Emmet, Robert (1778-1803), an eminent Irish patriot. He was born in Dublin. His father, for whom he was named, was a physician. Young Robert attended Trinity College, Dublin. He was a prominent member of the so-called Historical Society, and was an ardent champion of the independence of Ireland. He resented English rule. It became the wish of his life that Ireland should follow the example of the American colonies and set up a republic. In 1798 he was expelled from college for membership in a secret association known as the United Irishmen. He then traveled on the continent, but returned secretly in 1802 and took part in the organization of an Irish revolution. July 23, 1803, Emmet and his associates made an attempt to surprise the arsenal and the castle of Dublin, but his followers were timid and the effort resulted in little more than a riot. Emmet fled to the interior to the Wicklow Mountains, and might have escaped from Ireland, but that he visited Dublin for a last interview with a Miss Curran, to whom he was engaged. This visit proved his undoing. He was arrested, conveyed to the castle, and tried on the charge of high treason. September 20, 1803, he was executed in Saint Thomas Street, Dublin. Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, was a schoolfellow of Robert Emmet, a fellow student at Trinity College, and a warm personal friend. One of the most pathetic of his Irish melodies, "O, breathe not his name," was written to commemorate Emmet's sad fate. Miss Curran left Dublin and died in Sicily soon after. Moore made her the subject of another melody, "She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps." Although rash and impracticable, Emmet was a young man of irreproachable character. Even his enemies had nothing to say against his private life. When asked by his judges what he had to say in his own defense, Emmet defended himself in a speech of remarkable clearness, but without avail. When asked why the sentence of death should not be pronounced upon him, he spoke most eloquently, closing with the following paragraph: I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world--it is the charity of silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for, as no one who knows my motives dares now vindicate them, let no prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country shall take her place among the nations of the earth, then--and not till then--let my epitaph be written.