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treet court-house, John Martin quitted his comfortable home and the green slopes of Loughorne, separated himself from the friends he loved and the relatives who idolized him, and entered on the stormy career of a national leader and journalist, at a time when to advocate the principles of nationality was to incur the ferocious hostility of a government whose thirst for vengeance was only whetted by the transportation of John Mitchel. He knew the danger he was braving; he knew that the path on which he entered led down to suffering and ruin; he stood in the gap from which Mitchel had been hurled, with a full consciousness of the perils of the situation; but unflinchingly and unhesitatingly as the martyr goes to his death, he threw himself into the thinning ranks of the patriot leaders; and when the event that he anticipated arrived, and the prison gates opened to receive him--then, too, in the midst of indignities and privations--he displayed an imperturbable firmness and contempt for physical suffering, that showed how powerless persecution is to subdue the spirit that self-conscious righteousness sustains. His history previous to the conviction of his friend and school-fellow, John Mitchel, if it includes no events of public importance, possesses for us all the interest that attaches to the early life of a good and remarkable man. John Martin was born at Loughorne, in the lordship of Newry, Co. Down, on the 8th of September, 1812; being the eldest son of Samuel Martin and Jane Harshaw, both natives of that neighbourhood, and members of Presbyterian families settled there for many generations. About the time of his birth, his father purchased the fee-simple of the large farm which he had previously rented, and two of his uncles having made similar investments, the family became proprietors of the townland on which they lived. Mr. Samuel Martin, who died in 1831, divided his attention between the management of the linen business--a branch of industry in which the family had partly occupied themselves for some generations--and the care of his land. His family consisted of nine children, of whom John Martin--the subject of our sketch--was the second born. The principles of his family, if they could not be said to possess the hue of nationality, were at least liberal and tolerant. In '98, the Martins of Loughorne, were stern opponents of the United Irishmen; but in '82, his father and uncles were enrolled amongst the volun
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