SPEECH IN BEHALF OF FAMISHING IRELAND. 273 which proceeds from famine are the most dreadful. If one dies fighting gloriously for his country, he is cheered in his expiring moments by the patriotic nature of his sacrifice. He knows that his surviving relatives and friends, while lamenting his loss, will be gratified and honored by his devotion to his country. Poets, painters, sculptors, historians—will record his deeds of valor and perpetuate his renown. If he dies by the sudden explosion of the boilers of a steamboat, or by a storm at sea, death is quiet and easy, and soon performs his mission. A few piercing shrieks are uttered, he sinks beneath the surface, and all is still and silent. But a death by starvation comes slow, lingering, and excruciating. From day to day, the wretched victim feels his flesh dwindling, his speech sinking, his friends falling around him, and he finally expires in horrible agony. "Behold the wretched Irish mother-with haggard looks and streaming eyes her famished children clinging to her tattered garments, and gazing piteously in her face, begging for food! And see the distracted husbandfather, with pallid cheeks, standing by, horror and despair depicted in his countenance-tortured with the reflection that he can afford no succor or relief to the dearest objects of his heart, about to be snatched for ever from him by the most cruel of all deaths. "This is no fancy picture; but, if we are to credit the terrible accounts which reach us from that theatre of misery and wretchedness, is one of daily occurrence. Indeed, no imagination can conceive-no tongue express-no pencil paint-the horrors of the scenes which are there daily exhibited. Ireland, in respect to food, is differently situated from all the countries of the world. Asia has her abundant supply of rice; Africa, her dates, yams, and rice; Europe, her bread of wheat, rye, and oats; America, a double resource in the small grains, and a never-failing and abundant supply of Indian corn that great supporter of animal life, for which we are not half grateful enough to a bountiful and merciful Providence. But the staple food of large parts of poor Ireland is the potato, and when it fails, pinching want and famine follow. It is among the inscrutable dispensations of Providence, that the crop has been blighted these last two years; and hence the privation of food, and this appeal to the sympathy of American hearts. "Shall it be in vain! Shall starving Ireland-the young and the olddying women and children-stretch out their hands to us for bread, and find no relief? Will not this great city, the world's storehouse of an exhaustless supply of all kinds of food, borne to its overflowing warehouses by the Father of Waters, act on this occasion in a manner worthy of its high destiny, and obey the noble impulses of the generous hearts of its blessed inhabitants? We are commanded, by the common Savior of Ireland and of us, to love one another as ourselves; and on this, together with one higher obligation, hang all the law and prophets of our holy religion. We know, that of all the forms of humanity and benevolence, none is more acceptable, in the sight of God, than the practice of charity. Let us demonstrate our love, our duty, and our gratitude to him, by a liberal contribution to the relief of his suffering Irish children. This is "Fellow-citizens, no ordinary purpose has brought us together. no political gathering. If it had been, you would not have seen me here. I have not come to make a speech. When the heart is full, and agitated by its own feeling emotions, the paralyzed tongue finds utterance difficult. It is not fervid eloquence, nor gilded words, that Ireland needs-but substantial food. Let us rise to the magnitude of the duty which is before us, and by a generous supply from the magnitude of our means, evince the genuineness and cordiality of our sympathy and commiseration." At the conclusion of this speech, one loud and unanimous shout of approval was raised, in which officers and audience participated. The effect of the speech is well told in a letter addressed to Mr. Clay by two Irishmen of New York, and accompanied with an elegant gift of cutlery. They say: "It was the good fortune of one of us, to hear your speech in behalf of the famishing millions of our native land, when in New Orleans on business during that dreadful winter of 1846-47; it has since been the fortune of the other to hear and to witness in Ireland, and elsewhere in Europe, the admiration and gratitude which that speech has excited; it is the pleasing duty of both to thank God that your thrilling appeal to the best feelings of our common humanity was the means, by stimulating the energies of ever blessed charity among the American people, of saving thousands of our countrymen from a death of agony and horror. It must be an abiding joy to your generous heart, to know that American benevolence is devoutly blessed in parishes and cabins, where even your name, illustrious as it is, had hardly been heard before the famine; and that thousands have been impelled, by their deliverance from the worst effects of that dire calamity, to invoke blessings on the head of Henry Clay. "You have often, and most appropriately, received at the hands of your countrymen by birth, fitting acknowledgments of your services, in the shape of rare products of their unsurpassed mechanical ingenuity and skill. Our humble offering is the work of foreign artisans, in grateful acknowledgment of your powerful aid to an oppressed and suffering race on the other side of the Atlantic. We trust it may not, on that account, be unacceptable, but that, among your many tokens of American esteem and thankfulness, a single remembrance of the tears of gratitude which, at the mention of your name, have bedewed the cheek of suffering Ireland may not be unwelcome." "I must have had a heart colder than stone," says Mr. Clay in reply, "if I had been capable of listening to the sad account of Irish distress without the deepest emotions. My regret was, that I could do little or nothing to mitigate the sufferings of a generous and gallant people. Nor did my own countrymen, I am fully persuaded, require any stimulus from me, to prompt them to extend all practicable succors, to those with whom we are intimately connected by so many pleasing ties." DEATH OF HIS SON AT BUENA VISTA. 275 XXVI. WAR IN MEXICO-DEATH OF HENRY CLAY, JR. THE war with Mexico was, in its results, as honorable to the army of the United States, as, in its origin, it was disgraceful to the administrations of Messrs. Tyler and Polk. The series of brilliant successes achieved under Generals Taylor and Scottthe rapidly succeeding victories of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, Buena Vista, Cerro Gordo, Churubusco, and Chepultepec are unparalleled in the history of modern warfare, in the numerical inferiority of the forces by which vast numbers were overcome. It was with heavy forebodings that Mr. Clay left New Orleans. Our gallant army under Taylor, was known to be in a situation of great peril, surrounded by overwhelming numbers of the enemy, and depending solely upon the personal courage of the officers and men, united to the intrepidity and sagacity of their revered general, for its safety. Mr. Clay's son Henry, had quitted the practice of the law, and hastened to join the standa d of his country in Mexico, early in the contest, and was now with Taylor at Buena Vista. This generous-spirited young man was born in 1811. Having graduated with high honors at West Point academy, he had studied law, married, travelled a while in Europe, and returned to Kentucky, to serve his country on the battle-field when the occasion invited. As Mr. Clay was leaving Frankfort for Ashland, he received the melancholy intelligence of the death of his son. The paper containing the news was handed to him by a friend, and he carefully read it until he came to the sad announcement. Then he trembled like an aspen, but uttered no word, save a command to the driver to move on. "Amid all the clustering honors of his elevated career," says a writer of the day, " Mr. Clay has been a man of sorrows. The affections of his home have been great as his own heart, and have yearned over his children with an intensity of love which only noble natures know. But "Affliction seemed enamored of his parts;' At the conclusion of this speech, one loud and unanimous shout of approval was raised, in which officers and audience participated. The effect of the speech is well told in a letter addressed to Mr. Clay by two Irishmen of New York, and accompanied with an elegant gift of cutlery. They say: "It was the good fortune of one of us, to hear your speech in behalf of the famishing millions of our native land, when in New Orleans on business during that dreadful winter of 1846-47; it has since been the fortune of the other to hear and to witness in Ireland, and elsewhere in Europe, the admiration and gratitude which that speech has excited; it is the pleasing duty of both to thank God that your thrilling appeal to the best feelings of our common humanity was the means, by stimulating the energies of ever. blessed charity among the American people, of saving thousands of our countrymen from a death of agony and horror. It must be an abiding joy to your generous heart, to know that American benevolence is devoutly blessed in parishes and cabins, where even your name, illustrious as it is, had hardly been heard before the famine; and that thousands have been impelled, by their deliverance from the worst effects of that dire calamity, to invoke blessings on the head of HENRY CLAY. "You have often, and most appropriately, received at the hands of your countrymen by birth, fitting acknowledgments of your services, in the shape of rare products of their unsurpassed mechanical ingenuity and skill. Our humble offering is the work of foreign artisans, in grateful acknowledgment of your powerful aid to an oppressed and suffering race on the other side of the Atlantic. We trust it may not, on that account, be unacceptable, but that, among your many tokens of American esteem and thankfulness, a single remembrance of the tears of gratitude which, at the mention of your name, have bedewed the cheek of suffering Ireland may not be unwelcome.” I must have had a heart colder than stone," says Mr. Clay in reply, "if I had been capable of listening to the sad account of Irish distress without the deepest emotions. My regret was, I could do little or nothing to mitigate the sufferings of a generous and gallant people. Nor did my own countrymen, I am fully persuaded, require any stimulus from me, to prompt them to extend all practicable succors, to those with whom we are intimately connected by so many pleasing ties." that DEATH OF HIS SON AT BUENA VISTA. 275 XXVI. WAR IN MEXICO-DEATH OF HENRY CLAY, JR. THE war with Mexico was, in its results, as honorable to the army of the United States, as, in its origin, it was disgraceful to the administrations of Messrs. Tyler and Polk. The series of brilliant successes achieved under Generals Taylor and Scott— the rapidly succeeding victories of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, Buena Vista, Cerro Gordo, Churubusco, and Chepultepec are unparalleled in the history of modern warfare, in the numerical inferiority of the forces by which vast numbers were overcome. It was with heavy forebodings that Mr. Clay left New Orleans. Our gallant army under Taylor, was known to be in a situation of great peril, surrounded by overwhelming numbers of the enemy, and depending solely upon the personal courage of the officers and men, united to the intrepidity and sagacity of their revered general, for its safety. Mr. Clay's son Henry, had quitted the practice of the law, and hastened to join the standa d of his country in Mexico, early in the contest, and was now with Taylor at Buena Vista. This generous-spirited young man was born in 1811. Having graduated with high honors at West Point academy, he had studied law, married, travelled a while in Europe, and returned to Kentucky, to serve his country on the battle-field when the occasion invited. As Mr. Clay was leaving Frankfort for Ashland, he received the melancholy intelligence of the death of his son. The paper containing the news was handed to him by a friend, and he carefully read it until he came to the sad announcement. Then he trembled like an aspen, but uttered no word, save a command to the driver to move on. “Amid all the clustering honors of his elevated career," says a writer of the day, " Mr. Clay has been a man of sorrows. The affections of his home have been great as his own heart, and have yearned over his children with an intensity of love which only noble natures know. But "Affliction seemed enamored of his parts;' |