THE
NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
ORIGINAL PAPERS.
AUTO-BIOGRAPHY OF THEOBALD WOLFE TONE.
A manuscript of considerable interest and curiosity has, through the kindness of an Irish friend, been put into our hands, with permission to make such selections from it as under all the circumstances of the times and persons to which it relates, may appear to us to be not unfit for publication. It is a fragment of the personal and political biography of Theobald Wolfe Tone, entitled "Memorandums relative to my Life and Opinions." Of its authenticity we have been completely satisfied. It was written in France towards the latter end of 1796, while the armament for Ireland, under Hoche, which he had prevailed upon the French Directory to fit out, and with which he subsequently embarked, was in the act of being organised at Brest. The opening paragraph adverts to his situation and intentions at the time.
"As I shall embark in a business within a few days, the event of which is uncertain, I take the opportunity of a vacant hour to throw upon paper a few memorandums relative to myself and my family, which may amuse my boys, for whom I write them, in case they should hereafter fall into their hands."
The commencing pages are accordingly taken up with a minute account of the members and circumstances of his family; but, as he advances, the subject expands, and finally assumes the more comprehensive form of a memoir of the part the writer had acted and was acting in the public history of his own time. The style throughout is natural and simple; some of the details are given with a degree of playfulness and ease that form a remarkable contrast with the solemn trains of thought which must have habitually pressed upon a man on the eve of plunging into the most doubtful and dangerous of human enterprises.
He was born in Dublin on the 20th of June, 1763. His father was a coach-maker, and having acquired by inheritance some freehold leases in the county of Kildare, became involved in a Chancery suit regarding them, which ended in his ruin. His mother, whose maiden name was Lamport, was the daughter of a Captain of a vessel in the West India trade. Both his parents were ordinary persons. All their children were remarkable for a romantic spirit of enterprise. After specifying the early voyages and adventures of his three brothers, William, Matthew, and Arthur, and his sister Mary, he proceeds—
