But speaking at all
is not my _forte_; and there are such emotions filling my breast at
this moment that I may be pardoned for not saying all I would wish.
My heart is filled with thoughts of kind friends--near at hand and
far away--of father and mother, brothers and sisters, and my dear
wife. Thoughts of these fill my breast at this moment, and check my
utterance. But I will say to them that I am firmly convinced I will
yet live to see, and that God will be graciously pleased in His own
good time to order, the prosperity and freedom of this glorious
country. I would only repeat the powerful, touching, and simple words
of Michael Larkin, the martyr of Manchester, who, in parting from his
friends, said, 'God be with you, Irishmen and Irishwomen,' and the
burning words of my old friend Edward O'Mara Condon, which are now
known throughout Ireland and the world, 'God save Ireland!' And I,
too, would say, 'God be with you, Irishmen and women; God save you;
God bless Ireland; and God grant me strength to bear my task for
Ireland as becomes a man. Farewell!' [A sound of some females sobbing
was here heard in the gallery. Several ladies in court, too, visibly
yielded to emotion at this point.
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