Page:Annalsoffaminein00nich.djvu/267

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FAMINE IN IRELAND
261

heart, and your warm appreciation of the virtues, rude but sincere, of a people whose condition it is necessary to improve, in order to make them contented and happy.

The first step to raise them socially, to create in them self-respect, and elevate their shrewdness into the wisdom of morality, has been taken by the man whom you revered so much, and to whom and not to me, you have this day paid a grateful and graceful tribute. May he live forever in the memories of his country!

You are about to depart for your own great country, because you could not witness again the desolation of another famine. But you will carry back from Ireland the heartfelt sense of her people for past kindness, to your Christian countrymen. To them, to the generous people of England, and to the Society of Friends in England, Ireland and America, we are indebted, but utterly unable to discharge the debt.

Again, Madam, expressing my deep sense of your kindness and personal worth, and wishing you many happy years in your beloved America,

I beg to subscribe myself,
Your grateful servant,
William O'Connor.

Mount Patrick, August 31st, 1848.


TO WILLIAM O'CONNOR

Sir,—The unmerited compliment you publicly bestowed on a stranger, in the last week's Examiner, de-