Part 14

If it is curious to find the future distinguished scientist causing anxiety to his father for the slow opening of his intellect, it is still more curious to find his little brother Tom causing him anxiety because some incident related by his grandparents seemed to indicate in the tiny boy a selfish disposition. So concerned was the father at some trait of childish prudence related by the grandparents for his amusement that he had thoughts of taking little Tom to Fort George to educate him under his own eyes. Grandmother Emmet has to assure him that what Mary Anne and she said “imported nothing more than to convey to you an idea of the strength of his intellect, for surely you did not suppose that the disposition of a child, not four years old, would do more than to divert you instead of giving you sincere alarm. The share of understanding which he promises to have will be fully sufficient to overcome his little childish dispositions, and without severity he will do what is right by only pointing it out to him.” How groundless were his father’s fears—and how well justified his grandmother’s confidence, the life of Thomas Addis Emmet, junior, sufficiently proves. His nephew and namesake, recalling the happy days he and the other young people of his generation spent in Mr. Emmet’s lovely home, Mount Vernon, New York, tells us that it would not be possible to find a more genial, kindly and charitable couple than Mr. and Mrs. Emmet. “The term charitable could be applied to him in every sense, as it was difficult for him even to suspect a bad motive, and he frequently suffered for his faith in others. Later in life Mr. Emmet became embarrassed on account of the frequent assistance he had rendered supposed friends and from placing too much reliance on their promises.”

It is plain that of the three children confided to their care the favourite of Grandfather and Grandmother Emmet is the youngest, little Christopher Temple. In this delightful little boy whom everybody in kitchen and parlour idolises, is there given back to them the brilliant son they had lost by a premature death? The grandfather clearly thinks so: “Little Temple, should he live for the germs to open, blossom and ripen into fruit, will equal, I think, his namesake uncle.” His grandmother is afraid her partiality for him will be reckoned as due to his name: “I assure you he is as great a favourite with everyone in the family as with me.” “This little Brat is, to be sure, the chief favourite through the house; we, however, do not spoil him, and I assure you that I fondle him less than the others. Mary Anne caresses him more than I do, but at the same time treats him with steadiness; in the kitchen he would be commander-in-chief if we did not prevent it. He is quite a miniature of our dear little Robert, especially when he holds up his hands and says he won’t be bold any more.” Pictures like that of the dear little grandson occur in the grandmother’s letters again and again: now we see him at table, “fighting in dumb show for his share in his grandfather’s claret,” now sturdily claiming his place in his elder brother’s games, now climbing on chairs and prating enough for two, now riding on Mr. Holmes’s back, and asking to be taken on grandmother’s. “I told him that my back was old, but in a little time I offered to take him, he would not, he replied in a tone of great tenderness, ‘because you have a pain.’ The next night I again asked him if he would come on my back, and he at once said he would if I had not a pain.”

Poor little Temple! Like his namesake uncle he was destined to live but a short life. He died of yellow fever, at sea, at the age of twenty-four, being a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy.

It was at Fort George that Jane Emmet’s seventh child, a little girl called Jane Erin, was born. Some months after her birth the State prisoners were released,[73] and dispatched on the Government frigate the _Ariadne_, to Cuxhaven, the port for Hamburg. At Hamburg the prisoners separated, some to go to America, others to Paris, others to Holland, and Dr. MacNevin to Dresden. The Emmets first settled at Brussels where Thomas Addis devoted himself to the education of his children. At Brussels he heard of his father’s death, and was visited by his brother Robert.

Footnote 73:

After peace was signed at Amiens in March, 1802. Their imprisonment was changed for banishment.

We know that it was not brotherly affection alone, deep and true as this was, that brought Robert Emmet to Brussels at this juncture. The fact was that all men saw that the peace between England and France was a very “sick” peace indeed, and liable to expire at any moment. The United Irishmen, whose organisation had survived the disasters of ’98, were waiting their chance of a rupture between the two countries to shake off the yoke of England, which the Union had made more intolerable. They had encouragement from some of the most influential men in Ireland. Though not enamoured of France, which they rightly considered had treated them most scandalously,[74] they were ready to bargain for French aid “on conditions.” France, on the other hand, was willing to make these terms, her only interest in Ireland being to get in a blow at England through her.

Footnote 74:

Thomas Addis Emmet told Colonel Dalton who had been sent to open up negotiations with him on behalf of the French Government in May, 1803, that “France had lost the confidence of Ireland, and the treatment the Irish had received in France, ever since the peace ... had excited even an aversion.” It is well known that Emmet described Bonaparte “as the worst enemy Ireland ever had.” So much for French friendship for Ireland, about which certain people would have us so enthusiastic!

It is not the place to tell here how once more France failed Ireland; how Robert Emmet was suffered to go to his death without a finger being raised to save him; how the Irishmen, who had enlisted in an Irish legion in the service of France, on the distinct promise that Augereau was to command a great expedition to Ireland, were wantonly deceived.

In the autumn of 1804, Thomas Addis Emmet, whose clear eyes even Bonaparte could not long deceive, shook the dust of France from his feet and set sail with his wife and the children who had shared their imprisonment and exile, for New York.

On November the 11th, 1804, Jane Emmet first set foot on American soil on which forty-two years of her life were yet to be spent, and in which she was to find a grave. Her health, which had suffered much during her sojourn in Fort George, and through the agitations and anxieties which attended her life in Brussels and Paris, improved. Her husband whose reputation and talents had secured for him the most distinguished reception at the hands of the noblest men in America, made his way rapidly at the American Bar. The little children from whom she had been separated so long: John, and Tom, and Temple, were restored to her. The little band of seven was subsequently reinforced by two new arrivals: Mary Anne, born in New York in March, 1805, and William Colville, born in the same city in April, 1807.

The family correspondence, published by her grandson, Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, gives us a delightful picture of the home-life of Jane Emmet during these years. She saw her husband honoured among the noblest of the land. She saw her children grow up about her, her girls beautiful and accomplished and altogether charming: her sons clever and successful, heirs to their father’s unstained integrity, as to his commanding abilities. The family had a summer residence on the old Middle Road, New York, and a winter abode in town—but the “Middle Road” was so attractive that the whole year was not infrequently passed there. All sorts of frolics enlivened their stay there, fancy dress balls and musical entertainments not to speak of practical jokes, in which the humour of the family took intense delight. As the sons and daughters got married, the new daughters, and sons thus added served but to widen the charming family circle, not to break it up.

In November, 1827, Jane Emmet had the supreme grief of losing her husband—a grief which was shared by all America—which “paid his love by reverencing his genius.”

Jane Emmet survived her husband nineteen years, dying at the house of her son-in-law on November 10th, 1846.

The noble words of Dr. Madden are the fittest tribute to her memory:

“The widow of Thomas Addis Emmet survived her husband nineteen years. She had shared in his sorrows and his sufferings—had been his companion in prisonment in Kilmainham gaol, and in captivity in Fort George—not for days, or weeks, or months, but for years. She had accompanied him in exile to the Continent and to the land of his adoption, and there she shared in his honours and the felicity of his later years.

“The woman who encountered so many privations and trials as she had done—who had been accustomed to all the enjoyments of a happy home, and

‘Had slept with full content about _her_ bed, And never waked but to a joyful morning.’

When deprived of all ordinary comforts, of the commonest appliances of these to the humblest state of life, during the imprisonment of her husband in Dublin; and was subjected necessarily to many restraints during the dreary imprisonments at Fort George—seemed ever to those who were the companions of her husband’s captivity as ‘one who, in suffering all things, suffered nothing.’ She fulfilled with heroic fortitude the duties of a devoted wife towards her husband in all his trials in his own country; was the joy and comfort of his life in a foreign land, where the exiled patriot, honoured and revered, in course of time rose to the first distinction in his profession; she died far away from her native land—but her memory should not be forgotten in Ireland.

“This excellent woman, full of years, rich in virtue, surrounded by affectionate children—prosperous, happily circumstanced, dutiful and loving children to her, worthy of their inheritance of a great name, and of the honour that descended to them from the revered memory of her truly noble husband—thus terminated in a foreign land a long career, chequered by many trials, over which a virtuous woman’s self-sacrificing devotion, the courage and constancy of a faithful wife, the force of a mother’s love eventually prevailed. The portrait of this lady is in the possession of Mr. John Patten.[75] The time may come when this intimation may be of some avail. Ireland has its Cornelias, its Portias—matrons worthy of association in our thoughts with Cato’s daughter, the mother of the children who were the jewels of her heart—with the wife of Russell, of Lavalette—but Ireland has no national gallery for the pictures and busts of her illustrious children—no literature for a record of the ‘noble deeds of women’ of her own land.”

Footnote 75:

Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet informs us that “nothing is now known of this portrait.” The two portraits reproduced in his own book were by her daughter Elizabeth, Mrs. Le Roy.

The Wife of Samuel Neilson

ANNE NEILSON _née_ _Bryson_ (1763-1811)[76]

“I love you the more, Love, because of their hate.” —ETHNA CARBERY.

Footnote 76:

_Authorities_: Madden’s “United Irishmen,” Fourth Series, Second Edition.

NO woman, of all those whose stories we are recalling to the memory of a people in danger of forgetting them, has suffered so much as Mrs. Neilson. Not alone had she to see her happy home broken up, the ease and comfort to which she had been accustomed both in her father’s and her husband’s house, taken from her, her children deprived of their father and herself of a helpmate, the turning away from her necessities of former friends—but worse than all this she had to endure the intolerable pain of knowing that the reward her husband had won even from his own countrymen, even from those for whose sake he had sacrificed his all—was to be branded as a traitor, and to have his name whispered from mouth to mouth as that of one who had betrayed Lord Edward, and sold the secrets of his associates to Government to purchase his own safety.

It is with hearts very full, then, that we turn to the appealing and lonely figure of this “dear dead woman,” and standing in spirit by her grave in Newtownbreda Cemetery we frame passionate prayers that she may know her sufferings have not been in vain.

Anne Bryson was born in Belfast in 1763. Her father, William Bryson, was a wealthy and highly esteemed merchant of that town, and his daughter had all the educational and social advantages which an assured position, a refined home and considerable means could give her. In 1785, when she had reached her twenty-second year, she married Samuel Neilson, the son of a dissenting minister, of Ballyroney in Co. Down. Neilson had been resident in Belfast for some time, having been at an early age apprenticed to his brother John, a woollen-draper—and doubtless the young people had often met at the social functions which enlivened Belfast at this period, and of which Mrs. McTier’s letters to her brother, Dr. Drennan, give us the most delightful glimpses.[77]

Footnote 77:

Published in Young’s “Historical Notices of Old Belfast,” p. 169, _et seq._

After their marriage the young couple set up in business for themselves, and Samuel Neilson’s great ability commanded an immediate success. His establishment, called “The Irish Woollen Warehouse,” became, we are informed, “the most extensive and respectable house in that line in Belfast.” Before he had been seven years in business he had amassed a considerable fortune, being reckoned in 1792 as worth about £8,000—which would be equivalent to nearly £20,000 in our days.

Not with worldly prosperity alone did a kind Providence bless Anne Neilson and her husband. Five fair children, four girls and a boy, came to grace their fireside. The girls were Anne, Sophia, Jane, and Mary. Very dear were they to their father, and very touching the letters he was to address to them from prison when the “hard service” of the Poor Old Woman was to sever him from them during sorrowful years. Anne and Sophia were old enough to bear their heroic part among the “Women of ’Ninety-Eight,” and many of the most thrilling and interesting incidents which Dr. Madden gathered into his precious books were actually witnessed, and related to him by them. They spent much time during the troubled period with the wife of Oliver Bond in Dublin, and were by that means right in the centre of things, so to speak. Dr. Madden was deeply touched by the passionate devotion they showed to their father’s memory, when about half a century after his death, he sought from them the materials for his memoir.

But dear as the girls were, the boy was the light of his life. William Bryson Neilson, the only son of Samuel and Anne Neilson, was born in 1794 and, by all accounts, was an extraordinarily gifted boy. We shall hear much of him in the following pages, and find no little interest in the story of the days he spent with his father in the stern old northern fortress of Fort George, which his presence made for poor Sam Neilson almost a place of delight.

The “good years,” as perhaps Anne Neilson was inclined to call them, from their contrast with the years which followed, came to an end—with so much else—at the outbreak of the French Revolution. Neilson had retained from his old “volunteer” days a strong attachment to Liberty, which he then interpreted in the terms of the English Revolution of 1689. The French Revolution gave the word a new meaning for him, and the other dissenters of Belfast who shared his views. The “Rights of Man” became the Koran of Belfast, as Tone pleasantly observes, and Sam Neilson set himself with that logical sequence, which, with him, made energetic action follow principle, to secure these “Rights” for his own oppressed countrymen.

From 1791, politics absorbed Neilson, and his business was much neglected, and finally had to be abandoned. Many anxious moments must have been poor Anne Neilson’s during those stirring days when her husband, with Tone and Russell and Henry Joy MacCracken, was making history. We Irish Catholics ought to cherish a special reverence for her memory, and pay her at least a posthumous gratitude, for it was at her expense that her husband worked for us. He was the first man in Belfast to put Catholic Emancipation in the forefront of the Republican party’s programme, and to make of it, with Parliamentary Reform, the principal plank in the platform of the _United Irishmen_—the honour of whose foundation he shares with Tone.

In 1792 there was established in Belfast to preach the doctrines of the new society a memorable paper, _The Northern Star_. Of this paper, to the finances of which he had liberally contributed, Neilson was appointed the editor. Eventually he became the sole proprietor—with disastrous results to his financial position. The paper was repeatedly the object of legal proceedings, and apparently to escape the consequences of these, the other shareholders got rid of their interest in it. Madden tells us that “the various prosecutions carried on against it had obliged Neilson to dispose of all his property, and to relinquish his business in order to meet the enormous expenses attendant on these proceedings, and the unexpected demands arising from them. The other proprietors, shortly after the prosecutions, disposed of their shares to Neilson, and thus encompassed with peril he became the sole proprietor of the paper. In 1792 the printer and proprietors had been prosecuted and acquitted. In January, 1793, six informations were filed in King’s Bench against them for seditious libels, and in November, 1794, they were prosecuted for publishing the address of the United Irishmen to the Volunteers.”

It was not alone through the medium of the _Northern Star_ that Neilson served the cause of the Catholics. He was active in his efforts to compose the differences between the Catholics and the Presbyterians, and to lay the feuds of the Peep o’ Day Boys and the Defenders. We learn from Tone’s diary that both Neilson and his wife were of the party which accompanied John Keogh and the other Catholic delegates, on their return from Belfast in July, 1732, to Rathfriland in order to meet some gentlemen of the neighbourhood with a view to restoring peace between the rival religious parties. He took part, with Tone and Keogh, in a similar expedition a month later. He was intensely interested in the work of the Catholic Committee and the plans for the Catholic Convention.

It was probably in this connection that he became so intimate with Luke Teeling, of Lisburn, and his family, though their relations dated from a still earlier period when both men were working heart and soul to return to Parliament, as representative of the Co. Down, that ardent Reform candidate, the Hon. Robert Stewart—better known to history as Lord Castlereagh.

In 1795 the terrible condition of affairs in the County Armagh, where the Catholics had been subjected to a barbarous persecution at the hands of the Peep o’ Day Boys without the slightest attempt on the part of the authorities, either to protect them or to restrain their savage aggressors, was rapidly reaching a tragic climax. Young Charles Teeling, then a lad of seventeen, got information that the Catholics, convinced that they could not be worse off than they were, were preparing to take the field openly against their intolerant foes. Relying on the influence which his family, from its standing, enjoyed among the Catholics of Armagh, he set off from Lisburn, without informing any one, in the hope of inducing the Defenders to desist from their disastrous purpose.

He had not gone far, however, when he felt the need of some more mature and experienced head than that which sat on his own seventeen-year-old shoulders. His mind could suggest “none more desirable for the purpose than Samuel Neilson. He was the ardent patriot, the decided enemy to oppression in every shape and in every form; and the strenuous advocate, at all times and seasons, for the unqualified admission of his excluded fellow-countrymen, to their full participation in the blessings of civil and religious liberty. He was at the head of the, then, only liberal Press in Ulster; and his political influence however extended, was not more than commensurate with his labours in the public cause.”

Teeling wrote to Neilson begging him to meet him in Portadown and thence to accompany him to the scene of the disturbances. Neilson complied without delay, but before he reached Portadown he was met by Teeling with the news that the Battle of Diamond had been fought, and that their intervention was too late.

In September, 1796, both Teeling and Neilson with Russell and others were arrested, conveyed to Dublin and lodged in Newgate and Kilmainham. A few weeks afterwards the two McCrackens were added to the company of Northern prisoners.

After a few months Lord O’Neill obtained from Government permission for the prisoners to see their wives. Charles Teeling informs us of his surprise at finding that Neilson was not disposed to avail himself of this permission. “Neilson had a tender affection for his wife, and she merited all the respect and attachment he could feel; yet he positively prohibited her visiting his prison. ‘I cannot,’ said he, ‘suffer you to undertake a long and fatiguing journey at this season of the year to visit me in my cell. Here your nerves will be shocked by the brutality of a turnkey, and at the Castle your pride will be wounded by the insolence of a minion in office.’ His prohibition, however, did not avail. He addressed his letter through the usual channel, the office of the Secretary of State; but the faithful partner of his affections had already procured an order of admission to the prison.”[78]

Footnote 78:

Teeling’s “Personal Narrative,” pp. 29, 30.

During the seventeen months for which her husband’s captivity lasted, Mrs. Neilson and her elder daughters spent much time in Dublin, where the hospitable homes of James Dixon, of Kilmainham, and Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Bond, were ever ready to receive them.

It is sad to relate that the nervous strain to which the prisoners in Kilmainham were subjected told on the temper of most of them, and in the irritation of their spirits they quarrelled with each other. A serious estrangement broke out, in particular, between Neilson and Henry Joy McCracken. But Margaret and Mary McCracken and Mrs. Neilson, using their gentle womanly influence, succeeded in effecting a reconciliation.

On February 22nd, 1798, Neilson was liberated on bail on condition “that he should not belong to any treasonable committee.”

The long confinement, the anxiety about his family, the grief and rage he felt at the news of the ruin of his property, and the suppression of his paper had told heavily on Neilson’s bodily and mental health. He came out of prison a wreck of his former self. His kind friend, Mr. John Sweetman, took him to his country house and lavished on him every care which might restore him. But the times were unpropitious for the “rest cure” which poor Neilson’s shattered nerves demanded.

Three weeks after his release, on March the 12th, 1798, the Government swooped down on the leaders of the United Irishmen and by midnight of that memorable day had all of them, practically, with the single exception of Lord Edward, safe under lock and key. John Sweetman was arrested at his brewery in Francis Street—and it became known to Neilson that his own re-arrest was merely a matter of time.