Dowse) has stated, a serpent that
will gnaw his conscience, will carry about him in his breast a living
hell from which he can never be separated. I, my lords, have no
desire for the name of a martyr; I seek not the death of a martyr;
but if it is the will of the Almighty and Omnipotent God that my
devotion for the land of my birth shall be tested on the scaffold, I
am willing there to die in defence of the right of men to free
government--the right of an oppressed people to throw off the yoke of
thraldom. I am an Irishman by birth, an American by adoption; by
nature a lover of freedom--an enemy to the power that holds my native
land in the bonds of tyranny. It has so often been admitted that the
oppressed have a right to throw off the yoke of oppression, even by
English statesmen, that I do not deem it necessary to advert to the
fact in a British court of justice. Ireland's children are not, never
were, and never will be, willing or submissive slaves; and so long as
England's flag covers one inch of Irish soil, just so long will they
believe it to be a divine right to conspire, imagine, and devise
means to hurl it from power, and to erect in its stead the God-like
structure of self-government.
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