his title to nobility. And now, we venture to state as a fact, and one 
 which we consider perfectly easy to discover, that Thomas D'Arcy McGee 
 was always, during his whole life, an admirer of the monarchical form 
 of government — that he never was an admirer of Ihe republican form 
 — and that his heart never warmed with friendship for the United 
 States, It will be said, why then did he rebel against the English gov- 
 ernment ? The answer is this — it was not against the English government. 
 He rebelled against the sad misgovernment of Ireland by English states- 
 men in London, who were totally ignorant of the wants of that unfor- 
 tunate country, and, in consequence, totally incompetent, even if they 
 liad the desire, to legislate honestly and intelligently for the long over- 
 burdened, oppressed sister kingdom. He rebelled against the horrible 
 incongruity of his countrymen and co-religionists being compelled to 
 pay for the support of a church in which they were, and are taught, not 
 to pray, if they wish to save their souls. He rebelled against the gigantic 
 Church Establishment swindle, which was forced upon Ireland at a bemi- 
 frantic period in British aiFairs, and which, in three hundred years after, 
 is sought by men who pretend to be reasonable and just, to be still forced 
 on the unfortunate peopb of Ireland — that Church Establishment which 
 never could have existed in Ireland beyond its infancy without the sustaining 
 power, not of the Almighty God, but of the mighty and irresistible bayonet. 
 McGee rebelled against that, and kindred unnatural pretensions of the 
 government of England, against the rights and liberties of his country. 
 And we venture to say that there is not, on the face of the globe to-day, one 
 solitary liberal minded, educated Englishman who will, placing himself in 
 the position of the Irishman, say, 1 would not rebel against those things. 
 The strongest proof of this fact is that the most determined opponents of 
 the Church Establishment to be found are the descendants of English- 
 men born and living in Ireland. McGee, in 1848, was a meuibor of an 
 Irish Confederation, not o£ an Irish Rcpuhlic. He had tested Repub- 
 licanism in New England, and it was not to his taste — it did not agree 
 with his notions of good government — he had no confidence in the sta- 
 bility of Republican institutions — he had learned that the nearer Repub- 
 licanism approached stability, the nearer it approached the Monarchical 
 form of government ; and as a proof of this apparently strange fact, we 
 assert that, although he had lived nearly twelve years ia the United 
 States, although his children were born there, an'' his home seemed to 
 be established there for the future, yet he never became a citizen of the 
 United States. "Why did not McGee become an adopted citizen of the 
 great Republic ? Because he did not like the Republican form of govern- 
 ment and had no confidence in the liberty enjoyed (?) there by the foreign 
 
30 
 
 element. He always distrusted the honesty of purpose of the Puritanical 
 New Englanders, and he could not understand how the flag of freedom 
 could consistently " wave o'er the land of the free" and s'ill decorate the 
 walls of the Southern States' slave market. Like a number of his 
 countrymen who had to fly from Ireland for political reasons, Mr. McGee 
 at that time was most rabid asrainst everything English. His writings, 
 during his residencp in the United States, are filled with most bitter 
 denunciations of Lnglish laws as they relate to Ireland. His editorial 
 articles, his lectures, his poetry of that time — all sliow his great hatred 
 towards British rule in Ireland — and bitter as that hatred was, he yet 
 could not convince himself that he could conscientiously renounce his 
 allegiance to the old flag under which his country had suffered so much 
 injustice, and transfer that allegiance to the Government or flag of the 
 Great Republic. In Canada McGee saw the advantages offered by a fair 
 and impartial administration of a government, under the Monarchical form ; 
 and, seeing, ha became more convinced than ever of the stability of that 
 system. He compared the position of the Irish in the United State» 
 with that of the Irish in British America, and the advantages were all on 
 the side of the latter. He found Irishmen in Canada occupying positions 
 of the highest honour and trust. He saw the Roman Catholic Church 
 flourishing in every part of the country — from Labrador to the Pacific 
 Coast — side by side with the Churches of England and Scotland. He 
 saw people of all nationalities, and creeds, living in the greatest peace 
 and harmony together, like members of one great family : happy and 
 prosperous ; the Government confident of the people, and the people con- 
 fident of, and secure in, the Government. He could not fail to perceive 
 the difference in the elective system. The people's representatives were 
 not the nominees of mobs or factions, and the political affairs of the 
 country were not entrusted to the tender mercies of bar-room or pot- 
 house politicians ; nor could the mob terrify the Government of the day 
 into concessions to political demagogues. The Judiciary was not at the 
 mercy of the mob at the hustings, and the execution of criminals did not 
 depend on the strength or weakness of their partizans. He saw the 
 perfect equality of the school system secured to all creeds by the statute 
 law of the country, and, seeing all these things, whilst he prayed to 
 Heaven for the same glorious state of affairs in his beloved Ireland, he 
 determined to make his home in Canada, and establish his family there, 
 under the security of good laws and a^stable form of Government. 
 
 Among those who most strongly impressed Mr. McGee with the idea 
 of coming to reside in Canada, we cannot avoid mentioning one or two : 
 Mrs. James Sadlier— at present of New York, but who at that time was 
 
31 
 
 W3l^i^d> 
 
 a resident in Montreal, and who then, as now, was looked upon with 
 pride by the Irish race on the continent of America. Endowed by nature 
 with most lively devotion to the welfare of her native land and of her 
 fellow countrymen, Mrs. Sadlier has devoted her splendid education 
 and talents to the improvement of the Irish people ; her writings speak 
 to the warm hearts of the Irish people, and number over thirty volumes 
 — none of which has failed to make its mark, teeming as they do, with 
 lessons of morality and patriotism, with forcible illustrs Lions of the dan- 
 gers to be encountered in a strange land by the daughters and sons of 
 Ireland, and pointing out in beautifully simple and comprehensive lan- 
 guage the necessity of a strict devotion to the teachings of the Catholic 
 Church, if her countrywomen and men ain, to sustain their well won 
 national reputation for female virtue and manly honesty. Mrs. Sadlier 
 has done more in her day and generation for the Irish race than any 
 other authoress of our time in America. She is deservedly looked 
 upon as a bright example of what " a true woman " can do for the cause 
 of virtue and national honour. As a devoted wife, a self sacrificing and 
 loving mother^ or truly amiable and sympathetic friend, Mrs. Sadlier is 
 looked upon as one of the brightest ornaments which adorn the family 
 circle, or exert an elevating influence in society. Beautiful in her 
 simple, unostentatious labours for the welfare of her countrymen and 
 women, she is beloved by all who know her personally, and hundreds of 
 thousands who know her through her works, esteem and value her as a 
 friend and guide. Among those who knew her best, and admired her 
 most sincerely as a true friend to the cause of Ireland and the Irish, was 
 Thomas D'Arcy McGee. He met her first in Montreal, and the strong 
 likeness in their literary studies and pursuits, which they soon discovered 
 in each other, drew them together, and a friendship was formed between 
 them which is seldom equalled for depth of sincerity ; that friendship 
 was one of Mr. McGee's greatest pldasures in this life ; in the long illness 
 which confined him to his bed for months during the last year of his life, 
 he looked forward for Mrs. Sadlier's letters as a boy looks forward to a 
 holiday ; her praise or condemnation had more weight with him in his 
 literary pursuits than all the world besides. He had such faith in the 
 soundness of her judgment and good taste in literary matters, that he 
 felt certain, if he succeeded in pleasing her, he need not fear criticisms 
 from others. This friendship on his part lasted till death, and on hers 
 it still exists for his memory. Among the tearful faces which surrounded 
 his form in death and bedewed it with tears, the face and form of Mrs. 
 Sadlier might be seen night and day, with unwearied devotion, weeping, 
 praying over the remains of her murdered friend, till the stern door of 
 
82 
 
 the tomb shut them in from her gaze forever. Mrs. Sadlier's advice 
 and that of her excellent husband^ Mr. James Sadlier (of the firm of D. 
 A J. Sadlier & Co., Catholic Book Publishers of New York), had great 
 weight with Mr. McGee in inducing him to make Canada his home. 
 Added to this, he was advised, nay, almost commanded, by one of the 
 devoted Irish priests in Canada, to come and assist or lead in directing 
 the energies of the Irish people in Canada. His spite against the British 
 Government, at that time, almost grown chronic, was shown by the vene- 
 rable priest to be unworthy of him, and, as far at least as Canada was 
 concerned, to be unjust and undeserved. " Look around you," cried the 
 venerable Father, " and tell me, is there a more perfectly free country 
 +han this on earth ? Our people enjoy all the rights and privileges that 
 mun can demand ; but they want a leader, come on, then, and lead 
 them." 
 
 In his visits to Canada West, Mr. McGce had the good fortune to 
 renew an acquaintance which he had formed during the convention in 
 Buifalo with that most excellent man, the Very llev. Father Gordon, 
 V.G. of Hamilton, so well known all over Canada for his devotion 
 to the cause of religion and to the prosperity of his special charge, 
 the Irish emigrant, that he has made his name and labours so intimately 
 blended with the history of the early settlement of Upper Canada, now 
 the ^^ Province of Ontario, ^^ that leaving them out of that record would 
 be representing a most interesting drama, leaving out the principal cha- 
 racter. Father Gordon's labours for the welfare of the early settlers are 
 almost incredible; his iron constitution must have had special strength 
 accorded it by his Master, to enable him to perform the good work with 
 which he was entrusted, amid the hardship, sickness, dangers, exposure, 
 and even hunger, which he had to encounter in his care of his Master's 
 flock scattered over hundreds of miles of a primeval forest. How con- 
 soling to that grand old priest's heart must be the retrospect of the past 
 compared with the present condition of the scene of his former labours, 
 when the monarch of the forest reluctantly staggered under the blows 
 of the settler's axe, till, conquered; he bowed i.is emerald crowned head 
 with a crash that made the wilderness ring again and again, with the 
 echoes which proclaimed the advance of civilization. Whilst others enjoy 
 the present, he can dream over the past, and looking back through a 
 long vista of years, he can start again in imagination with the fall of 
 the first tree, and trace, step by step, the progress of the early settlement. 
 First the little cleared patch with the "first crop " fighting its way amid 
 the stumps, — then the first log cabin, — he can still remember what joy and 
 pardonable pride filled the settler's heart and danced in his manly eye. 
 
 
-s ^ 
 
 the 
 
 joy 
 
 a 
 
 of 
 
 Int. 
 
 lid 
 
 knd 
 
 ye, 
 
 
 88 
 
 when he could enter, with his faithful wife and cherished little ones, on 
 the posaossion of " his own honsr.,'^ which ho had conquered from the 
 wilderness. He can remember the offering of his first mass under the 
 shadow of the stately forest trees, which, arching over head and inter- 
 lacing their green arms, formed a far more beautiful ceiling than the 
 hands of man ever wrought; through which the brilliant rays of the 
 glorious sun glanced down on the devout and humble little congregation 
 kneeling on nature's carpet around the rude altar; as if Nature's God 
 himself were smiling on the labors of" t?ie meek and humble of heart" in 
 their forest home. He can remember the first birth in the little settle- 
 ment, and the joy occasioned by the advent of the first little Irish Cana- 
 dian to the manor born, what simple rejoicings welcomed the little 
 stranger, the first to receive the waters of baptism in the little colony. 
 He can again feel the pang of grief that shot through his faithful heart as, 
 amid the tears and sobs of sorrowing friends and relations, he consigned 
 to the grave, with the solemn ceremony of the church, the first worn 
 out settler who was called away from their midst. Closing his eyes, he 
 can see in his imagination, the hunible log hut replaced by the comfort- 
 able farm-house, the little clearing, with its struggling crop, expanding 
 into those splendid farms which no«v cover whole counties, and gladdeu 
 the hearts of thousands with their teeming harvests of golden grain. Ho 
 can see the rude altar of the wilderness replaced in a hundred places 
 by stately churches, which rear upwards to the sky the standard of the 
 cross under which tens of thousands of faithful Irish Catholics worsliip 
 the God of their fathers. He can see the little hamlet transformed to 
 the neat village, then to the prosperous town, till in his joy he looks 
 around him on the wealthy cities which gladden his eyes in every direc- 
 tion, and he can with confidence feel that, under God, the country owes 
 to his humble labors a large share of its present prosperity. And the 
 Irish people, what should they feel for and towards the patriarchal priest 
 who came in years long gone by with their grandfathers from Ireland, 
 and devoted his life to their welfare ? The self-sacrificing, self-denying 
 servant of God, who clung to three generations of Irishmen in Canada, 
 who welcomed thousands of them in their infancy into the bosom of the 
 Church — watched over them through life, comforting them in sorrow, 
 rejoicing with them in their joys, tending them in sickness — amid fevers 
 and epidemic, always by their beds, and when their last hour came, 
 thousands of dying Irishmen and women, as they closed their eyes on 
 this world, the last object their fading sight rested upon, was the friendly 
 face of the devoted Irish priest who left them never in this world 
 till he saw them depart smilingly confident of mercy and happiness in the. 
 
84 
 
 next. What should Irishmen think of their priest ? Whit do they thinlc 
 of him? Let the hidtory of Ireland, the history of Canada, the history 
 of the United States, the history of the World answer. Then why should 
 we wonder that Irishmen love their priests. Why should we wonder that 
 whole armies of I'ristling bayonets cannot control or keep them in check 
 when they feel the patriot's passion strong within them, and yet that the 
 priest's voice soothes them till they weep in repentance of their errors. 
 Is it necessary to remind the reader that it was not in his character of 
 Archbishop of the great Diocese of New York, that Thomas D'Arcy 
 McGee, the great Irishman, bowed his head ; it was at the feet of 
 the Irish Catholic priest, John Hughes, he knelt in submission. And 
 the Fither Gordons of the Irish Catholic Church, are they beloved by 
 their people? Oh I yes^ above his own life, the worthy priest is dear to 
 an Irishman, and wherever a true Irish soul speaks to its God, it prays that 
 if, among Heaven's great and glorious array of crowns, there is any one 
 brighter and more glorious than the others to be found, may that one 
 be reserved for the pure spirit of " Father Gordon,'^ when it takes its place 
 among the truest and most faithful servants of God beatified in IIeav»>- , 
 for his labours on earth are sanctified by that holy love for, and dp.otion 
 to, the service of " My Father %cho is in Heaven," which canr ot fail to 
 illuminate the pages of " The look of life." 
 
 On the 13th of August, 1857, Thomas D'Arcy McGee left the United 
 States for Canada, and, with his family, established himself in the beauti- 
 ful city of Montreal. His paper. The American Celt and Adopted Citi- 
 zen, he sold to the Messrs. Sadlier of New York, and it still continues to 
 be published by them, under the name of the Aew York Tablet, Mrs. 
 James Sadlier being its principal editor, and it is undoubtedly the very 
 best Irish and Catholic newspaper in the United States. 
 
 On his arrival in Canada, Mr. McGee, assisted by the generous 
 subscriptions of the Irish people of Montreal, established a paper, 
 The Nc'io Era, and commenced anew the battle of life. He was looked 
 upon with a great deal of distrust by the Plnglish, Scotch, and 
 many of the loyal Catholic and Protestant Irish inhabitants; and 
 it is no wonder he was, for up to that time he had always been known 
 and spoken of as a restless rebel against the British Government, 
 ,and as one who was not to bo trusted. The press of Canada, to use 
 a common expression, *' pitched in *o him" without stint, but he soon silen- 
 ced most of his tormentors: defended his former course where bethought 
 himself right, and candidly acknowledged his errors where bis experience 
 tbold him he had been wrong. He soon made his mark on the public 
 ouiad of Canada, and won friends for himself among those who, but a five 
 
85 
 
 .'JtBfcl 
 
 use 
 jlen- 
 ght 
 Ince 
 Iblic 
 mve 
 
 :i' 
 
 ■tr 
 
 short montlia before, looked upon him with suspicion, if not with nctnnl 
 distrust. Onco fairly started in his new sphere of life, Mr. McGee deter- 
 mined to raise up in Canada, and permanently establish his countrymen 
 and co-rcligi' nists in that position in society which he had always claim- 
 ed that they were not only entitled to, but that tlicy were fitted to hold. 
 He bitterly condemned the long standing assertion of those who dared to 
 assert that Irishmen — Irish Catholics — were not worthy of being trusted, 
 that they were not fit to hold a prominent place in the councils of nations, 
 or to take rank among the earnest upliolder of governments, that they 
 were not a law and order abiding class of i lO community. Ho raised 
 the standard of equality as that under which ho should lead his Irish 
 fellow subjects on to victory ; and wo venture to assert that never, in 
 the history of any country, was a determination more successfully, more 
 thoroughly or more brilliantly carried into effect. Mr. McGeo's career 
 in Canada was one continued series of victories, such as were never before 
 achieved by any public man in British North America. His articles in 
 the columns of the New Era were, generally speaking, calm and vigorous, 
 and conservative in their general leaning — so much so, indeed, that the 
 cry of rebel, traitor, outlaw, with which he was at first greeted, soon lost 
 its point and meaning when it was feebly attempted to be prolonged by 
 his ultra conservative or lip-loyal opponents. The Irish people, en masses 
 began to trust in him and to rally round him as their chosen leader. In the 
 fall of 1857, the first great opportunity was offered by an approaching 
 general election, to test the influence of the Irishmen of Canada under hia 
 leadership. They met in solemn conclave to determine on a combined 
 mode of action, and fix on a suitable man to put forward as their 
 special candidate, to reriresent their interests in the coming contest, and to 
 be, if possiMe, elected as their representative in Parliament. The oldest 
 and most respectable Irishmen in Montreal, generally, took a deep interest 
 in the proceedings. A large number, nevertheless, held aloof from Mr. 
 McGee ; they still held fast to th ir former friends of other nationalities, 
 in whom from long experience they had confidence. I^Ir. George K. Car- 
 tier, now, most deservedly. Sir George E. Cartier, Bart., was then, as he is 
 now, a general favourite with the Irish, and no man in Canada better de- 
 served their unlimited confidence. Through a long political career, he had 
 always been, and still continues to be, a fast friend to the Irishmen of 
 Canada, and the Irish people are not only pleased, they are proud of the 
 honors conferred on their steadfast, generous, honest friend — the great 
 souled leader of the people of Lower Canada — ** the Chevalier Bayard " of 
 the Province of Quebec — " sanspeur et sans reproche " — by Her Most Gra- 
 cious Majesty ; and we may add never was honor conferred on a iiiore 
 
86 
 
 !n 
 
 worthy subject. Sir Ocorgo E. Cartier, ever true to his country and 
 his party, never false to his promises, is the most trusted statesman 
 in THE DOMINION OF CANADA at tho present day, for his word to the 
 people is hi« bond, and twenty years' trial and experience of his honesty 
 towards, and justice to, all parties, without distinction of nationality or 
 creed, lias made him the centre round which all the most lionest public 
 men in tho Province of Quebec assemble — let us bo perfectly understood 
 — the honors, tho well-merited honors paid to Sir George Etienne 
 Cartier, Bart., by Her Majesty, Lower Canada accepts as a graceful 
 national compliment, for to thus honor him is to do honor to Lower 
 Canada, to whose service he has devoted his valuable life. If the French 
 Canadian people to-day enjoy all those extraordinary privileges which 
 they do enjoy — to their illustrious countryman are they indebted for 
 their enviable position as a people in the DOMINION OF CANADA. 
 He has preserved and secured to them tho enjoyment of the language; 
 the laws, and the Church of their French forefathers. Had Ireland 
 possessed a few as faithful sons as Canada has in Sir George, in Castle- 
 rcagli's time, there would have been no parchment union, her rights would 
 have been preserved, and a century of dissatisfaction, of hardship and 
 suffering avoided. Long, long may the life of Canada's Cartier be spared 
 to his country, for the day she loses him will be the darkest in her history. 
 After a good deal of discussion at the meetings of St. Patrick's Society, it 
 was almost unanimously determined that Mr. McGee should be the Irish 
 candidate. Then came the question, what party should they form an alli- 
 ance with. On this question there was only one opinion — the Conservative 
 party was their choice. Who can, in the face of that fact, pretend that 
 the Irish people were not, arc not, under an impartial system of govern- 
 ment, a conservative people, and not, as their enemies try to make it 
 appear to their disadvantage, a stumbling-block in the way of all peaceful 
 and good government. But, unfortunately for Canada and for them- 
 selves, the Conservative party refused to accept the alliance, in fact, denied 
 the right of the Irishmen of Montreal to put forward any man as their 
 special candidate, and above all did they condemn, in no measured terms, 
 the attempt, as they called it, to put forward McGee, the ex-rebel of '48, 
 as a candidate for the honor of representing the Metropolitan city of 
 Canada in the Parliament of '58. The refusal of the Conservative party 
 to accept McGee's nomination was, at the time, looked upon as a death- 
 blow to his success. Not so, however ; the Irish felt that they wei\, insulted 
 in the refusal of the man of their choice, and they determined to elect their 
 man in spite of parties. Never in Canada, since it first secured a responsible 
 government, up to that time, did the country witness such a contest. The 
 
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87 
 
 id 
 ir 
 
 J 
 
 more McOco was vilified by his opponents, the more did his friends deter- 
 mine to secure his return, and, as a dernier resort^ an alliance was foruicd 
 witii the so-called Reform party, and then the candidates were Dorion, 
 Ilolton and McGec, ** lioiigc' or liberal, against Cartier, Rose and Starncs, 
 *^Blue" or conservative. It would fill columns to relate the incidents of the 
 election that followed ; criminations and recriminations were the order of 
 the day, McGee's name and antecedents were handled most unsparingly; 
 he was called a rebel, a renegade, and a traitor to the Britisli Crown ; 
 his writings during his career in the rebellion of '48, and his subsequent 
 residence in the United States, were raked up against him, and he was de- 
 clared a dangerous man to bo let loose on a peaceful community, and 
 totally unworthy to represent men pretending to bo loyal to the govern- 
 ment of the country in the Parliament of Canada. The " Orangemen" 
 in Upper and Lower Canada were furiously opposed to McGee's election 
 — and nothing more strongly proves to the world that McGee was an 
 honest, impartial, faithful public man, than the fact that, for years before 
 his death, the Orangemen of Canada were his staunchest friends — 
 although to the last he condemned their Society, as ho did all other scrrct 
 societicK — and no other p*^ pie in Canada more deeply regretted his death, 
 for he had won their love and respect by his straightforward, manly conduct. 
 McGee dealt back with fearful force the blows of his opponents : " It is 
 true," said he, " I was a rebel in '48 iu Ireland. I rebelled against tho 
 misgovernment of my country by Russell and his school. I rebelled, 
 because I saw my countrymen star\ ing before my eyes, whilst my country 
 had her trade and commerce stolen from her. I rebelled against the 
 Church P]stablishmcnt in Ireland, and there is not a liberal man in 
 this community who would not have done as I did, if he were placed 
 in my position and followed the dictates of humanity. But," he added, 
 " I never rebelled in Canada as you did, Mr. Cartier, in '37 and '88; 
 yet at the game time, I do not deny th:it, as a Canadian, you had good 
 reason for so doing ; your country was being made the playground of 
 the fledgling nobles of England — your countrymen were long tran)plod 
 under foot by a few hundred imported officials ; the life-blood was being 
 drained from the heart of your mother-land, and you and others of her 
 frceborn sons, rushed with all the impetuosity of youth, of glorious 
 youth, and threw your bodies between the danger and your mother's 
 heart ; you did it manfully ; you did in Canada as my brave comrades and 
 myself'did in Ireland. You risked your life in support of what you con- 
 sidered the rights of your country and race, and I honor you for it, for 
 men iiust feel that they are on the side of justice when they risk their lives 
 on the issue, and the position you now occupy in Canada proves that 
 
li' 
 
 88 
 
 llll 
 
 you were right in demanding responsible government for Canada, 
 although, like myself in Ireland, you were wrong in your mode of 
 action. But I did not, nor did any of my friends, Mr. Rose, as you 
 did, sign the Annrxation Manifesto in '49, because it pleased Her Most 
 Gracious Majesty, by the advice of Her Loyal Canadian Parliament, to 
 consent to indemoify the poor "habitants" of Lower Canada for the 
 losses sustained by ♦hem through the brutal and unseemly conduct 
 of the Volunteers and the Army in 1837 and '38. So that I think 
 you, at least, should not ' throw stones at your neighbour's windows 
 when your own house is built of glass.' " Thus, throughout the whole 
 time of the canvass, did McGee meet his opponents at every point; and 
 his mode of meeting their arguments on the political questions which 
 were tl^on agitating the country, plainly showed his perfect knowledge of 
 its history, political and social. McGee's answer to the charge, or 
 rather insult, that he was " an adventurer,'^ will never be forgotten by 
 those who were so fortunate as to hear him. 
 
 ' The result of the election proved that the Conservatives had made a 
 great mistake. To the astonishment of his opponents and to the joy 
 of his supporters, and particularly of the Irish people, McGee was 
 elected one of the three members for the City of Montreal. Could 
 the sacrifices which the Irish made on that occasion to secure the 
 coveted result, be understood, it would surprise even now those who 
 wondered at it then. Money was necessary. McGee had none to 
 spend ; but his supporters, poor and rich, contributed liberally, and 
 their exertions never flngged from the moment of his nomination till 
 the return placed him at the head of the poll. And thus, in a few 
 short months, he found himself Member of Parliamert for the 
 wealthiest and most populous city in British America. The Irish were 
 justly proud of the victory, and of their representative, and well they 
 might be so ; for once, in parliament, McGee, by his eloquence, soon 
 became the observed of the whole country. His first speech in the 
 House secured the applause and admiration of all parties; indeed, so 
 brilliant was his success, that the greatest statesman in Upper Canada 
 (Ontario), the Hon. John A. Macdonald, now better known as Sir 
 John A. Macdonald — the faithful and consistent friend of Sir George E. 
 Cartier, Bart., in fact his political twin brother — crossed the floor of the 
 house and shook hands with him, at the same time warmly congratu- 
 lating him on his brilliant debut. For some time after his return to 
 Parliament, McGee contented himself with hanging to his leaders in the 
 Opposition ; but he never felt quite at home in the company of the 
 Rouge party; true, he, to a great extent, felt himself indebted to 
 
 1 
 
 
1^ 
 
 /•/■ 
 
 I 
 
 Messrs. Holton and Dorion for his election; but still, he could not 
 but feel that he was out of his natural element. Oncu in a while, he 
 would electrify the house and the country with a sudden and unexpected 
 outburst of eloquence. Aj^ain, he would raise a lauj^h at the expense 
 of this or that meUiber — for his wit was brilliant, his sarcasm most cut- 
 ting. He w as a master of satire ; and any unfortunate member who fell 
 under his lash once, took good care for the future not to play with edge 
 tools. It must be confessed that, for some time after McGec's election, 
 his friends were disappointed in him ; they expected great things at 
 his hands, and were but poorly satisfied with his outbursts of fun and 
 merriment at the expense of others and without any advantage to the 
 cause of the country. The great fight at that time was to oust the 
 Curtier-Macdonald Administration ; the Rouge party, led on by Dorion 
 and Holton in Lower Canada, and the Clear-Grits and others in Upper 
 Canada, led by John Sandfield Macdonald, had fixed their hearts on getting 
 into power. Their battle cry was ^^ Retrenchment,^^ "Reform;" whilst 
 they charged the Cartier-Macdonald government with all kinds of extra- 
 vagance and corruption. Is it to be wondered at, that McGee, whose 
 mind was tilled with dreams of a future nationality, could not take a very 
 leading part in that kind of "parish politics,^'' which was keeping the 
 House and the country in a state of unseemly agitation ? 
 
 In May, 1862, the " Rouge" party got the government into their 
 hands. The Cartier-Macdonald administration was defeated on the 
 Militia Bill, or rather the able leaders allowed themselves to be defeated 
 on that measure — the object was quite plain. In a loynl country like 
 Canada, measures for the proper defence of the country must ever be 
 popular — and the far seeing ministerial leaders, being hard pressed by 
 the Rouge party, chose to be defeated on the only really important, ques- 
 tion then before the country, and they had the support and good-will of all 
 loyal men with them in their defeat. And more than that, they well 
 knew that their opponents in the new government would not long enjoy 
 their dearly bought success. The Rouge party had long kept the coun- 
 try in a state of excitement with their party cry — corruption, extravag- 
 ance — they had long promised, if the power were once confided to them, 
 that the income or revenue of the country would prove more than sufli- 
 cient to meet all the expenditure, and that they would, by tlie assistance 
 of the great abilities of Mr. Gait's rival — Mr. Holton — in a very short 
 titue redeem the country from debt and difficulty. At last the power 
 was in their own hands. 'I he Sandficld-Macdonald-Sicotte administra- 
 tion was formed, and Thomas D'Arcy McGce accepted the office of 
 ^^ President of the Council.^^ The new administratiou could not long 
 
 ■t: 
 
40 
 
 i 
 
 -IP' 
 Iji! 
 
 exist, but it managed to stagger on in its weakness till parliament met. 
 In the following May it was defeated — not on any great measure, but on 
 a vote of ^vant of confidence. The great Finance Minister of that admini- 
 stration never brought down his budget, and the country is yet in the 
 dark as to his great financial abilities. Whilst a member of the Govern- 
 ment, Mr. McGee was a good deal Hamed by the Irish people for not 
 protesting against the execution of the poor Aylwards — husband and 
 wife — who were hanged at Belleville for murder ; and we have no hesi- 
 tation in saying that the ha""ging of poor Mrs. Ayltvard, for striking a 
 blow in defence of her husband's lifo, in defiance of all the petitions 
 which were presented to the Governor General will, to a great measure, 
 explain the great coldness of the people of Quebec, on the departure 
 forever of Lord Monck from Canada. The shriek of the poor mother 
 whose infant was torn from her breast, as she was hurried to the gallows 
 on a cold frosty day, so chilled the hearts of the Irish people of Canada, 
 that they never warmed for Lord Monck to this day, and never will. To 
 refuse mercy to a woman is alwavs harsh, but sometimes necessary. In 
 this case it was more than jar '♦; was unmerciful. Lord Monck is 
 the first Governor General who left Canada without farewell cheers 
 greeting his eai-s on his departure. There can be no doubt as to the 
 causes which led to the defeat of the government — it lacked that great prin- 
 ciple without which individuals or governments cannot long exist or secure 
 the confidence c2 the people ; it lacked honesty of purpose, and soon lost 
 the respect and confidence of the people. On the defeat of the govern- 
 ment, parliament was prorogued, and Mr. Sandfield Macdonald, as leader, 
 undertook to form a new administration. In this his selfishness got the 
 better of his keen judgment, for in his great anxiety to secure new friends 
 to the support of the government — i.e., himpelf — and to keep the cherish- 
 ed loaves and fishes of office for self and ^^M'vids, he basely betrayed his 
 hitherto loyal friend and supporter. Mr . • if che time was sick — at his 
 bedside the leader of the government in ic ■ a' d his friends met "many 
 a time and oft," and consulted with the ou.\ really true and indcix.n- 
 dent man of their party. Could it be for a moment supposed that a part 
 of Sandfield's policy was to betray his sick friend ? Yet it was so — and 
 the country was filled with disgust when, on the names of the new minis- 
 ters being announced, it was found that Thomas D'Arcy McGee's naire 
 was left out. " "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad," 
 was never better verified than in the c ^ -e of Sandfield Macdonald's double 
 dealing with McGee. That act of mac'\<»ss was the sure precursor of his 
 political destruction — his madness c; dishonesty killed outright the 
 expiring " Rouge party." The new government of Sandfield Macdon- 
 
1 
 
 < r 
 
 aid, the illegitimate offspring of deceit and falsehood, tottered on, despised 
 alike by lukewarm friends and determined enemies, and^ as might be 
 expected, McGee's terrible exposure of the dishonesty and want of manly 
 truth which characterised the conduct ef his former leader and friends, 
 hastened with marked effect the death of the party. The country had 
 long expected great things at the hands of the self-dubbed " Liberal 
 pnrtyy The ears of the electors had long drunk in the specious lan- 
 guage in which, at the hustings, the Conservatives were branded as cor- 
 ruptionists and dishonest men. Cartier was denounced in Lower Canada 
 as the "iefe noire^' of the country, who was, for liis own selfish purposes, 
 sacrificing the best interests of his French Canadian countrymen to the 
 Orangemen of Upper and the Protestants of Lower Canada ; whilst Mr. 
 John A. Macdonald, in Upper Canada, was denounced by Mr. George 
 Brown and his reliable (?) paper, " tJie Globe,^^ as one who was betraying his 
 fellow citizens, and selling them and Protestant interests to the French Ca- 
 nadian and Roman Catholic interests in Lower Canada. In fact, Sandfield 
 Macdonald and his friends had, in their struggle for power, sown the seeds 
 of falsehood and misrepresentation in the public mind, and they very 
 naturally reaped a whirlwind of public indignation. The Irish people 
 were very greatly annoyed at thfl manner in which their representative, 
 McGee, had been treated, and their deep condemnation of Sandfield Mac- 
 donald's dishonesty was made manifest at the polls. Their votes were 
 cast in favor of the Conservative candidates: Cartier was elected for Mon- 
 treal East, defeating Dorion by a very large majority ; Rose defeated Hel- 
 ton in the Centre, and A'^cGee was re-elected by acclamation for the West. 
 Who dare oppose him ? for he was the most popular man in Canada at 
 the time with all classes of the community ; and the Irish people Avcre 
 and had reason to feel proud of him as their representative. The March 
 wind carried away on its wings the death cry of the Rouge ministry. 
 That fine specimen of an honorable French gentleman — the late lamented 
 Sir E. P. Tachd — was next called upon to form a Cabinet. He did 
 so, but with a certain decree of reluctance — he wished to rest from public 
 life and enjoy perfect quiet at his advanced age ; but true to his coun- 
 try and friends to the last, he sacrificed his own feelings, and became the 
 leader of that ministry which played a more prominent role than any 
 other in the political history of British North America. In that ministry 
 Thomas D'Arcy McGee was offered and accepted the portfolio of Minister 
 of Agriculture and Immigration, to which office the latter part of the title was 
 added in compliment to the new minister — for his heart, ever open to the 
 claims of his countrymen to his thour'htfu] rare, delighted in forwarding the 
 interests of the Irish immigrant, and in finding homes on the banks of 
 
I' J 
 
 S i 
 
 42 
 
 the St. Lawrence or Ottawa for the impoverished people of Ireland. Mr. 
 McGee continued to hold the office of Minister of " Afn*iculture and Im- 
 migration" up to the time of the formation of the " Dominion Govern- 
 ment" under the Confederation Act on the 1st July, 1807. The reali- 
 zation of the dream of Mr. McGee's life became his fixed purpose, 
 from the time of his accepting office with the Conservative party. Up to 
 that time his great abiliiies were under a cloud. Forced on his entrance 
 to political life in Canada into the company of a party whose views were 
 wide of being like his own, his efforts were not as effective as they 
 would have been if their grandeur had been understood or appreciated 
 by liis political friends ; yet he remained true and loyal to the Rouge 
 party, and would never have deserted them, had they been true to him ; 
 and his abilities might have been lost to his adopted country, had it not 
 been for the fortunate circumstance of his Rouge friends showing by 
 their own ungrateful conduct and dishonesty towards him, their complete 
 rottenness and corruption. Thus separated from them, absolved from all 
 claims of friendship towards thcra, he became one of the strongest sup- 
 porters and leaders of the Conservative party, the true National Consti- 
 tutional party in British North America. From the moment of his ixnion 
 with his true political sympathies, he devoted all the energies of hb 
 great mind, and exerted his great gift of eloquence to achieve the union in 
 one powr-ful Confederacy of all the British North American provinces. 
 What appeared to his hearers, in former years, in his lectures throughout 
 the provinces, as but the visionary inspirations of the Irish orator, now 
 began to assume forms and proportions, and he never ceased in leading 
 on the public mind with the chains of his glorious eloquence till he had 
 the satisfaction of seeing the leading men of the provinces assembled to- 
 getlicr to solemnly debate the subject of union, and his life was not lost 
 to his adopted country till that union was carried into effect. Our space 
 will not permit us to give the reader anything like a succinct or exact liis- 
 tory of Mr. McGee's life and labors in Canada; we can only glance at his 
 achievements or point out a few scattered instances of the great and glo- 
 rious work which he performed. In the first place let it never be forgotten 
 that Thos. B'Arcy McGee, on his arrival in Canada, found the people of 
 the country greatly divided, at certain times, both on national and religious 
 questions ; he found his Irish fellow-countrymen powerful in numbers, but 
 weak for want of coiabined action, on account of the way in which they 
 were used as the tools of certain unprincipled, so-called leading Irishmen, 
 who were, many of them, ready to sacrifice their countrymen's prospects 
 and interests to their own selfish purposes or profit, or in other words, sell 
 their popularity with their misled countrymen to the highest bidder. 
 
 I 
 
> 
 
 He found tlic Irish Catholics, as it wcie, separated from the rest of the 
 community by a strong feeling of religious and national prejudice. He 
 found the people often led on to acts of madness by demagogues who 
 fired their passions by raising those religious or party cries which 
 were and are the curse of Ireland and of all oth.ir countries where 
 they are tolerated. He found the Irish Catholic population of Canada, 
 powerful as it was, without a worthy representative in the councils of 
 the country. And, finding all these things, he, without one moment's 
 hesitation, threw himself into the front rank, determined to remedy those 
 crying evils. He had enemies from the first moment, enemies among 
 his own countrymen, who, too keenly feeling their inability to oppose 
 him openly, pretended friendship for him, but all the while were thwart- 
 ing his efforts in the dark, coward-like, and as little minds only can do. 
 What a dreadful curse those selfish, bigoted, littio-soulcd Irishmen arc 
 to their country and countrymen ; those things " hearing the human 
 form" with deceptions hearts, rendered more cunning by " a little learn- 
 ing \^^ they are the greatest difficulty that the Irish statesman has to con- 
 tend with — the open, intelligent opponent he can meet on equal grounds, 
 and defeat or satisfy by argument and proof— but those secret plotters 
 against him he cannot defeat, for he cannot oppose an unseen enemy who 
 stabs him in the dark without fear of discovery — and yet we can tell those 
 disappointed political nuisances and wire-pullers that attacks such as 
 theirs, on a man like Mr. McGee, are the very best security that honest 
 men can ask as proof of the purity of his motives and the high charac- 
 ter of his aspirations ; honesty, these knaves possess not, and they cannot 
 appreciate honesty in others ; their aspirations are those of the assassin 
 who stabs at character in the dark, and in the security of his own little- 
 ness and obscurity escapes just punishment — but who is too cowardly to 
 come forth from his polluted den ?.nto the clear light of day, and show his 
 quivering lip, his bloodshot eye, unsteady hand, and venom-pointed dagger, 
 for fear of the just indignation and scorn of honest men. Well did McGee 
 know the difficulties with which ho had to contend in his efforts to 
 secure harmony and good feeling among all classes of the community j 
 keenly did he feel the cowardly thrusts of the hidden enemies who were 
 ever plotting in secret against him, but he had the glorious consolation of 
 seeing his efforts crowned with success. Notwithstanding the covert oppo- 
 sition which he had to contend against, Mr. McGee was the most honored, 
 most trusted man among the Irish people in Canada. The people of 
 Montreal heaped marks of honor upon him ; his name in public was ever 
 received with cheers ; his appearance the signal for the most hearty out- 
 bursts of applause; his power over his countrymen became so great that 
 ho never was opposed when he sought re-election, but was returned by 
 
44 
 
 acclamation, nay, more substantial murks of approbation were shown 
 liini — his friends and constituents, irrespective of race or creed, joined 
 together and purchased, furnished and presented to him a magni- 
 ficent dwelling, as a proof of their high appreciation of his charact"' 
 and great public services. On this subject, +he Montreal Gazat,., 
 at that time in opposition to him, said : " Mr. McGee may wall 
 be grateful for this great acknowledgment of the estimation in which they 
 hold him, and of their sense of the eminent services he rendered to the 
 country; and for our own part we are glad to be able to recognize 
 heartily and frankly that Mr. McGee has rendered good and valuable 
 service to the country and has merited this recognition." He knew no dis- 
 tinction between Catholic and Protestant, between French, English, Irish^ 
 or Scotch ; all men *vere to him fellow subjects, brother men, and he loved 
 to see them all working in harmony together as Canadians, members of 
 one great family, tht legal rights of each respected by all, worshipping 
 God after their own conscientious convictions, and enjoying equal justice 
 under our most excellent institutions. He preached with his all power- 
 ful eloquence this grand doctrine ; he taught it with his masterly pen, in 
 public and in private he inculcated it with all the strength of his ardent 
 soul, and the glorious result of his labors secured for him in death as 
 glorious a title as was ever inscribed on the tomb of mortal man, the 
 godlike title of " Peacemaker." In 1863, during the American civil 
 war, the recruiting agents of the American government, ready to ay 
 hold of anything that would tend to secure recruits for the shattered 
 ranks of the Federal armies, alas! only too readily found means to enlist 
 in their confidence tho.^e soulless demagogues who make a fat living by 
 misleading the simple and illiterate masses of the impulsive Irish people 
 in the United States. The bargain once entered into, a cry was deter- 
 mined upon to arouse the passions of the Irish people to the necessary 
 measure of enthusiastic hatred towards England. The slumbering Fenian 
 cry was resuscitated as the best suited to their designs ; and under the 
 pretense that the object was to prepare by active service on the field of 
 battle, the Irishmen of the United States for a war with England to 
 liberate Ireland, over A hundred and fifty tfiousand Irishmen 
 were sold, aye, sold! to the contractors who supplied victims for slaughter 
 on Southern battle-fields, — by their own heartless, designing, degenerate 
 countrymen, — at so much a head. But this was not all ; the blood of tens 
 of thousands of their misled, murdered countrymen, was not sufficient to 
 supply those traffickers in patriotism; their infiimy must be concealed in 
 someway from the eyes of the world, and consequently ''An Irish Republic'* 
 was put on the stage in New York, supported by a substantial revenue 
 extorted by falsehood and misrepresentation from the pockets of the poor 
 
 < .i 
 
 ' 
 
45 
 
 4 . V 
 
 industrious, generous Irish laborers and servant girls of the United States 
 and Canada. Oh ! traitors to your God and to your Fatherland ! traitors 
 to chA warm generous hearts of your poor countrymen and simple coun- 
 trywomen ! Was it not enough that your souls were steeped in the life blood 
 of tens of thousands of your victims slain in battle ? Was it not enough 
 that thousands of maimed, disabled, wretched wrecks of humanity call 
 down curses on your devoted heads as they totter starving and help- 
 less through a cold world ? — were you not satisfied ? No ! The blood of 
 your countrymen had to be mingled with the honest sweat of your de- 
 ceived countrywomen, the honest Irish servant girls of the great cities of 
 America, to satisfy your degraded, unmanly cupidity, and to support in 
 debauchery, idleness and unseemly extravagance, a hJ? hundred of the 
 most double-dyed traitors and false-hearted scoundrels that ever disgraced 
 manhood or blotted the fair page of a nation's history. And Thomas 
 D'Arcy McGee,Ahe true souled Irishman, at the very zenith of his 
 popularity in his/ adopted country — " Honest Tom," was he to stand idly 
 by and see thjfs glaring wholesale murder and robbery of his country- 
 men and wonien, and not interfere to prevent it? Could he stand 
 calmly lookidg on, and see his beloved Irish people murdered and robbed 
 by a handful of designing, heartless scoundrels, and that in the sacred 
 name of Patriotism ? No I a thousand times, no ! Had he — could he 
 done &o/ he might at this moment be living degraded as the idol of 
 fools smd scoundrels, the apologist, the patron of robbers and cold hearted 
 swindlers, instead of his name and memory being enshrined in the 
 hearts of millions of wise and honest and patriotic men, and his fame 
 ever mentioned in connection with all that is most noble, patriotic and true. 
 From his place in the Parliament of Canada assembled in the grand old 
 City of Quebec, under whose walls the great-hearted Montgomery fell, 
 with his face to the foe, as an Irishman should fall, covered with honor and 
 with glory — speaking in the name of God and of his countrymen, the pow- 
 erful voice of Thos. D'Arcy McGee was heard all over the land, denouncing 
 in impassioned and convincing eloquence the heartless leaders of the Irish 
 people in the United States. Manfully, fearlessly, honestly, he denounced 
 and condemned the heartless plotters against the pockets and lives of his 
 beloved fellow countrymen, nor did he ever cease to do so till at Ottawa 
 on the 7th of April, 1868, his utterance was choked with his own warm 
 heart's blood rushing forth from the channels which God had created 
 to sustain the life of as noble and true an Irishman as ever adorned 
 God's footstool, to indelibly stamp on the soil of Canada — his last, his 
 most glorious condemnation before man and God of the dastardly con- 
 spirators who in the name of Irish patriotism have disgraced humanity, 
 
ill 
 
 u 
 
 4(r 
 
 and written their own condemnation in the life blood of Ireland's 
 noblest advocate. 
 
 Ill 18G5, Mr. McGee went to Europe as Commissioner from Canada 
 to the Paris Exhibition, and also as a member of the Executive Council 
 of Canada, to join his colleagues in their conference with Her Mnjesty's 
 Government, on the question of the proposed union of the British North 
 American Provinces. What a contrast 1 In 1848, he fled from Ireland 
 with a reward oflFcred for his head by Her Miijesl^ 's Government — an 
 outlaw ! a rebel ! and now he returns after 17 years' absence, deputed by 
 Her Majesty's Representative in Canada, to consult with Her Majesty's 
 Government on a question of vital importance to the greatest of Her 
 Majesty's colonial possessions. And still, Thomas D'Arcy McGee was 
 not less an Irish patriot in 1865 than he was in 1848, but experience had 
 taught him that what can never be hoped to be wrested from England by 
 force and violence, or a resort to arms, can be secured with certainty 
 by fair argument and legitimate measures. John Bull never was and 
 never will be frightened or bullied out of anything ; but let the honest 
 old fellow be once satisfied that any of his family is suflFering wrong, and 
 he will see the suflfering member justified. It is true, he sometimes takes 
 a long time to consider, is seldom hasty in his actions ; is even frequently 
 ill advised by selfish interested parties, and thus led into the commission 
 of very serious injustice, as has been the case in Ireland ; but let him be 
 roused up by proper representations, and his manly honesty and deep sense 
 of justice and fair play will cause him to act like an honorable man, who, 
 although he compels respect from all his neighbors, never willingly consents 
 to an act of tyranny oroppression, and tht'; isthegreat secret of his long life 
 and prosperity. McGee had become convinced of these facts, and he re- 
 turned to Ireland, as loyal a man to the Empire as ever died for England 
 on field or deck, and as loyal and true an Irishman as ever was 
 born of an Irish mother, or wore the shamrock near his heart. Irish 
 loyalty to England is the greatest proof of loyalty to Ireland. Let our 
 mighty sister see that we are worthy of her love and confidence, and she 
 will only be too happy to clasp us to her heart ; but if we foolishly try to 
 compel her to adopt our views, we will be certain to get well spanked 
 for our trouble, and left to ruminate over our folly in the gloom of the 
 dark cellar of self-inflicted adversity and misery. Let Irishmen not be 
 misled by falsehood and misrepresentation on the part of those whose 
 object it is to make tools of them to attain their own base or selfish ends 
 in the United States, aye 1 and in Canada. Let them not be so foolish 
 aa to think that the way to make Ireland great, is to separate her from 
 England. No ! Ireland's true policy liei in clinging loyally to her two 
 
 t 
 
« 
 
 
 *- ( ♦ 
 
 sisters, and to become great in their mutual affection, English tyranny ! 
 English oppression! Away with such folly, away with such stereotyped 
 nonsense, the stock-in-trade of every political pedlar, political humbug or 
 mountebank who mounts the hobby of Irish grievances, and preys on Irish 
 men's confiding simplicity, till he enriches pr advances himself at the sacri- 
 fice of Irishmen's best interests wherever their lot is cast. Irishmen, men 
 of reason, cease looking abroad for the source of your grievances. Give up 
 leaving the load of your miseries at the door of your sister's children. Not 
 England, nor Englishmen ; not Scotland, nor Scotchmen, but Ireland 
 and Irishmen, are to blame for Ireland's and Irishmen's misery and mis- 
 fortune at the present day. True it is, they had reason for dissatisfaction 
 against England a hundred years ago ; so had Scotland ; but you must 
 not live in the past, nor nurse long buried wrongs back to life. Let 
 the past wrongs of Ireland sleep in the grave of past ages, and 
 thus hidden from present view, trace present (and Ireland has many 
 wrongs to complain of, and many grievances to redress — the Church 
 Establishment, Leases at will and many others) wrongs and grievances to 
 their proper source, and if you are honest in your wish to discover who 
 the real culprits are who trample on Irish nationality and Irish prosper- 
 ity, then open your eyes and your minds to the truth, when an humble 
 Irishmun, in the bitterness of his soul's conviction, proclaims to you, and 
 sicars by ihe graves of Ireland's greatest and noblest — by Irelantts altars 
 — by Ireland's God — that Irishmen themselves, at home and abioau, 
 are the chief cause of Ireland's misery at the present day. " Oh I" cries 
 a *^ Fenian leader" (a Fenian robber!), who makes his living by 
 robbing and misleading Irishmen, '' that fellow is an Englishman 
 in disguise, he's a traitor to Ireland, or he would not speak that way — 
 down with him 1 — away with him! he insults Ireland and Irishmen!" 
 "He's an Orangeman !" cries one ; "He's a turncoat," cries another: 
 and so, an Irishman who dares to speak the truth will bo put down by 
 self-interested, degenerate Irishmen, and the simple Irish people, too 
 prone to be convinced by loudsounding words, instead of by strong 
 arguments, are kept in the dark by their selfish, false leaders. But the 
 truth must be told. If Irishmen, Catholic and Protestant, will continue 
 to disagree and to trample on each other's rights — to oppress and abuse 
 each other; if Irishmen will, madly, continue to bo divided among them- 
 selves, they cannot expect other people to respect them, or accept and 
 receive them as men worthy of being looked upon as brothers, and 
 entrusted with the regulation or direction of the affairs of other nations — 
 when they are all the time, by their own acts, showing to the world that 
 they cannot agree together or govern their own country. If Irisbmen 
 
48 
 
 M 
 
 IS 
 
 ! St ■ 
 
 
 desire to live amonp; other races they must harmonize with their nei<j;h- 
 bours and live in good fellowship with all men — and at the same time 
 that they can and ought to bo true to their own religion, they must 
 respect the religious convictions of others. Could Irishmen be satisfied 
 with worshipping God, each in his own way, or after the teachings of his 
 fathers ; if religion were not made the test by which Irishmen judge of 
 each other, even in every day life ; if they could make up their minds 
 to judge of each other, not by the religion they profess, but by their 
 character for honesty, sobriety, industry and truth. True personal 
 worth ought to be the standard by which men shouldjudge of each other, 
 and any other standard must prove a fallacy. In Ireland and in all 
 countries in the world where Irishmen are to be found in any numbers, 
 you will find them divided into two parties — Catholics and Protestants. To 
 other peoples religion is a blessing, but, alas 1 Irishmen make religion the 
 source of the greater part of their misfortunes. Orangemen and llibbon- 
 mcn are the two principal divisions in Ireland, then " For i<ps" and " For 
 doioiis," and then Papists and Protestants — and they are always ready 
 to kill and murder each other for God's sake — in the name of religion — 
 and the only time that one can ever discover that those who fight about it 
 have any religion at all, is when they are killing each other about it ; for 
 they arc never seen inside a church; if they attended to the first principle 
 of the Christian religion — charity — they would not disgrace their country 
 by such unseemly, inhuman conduct towards each other, — but, alas ! it is 
 ever thus — division after division, as bigotry or selfishness may direct, and 
 thus Irishmen are their own worst enemies, and while they lay their misfor- 
 tunes at the door of their English neighbors, all the world looks on in 
 surprise at their perverse blindness in not looking at their own unfortunate 
 divisions as the real cause of their misfortunes. Let them stand together 
 shoulder to shoulder in their own country in the legal demand of their 
 rights, as they have often done before, and often will again, in defence of 
 British honor, on the bloodiest battle-fields of the world. Let them give 
 the world an example of determined, joint, unanimous, brotherly confi- 
 dence in each other, and as a united nation. — Ask as men of judgment 
 should ask, from the British Government, the repeal of all oppressive or 
 unjust laws ; let them demand the proper and satisfactory settlement of all 
 national grievances ; and within five years from the time such a combined 
 effort is made, Ireland will have no grievance of the present to complain 
 of, and grumblers and political speculators will have to drag the skeletons 
 of past grie^ ances from almost forgotten graves to weep over, in their 
 search for miseries to hash up for the admiration of their dupes. Like the 
 two eagles fighting over their prey — whilst they are engaged in fighting 
 
49 
 
 ..• / 
 
 with each other their crnfty enemies step in and deprive both of the booty. 
 Who handed Ireland's Parlian)cnt over to the British Govcninient? 
 Who sold Irish liberty ? Was it Kn^lislnnon or Scotchuicn ? Most as- 
 suredly not; it was Irishmen themselves. Perhaps tlie worst fc;ituro in 
 Ireland's sad liistory is this, that Irishmen, not content with niakin<j;cach 
 other miserable with their quarrels and divisions at home, unfortunately 
 carry with thcui to America and elsewhere, the same feelings of bigotry 
 and hatred for each other that blight their prosperity and liappiiie.>-s in 
 their own unfortunate country. This is not right, it is not just ; why 
 should other countries be pligued with their national quarrels? Let Irish- 
 men remember the words of the late sainted Irish priest of Quebec, the 
 Rev. Father McMahon : " When you arrive in this free country let all 
 your divisions and hatreds be left, like your foot-print in the sand behind 
 you, to be washed away forever by the next receding wave." Why, for 
 instance, in Canada should French Canadians be made to suffer all the disa- 
 greeable consequences of party strife and bigotry, because Irishmen choose 
 to cherish their old cnniiiios and resume their national quarrels in this 
 free country. Englishmen, — Catholics and Protestants, — don't quarrel 
 with and halo each other in this way. Scotchmen, — as good and fervent 
 Catliolics as any in the world, don't make war on their Protestant country- 
 men. Wlicn will the sons of Ireland learn to understand and tolerate each 
 other without regard to each other's religious bclici'? If any one can tell 
 us when, then we will tell them when Ireland will begin to enjoy prosperity 
 and happiness, and not till then. Why have wo, in this short and imper- 
 fect sketch of Mr. Mctrce's \\'?c, gone into this subject ? Because that 
 truly great Irishman devoted the greater part of his valuable life to im- 
 press those doctrines on the minda of his countrymen, and as a proof 
 that he was right, look at the satisfactory result of his labors, and sec 
 what victories he achieved for Irishmen in Canada, in the short space of 
 ten years, while they followed his liberal views and lived in friendship 
 and harmony with each other, and with their French, English and Scotch 
 fellow subjects. II is course was one of mutual conciliation and forbearance, 
 mutual interest and support — in the language of Scotland's sweetest poet^ 
 Burns : '"" 
 
 " That man to man, the world o'er, 
 Shall brithers be, for a' that." 
 
 Let Irishmen ask their own hearts the same question that Ireland's gifted 
 poet Moore asks, when he says : 
 
 " Shall 1 ask the brave soldier who fights by my sido ' = "•'-' ?>*•.' 
 * :; "■ In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree ; *^''^' ^'5;;;^^ <; 
 
 !t .,-_ Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried, 
 If he kneels not before the same altar with me." 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 And if they wish to live in peace, in prosperity and harmony with 
 their fellow-men, let them answer : 
 
 " No I perisli the hejirts and the Inws that would try 
 Truth, valor, or Iotc hy a Btundnrd like this ;" 
 
 and prove by their liberal conduct for the future, towards eneh other and 
 towards all men, that thoy mean what they say. If they do this, then 
 McGee shall not have lived and died in vain, Ireland will soon be satisfied 
 and her <;ricvances swept away, and Canada will always bo what she now 
 is, the happiest country under the sun. 
 
 Before he returned to C.mada, Mr. McGee visited Ireland, and was re- 
 ceived with distinction at Wexford, the scene of his first triumph as u 
 speaker in the cause of temperance. He was invited to deliver a lecture, at 
 which all the people of note in that city and surrounding]; country were pre- 
 sent. His lecture was one of great ability, and was applauded throughout 
 its delivery by the deliglited hearers. Yet, as an Irishman and one of Mr. 
 McOeo's most intimate and warmest friends and admirers, we must express 
 our unqualified condenmntion of one part of that lecture. Mr. McGee, who 
 was most remarkable for the truthfulness of iiis assertions in all that he 
 stated in public or private life, for once, was both incorrect and very 
 unjust. In the report his W^x/ord speech^ as it has always been 
 oalled, he said that whicl ..ust candidly say was not true. If his speech 
 was correctly reported, (and we must presume that it was, for ho never 
 iC>)rreeted his reported statements,) he asserted that young Irishmen and 
 women, on their arrival in the United 8tates, became lost to honor and to 
 shame. To those who did not kn; w the contrary, his assertion would be 
 literally understood as a flict, and the Irish in tht United States would 
 be set down, with very few exceptions, as a people lost to every principle 
 ^f honor, honesty and religion, whereas directly the contrary is the fact. 
 As a general rule, the Irish in America are a hard-working, honest, in- 
 •dustrious and remarkably religious people. Their names are to be found 
 in the very first rank as Mcsrehants, Lawyers, Physicians, Contractors, 
 >Capitali8t8 and Agriculturalist^, and the national name for virtue and 
 honesty has never in the history of the world been sustained with m')re 
 .signal purity than it ha-i been by the virtuous daughters of Ireland, whe- 
 ther occupying positions among the very highest and educated classes of 
 isociety, the most brilliant and accomplished among the ladies of fashion- 
 able society in the great Republic, or as the self-denying Irish servant- 
 ;girls of the United States of America, with all the temptations and 
 .allurements which surround them in the wealthy and corrupt cities of 
 ithe great Ilepublic The Irish servant girls have preserved untarnished 
 (their reputation for purity and steadfast firmness in the religion of their 
 
51 
 
 t- 
 d 
 
 d 
 
 4 * 
 
 r 
 
 fathers. Their llttlo savings arc, mouth nffer month, sot npart to be pent 
 hoMJO to their JiL'cd parents or younger brothers and sisters iu Ireland, 
 and the sum thus remitted home by poor girls amounts to nearly a viillion 
 Jollitrs a 1/ettr. And the Church — I mean the Catholic Church — in Mie 
 United States is maiidy supported by the voluntary contributions of the 
 Irish people, whilst the church buildings arc of the most expensive and 
 splendid description. The Iri.^h Orphan Asylum now being completed 
 in the city of Brooklyn will cost half a million of dollars, whilst convents, 
 hospitals, schools and charitable and religious institutions, arc to be I'ound 
 all over the Union, — from Maine to Florida, from the Atlantic to 
 the Pacu'IC, in every State, Town, and Village, — glorious monuments of 
 the presence and unfailing devotion of the sons and daughters of Ireland 
 to the cross, and to the shamrock, to the religion of their fathers and to 
 the worship of their God. In the face of these facts it was cruel to the 
 last degree, for any one, no matter what his object might be, lo insult the 
 faithful daughters and sons of Ireland in the United States as Mr. 
 McGee did in his Wexford speech. We are well aware that Mr. McGee's 
 object was to induce immigration to Canada, and to divert it as much as 
 possible from the United States. lie wanted to fill the emigr.int's mind 
 with horror of Anioricin institutions — and to induce the Irish people 
 by that means, either to remain at home, or to make Canada their 
 stopping place — and above all he wanted to prevent Irishmen being 
 picked up on the wharf at New York on their arrival, and forwarded to 
 the battle fields in the South, for the war was still raging at the time 
 of his ^^ Wexford speech." We have no hesitation iii saying that millions 
 of Irish, Knglish and Scotch immigrants can be provided with prosperous 
 and h<;ppy homes in Canada, and we will go i'urther and say that we 
 candidly believe that the prospects here in Canada are fully equal lo 
 anything they will meet in the United States. We offer them universal 
 freedom, just Uiws, and all the advantages of a permanent form of 
 government ; rich agricultural lands for a mere nominal price, and every 
 encouragement to settle among us ; but at the same time we cannot 
 permit any man, no mitter how exalted his position, speaking as the 
 representative of our government, to say anything unjust of the Irisli 
 men and women in the United States. Throughout the whole of Mr. 
 McGce's political career as a Canadian politician, this is the only act 
 of his which his countryuea cinnot endorse. And while we condeum 
 this one act of his, and in his name admit the error, can we not point 
 out ten thousand instancos of his devoted attachment to, and his self- 
 Biciificc for, his countrymen and his country, — and then say to all who 
 condemned his Wexford speech — is that one false step, that one cloud, 
 
62 
 
 I !i: 
 
 i ii 
 
 I i 
 
 suflScient to cover and hide in its shade, the brilliant life of the unselfish 
 Irish patriot and Canadian statesman, Thomns D'Arcy McGee ? 
 
 No ! the chosen disciiile, Peter, the prince of the apostles, thrice denied 
 his Lord and Master, when He most stood in need of a friend. Yet, oa- 
 account of his great virtues, Christ took him to His bosom, and gave 
 hiui toe very keys of heaven. Mr. McGee never denied his country, 
 nor did he ever desert her, through " weal or woe ; " the error he com- 
 mitted in his Wexford speech was committed in a mistaken zea! for the 
 welfare and success of the Irish about to emigrate from their country ; 
 iu his great love for his fellow countrymen at home, ho was for once, and 
 only once in his lii'e, unjust towards thousands of his fellow countrymen 
 id the United States. 
 
 The leading Irislnuen of Montreal, seconded and nobly assisted by the 
 other nationalities in the city, gave Mr. McGce a public banquet on his 
 rucurn from Ireland ; it was one of the most successful ovations ever given 
 to any public man in Canada; the leading men of the future " Dominion 
 of Canada" were present to do honor to the greatest Irishman on the 
 continent of America, and to prove the confidence and esteem in which 
 he vus held by all classes of the community. At that brilliant assem- 
 blage of the great men of our country, Walter Macfarlan a liberal minded 
 honorable Scotch gentleman presided, for he deserved to take the first place 
 in doing honor to the man to whom he had given the first place in his 
 honest heart. The speech of Mr. McGee on that occasion was one of the 
 greatest and most masterly discourses that ever ravished the ears of an au- 
 dience or made the souls of men thrill with emotion. " Music hath charms," 
 but the soul of the great McGee poured forth in his glowing words, on that 
 occasion, not only charmed, itenchantod the minds of his hearers, and 
 soaring away far above the littleness of every day things and acts, opened 
 up with a master hand the portals of pure and undefiled patriotism, and 
 taught young and old what equal rights, and equal justice, and national 
 liberty meant. It was such an outbust of eloquence as we shall never hear 
 again, since his tongue that gave it utterance is stilled for ever ; but its 
 eftccts are still felt, nnd will continue to be felt for half a century to come. 
 
 It is needless to say that that unfortunate Wexford speech was seized on 
 with avidity by Mr. McGee's enemies in the United States and Canada; the 
 Fenian Brotherhood fairly gloated over it, and bis narrow-minded enemies 
 in Canada, and particularly in Montreal, took advantage of it and of his 
 absence, to villify his character and estrange from him the affections of the 
 Irish people — what was called '' a Disclaimer" was published in Montreal, 
 wliich was gotten up by a ^'■hanhrnpt shoemaJcei',^' and a vendor of old 
 clothes, assisted by some of the worst hidden enemies of Mr. McGee. 
 Header, do you c .r visit the " Bonsecours I^Iarket ?" If not, perhaps ou 
 
53 
 
 are not aware that " OL' CLO !" venders " arc there to be fount!," notof 
 the true type; mine " d-h-ear fn:n " Isaac is supplanted and improved 
 upon in the person of the " Hibernian Jew.'^ If you have not had the i^ood 
 fortune to become personally acquainted with the " Hiberni:in Jews," but 
 will look at the scrawls appended to " The Visdaimer," you will iind some 
 of their names thereunto appended, and then confess! oh most innocent 
 reader, that you were not aware that " Old Clothes^' and " Brand new 
 2)oUtics" are donexa that classic region the " Bonsecours Market,'' by tlie 
 " Hibernian Jew." You might, if you looked over the X's in the disclai- 
 mer, discern those of a few " Rag and Old Nope Men,^' and oF one or two 
 respectable, but illitei'ate "Junk Men,^' But the name of even one res- 
 pectable, intelligent man, or of a man of any standing as an Irishman in this 
 community is not tobef tund appended to *• Tlie Disclaimer," and as many 
 of the signatures to the Disclaimer, such asthey were, proved tohQforgeries, 
 it had but little effect in Canada or 3Iontreal. Tlio lieartless leaders of the 
 uneducated Irish people in the Nortliern States, made it one of their most 
 powerful arguments to prove tli;it McGce was not to be believed when he 
 condemned the leaders of tlie Brntlicrliood as a lot of heartless and unprin- 
 cipled swindlers, who were living on the money extorted from the poor Irish 
 servautgirls and laboring men of the United States. And, alts ! the poor 
 people were induced to give more credit and money to those scoundrels — 
 for, heartily sincerj and honest tliemsclvos, the poor Irish people could 
 not for a moment suppose that their loaders were impostors, till at last 
 their eyes were opened to the true state of things when the scoundrels 
 began to quarrel over the spoils — and then, indeed, the world was con- 
 vinced that McGec's denunciation of the whole thing from bcgi.. ning to 
 end was honest and truthful. But still, as one set of windy patriots was 
 unmasked, another set sprang up to take tlieir place — and so the 
 vile conspiracy, not against Engli-h rule so much as against Irish money 
 — was continued to be, and is still faintly kept alive. It is wonderful 
 indeed to conceive ho sv the Irish people in America can be so blindly 
 led by knaves. The leaders in America have turned out traitors and 
 swindlers; and the most prominent of their so-called leaders in Ireland 
 and England have inscribed their names in tlic history of Fenianism as 
 infoiMnci's who have sold their poor, deluded, but honest followers to tliP 
 British Government to die on the scaffold, or to pine away their lives 
 in prisons as felons. And in Canada, after killing aid wounding several of 
 our citizen soldiers, the lives of a score of misled madmen were forfeited (o 
 the outraged laws of thi;s country ; and to t!)e clemency of those whose 
 homes and firesides they came to lay waste without c:iuse or reason whatever 
 they owe their lives. Thomas D'Arcy MeGcc was a member of the 
 Cabinet that commuted their sentence of death to one of imprisonment. 
 
64 
 
 ii»i 
 
 
 \ I 
 
 In 1867, Mr. McGee visited Euro) e once more as Commissioner 
 from Canada to the great Industrial Exposition in Paris, and he 
 also visited the Eternal city, to lay at the feet of His Holiness Pope 
 Pius IX., the petition of the Irish Catholic congregation of St. Patrick's 
 Church, against the new division of parishes. Broken down in health, and 
 troubled with the cares of his official duties, ]Mr. MeGee, ever generous 
 and self sacrificing towards his countrymen, travelled to Rome, and per- 
 formed the duty imposed upon him faithfully and well, and paid out of 
 his own slender means all expenses of his costly journey, for McGee was 
 poor; he scorned to enrich himself at the cost of his honor, although as a 
 minister of the Crown he might have done so as others have done — but he 
 remained a poor and an honest man. On his arrival home from Europe 
 on the 24th of May, 1867, he was received by the citizens of Montreal at 
 the railway station, and a very flattering address presented to him on 
 behalf of all classes of the community, by the mayor. While in England 
 Mr. McGee had his speeches on the subject of Confederation of the Pro- 
 vinces published in London, and he also had a revised edition of his His- 
 tory of Ireland issued from the London press. Both these books were 
 very highly spoken of in Great Britain, and even in France. 
 
 Now we approach that part of our task which we would to God it had 
 never become our duty to write j that part of it which speaks to the 
 world of Irish ingratitude. 
 
 On the 1st July, 1867, the Provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Bruns- 
 wick and Nova Scotia, were proclaimed " The Dominion of Canada," 
 and the dream of Mr. McGee's lite for ten years past was realized ; and 
 he, who had taken a leading part in the securing of that great result, was 
 the very first man in Canada to make a very great personal sacrifice to 
 secure harmony and good feeling among all the various classes now thrown 
 together for the first time politically. The diversity of ij, crests to be 
 satisfied in the formation of the first Dominion governmeut was most 
 perplexing to the leader of the ministry, Sir John A. Macdonald — each 
 province had its leading men, all claiming a place at the Council Board, 
 and all more or less clamorous in their demands. Among them all there 
 was no one man who had done so much with tongue and pe^} for Con- 
 federation as Mr. McGee ; and yet, when he saw the necessity for it, 
 Thomas D'Arcy McGee sacrificed his own personal feelings, and volun- 
 tarily resigned his undoubted claim to a place in the Cabinet, as an 
 example to others of the motives which should actuate a statesman who 
 placed his duty to his country before all feelings of self-advancement or 
 sclf-invercst. Well as Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir George E. Carticr, 
 Bart., knew Mr. MoGee's self-sacrificing disposition, they could not 
 
 .J ;. 
 
 
55 
 
 refrain on that occasion from publicly expressing their thanks to their 
 illustrious and magnanimous friend, for the sacrifice he made, unsolicited^ 
 to produce good feeling and harmony among all parties, and to strengthcu 
 the hands of the government which he had so materially assisted to usher 
 into existeice. But McGee felt in his soul that he was doing his duty 
 to his country, and that, with him, out-weighed all other motives aud 
 interests. 
 
 The general election of members for the House of Commons was the 
 first political move under the new form of government, and Mr. McGee 
 was again called on to represent his old division of " Montreal West." 
 Willingly would he have declined to do so and retire into private life — hig 
 health, for a long tims past, was fast breaking down ; he had excited him- 
 self too much during some years past in every way — as minister of the 
 Crown, an author, a lecturer, and a leader of the people — and fain would 
 he have rested to recruit his health. But his own feelings had to give 
 way to the claims of bis country ; he had taken a leading part in secur- 
 ing a new form of government for Canada, now he must assist in getting 
 the government permanently established and in working order— the coun- 
 try could not dispense with his groat intellectual powers and eloquent 
 advocacy at the moment of her great political change — on her entrance 
 on the dignities and responsibilities of a nation. 
 
 Among the 150,000 inhabitants of Montreal t re could not hr found 
 one man, of any other nationality or creed, t' pose 'J'h ma>5 D'Arcy 
 McGee, but one of his own Irish Catholic countryincn. Engush, Fn;uch, 
 Scotch, and Irish Protestants, there were in hundreds who would oppose 
 any other man but McGee, and contest with him the honor of represent- 
 ing the most populous constituency in the Province ( f Quebec, but to a 
 man they all agrc^'d \n admitting that t . Thoui D'Arcy McGee belong- 
 ed by right the honor of repre.-onting in the Hist Dominion Parliament 
 lis old and I'lvithfully served constituency. But an Irish Catholic was 
 found, or rather 'c was dragged iiuward nominally by the " Fenian" fac- 
 tion to oppose MtGco, but he was in reality the nominee of the Rouge party. 
 LuTiif II. IloLTON was the man who got up the opposition, and he did 
 not conceal the fact, for in a public place he disclosed to a most res- 
 pcctablo ^011 'man " that he had no confidence in, or respect for, Mr. 
 Devlin," 1 .said the spiteful, faithless friend — "any tool, any instru- 
 ment! ju>y means to defeat that fellow McGee." The object of Mr. 
 Holton was to strike McGee in the most sensitive place in his nature ; 
 for this purpose he must get an Irishman to oppose him, and thus make 
 his revenge the more deeply felt. Mr. McGee felt the cowardly thrust 
 most deeply — at the first great meeting of his friends he said : — 
 
56 
 
 iif: 
 
 pi 
 I 
 
 :l 
 
 •The meeting is awnre, Sir, that in presenting myself as a candidate for re - 
 election, in support of the first Union Go7prnmcnt of the new Doniinion, I am 
 threatened with opposiiioa from a gentleman of tl. same origin and creed as 
 myself. It seems an nnnatural and malicions opposition ; . . . . , I do 
 not complain of that gentleman's candidacy .... but T do complain, and 
 I fed keenly, the a/lempt to alicnale from me the confidence, and to inspire with 
 hatred against me, a portion of my Irish fellow-countrymen. (Cheers.) They 
 kneio where I ivas vulnerable, and they struck me there; but I declare in the 
 presence of God, and my fellow-men, that I feel the blow far loss on my own 
 account, than on account of that section of our population themselves. I have 
 been in public affairs a good, a true, and a safe guide to them ; let the events of 
 the last ten years witness whether I have been so, or not ; but if they transfer 
 their confidence to other advisers, who have tried for years to counteract my 
 policy of concilialion, they will fall under evil influences; they will suffer; and 
 our flourishing city will not gain by the exchange. I have just two remarks to 
 make to that portion of my old supporters befon we part company, if part we 
 must, and one is this ; let them vote against me if ihey will ; though I do not 
 think I have deserved such recompense at their hands ; but let them, for every 
 sake, conduct this contest in an orderly, peaceable, and legal manner. (Cheers.) 
 When the election is over, the record will remain ; let it never be said that the 
 rowdy element was revived in this community, after its apparent extinction, in 
 a contest between two Irish Catholics." 
 
 Here, Irishmen, was the pure object of Luther the false in opposing 
 " Honest Tom." He did oppose him, and that opposition was the direct 
 cause of McGce's death. It is the easiest mutter in life to raise a political 
 storm, and to urge on the masaes to violence and madness, but wo ! to the 
 man who undertakes the task, for on his soul rests the bloodshed which 
 results froiu that storm of his raising, and in the eyes of God he is a mur- 
 derer. Never in the history of political contests did Montreal or Canada 
 witness such an election as the Montreal West election ; all the energies, all 
 the calumnies, all the abuse of the " Hon ge parti/ " and its foul mouthed 
 speakers, and its Judas-leader ^^ Luther ihefahc,^^ aided by the Fenians 
 of Canada — who were made the catspaw of the Rouge party — and 
 indeed of the United States, was brought to bear on the election. McGoo 
 was denounced as a traitor, as a renegade, as a turn-coat, as a false Irishman, 
 a spy for the British Government and every other falsehood that could be 
 laid hold of by a vile mob, led on by designing and unscrupulous men, 
 whose only object was to get a chance of revenging their petty spleen 
 and malice on McQee, who was as much the superior of the very best of 
 them, as gold is superior to brass. At his meetings Mr. McGeo and his 
 friends were pelted with stones and other missiles, and every means that 
 brute force could exert, and unscrupulous leaders devise, were used to 
 deter the rt pectablo people from coming to the polls to cast their votes, 
 but without avail. Law and order triumphed over brute force, truth and 
 
 
57 
 
 justice defeated falsehood and deceit, and Thomas D'Arcy McGcc was 
 triumphantly elected. It may be asked why was McGeo opposed by the 
 Irish of Montreal AVcs^ ? The answer is very simple. For five years he had 
 been battling against " Fenianism" and condemning the leaders of that 
 party ; for years he had I»cen warning his misled countrymen against the 
 dreadful consequences of following blindly men who were the very scum 
 of Irish society in the United States and Canada ; and as a natural 
 consequence of his manly and consistent condemnation of that dishonor- 
 able and plotting nest of New York scoundrels, he drew down upon 
 himself all the bitterness of their vengeance. And we shame to say it, 
 they found '• fitting tools for their revenge" in Canada ; their emissaries 
 made it their special business to whisper the blackest and deepest calum- 
 nies against McGee's character into the ears of his simple and confiding 
 countrymen, which were repeated from lip to lip, till it became impossi- 
 ble to trace the infamy to its source. Those vile rascals made it appear 
 that McGec was no longer an Irishman, that, in fact, he felt ashamed of 
 the name of Irishman, that he had turned Protestant, and declared him- 
 self a Scotchman, and thus whilst absent in Home attending to the in tersts 
 of Irishmen in Montreal, in connection with the St. Patrick's Church 
 Petition, McGec, their most devoted friend, and most honest guide, was 
 being undermined in the hearts of his countrymen by the emissaries 
 of Yankee swindlers, and their Rouge allies, who would not hesitate 
 at any crime to get rid of the man who had unmasked them from the 
 first moment of their start in the traffc of Irish blood and sweat, in the 
 name of Irish patriotism. Among the vile caluminics which were cir- 
 culated about Mr. McGeeby the Fenians, at that time, was one falsehood 
 so base and selfish that none but the most unprincipled of factions would 
 for one moment try to damage the fair fame of a patriot, although opposed 
 to bin), by sue' heartless and dishonorable means. The report was cir- 
 culated that McGee was a spy for the British government in '48, and 
 that he was false to Smith O'Biien and the Confederation, of which ho 
 was the Secretary. Although no n)an of the least common sense could 
 be induced to believe such a falsehood as this, we feel that we arc bound 
 by publicly convicting by infallible proof the authors of that lie, to show 
 the Irish people in '' Montreal }Ytst'^ what " manner of men'" led the oppo- 
 sition against Mr. McGec. Of all the men who rendered their names 
 famous in connection with Ireland's history during the last forty years, 
 with the exception of O'ConncU himself, Charles G. Dufi"y is certainly 
 the greatest and most famous. We w'" then let Ciiarles G. Dufft 
 speak of McGce, which he does as followS; in his " PiiiNCU'LES AND Po- 
 licy OP THE Irish Race: " — • .:, . . ^.^ v.^ 
 
68 
 
 " To forty political prisoners in Newgate, when the world seemed shut out 
 from me for ever, I estimated him as I do to-day. I said, ' If we loere. about 
 to bes^in our work anew, I would rather have his help than any man's of all our 
 confederates.' I said he coul<l do more things lilie amaster than the best amongst 
 us since Thomas DaTis; that he hud been sent at the last hour on a perilous mission, 
 and performed it, not only with unflinching courage, but with a success which had 
 no parallel in that era; and, above all, that he has been systematically slandered 
 by the Jacobines to an extent that would have blackened a saint of God. Since 
 he has been in America I have watched his career, and one tiling it has never 
 wanted, a fixed devotion to Irish interests.' Who has served them vith such 
 fascinating genius? Ilis poetry and his essays touch me like the breath of spring, 
 and revive the buoyancy and cliivalry of youth ; I plunge into them like a re- 
 freshing stream of * Irish undefiled ' What other man has the subtle cliarm to 
 revoke our past history and make it live before us? If he has not loved and 
 served his mistress, Ireland, with the fidelity of a true knight, I cannot name 
 any man who has." 
 
 0, Irishmen ! misled by falsehood to hate and distrust McGee — whose 
 testimony will you accept for or against him ? The greatest living Irish- 
 man, Charles Gavan Duffy, the universally beloved and justly cele- 
 brated Archbishop Connolly of Halifax, the greatest living Englishman, tho 
 IliQHT Hon. William E WART Gladstone, the best and most respected 
 men of Ireland, of Great Britain, of the United States and Canada, the 
 best priests of the Catholic Church, the most respected ministers of all 
 Protestant denominations, the evidence of all good men and all true men ; 
 or the vile, infamous slanders of despised, perjured wretches, who have 
 been for years past gaining a plentiful feast for their swinish appetites, 
 and plenty of money to support their licentious lives, at the cost of the 
 sweat, blood and lives of their misled country women and country men in 
 the United States and Canada, and covering the fair fame of the noblest 
 sons of our beloved Ireland with that filthy slime in which their owa 
 debased, perjured souls are steeped ? It is not to be wondered at, then, 
 that the man who, knowing them well, had held them up in all the naked- 
 ness and loathsomeness of their true characters, as swindlers, rob- 
 bers, murderers and cowardly assassins, for years past, must be made to 
 feel their vengeance. But the respectable thinking classes of the Irish 
 people could not be made tools of by the emissaries of " Yankee Feniaiji- 
 ism," or of " Luther thefolsey And the French, English, and Scotch 
 people of Montreal could not be put down by the bluster or bully- 
 ing of hired ruffians. They went forward like true freemen, and in the 
 teeth of danger cast their votes in favor of a man who was the embodi- 
 ment of a principle, the glorious principle of "justice and fair play." 
 "Was Mr. McGee true to Ireland ? — as well might we ask, is the needlo 
 true to the pole ? Never did the heart of man beat more truly for his 
 
69 
 
 :-' 
 
 country than McGee's did for Ireland. And he was laboring for her, 
 with a certainty of success, where the voice of the doniagoguo could 
 never reach, or reaching would never havfl any effect. Kead the words of 
 one of the most eloquent and illustrious llouian Catholic Prelates on the 
 continent of America, and one whose views and sympathies are most 
 patriotic in the cause of Ireland and thci Irish race at home and abroad, 
 HIS GRACE ARCHBISHOP CONOLLY,of HALIFAX: 
 
 " I feel it a duty to raise my humble voice in belitilfof an Irishman, wlio, under 
 a kind Providence, has been mainly instrumental in lifting up his fellow country- 
 men and co-religionists to a position which, I believe in my heart, they never 
 yet attained in this or perhaps in any other country. 
 
 Thomas D'Arcy McGee, as an individual, may have his faults and his short- 
 comings — from which no mere human being, however great and gof^d, can bo 
 entirely exempt ; but as a public man, whose career I have narrowly watched 
 with deepest interest since he first touched the soil of Canada, I unhesitatingly 
 say that he has earned for himself a loftier public character, and has done more 
 for ihe real honor and advantage of Catholics and Irishmen, here and elsewhere, 
 than any other I know of since the days of the immortal O'Connell. During the 
 dark period of his brief misunderstanding with Archbishop Hughes in New 
 York, that brightest and best of Ireland's sons in America declared to myself 
 that " McGee had the biggest mind, and was unquestionably the clev.rest man and 
 the greatest orator that Ireland had sent forth in modern times." To this I heartily 
 subscribed then, when I had not the advantage of a personal acquaintaticc ; 
 and now, at this critical moment, I do "t the more earnestly, with the unmis- 
 takable retrospect before me of his brilliant and almost faultless public career 
 in this country, which stamps him for all time to come, and beyond all compe- 
 tition, as our best and representative Irishman. Jf I were asked to whom above 
 all others I would wish to entrutt the advocacy of Ireland^s cause, I should say, 
 without a mojnent's hesitancy, that that man was Thomas UArcy McGee, the cx- 
 Minister of Canada." 
 
 Thus spoke the Archb' ^hop before Mr. McGee's death. 
 
 The Reverend Father O'Farrell, of St. Patrick's Church, Montreal, ia 
 his sermon over the remains of the Hon. Thomas D'Arcy McGee, said 
 in the presence of ten thousand people, and with his eyes bent on the altar 
 of God :— 
 
 " If Mr. McGeo had proved recreant to his native land no words of 
 mine should ever sound in his praise, and 1 should allow him to remain 
 as a great writer said of him whose sonl was dead to this generous feeling. 
 " unwept, unhonored and unsung." Never was a fouler calumny uttered 
 than that the deceased was a traitor to Ireland. There was scarcely a 
 pulse of his heart that did not beat for her, scarcely a poem or a song, 
 or more extensive work for his pen, that had not Ireland for its theme. 
 There was scarcely a legend of the old land unknown to him, scarcely a 
 monument or ruin in it which was not celebrated by him, either in verse 
 
60 
 
 or prose ; not an association formed for the cultivation of her literature 
 in which he had not some share, not a national movement for her pros- 
 perity which was not encouraged by him. I never knew a man who thought 
 more constantly or more rflFectionately of Ireland, She was the inspirer 
 of his verses, the theme of his prose. lie loved lier with a passionate 
 ardor, like that of a lover for his mistress. lie loved evervtjung about 
 Ireland except the shortcomings of her people. From his early boyhood 
 his pen was devoted to her service. His warm imagination and passion- 
 ate heart look fire at what he deemed her unbearable wrongs, and he 
 threw himself into the movement that we all know was foolish and most 
 ill-timed. He loved Ireland then, not wisely but too well. And when 
 in after years he condemned his youthful impetuosity, did he then cease 
 to love his country ? Read over the passionate outpourings of his heart in 
 verse; read over the list of his larger writings — you will find that he has 
 scarcely another theme. Look at his " Irish Settlers in America;" 
 " The Attempts to Establish the Reformation in Ireland ;" " The Life 
 of -Dr. Maginn ;" and last and greatest of all, his " History of Ireland," 
 which is confessedly the best that has yet been written, and, more 
 wonderful, has been written upon a foreign soil, with such scanty 
 materials as he could here procure. IIov.', then, could some of our 
 people come to be convinced that he had renounced his native land ? 
 Ah, my brethren, the power of calumny is fcarlul for a time. 
 Every stray word, every unguarded expression that fell from his 
 lips was taken hold of by his ene.nies, and heralded, and repeated again 
 and again, until it sank into many persons' hearts and became so deeply 
 rooted there that nothing could eradicate it. Advantage, too, was taken of 
 the earnest outspoken indignation with which he reprobated — and justly 
 reprobated — the nefarious attempts of a miserable, disgraceful conspiracy, 
 to enter into this peaceable land and to revenge the wrongs of Ireland 
 upon Canada, the happy home of your children. Yes, if he were guilty 
 of a crime against Ireland because he denounced the abominable plots 
 of men who only bring shame and disgrace upon her, then I too am guilty 
 of the same crime, for I denounce to-day as vehemently as he could do, 
 such vile, unprincipled means; and if it be proved that his death was the 
 result of his enmity of those secret societies, then I call upon every 
 honest man to stamp out with horror every vestige of them from among 
 us. (Loud and vehement applause, which was only checked by the Rev. 
 Father saying: " Remember this is the House of God.") " There must bo 
 no sympathy for such a dastardly crime ; the man or woman who could feel 
 any joy at such a diabolical deed, would be as horrible to my soul as the 
 assassin himself" <- ■■-.■- - 
 
 f i > 
 
 ^' 
 
■y 
 
 ■el 
 le 
 
 1 t > * 
 
 61 
 
 Mr. McGcc was then not false to liis own land, although ho tried to 
 serve to the utmost of his power his adopted one. I shall quote a 
 sentence from his speech on last St. Patrick's Day in Ottawa, when 
 alluding to this charge again&t him: — "If I have avoided for two or 
 throe years much speaking in public on the subject of Ireland, even in a 
 literary or historical sense, I do not admit that I can be fairly charged 
 in consequence with being either a sordid or a cold-hearted Irishmun. 
 I utterly deny it, because I could not stand still and see our peaceful, . 
 unoffending Canada invaded and deluged in blood, in the abused and 
 unauthorized name of Ireland, that therefore I wa.s a bad Irishman. I 
 utterly du'tiy the audacious charge, aud I say that my mental labors will 
 prove, such as they are, that I know Ireland as well, both in her strength 
 and hor weakness, and love her as dearly as any of those who, in ignorance 
 of my Canadian position, in ignorance of my obligations to my adopted 
 country, not to speak of my solemn oath of office, have made this cruelly false 
 charge against me." After which he alluded to the fact that he had 
 brought tlie wrongs of Ireland before the chief authorities of England, 
 during his late visit, and he adds, " that he believed he was doing Ireland 
 a good turn in the proper quarter." I deem it unnecessary to dwell upon 
 a point which, to my mind, is of the clearest evidence ; nor should I have 
 treated it at all at such length if all the hatred which has been excited 
 against the deceased, and which, I fear, has culminated in his death — so 
 awful and shocking — had not sprung from such unfounded, such base, 
 caluuuiious charges, which were blindly believed by some of my country- 
 men. J3ut it is true that the heart of the deceased was large enough to 
 admit of other aifcctions — beside the love of Ireland there grew up in 
 it another love almost as strong and as enduring — the love of Canada ; 
 and under the influence of that new feeling his mind took a wider com- 
 pass, his views became more enlarged and liberal, his glance became more 
 far-reaching, and he rose from being the patriot of one country to be the 
 statesman that embraces the entire empire in his views. And now see 
 what an Irish Protestant minister says of the Irish Catholic statesman 
 who was denounced by scoundrels as a traitor to God and h'o countjy. 
 The Reverend Dr. Irvine, of Montreal, said in a speech on the deatb of 
 Mr. McGee : 
 
 '* It matters not in what relations we look at this truly great man — we 
 see traits of character which elicit universal admiration. As a scholar he 
 was highly accomplished; as an essayist and historian he stood among 
 the first of our day ; as a poet his fugitive pieces were exquisite ; as a 
 statesman, he was clear, honest, and fearless ; as a patriot he loved the 
 ; land that gave him birth with all his heart ; he I'^vcd the British Monarchy 
 
62 
 
 , 1 
 
 as ;i form of government, iiud tlio untiring energies of his noble spirit 
 wore laid on the political altar of this our dear Dominion. Alas I alas ! that 
 the foundations of the Dominion of Canada should be laid in the precious 
 blood of her most sagacious statesman and her most ardent patriot. 
 (Applause.) I am not using the language of undeserved eulogy while I 
 thus speak — for many of you, no doubt, have read the statements of the 
 Earl of Mayo, in the Imperial Parliament, in reference to our late la- 
 mented friend. The language is as strong as any that has been, or may be 
 used here to-night, said yet the eulogy of the noble lord was well deserved. 
 Besides his gifted and cultivated intellect, Mr. McO "C was endowed v/ith 
 a warm heart — a warmer and more genial heart never throbbed in a human 
 bosom. In private and in public, he spoke and acted alike toward friend 
 and foe (he meant political fo , for he could not understand that he had, 
 or could have had, a personal enemy) in such a way aj to leave the im- 
 pre.ssion indelibly upon every observers mind, that he cherished unkind 
 feelings toward no man. His soul was cast in a large mould. He loved 
 his countty ; Tie loved his Church; he loved his fellow-men; he loved 
 every man who deserved the name of man. His heart was too large to 
 cherish hatred and revenge against any man, and while millions of ii«en 
 are this day crying for vengeance upon the ruthless ruffian who murdered 
 hinj — nay, while his blood, which still stain-^ the streets of Ottawa, is 
 crying to heaven for vengeance upon the unrelenting assassin who shed it, 
 I believe if we could reach the immortal spirit of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, 
 we should find it crying for — not vengeance, but mercy upon the fiond 
 who chased it from its gory tenement into the presence of its God." 
 (Loud applause.) 
 
 Mr. McGec. although broken down in health, took his seat in the 
 House of C.^mmons of Canada, and made the speech of the first 
 session. — With one knee resting on a ehair and his body supported 
 by the aid of a cane, he spoke, as he only could speak, for three hours, and 
 the House cheered and applauded as he spoke, for words of wisdom and 
 eloquence streamed from his lips, and held the ears and senses of his lis- 
 teners entranced with admiration— but the efibrt was too much for him — 
 while the plaudits of his fellow-members still soun led in his ears, he was 
 taken to his hotel, where he had to undergo a very painful surgical oper- 
 ation ; his friends even feared for his life, but b(!fore the end of the session 
 he was able to enter the House once more, and as he slowly crossed towards 
 his seat, the members, as if moved by one common impulse, sprang to their 
 feet and loudly cheered him. Mr. McGee, who, during years of public 
 life, had received many flattering proofs of popularity and friendship, felt 
 that reception in the House of Commons of Canada as the greatest cora- 
 
 « 4 » 
 
 :. 
 
63 
 
 it 
 
 < < 
 
 -I 
 
 plimcnt ever paid him — for parties and politics wore for the moment for- 
 gotten, and the tribute was one of friendship and j^'ood feelini^on tho part 
 of liis fcllow-menibcrs, — sueh as is not heard of onec in a hundred years. 
 Durinj? his absence from the House an absolute want was felt — his friendly 
 face, his flashes of {genuine wit — his outbursts of lofty eloquence were want- 
 ing, and things did not appear so bright as they would when he was in 
 his place; for even his political opponents admired the man and admitted 
 his superior talents and lofty luind ; e\en the correspondents of the press 
 felt his absence deeply, and frequently did they express their deep 
 regret at his non-appearance in the House. The correspondent of the 
 Rlchmovd Gnurdifui, the most influential and best edited and conducted 
 paper in the Eastern Townt^hips, says, in one of his letters ; " If you 
 can imajiinc night without stars or moon, day witliout sun, you can then 
 form an idea of the House of Commons without the presence of Thomas 
 D'Arcy McGee." Once more at home, Mr. McGce, for four Ion" 
 months was confined to his room with sickness, but his energies 
 remained unimpaired, and his pen was never idle; and it was only after 
 his death that the world became aware of how much of his time was 
 devoted to the cause o^ his country, — (we mean of his native country 
 Ireland.) lie was in cjmmunication with tiie most prominent men in the 
 British Government, in relation to Irish grievances, and his advocacy had 
 great influence in bringing about the present views of the English people 
 in relation to the Irish Church Establishment, and the Land Question. 
 One man in, the position of Mr. McGeo has more weight and influence 
 with the thinking men of England than all the windy, blnsterin" 
 patriots that ever spouted unmeaning vituperations daring the last 
 fifty years. He knew and felt this, and was doing, in his own quiet 
 way, more good for Ireland than all the political or secret societies in 
 the world ; even while I write, the Atlantic Cable is vibrating to ail parts 
 of the habitable gh^bc, the words of the great giant of English polities 
 Gladstone, who is not, nor need he bo, ashamed to declare — mat Irelarsd 
 that the Irish nation is indebted to the elo(juent words of Thomas D'Arcy 
 McGee, spoken on St. Patrick's Day last, at Ottawa, for the present ex- 
 traordinary movement in Great Britain in favor of Ireland. Fenians 
 madmen, read the words of Gladstone; let him teach you who was Ire- 
 land's best friend ; and you who took part in the false, unmerited persecu- 
 tion of the great McGee, drop on your knees and beg pardon of God and 
 of your bereaved country — bereaved through your falsehood and cakunny 
 of her greatest, her most glorious son — for your infamous folly or stupidity, 
 if only a follower of Fenianisra, and for your dreadful fratricidal murder 
 if you were a false leader of yoir simple minded, too confiding country- 
 
64 
 
 n 
 
 ifli 
 
 men, and nialiclously led them on till madness seized them and they 
 thirsted for the blood of as noble an Irishman as ever lived or died for 
 unf^rateful Ireland. Mr. Gladstone said: — 
 
 " Now, go with me across the Caiuulidn border and look for a few miniifes to 
 the state of the Irishmen in Gunada ; and here, instead of referring to length- 
 ened and various documentg, I will quote tlie words but of a single witness. 
 Possibly the name may be known to you I am going to mention ; it is the name 
 of Mr. D' \rcy McGec, a gentleman who, I believe, was well known in Ireland 
 during so much of his life as he passed there as one of the most vehement of 
 Irish patriots, and as one of those who either exposed himself on that account 
 to the penalties of the law, or else was within an ace of exposing himself. That 
 was the character of Mr. D'Arcy McGeo. He went to Canada, Canada is 
 under the sway of the same beloved Queen. In what does Canada dilFcr from 
 the United Kingdom ? Canada has a free Parliament, and so have wc ; but 
 Canada has got just laws regulating the tenure of the land on which the 
 people depend for subsistence ; and Canada has not got installed and enthroned 
 in exclusive privileges the Church of a small minority. (Cheers.) It was said 
 of old that men who crossed the sea changed the climate but not the mind; 
 but mark the change Avhich passed upon the mind of Mr. D'Arcy McGee. Let 
 me read you his testimony, for they are words more significant and more weighty 
 then I can give you; words lh<it cannot he carried home too forcibly to the minds of 
 the people. Only a few months ago Mr. D'Arcy McGee spoke ns follows at a public 
 festival given to himself and his colleague at Ottawa. Speaking of Feniiinism 
 and of the spirit with which hb was prepared to resist it, he says — " I wish the 
 enemies of her internal peace, I wish the enemies of the Dominion to consider 
 for a moment that fact, and to ask themselves whether a state of society which 
 cnn'oles all to meet as we do in this manner, with the fullest fueling of equal 
 rights and the strongest sense of equal duties to our common country, is not a 
 state of society, a condition of things, a system of laws, and a frame of self- 
 government worthy even the sacri'icc of men^s lives to perpetuate and preserve?" 
 (Hear, hear.) Such is the metamorphosis effected on the mind of a disaffected 
 Irishman by passing from a country of unjust laws to a country of just 
 laws ; but has he changed his mind with respect to Ireland ? He thinks and 
 speaks of Ireland as he thinks and spoke of her before. He says — " Speaking from 
 this place, the Capital of British America, in this presence before so many of the 
 honored men of British Jlmerica, let me venture again to say in the name of Bri- 
 tish America^ to the statesmen of Great Brilainj settle for our sakes and your own, 
 for the sake of international peace, settle promptly and generously the social and 
 ecclesiastical condition of Ireland on terms to satisfy the majority of the people to be 
 governed. Every one sees and feels that while England lifts her white cliffs 
 above the waves she never can suffer a rival government, a hostile government, 
 to be set wp on the other side of her. Whatever the aspiration of the Irish for 
 autonomy, the union is an inexorable political necessity— as inexorable for Eng- 
 land as for Ireland. But there is one miraculous agency which has yet to be 
 fully and fairly carried out in Ireland. Brute force has failed, proselytism has 
 failed. Try, if only as a novelty, try patiently and thoroughly, statesmen of the 
 empire, the miraculous agency of equal and exact justice for one or two generations 
 
 i 
 
.1 
 
 n 
 
 (Cheers.) Oontlemcn, I wish to impress on tlio minds of tlic people of England 
 this ftdvice of Mr. D'Arcy XlrQpe. Since tlio.sc words wtTu iitterod the man from 
 wliose nioiUli tliey proceeded Ims been n-moved from tlii« lower world, iind Lis 
 dpatli — '/«<■, as some think, to Fenian licentiousness — has nddt-d a melancholy 
 dignity and a greater augmentation of weight and force to the imi)rcs8ivo scnti- 
 nientg which ho has uttered. (Chi-crs.) IT IS IN l'URSUAN(M': OF THESE 
 OlMNIOyS THAT WE HAVE PROPOSED TO PARLIA.MEiVT THE POLICY 
 ON WHICH Y( U HAVE TO PASS YOUR JUDGMENT." (Cheera.)* 
 
 Durinsc ]\Ir, McQee's loner illness ho became a different man ; ho be- 
 came more thouj;htful, less impetuous, and a deep religious vein of tliought 
 Bcemod, and did in fact, pervade his wholo conduct. Ilis habits of poc" d 
 induli^oncc, the only th'uvf in his life that his enemies — for every man 
 groat or humble if independent must have enemies — could accuse 
 him of, and which was the venial sin of a social friend and warm 
 hearted, genial companion, had been given up for some time, and 
 under the influence of his deep religious convictions, it would bo 
 diflieult, indoed, to find a more perfect num, whether in a moral or intel- 
 lectual sense, than Thomas D'Arcy McGee. It was our privilege to be 
 often by his side at that time, and if we dare make known to the world 
 our private conversations with him — his enemies, his self-constituted 
 eneimes would blush to think what a noble heart they had cruelly 
 wronged — what a truly sincere and noble Irish patriot tiicy wore plott- 
 ing against in the person of Canada's adopted son and most promi- 
 nent statesman. Just two days bef )re his death his letter, now so cele- 
 brated, was written to Lord Mayo. On that day ho dined with his 
 steadfast friend, Alderman Goodwin, of Ottawa, and his estimable wile; 
 dinner was scarcely over when he excused himself, saying ho had a letter or 
 two to write— one of great importance — being pressed to do so, ho wrote it 
 in his friend's study, and, on re-entering the parlor, he remarked to Mrs. 
 Goodwin, — " I have written a letter to Earl Mayo, on the state of Ire- 
 land as compared with that of Canada. I feel happy in having done so, 
 for it has been on my mind for some time : now it is done, and something 
 here, (touching his heart,) tells mo it will do good to Ireland. So, in God's 
 name, I will go now and post it at once." Two letters were written on the 
 same evening ; the first was in favor of Ireland, the second was to his 
 beloved daughter — beloved above all living beings on earth ; but his 
 letter tc her was the second written — Ireland's interests were ever upper- 
 most in his mind, ever nearest tp his heart. Alas! that heart had ceased 
 to throb for ever ere that letter had reached its point of departure from 
 America; and the Atlantic cable had informed the Old World of the 
 
 ♦ This speech, no w so celebrated, will be found complete at the end of the book— appendix A • 
 
 E 
 
K r . f|. 
 
 66 
 
 death of McGce two weeks before tlic ocean steamer touched the shores 
 of England. And that letter to Lord Mayo — that manly letter— that 
 appeal for redress to Ireland— that contrast between Irish loyalty in Ire- 
 land and in Canada. What new, what juperhunian force it bore with it 
 long after the news of its writer's death had been received ; it struck 
 the car of the British people like a voice from the grave. Its pleadings 
 sunk deep into the hearts of British statesmen ; and the spirit of McGoe 
 iu death directed the leading minds of tlie British Empire in their efforts 
 to blot out for ever the only thing that ever called a blush to the face of 
 England as a great nation — her cruel misgnvernmont of Ireland. la 
 that most n'anly communication to the Earl of Mayo he speaks as fol- 
 io^ 7S, as a man in his high position only could venture to speak — to men 
 in high places in the British Government, with a certainty of being 
 listened to with respect, and his recommendations received as authority 
 by those in a position to act on his suggestions. 
 
 ^'But I cannot conceal from y^ur Lordships that no lay advocacy^ and no eccle- 
 ■siasiical infuience, cculd have kept our counirymen here loyal and at peace, if this 
 country loere governed as Ireland has been during the sixly-eiyht years of her legis- 
 lative union with Great Britain. Everything our emigrants find in Canada is 
 very unlikf^ everything they left behind them in Ireland. Wo have here no 
 Established Church, no system of tenancy at will, no Poor Laws, nor any need 
 of them. We have, instead, complete relig'ous equality among all our churches, 
 a general acquisition of property as the rewvrd of well-directed industry, the 
 fullest local control of our cwn resources and revenues ; our collegi:ite and 
 primary education ; our public works ; our militia, marine, and courts of justice. 
 Therefore it is, my lord, we arf, loyal to the Queen in Canada, and well content, 
 as well we niny be, with the government of this c< anuy. 
 
 It is not fjr me, at this distauce from irtuaid, and in the absence of recent 
 experience, to make the anplication of this example, or so much of it as can be 
 appli d to the very different condition of Ireland. I but state the facts of the 
 Irish position in these provinces, for your Lordship's meditation as an Imperial 
 adviser of the Crown, as I have already had the honor to do more fully, last 
 year, ^vhile in London, to your illustrious late leader, the Earl of Derby, and 
 in 18C5, when in Dublin, to Lord Kimberly, then Lord Lieutenant, 
 
 I must not, however, assume that the passing notice with which your Lord- 
 ship honoret; me in the late debate, can justify further intrusion on your valuable 
 time; bvit I felt on all the grcuiids above stated, a strong prompting to explain 
 fiankly to your Lordship the true secret of Irish-Canadian loyalty. We are 
 loyal because our equal, civil, social and religious rights are respected by this 
 Government, in theory and in practice. Were it otiieuwise, we would be 
 
 OTUBBWIHB."* 
 
 This is the language of the statesman true to the Empire and at the 
 same time true to the land of his birth — never absent from his mind ; 
 
 -"■ II I. , , ,,, .,. I I 
 
 * The whole of that celebrated letter, will bo found in appendix B. 
 
 
 I 
 
 .'h 
 
C7 
 
 Lord- 
 "luable 
 c plain 
 7e are 
 this 
 jD be 
 
 t the 
 ind ; 
 
 but ever anxiously on the watch to advance her prospects with his all- 
 powerful influence. In fact, Thomas D'Arcy McGee, in his political 
 efforts for the advancement of Canada, well knew that the glory of his 
 and other prominent Irishmen's achievements in the Colonid possessions 
 of Great Britain, such for instance as those of Charles Duffy in 
 Australia, would be placed to the credit of the Irish race, and in 
 the end would be the most certain means of securing- that position for 
 Ireland's sons at home that they were proving themselves worthy of 
 occupying in foreign countries under the English form of government, 
 by their loyal and faithful support of the British flag, when their just 
 rights are respected. On the re-opening of the House, Mr. McGce returned 
 to his parliamentary duties, with renewed health and vigor. In fact, he 
 was a new man, and to all appearance had forty years of life before him ; 
 but the hand of death had been, for two years past, following him in the 
 shape "f the cold-blooded, hired 9.«sassin, for that Whelan was hired, we 
 have no doubt, will yet be made manif'^s'; yes, W3 repeat it, hired ! and 
 paid a regular salary by some of those creeping, crawling, smiling 
 monsters, who can pretend friendship and patriotism whilst their souls 
 are nests wherein falsehood, treason, conspiracy ai d murder arc being 
 hatched. Heaven is powerless ! Hell a myth 1 if mch vipers meet not 
 their well merited reward. The pitiful villain who be .lomes the tool of such 
 cowardly wretches in carrying out their devili&Ii c esigns, is an angel in 
 comparison with them. The fiend in human shape who, in comparative 
 security from personal danger, plans the death of a icilow man, and hires or 
 incites others more brutal but less cunning than himself to strike the 
 blow, is in the eye of God the more guilty party, and could tlic laws of 
 man lay hold of him, he should be dealt with as a wolf; no mercy, no 
 compassion should be shown him ; the voice and hand of every good man 
 should be uplifted against liim, till at the end of a strong rope, his dangling 
 carcass, loathsome and disgustin;'-, proclaims to the world that ho has 
 paid with his life the penalty of his diabolical inhumanity and cowardly 
 crime. Mr. McGee's steps were dogged from one place to another, 
 day and night — the murderer's accursed shadow w; s thrown across his 
 path, only seeking a fitting moment to carry out his accursed, unmanly, 
 cold-blooded object. At length, the fatal niglit, the Gth of April arrived. 
 It was announced that Mr. McGce was to sjwak in the House on 
 that night, and as usual on such an occasion the House was crowd d. 
 He did speak that night, r.nd although no suspicion was then eu ;or- 
 tained that he was delivering ids last speech in this world, his speeoh 
 was listened to with ma/kcd attention ; his words were ncbie, his 
 definition of duty to one's country was such as none but a great 
 
i 
 
 i 
 
 ii 
 
 I 
 
 ■ 
 
 !i 
 
 i 
 
 li 
 
 ii i 
 
 iil 
 
 1 ; ' 
 
 1 W 
 
 1 *■ 
 
 't 1 
 
 r ! 
 
 ill;' 
 
 indepciident mind dare conceive ; and yet, whilst be was giving eloquent 
 utterance to sentiments which might have entranced the mind of any 
 man, one wearing the human form — a devil in human shape — stood 
 ", ithin the sou id of his voice, within view of his person, awaiting with 
 the patience of a tiger the moment when he might spring upon him and 
 murder him. On that occasion, Mr, McGee spoke in defence of his 
 absent friend, Dr. Tupper, who had become rather unpopular with a cer- 
 tain party among his constituents, and in his speech he said : " Popu- 
 " larity, sir, is a great good, if we accept it as a power and a means to do 
 " good to our counti'y and our fellow men ; something to be cherished and 
 " clung to. But popularity for its own sake is nothing worth, worse than 
 " nothing if purchased at the sacrifice of one's convictions of right. He 
 " hoped that nici-e temporary or local popularity would not in that House 
 " be made the test of qualification for public service. One that rested 
 " simply on popularity and would risk the right in hunting for popularity, 
 " would soon find that which he hunted for slip away. Base indeed 
 " \\v)uld be he who could not risk popularity in a good cause— that of his 
 ** country." 
 
 And whilst the sound of applause was still ringing in his ears he left 
 the House of Commons to go home. Home ! he did go home, to that 
 home where the iceary are at rest. In company with a parliamentary 
 friend, he left the House — a smile on his friendly face, a pleasant word 
 on liis lip. After walking together for a short distance, they separated 
 from eacli othor, and Thomas D'Arcy McGee was left alone in the silent 
 night with his murderer. On he went peacefully towards his door, the 
 stealthy step of the cowardly assassin silently following him, not a moment's 
 warning, no suspicion of impending danger till within a few feet from the 
 door, when suddenly there is a flash, an explosion; a heavy ftill, and 
 the case of clay is shattered — a pure soul is standing in the presence 
 of its God, clainung a martyr's, a patriot's crown : the mortal remains 
 of Thomas D'Arcy McGee lie extended on the street. The pale moon 
 looks down with a serene but sorrowful gaze on the cold upturned face of 
 the murdered statesman. And the murderer — what of him, where is he ? 
 Ask not-— the eyo of God is upon him, and the hand of God will poin^ 
 him out to the justice of man ; the Civrth will cast him up even if he con- 
 cealed himself in her deepest caverns, for all nature must revolt against 
 the presence of a thing so vile. We will not pollute the page with 
 the mention of his name, nor will we pay him even the tribute of a passing 
 word : 
 
 " Go— go — 'tis vain to curse, 
 :c„, K.. 'Tis wenknesa to upbraid thee ; 
 
 Hato cannot wish thee worse 
 Than guilt and sbame bare made Thee." ' 
 
 V 
 
The news of Mr. McGee's murder was flashed from one extremity of 
 Canada to the other, within a few hours of his death, and Europe next 
 day was made aware of Canada's, of Ireland's loss. In Canada, the whole 
 population was horror-stricken, and tears and lamentations fcr his loss 
 were mingled with deep execrations on the heads of those who eompasgcd 
 his death. The young nation which ho, in his life, had adopterl nnd 
 clung to, whilst grieving over his death as a child weeps over the death of 
 a beloved parent, claimed his honored remains as ihe property of the 
 nation, and the great city of Montreal, as chief mourner, claimed the honor 
 of burying its idolized representative, wiih all the pomp and solemnity 
 that grateful nations love to display, to the glory of their mighty dead. 
 And so long as Canada lives, THOMAS D'AIICY McGEE'/name and 
 memory will live enshrined in the grateful hearts of Canada's sons. 
 
 Oh no, not a heart, that e'er know him, but mourns 
 
 Deep, deep o'er the grave, where such glory is shrin'd — 
 
 O'er a monument Fame will presbrve, 'mong tne urns 
 Of the wisest, the bravest, the best of mankind ! 
 
-3KF 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
ippcnli.^. 
 
■ff 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 ! 
 
 The following report from the Ottaiva Times of the speeches 
 of the late Hon. Thomas D'Arcy McGee we think it only right 
 to give in full. The speech delivered by him at the banquet is 
 now, without doubt, the most celebrated of all his speeches — and is 
 in fact a complete index in itself ^> tlio c'naracter of that truly 
 great man — and shows how he Iced Canada and his follow-men 
 Avithout distinction — at the same time that he never forgot his 
 first love — Ireland— under any circumstances, or at any time. 
 
 ft 
 
 ST. PATRICK'S DAY (1868) AT OTTAWA— SPEECHES OF THE 
 
 HON. MR. McGEE. 
 
 REMARKS AT TUB CONCERT. 
 
 Being introduced by tlie ClMirmivn, W. F. Powell, Esq., President of tho Irish 
 Protestant Benevolent Society, 
 
 lion. Mr. McGeo said : I am always happy to obey tho call of my friend the 
 Sheriff of Carlton (Mr. Powell) ; and the last time I stood here he was also in the 
 chair. But I am especially happy on this occasion in being able to address a 
 few sentences of congratulation to an audience assembled as this is in the cause 
 of mutual charity, — an audience of Irishmen, irrespective of religious distinc- 
 tion, — who are here to-night for the mutual benefit of the poor and the orphans, 
 who look to both your societies for help and sustenance. (Cheers.) I feel quite 
 sure, Mr. Sheriff, and gentlemen of the joint-committee, that you will never have 
 reason to regret that you mutually assisted at what I may call a common 
 work of charity, and that you chose for the occasion of so doing this Saint 
 Patrick's Day, 1868. You engaged in a good work ; the very means you took 
 to accomplish it were, in themselves, a good work. (Cheers.) Whatever is done 
 at Ottawa of a public character, derives additional significance from the fact 
 that it is done at the political capital of the country, and for one I do most sin- 
 cerely trust the example set here thia evening will meet with general approval 
 and imitation among Irishmen throughout the Dominion. I believe the proces- 
 sion of the day was irreproachable, and I hope all tho proceedings of this 
 evening will be equally so. (Cheers.) There used to be a joint celebra- 
 tion of this day at Toronto, and I think it was presided over so late as last 
 year by our late respected countryman, the Hon. Robert Spence (hear, 
 hear.) There is such a union society of very late date at Halifax, with which 
 many of our Nova Scotia friends, now in Ottawa, have been long connected. 
 In Montreal, this evening, a number of Irish gentlemen and their guests are din- 
 ing together in cordial amity, just as some of us are going to sup together by- 
 nnd-bye at the Russell House. (Cheers.) I feel that these are good signs for 
 the social peace and civil unity of the New Dominion, in which Irishmen form 
 
'3 
 
 
 80 considerable a contingent. The Irish in the Dominion arc the most numerous 
 as a class of any one origin ; more numerous than even our French Canadian 
 friends, if you take Protestant and Catholic Irislimen and their de.')ccndants 
 together. In fact, it would be very eas}' to show that lliis Canada is proportion- 
 ately a more Irish country than the Uni.ed States, or even the United Kingdom. 
 (Cheers.) We have an Irish Governor-General at our head, and an Irish Re- 
 ceiver-General among His E.xcellcucy's advisers ; and in Nova Scotia they have 
 an Irish Lieutenant Governor, in General Doyle. (Cheers.) Last week we snw 
 the addition of three members to the Senate, one of whom was of Irish Protest- 
 ant stock, from the Niagara district, and the other an Irish Catholic, from St, 
 John, New Brunswick. I allude to the Ron. Mr. Benson and the Hon .Mr. Dever, 
 (Cheers.) One parish in Cavan sends no less than five members to our Parlia- 
 ment (including my hon. friend who is to succeed me, Mr. Shanly,) and I 
 think it will be allowed that ia justice to Cavan, at all events. (Cheers and 
 laughter) Ten members of our Senate were born in Ireland, or of Irish parents 
 and twenty-nine members of our House of Commons — a proportion of yepresen- 
 tation nearly equal to Ireland's share in the United Kingdom, and far beyond 
 anything ever attained by our countrymen who choose to prefer the United States 
 to Canada, as a new country. If, however, there has been anything wanting to 
 Irish success more than another, it has been mutual co-operation and assistance 
 such as is exemplified here to-night. You have begun a good work in Ottawa, 
 Mr. Sheriff and gentlemen, and one that o.ily needs good management and a 
 spirit of perseverance to make it inure to the benefit of every Irishman, high or 
 low, who dwells within this broad Dominion. (Cheers.) I liavc promised, 
 however, not to detain you, and you are aware tiiat I have another engagement 
 elsewhere. I will, therefore, thanking you for your kindness on all occasions, 
 give you as a motto an appropriate stanza from one of the best poets of young 
 
 Ireland : — 
 
 " For oh, it were a glorious deed 
 
 To show before mankind. 
 How every class, and every creed. 
 
 Could be by love combined — 
 Could be combined, nor yet forget. 
 
 The fountains whence they rose, 
 As filled with many a rivulet 
 
 The stately Shannon flows !" (Loud cheers.) 
 
 SPEECH AT THE DI.NXER. 
 
 The Chairman, II. J. Friel, Esq., Mayor of the city, having proposed the toast 
 of the evening, " The Hon. Mr. McGee," spoke in eloquent terms of Mr. JIoGee's 
 claims upon the country's appreciation for his eminent services. The toast was 
 drank with the greatest enthusiasm, and when the hon. gentleman rose to res- 
 pond he was received with many and loud manifestations of applause. 
 
 Mr. McGee said : — My Lord, Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen, — I rise with an extreme 
 consciousness of your undeserved kindness, and of my own utter unworthiness 
 to acknowledge the toast which you have proposed to this assemblage. When 
 I see here so many of the representatives of the peoide, and the members of the 
 
f^ 
 
 74 
 
 
 H 
 
 Bl if 
 
 . Ill'i. 
 
 t! it!*! 
 
 Senate of Canada, — irrespective of party, or section, or origin, — when I see so 
 many of the lead'ng citizens, regardless of creed ; when I remcniljcr the day it 
 is, and the associations of this day, I sliould be very insensible indeed if I did 
 not feel that you liad paid me the highest compliment it is possible for any man 
 in my position to receive, whether I am to take it as a Canadian representative, 
 or ns paid to an Irishman, in the capital city of his adopted country, on tlie patron 
 day of his native country. (Cheers.) I wish, Mr. Mayor, I could conscientiously 
 assume to myself a tithe of the credit you have been kind enough to assign me, 
 either in one capacity or the otlier. Speaking as a Canadian representative, I 
 may say if I have rendered any public service, it has been by cheerfully follow" 
 ing the lead of the experienced statesmen to whom we owe the union of these 
 Province?, so far as that union is yet accomplished, and of whom I will 
 merely add on this occasion that as they have been the chief authors and found- 
 ers of that union, so I feel convinced thu country generally still looks to them, 
 and will continue to look to them to establish and perfect the glorious edifice 
 they have so far successfully carried out. (Cheers.) Now, assuming my 
 other capacity, that one which is most appropriate for the day and the 
 occasion, I must express my deep gnitification, not on selfish but on 
 public grounds, that this entertainment should have originated in the 
 spontaneous action of a number of gentlemen of this city, nearly equally 
 composed, as I am given to understand, of Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics. 
 I believe I do not exaggerate when I say, that surely that is a good and salutary 
 sign for this city and this courtry, and one that ought not to be without its in- 
 fluence with Irishmen of all parties and all denominations, especially in this 
 country, (Cheers.) In no other country in Christendom, unfortunately, have 
 religious dili'erences been so embittered, so long lived, or so apparently incur- 
 able, as in Ireland ; not because there were dilFerences of religion, or because 
 the Irish temper is naturally unsocial or intolerant, for I believe we may appeal 
 to the whole world that such is not the national temperament of Irishmen — 
 (hear, hear,) — but because church questions were so complicated with material 
 interests and civil rights in that country, because they were so long the qualifi- 
 cation of the bar, to the possession of property, or the enjoyment of equal 
 political rights. Now, in this happy country, — happy if we only knew our own 
 advant.'.ges — happy if we were all resolved to make it so, — where these theological 
 complications with private and political riglits do not now, and never did to any 
 extent exist, why should the prejudices and the conflicts which were the growth of 
 a different set of circumstances, be imported and cultivated here ? (Hear, hear.) 
 I hold that man an insincere man who does not heartily prefer his own religion 
 to any other, — and an unfortunate man, who does not practice the religion he 
 holds dear; but surely we can all sincerely believe, and loyally live up to, our 
 own religious convictions, and yet remember that of the glorious trinity of 
 evangelical virtues — "the greatest of all these is charity." (Cheers.) Whatever 
 else any church claiming to be Christian teaches its members, — whatever dogmas 
 any of us hold or reject, we are all equally and alike taught this one and the 
 same doctrine — "Do unto others as you would they should do unto you." 
 (Cheers.) Now itis on this eminently social, just, and patriotic principle we meet 
 here to night, and itis a principle which ought to commend itself to the general 
 
 tip 
 
75 
 
 approbfttlon of all good men. (Cheers.) Mr. Mayor, I know it is bccauic I have 
 enilcavored, in my weak way, to set forth and illustrate this principle, that 
 yoii have graciously connected zny humble name with this St. Patrick's festival 
 of 18G8; and it is because lam deeply grateful to my adopted country, and 
 because I am honestly amliitious to be reckoned somewhere, however lowly the 
 place, in the catalogue of herpatriots, that I thank you most unalfectedly for this 
 great impetus to the good cause of future peace and good will among ua all. 
 (Cheers) We have needed, and we shall need more and more, social unioa 
 as well as political union among our diversified jiopulalion; we need it in 
 peace, for all the great designs of peace ; we should need it still more in times 
 of danger, for then indeed u divided people are an easy prey, but a united popula- 
 tion, in a just cause,, on their own soil, what foreign force can overcome, or destroy. 
 (Hear, hear and cheers.) May God avert the day, Avhen our friends here, and 
 those assembled elsewhere in the same spirit, may be called upon to defend their 
 country with their lives; but if such a day of trial should come, sooner or later, 
 as come itmay in the changes and chances of human affairs, believe me, gentle- 
 men, it would be no bad preparation for the unity of the Irish contingent of our 
 volunteer defenders, in camp or in action, — it would be no meffective contribution 
 to the mutual confidence of brave men in each other, so important at such a time 
 — that they had sat together, as we are doing to-night, brothers in the exercises 
 of hospitality, before they becam«i brothers in arms ! (Loud cheers.) When I 
 accepted your invitation, gentlemen of the committee, I thought of that possible 
 consequence, and I am rejoiced to know that there are similar reunions to this of 
 Irish-Canadians and their honored guests of other origins taking place on this 
 auspicious St. Patrick's D.ay in Montreal and elsewhere throughout the country. 
 The mention of Montreal reminds me that there are hero the three members for 
 that eiiy — my lion, friend, a French-Canadian (Mr. Cartier), /«cj7e princeps, the 
 honored head of his compatriots — and my other hon. friend and colleague (Mr. 
 Thos. Workman), an Irish Protestant, from the heart of Ulster. (Cheers.) I 
 wish the enemies of internal peace, — I wish the enemies of the Dominion to 
 consiiier for a moment that fact, and to ask themselves whether a state of society 
 which enables us all to meet as we do in this manner, with the fullest feeling o^ 
 equal rights, and the strongest sense of equal duties to our common country,— 
 is not a state of society, a condition of things, a system of laws, and a frame 
 •f self-government, worthy even of the sacrifice of men's lives to per- 
 petuate and preserve. (Cheers.) Mr. Mayor, before I sit down — as this is St- 
 Patrick's night, and I am the guest of the Irish citizens of Ottawa, if you will 
 permit me, — I may be expected to add a few general ix-marks on the critical sub- 
 ject of the state of the native land of our hosts and myself— the condition and 
 state of Ireland. (Hear, hear.) If I have avoided for two or three years much 
 speaking in public on the subject of Ireland, even in a literary or historical 
 sense, I do not admit that I can be fiiirly charged, in consequence, with being 
 either a sordid or a cold-hearted Irishman. (Cheers.) I utterly deny that be- 
 cause I could not stand still, and see our peaceful, unoffending Canada invaded 
 and fleluged with blood, in the abused and unauthorized name of Ireland, that, 
 therefore, I was a bad Irishman. I utterly deny the audacious charge, and I say 
 that my mental labours will prove, such as they are, that I know Ireland aa 
 
i 
 
 m 
 
 II 
 
 I 
 
 B 
 
 well, both in her strength an<l her weakness, and love her as clearly m any of 
 those will), in ignoninoe of my Ciumdian position — in ign')rai\ce of my obligaliona 
 to my adopted country — not to speak of my solemn oath of ofTice — have made 
 this cruelly false charge against mo. -(Loud cheers.) You have been kind 
 enough to allude, Mr. Mayor, to my " History of Ireland ;" no one is more sen- 
 sibli; of its many deficietictL'S than I am, and if I live I hope to remedy some of 
 them ; but it certainly was to m.' a labour of love, and I believe it is 
 the first time that a history of Ireland has ever been commenced and com- 
 pleted, by a person situatpd as I was at iho time, in a distant colony, after 
 his personal conne.xion with the mathwr country might be supposed to 
 have closed forever. (Cheers ) With reference to our literature gener- 
 ally, let mo say, Mr. Mayor, that I have great faith in the recui)erativo 
 energies, and the mental saliency of the Irish race. We have hid heavy 
 and almost irreparable losses as an intellectual people, the past few years; 
 we have lost a triad of Celtic scholars, ' i O'Donovan, 0"Curry, and 
 Petrie, the like of whom will not soon arise a;,'ain, if ever; but when we 
 remember that we have still left. Dr. Todd, Dr. Moran, Dr. Reeves, and P.amuel 
 Fer,'uson, McCarthy, Gilbert, and Father Meehan, to uphold the glories of our 
 national Academy ; when I sec what even our Irish ladies are doing, such as 
 Lady Wilde and Mrs. Ferguson at Dublin, and Mrs. Sillier at New York, to 
 increase the store and elevate llio standard of our national literature ; wh-n I 
 see volume after volume of the rarest research, combined with the finest skill in 
 style and treatment, issuing from the Dublin and London and New York pub- 
 lishing houses, on Irish subjects, even I, in this fir north of the new world, catch 
 sometimes by reflection a glow of the same inspiration, and venture my humble 
 word to cheer on and applaud those true patriots, and true benefactors of their 
 couiitr\' and countrymen. (Cheers.) As to Irish public affairs, I will further 
 take the liberty lo mention that when, in 18G5 and 1867, by the consent of my 
 colleagues and my gallant friend here (Sir John A. Macdouald,) I went home 
 to represent this country, I, on bo'li occasions, in '65 to Lord Kimberley, then 
 Lord Lieutenant, and last year to the Earl of Derby, whose retirement from 
 active public life, and the cause of it, every observer of his great historical 
 career must regret — I twice respectfully submitted my humble views, and tiio 
 result of my considerable Irish-American experience, and that they were cour- 
 teously, and I hope I may say favorably, entertained. I urged on those eminent 
 Btatosmnn, in very homely words, that they were kei'ping a pot boiling in Ireland 
 to scald us out here in the colonies. (Great laughter.) Of course I do not 
 admit, and never will admit, that any wrong done in Ireland, anciently or 
 lately, can make an armed attack on our peaceful Canadian population anytling 
 else than methodized murder — or can entitle those taken red-handed in the act to 
 any other judicial fate than that of marauders and murderers. (Cheers.) Hut apart 
 from our own recent experience, I felt it my duty to press the trans- Atlantic conse- 
 quenccsof the state of Ireland on the attentirn of those who had the initiation of the 
 remedy in their own hands, believing that I was doing Ireland a good turn in 
 the proper quarter. (Cheers.) I cannot accuse myself of having lost any 
 proper opportunity of doing so; and if I wore free to publish some very gratify- 
 ing letters in my possession, I think it would be admitted by most of my coun- 
 
 i^ 
 
77 
 
 tr; men that a silent Irishmnn may be as sorvicciiblo in some kinds of work as 
 a 1 oisy ono. (Cheers.) I sliall not presume, Mr. Mayor, because I am your 
 chief puost, to nioiiopolizo the evening; I will only say further on the sulijoct 
 of Ireland, that I claim the right to I'tvo and servo her, and her sons in Canada, 
 in my own way, which is not by cither approval or connivunco with enlerprisea 
 my reason condemns as futile in their conception, and my heart rejects as crimi- 
 nal in their consequences. (Loud Cheers.) Before I close, Mr. Mayor, permit 
 me to add one thing more: Speaking from this place — the capital of liri'ish 
 America — in this presence — before so many of the most honored public men in 
 British America — let me venture again to say, in the name of British America— 
 to the statesmen of Great Britain — " Settle for our sakcs and your own ; for the 
 sake of international peace, settle promptly and generously the aociul and ec- 
 clesiastical condition of Ireland, on terms to satisfy the majority of the people 
 to c governed. Every one sees and feels that while England lifts her white 
 cliffs above the waves, she never can suffer a rival Government — a hostile Gov- 
 ernment — to be set up on the other side of her ; whatever the aspirations for 
 Irish autonomy, the Uni'.in is an inexorable political necessity, as inexorable 
 for Emrland as for Ireland ; but there is one miraculous agency which lins yet 
 to be fully and fair'.y tried out in Ireland ; brute force has failed, proselytism has 
 fulled, Anglificntion has filled; try, if only as a novelty, try patiently and tlior- 
 onglily, statesmen of the Empire! the miraculous agency of equal and exact 
 justice for one or t'.vo generations." (Loud cheers.) As a friend of 
 the Imperial connection for Ireland and for Canada as a friend of con- 
 tinued peace between England and the United States, in which we also 
 are deeply interested — I venture most respectfully to make this sug- 
 gestion to the rulers of the Empire, and I have to thank the gentlemen of the 
 committee, both Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics, citizens of iliLs city, for 
 having given me a befitting opportunity in which I could offer publicly suc'i a 
 suggestion, with the additional weight of your concurrence. (Cheers). As for us 
 who dwell in Canada, I may sa^ , linally, that in no other way can we better 
 serve Ireland, than by burying out of sight our old feuds and old factions — in 
 mitiga'ing our ancient hereditary enmities, — in proving ourselves good subjects 
 of a good Government, and wise truetues of the equal rights '.ve enjoy here, civil 
 and religious. The best argument we here can make for Ireland, id to enable 
 friendly observers at home to say, " See how well Irishmen get on together in 
 Canada. There they have equal civil and religious rights ; there they cheerfully 
 obey just laws, and are ready lo die for the rights they enjoy, and the country 
 that is so governed." Let us put that weapon into the hands of the friends of 
 Ireland at home, and it w .11 be worth all the revolvers that ever wore stolen 
 from a Cork gunshop, and all the Republican chemicals that ever were omuggled 
 out of New York. (Choors and laughter.) Gentlemen and Jlr. Mayor, I again 
 thank you for the thiee-fold gratification you have afforded me this evening ; 
 for your great and mdeserved comi'liment to myself personally ; for being 
 allowed to unite with you in this way in a union banquet of Irish-Canadians in 
 the capital of Canada ; and lastly, for the opportunity you have afforded me of 
 saying a word in season on behalf of that ancient and illustrious Island, the 
 mere mention of which, especially on tho 17th of March, warms the heart of 
 
78 
 
 every Irisliman, in whatever latitudo or longitude tlio day may dawn, or the 
 stars loolc down, upon his political dcstiniea, or his private cnjoymont. (Loud 
 cheers.) 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 '•THE TllUfi SECRET OF IIUSII-C ANADIAN LOYALTY." 
 
 Letter from the lion. Thomas J/Jmj McGcp, M.P. for Montreal, to the lii^ht 
 lion, the Earl of Mayo, S(c., Sfc. 
 
 House ojc Commons, Ottawa, Canada, > 
 April 4th, 18(>8. $ 
 
 My Loud : — During the Irish dehatc, in the Imperial Parliament, on the 10th 
 day of last month, the report of which has just reached us, you did mo the iiigh 
 honor to refer to my public position in this country, and to point your testimony 
 to the loyalty of the Irish inhabitants of Canada, by the use of my humble 
 name. 
 
 I am, my Lord, deeply sensible of the very handsome manner in which you 
 then spoke of myself personally ; and of tho just tribute you paid to the class of 
 colonists to which I have the honor to belong ; and I trust your Lordship will 
 not feci that I take an ill way of showing my gratitude by inflicting on you this 
 letter. 
 
 It has forced itself on ray mind that I owe it to your Lordship, as an eminent 
 Irisliraan in the Imperial service, as well as to dear old Ireland, and in some 
 degree to Canada also, to explain iu a few sentences the sense in which alone I 
 could receive the high personal compliment you have paid me, with unmixed 
 satisfaction. 
 
 Our countrymen, my Lord, in the Dominion of Canada, with their descendants, 
 are a full third of the four millions of her Majesty's North American subjects. la 
 religion they are nearly half and half Protestant and Catholic. Though few can 
 be called wealthy, the majority of both creeds are proprietors in town or country 
 In the city I represent (Montreal) their aggregate property, acquired mostly in 
 this generation, is valued at many millions of dollars. In the rural parts 
 there are literally thousands of them who possess their holdings in fee, and 
 unencumbered. The best specimens of both classes are among the most meritor- 
 ious members of Canadian society. Property has made them conservative in 
 the truest sense — conservative of character, and zealous to uphold the law. The 
 generous national temperament, shrivelled and cankered by hopeless penury at 
 home, has renewed its youth with us, and keeps putting forth fruits of public and 
 private good, to the great satisfaction of every lover of this country. Without 
 having acquired the feverish thirst for riches, the love of empty show, or the ill- 
 understood democratic notions of so many of \he Irish in the neighboring re- 
 public, our settlers here will be admitted by all who know equally well both 
 sides of the boundary line, to be as warmly interested in the good repute and 
 good government of their beloved fatherland as any set of men can be, at home 
 or abroad. 
 
 
79 
 
 As a general rule — an almost unexceptioned rule — both classes, in town and 
 country, while ardently and unmistiikably Iriali, are, at the snnio time, as loyal 
 to Uritish-American institutions, ns thoroughly content with the Government 
 under which tlioy live — the Imperial onnoclion included — as any other portion 
 of our jiopulation, of whatever fuiih or origin. Deing one of tiie Members of tho 
 Parliament and the Government of this country for some years past, I huve felt 
 It to be my first duty to strengthen and extend this patriotic spirit, for their own 
 good and the good of our adopted country ; and doing so I have felt bound ne- 
 cessarily to resist and combat tlie invidious and incessant efforts to the contrary, 
 of the secret Irish societies eUablislied during tlio civil war, at Now York. 
 When those societies have given you so much trouble even on your side tho 
 Atlantic, your Lordship may imagine what efforts they must have put forth in 
 these British provinces, one-third Irish, and witliiu one day's reacii of their liead- 
 quarters. 
 
 Our countrymen in Canada, my Lord, do not so much regard the American 
 Fenian leaders as enemies of England, but rather as enemies of Canada, and 
 enemies of Ireland. We see in them not so much regulators of Irish wrongs, as 
 impediments to Ireland's reconstruction. Those of us who arc Catholics, living 
 in nnd by our holy faith, add to this political hostility towards Fenianism, a 
 rooted horror of all secret societies, so frequently condemned and anathematized 
 by the Church. Knov.ing, moreover, what manner of men the Anicrican 
 organizers usually arc — seeing the wanton misery they have 'caused their dupes 
 " at home" — and the dishouorthey have brought on the Irish name everywhere — 
 the very sound of Fenianism is detested with us, save and except by a few char- 
 acterless desperadoes among the floating population of our principal cities. 
 
 (^But I ct'.nnot conceal from your Lordships that no lay advocacy^ and no ecclt- 
 siaslical injluence^ could have kept our countrymen here loyal and at peace, if this 
 country ivcre governed as Ireland has been duriny the sixty-eight years of her legis- 
 lative union with Great Britain. Everything our emigrants find in Caniula is 
 very unlike everything they left behind them in Ireland. We have here nc 
 Established Church, no system of tenancy at will, no Poor Laws, nor any need 
 of them, We have instead, complete religious equality among nil our churches, 
 „ a general acquisition of property as the reward of well-directed industry, th« 
 fullest local control of our own resources and revenues; our collegiate and 
 primary education ; our public works ; our militia, marine, and courts of justicOj 
 Therefore it is, my lord, we are loyal to tho Queen in Canada, and well content 
 as well we may be, with the government of this country. 
 
 It is not for me, at this distance fiom Ireland, and in the absence of recent 
 experience, to make the application of this example, or so much of it as can bs 
 applied, to the very different condition of Ireland. I but state the facts of the 
 Irish position in these provinces, for your Lordship's meditation as an Imperial 
 adviser of the Crown, as I have already had the honor to do more fully, last 
 year, while in London, to your illustrious late leader, the Earl of Derby, and in 
 18G5, when in Dublin, to Lord Kimberley, then Lord Lieutenant. 
 
 I must not, however, assume that the passing notice with which your Lord- 
 ship honored me in the late debate, can justify flirther intrusion on your valuable 
 time ; but I felt, on all the grounds above stated, a strong prompting to explain 
 
^HS 
 
 80 
 
 frankly to j'our Lordship the true s'-cret of Irish-Can uliau loyalty. We ant 
 loyal because our equal, civil, social and rcHjious rights are respected by this 
 Government, in theory and in practice. Wkiik rj otuuuwisb, wb would ba 
 
 6THEUWISB.) 
 
 I hare the honor to bo, 
 Your Lordihip's obliged and obedieat servant, 
 
 Thomas D'Arcy McGke, 
 One of the Members for the City of Montreal in the 
 Canadian Parliament. 
 To the Rt, Hon. the ^arl of Mayo, &c., &c., Chief Secretary for Ireland, Dublin, 
 
 m 
 
 lis. 
 
 1 
 
 i. 
 
 if* 
 
 11 
 
 n 
 
 It 
 
 AM I REMEMBERED IN ERIN? 
 
 The following simple and patriotic lines were found hastily and almost 
 illegibly scrawled in pencil, on a sheet of paper, folded in a book in the librar 
 of the late Hon. T. D. McGee, As thej possess an iatere?t as beiui- a hitherto 
 unpubli.'ihed production of the martyr statesman, and as they furnish, after 
 death, u contradiction of the slander that he was untrue to Ireland, we deem it 
 w^U tc publish them. — Ottawa Citizen, 
 
 Am I remembered in Erin? 
 
 Oh ! tell me, tell me true : 
 Has my name a srund, a nieaning 
 
 In the place my boyhood kn»?\v ? 
 Does the heart of the glorious island 
 
 Ever throb at my humble name ? 
 Oh, to be loved in Erin, 
 
 To me were more than fame ! 
 
 Come weal, come woe, dear Erin, 
 
 As death and sorrow came 
 When I followed my little darlings 
 
 To the place I cannot name ; 
 Whether storm or sunshine waits me. 
 
 In the dpys tliat none can see, 
 I consecrate, dear Erin, 
 
 My heart and brain to thee. 
 
 Erin, moth'r Erin, 
 
 Many sons thine eye hath seen, 
 Many life-devoted lovers, 
 
 Since thy mantle first was green: 
 Then how can I dare to cherish 
 
 The hope that one like me 
 May be enrolled hereafter 
 
 With that palm-colored compA:iy ? 
 
 Yet faint and fair, my E'in 
 
 As the hope shines; on my sight, 
 
 1 cannot choose but watch it 
 
 Till my eyes 1; we lost their light; 
 For never amongst her noblest, 
 
 Nor among her martyrs blest, 
 Wad there heart more true to Erin 
 
 Than beats within tbiti breas I 
 
We am 
 I by this 
 
 UULO Bij 
 
 , Dublin. 
 
 nlmost 
 I librar 
 bitherto 
 ih, after 
 deem it 
 
 ^^ -: