The Irish Contribution to Americas Independence

THE IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO A M E R I C A ’ S I N D E P E N D E N C E The Irish Co nt rib ut io n t o ’ Am e rica s Inde pe nde nce By THOMA S HOB B S MAGINNISS, JR . P UB LISHED B Y DOIRE PUBLISHING COMPANY P H IL A D E LP H I A 19 13 1 1 THE IRE B LISHING Co . Copyright, 9 3, by DO PU , Philadelphia, PRESS OF WM F . FEL . L CO . PREFACE It becomes nations as well as individuals not to think of them s lves mor h Sel e i hl than th ou ht but to think sob rl . e g y ey g , e y f exaggerat ion de tracts from their characte r without adding to their power; but a greater and more dangerous fault is an habitual de eciation of their real resources and a consequent ” want o se geh ance — DKI f lj . GO N . NE of the faults chargeable against the Irish people , and particularly Americans of Irish de f scent , is that they are ignorant o the achieve m of I i 18 ents their race n the past . ITh s probably due to the fact that the people of Ireland have for generations been taught to believe that everything respectable has come from England and that the English are a superior race . m Indeed , an attempt has been made to i pres s the same on f theory the minds o Americans , and perhaps the most - pernicious falsehood promulgated by pro English writers , who exert a subtle influence in spreading the gospel of “ ” - Anglo Saxon superiority, is that America owes her liberty, her benevolent government , and even her pros “ ” “ — pe rity t o her English forefathers and Anglo Saxon n bloo d . The truth is that the impartial history of Irela d ’ of i o of is the story England s shame , wh le the hist ry Amer ' ica ofiers abundant W W u f the first part o this work I have m i; the American people derive their - character more from the Celt than from the Anglo Saxon , but the book is designed primarily to offer evidence to [ 3 ] 6621 64 PREFACE substantiate the claim that more than one - third the offi cers and a large proportion of the soldiers of the Conti nent al army in the American Revolution were of Irish or birth parentage , and that the Irish were an important o o element in American c l nial history . As the Irish were driven from their own country by a system of persecution much more severe than that of which r the Pu itans complained , it is necessary to include in a work of this character some facts of Irish history which account for the large volume of emigration to America in i colon al times . I am a representative of the very class in Ireland , which , in an effort t o be truthful , I am com pelled to condemn for their treatment of the main body of the Irish people . My ancestors in the male and female lines for many generations have been members of the Episcopal (or Anglican) church . My grandfather was a n clergyman of that church in Ireland , a d his father was mayor of the city of Londonderry at a time when it was - perhaps the most anti Irish city in Ireland . Had I been no born and bred in Ireland , I should probably have had opportunity and less inclination to learn the real facts of ’ her history ; but fifteen years study of Irish genealogies and family histories has provided me with an intimate knowledge of the causes that are the root of Irish hostility t o English rule , which , after all , were the basic causes of the American Revolution . - B I I s R . THOMAS HO B S MAG NN s , J D m 19 1 HILADELPHIA ece ber 1 2. P , , INTRODUCTION F the peasantry of Weste rn England at the beginning of c - S I the seventeenth entury were Anglo axons , then the first settlers of New England in America were l - n r also Ang o Saxo s , since the Pilg ims and Puritans were i chiefly farmers , small tradesmen , and mechan cs from the f western counties o f England . The descendants o these “ first settlers ” in New England became the landed m o f aristocracy, and the ajority them were to be found n w h o n amo g the Loyalists , o f rmed a considerable portio o f the population of America (especially Massachusetts) o f during the Revolution . But m st o the people through — out all the Colonies those who were devoted to the — patriot cause were by no means English nor Anglo o of our Sax n , and American love liberty , republican form o f m ur al of e i o govern ent , and o ide s justic are d rectly p f - - o posed t o the character o the so called Anglo Sax ns , a fact that is evident to any one familiar with the history of wh f that race , o has studied the history o the English For u people with any degree of analysis . several cent ries after the Norman conquest of England the common - f r people , essentially Anglo Saxon , were notable o their s v hi ni er ility, w le the landed proprietors and gover ng class of o h o were Norman st ck , w o c ntributed to the English c f for haracter the spirit o arrogance , selfishness , and lust territorial expansion for which England has chiefly been f d noted . It is certain that the spirit o independence an [ 5 ] IRISH CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA ’ S INDEPENDENCE libe rality shown by the men who founded America finds n f o comparison in the servility o the Saxon , nor in the selfishness and imperiousness of the Norman . ‘ Th e school histories inform us that t he set t lers of the s American colonies were English , Welsh , German , Dutch , Swedes , and French Huguenots . The Irish are mentioned l n on y in con ection with the potato famine in Ireland, which caused hundreds of thousands of persons of that nation to emigrate to the Unit ed States in the middle of the last century ; but a careful analysis of American colonial records and immigration statistics will serve to convince one that more than half the people of the United States , o bef re the nation was sixty years old , had Celtic blood in i ns . r the r vei The I ish , Scotch , and Welsh belong to the hi . b Celtic race , w le recent researches y a learned society fi in ance lead to the conclusion that the French , too (whom our histories admit were an important part of our ni . colo al and revolutionary population) , are a Celtic race n f o o Thus , even if the E glis h population o the c l nial pe riod did outnumber the Irish (which could not be true in the of t n m light s atistics) , it surely did not out u ber the Irish , s Wel h , Scotch , French , Swedes , and Dutch , who assuredly - were not Anglo Saxon . But because of the preponderance of what appear to be n l E g ish names in colonial military and political history , the average reader may question the truth of the claim that the Irish came to the colonies in such large numbers , that a large proportion of the revolutionary army were of m o of men that race, and that Irish en occupied positi ns prominence in early American history . Senator Lodge tries t o show the superiority of men of English origin by i class fying the names in a dictionary of biography, and [ 6 ] INTRODUCTION naturally he concludes that the majority of great men are “ ” Anglo- Saxon because the maj ority of the names appear i To to be of English orig n . arrive at his conclusion he probably clas sified as Irish only those men whose names “ ” begin with Me or or names obviously Irish . f As a matter o fact , before the period of the Irish revival , u f e which began in the last cent ry , the use o the prefix s had been almost universally discontinued by Irish families , especially those who were within the pale of English patronage and favor , while members of the laboring and servant clas s were frequently led t o assume the English f l o and Scotch names o their masters . The Eng ish g vern ment exerted every effort to destroy all vestige of Irish f e nationality , and this ef ort ext nded even t o an attempt to m r i eradicate ancient Irish na es , a pu pose wh ch is clearly l t i f E 1465 : i lus rated in the follow ng statut e o dward IV, At the request of the Commons it is ordeyned and established that every Irishman that dwells betwixt or n of M et h amo g Englishmen in the County Dublin , y , Uriell and Kildare (the whole extent then of the English n oe ne l s ] domi ion) shall g like to o Eng i h man in apparel , 3 and shaving 0 the beard above the mouth , and shall him n f n take an E glish surname o o e town , as Sutton , T rm r Chester, y , Skyrne , Corke , Kinsale ; o color , as hi or or s or W te , Black , Brown ; art , cience , as Smith r fli Carpenter ; o o ce , as Cooke , Butler, and that he and his offspring shall use this name under pe yne of fo rfeiting t o of his goods yearly till the premises be done , be levied ’ warre two times by the year t o the King s s, according t o the discretion of the lieutenant of the King or his “ Deputy .

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