Incidents of my life, professional, literary, social, with services in the cause of Ireland / by Thomas Addis Emmet.
- Thomas Addis Emmet
- Date:
- 1911
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Incidents of my life, professional, literary, social, with services in the cause of Ireland / by Thomas Addis Emmet. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
522/631 page 381
![by right could be the only limit of its power. The English Government may by force disperse the members and prevent a meeting of the Irish people, but when the force of suppression becomes removed, from any cause, the full powers of Parliament as previously existing are at once in being. I cannot believe if an honest desire exists to render justice, that any court in England, made familiar with the method and truthful details of bringing about the so-called Union of Ireland and England, could hold on the evidence, that such a Union was legal, honest, or desirable. The English must be educated as to the necessity for justice and fair play, or the Irish people must be content to wait and to watch their opportunity to right themselves in England’s difficulties; and come the opportunity cer- tainly will. On the other hand, if England could appreciate that not only her own gain, but even possibly her own preservation, as a first class power, rests with gaining Ireland as the only available ally, thus securing a lasting peace between the two countries. But there can be no lasting peace until Ireland has a full measure of Home Rule in the management of her own affairs; nor can there ever be a lasting peace between the two countries until the Union has been repealed, and until this has been accomplished there can be no Home Rule in any form. With repeal of the Union there would exist the needed status quo from the Irish Parliament. Home Rule would be gained in consequence. [I would add in addition that if every English member of Parliament was in favor of Home Rule for Ireland, any consent would have to be defined and it would be found impossible with the best intentions, for that body to agree on details. Repeal the Union, and as soon as this has been done, the Irish Parliament will possess the power and right it formerly had to manage its own affairs.] I send you a copy of a letter in my possession [see Appendix, Note XI] written by James Duane, a member of Congress (1780) from New York during the Revolution and one of the Committee of Secret Intelligence, who here writes a confidential letter to George Clinton, the Governor of New York. This letter shows that the Parliament of the Kingdom of Ireland did possess the power of protection. History shows that this power was considered innate, and was fully acknowledged to be so by George the Third, King of Ireland, and was guaranteed to exist by the action of the English Parliament, in the form of the most binding obligation possible to be formed between two con- tracting powers. Yet the obligation was carried out by England with as little good faith as she ever observed any other pledge made with a Power too weak to enforce an observance. In violation of her honor she forced the so- called rebellion of 1798 that she might claim the necessity of the Union, and both purposes were accomplished by a degree of brutality and corruption never equalled in history. Now for a repeal of the Union, and Home Rule afterwards. New York, June 19, 1907. Thos. Addis Emmet. I spent three months abroad, and some two months in the Highlands](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28034776_0527.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
