they have not the power. Many are now maniacs, some desperate, and some idiots. Human nature is coming forth in every deformity that she can put on, while in the flesh; and should I stay in Ireland six months longer, I shall not be astonished at seeing any deeds of wickedness performed, even by those who one year ago might apparently have been as free from guilt as any among us. I have not been able yet, with all my republican training, to lose the old-school principle of man's total lost state. I have never yet seen him without the restraints of custom or religion anything but a demon in embryo, if not in full maturity; doing not only what he can, but sighing and longing to do more. The floodgates in Ireland are certainly set open, and the torrent has already made fearful ravages.
"From Clare and Tipperary what do we hear? One post after another runs to tell that not only deeds of darkness are done, but deeds of daylight desperation, sufficient to startle the firmest. What Moses shall stand up to plead with God? What Phineas shall rush in to stay the plague? Where are your men of moral, yes, of spiritual might? You have them; then bring them out! I look across that narrow channel. I see the graves of martyrs. I see the graves of men whose daring minds stood forth in all the majesty of greatness, to speak for truth and justice; and though they may long since have taken flight, where are their mantles? Where is your George Thompson? He who shook the United States from Maine to Georgia, in pleading long and loud for the down-trodden black man? Can he not,
7*
