John George Adair, the manly, handsome young squire who had coalesced with my friends in the Irish Council, expressed his cordial sympathy with this new attempt.[1]
Another recruit, who was obliged to maintain strict anonymity, promised to be of greater value than any of William Jennings was a student on the Dunboyne establishment in Maynooth College, a class to whom any flirtation with the Press is strictly forbidden, but he was confident I would soon become a professor, which indeed befell, and in that capacity he projected help for my educational projects of the highest value; he designed to filter the stream of instruction at its fountain-head. "If I were," he wrote, "a professor I would create a love of general reading throughout the entire college. This might be an indirect, but I have firm faith that it would be a sure, means to make the entire clergy the most devoted Irishmen we could wish them."
But no recruit of that day brought me more hope of results than Edward Whitty. He was a young London journalist of Irish descent, but born and reared in England, whom the unfairness and malignity of Lord Clarendon's policy in the State trials kindled into a flame of just wrath. He was secretary of a Liberal Association founded by Sir Joshua Walmesley, and one of the writers in the Leader. He was son of Michael J. Whitty, who laid down a public office in Liverpool to become a journalist, who in later years was one of the founders of the Penny Press, and when he was a youngster was the writer of "Captain Rock in London," the little periodical which gave me so much delight as a boy, in Monaghan. From that time Edward Whitty became prac-
- ↑ "I cannot deny myself the pleasure of writing to you to congratulate you on your reappearance among us as teacher and guide, to express my cordial approval and deep sympathy with your new movements, and to request that my name may be enrolled on your list of workmen for Ireland. … However, the past is gone except as an influence and instructor. You have now to create manliness, honesty, industry, literature, the great elements of nationality, without which separate government would be but a trifling good. … I firmly believe that but for the Church question the great majority of Irish Protestants would be earnest Nationalists; in fact, nothing is wanted but honest common-sense teaching and working to organise a party that will be more formidable to English and Irish oppressors than anything we have yet seen. … I am determined to use any influence and talent I possess for the good of my country, in diffusing charily and truth, and elevating and purifying the tone of thinking and of acting among the people. It will give me the greatest satisfaction if in any way I can unite with you in the work."
