SEARC'S WEB GUIDE - Archibald Hamilton Rowan (1751-1834)

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18th Century Ireland - Archibald Hamilton Rowan (1751-1834)

Archibald Hamilton Rowan was born in London of Irish parents and educated at Westminster School and Cambridge University. He became a Captain of the Grenadiers in the Huntington Militia before travelling to America as Secretary to Sir Charles Montague. Rowan returned to Ireland in 1784 and joined the United Irishmen in January, 1792. He became Secretary of the Society in which capacity he was arrested and charged with seditious libel for issuing the Address of the United Irishmen at a meeting in Black Lane, Dublin. Rowan was found guilty, sentenced to two years in prison and fined Ł500 with a further Ł2,000 to be paid before he could be released. In Kilmainham Gaol he was visited by Robert Emmet and Theobald Wolfe Tone. Rowan escaped from Kilmainham Gaol and went to France and America before receiving a Pardon in 1806. He returned to Ireland where his Autobiography was published posthumously in 1840 (rep.1980). This extract is from Rowan's 'Speech from the Dock' first published in the Report of the Trial of A.H. Rowan (1794).©

Archibald Hamilton Rowan (1751-1834)

As to the paper it has been said to come from a Society of United Irishmen. One of my witnesses was asked was he a United Irishman. I have heard much of United Irishmen, much calumny here and elsewhere; I avow myself to be one, my name has appeared to several of their publications, I glory in the name. On entering that Society I took a Test by which I am bound to seek for the emancipation of every class of my fellow-citizens and to procure (by spreading information for that is the only mode a few men assembled in Black Lane can adopt) a Reform in the Representation of the People: a Reform, the necessity of which has been allowed even in Parliament. These are our objects, objects which I am bound to pursue to their completion. As to the paper, I honour the head that conceived it and I love the hand that penned it.
Much stress has been laid upon the words UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION AND REPRESENTATIVE LEGISLATURE, it may be owing to a want of logical precision in me, but I do not consider these words as carrying the meaning which has been imputed to them. I did imagine that the British Constitution was a representative legislature, that the people were represented by the House of Commons; that the Lords represented the territory, the property; and that the King represented the power of the State, the united force, the power of the whole, placed in his hands for the benefit of the whole.
As a person, as a man, I know nothing of the King; I can know nothing of him, except as the weilding force of the nation, to be exercised for the benefit of the nation, and if ever that force should be misapplied, or abused, it then remains for the people to decide in what hands it ought to be placed. I really feel myself in an awkward situation, thus declaring my sentiments, seeing intentions different from those both of the author and myself are fixed upon that paper, for the distribution of which I am persecuted. From my situation, however, having an independent fortune, easy in my circumstances and with a large family, insurrection of any sort would surely be the last thing I could wish for.
I ask no favours, but I submit myself to the clemency and justice of the Court, and I trust that whatever may be their sentence, I shall bear it with becoming fortitude. Š Searc's Web Guide 1997-2008

18th Century Ireland
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