A short time after Mr. John Martin’s conviction, he and Kevin Izod O’Doherty were shipped off to Van Diemen’s Land on board the “Elphinstone,” where they arrived in the month of November, 1849.  O’Brien, Meagher, MacManus, and O’Donoghue had arrived at the same destination a few days before.  Mr. Martin resided in the district assigned to him until the year 1854, when a pardon, on the condition of their not returning to Ireland or Great Britain was granted to himself, O’Brien, and O’Doherty, the only political prisoners in the country at that time—­MacManus, Meagher, O’Donoghue, and Mitchel having previously escaped.  Mr. O’Brien and Mr. Martin sailed together in the “Norna” from Melbourne for Ceylon, at which port they parted, Mr. O’Brien turning northward to Madras, while Mr. Martin came on via Aden, Cairo, Alexandria, Malta, and Marseilles to Paris, where he arrived about the end of October, 1854.  In June, 1856, the government made the pardon of Messrs. Martin, O’Brien, and O’Doherty, unconditional, and Mr. Martin then hastened to pay a visit to his family from whom he had been separated during eight years.  After a stay of a few months he went back to Paris, intending to reside abroad during the remainder of his life, because he could not voluntarily live under English rule in Ireland.  But the death of a near and dear member of his family, in October, 1858, imposed on him duties which he could only discharge by residence in his own home, and compelled him to terminate his exile.  Living since then in his own land he has taken care to renew and continue his protest against the domination of England in Ireland.  In January, 1864, acting on the suggestion of many well-known nationalists, he established in Dublin a Repeal Association called “The National League.”  The peculiar condition of Irish politics at the time was unfavourable to any large extension of the society; but notwithstanding this circumstance the League by its meetings and its publications rendered good service to the cause of Irish freedom.  Mr. Martin has seen many who once were loud and earnest in their professions of patriotism lose heart and grow cold in the service of their country, but he does not weary of the good work.  Patiently and zealously he still continues to labour in the national cause; his mission is not ended yet; and with a constancy which lapse of years and change of scene have not affected, he still clings to the hope of Ireland’s regeneration, and with voice and pen supports the principles of patriotism for which he suffered.  The debt that Ireland owes to him will not easily be acquitted, and if the bulk of his co-religionists are no longer to be found within the national camp, we can almost forgive them their shortcomings, when we remember that, within our own generation, the Presbyterians of Ulster have given to Ireland two such men as John Martin and John Mitchel.

Mr. Martin’s name will re-appear farther on in another portion of this work, for the occasion of which we have here treated was not the only one on which his patriotic words and actions brought upon him the attention of “the authorities,” and subjected him to the troubles of a state prosecution.