-To O’Mahony from J.K. (Stephens)-May 13, 1863
13 May [1863], Dublin. 'Brother,
the few lines from Limerick apprised you of two important facts: that I
was successfully working a new district and that your two money-orders (the
first for ^75 and the second for ^40) had been received. I have now to tell you,
but very briefly, how things have gone on with me since. A few words however of
preliminary explanation. Considering the way money has come to me the amount of
your first draught, ^75, looks big. But
owing to circumstances I have not time, even if it were necessary, to explain I
was not able to take more than {,20 to
meet the expenses of a tour which with anything like adequate means would have
been incomparably the best I have ever made.
It may be as well to state here that of the ^50
odd disbursed before I left Dublin / took
but ^8, though debts of various kinds were
pressing on me sorely and though no hodman could be shabbier in appearance—more
destitute of everything necessary to even the poorest man. With no more than {,20 I would not have undertaken the work
I want to accomplish had I not relied on hearing from you again speedily. You did not disappoint me; though, as you will
see, the ^40 draught has remained
waste-paper till this hour and will be no better to me for months to come.
Three days before starting I sent a friend of large connections—kindred and
friends—in the counties of Limerick and Clare to prepare the way before me and
bring all those he could to Limerick city, which I had fixed
on as my headquarters. I further instructed him to make inquiries about Mr P.
K. Cleary (recommended by Clarke [T. C. Luby] on
information received from Mr. Healy, a
friend of yours) and should the inquiries prove satisfactory to enroll [End
of p. 2;
pp. 3, 4, 5, 6 missing}.
[P. 7], 'back to me
on Easter Monday. His mission had been a great success: four important men
(Centre-buds, in fact) would be with me on the following Wednesday;
two of
these had been enrolled by him before I went to Limerick, and the others during
the two days he had been away from me; I had only to give them working
instructions and authority and send them home properly impressed.
'As yet I
had heard nothing from Joe [Joseph Denieffe].
As the day on which he got my letter (Good Friday) was a bank holiday I did not
wonder at not having heard from him on Easter Saturday. Nor was it of any
consequence not to have heard from him on the following day. On Easter Monday
however I began to feel uneasy, having been already a week from home and funds
not very high. I cannot now recollect whether I wrote to him on Easter Monday;
but if not I surely did so on the following day. I heard from him by return of
post. Unable to get a draught on Good Friday, knowing how much I wanted
money, and fearing that if I left Limerick I
might find no opportunity of having cash or even a letter forwarded to me, he
enclosed half-notes in an envelope to my friend's address. These half-notes
have never come to hand. The merest shadow of blame does not attach to Joe.
Under the circumstances / should have done
as he did; or, if differently, it would have been what never occurred to him or, had he thought of it, what he dared not have
done on his own responsibility, namely, incurred some ^2
expense to send the money by a trusty messenger. Curses on this post-office
system. No practical man in our case should avail of it at all;
or if at all, then only in the last extremity or for matters of no importance.
Give me money and I will give you the secrets of all the post-offices in
the world. Has England money? Lord, Lord, is it a law of Nature—or of Thine—to
place brain within a space more healthily clogged with another substance
?
'My great
work could not be carried out. I left the
city of Limerick well as I could (Mr. C.'s
friend, as stated, was admirable; but for the loss of the money I could have
given him at least three co-mates) but made a rapid tour through the lower part
of the county. This tour was on the whole satisfactory. Since my return I have
seen parties or received communications from
almost every important district of the country. The heavens as well as the
earth seems to be working for1
us. Our numbers are increasing beyond all precedent; and the spirit of the
country is growing so big that, unless I be furnished with means for frequent
communication, I cannot answer that this or that district may not do something
to compromise our work—to compromise the Irish cause for ever. I write
deliberately: with anything like a fair supply of money —with what—I was about
writing what I shall not, curbing my just disdain. Let me however repeat: I
write deliberately: with anything like a fair supply of money I undertake not
only to create such a power as no Irishman has ever yet created, but to
hold that power in such subordination as all good Irishmen must marvel and
rejoice [at] it. On the other hand it has for some time been forcing itself on
my belief that even if my strength (I mean bodily strength, the higher
strength having never given a sign of yielding) could bear the wasting agony
to which I have been so long subjected, nothing merely human could much longer
even hope, with much larger sums than what I have hitherto been
able to procure, to sway for good alone the spirit evoked and the power created
here. Weigh well the foregoing words; they involve a sort of appeal to you
and the friends of Ireland working with you: I believe in no others. Should you
and they be deaf to me now I shall never appeal to you again—possibly
shall be beyond that. The fact is, I feel myself growing very old—feel
that a little more of the life I have been leading for—how long ?—will prove too much for me. Then it shall
be known what I have been—perhaps.
'Bearer
will tell you (at least to some extent) the circumstances under which this
letter has been written. To an ordinary acquaintance, I think, if not to you
his explanation would excuse a great deal. The fact is that however desirous of
writing a satisfactory and, far as you are concerned, a kindly letter—such as
you might have received from me of old—I cannot write at all—can
scarcely see the letters I am
^from MS.
forming
and scarcely realise the import—significance—what you like, of all this black
and white. Do you know what it is to be thoroughly woeful and thoroughly sick ? I am both—thoroughly; the woe is in my soul and the sickness—more than I like—in my
frame. I did not think I could have written
to you in this strain; but the old feeling, I suppose, has come back to
the old man. No more now.
'You ask my
opinion with regard to Clarke's [T. C. Luby] stay yonder. Would that I2 were all I could wish for the sake of Clarke alone. I
should hesitate to say that I have met any such man. Who has felt his
weaknesses—has made him feel his weaknesses—more ? Yet, on the other hand, can any living being be nearly so
sensible of his strength ? His is
a grand nature. Have you been all you should have been to him ? To others you have not been—at least at all
times, but who is ?— without blame; but have
you been thoroughly a brother to him ?
Clarke will stay with you long as he sees a fair prospect of being more useful
with you than here. Has there been, even from the beginning, such
a prospect ? If the tree be known by its
fruit, then doth some trees of life bear very bitter fruit. As yet
(according to yourself, for you claim the merit of the poor sums forwarded,
and one of which remains waste paper to me) the tree, though promising glorious
blossom, has not yielded so much as a crab. Am I to infer that Clarke's efforts
have produced nothing ? For your
sake, infinitely more than my own, I should be sorry for this as, should
Clarke's mission prove a failure, I look on your political career as at
an end for ever. Few things could be so bitter to me as Clarke's failure at
your side or your irrevocable compromise at this. Even though my eyes were not almost
blind—as now they are— I should shut them fast against such a picture.
May the lights and tints be utterly different when I open them—healthily,
please God—to your answer to this.
'Bearer [? Charles Underwood O'Connell;
see (x)] is too well known to you to need
any recommendation from me. His case is a very hard one. Here, he leaves 700
men behind him—men of worth, whom he is longing to meet again. If in your
power— without injury to the cause—send him home soon as you can. Yours etc.'