| Title: | John Mitchel, Van Diemens Land, to Miss Thomson [Dublin?] |
|---|---|
| ID | 1779 |
| Collection | Irish Emigration Database |
| File | Mitchel, John/25 |
| Year | 1852 |
| Sender | Mitchel, John |
| Sender Gender | male |
| Sender Occupation | unknown |
| Sender Religion | Protestant |
| Origin | Van Diemen's Land, Tasmania, Australia |
| Destination | Dublin, Ireland |
| Recipient | Miss Thomson |
| Recipient Gender | female |
| Relationship | friends, relatives? |
| Source | T 413/2: Obtained from Mrs Florence Dawson, 26 Windsor Park, Belfast. |
| Archive | Public Record Office, Northern Ireland |
| Doc. No. | 9005206 |
| Date | 04/10/1852 |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | EMG |
| Log | 22:05:1990 JMR created 22:08:1991 MB input 22:08:1 |
| Word Count | 2620 |
| Genre | |
| Note | |
| Transcript | Bothwell V.D.L. [Van Diemen's Land?] 4 Oct. [October?] 1852. Dear Miss Thompson, Jenny, oppressed with household cares but also oppressed by epistolary obligation to you for several long & most agreeable & highly valued letters, has desired me to take you in hand, & give you a bulletin of our news. First then I have mentioned that she is oppressed with household cares; the reason of this is that a little girl was born here some weeks ago, & Jenny is much occupied by nursing & the like. The little one has no name, & nameless she is to remain while we are in this unblessed land. She may be christened if ever we get back to Christendom. Jenny is quite well again, as indeed are all in the house. Henrietta & Willie are now two of the strongest & wildest children in the family. Your last letter is dated the 8th of May & I must say it gives a dreary picture of affairs in Ireland. No such utterly prostrate country, I presume, the sun has yet seen - at least of the lands inhabited by white men since history began. To try to prevent such an utter & final conquest of our country was surely in itself a good cause, and if it failed entirely through folly or weakness, or because the destinies were against us, it is at least a consolation that ourselves pay the penalty. From your account of the preparations for an election, & indeed from the newspapers generally, I find that the priests are systematically trying to merge all national feeling in Catholicity - their nationality henceforward is to be papal nationality of race & country in some more universal principal or cause - Republicanism, Monarchism, Christianity, Commerce. Can all our national zeal then have been a mere mistake? Were we hunting moonshine, & making ourselves drunk with the east wind. My dear lady I do not believe it. We were entirely & exclusively right. This is not modest but it is true. The 19th century is on a wrong track, & before the century is over will confess the same with gnashing of teeth. You ask if I have any hope of our cause for the future. I answer distinctly, yes. I hope that even in our day Ireland will be an independant nation. The graves indeed will not give up their dead, the hearths that have been quenched lie quenched there, & will never, never be kindled again; the tears & #PAGE 2 agonies of a nation sick to death are past; the tears are shed & the earth has covered them; the bitter agony has wailed itself silent, & there seems to be no vengeance, no threat of vengeance in Heaven or on earth. So far the conquest seems complete; the enlightened genius of British commercial civilization has actually brought matters so far & it cannot be gainsayed [gainsaid?]; has quenched so many warm hearths, has slain so many men, women & children, has brought to their knees, cowed, broken down & degraded in mind body & estate all the survivors. And British civilisation marches over our ruins, exulting & canting. Yet nature is bountiful, & the breed of brave men is never quite trampled out. "The quick spring like weeds out of the Dead", and I am strong in the faith that the perpetual oscillation of human affairs (or wagging of the world) does bring about compensations here & there & does now & then punish national crimes, raising the lowly & bringing the proud to dust. It is the humdrum & multifarious Alison I think who says that "Nations are punished for crimes in this world they have no future state". If that be true what a tribulation is brewing now for the true Britons. May we live to see it! After all you know how "a gentleman on the other" would apply all that I have been saying. "Yes, so many killed or routed to the four winds; so many Celtic benighted hearths quenched because ignorance darkness brought in contact with energy & knowledge must go down, must vanish, weeping & wailing, in sorrow & shame. Yes time does bring compensation & punish national sins, for see what a penalty sloth, popery, & Celtic ferocity have brought upon you." Which of these two versions of the story is true, & which is lying, greediness & cant, I being still uncontrite entertain no doubt. Is it not strange to be writing thus to a young girl, who has had a gay season in Dublin & who is taking counsel as to what watering place she will favour for the summer - these dismal or vengeful vaticinations of national doom - these mournings of a beaten monomaniac for a lost cause? So most people would call them, but you will not think my letter strange, far less insane. You will not laugh at me, nor yet shrink from me (as Lord Eglinton does) with abhorrence, for if I read your letters right, thoughts of the same sort are no strangers to you. In times that try men's souls there will always be women too who can grow transcendental, & the race of them also was not #PAGE 3 extinguished at Carthage or Zaragoza or Limerick. The human race is not improving, but thank God it is also not growing worse & going all to the Devil. I wonder a little at your longing for the West. You cannot I think much admire the Western form of human civilisation, at any rate in its northern hearty applause to America, its institutions & governments in all departments are just, its soil is a refuge for hunted & denounced men; & even for the grandest states & greatest & best nations have been slave holding states & nations. So that I have no distinct fault to find with that great Republic & could so wish to be obliged to confess that those just laws & institutions, that majestic country with its teeming soil, with its mighty power, respectable history, august destinies (as it is hoped) that all this does indeed breed and nurse great men, generous passions, & high deeds - but does it? What higher thing than money? What greater end & aim of all social & political institutions than just fair play for the making of money. Carriere ouverte aux talents - for money making - have they any idea of? Is not commerce their god, as he is the god of England also. Commerce which used to be called Mammon & a fiend? Consider this "Civilisation" in its original etymological & only proper meaning, signified a high cultivation & development of all the social & political functions, talents, rights, duties, high cultivation above all, full acknowledgement & enthronement of simple Justice. The most highly civilised state then was simply the state wherein first, JUSTICE WAS SURE, wherein secondly all the political & social order tended & conspired to enable & induce the citizens to exert their noblest faculties, & strive towards the noblest aims. What does civilisation mean NOW? It means steam, that carries all men rapidly on no matter how base an errand. It means the PRINTING PRESS, that multiplies as the sands of the sea, teachings no matter how false & vile; it means the electric telegraph, whereby lies will put a girdle round the globe in less than Ariel's forty minutes; it means upholstery, scrip, dividends, nuggets; it means anything but JUSTICE. Now whereas the Americans, if they but knew it, are considerably civilised, & have in their power the attainment of true civilisation in its very highest form, yet they are losing the idea of civilisation itself. The idea of Justice, on which their common wealth was based is disappearing before the genius of the commerce fiend. So they let Czar Nicholas work his #PAGE 4 will with immortal Hungary; they ravage Mexico & bully Japan. They send a steamer indeed for Kossuth to make them speeches (they would send a fleet of steamers for Madselle Wagner); they feast him, cheer him, & as he does not praise them enough soon tire of him. Poor noble heart! in the simplicity of his great nature he had dreamed that beyond the setting sun a race of giants grew; that in the New World man was indeed renewing his youth like the eagle, & starting afresh a demi-god in an age of gold, he thought that in a free & rhetorical country words meant things. But it is not New England perhaps but Texas you admire, and I admit that is far better. Your brother's ranches must be tempting you, & certainly the life of a settler in a new country with a fine climate has some high attractions. Even here with all the drawback of the hideous people one must employ & see about one, I could sometimes almost envy an extensive sheep owner with a fine house in a lovely country, & splendid horses to ride. The climate is certainly very genial to the races of dogs & horses, as well as to the human kind. The men indeed are generally mean looking, but amongst Tasmanian women are some most superb & puissant beauties. In all these respects perhaps this island gaol is at least equal to Texas, but over it all is the trail of the serpent. No great prospect I see of the enemy letting us loose very soon. I am glad you are disgusted by the "Liberation Meetings" in Ireland, & with the business of petitioning for our "pardon". Altogether, I must say nobody had any right to crave pardon on my behalf. I had warned people against it, & assuredly I do not thank my intercessors. I have just written a letter to Father Kenyon, & asked him to print it. When he does so, you will see what I have to say upon the subject of the Phoenix Park petitioners & how I express my "contrition". Possibly indeed the publication of it may give our gaolers an excuse & occasion to take some further revenge upon us, for the great British public is not very generous to an enemy, but I could not resist the inclination of showing the English Government how utterly I set it at defiance & despise all it can do to me. You ask about the other Exiles. Mr. Martin lives with us & is to do so until February next, when I am to quit this cottage & farm & probably the district of Bothwell also (do not however fear the misdirection of letters - a letter addressed to us at Hobart Town will always find us.) Mr O'Brien I see sometimes; we are very good friends, but he never loses sight of the necessity of avoiding solidarity with #PAGE 5 me; indeed we never can be political associates again, even if we live to enter politics hereafter. Mr O'Doherty is still in charge of a hospital in Hobart town as house Surgeon, & is rather pleasantly situated there, having practice in his profession & a comfortable lodging in the hospital. He has however no "society" whatever. The people of Hobart town, that is the official people & their families, & the wealthy merchants, whose ambition is to go to Governt [Government?] House, all of course keep very shy of us. The governor does not conceal his discontent at our being visited or spoken to by any decent people. So O'Dogherty has not the entree of their distinguished circles. As to Mr O'Brien & ourselves there are two parties amongst the country settlers of our respective districts. Some are for giving us access to their society on a footing of equality, others pretend to be distinguished as I understand, though to do the people justice no one has been mean & cowardly enough to insult us. The principal settler however in New Norfolk district, a wealthy person who was formerly a clerk in the Survey Office here & who resides within a few hundred yards of Mr O'Brien, never called on him. He has a family, & fears convict contamination. In Bothwell Mr Martin & I have from the first been kindly received by all the families where there are ladies - save one - & they have also all called on my wife, but owing to the distances & bad roads in winter, social intercourse is somewhat rare. It is also I must confess unsatisfactory, & however little the good people may intend it, yet something often arises in our intercourse with them that secretly stings us. How could it be otherwise - they are British subjects & must deem us criminals. Fortunately I am not very sensitive on my own account but on account of my wife & children sometimes I am. Fortunately too we are not dependant on society, having so much of a society of our own within doors. There is no scarcity of books, of certain sorts, indeed Bothwell has a very tolerable public library, such a library as a village of similar population in Ireland never had. Besides that there is a Presbyterian clergyman here, a Scotchman, who is quite literary & has many books & although my own were to have been sold in Dublin yet Jenny saved a good many of them for me. It would be uncandid however to pretend that with all the furtherances & appliances we have we are content, or at all near to contentment. Disguise itself as it will Slavery is a bitter draught, and sometimes indeed I am provoked at the vulgar rogues of newspaper men in Ireland upholding ME as the happiest man of modern times. In a Limerick paper I read that I give in letters #PAGE 6 to my friends a GLOWING picture of the position & prospects of myself & my family. Think of this. Later again in a Galway paper I read that I am as "happy" as the day is long. Of course I always write in good spirits, if our position were even worse & our prospects blacker I should still write in good spirits & defy the foul fiend, for I have no idea of being SUBDUED, but as for happiness & glowing prospects ochon-a-rie! Happy - I am hardly alive, the first day of capativity took from me more than half my manhood, & I am not ALL HERE. The truth is this state is a living death, & is only not utter misery because it is not embittered by remorse & disgrace. Moreover I do not like that either. My friends or my enemies should be led to believe I made myself happy by getting kidnapped & chained. So enough of that. Only I would that I had the wings of a dove - that with honour untarnished I might fly from under the poisonous shadow of the British flag. You have heard of course all about Mr Meagher's escape. We are not here content with the manner of it. Assuredly if we could think the obligation of our parole could be so easily satisfied, there is not one of us who would not have been North of the Equator long ago. It is painful to say this, but his leaving V.D. [Van Diemen's?] Land so as to let even a question be raised about his good faith, was a grevious wrong to us & to our cause. I need not tell you that Jenny sends you her most affectionate love. Pray write often & long & believe me most sincerely & gratefully your friend, John Mitchel. The original of this letter sent to Mrs. Mitchel in April 1884 at her request as she intends publishing a memoir of her husband. |
