 | An image should appear at this position in the text. To use the entire page scan as a placeholder, edit this page and replace "{{missing image}}" with "{{raw image|Prose works, from the original editions (Volume 1).djvu/237}}". Otherwise, if you are able to provide the image then please do so. For guidance, see Wikisource:Image guidelines and Help:Adding images. |  |
AN ADDRESS TO THE IRISH PEOPLE.
Fellow men,—I am not an Irishman, yet I can
feel for you. I hope there are none among you
who will read this address with prejudice or levity,
because it is made by an Englishman; indeed, I believe
there are not. The Irish are a brave nation. They have
a heart of liberty in their breasts, but they are much
mistaken if they fancy that a stranger cannot have as
warm a one. Those are my brothers and my countrymen
who are unfortunate. I should like to know what there
is in a man being an Englishman, a Spaniard, or a
Frenchman that makes him worse or better than he
really is. He was born in one town, you in another, but
that is no reason why he should not feel for you, desire
your benefit, or be willing to give you some advice, which
may make you more capable of knowing your own interest,
or acting so as to secure it. There are many Englishmen
who cry down the Irish, and think it answers their ends
to revile all that belongs to Ireland: but it is not because
these men are Englishmen that they maintain such
opinions, but because they wish to get money, and titles,
and power. They would act in this manner to whatever
country they might belong, until mankind is much altered
for the better, which reform, I hope, will one day be
effected. I address you, then, as my brothers and my
fellow-men, for I should wish to see the Irishman who, if
England was persecuted as Ireland is, who, if France
