AAS
THE CHINA MAIL, OCTOBER 31, 1939
TO-DAY'S STRANGE STORY OF REAL PEOPLE
NO. 77-WOLFE TONE- SUICIDE OR MURDER VICTIM?
BY JOEL C. MATHEWS
"For the cause I feel prouder in my chains than if I were decorated with the Star and Garter of England."
Thus spoke the Irish rebel, Theo- bold Wolfe Tone, when arrested for treason against Great Britain.
Tone was born in Dublin in 1763 and was the son of a coach-maker. While at Trinity College, he planned a career in the Army. But before graduation he fell in love with Matilda Witherington, a beautiful Irish girl of 16, carried her off,, married her and then awoke to the fact that he must immediately make a living befitting her station. The easiest calling to présent itself was the law, and he became a barrister, but soon finding this vocation uncongenial, he went into politics.
He was soon fired with ambition to free Ireland, which was just recover- ing from three generations of war- fare. He founded the Society of United Irishmen, and sought foreign assistance for his adventure. Thus in 1795, when England and France were at war, he intrigued with France to land an armed force on the Irish coast. It was his plan to form an Irish republic by armed rebellion, but the scheme fell through and he allowed to exile himself in America with the understanding that he would keep faith with the mother country.
In the spring of 1785 he took up his residence in Philadelphia, but did not approve of America. He complained that it was no more truly democratic and no less under the thumb of au- thority than the Irish. He called George Washington a "high-flying aristocrat" and branded the aristo- cracy of money in America as more powerful than the aristocracy of birth in Europe. So he put off for Paris, where he renewed his conspiracy to effect a French invá“ sion of Ireland. With the hope that such a commission would protect him from the penalty of treason should be be taken by the English, he obtained the rank of adjutant general of the French army and accompanied a number of French expeditions and ralds upon the Irish coast. In one of these his brother Matthew was cap- tured, being later hanged for treason. The last raiding party which Wolfe Tone accompanied was being pounced upon by the British fleet when he was offered escape in a French fri- gate, but he bravely refused to desert his comrades and was taken prisoner while still wearing the uniform of a French adjutant general. Not until two weeks later was he recognised. When brought to Dublin to be tried for treason he made a manly speech avowing his determination "by fair and open warfare" to procure the separation of Ireland from England and pleading by virtue of his status a French officer the right to die by the musket instead of by the rope, But he was sentenced to be hanged.
The
sentence threatened inter-
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While the British
government faced this entanglement the news was given to the world that Wolfe Tone had solved the knotty problem by cutting his own throat with a pen- knife. His hanging had been scheduled for November 12th, 1798, and his alleged suicidal attempt was committed on November 11th. Al- though he lived eight days after supposedly inflicting a fatal wound upon himself, the sentence was never carried out.
What really happened has always been a mystery. There has been a suspicion that the hanging was avoid- ed in order to save the necks of the two British generals whom France in fulfillment of her threat would have hanged had tone's execution taken place. Throughout Ireland there was prevalent the belief that Tone was stabbed in his cell by another hand than his own to avert France's threat. As it was strictly against the law and prison
regulations for a condemned prisoner to have a knife Wolfe Tone Awaiting The Hangman.
in his possession, the supposition has been that even if Tone did commit national complications. France let it Tone's behalf that inasmuch
suicide he did so with the connivance be known that if her adjutant gen-
of
the authorities. eral were hanged
was not a British soldier his trial by that his throat
One story was reprisal by hanging two British pri- its regularity could only be argued which he had sharpened upon a stone
she would exact court martial was irregular and that knife but with a
was cut not with
silver sixpence soners of equal rank soners she had in her possession, as soldjer, for soldier
which pri- on. the ground that he was a French slab in his cell. England and
of some kind he - France were still at must
The real circumstances of his death be in order to be tried by will ever remain one of the mysteries Furthermore, it was argued in military instead of civil tribunal. of Irish history.
war.
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