Letters on the Irish National Question Author:John Martin Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTER III. In resuming the subject of the preceding letter, I am troubled with the reflection, that it looks presumptuous in me to come thus prominently befo... more »re the country, as if I were a person to whose counsels my countrymen ought to hearken. The question of a renewed national agitation for self-government is one that concerns, not the readers of your paper alone, not Repealers alone, but all Irishmen of all ranks, sects, parties, and conditions: and to all Irishmen high and low, rich and poor, Catholic and Protestant, Repealers and non-Repealers, but especially to the non-Repealers, my letter must be addressed. To institute an agitation for obtaining self-government is properly the business of those men, and orders of men, who would exercise public authority and guide public opinion if the country were in the enjoyment of self-government. And what warrant have I for offering myself to assist in the task which they decline, and for proclaiming to them—the nobles, the clergy of all the churches, the professional classes, the learned, the wealthy, the men to whom their social position gives power and responsibility in Irish affairs, the natural leaders of the people of Ireland—that they are neglecting their duty as citizens, as Christians, as men, so long as they practically sanction the actual condition of their country ? The apology I have to offer is this: When, in 1856, the English Government thought fit to announce an amnesty (with certain remarkable exceptions) for the survivors of the Irish patriots proscribed in 1848, I had to choose between returning to live in my native country and remaining in exile. My patriotic sentiments, for sake of which the English had made of me a transported convict, and classed me with their swindlers and murderers, were unchanged —or ra...« less