heart should be able to conquer—­resolved that, rather than allow his enemies to have the satisfaction of dangling his body from a gibbet, he would become his own executioner.  On the night of the 11th of November he contrived, while lying unobserved in his cell, to open a vein in his neck with a penknife.  No intelligence of this fact had reached the public when, on the morning of the 12th, the intrepid and eloquent advocate, John Philpot Curran, made a motion in the Court of King’s Bench for a writ of Habeas Corpus, to withdraw the prisoner from the custody of the military authorities, and transfer him to the charge of the civil power.  The motion was granted immediately, Mr. Curran pleading that, if delay were made, the prisoner might be executed before the order of the Court could be presented.  A messenger was at once despatched from the court to the barrack with the writ.  He returned to say that the officers in charge of the prisoner would obey only their military superiors.  The Chief Justice issued his commands peremptorily:—­“Mr. Sheriff, take the body of Tone into custody—­take the Provost Marshal and Major Sandys into custody,—­and show the order of the Court to General Craig.”  The Sheriff sped away, and soon returned with the news that Tone had wounded himself on the previous evening, and could not be removed.  The Chief Justice then ordered a rule suspending the execution.  For the space of seven days afterwards did the unfortunate gentleman endure the agonies of approaching death; on the 19th of November, 1798, he expired.  No more touching reference to his last moments could be given than the following pathetic and noble words traced by a filial hand, and published in the memoir from which we have already quoted:—­“Stretched on his bloody pallet in a dungeon, the first apostle of Irish union and most illustrious martyr of Irish independence counted each lingering hour during the last seven days and nights of his slow and silent agony.  No one was allowed to approach him.  Far from his adored family, and from all those friends whom he loved so dearly, the only forms which flitted before his eyes were those of the grim jailor and his rough attendants—­the only sounds which fell on his dying ear the heavy tread of the sentry.  He retained, however, the calmness of his soul and the possession of his faculties to the last.  And the consciousness of dying for his country, and in the cause of justice and liberty, illumined like a bright halo his later moments and kept up his fortitude to the end.  There is no situation under which those feelings will not support the soul of a patriot.”

Tone was born in Stafford-street, Dublin, on the 20th of June, 1764.  His father was a coachmaker who carried on a thriving business; his grandfather was a comfortable farmer who held land near Naas, county Kildare.  In February, 1781, Tone entered Trinity College, Dublin; in January, 1787, he entered his name as a law student on the books of the Middle Temple, London, and in 1789 he was called to the bar.  His mortal remains repose in Bodenstown churchyard, county Kildare, whither parties of patriotic young men from the metropolis and the surrounding districts often proceed to lay a green wreath on his grave.  His spirit lives, and will live for ever, in the hearts of his countrymen.