John Mitchel

“ But it was a dream: "Irish noblemen and gentlemen" no longer acknowledge Ireland for their country—they are "Britons;" their education, their feelings, and what is more important to them, their interests, are all British. British "laws" eject and distrain for them, British troops preserve "life and property," and chase their surplus tenants. For them judges charge—for them hangmen strangle. Without British government they are nothing ”

“ Yes, indeed, after the reading of that short paper, it was "felony" for anyone to write and print,or openly and advisedly to say (what is, however, God's truth) , that the said "Government" is a Government of fraud and blood, and ought to be overthrown by force of arms, or otherwise; and that no people on earth would have endured the like half so long as the Irish people. We may think this, we may know it, but if we say it, there is "crime." ”

“ They have observed that certain men in Ireland, wearied out and exasperated past endurance at the long oppression and unnatural submission and patience of this noble country, under such a system of fraud and blood, did begin at length to say to their countrymen that they should put an end to it altogether, by open and armed resistance ”

“ At once a cry of virtuous horror arose from all the genteel places of the land. They saw the plain consequences deducible from such Jacobin premises, and were justly alarmed. "Here is a miscreant," they said; "will no man stop him? ”