[I]t is our principle that if a nation wills a bad government it ought to have that government. We have no power, and we have no right, to force men … - Wolfe Tone

[I read an article] which mentions that Lord Edward Fitzgerald has been arrested in Thomas St., Dublin, after a most desperate resistance, in which himself, the magistrate (one Swan) and Capt[ai]n Ryan, who commanded the guard, were severely wounded. I cannot describe the effect this intelligence had on me; it brought on almost immediately a spasm in my stomach which confined me the whole day. I knew Fitzgerald but very little, but I honor and venerate his character, which he has uniformly sustained and, in this last instance, illustrated. What miserable wretches are the gentry of Ireland beside him! I would rather be Fitzgerald as he is at this moment, wounded, in his dungeon, than Pitt at the head of the British empire. What a noble fellow!

Unhappy victims of the most execrable despotism, you who groan in hideous dungeons, where at every moment you are plunged by the ferocious cruelty of your English tyrants, let hope once more revisit your hearts. Your chains shall be broken. Unfortunate inhabitants who have seen your houses, your property, wrapped in flames by your pitiless enemies, your losses shall be repaired. Rest in peace, gallant and unspotted spirits of Fitzgerald, of Crosbie, of Coigley, of Orr, of Harvey! Your blood, shed for the sacred cause of Liberty, shall cement the independence of Ireland; it circulates in the veins of all your countrymen, and the <small>UNITED REPUBLICANS</small> swear to punish your assassins.

America...has neither king, nobility nor clergy established by law and it is notwithstanding, I am satisfied, at this hour, the most flourishing and the best governed spot on the face of this earth.