was again returned by a majority of 2,368 votes over his conservative opponent, Mr. Stephen Moore, and in his address of thanks to the electors he once more declared his intention of ‘discrediting and exploding the fraudulent pretence of Irish representation by declining to attend the sittings of parliament.’ Before the petition was presented against his return Mitchel died at Dromalane on 20 March 1875, aged 59. He was buried on the 23rd of the same month in the unitarian cemetery in High Street, Newry, where a monument was erected to his memory by his widow. On 26 May 1875 the Irish court of common pleas decided that Mitchel, being both an alien and a convicted felon, was not duly elected, and that Mr. Stephen Moore was duly returned (O'Malley and Hardcastle, iii. 19-49).
Mitchel was an honest, but hopelessly unpractical man. Though possessing considerable force of character he was deficient in judgment, and his whole mind was warped by his implacable hatred of England. In appearance Mitchel ‘was tall and gaunt, his eyes were gray and piercing, his expression of countenance self-contained, if not saturnine, his features bony and sallow, with an inclining to the tawny tint, high cheeks and determined chin’ (O'Shea, i. 12). Mitchel was a ready and incisive speaker as well as a forcible writer. In his domestic life he is said to have been one of the gentlest of men. Carlyle, who met Mitchel in Ireland in September 1846, refers to him as ‘a fine elastic-spirited young fellow, whom I grieved to see rushing on destruction palpable, by attack of windmills, but on whom all my persuasions were thrown away.’ He appears also to have told Mitchel that he would most likely be hanged, but ‘they could not hang the immortal part of him’ (Froude, Carlyle, 1834-1881, i. 399). Mitchel had a family of six children. His three sons all fought on the confederate side in the American civil war. The eldest was killed at Fort Sumter, and the youngest at Gettysburg, while the second lost his right arm in one of the battles round Richmond.
Mitchel edited the poems of Thomas Osborne Davis (New York, 1846) and of James Clarence Mangan [q. v.] (New York, 1859, 8vo). The lecture which he delivered at New York on 20 Dec. 1872, on ‘Froude from the standpoint of an Irish Protestant,’ will be found in ‘Froude's Crusade—Both Sides’ (New York, 1873, 8vo). He was also the author of the following works:
- ‘The Life and Times of Aodh O'Neill, Prince of Ulster; called by the English, Hugh, Earl, of Tyrone. With some Account of his Predecessors, Con, Shane, and Tirlough,’ Dublin, 1846, 12mo, in ‘Duffy's Library of Ireland;’ as ‘Life of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone,’ New York, 12mo, 1868.
- ‘Jail Journal, or Five Years in British Prisons,’ &c., New York, 1854, 12mo; author's edition, Glasgow [1856], 8vo; new edition, New York, 1868, 12mo. The ‘Journal’ was afterwards continued by Mitchel in the ‘Irish Citizen,’ and brought down to 1866.
- ‘The Last Conquest of Ireland (perhaps),’ New York, 1860, Dublin and Glasgow, 1861, 8vo. Reprinted in ‘The Crusade of the Period,’ &c., see infra; ‘author's edition,’ Glasgow [1876], 8vo.
- ‘An Apology for the British Government in Ireland,’ Dublin, 1860; another edition, 1882.
- ‘The History of Ireland, from the Treaty of Limerick to the Present Time; being a Continuation of the History of the Abbé Macgeoghegan,’ New York, 1868, 8vo; other editions, Dublin, 1869, 8vo, 2 vols., Glasgow, 1869, 8vo. The latter portion was reprinted in 1871 as ‘Ireland since '98,’ &c., Glasgow, 8vo.
- ‘The Crusade of the Period: and Last Conquest of Ireland (perhaps).’ New York, 1873, 12mo, in the Irish-American Library, vol. iv.; a reply to Mr. Froude's ‘English in Ireland.’
[Mitchel's Jail Journal, and other works; W. Dillon's John Mitchel, 1888, with portrait; Duffy's Four Years of Irish History, 1845-9, 1883; Sullivan's Speeches from the Dock, 1887, pp. 74-96; O'Shea's Leaves from the Life of a Special Correspondent, 1885, i. 9-24; Hodges's Report of the Trial of John Mitchel, 1848; May's Parliamentary Practice, 1883, pp. 39, 724-5; Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography, 1878, pp. 340-2; Wills's Irish Nation, 1875, iv, 695-7; Read's Cabinet of Irish Literature, 1880, iii. 329-36; Life of Mitchel, by P. A. Sillard (Duffy's National Library), 1889; Appleton's Cyclop. of American Biog. 1878, iv. 341; Gent. Mag. 1875, new ser. xiv. 593-608; Annual Register, 1875, pt. i. pp. 8-ll, pt. ii. p.137; Dublin Univ. Mag. lxxxv. 481-92; Democratic Review, xxiii. 149, xxx. 97-128, with portrait; Times, 22, 24, 29 March 1875; Freeman's Journal, 22 and 24 March 1875; Nation, 20 and 27 March 1875, with portrait; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit. Suppl. ii. 1119; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
MITCHEL, JONATHAN (1624?–1668), New England divine, born in Halifax, Yorkshire, about 1624, was son of Matthew Mitchel (Savage, Genealog. Dict. iii. 220). He accompanied his parents to America in 1635, graduated at Harvard in 1647, and on 24 June 1649 preached at Hartford, Connecticut, with such acceptance that he was invited to succeed Thomas Hooker (1586-1647) [q. v.] This offer he declined. In May 1650 he was elected fellow of Harvard,
