“My young and esteemed friend,
“In consenting to your confinement, I made a
greater sacrifice of feeling to duty than I had ever
been before called on to make. I had a hard
struggle; but my conception of what I owed to the
great national cause in which I am engaged, gained
the victory.
“Ever since I could lay down a plan of conduct
for my life, I have graduated the scale of my duties
in the following manner. The first is my duty to
my God, the second to my country, the third to my
neighbour, and the fourth to myself. It is my pride
that I have hitherto acted in conformity to this
scale; and I consider no instance of my doing so,
a greater triumph of my principles over my feelings,
than my resigning you to a captivity, which, I trust,
will not be of long continuance. This latter circumstance
will, however, depend altogether on
yourself. Were we certain that the secrets connected
with our cause, which have come to your
knowledge, would be safe in your keeping, you
should not be confined a single hour. But so long
as you profess a disapprobation of our designs, it is
manifest that, to permit your enlargement would be
unwarrantably to subject ourselves and our cause
to unnecessary dangers.
“I do not write to you for the purpose of apologizing
for my conduct. So long as that conduct has
the approbation of my own conscience, I will apologize
to no man. But I wish to represent the affair to
you in its true light; and to assure you that you have
no personal danger to apprehend, and that you shall
suffer no personal hardship nor privation, that
consistently with the precautionary views which
have induced us to confine you, we can prevent.
“When I say that the recovery of your liberty
depends on yourself, I mean, that by evincing an
attachment to our association, and by coming under
the obligations we impose on its members, you will
satisfy us that we run no risk from your disclosures,
and you shall not only be immediately set at liberty,
but gladly hailed as a brother, and raised to
an honourable place in our esteem and confidence.
“At present we make great allowances for the
political principles in which you have been educated;
but we trust, that you have good sense sufficient
not to permit prejudice always to blind you
to justice. For my own part, I am persuaded that
you have liberality and discernment enough, provided
you exercise them, to enable you to throw
off the trammels of early impressions, when they
will not stand the test of reason. You are an
Irishman, and I believe you love your country,
and wish her to be free and happy. I will ask
you can she ever be so, under a government
which derives all its authority and its impulses
from a foreign country, absolutely inimical to her
prosperity; and surely a country which looks upon
ours as a conquered province, and is proud of the
domination she exercises over us, can never be
likely to grant us rights and privileges, to which, as
human beings, we are entitled, and of which she
herself has despoiled us.
“I need not enlarge upon facts to convince you
that Irishmen have nothing to expect from English
generosity. You are, I doubt not, well enough
conversant in the history of our British connexion
to know that it has been pregnant with nothing but
oppressions and calamities to our ancestors and
ourselves. As an Irishman, as a lover of justice
and of your country, you cannot but feel indignant
at the usage she has ever received from that nation
which has so long acted, not as her sister, but as
her tyrant; and, if you feel indignant at the ages of
unmerited and cruel sufferings, that your country
has sustained, we call on you, in her name, to
join with those who are resolved to deliver her
from her oppressors, or perish in the attempt.
“It is in vain for any one to say, that it is our
own restless, discontented and riotous dispositions,
that have caused our misfortunes, and that if we
would live peaceably, we might live happily. Ah!
sir, we have tried that. We long submitted, but even
then we were not spared. We were forbidden to
exert our industry, but in such a manner, and in
the production of such articles alone as our neighbours
pleased; while our commerce was confined
to such channels as suited their interest. At their
caprice, we were extravagantly taxed, while we
were chained into poverty—while we were forbidden
to improve the natural wealth and resources
with which Providence has so bountifully blessed
our island, in her soil, her climate, her minerals
and her situation. Three-fourths of our population,
were deprived of every political privilege,
and are consequently, at this day, no better than
slaves, compelled to passive and degrading submission
to the will of their haughty and unfeeling
masters. When we patiently submitted, our submission
was considered want of spirit, and we
were represented as being incapable of either understanding
or relishing the blessings of liberty.
We then petitioned and remonstrated, and were
called seditious, and troublesome, and turbulent.
Our petitions were only answered by mockery,
and our remonstrances with threats; and, latterly,
these threats have been wantonly converted into a
malignant and cruel persecution.
“The state of the times, I need not describe to you.
That dreadful state has been caused by the tyrannical
system of vengeance, which has been adopted
to counteract the natural and justifiable exertions
of an enlightened people to obtain from their oppressors
their legitimate and unquestionable rights.
On which side is the cause of justice, your own
good sense will readily perceive; and which side
has the greater claim upon your good will and
services, as a patriot your sense of duty to the
land that gave you birth will easily decide.
“As one who esteems you and feels a high interest
in your welfare, I exhort you to decide in
favour of an injured and oppressed nation, which
claims you as her son, and to whom alone your
allegiance and fidelity are due. Reflect seriously
on the subject, so that if your decision be in our
favour, it may be the result of deliberate reasoning
and true conviction. We shall then confide in
you as our friend, and I shall have the happiness
of regarding you as an Irishman worthy of the
name.
“I am, &c.
