Ote_ZZ/z Book ~T~9 . COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT P. J. P. TYNAN. * * ' \ *•' ■» ■ THE Irish National Invincibles AND THEIR TIMES THREE DECADES OF STRUGGLE AGAINST THE FOREIGN 1 CONSPIRATORS IN DUBLIN CASTLE THE PARLIAMENTARY PROVINCIALISTS' AGITATION TO REFORM FOREIGN RULE, FROM ISAAC BUTT'S MOVEMENT IN 1870 TO GLADSTONE'S BILL IN 1886. THE IRISH NATIONALISTS' PREPARATIONS TO TAKE THE FIELD AGAINST THE INVADER'S FORCES IN 1865, 1866, AND 1867. GUERRILLA WARFARE OF THE IRISH NATION IN 1882, 1883, AND 1884 WITH AN ADDENDUM IRELAND AT THE CLOSE OF 1893 3 I \> I Y P. J. P. TYNAN ILLUSTRATED > of 'h Of WAS *\*2 / *2/ty £>(?*£ *2~ NEW YORK IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLE PUBLISHING CO. 1894 J - T Copyrighted, 1894 BY P. J. P. TYNAN. THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, RAHWAY, N. J. SDebication TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE BRAVE MEN WHO HAVE DIED FOR IRELAND IN THE DUNGEON, ON THE BLOCK, OR ON THE SCAFFOLD, OR COMBATING THE INVADER ON THE BATTLEFIELD, THROUGH THE LONG NIGHT OF CENTURIES WHICH HAS STAINED WITH BLOOD THE HANDS OF HER MERCILESS OPPRES- SORS, DOWN TO THE TIME OF WILLIAM ORR, THE BROTHERS SHEARES, LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD, THEOBALD WOLFE TONE, AND THE MEN OF GLORIOUS '98; TO THE DEATH OF OUR YOUNG MARTYR ROBERT EMMET, AND TO THE MEN OF '48; NEARER TO OUR OWN DAYS, TO THE MEMORY OF ALLAN, LARKIN, AND O'BRIEN OF MANCHESTER, MICHAEL BARRETT OF LONDON, A^D THE MEN OF '65 AND '67 ; LATER STILL TO THE MEMORY OF JOSEPH BRADY, DANIEL CURLEY, TIMOTHY KELLY, AND THEIR COMRADES THE MEN OF '82 ; TO THE LAST SIMPLE AND HUMBLE HERO, PATRICK O'DONNELL — ALL OF WHOM DIED because OF FOREIGN RULE IN THEIR NATIVE LAND ; — TO THE MEMORY OF THESE, THIS BOOK IS REVERENTLY INSCRIBED ; ALSO TO THOSE EARNEST PATRIOTS WHO ARE STILL SUFFERING IN THE PENAL DUNGEONS OF ENGLAND. I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD AND TO THE LIVING WITH DEEP SYMPATHY AND AFFECTION. THE AUTHOR. INTRODUCTION. This work was written in the winter of 1887-88. It was commenced soon after the denunciation of the Invincibles by the late Mr. Charles Stewart Parnell. The Irish leader in reply to taunts leveled at him by the British members at Westminster used the enemy's vile epithets to asperse the memory of the dead Invincibles and to assail the characters of those who, through being placed in the forefront of the struggle, were made public property by the enemy's myrmidons, and their names wafted on the wings of the press through the civilized world. This denunciation of the Invincibles by the Irish Parliamentary chief was re-echoed by many of the rank and file of his followers, inside and outside the enemy's Parlia- ment. The New York Herald printed it under the heading "Parnell Burns his Boats." This denunciation was indeed the " parting of the ways"; the last slender thread was snapped asunder which held Irish Nationalists to the hope that the Parliamentary chief would yet realize the promise of early years. To denounce and expose the hypocrisy of sailing under false colors to betray the trusting Irish, this book was undertaken. In assailing the policy and action of the Invincibles, these false Parliamentarians were heaping mountains of infamy on their own memories. If the actions of the Invincibles were what they were stated, then the fouler and deeper the damnation of those who created the movement to desert and slander their comrades in the hour of danger. The original intention of the writer was to confine himself to the Parliamentary Provincial agitation and its secret offspring, the resurrec- tion of the suppressed Land League, which was revived under the name of the Invincibles by the authority of the leaders of the Parliamentary movement. Irish friends in the United States urged the writer to extend the scope of his work to some of the salient features of the Party of Action in the Sixties. In sending into the world a book of this nature, the writer is well aware he runs counter to the preconceived opinions of many people ; and expects to meet the usual opposition which prejudiced convictions will always array against the daring spirit who ventures to combat settled forms of thought. It was so with Galileo and the spherical shape of our earth ; it was so with Columbus and his belief in a Western World. If it has been so with these immortal leaders in the world of thought, how much more with the Irish Nationalist who would try to draw his country's cause from the mass of misconception and falsehood that is struggling to smother it ! Among the many cherished convictions — convictions, the offspring of slavish historians — the writer would tear aside the Mokanna-like veil that enshrouds the Provincialists' ideal, the College Green Parliament. This political shamble, then in the plentitude of its independence as a law-making power, used its authority for the destruction of the Irish Patriots of 1798. Patriots, who following the heroic precedents of Lex- ington and Bunker's Hill endeavored by combating the enemy at Oulart, VI INTRODUCTION. Vinegar Hill, and Arklow to create in Ireland an independent republic. If this miscalled Irish Parliament had a right to even a thousandth part of the virtues claimed for it by its Irish Provincial friends and worshipers, how came it that a gigantic national organization, " The United Irishmen," arose in opposition ? At the time this national movement was created, this legislature held all the fabled glories and independence which that West British subject, Henry Grattan, with all Gladstonian eloquence, told us was conferred upon it esto perpetua. Lord Edward, Wolfe Tone, Thomas Addis Emmet, and their gallant associates must have been traitors, if this yeomen's Parliament had the smallest right to the name Irish. In writing this book, the author has endeavored to assail principles which he believed to be pernicious, or action which produced disaster, but never to attack individuals, only in so far as their own personalities were bound up in the great questions discussed. In the late division among Irish Parliamentarians, which has been the cause of a split between the Provincialists, personalities of a vile nature have been drawn into the quarrel. Irishmen will never gain the respect of mankind while their political warfare is so conducted. History tells us that the private lives of men have had little bearing on the great events in which they were promi- nent figures. The assailants of Charles Stewart Parnell's private life should have remembered the words of the great Master, " He who is without sin among you let him cast the first stone." While we deplore and strongly condemn the weakness of both James Stephens and Charles Stewart Parnell in not forcing the issue with the British enemy, we must not forget their great exertions and services, which placed Ireland in a position to strike. The defection of both men when the crisis came, proved that Ireland's leaders lacked the nerve to follow up their work by the only possible solution — action. When arrangements had been made by the then Parnellite Irish Government to take Charles Stewart Parnell out of Kilmainham prison, Parnell had not the courage to face the emergency and so refused to leave. Every preparation had been made, as in the rescue of James Stephens, with the additional precaution of having a vessel ready to take him at once from beneath the enemy's flag. The Figurehead of the Irish Ship of State would risk no dangers : he preferred to remain in prison ; he recognized the enemy's right to imprison him. How he soon after surrendered to the foe and made the Kilmainham treaty is a matter of well-known history. Had he accepted the plan of rescue, the so-called constitutional agitation would have openly assumed the manlier attitude of Wolfe Tone and George Washington, and that hero worship which has been the bane of the Irish people might then have been their salvation. In styling Mr. Parnell the figurehead of the nation, we do so advisedly, for such he was at that period. Certain men, in whom he had every confidence, and to' whom he surrendered the direction of affairs, were the actual leaders of the Irish Government at this stirring epoch. The " uncrowned king " reigned, but did not govern. His own evidence before the enemy's London law court on the Times trial confirms the writer's statement. In the early portion of his Irish agitation, full justice is done to the career of Charles Parnell. The policy of infamy commenced by the Phoenix Park proclamation, denouncing the action of the Parnellite government and giving moral support to the enemy, cannot be too strongly condemned. If the policy of the secretly revived Land League called the Invin- cible organization was, as they now state, open to condemnation, how dare they betray men by enrolling them in this movement ? How dare they INTRODUCTION. Vll stain the country with what they to-day call crime ? In either position their conduct was execrable. They begin the fight only in a cowardly manner to join with the enemy in its denunciation. There are two men whom we must except from the rest of these Pro- vincialists. One has passed away, Mr. Joseph Gillis Biggar, who never, by any of his utterances of which the writer has any knowledge, voiced this infamous condemnation ; the other, the Hon. Patrick Egan, late Min- ister of the United States to Chili. But it is to be deplored that these gentlemen had not enough influence to at least make their colleagues remain silent. The use of the word Parnellite in this book includes all the Parlia- mentarians of that period. In relating this history, the writer has endeavored to place before Irishmen as forcibly as possible the great issues they have to mold. The chapter on the English Reform Bill of 1867, has never, we believe, been given before to the world. The writer's one great object in pub- lishing this book is to help to accomplish what has been the leading study of his life, the complete and absolute independence of Ireland. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. NATIONALIST AND PROVINCIALIST. PAGE The Irish Nation — The Yeoman's Coercion Parliament in College Green — Brutal Massacres of Irish Patriots in 1798, by the Electors of the Dublin Legislature — The Dawn of " Moral Suasion " — The Irish Provincialists — The Nationalists — 1 Their Place in History, .......... CHAPTER II. (1868 to 1874.) HOME RULE ASSOCIATIONS. Ireland from the Formation of the Federalist Home Government Association to the Public Appearance of Charles Stewart Parnell — Waiting for the Long Looked for Time — Absence of National Teaching — Remarkable Speeches of Mr. Gladstone — Mr. Gladstone's Coercion in Ireland — His Challenge to John Martin — Execution of Pierce Nagle, the Fenian Traitor — Account of his Trea- son — His Death in London — Great Home Rule Conference in Dublin, Novem- ber, 1873 — Federalist Programme Formulated by the Conference — Approaching General Election, 18 CHAPTER III. (1873 to 1874.) BRITISH PARTIES — DEATH OF JOHN MITCHELL AND JOHN MARTIN. English Opinion Near the Close of the Gladstone Administration 1868-74 — Lord Chamberlain Suppresses Political Burlesque — Mr. Disraeli on the Glad- stone Ministry — A Government of Plundering and Blundering — General Elec- tion, 1874 — Capture of Coomassie — Indian Famine — Disraeli's Sneering Allusion to Ireland — Irish Elections — Return of sixty-one Home Rulers — Defeat of Chichester Fortescue in Louth — Ireland Accused of Ingratitude to Mr. Gladstone — Comments of the London Times — Crushing Defeat of the Liberals — A Large Tory Majority — Mr. Gladstone Resigns Office — Mr. Disraeli Forms an Administration — Mr. Gladstone's New Peers — Refuses to See an Amnesty Deputation — The Irish Electors of Greenwich and Mr. Glad- stone — Denounced by his Former Friends — Meeting of Home Rulers in Dublin — Mr. Butt's Great Speech — Formation of Home Rule Parliamentary Party — Signing the Roll of Honor — Meeting of the New Parliament — The Queen's Speech — Mr. Butt's Amendment — Mr. Gladstone on Mr. Butt's Home Rule — Amendment Defeated — Effect of Gladstone's Ooercion — Case of Patrick Casey — Great Home Rule Debate — Irish Attorney General's Crushing Reply for the Government — Dr. Ball's Emphatic Refusal — Defeated by an Immense Majority — John Mitchell's Return to Ireland — Ireland still at the Agitation Delusion — The Men of '48 — Beneath the Shadow of Mourne Mountains — Home Once More — John Mitchell — Scene in the Churchyard — John Martin's Death — Ireland's Grief — Tribute in the Dublin Irishman — Mr. Parnell Nominated for Meath — Mr. Parnell's Election Address — His Return for Meath, . . 41 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. (1875.) THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT THE GRAVE OF IRISH PATRIOTISM. PAGE Coercion for Ireland — Introduced by the Tories — Vain Change of Ministers — Britain's Twin Blessings to Ireland : Hunger and Hardship — Mr. Gladstone Resigns the Leadership of his Party — Mr. Gladstone's Pamphlet on Vaticanism - — Its Reception in Ireland — Dublin Fteeman Attacks Mr. Gladstone — Marquis of Hartington Elected Leader — Mr. Parnell's First Appearance as Member for Meath — His Reception in the House — Debate on the Coercion Bill — Mr. Biggar Commences Obstruction — Scene During Mr. Biggar's Long Speech — The Pile of Blue Books — Mr. Parnell's Maiden Speech in the House — He Denounces Coercion — The Irish Farmers — The Farm Laborers — The Royal Irish Constabulary — Ireland's Great Need Manufactures — Mr. Biggar Notices Strangers in the House — A Scene — The Speaker — Prince of Wales Compelled to Retire — Coercion Bill in Committee — Irish Chief Secretary and Mr. Butt — Mr. Butt Thanks Sir Michael Hicks Beach — Irishmen in the Enemy's Parliament Lost to Ireland — The O'Donoghue — His Past — His Change in Parliament — Mr. O'Connor Power — His Early Nationality — His Destruction in Parliament — No Place for Irishmen, ... 55 CHAPTER V. (1875-76.) O'CONNELL CENTENARY THE POETS OF '48. The O'Connell Centenary Celebration — Address of the Amnesty Association — Lord Mayor McSwiney — His Political Standing — His Complaint Before the Viceroy — Amnesty Banner Hung in Chains — The Procession — Immense Crowds — Scenes Around the Platform — Amnesty Men in Procession — Lord O'Hagan — The Monster Parade — Silken Thomas — Addresses on the Platform — The Lord Mayor — Mr. Butt Speaks — O'Connell and the Oath of Supremacy — History Falsely Written — Amnesty Meeting under the Presidency of Mr. Par- nell — Condemnation of P. J. Smyth — Anecdotes of '48 Poets — D'Arcy Magee — Gavan Duffy — Sliabh Cuillen — " Dear Land " — Judas Barry and the Ballad Singer — The Limerick Resolution — Meeting in Nenagh — Mr. Gladstone's Land Act Denounced — Mr. Peter Gill and Land Bill of 1870 — Incidents of Disraeli's Coercion Bill — Scene on the Quays of Cork — Disraeli's Refusal to Release the Military Prisoners — Catalpa Rescue — The News Reaches Dublin — Great Torch- light Procession — Disraeli's Effigy Burned — Obstruction in the House of Com- mons — Opposition of Mr. Butt — Entry of Duke of Marlborough as Lord Lieu- tenant, December, 1876, .......... 62 CHAPTER VI. (1865.) A RETROSPECT — THE PARTY OF ACTION — THE MILITARY COUNCIL'S PLAN OF INSURRECTION, 1865 — HISTORY OF JAMES STEPHENS* ESCAPE. Colonel Thomas J. Kelly's Mission to Ireland — Preparations to Take the Field — Musketry Schools — Drill Classes — School of Military Engineers — Army Signal Corps — The Military Council — General Millen — John Nolan — Ribbonmen and Fenians — Colonel Kelly's Military Career — Battle of Cunifex Ferry — Kelly Severely Wounded — Chief of Signal Corps — General D. F. Burke — The Irish Brigade — Charge up Marye's Heights — Burke's Gallant Action — Promoted General for Bravery — General Wm. Halpin — General Michael Kerwin — His War Career — Joins Twenty-fourth Infantry — Enters Confederate Camp as a Spy — His Dangerous Mission — Fight at Middleton — Kerwin's Tactics — Advance of Lee's Army — Retreat on Winchester — General Milroy Surrounded — Civil Administrator — Mustered Out — Leaves for Ireland — The Military Coun- cil's Plan of Insurrection — To Seize 30,000 Stand of Arms — Insurrection in the Military Barracks — Plan Rejected by the C. O. I. R. — Arrest of Stephens — His Defiant Speech in Court — Captain John Kirwan's Career — John Kirwan and Daniel Byrne at the Battle of Castlefidardo — I. R. B. Secret Police — Daniel Byrne Promises to Release Stephens — Colonel Kelly meets Byrne — CONTENTS. XI PAGE Duplicate Keys — Breelin and Underwood O'Connell — Stephens' Dispatches from Prison — Miller Sent to America— Journal De St. Petersboitrg on Ire- land — Colonel Kelly Plans the Rescue — The Six Rendezvous — The Paper Signals — Scenes Inside the Prison — The Ladder and Tables — Scenes Outside the Prison — Policeman in Love Lane — Kelly and the Locksmith — The Twelve Guards — Fearful Storm — Two O'Clock — Suspense — Three O'Clock — "Will He Never Come?" — The Shower of Gravel — The Rope — Stephens Rescued — Kelly Places Him in Safety — Excitement in Dublin — British Consternation — Arrest of Daniel Byrne — The Freeman on the Escape — Ballad on the Rescue — Miss Sarah Jane Butler — Nicholas Walsh — Miss Cecilia Walsh — Stephens Brought to Mrs. Butler's — Waiting the Signal for Insurrection — Anxiety of the Country — Stephens Calls a Council — Postpones the Fight — Cowardice and Disaster — Stephens, Kelly, and the Detective — Miss Butler and the Military Patrol — Kelly Gets Stephens Out of Dublin — Stephens Reaches Paris — Break Up of the Organization in Ireland — A Remnant of Gallant Men Hold Together, 71 CHAPTER VII. (1866-67.) PLAN TO SEIZE CHESTER CASTLE AND CAPTURE THIRTY THOUSAND STAND OF ARMS — THE KERRY RISING PART OF THE SAME PLAN. James Stephens' Public Promise to Fight in 1866— The Organization Demoralized both in Ireland and America without Striking a Blow — Invasion of Canada Determined on by the Senate Wing — Battle of Ridgeway — Colonel Kelly and his Friends Determine to Fight — The Troops in Ireland Changed — James Stephens in Hiding — Colonel Kelly Leaves for Ireland — Stephens Goes to France — Chester Castle — The City of Chester Filled with Irishmen — Captain John Kirwan at Runcorn Gap — Plan to Begin an Irish Insurrection — Cory- don's Treason — Failure of the Enterprise — Determination to Begin the Fight in Ireland — McCafferty and Flood Captured on their Landing in Dublin — The Irish-American Officers in Liverpool — Difficulty of Getting at the Proposed Scene of Hostilities — Captain John Kirwan and Captain O'Rourke — Kirwan Demands to be Sent to Dublin — The Expedition From Gaston Near Liver- pool — Captain John Kirwan and Irish-American Officers Set Sail for Ireland — Landing Effected at Killiney Strand — Night March on the Railroad Track — Arrive at Carrickmines — Friendly Shelter — Reach Dublin in Safety, . .113 CHAPTER VIII. (1867.) RISING OF THE 5TH OF MARCH — ATTEMPT IN SOME DISTRICTS TO COUNTER- MAND THE ORDER — TALLAGHT, STEPASIDE, AND GLENCULLEN. British Army — Numerically Small — Wretched Material Physically — Hesitation and Procrastination of Irish Leaders — Corydon's Attempts to Ensnare Kirwan — His Failure — The Corydon Hat — Officers Arrested — Kirwan meets his "Circle" at Black-Pits — Preparations for the "Rising" — Getting Artillery Ammunition — Kirwan's Plans to Meet Emergencies — Meeting of Dublin Centres at Anderson's, Rathmines — Massey Present — Concentration at Tallaght Decided on — General Halpin's Meeting of Centres on the Greenhills, Tallaght — The Night of the " Rising" — " Royal " Irish at Tallaght — Fright of the Constabu- lary — Death of Stephen O'Donohue — Rewards to Inspector Burke — Kirwan's Column Concentrates at Path-Fields, Rathmines — March to Dundrum — Capture of Policemen — Kirwan Looking for Aylward and the Expected Artillery — Aylward Does Not Come — Dundrum Police Barracks Summoned to Surrender — No Answer — Kirwan Reconnoiters and is Shot — The Wounded Man is Removed on a Car — Captain P. Lennon Commands the Column — March Toward Bray — Attack on Stepaside Police Barracks — Inspector Mcllvaine Surrenders — Prisoners, Arms, and Ammunition Captured — Lennon's Disappointment — Bray in Possession of the Enemy — The Column Returns to Dublin — Attack on Glen- cullen Barracks — Glencullen Surrenders — March to Dublin — No News of Hal- pin — No Re-enforcements — The Column Disbands — Colonel Thomas F. Burke's Address in the Dock — Death Sentences — Inspector D. Burke's Nervousness — Captain John Kirwan Captured — Sent to Hospital — Plans for his Escape — Escape Successful, . . . . . . . . . . .12* Xii CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. (1867.) LONDON ON THE BRINK OF REVOLUTION — IRISH PLANS FOR FOMENTING THE REFORM MOVEMENT INTO AN INSURRECTIONARY CONFLAGRA- TION IN THE BRITISH METROPOLIS. PAGE The Reform Agitation — Threatened Revolution in England — English Reformers Enraged at Tory Policy — Irish Plans to Foment Insurrection — Reformers Re- fused Admission to Hyde Park — The Irish Assault — I. R. B. Break the Park Railings — The Home Secretary's Indecision — Massey's Treason — Government Alarmed — Radical Reform Bill Introduced by the Tories — Resignation of Min- isters — Panic in Tory Councils Abates — The English Reformers Grow more Exacting — Determination to Hold Monster Meeting in Hyde Park, May 6, 1867 — Government Proclaims the Meeting — Great Excitement — Fifteen Thousand Troops Ordered up from Aldershot — Search for Colonel Thomas J. Kelly — His Capture Anxiously Looked for by the British Government — Twelve Thou- sand Special Constables Sworn in — Irish Revolutionists Pour into London — Thousands of I. R. B. in the Metropolis — Armed Preparations by the Irish to Begin Revolution — English Reformers Determined to Resist the Government — Plan of the I. R. B. Council in London — Government Frightened at News of Irish Arrivals in London — Complete Surrender of Tory Cabinet — Military Orders Countermanded at the Eleventh Hour — Reform Meeting Permitted in the Park — Peaceable Close of the Excitement — The Reform Bill Made More Radical and Hurried through Both Houses, 136 CHAPTER X. (1867.) " ERIN'S HOPE " EXPEDITION FROM AMERICA VESSEL WITH ARMS, AMMU- NITION, AND MILITARY OFFICERS — OFF THE IRISH COAST. Erin's Hope Expedition — The Volunteers Sail for Ireland — Captain Cavanagh's Sealed Dispatches — Easter Sunday at Sea — Re-naming the Vessel — Hoisting the Irish National Flag, the Sunburst — Saluting the Standard — Scene on Deck — Colonel Tressilian's Ballad, "The Green Flag Now Waves" — Off the Irish Coast — Proposed Attack on Sligo — Colonel Rickard O. S. Burke Comes Aboard — Rendezvous at Cork — Debarkations off Waterford — Captured by the Enemy — Erin's Hope Pursued by British Cruisers — Safe Return to New York, 149 CHAPTER XI. (1867.) MANCHESTER RESCUE, SEPTEMBER, 1867 — CLERKENWELL EXPLOSION — INTENDED ATTACK ON CORYDON IN DUBLIN — EDMOND O'DONOVAN — REMINISCENCES. Arrest of Colonel Thomas J. Kelly and Captain Dacey in Manchester — Feeling among the Nationalists — A Meeting Called — Captain Michael O'Brien Pre- sides — Determination of the Meeting — A Special Levy Ordered — Michael Davitt as Arms Agent — Communicated With — Armed Videttes Posted to Watch Cory- don's Arrival — Meeting of Officers — Kelly and Dacey 's Rescue Decided on — Eleven Unmarried Men Selected to Carry Out the Rescue — Names of the Eleven Rescuers — Captain Michael O'Brien to Take Command — The Morning of the Police Magistrate's Examination — Michael Larkin Ordered to go Home — His Request to Take Part in the Rescue Refused — Scene at the Railroad Bridge — The Waiting Irish — Arrival of their Videttes — The Van Approaches — Guarded Securely — Two Cabs Filled with Policemen — Cahill and Boulger to the Front — Shooting one of the Horses — The Van is Brought to a Sudden Halt — The Panic of the Police — Roll off the Van — Rush to the Railroad Arch — Futile Attempts to Break Open the Van — Crowds of Onlookers Gather — Brett Refuses to Surrender the Keys — The Lock is Fired Into — Death of Sergeant Brett — Panic of the British Crowd — The Van Doors are Open — The Rescuers Retire — A Halt is Ordered — Kelly and Dacey do not Follow — The British Crowd Rallies — Numbers Approach the Van — The Return of the Eleven CONTENTS. Xlll PAGE. with Leveled Revolvers — The Crowd Retires Slowly — Dixon Tries to Rally the British — Cahill and Boulger Advance Toward the Crowd — The Leveled Revolvers — Dixon Falls Wounded — British Crowd Fly Panic Stricken — The Cells are Opened — Allen and Kelly — The Prisoners are Freed — Kelly's Hand- cuffs—The Eleven Separate—The Scene at the Inn— Walk to Ashton— Kelly's Coolness — The Irish Woman — Kelly Seeks Refuge — Kelly's Disguise — The Omnibus — The Arrest — The Loquacious Landlord — Return to Manchester — Letter from Paris Opened — Kelly's Decoy Letters — The Chief of Police Seeks Kelly's Re-capture — The Chief Makes a Raid — Kelly's Ruse — Letter from Liverpool — Chagrin of the British — The Chief of Police Resigns — Kelly gets Away Safely — Clerkenwell Explosion — Arrest and Death of Barrett — Captain Murphy and Casey Escape to France — Extradition Refused by the Empire — The Casey Brothers in the Franco-German War — Wounded before Paris — Andrew Casey Receives Legion of Honor for Valor — Captain Lawrence O'Brien's Escape from Clonmel Jail — Corydon in Dublin — Proposed Plan of Attack — Chancery Lane Detective Station — The Twenty-five Volunteers — Going for Greek Fire — Unexpected Delay — The Advanced Arrival — Cordon of the Enemy — Policeman McKenna Stops the I. R. B. Man — McKenna Shot — The Second Cordon — Sergeant Kelly Tries to Stop the Flying Irishman — The Sergeant Shot — The Castle Alarmed — Corydon Removed — The Irishwoman Secretes the Revolver — Mrs. John Kirwan Takes Charge of the Weapon — Mrs. Kirwan as a Patriot — Career of Edmond O'Donovan — Incidents in Fenian Days — Franco-German War — Three Days' Fight before Orleans — O'Donovan Made Prisoner of War — War Correspondent During the Spanish Campaign — Montenegrin Campaign — On Moukhtar Pasha's Staff — Adventures in the Mon- tenegrin Lines — Swim in the Danube — Turkish Rout after the Battle of Aladja Dagh — Entry into Kars — O'Donovan and the Angry Ottoman — With General Lazareff in Central Asia — Death of Lazareff — Appointment of Terguk- asoff — O'Donovan Leaves the Russian Lines — General Scobeloff Takes Com- mand — O'Donovan's Telegram An Revoir a Merv — Ride in the Desert — O'Donovan Enters Merv — White and Black Russians — Prisoner of the Akhal Tekkes — Elevated Kahn of Merv — Ambassador to England — O'Donovan's Irish Patriotism — Slaughter of Hicks Pasha's Army — Death of O'Donovan — Miss Sarah Jane Butler— Cecilia Walsh — Her Death — Nicholas Walsh Dies in Italy — James Stephens — Reflections on this Epoch, 157 CHAPTER XII. (1875-76.) HISTORY OF THE " CATALPA " RESCUE — THE TWO EXPEDITIONS — IRISH- AMERICAN AND NORTH OF ENGLAND. Organizing British Soldiers in the I. R. B. Ranks — Patrick O'Leary, Military Organ- izer — Pagan O'Leary's Eccentricities — The Beggar's Religion — The Robber's Religion— Effect of the I. R. B. Movement upon the Military — Color Sergeant McCarthy — John Boyle O'Reilly — Wm. Roantree Appointed Military Organ- izer — Roantree's Career — John Devoy Appointed — Arrests of the Military — Gunner Flood in the Barrack Square — Flogging a Soldier — "Three Cheers for the Irish Republic " — Captain O'Connell and the Fenian Soldier — John Breslin Reaches San Francisco — He is Joined by Thomas Desmond — They Leave for Australia — Arrival at Freemantle — Desmond Leaves for Perth — John Breslin at Emerald Isle Hotel — Opening Communications with the Prisoners — Arrival of John King — North of England Expedition — Arrival of John Walsh and D. F. McCarthy — Breslin's Alarm— He Thinks they are Dublin Detectives — Movements Watched — In Communication with Prisoners — Breslin's Message — Meetings — Mutual Explanation — Catalpa off Bunbury — Breslin and Captain Anthony — Arrival of Tom Brennan — Delays in Starting — The Gunboat Conflict — Easter Monday's Departure — Drive to Rockingham Beach — Walsh and McCarthy— Midnight Ride to Cut the Wires— The Phantom Ship — The Phantom Boat — Cruise of Steamer Georgette — Race for the Catalpa — The Police Boat—Safe on Board — Head Winds — Cannot Double Cape Natural- iste — Compelled to Sail Back Toward Freemantle — Georgette Full of Armed Men — Cannon Loaded — Artillerymen at the Guns — Pursuit — Shot across Catalpa 's Bows — Soldiers and Sailors Armed for Fight — Demand for Surrender — Stern Refusal— The Stars and Stripes—" That Flag Protects Me, I am on the High Seas" — "Fire on Me and you Fire on the American Flag" — The Catalpa Tacks — Georgette Steams in her Wake — Bon Voyage — Exciting Scenes on Shore — Walsh and McCarthy Anxiously View the Departure — Freemantle Papers on the Escape — Lesson of the Catalpa Rescue, ..... 175 xiv CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIII. (1877-78.) OBSTRUCTION — IRISH INDORSEMENT. PAGE Obstruction Scenes in the British Parliament, 1877 — Mr. Parnell and Mr. Biggar — Prisons Bill, March, 1877 — Mutiny Bill — Mr. Parnell and Mr. Butt— South Africa Bill — Great Obstruction Scene — House Sitting Twenty-six Hours — Scenes During Night and Early Morning — Enthusiastic Approval of the Irish People — Reception of Mr. Parnell in Kilmallock — Banquet to Mr. Parnell — Letter from Mr. Biggar — Triumphal Progress of Mr. Parnell to Navan — Address of the Town Commissioners — Mr. Parnell's Speech on Obstruction — Mr. Gladstone Visits Ireland — Presented with the Freedom of Dublin City — Great Speech in the City Hall — Irish Emigration — Ireland and Belgium — Mr. Gladstone Tries to Get the Views of the People — Libel Suit, Bridge versus Casey — The " Galtee Boy "Exposes Patton Bridge — John Bright's Friend Buckley — The Mountain Peasants — The " Galtee Boy" Wins the Suit — John Bright and Marcus Goodbody of Clara — The Irish Farmer's Lease — Libera- tion of Messrs. Davitt, O'Brien, and Color Sergeant McCarthy — Reception at Kingstown — Public Demonstration in Dublin — Causes which Led up to Davitt's Arrest — Death of Sergeant McCarthy — Britain's Penal Dungeons, . . . 198 CHAPTER XIV. (1878.) CLOSE OF THE FEDERAL ERA. The Russian War — Mr. Gladstone and the Fenian Prisoners — Home Rule Confer- ence in Dublin — Mr. Dillon's Resolutions — Mr. Butt's Rejoinder — " Dealing a Death Blow to Ireland " — Mr. Dillon Implored to Withdraw his Resolution — Mr. Parnell's Amendment — Mr. Butt's Resignation — Meeting of Committee — Mr. Butt's Address — The Dublin Irishman on the Failure of Agitation — The Flag of Ireland — " Sinking of the Federal Ship" — Home Rule Parties — Mr. Mitchell Henry and the Parnellites — Mr. Butt on Obstruction — Mr. Butt's Letter to Dr. Ward, M. P. — Ireland a Nation versus a Province — Manifesto of Policy from Obstructionists — Mr. Butt's Criticisms — The Two Policies — Release of Messrs. Ahearne and Clancy — Story of Mr. Clancy's Arrest — Last of the Fenian Prisoners — Public Meeting in London — Mr. James Clancy's Able Address on Prison Sufferings — Close of the Year 1878, 209 CHAPTER XV. (1879-) BIRTH OF THE IRISH LAND LEAGUE. Machinery of British Rule — Land Bailiff, Agent, and Landlord — Chairman of Quarter Sessions — Resident Magistrate — Inspectors and Sub-Inspectors of Con- stabulary — The "Head" — Dublin Castle Privy Council — The Irish Peasant — His Humiliating Position — Illness of Isaac Butt — His Last Moments — Death of Mr. Butt — Meeting of the Home Rule Party — Election of Mr. Shaw as Chairman — Land Meetings — Mr. Parnell and Mr. Shaw — Fenian Convention in Wilkesbarre, Pa. — The Tory Chief Secretary — "Jimmy Lowther" — Land Meeting in Tipperary — "Pay no Rent without Reduction" — Attacked by English Press — Land Meeting in Mayo — Mr. T. D. Sullivan's Address, "In- fantry and Cavalry of Mayo " — Meeting at Headfort — Duke of Marlborough's Speech at Agricultural Dinner — Lord Carlisle and the " Flocks and Herds" — Lord Mayor of London's Banquet — Speech of Lord Beaconsfield — Land Organization in Ireland, 217 CHAPTER XVI. (1879.) SPREAD OF THE LAND AGITATION. Mr. Parnell's Exertions — Irish Land Distress — Discussion in England — Opinion of English Merchants — Talk in Radical Clubs — English Workingmen's Hostility to Ireland — Irish Trade and Manufactures — Prospect of Irish Manufactures — CONTENTS. XV PAGE Irish Water Power — Ireland as a Commercial Rival to Britain — Nations and their Flags — Mr. Parnell's First Visit to Cork — Met at Cork Terminus by Accident — Land Meeting in Cork — Speech of Mr. Shaw — Gladstone's Bill Full of Principles — Mr. Parnell's Speech — Men of 1847 and 1879 — Condition of the Tenant Farmer — "Rational Resistance" — Article in Dublin Weekly News — Views on the Article — The Mallow Landlord and his Good Tenants, . . 227 CHAPTER XVII. (1879.) WILL BRITISH LAND LAWS CREATE IRISH PROSPERITY ? * Appeal to the Irish Race for Sustainment — Land League Manifesto — Peasant Pro- prietary — Evils of the Land System — Subdivision of Farms — Small Holdings — Poverty-Stricken Occupants — Peasant Proprietary no Remedy under Alien Rule — Reasons Why — Congested Districts — Scene at an English Meeting — Irish Cockney — His Patriotism to Ireland — English Farmer — Diversified Industries — Rents in Ireland — Fall in Price of Produce — Instances of Subdivision — Speeches of Michael Davitt and R__J.. Sheridan of Tubbercurry — Fiery Speeches of James Boyce Killen, B. L. — Mr. Biggar's Advice to Farmers — London Vanity Fair on the Situation, ........... 240 CHAPTER XVIII. (1879.) SHADOW OF APPROACHING FAMINE. Balla Proclamation — Protest of Home Rule Executive against the Arrests — Impos- ing Display in Balla — Military Discipline — Balla Demonstration — Speech of Mr. Thomas Brennan — Speech of Parnell — Proclamation — "Ready" — Speech of Mr. Lynch of Elphin — The Three Islands — Bonfires for Davitt's Release — Arrest of Thomas Brennan — The Dublin Freeman on the Arrests — Constitutional Agitation — British Opinion on the Approach of Famine — The Work of Agita- tors — Starch Manufactory — Duchess of Marlborough's Fund — Subscriptions from the Queen and Prince of Wales — Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Foster — Ireland a Mendicant — Departure of Mr. Parnell, Mr. John Dillon, and Mr. Tim Healy for America, 246 CHAPTER XIX. (1880.) MR. PARNELL'S CRUSADE OF SHAMING BRITAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. Preparations to Receive Mr. Parnell — Parnell Reception Committee — Arrival of Scythia in New York — Reception on Board the Steamer — Demonstration in Madison Square Garden — Mr. Parnell's Great Speech — The American Nation the Arbiter in the Struggle — The Land System — Shaming England — Irish Poor Law System — "Slowly Torturing Our Country to Death" — Ireland's Great Weapon — American Public Opinion — Reply to Mr. Kavanagh of Borris — Free Land — Speech of Mr. Dillon — Cut off the Landlords' Supplies — Resolutions — Mr. Kavanagh's Letter to the New York Herald — Solid Interest in the Soil — Only Remedy Emigration — Effect of Emigration — Disband Armies, Dismantle Fleets — Peasant Proprietors Under Foreign Rule — Purchase of the Land — Inter- est and Repayment — Belgium Under Self-Government — Protected Industries — Glasgow Contract ^§6 CHAPTER XX. (1880.) THE BRITISH "DYNAMITE FIEND " — BLOWS UP THOUSANDS OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN AN AFRICAN KOPPIE — THE CRUSADE OF SHAME IN THE TRANSVAAL. Britain's Career in South Africa — Invasion of Zululand — Destruction of the Twenty- eighth Regiment at Islandula — Rorke's Drift — Scenes in British Theaters — Song "Here Stands a Post" — Re-enforcements Sent to Africa — Sir Garnet XVI CONTENTS. PAGE Wolseley" Sent to Take Command — Lord Chelmsford Fights the Victorious Battle of Ulundi — Capture of Cetewayo — Invasion of the Transvaal — Suppres- sion of the Boer Republic — Hoisting the British Flag in Pretoria — Wolseley's Boast — "This Flag once Raised will Never be Lowered " — The Boers Commence a Crusade of Shame — Meeting at Doom Kip — Resolutions Passed — British Cavalry around Pretoria — Meeting at Wondersfontein — Protesting Against British Rule — Boer Belief in the Justice of the British People — Comments in the British Press — War against the Basutos — Wolseley Attacks Sekukina, the Basuto King — Ten Thousand Men, Women, Children, and Babes Seek Refuge in a Cave — Pursuit by the British — Gallant Defense of the Basutos — British Held at Bay for Three Days — English Writer's Description — The Cave Blown to Pieces by Dynamite — Horrible Carnage — Sickening Scenes — Dead Women and Children — Rearful and Atrocious Acts of the British " Dynamite Fiends" — A Scene of Horrors too Fearful to Contemplate — Wolseley's Dispatch — The Chief of the " Dynamite Fiends" Gloats over the Destruction of the Basutos — Warrant for the Arrest of the Boer Leaders — A Replica of Foreign Rule in Ireland — Disarming the Remnant of the Basutos — Sham Fight in Pretoria — Impressing the Boers with British Prowess — Grand Banquet — Wolseley Declares the Transvaal a Crown Colony — Boers Cannot be Trusted — Opinion of the Boer Newspapers, ............ 272 CHAPTER XXI. (1878-80.) THE NEW DEPARTURE. Position of Irish Parties in the United States — Opportunism — Negotiations with Par- nell — Platform Accepted — Irish Opinion — Irish-American Views — The Men in the Gap — Real Opinions Withheld — Provincial Legislators — Moral Force and Moral Suasion — Letter of Mr. Webb, Home Rule Treasurer — Degrading Doc- trines — Logical Conclusions — Irishmen and Cornishmen — Disrupting the King- dom — A Mere Conspiracy — Joseph Mazzini and Italy — Statue in Central Park — Apostle of the Dagger — Wendell Phillips and Ireland — Orsini's Conspiracy — Paris Explosion — Napoleon the Third and the Austrian Ambassador — War with Austria — Freedom of Italy — No Opportunism for the Italians — Captain McGregor, the British Dynamiter — Wolseley Stealing on the Sleeping Egyp- tians — Honorable Warfare — Bombardment of Alexandria — Killing Women and Children — British Hanging Juries — Cant of the Age — Irishmen and Britons — Russian Nihilists and their Country's Flag — Literature of Ireland — False Teachings of To-day — Good Diplomacy — John Mitchell and Agitation — " Com- pound Vengeance " — Irishmen in British Dungeons — False Policy — " Irishmen Gain Nothing by Deceiving and Cheating One Another" — Mr. Parnell on Fenianism — A True Revolutionary Movement — Blighting Influence of Cowardly Teachings, ........... 282 CHAPTER XXII. (1880.) PARNELL'S AMERICAN TOUR. Mr. Parnell and Mr. Dillon's Tour — Mr. Michael Kennedy of Troy, N. Y. — " Five Dollars for Bread and Fifteen Dollars for Lead " — Progress of the Crusade — Dublin Mansion House Fund — Cable Message to Mayor of New York — Spread of the Famine — Election of Home Rulers — Mr. Biggar's Motion Refused by Lord Mayor Gray — Carried by a Majority — Mr. Mitchell Henry's Otherwise — Lord Mayor's Banquet — Duke of Marlborough's Letter — Flunkey- ism in Dublin — Lord Lieutenant's Levee — Parnell and the Mansion House Fund — Parnell in Albany, N. Y. — His Reception by the Legislature — Address to the People of America — Attacked by the Irish Press — Parnell's Reply to Churchill — The Queen's Bounty in '47 — New York Herald Famine Fund — Dublin Freeman and Mr. Parnell — Irish Bishops Defend the Mansion House Committee — Reception in Congress — Parnell's Speech to House of Representa- tives in Session — American Public Opinion Ireland's Irresistible Weapon — Washington and Lafayette — Session of Parliament Stopped — Appeal to the Country — Lord Beaconsfield's Letter to the Duke of Marlborough — Mr. Shaw the Home Rule Leader's Reply — Manifesto of the Irish Confederation of Great Britain — British Empire not Homogeneous — Crown Colonies — Semi-Indepen- CONTENTS. XVII PAGE dent Colonies — No Imperial Parliament — Disrupted British Empire— diverse Interests Between Britain and Self-Governing Colonies — Mr. Parnell Sum- moned Home — Farewell Address — Forming Branch of League in New York — Mr. Parnell Escorted to the Steamer by the 69th Regiment — The Farewell on the S. S. Baltic, 300 CHAPTER XXIII. (1880.) GENERAL ELECTION. Royal Reception of Mr. Parnell at Queenstown — Scene at Queenstown Junction — Reception in Cork — Address from the Nationalists — No Belief in Parliamentary Success — Banquet at Victoria Hotel, Cork — Mr. Parnell's Speeches — Addressing the Crowds in Patrick Street from the Hotel Windows — Mr. Biggar's Speech — " Ireland Needs Another Hartman " — Mr. Parnell's Exertions in Ireland — Pro- vincial Members Everywhere — Chevalier O'Clery — Row in Enniscorthy — Mr. Parnell Nominated for Cork, Mayo, and Meath — Nicholas Dan Murphy — B ; shop Delany's Manifesto Denouncing Parnell — Triumphant Return of Parnell for Cork — Parnellites Elected in Numerous Constituencies — Dublin Election — Chevalier O'Clery and the Cork Election — His Defeat in County Wexford — John Barry, Parnellite, Elected — Nomination of Mr. Kettle, Parnellite, for County Cork — Opposition of Shaw and Coldthurst — Bishops and Priests against Parnell in Cork — Exciting Election Scenes — Scene in Middletown — Mr. Hyde of Killeagh on Evictions — Captain Smith Barry — Tableau — Mr. Parnell Presented with Freedom of Cork City — Address to his Constituents — Elected for Cork, Meath, and Mayo — Unprecedented Honor — Kettle Defeated by Small Majority — Mr. Parnell's Letter to Chicago Daily News — The Most Powerful Ministry Cannot Withstand Them — Cry of " No More Coercion Now " — Rout of the Tories — The Liberal Party Restored to Power — Great Irish Rejoicing at the Appointment of Mr. Wm. Forster — Mr. Gladstone Prime Minister — Great Joy in Ireland that Bright and Chamberlain have Joined the New Ministry — Mr. Parnell Elected Leader of the Parliamentary Party — "Grand Old Man" — Harbinger of Hope — Ireland to be Governed by Irish Ideas — Approaching Great Victory for the Crusade of Shame, . . . 314 CHAPTER XXIV. (1880-81.) THE " GRAND OLD MAN " IN POWER — OUTRAGE MANUFACTURE. The Dismembered Empire — Change of Government — Ireland under Gladstone — The Queen's Speech — No Land Bill — O'Connor Power's Amendment — Its Defeat — No Change toward Ireland — The Disturbance Bill — Its Withdrawal — Govern- ment Measure — Bill Sent up to the Lords — Great Gathering of Peers — The House of Lords — As a Final Court of Appeals — Earl of Beaconsfield's Speech against the Government Bill — Defeat of the Government in the Lords — Con- sternation in the Country — British Opposition Appeased — The Lords and Home Rule — Removal of the House of Peers — Only Possible by Revolution — Gov- ernment will not Re-introduce the Bill — Firmness for Ireland — Irish Press on the Defeat — Mr. Parnell's Great (?) Party— Relegated to the Regions of Impotency — Disturbances among the Irish Farmers — Outrage Manufacture — Public Meetings — Mr. James Redpath — Abolition and Ireland — Absurd Canards in the British Press — British Hatred of America — First Year of the Gladstone Administration, 326 CHAPTER XXV. (1880-81.) OBSTRUCTION'S WATERLOO — ROUT OF THE IRISH PARTY. Trophy of Victory, a New Word — Captain Boycott — His Guard — Emergency Move- ment — Mr. Gladstone's Yachting Tour — His Reception at Kingstown — The Sog- garth Aroon— Prosecution of Mr. Parnell and the Leaguers — Great Trial in the Four Courts — Jury Disagree— Irish Barrister — Patriot and Prosecutor — Mr. Peter O'Brien, Q. C— Mr. John Curran — Lord Mountmorris Killed— True xviii CONTENTS. PAGE Cause of his Death — Opening of Parliament, 18S1 — Mr. Joseph Chamberlain — Mr. John Bright — Coercion for Ireland — The Grand Old Man's Bill Opposed by the Irish Members — Great Battle of Obstruction — Irish Hold the Fort of Talk — Ministerial Relays — Irish Endurance — Achilles' Veterans — The Par- nellite Artillery — Shells Charged with Adjectives — Irish Hector's Gallant Struggle — The Second Day's Fight — The Second Night of Obstruction — House Still Sitting — A. M. Sullivan and Mr. Gladstone — Tim Healy to the Front with more Shells — A. M. Sullivan's Hand Grenades — Obstruction's Waterloo — Arrival of the Prussians — The Speaker's Coup D'Etat — The Debate Stopped — Supreme British Victory — The Old Guard Dies but Never Surrenders — Striking Picture in the House — Violation of British Law by the Speaker — Grand Tableau — Irish Members with Hands Uplifted — "Privilege! Privilege!" — Obstruc- tion Goes to Pieces — " What next, Gallant Hector? " — Arrest of Davitt — Ticket of Leave Revoked — Mr. Parnell Questions the Home Secretary — Frantic Liberal Cheers at the Arrest of Davitt — Scene in The House — Suspension of Irish Members — Mr. Gladstone's Complete Victory — Mr. Gladstone Introduces Closure — Waiting — Mr. Parnell's Public Decision — His Manifesto — Agitate — No Wolfe Tone Yet — Mr. Parnell's Advice to the Farmers — Pay no Unjust Rents — Appeal to Victor Hugo — Great Meeting in Dublin — Mr. Patrick Egan Denounces the Home Rulers — Protesting Against Davitt's Arrest — Noble Atti- tude — " No Disorder or Crime " — Ireland Prostrated — Change, . . . 334 CHAPTER XXVI. (1881.) THE BOERS DISCOVER A CRUSADE OF SHAME USELESS — THEY ARE COM- PELLED TO RESORT TO " CRIME AND OUTRAGE." Dutch Boers' Views Change about England — Colonel Lanyon's Bogus Petition — The Boers Tire of the Crusade of Shame — Deputation to Holland — Reception in London — Mr. Gladstone's Treatment — Refuses to Make Good his Promises — Arrest of Boers by the British — Their Refusal to Pay Taxes — Similar Crisis to Parnell's — Boer Determination — Gravity of their Position — Republic Declared at Heidelberg — Boer Triangle — Proclamation of Boers — Colonel Lanyon's Answering Proclamation — Gladstone's Attack on Beaconsfield when in Oppo- sition — He Denounces the Annexation of the Boers — His Hypocrisy — Britain's Weakness — A Nation of Money-bags, not Soldiers — Her Great Necessity, Peace — "Crime and Outrage" — " Murderous Attack on the 94th Regiment" — "Outrage by Boers" — Defeat and Capture of the Regiment — British Re- enforcements — Martial Law Proclaimed by the British — Cape Times Denounces the Boers as Murderers — London Times calls for Stern Measures — Professor Hartin of Holland's Petition for Peace — Signed by Thousands of the Leading Dutch — Its Rejection, by Mr. Gladstone — Battle of Laing's Nek — Defeat and Rout of the British — " Africa for Africanders " — Boer Account of the Fight — British Government Refuses Boers Belligerent Rights — Rebels to be Hanged if Captured — Rejection of Mr. Rylands' Motion for Peace — Mr. Gladstone Determined on Further Bloodshed — Battle of Ingogo — Another British Defeat — Sir George Colley's Forces nearly Surrounded and Cut Off — British Wounded on the Field all Night — Boer War Song — Arrival of British Veteran Troops from India — Men of the Famous March from Cabul to Candahar — General Colley with British Veterans Seizes Majuba Hill — Battle of Majuba Hill — Stormed and Captured by the Boers — General Colley Killed — The Veteran Rifles and Highlanders Run for their Lives — Shot Down like Rabbits by the Boers — Gladstone Reluctantly Compelled to Make Peace — Wolseley's Proud Boast — Restoration of the South African Republic — Mr. Gladstone's Actions — Bloodshed in Ireland, South Africa, and the Soudan, 349 CHAPTER XXVII. (1881.) Gladstone's melodramatic scene in the London guildhall — arrest of parnell. Semi-agitation — Demi-semi-revolution — Men in the Breach — Duty of the Men at Home — "Lost Opportunities" — Renegades in Parliament — Twenty-five Deserters from Parnell — Shaw's Denunciatory Manifesto — Mr. Parnell in Paris — Henri Rochefort — Victor Hugo — " Ideas are the Sovereigns of the World" CONTENTS. xix PAGS — Sir Wm. Vernon Harcourt's Sneer — Gladstone's Land Bill — Excitement in Ireland — Gladstone's Reception at Leeds — English Democracy does him Honor — Great Speech at Leeds — Mr. Gladstone Denounces Parnell — The State of Ireland not a Party Question — Gladstone Praises Dillon — Sir Charles Gavan Duffy — He would Beat a Drum to call Irish Attention to Gladstone's Land Bill — O'Connell's Five Characteristics — Ireland's Downward Course of Decay — Leeds Ma .ufacturers — Parnell's Advice to Buy Foreign Goods — Cries of " Shame ! " — Mr. Parnell in Wexford — He Answers Gladstone — " Means Used in '98" — "We will be Boers!" — "Gladstone the Greatest Coercionist and Unrivaled Slanderer" — " No Misrepresentation too Low or too Mean for him " — "Masquerading Knight-errant" — "This Pretended Champion of Liberties Throws Off the Mask " — " His Bayonets and Buckshot " — Gladstone a Thou- sand Times More Dangerous a Foe To-day — Mr. John Dillon's Reply to Mr. Gladstone — " A Dishonest Politician " — A Hollander Tells Mr. Dillon " Blacker Treachery was Never Practiced by Any Man " — He has Finally Overthrown the Idol Gladstone — The Fairy Changelings — Gladstone in the London Guild- hall — His Speech — Melodramatic Scene — Entry of Telegraph Messenger — Gladstone Announces Parnell's Arrest — Uproarious Applause — " Not Words Alone" — " Resources of Civilization " — " Should be Carried into Acts " — Scene in the Streets Round the Mansion House and Royal Exchange — Immense Crowds — English Workingmen Cheer for the Arrest of Parnell — Great Joy in London— Arrest of Mr. O'Kelly, M. P.— Mr Sexton, M. P.— Mr. Quinn— Glad- stone's Lettre de cachet — Numerous Arrests — The Crusaders of Shame — Their Hundred-ton Gun — " No Rent " Manifesto — Signed by the Leaders in Prison — Rage and Indignation of the Irish People, ....... 36" CHAPTER XXVIII. (1881-82.) GLADSTONISM AND CRIME — THE TRAIL OF BLOOD — SLAUGHTER OF IRISH WOMEN AND CHILDREN. Excitement in Ireland — The Land League Suppressed — Colorless Politicians — Fright and Flight, but no Fight — Meeting in Palace Chambers, London — No Rent Banner Sustained — English Democracy Meeting at Trafalgar Square- Broken Up by Gladstonites — Great Irish Demonstration — Forming on Thames Embankment — Immense Length of the Procession — England Already Invaded — Irish Speeches in Hyde Park — Miss Fanny Parnell's Ballad — United Ireland's Editorials — "The Time has Come, the Very Hour has Struck" — Cartoon, "Gladstone and Britannia" — "Judas Gladstone" — United Ireland's Last Words — " Were they the Braggart Froth of Craven Cowards?" — " Shouts of Victory " — Mr. Wm. O'Brien's Arrest — Massacre of Helpless Women at Bel- mullet — Ellen McDonagh Stabbed to Death — Murder of Mary Deane — Scene at the Bedside of Mary Deane — Exhuming the Body of Ellen McDonagh — Inquest and Verdict — Gladstone's Minions Found Guilty of Willful Murder — Gladstone's Officials Cancel the Verdict — Sad Scene — Newcastle Chronicle Denounces Gladstone — Seizure of United Ireland — Winter of 1881-82 — Mr. Parnell's Parole — The Kilmainham Treaty — Gladstone's New Policy — Deter- mined on Crimes Bill — Inner History — Captain O'Shea — Negotiations — Mr. Parnell's Letter of Surrender — "To Forward Liberal Principles" — Release of Parnell — Victory (?) — Great Rejoicings — The Streets of Ballina Drenched in the Blood of Irish Children — Seven Brutally Massacred — Little Patrick Melody Falls Dead at his Father's Door Step, 385 CHAPTER XXIX. (1882.) THE IRISH NATION STRIKES BACK — THE 6TH OF MAY IN THE PHCENIX PARK, DUBLIN. Ireland Still in the Chains of Foreign Serfdom — Change of Front for a More Vigorous Attack — Bustle and Preparation in Official Quarters — The Military Prepare for the Pageant— The Guard Ship at Kingstown — Tars Man the Yards / XX CONTENTS. PAGE — Earl Spencer's State Entry as Viceroy — The New Chief Secretary, Lord Fred- erick Cavendish — The Cavendish Family — Enormous Revenues from Ireland — Immense Haul of Salmon — The Fish in the Blackwater Claimed by the Dukes of Devonshire — The Fisherman's Plaint — Hartington at the Park Meeting — Dublin Castle — Its Memories — The O'Neill — Brilliant Procession — Lord Spen- cer's Reception by the Lord Mayor of Dublin — Scene at Westland Row — Soft Glove on Mailed Hand — Arrival at Dublin Castle — Reception En Route — Takes the Oath as Viceroy — Holiday-Seekers in Phoenix Park — Hawthorn Trees — The Polo Match in the Park — No Change in the Position of the Guards — Invin- cibles — The Beauty of the Scene — Tragic Rumors — A Dreadful Statement — " Impossible, it Cannot be True " — Eight Thousand Troops — A Stone's Throw of the Constabulary Barracks — Promenade Concert in the Exhibition Palace — Varied Scenes in the Palace— The Affrighted Figure — The " Turkish Patrol" — Revelers in the Outer — Incredulity — Gaiety Theater, Dublin — The Opera of "Maritana" — Trinity College Students — Strange Rumors — Opera Hurried Through — "Alas! it was Too True" — Oh, Horror, Horror! Good Citizens — . Supping off Cruelties — What a Sacrilegious Crime — Sackcloth and Ashes — Wicked People — Pious and Holy Ireland — Historic Tragedy — Morning and Evening — Night's Shadows — The Grim Specter Death — Confusion in British Councils — Mounted Orderlies — Troops Under Arms All Night — Restore the Harmless Land League— The Police — Their Nervousness — Mr. Parnell's Grand and Glorious Victory Ruined — The Bandsmen and Police — Midnight Newsboys — The Luxury of Conquest — Uneasiness, if not Alarm — The Cry A udace is a Fiat Lux, 402 CHAPTER XXX. (1882.) MAY 7TH IN DUBLIN — SCENES AND INCIDENTS AFTER THE TRAGEDY. Sunday in Dublin — Feverish, Anxious City — Groups of Men Discuss the Events of Last Night Outside the Churches — Scenes in the Phcenix Park — The People Remove the Soil as a Memento — Various Opinions of the Citizens — " If it had been Forster" — "Not Personal Revenge" — "British Rule in Ireland Struck Down " — The Police and the Taverns — Temporary Arrests — Britain's Secret Police — Sailors of the Royal Navy Dragging the Liffey — British Government Proclamation — Reward of $50,000 — Proclamation of Some of the League Leaders — Surprise among the People — Consternation Reading the Irish Procla- mation — Knitted Brows and Gathering Scowls of Wrath — "Is that the Way they Thank Gladstone for Sending them to Prison" — United Ireland's Con- demnation — Haphazard Arrests — The London Merchant and the Police Ser- geant — Rising in the City Expected — " Keep by the Tram Lines" — Arrests in Newcastle-on-Tyne — European Politicians and Statesmen — Opinions of the European Press — Victor Hugo's Rappel — " A War of Independence Seems Foreshadowed" — The Mot d'Ordre — "Continue the Struggle without Truce or Mercy " — Irish Lack of Political Education — Organ of Prince Bismarck, Berlin National Zeitung — " Till their Country is Sundered from Great Britain " — Henri Rochefort's Intransigeant — " Cannon the Ultima Ratio of Kings, the Dagger the Ultima Ratio of Subjects " — Austrian Journals — Vienna Presse — "Wonder how Men Could Escape from so Public a Place" — The Citizen — " Two Organizations in Ireland" — Citoyen, Paris — "Ministers Determined to- Try Trickery" — " Triumph of Independent Ireland is Certain " — "Ireland in Broad Daylight does More for Revolution than Nihilists who Hide Under- ground " — " Irishmen Strike Openly and Straight at the Heart" — Russian Semi- official Journal, Golos, St. Petersburg — " Movement is Political and Not Entirely Agrarian" — "Secret Party Aims at the Overthrow of English Authority" — Bataille, France — "Time is Past for Political Jugglery " — " Resolve to Reach the Goal, Irish Independence" — Marseillaise, France — " No longer Landlords " — "They Strike Down the Queen's Delegates" — "What Friend of Humanity Would Think of Blaming her for it ? " — Most Serious Act Since '98 — Irishmen Lack Moral Courage — Secretly Approve, Openly Denounce — The Dublin Irish- man — "The English Began the Bloody Struggle" — " First Declared War against Ireland " — " War Brought Down to our Own Times " — London Times — " Not only Brutal, but Defiant and Tnsolent " — " But those who Examined the Scene can Understand this Fact " — " All Dublin and Others who Examined the Locality See what it Means" — " Secret Societies Challenge Whole Power of the Executive." ............ 4*1 CONTENTS. XXI CHAPTER XXXI. (1882-83.) THE APOSTLE OF VICTORY — SPENCER'S BATTUES OF HANGINGS — "THE BLOODY ASSIZE" — "ACCUSING SPIRITS." PAGE The Irish Crimes Bill — Star Chamber Clauses — Became Law July 12, 1882 — Arrests Under the Suspect Act — James Carey Arrested as a Suspect — Scene in Grafton Street — Seizure of a Rifle and Knives — Carey's Horror at the Name Informer — Unveiling the O'Connell Monument — Description of the Festive Scene — Lord Mayor Dawson's Oration — John Mitchel on O'Connell — Imperial Legis- lators — Lord Mayor and High Sheriff —The Murder Assize — Judge Lawson — Letter from William O'Brien — Francis Hynes' Drunken Jury — Midnight Orgies in the Imperial Hotel — Dublin Freeman on Packed Juries — Irish Protestants — "We've Hands and Hearts for you " — " I'm in Blood " — Callanan, the Perjurer — Judge Lawson and Mr. Gray — Mr. O'Brien Expelled the Court — Judge Law- son Sentences the High Sheriff — Three Months in Prison, ^500 Fine — Sent to Richmond Bridewell — Mr. Barrett, Catholic Foreman of Hynes' Jury — Results of the Bloody Assize — Francis Hynes, Death — Patrick Walsh, Death — Michael Walsh, Death— Penal Servitude for the Others — Perjurers Suffer Remorse — Innocent Men Hanged — Dock in the Court House a Shambles — Mr. O'Brien's Leader in United Ireland — "Accusing Spirits" — Dying Men Protest their Innocence — In the Dock — On the Scaffold — Francis Hynes: "I am Innocent " — Patrick Walsh : " The Day Will Come to Account for my Innocent Life" — Michael Walsh: " Before God and the Virgin I Never Lifted Hand or Foot " — Patrick Higgins : "I am Going before my God ; I am as Innocent as the Child in the Cradle" — Myles Joyce: "On my Dying Oath I Never Fired a Shot in my Life " — Thomas Higgins : " I Solemnly Swear I am Inno- cent ; this is a Slaughtering House" — Michael Flynn : "I am Innocent; I am Glad to go to my God " — Glutted with Blood — " Kicked into Eternity by Marwood " — O'Brien's Arrest — Sent for Trial — Before the Assize, . . . 426 CHAPTER XXXII. (1883.) ARREST OF INVINCIBLES — BRITAIN'S STEALTHY WARFARE IN IRELAND — TRYING TO ENTRAP THE PRISONERS INTO BETRAYING THEIR COMRADES. Arrest of Dublin Invincibles — The Royal Marines — First Gleam of Light — Check for Check — Attack on Justice Lawson — Arrest of Patrick Delany — Attack on Juror Field — Another Proclamation Issued — The Star-Chamber Inquisition — Examination of Witnesses — Training Crown Witnesses Mallon and Curran — Inquisitors' Confusion — Head of Charles the First — Close of Act 1st — First Examination in Court — Robert Farrel Yields — Second Examination — No Informers Yet — The Mental-rack Fails — Third Examination — Arrest of Fitz- harris and Caffray — Fourth Examination — Mallon's Ingenuity — Mallon and Fitzharris — Kavanagh's Confidence Shaken — Mallon in Kavanagh's Cell — Kavanagh Falls — Mallon's Triumph — Bolton to the Front — Fifth Examination — Kavanagh as Crown Witness — Surprise of the Prisoners — Bolton, Curran, and Mallon — Not Yet Satisfied — Mrs. Carey Calls on Mallon — Carey's Torture — Mallon's False Statement of Curley — Carey Yields — Mallon's Victory — Sixth Examination — Carey Still in the Dock — A Short Demand — Saturday, February 15 — Seventh Examination — British Trump Card — James Carey as an Informer — Consternation and Indignation in the Dock — Public Excitement — General Execration of Carey — Debate in the House of Commons — Forster's Attack on Parnell — The Greco Conspiracy — British Ministers Engaged in a Murder Con- spiracy — Arrest in Paris — Seizore of Shells — English Gunpowder and Poniards — Attempt on the Life of the French Emperor — Mr. Joseph Mazzini — Greco's Letter sent under care of the British Minister — Mr. Forster Defends Mr. Maz- zini — Letter from the Italian Patriot— Mr. Stansfield, British Cabinet Minister — Banker for Tebaldi's Murder Conspiracy of 1857 — Mazzini Letters to Daniel Manvini — Lessons to Irishmen — " Most Men Feel in their Hearts as I do" — " I Express it" — Captain O'Shea and Mr. Parnell — Surrender of Position as Irish Leader — Induced by Gladstone to Remain — Eight Examination in Kil- mainham — Sent for Trial to Special Commission, 446 xx ii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXIII. (1883.) RAID ON BLACKROCK RAILWAY STATION — ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE "NUM- BER ONE" THE INVINCIBLE ORGANIZATION — SECRET EXAMINATION IN DUBLIN CASTLE, WRITTEN BY PATRICK KINSELLA, LATE STATION MASTER AT BLACKROCK, COUNTY DUBLIN. PAGE Raid of Police on Blackrock Station — Chief Inspector Mallon Late — Mallon Arrives at 7.30 A. M. — Every Exit and Entrance of the Station Guarded by Police — Search for " Number One " — Searching Beds and Mattresses — Mallon Shows " Number One's " Photograph to Station Master — Staggered and Surprised — The Invincible Movement — The Invincible Executive — "Very far Behind 'Number One' " — Cowards who Think it Diplomacy to Publicly Lie — Carey's Description of the Invincible Commander — Finding of the Photograph — Queen's Guard of Honor — Speaker at the Hyde Park Demonstration — Large Reward for his Apprehension — The Star Chamber in the Lower Castle Yard — "The Room was Small and a Cheerful Fire Burned in the Grate" — " Curran Posed in an Easy Attitude, Smoking a Cigar" — " No Tear of Sensibility ever Appeared to have Dimmed the Fire of his Strong Black Eye" — " Between Twenty and Thirty Policemen, who were Permitted to Remain on the Platform from 6.15 A. M. to 7.30 A. M. to be Stared at by the Passengers, with No Leader and Apparently without an Object" — "Signals from Right to Left Flank of the Enemy" — " My First Shot had Told" — Fired Another — " Number One" had Time to Get Away — Private Door Left Unguarded — Confusion in the Enemy's Ranks — Retire to Consult — Mallon and Curran Reappear — " I had Whistled in the Storm" — Curran has Fury in his Looks — " Make a Clean Breast of it and you will be Looked After" — " Oh, Most Sapient, I have you Now" — "Verily, Most Wise, you are not a Daniel " — " By God, you will not Find this a Laugh- ing Matter'' — " The Locker on the Left of the Office as you Enter was Left Untouched " — " After Four Hours of Sharp Practice he Sullenly gave it up " — " Why, so be it " — " I will be a Dainty Dish to Set before the Queen" — Wait- ing Room for Crown Witnesses — " He Suggested I go to the Crown Witness Room as More Convenient " — " The Wind had gone to the Butt of the Clouds, Bringing the Rain" — Another Attempt to Entrap a Witness — " I will Speak to No One in Private" — Halston Street Court Room Hall — "I'll not till you Force me" — George Bolton, Crown Solicitor, goes to Blackrock Rail- way Station — The Station Master Refuses to see him Privately, . . . 465 CHAPTER XXXIV. (18S3.) TRIAL AND DEATH OF THE CAPTURED INVINCIBLES — JOSEPH BRADY'S STOICISM IN THE DOCK EVOKES ADMIRATION. Green Street Court House, Dublin — A Regiment of Soldiers Billeted in Detach- ments around the Court House — Dublin Garrison Under Arms — Irish Feeling Bitterly Hostile to British Rule — The Black Caravan Escorted by a Troop of Dragoons — The Captured Invincibles Arrive — Greeted with a Ringing Irish Cheer by the Crowds Outside — Artificial Terrors of British Vengeance — Joseph Brady in the Dock — He is Utterly Alone — Deserted by his Friends — The Enemy Appoints him Counsel — Base Treason and Cowardice of Leaders — They had not Fled to any Foreign Land, but their Cowardly and Craven Spirits had Fled — Scene in the Court House — The Jury Arrive with the Verdict — " He Braced himself up Boldly, Stood there with Head Erect Facing the Court, as if he at least could never say Die " — Joseph Brady was not Overcome by the Verdict — " He Fell Back on that Tremendous Strength of Will" — " Stub- born Pride and Hatred" — Sentenced to Death — "There were Blood and Fire in the Beauty of your Character " — Sketch of Joseph Brady — Trial of Daniel Curley — Sentenced to Death — Sketch of Daniel Curley — " I Love my Country and am Ready to Suffer for her " — Michael Fagan's Trial — " He was an Irish Nationalist and would Die One " — Thomas Caffray Sentenced to Death — Timothy Kelly Sentenced to Death — Joseph Mullet Refuses to be Represented by Counsel — Does not Recognize the Legality of a Foreign Court of Justice — British Jurisdiction not Legal in Ireland — Sentenced to Penal Servitude for CONTENTS. xxm PAGE Life — Evidence of Respectability — Judge O'Brien Exclaims : " The Terrible Thing Connected with this Dreadful Conspiracy is that they are All Honorable and Respectable Men who are Indicted" — Whit Monday, 1883 — Ireland in Mourning — Dublin City in Grief — Churches Filled with Mourners — Shops with Closed Shutters and Mourning Emblems — British Soldiers Massed around Kilmainham Jail — Newspaper Men Refused Admittance — Crowds of People Gathered Outside — Joseph Brady Dies — The Black Flag — The Kneeling Weep- ing Crowd — "Loyal and Noble as the Idolized Emmet" — Friday, May 18 — Death of Daniel Curley — Crowds Outside — The Father and Father-in-law of the Dead Nationalist — Other Nationalists Die on the British Scaffold — The Red Earl and the Assisted Emigrants' Wail of Agony — The Death Cry of the Dying Gael, ............. 479 CHAPTER XXXV. (1883.) DYNAMITE WAR IN ENGLAND — EXECUTION OF JAMES CAREY — DEATH OF O'DONNELL. Seizure of Dynamite Factory in Birmingham — Panic in England — Business Upset — Arrest of the Home Secretary by his Own Police — Trade Paralyzed — England Suffering Coercion — James Carey a British White Elephant — New Zealand Report — The Cape — British Charges against Carey — His Description by One who Knew him — " Think of his Sufferings and his Ruin" — O'Donnell Leaves in the Kinfauns Castle — Carey Joins at Dartmouth — Scene at the City Hotel, Cape Town — Carey Gets Excited — Carey Changes for Natal — O'Donnell Follows in the Same Steamer — On Board the Melrose — July 29, at 3.45 P. M. — O'Donnell Shoots Carey — "O Maggie, I'm Shot !" — O'Donnell Pursues Carey — The Execution Completed — Carey's Look of Horror — Carey Dies — Scene Described by an Eyewitness — O'Donnell Cheered by Irishmen as he Lands in Africa — O'Donnell's Examination — To be Sent Back to England — Carey's Funeral — Interred in the Jail Burying Ground — English Consternation at the News — Joy in Ireland — " Victory for the Invincibles " — British Government Astounded — Revolutionists Penetrate the Secrets of the British Executive — They Frustrate their Plans — News in America — O'Donnell Defense Fund — General Pryor Leaves for London — O'Donnell's Trial, Conviction, and Sentence — Deputation Wait on the President — Joseph Poole Sentenced to Death in Dublin — Parnell Banquet — Mr. Parnell Presented with Thirty-six Thousand Pounds — Cable of Joy Sent by the Parliamentary Party — Death of O'Donnell — He Did his Duty — Death of Poole, 487 CHAPTER XXXVI. (1884-85.) DEFEAT OF THE GLADSTONE COERCION GOVERNMENT — IRISH PROVINCIAL- ISTS* JUBILEE OVER THE DEFEAT OF GLADSTONE AND SPENCER " SUBORNERS OF RED-HANDED MURDER." The Dublin Scandals — " A Deeper Depth " — Libel Actions against William O'Brien — Exposure of Bolton, the Crown Solicitor — County Inspector French — Manu- facturer of Perjurers — "Pleasant Particulars" — "Official Compounders of Felony" — " Inhabitants of Sodom Respectable Compared with Spencer's Castle Gang of Scoundrels " — Mr. Parnell's Speech on Coercion — Exposure of Glad- stone's Crimes Act — Persons Out after Sunset Arrested — Witnesses Examined Privately — Sent to Prison for an Indefinite Term — The Times on Parnell's Speech — The Atmosphere of the House — " The Stern and Silent Rebuke" — The Dublin Freeman Denounces Gladstone — " His Inaccurate Forecaste of the Future" — The Budget — Defeat of Gladstone's Government — The Irish Thirty-five — Great Rejoicings in Ireland — Rejoicings among Irish-Americans — It was a Famous Victory — " The Red Earl's Run" — " So Much for Bucking- ham" — " Burying the Proof of his Victims' Innocence in their Graves" — T. D. Sullivan, M. P., Denounces Gladstone and Spencer — The Tory Government — The Provincialists Hail the Tories with Joy — T. P. O'Connor's Views — Home Rule from the Tories — Its Passage through the Lords Assured — United Ire- land on the Tories — "The Tories, Ireland's Natural Allies" — "The Irish XXIV CONTENTS. PAGE Question is Settled " — Carnarvon and Parnell — Tory Promise of Home Rule— Parnell's Delusion — United Ireland on Gladstone — "Baiting the Trap" — Mr. Davitt and Mr. O'Brien Differ — O'Brien on the "Nobler Version" — "The Pure Young Man " — Davitt's Indignation — Mr. Davitt and Mr. Finnerty — "Fraternization of Peoples" — Mr. Davitt Visits Rome — Tour to the Holy Land — Tory Promises — Banquet to Lord Spencer — John Bright's Speech — Banquet to Mr. Parnell — " It is Only a Question of How Much Self-Govern- ment " — " I am Afraid we Cannot Call the English Masters in Ireland" — "Can we Hurt England?" 5°l CHAPTER XXXVII. (1881, 1882, and 1883.) INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE IRISH NATIONAL INVIN- CIBLES — THE LONDON " TIMES" ARTICLES, " PARNELLISM AND CRIME." Britain's Interest to Destroy every Germ of Irish Hostility — Entrapping the Provin- cialists to Condemn the Invincible Organization — The Invincible Movement — " History Relates but does not Inform against " — " We shall give no Names, but we shall Paint Reality " — " What we Relate we can Say that we Saw " — The Enemy Striking Madly and Wildly — Arrest of Parnell and the Leaders — Forma- tion of the Irish National Invincibles by the Irish Government of National Defense — Invincibles Created, Enrolled, and Invested with Authority by the Irish Nation — Thousands of Men Organized — Spread of the Movement over the Entire Country — Created and Organized by the Government of the Irish National League — Its Authority the Legal Power Covenanted to the Parlia- mentary Movement by the Irish People — The Invincibles and the League Practi- cally one and the same Organization — " It is Seldom Wrong to Speak the Truth Plainly " — Licentious Action of Gladstone and Forster — Arbitrary and Wanton Arrests — The Mask of Peace Torn off — Bayonets, Buckshot, and Dungeons Hold Sway — " Suppression " of the Chiefs of the Enemy's Murder Bureau Decided on — Meeting of the Government of National Defense in a French Town — Programme of Action Decided on — Guerrilla Warfare Ordered — The Invin- cible Organization Confined to Ireland — Its Spread over Ulster, Munster, Lein- ster, and Connaught — Forster Guarded by Armed Men in London — The Enemy on the Alert — Full of Vague Suspicions — Forster and the Invincible Meeting in the House of Commons Passageway — Alarm of Forster — Hurrying of the Guards — The Enemy ever Watchful — Armed cap-a-pie to Prevent Surprise — An Officer to take Command of the Invincibles in Dublin appointed by the Directory — The local Dublin Council — Forster's Drive to Dublin Castle — Scene Along the Quays — Invincibles on the Alert — Forster's Carriage Followed by the Invin- cible Vehicle — Men Drawn up along the Drive — The Omitted Signal — Failure of the Attack — Forster Hurriedly Leaves for London — His Return to Dublin — Scene at Westland Row — Forster's Drive to Dublin Castle — The Invincible Vehicle in Front — The Barricade on the Quay — Forster's Carriage Stopped — Escorted by Three Ladies — Swoop of the Invincibles Stopped by Authority — The Secretary's Carriage Drives on — The Kilmainham Treaty — Astonishment and Surprise of the Invincibles — Forster Leaving Dublin — Drenching Rain, Scene in the Streets — Muster of Invincibles along Great Brunswick Street — Forster's Carriage Reaches Westland Row — The Secretary Does not Come — Charge of Invincibles into the Railway Station — Forster not in the Train — The Midnight Guard — Invincible Vehicle — Forster's Ruse — Invincible Officer's Dis- patch to his Government — Peremptory Reply, Go on with the Work — Order to Concentrate in the Phoenix Park — March of a Troop of British Hussars — To Meet Again on the Morrow — Night of the 5th of May in Dublin — Anxiety of the Invincible Commander — News Reaches the Invincibles of the Ballina Massacre — Invincibles' Horror at the British Murder of Irish Boys — The Morn- ing of the 6th of May — Arrival of a new Foreign Governor — Arrival of a New Chief of the Murder Bureau — His Official Responsibility for Last Night's Murders — The Gathering in the Park — Mustering of Armed Invincibles — Deter- mination to Succeed — Expecting to be Hemmed inside a Circle of Death — The Arrival of the Hussars Looked for — The Armed Constabulary's probable Arrival on the Scene — Skirmishers Posted — Invincibles Ready for a Fight if Necessary — Polo Match in the Phoenix Park — The Enemy's Armed Guards Scattered about — The Invincible Skirmish Line — Possible Bloody Encounter and Combat to the Death — The British Chiefs of the Murder Bureau Meet — The Invincibles Come up — The Gleam of the Uplifted Steel — Panic of the British Guards — CONTENTS. XXV PAGE They Quickly Scatter and Disappear — Fright of a British Cavalry Officer — The Invincibles Outgeneral the Foe — A Walk past the Constabulary Barracks — The Park Gates not Closed — Blunders of the Enemy — Invincible Conference of May 7 — Indignation of the Dublin Invincibles at the Parnellite Proclamation — Moral Assistance to the Enemy — Treason to the Men in the Gap — Dispatch from the Invincible Executive — The Officer in Command of the Dublin Invin- cibles Arrives at Headquarters — One of the Invincible Directory Calls on Him — "Suppression" of a Local Tyrant at Castle Taylor, Ardrahan — His British Cavalry Guard Slain — The Invincible Government order a Truce — Weakness and Irresolution — Parliamentarians' Policy of Prudence — Organizing Fresh Bands of Invincibles in Dublin — Arrests by the Enemy — A Lady Messenger Sent to Dublin — British Hangings Horrify the Invincible Government — Their Hands are Forced by the Enemy — Order for Hostilities to be Resumed — Prepara- tions for Active Operations in Dublin — Arms Seized by the Enemy in Carey's Loft — James Carey Removed from Active Service in the Invincible Ranks — Carey Loyal but Indiscreet — The Dublin Commander and the Local Officers — Conferences — British Officials wear Bullet-proof Shirts — Ostentatiously Guarded by Armed Men — Fresh Arms for the Invincibles — Invincible Captain Carrying Arms to Dublin Travels with a British Colonel — Dublin Filled with Royal Marines — British on Guard against their Unseen Invincible Foes — The Red Earl's Ride — His Escort Half a Troop of Cavalry — The Invincible Com- mander's Plan to Attack the Earl and his Guard of Cavalry — Shells Urgently Required — Strong Force of Constabulary Guard Judge Lawson's Country House — The Two Invincibles Reconnoiter — Lawson's Constabulary Guard Invite them to Dine — The Invincibles Receive all the Information Necessary Unasked — Constabulary Sergeant Shows Invincible Lieutenant over the Ground — Sergeant Completely Unconscious who his Guests are — Lawson's City Guard — Invincibles Concentrate at Stephen's Green, Dublin — Waiting for Judge Lawson — "Will he Come?" — Expected Fight with his Armed Guard — No News — Delany's Blunder — His Excitement — His Capture by Lawson's Guard — No News at Stephen's Green — The Waiting Invincibles Retire — First News of Delany's Blunder and Capture — Panic among the Enemy — Fright of Leading British Officials — Delany's Blunder Saves Lawson — Vigilance Committee of the I. R. B. Shooting Affray in Abbey Street — The Invincible Commander's Surprise — Invincibles not Engaged — Planned Attack on Two of the Leading Jurors of the Murdered Francis Hynes — Attack on Juror Field — Westland Row Patrolled by Invincibles — The Expected Juror out of the City — Panic among the British 'Supporters in Dublin — Fresh Rewards Offered by Dublin Castle — Invincibles' Necessity for Powerful Explosives — Demand for Bullet- proof Shirts by Irish Traitors — The Enemy's Lord Governor Doubly Guarded — Arrests for Examination in Dublin — All Suspected Nationalists Arraigned — Secret Star Chamber Investigation in Dublin Castle — Carey and Kavanagh Refuse to give any Information — Both Prove Loyal at this Epoch — Ten Thou- sand Pounds no Temptation — Threats Fail to Shake Them — The Dublin Invin- cible Commander's Demand for Shells — His Urgent Request to the Executive — The Star Chamber Fails — The Enemy's Gold has no Seekers — Invincibles not to be Bribed — John Bull's Dilemma — Spencer's Determination to Arrest all Suspects — Training Hired Perjurers to become Familiar with the Appearance of Certain Suspected Men — British Determination to Hang in any Event — Policy of Endeavoring to Strike Terror Decided on by the Enemy — Dublin Filled with Marines and Spies — The Enemy Striking in the Dark — The Dublin Commander's Efforts to Procure the Shells — Timid Parliamentary Politicians Strangle their own Active Movement — Invincible Action Suffers — The Dublin Commander's Visit to one of the Leading Members of the Executive — Demand for Shells Made Urgent — Messenger from Dublin to Headquarters — The Invin- cible Officers Specially Request their Leader on the Scene — His Last Journey to Dublin — Conference — Preparations for the Attack on Spencer and the Cavalry Guard — The Last Meeting — The Last Farewell — Midnight Swoop of the Enemy — The British Strike Haphazard — The Enemy's Swoop Enrages Dublin Invincibles — New Bands await Orders to strike Spencer and his Guards — The Dublin Commander's Journey to Meet Executive — Procrastination — Ner- vous Caution if not Fright — The Statesman's Message — Promises of Support — Base Surrender of the Invincible Executive — The Dublin Men Cowardly Abandoned — Parliamentary Tactics Triumphant — All Dreams of Hostility Pass away from the Parliamentary Invincibles 521 XXVI CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXVIII. (1885-86.) GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1885 AND 1886. GLADSTONE'S FOREIGN RULE BILL. PAGE Irish Victories — County Conventions — Nominations of Members — European States- men and Ireland — Parnell's Speech in Mayo, November 5, 1885 — Opposition to Philip Callan in Louth — Solemn Promises of Parnell — Home Rule Certain before Two Years — Home Rule Manifesto — Gladstone and the Liberals Denounced — Parnell's Great Liverpool Speech — Bitter Denunciations of Gladstone — Parnell Accuses Gladstone of Wanting to Cheat Ireland out of Home Rule — Parnell will only Accept the Fullest and Completest Control — Result of General Election, 1885 — Return of Eighty-six Home Rulers — Gladstone's Victory in England — Eighty-three Majority in Defiance of the Irish Votes — Parnell in Power — No Government can Stand without his Help — Parnellites could Never Have a more Favorable Position — The Tory Government Announce Coercion — Defeat of the Tories on an English Question — The Grand Old Man once more in Power — Mr. Gladstone's Review of the Situation — Leeds Mercury on Gladstone's Possi- ble Home Rule Bill — No Interference with British Manufactures — Another Irish Famine — Secessions from the Liberal Cabinet — April 8, 1886 — Scenes Inside the House of Commons — Gladstone's Home Rule — Great Speech of the Premier — A Responsible Irish Ministry Promised — Trevelyan's Opposition — Parnell's Speech — Churchill's Speech — The First Order — Parnell's Cable to America — Bill Satisfactory — Irish Enthusiasm — Public Meeting Thanks Gladstone — Great Irish Demonstrations in Support of the Measure — Letter from an Austrian on the Vienna Parliament — Opinions of the Press on the Bill — Gladstone's Defini- tion of Local Patriotism — Irish Nationality — Pure and Unselfish Love of Country — Great Mass Meeting in Boston — Mayor O'Brien Cables Resolution to Gladstone — English Premier's Reply — April 16, 1886, First Appearance of Gladstone's Home Rule Bill — The Bill in extenso — A Crippled Legislature — Shorn of All Law-making Powers — Mere Passage of Local Bye-Laws — Glad- stone's Public Lie — Irish Government a Despotism — No Irish Responsible Ministers — Autocratic Castle Government — Facsimile of Indian Government — Free from the Control of all Parliaments — Irish Parliament with no Power to Make Laws for Trade, Manufactures, or the Land — Britain Holds the Public Purse — Gladstone's Bill — Concentration of Foreign Rule — Irish Revenue — Power of the Lord Lieutenant to Pass Coercion without Parliament — One Man Power — An Additional Tax on the Irish People — Powerlessness of the Parnell- ites if the Bill Passed — Summary of Gladstone's Foreign Rule Bill — Not an Irish Chamber — The Coercion Laws — Dublin Parliament and Men of '98 — Debate on the Second Reading — Goschen's Speech — Parnell Indorses the Bill — Rejection of the Bill — Gladstone's New Coercion Bill — Passed into Law — Irish Evictions under Gladstone's Rule — Total for Gladstone's Short Term 10,248 — Election of 1886 — British Workingmen Vote against Home Rule — Great Majority for Anti-Home Rulers — English Boroughs — Hostilities of Horny- handed Sons of Labor — Washington Rejects Home Rule — " Nothing Short of Independence can Possibly do," ......... 591 CHAPTER XXXIX. (1886-87.) BALFOURISM AND CRIME — TORY COERCION REGIME — MITCHELSTOWN MURDERS — CONCLUSION. Irish Agitators Try to Cheer their Countrymen — Justin McCarthy — No Coercion — Liberal Banquet to Parnell — Parnell's Speech — "Out of Gratitude to the Liberals Irishmen Cease to Commit Crime " — Evictions — Bodyke — Arrest of Women and Boys — Coolgreany Victims — Effect of " Rational Resistance" — Irish Peasants Attacked with Emergency Hatchets — Their Weapons Limewater and Stirabout — Disgraceful and Cowardly Teachings — Reduction of Rent Mis- leading — Greater Reduction in Price of Produce — Eviction Statistics : Before the Land League Era — Since its Creation — Ireland's Pressing Need — Industries — Britain as a Great Power — Her Small Army — Her Braggadocio — The Satur- day Reviexv on Britain's Weakness — Irish Members not to go to Parliament — CONTENTS. XXVU PAGE Journal de St. Petersbourg's Article on Russia and Ireland — Mattathias to the Maccabees — Judas Maccabee — Gird Yourselves and be Valiant Men — Mitchelstown Murders — Scene before the Platform — Charge of the Constabulary — Retreat for Arms — Opening Fire from the Barracks — The Murdered Men — Irish Peasant Steeps his Handkerchief in the Blood of his Murdered Country- men — Hatred to English Rule — Lessons from these British Murders — Propa- gandism of Nationality and Active Work — Conclusion, ..... 626 ADDENDUM. IRELAND AT THE CLOSE OF 1893, - 645 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. P. J. P. TYNAN, -------__ Frontispiece General Michael Kerwin, ------ facing page 70 General Denis F. Burke, Irish Brigade, - - " 82 Daniel Byrne, _-.-_-_ . <• " 1Q ^ Group of the Irish Brigade in the Field, - - " "114 Captain John Kirwan, Chevalier and Knight of the Golden Spur, ------- <• "122 Captain John F. Cavanagh, U. S. N., - - " " 150 General William J. Nagle, and Captain Augus- tine E. COSTELLO, ------- " 154 General John Warren, ------ •« "156 Colonel Thos. J. Kelly, U. S. Army Signal Corps, " " 158 Captain James Murphy, 28th Mass. Vols., and Colonel Rickard O. S. Burke, Engineers, U. S. Vols., - - » "168 Edmond O'Donovan, in his Robes as Khan of Merv, " " 170 Edmond O'Donovan, Miss Sarah Jane Butler, and * Nicholas Walsh, Artist, - " " 172 John Breslin, -------- » -< iys John Boyle O'Reilly, - " "178 Captain Chas. Underwood O'Connell, - " 180 Charles S. Parnell, ------- •< •« 256 Daniel Curley, -------- " << 402 Hamilton Williams, M. D., - " "412 Patrick Kinsella, _______ " « 466 Joseph Brady, --------- << » 480 Patrick O'Donnell, ------- « " 488 The Red Earl's Run, ------- « "510 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. CHAPTER I. NATIONALIST AND PROVINCIALIST. The Irish Nation — The Yeoman's Coercion Parliament in College Green — Brutal Mas- sacres of Irish Patriots in 1798, by the Electors of the Dublin Legislature — The Dawn of "Moral Suasion" — The Irish Provincialists — The Nationalists — Their Place in History. The history of Ireland is one of the most melancholy volumes perused by the student or the patriot. It is the history of a great race, whose very virtues have been used to ensnare and to enslave them. Through their piety and their devotion to the faith of the fathers, they have suffered the most fearful persecution. On the plea of their religious belief has their property been taken from them, their children, by cruel laws — or rather illegal edicts, enforced at the sword's point — reared up in ignorance, to which has been added that frightful curse and dread- ful blight on human progress — poverty ! When, by slow degrees the religious persecution ceased, and hour by hour the dawn of apparent religious freedom was permitted to shed its rays unimpeded by persecu- tion, it was only to find that, with that light came rays of poison destruc- tive to their faith as patriots. Reflecting and thinking mankind would learn with a thrill of horror the slavish purposes for which this emancipa- tion has been used. The reward for a schoolmaster's head was removed, and by degrees the light of education was permitted to spread, but only for one object — to destroy all national germs, which home surroundings, love of country, or racial instinct had implanted in the mind of the child. But finding that this deep love of country and strong hatred of persecu- tion were too great, that the waves of national life beat too fiercely, that they overleaped all artificial barriers which the invader tried to create to stem its progress, then, with the devilish ingenuity which centuries of cruel cunning had made perfect, they caused the Irish people themselves to make channels, dig canals, and create wayside streams, that would receive the waters of national life and so destroy the onward sweep of the great Celtic river to the ocean of independence. History of national events became so distorted, the truth and false- hood were so entangled in the annals written for the people, that nation- ality, that pure and holy faith of peoples, implanted by the great Creator in the families of nations — this pure faith of nationhood became cor- rupted by an illegitimate representative, a spurious sentiment which tried to assume the robes of Freedom. The enemy either assailed or entered into semi-alliance with this recreant Provincialism miscalled Nationality, as it best suited his purposes — purposes which are either the complete subjugation of the Irish people, their cordial and complete union as a race 2 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. with their Britisli would-be conqueror (an impossibility), or else their extirpation as a people from the island of their birth. This work of extir- pation is going on at the present time, for Ireland's unconquerable sons have never acknowledged the dominion or rule of these usurpers, since the first band of banditti from the island of Britain polluted the sacred soil of Ireland by their presence, down to the present hour. To make this Provincialism more deceptive in its mission of destroying national aspirations, it was necessary to clothe it with some semblance of patriotism. To do this more effectively history should not only be distorted, but made to lie. Truth was ejected from the national temple, and Falsehood set up and worshiped as part of Ireland's political creed. The Irish people, and mankind generally, were told that there had been an Irish Parliament, and all the brightest and most fascinating of pictures were skillfully and elaborately put before the world as the ideal Ireland during the short and miscalled glorious regime of this legislature. This lie, as black as ever was put in circulation by the enemy of mankind (upon whose shoulders human nature shuffles off its mortal frailties) has been written about by men of letters, spoken of by great statesmen, is accepted as a fact by all the enlightened peoples of the earth ; and yet it is a cruel and malicious falsehood — a falsehood by which the enemy of Ireland is not only trying to corrupt her people in wasting their energies for the imaginary restoration of a similar legislature, but also to foully slander them before the nations by the statement that Ireland had a Parliament which her representatives infamously sold away for gold and titles. This giant falsehood, this stupendous fraud on history — like another and one equally gigantic of the present day, passes current as truth ; and so myriads of writers criticise this lie, approve of this lie, and never go to the root to try and find the foundation of falsehood upon which they erect such wondrous fabrics to mislead and confuse mankind. This assembly, which sat in Dublin, was in no sense Irish, and had the same claim on the title Irish Parliament, as would have had a legislative chamber of African cannibals who, after settling in Ireland's metropolis by force, assumed to themselves the power of making laws and enacting some measure as to how or in what manner they would cook the natives to make them more palatable eating. The foreign colonists who came to Ireland, and who were rewarded by their government with grants of land (the fruits of robbery, taken by force from the native Irish), settled on the lands apportioned to them, the Ulster plantation, so called. These colonists soon became divided into two classes. When this turgid British stream was first emptied into Ireland's great rivers, during the reign of James I. of South Britain, and VI. of North Britain, it was in a great measure kept together in the North of Ireland. Succeeding settlers, during the reign of Charles, and the numbers who received Irish lands under the bloody regime of the Lord Protector, were scattered over the country. In a few years those who were made landowners founded an aristocratic or British class. These, some of them originally dissenters, all became Episcopalians. Others, especially the Ulster plantation, were composed of artisans, men engaged in trade, sturdy Puritans. These dissenters did not conform to the Establishment ; many of them in time became Irish in sentiment. They had no love for England, and became imbued with detestation of the oppression of the Irish. Many of these intermarried with the natives, and in a generation or two there was nothing foreign about them but their names. These colonists, who mingled in the waters of the great rivers, — were emptied into and lost themselves in the stream of Irish national life, — were the men who formed the patriotic section of the Volunteers, and afterward were the founders of the United Irishmen. NATIONALIST AND PROVINCIALIST. 3 The larger number of the settlers were not in sympathy with these liberty- loving men. They remained from their arrival in the country in a state of unhealthy effervescence ; a seething mass of foul prejudice, corrupt- ing and poisoning the fountain of pure water into which this foreign stream was emptied, forming a stagnant pool destructive to Irish national life, and are so in a great measure to this day. These were the men who sent deputies to the College Green legislature so slanderously called Irish. The aristocratic settlers on the lands were those chosen as deputies ; their wealth, acquired by theft, gave them power. These land robbers in many instances were originally menials, or men, as the age termed it, of low birth. But, after a short time enjoying the fruits of Irish acres, they became lordlings, while the real owners were their serfs, living in squalid poverty and degradation. Such was the class that made laws in Ireland and usurped the name of Irish, as they had usurped and robbed them of all they had of worldly wealth. From this class came the Yeo- men, Ireland's brutal butchers in 1798, and they were the constituents and deputies who put on the name of Ireland to insult and degrade her for generations. The settlers who blended with the stream, and lost their foreign origin in the crystal waters of Irish nationality, were the class which gave Ireland so many devoted patriots, and which gave birth to such twin giants as Theobald Wolfe Tone and John Mitchell : one the great restorer of the creed, and the other the great apostle of Ireland a Nation, the cardinal doctrine of national faith. With the descendant of another settler of later years — Thomas Davis — these form the Trinity of great patriots, who shall stand before posterity as the Titans and leaders of the most noble and pure-minded of men in the pages of history. Wolfe Tone, the founder of the United Irishmen, was the first apostle of the doctrine of a United Nation. This great patriot restored the national faith to its original purity ; Thomas Davis and John Mitchell kept the light burning to this generation. At present there appears no hand to seize the flambeau of liberty and hold it aloft to purer air than that in which it now flickers, the foul and corrupting atmosphere of the present Provincialism, which seems as if 'twould extinguish it forever. One of the earliest Parliamentary acts of these foreign settlers was to pass a law depriving their so-called Irish legislature of any power to originate any measures without first submitting them to the London Parliament. This law, called " Poyning's Act," was an act of servility to the parent legislature, to whjch these foreign settlers at first submitted. The repeal of this act in 1782 was termed the dawn of independence in Ire- land by Provincialist writers. The members of this Dublin legislature closed the eighteenth century by basely selling away their political existence for bribes. These corrupt British settlers usurped the patro- nymic of Irish, only to persecute the more those whose names they assumed, and stained the later years of the century by the most brutal saturnalia of blood recorded in history. The massacres of the Greeks or the Bul- garians by Europe's invader, the barbarous Turk, were not more horrible than what Ireland's people suffered by these inhuman butchers ; the foreign settlers who came to ravish and plunder, remained to enchain and destroy. Their infamous penal laws, their repeated Coercion Acts, more numerous even than the enemy's Parliament passes to-day, are a part of the cruel history of their fearful regime. Some Irish writers speak of these men as Irishmen, and even go so far as to hail them as Ireland's illustrious sons. These monstrous misstatements have gone into the chronicles of the age, which nothing but an independent Ireland can wholly obliterate. Arthur Wellesley, afterward Duke of Wellington, was one of these men Irish flunkeys loved to honor ; even Moore, the 4 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. gifted poet, under the evil and corrupting influences (to his nationality) of British social life, spoke of Ireland — "Hailing her Wellington's name." But the duke's reply to this claim of Irish nationality was as insulting as it was truthful. " If [said he] a man is born in a stable he is not necessarily a horse." The duke was correct ; this remark proves his nationality at once. Dean Swift is another whom these people claim as an Irishman, though he always called himself by his proper nationality, asserting at all times that he was an Englishman. Such were the corrupt influences of false teachers that there are to be seen, in Irish homes to-day, engrav- ings of great Irish patriots, among whom, to mislead the people, is found the portrait of this clever and brilliant dean, who was English of the English. He had not one spark of sympathy, interest, or feeling in com- mon with the Irish people. His Irish interests were centered in the small group of British colonists who were represented at the College Green chamber of coercion and persecution. The writers who so fulsomely claim Wellington and Swift as Irishmen, neglect to put in any claim for Major Hepenstal, a gentleman of the same class, and animated with similar feelings toward Irish nationalists. The major was a man over seven feet in stature, and utilized his great height by making himself a walking gallows during the war of independence in 1798. He usually indulged himself in the luxury of hanging Irish patriots with a rope strung across his shoulders. This monster was one of these British settlers miscalled by Provincialists Irish, and a worthy constituent of the College Green legislature. History written by men who could see no future for Ireland but alliance — which is slavery — with Britain, praises Henry Grattan, and hails him not only as a great Irishman, but as an Irish patriot. Henry Grattan was no more an Irishman than either Swift or Wellington : he was a colonist, filled with all their bigotry and prejudice, and a slavish subject of the monarch that sat upon the British throne. This colonial legis- lature was illumined by one solitary gleam of brightness, which flickered for a time, but soon the illusory light was quenched by a Coercion Act passed by the College Green Parliament. This bright flash of liberty sprung from the Volunteers, citizen soldiers composed in part of the patriotic dissenters of the North with a number of the more narrow-minded colonists; but several good Irishmen suc- ceeded in getting into their ranks. These patriotic men leavened the whole mass. The profession of arms had for them an ennobling tendency, and they felt a dawning patriotism and unwonted enthusiasm for their adopted country. This spark was fanned by the patriotic section into a flame; they met in convention and resolved to remove from the statute book of the colonial Parliament the vile Poynings Act, which made the College Green legislature subservient to the London Parliament. The citizen soldiery made a gallant display of their force, and in College Green, with flashing arms and cannon drawn up in array before the building, demanded their own slavish legislature to repeal the law which a pre- vious colonial Parliament enacted, and by their display of force com- pelled surrender from the British government and Parliament. This Parliament of the British colonists henceforth became free from all con- trol by the London legislature, and could pass what laws it pleased, either to coerce or to liberate the Irish people — a people who had not a single vote or representative in that House. Henry Grattan, on the eventful day this Dublin Parliament became free, arose in the House and made that famous, brilliant, and historic speech so spoken of in history, finishing with a peroration descriptive of the glories and freedom of Ire- land. What hollow mockery ran through his speech ! Ireland was at that moment bound hand and foot by these seers and their laws ; she was an NATIONALIST AND PROVINCIALIST. 5 enslaved nation, groaning under the most intolerable tyranny by the enactments of this settlers' Parliament. But even they (the colonists) were not free from British control — a further mockery of the so-called independence claimed with such elo- quence and ardor by Grattan. No Ministry sprang from their Parliament. Their Executive was the London Government, completely free of all responsibility to the College Green chambers. The colonists could make the laws, but had no power in their administration. They had not a shadow of authority in the island. Britain, with all her seeming surren- der, never yielded one jot of actual power over Ireland. The coercive colonists rejected the support of the Irish people, who implored a union with them. They left the hands of the nation manacled where alone help could come to them, and where the true foundation of liberty could be built up. The Volunteers held conventions, in all of which they preached the true doctrines of liberty ; the lessons taught by American independence lingered in the breasts of many of these sturdy and patriotic dissenters. Henry Grattan viewed these conventions with jealousy and distrust. A Coercion Bill was introduced into the settlers' Parliament which received his cordial and active support. This degrading bill, coming from what is called a free Parliament, was named the Convention Act. Soon after the Volunteers disbanded, the speck of light remained no longer visible, and the gleam of hope quickly died away. Fresh measures of coercion directed against the Irish people passed this tyrannic colonial Parliament. Instead of removing the shackles which bound the limbs of the nation, this independent colonial legislature created fresh enactments to more firmly rivet the chains which held the people in suffering and in degradation. Henry Grattan, in his greatest stretch of liberality, might make the chains less galling on the Irish people, but he would not remove them. There are epochs in the life of nations, when public men by their silence commit a criminal act, and participate in either slander or persecution by not condemning it. What was Grattan's action, when his constituents and the constituents of his fellow-members were brutally murdering and burning the homes of the Irish people ? When arson and murder — murder which seemed to mock God's sunlight — and the odor of car- nage went up to Heaven claiming justice and retribution at the throne of the Most High ; when women and children, the aged and the infirm, irrespective of creed or sex, suffered these horrors, he maintained a criminal silence. The brutes who hanged the Irish Presbyterian patriot, Monroe, before his own door in Lisburn in the presence of his wife and children, were all constituents of this infamous legislature so falsely written in history as the Irish Parliament. The Irish people had no power to cast, a single vote for any representative to make laws for them; they were an enslaved but not a conquered race, and this body of tyrants who usurped the national perogatives were no more deputies of Ireland than would have been the African cannibals, if these less brutal savages sat in College Green. What the African savages could not do the British savages were instrumental in doing, and that is, slandering the name of Ireland to posterity, and deceiving future gen- erations into believing in the falsehood that this Parliament was Irish and represented the lost glories of the Irish race. The few patriots who found their way into that chamber left it before 1798 ; they were dis- gusted and horrified at its brutal and persecuting tendencies. These patriots knew that this assembly was a noxious and injurious body, ready at all times to do Britain's work, the destruction of the liberties of the Irish nation. Had the struggle for independence been successful, 6 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. this vile assembly would have disappeared to give rise to a chamber freely elected by the whole people, such as the United States Congress. During that year, when Ireland flung her banner to the breeze, sup- ported by a brave but half-armed people, 350 Irish patriots were sur- rounded at Gibbet-Rath by a large armed force of the invaders. The Irish surrendered to a British general, with the promise that they would be treated as prisoners of war. They were scarcely more than disarmed when the brutal soldiery fell upon them and began a cold-blooded massacre. Foremost among these assassins was a corps of Yeomanry called Lord Joselyn's Fox Hunters. They massacred every Irishman who tried, by flying, to break that ring of death. The fearful butchery went on while one of these Irish patriots remained living. They were shot and stabbed to death ; some of the slain men were covered with gashes, showing the barbarity and savagery of this per- fidious massacre. Who were these assassins ? They were colonists, elect- ors, whose representatives sat in that infamous Parliament in College Green. In a ball-alley at Carnew, County Wexford, a number of prisoners were taken out and shot, riddled by the bullets of wanton assassins. Beneath whose muskets fell these slaughtered men ? Their blood lies at the door of the invaders, Britain's brutal instruments, whose representatives made laws in that free (?) colonial assembly in Dublin. The morning of the 24th of May this assembly or colonial Parliament was in session, when Castlereagh entered and told this so-called Irish Parliament that the Irish people were up in arms for national independ- ence, and that they had risen in insurrection against foreign rule. Castlereagh stigmatized these patriotic Irishmen as rebels, and used other vile epithets, all of which were unanimously adopted and repeated by this infamous legislature. There was not one man — not even one, no solitary spirit of Irish manhood — to be found among these craven tyrants and false legislators, that attempted to offer the smallest opposition to the demands made upon that so-called Irish Parliament by a British Minister, asking votes to help to suppress in blood the glorious war of independence against Ireland's invader and despoiler. There was not a single redeem- ing feature in this gathering of Ireland's bitter foes ; and these men are handed down to posterity, by kindred slaves, as an Irish Parliament. The historians, Hay and Madden, tell us : " Any person having his hair cut (and therefore called a Croppy, by which appellation the soldiery designated United Irishmen), on being pointed out, was immediately seized, brought into a guardhouse, where caps of coarse linen or strong brown paper, besmeared inside with pitch, were always kept ready for service. The unfortunate victim had one of those, well heated, com- pressed on his head, and when judged of a proper degree of coolness, so that it could not be easily pulled off, the sufferer was turned out amid the acclamations of his merciless torturers. Many of these persecuted in this manner experienced additional anguish from the melted pitch trickling into their eyes. This afforded a rare addition of enjoyment to these keen sportsmen, who reiterated their horrid yells of exultation in the confusion and hurry of escaping from the ferocious hands of these more than savage barbarians. The blinded victims frequently fell or inadvertently dashed their heads against the walls on their way. The pain of disengaging the pitched cap from the head must be next to intolerable. The hair was often torn from the roots, and not infrequently parts of the skin were so scalded or blistered as to adhere and come off along with it." These barbarous cruelties, worthy of demons, were part of that monster devil fish Britain's cursed career in the Green Isle of Erin, and her colonists' free Parliament in Dublin sanctioned these horrors and never attempted to in any manner use their law-making power to stop this saturnalia of blood. NATIONALIST AND PROVINCIALIST. 7 "Moistened gunpowder was frequently rubbed into the hair, cut close, and then set on fire. Some, while shearing for this purpose, had the tips of their ears snipped off. Sometimes an entire ear, and often both ears were completely cut off, and many lost part of their noses during the like preparation." The wretches who perpetrated these atrocities were electors, and sympathized with the College Green legislature in uphold- ing the invader's infamous rule in Ireland. Hunter Gowan, captain of a Yeomanry corps of these colonists, made a triumphal entry into the town of Gorey at the head of his corps, with his sword drawn and a human finger stuck on the point of it. After the labors of the day, himself and his associates retired to a tavern to refresh themselves, and they stirred their punch with this finger, cut from an Irish patriot's hand. Who were those brutes who indulged in such beastly orgies ? They were the friends, associates, and constituents of this anti-Irish coercion Parlia- ment in Dublin. This College Green legislature was a den of coercionists, bigots, and instruments of British conquest — stripped of the glamour cast around it by time-serving politicians. These murderous Yeomen were the ferocious electors of that legislature which corrupt teaching induces Irishmen to speak of as their lost Parliament. In the preamble to an infamous bill passed by this settlers' assembly it. September, 1798, it was stated that Thomas Addis Emmet,Thomas Russell, Samuel Neilson, and other Irish Nationalists had become renegades to Ireland — these illustrious men and pure patriots, who advocated and believed in the true national faith : that of absolute and complete inde- pendence, then, as now, the only salvation for an oppressed nationality. This coercive Parliament of foreign settlers stated that these noble unselfish Irishmen had retracted all their former declarations of national faith and had asked pardon of the enemy's King ; this malicious lie was only equaled by the kindred falsehood that the legislature that coined it was in any manner Irish. If prejudice, hatred, or ignorance had not besotted their intellects, they must have known that these statements were false and slanderous aspersions on the characters of honorable men ; but Castlereagh and his murderous associates could do with this assembly of persecutors as they wished. It terminated its infamous and sanguinary career by selling itself out of existence. There was a short galvanization of a seem- ing nationality by some of its members who opposed its annihilation, but they were mere words — such noble sentiments as might be delivered by an able actor before the footlights, to be forgotten when the costume of the stage was laid aside. There was not one among them to ever in any way take an active part in trying to restore to Ireland her stolen independence. Where were these mock patriots during the Emmet preparation for a renewed war to restore to Ireland her ancient splendor and liberty ? Who among them would acknowledge his friendship, when he delivered those immortal utterances which consecrated his young life to his country's independence? He left behind a noble duty for Irishmen to fulfill — to place their country among the independent nations of the earth, when as freemen they could write his epitaph. If the Irish are not lo remain a race of Helots, it is their solemn and sacred duty to redeem his grave from the silence of bondage, or stand before mankind for all ages as igno- minious and cowardly slaves. This cannot be done by annual meetings and speeches, which make this young martyr's name a pretext for false nationality, and are a blasphemy upon his memory, permitting Provincialists to desecrate the name of country by advocating an alliance with one of the enemy's political 8 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. parties, preaching this monstrous doctrine upon a national platform made sacred by the name of Robert Emmet — a platform from which should be heard the manly avowal and advocacy of the only possible way by which Ireland can regain her lost liberty. The way Emmet pointed out by hfe life and death has been practiced by every independent nation that emerged from bondage. These men are not honoring his memory, but insulting it, who use his birthday to enable the orators of the Provin- cialists to preach as a cardinal doctrine of the nation's faith the restora- tion of some similar assembly to the festering nest of corruption that has made College Green to the Irish patriot what the Bastille was to the French Republicans. The frowning dungeon in Paris had enchained in its living tomb myriads of victims of tyranny ; glorious France arose in her might, and in her just indignation swept away this monster, this type of infamy. She razed the Bastille to the ground, not one stone was allowed to rest upon its fellow. These foul halls of tyranny in College Green, Dublin, that so often rang with invective and slanderous abuse against the gallant patriots of '98, where repeated coercion edicts were framed to scourge the nation ; these polluted chambers from where messages of sympathy and approval with red-handed assassination and pillage went forth ; where sat the friends and comrades of the brutal Yeomen of 1798, who were desolating the land with fire and sword, and whose merciless cruelties were indorsed in these halls of legislation by the associates and representatives of brutes who spared neither sex nor age in their horrible carnage — this building must be swept away. When Ireland shall arise in her might and re-establish her independence, this present abode of British money-changers, these halls typical of the infamy the nation once groaned under, shall, like the Bastille, be razed to the ground. Not one stone shall be left to mark the spot where a nation has been outraged by criminals who usurped the legislative functions of the people. Ireland must decide on which side rest her sympathies. Are they with her faithful sons, the patriots of 1798, or are they with their diabolic persecutors and destroyers, the Yeomen and representatives of the settler's Parliament ? The sons of a free Ireland will erect their own temple where the law- givers of the nation will sit — a temple pure and unsullied as the national faith, to be consecrated inside its sacred portals. After the death of Emmet there came upon the scene a great Irish- man, a giant in intellect and physique, and one of the most brilliant and gifted orators the Irish nation has produced. He had the rich vein of humor and the melting pathos of the Celt, filled with a riant and illimitable imagination. He could address his people in the rich mellow language of his race — a voice so thrilling and musical in its cadences, even when he spoke the stranger's tongue, that the pathos of each tone of soul- inspiring fervor lingered on the ear for hours. This man of almost immortal powers could at will move thousands of his countrymen to tears, and the next instant excite them to joyous and merry laughter. He could master and control the Irish heart as the great master Mozart inspired the organ. This great Irishman ran up and down the scale of their passions ; every semitone, every stop, beneath the magic of his touch, yielded its native music ; from the soft sweetness of the flute to the ringing tones of the clarion, down to the deepest diapason, he produced the full orchestration of their souls. He thrilled them with enthusiasm, inspiring the ecstatic applause that burst from the entranced masses at the end of one of his marvelous perorations. And yet this man, with almost godlike genius and gifts, inherited to the full the slavish curse of generations. His soul was steeped in slaveiy. Slavery circulated in his veins. Slavery haunted his noblest aspirations. NATIONALIST AND PROVINCIALIST. 9 He not only bowed down before the British Gessler's cap ; he abased himself before that foreign symbol. He ate dirt and beslavered himself with ashes in the presence of the invader's insignia. His most exalted ambition for his nation was that she should be enslaved with chains of gold, or, as he termed it, be fastened to the robber's rule by the golden link of the Crown. The flag of Britain, which in Ireland is a pirate's banner, he recognized as his country's standard. The illegal measures passed by an alien assembly he recognized as law, and told his unhappy enslaved countrymen that he could at his pleasure drive a coach and six through any Act of the British Parliament. He even hugged this delusion to his heart after Blakeney's cannon at Clontarf had given him the lie. This great and prominent Irishman, in the possession of such wondrous powers, misused all these Heaven-sent gifts. He left his footprints on the sands of an enslaved nation's shore, to further aid her destroyer by the slavish doctrines he preached, and which he has left behind as a heritage of woe to his people. He was the father of the modern school of political thought in Ireland ; the creator of that abnormal movement in the history of nations which Nationalists call Provincialism, and Provincialists constitutional agitation. What is the meaning of the terms Nationalists and Provincialists, applied to Irishmen endeavoring to serve their country according to their best light ? Wherein lies the distinction ? The Nationalists are the men who believe that the only possible solution of the struggle with the British usurper is the absolute and complete independence of Ireland. They do not ignore the lessons of history by believing there is any stepping-stone or mid-position between subjection and liberty. As followers of Wolfe Tone, and Robert Emmet, as descendants of the men of 1798, they hope to place their country among the nations of the earth. They were nationalists who surrounded Miltiades at Marathon, when he gained his glorious victory over the hordes of Darius, the Persian monarch. They were nationalists, these heroic three hundred Spartans, who under the immortal Leonidas held Thermop- ylae for Hellas, when the hosts of Xerxes crossed the ridge of Anopia and died to preserve the imperishable glory of freedom for Greece. He was a nationalist, the Spartan Denekos, who hearing from a Trachian just before the battle that when the Persians shot their arrows the sun was darkened, answered back merrily : " Our friend from Trachios brings good news ; we Spartans love to fight in the shade." They were nation- alists upon whose tomb were inscribed : Tell the Spartans, at their bidding, Stranger, here in death we lie. They were nationalists who surrounded Scipio Africanus, when the Carthaginians crossed the Alps under the command of Hannibal and invaded the sacred soil of Rome. They were nationalists who retired to the temple of ^Esculapius, determined to die sooner than surrender to the Roman at the destruction of Carthage. They were nationalists who fought at Sempach for the independence of Switzerland, to free their native land from Austrian tyranny and who pierced their foemen's ranks, when that immortal nationalist, Arnold von Winkelried, opened a path for them over his dead body. William Tell proved his devotion to his country, and was a true nationalist, when he refused to do homage to the tyrant invader's insignia. They were nationalists who drove back the Danish invaders under Brian Boru at Clontarf. They were nationalists who opposed the invaders of their country, when, under the Saxon King Harold, they defeated the Norwegian Hardrada, and who afterward fought and died at Hastings, vainly battling to preserve the sacred soil io THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. of their country from Norman-French invasion. They were nationalists who fought for the liberty of Greece against the Turk ; the sacred band of Hetarists who died at Dragachan, and the half-armed peasants who attacked and conquered at Tripolizza, many of them having no weapons but bludgeons or attaghans. He was a brave nationalist, the valiant Greek, Marcus Bozzaro, who with three hundred Suliotes attacked the Turkish tyrant at Carpenisa, who addressing his men said : " If you lose sight of me during the combat, come and seek me in the Pasha's tent." They were nationalists who followed the Hungarian banner under Kossuth and Klapka. They were nationalists who charged at Arklow with Father Murphy and Miles Byrne, and who drove back the mercenaries of the British invader and the murderous Yeomen of the settlers' Parliament in College Green. They were nationalists who kept alive the sacred fire of patriotism through seven long centuries of horror in Ireland. And they were pure-souled nationalists who died upon the robber invader's gibbet, and to-day there are Irish nationalists suffering in the enemy's penal dungeons. They were nationalists who raised the standard of revolution and independence in revolt against tyranny at Lexington and Bunker Hill and who conquered at Yorktown. They were nationalists who fought the British invader before New Orleans. And he was a stanch nationalist, General Andrew Jackson, who, when asked what would he have done if defeated by the British, replied : " I would have retreated to the city, fired it, and fought the enemy amid its devouring flames." The American historian, speaking of this patriotic nationalist, General Andrew Jackson, gives a sad resume of British tyranny, beginning in Ire- land and continued in America during the Revolutionary War : " But as he contemplates the devastation that had swept his home and left him alone in the world, he remembered the hand that had wrought it all. His father had been driven from the land of his nativity by English oppression ; one brother had died on the battlefield nobly repelling English invasion ; another had sunk under English cruelty and barbarity ; and, last of all, the mother he loved more than life, had fallen a victim to English in- humanity and been buried in an unknown, unhonored grave, and no wonder "there became planted in his heart an inextinguishable hatred of the English nation. It had run up a long and bloody score, which, with the accumulated interest of years, that orphan boy was yet to wipe out with one terrible blow, which should cover the British Isle with mourn- ing." The Irish Nationalists, like General Jackson, owe the British invader a long and bloody score, which they feel it is their duty to pay off when and how they can. To destroy these invading assassins of their country is not only a duty — it has become a religion. This payment of the bloody score of centuries these assassins of Irishwomen and helpless children call " crime," and try to slander and dishonor the brave nation- alists before mankind. But the Nationalists feel it is their sacred duty to annihilate the invader when and how they can ; to use whatever weapons of destruction God and science can give them to repel these lawless usurpers. The Irish should exclaim with General Jackson that if defeated, they will retreat upon their towns and cities and fire them, fighting the bloodstained invader amid their devouring flames, shouting back to the foe the cry of Palafox and the brave Spanish nationalists at Saragossa, " No surrender! war to the knife." Such are the principles that animate the breasts of every patriotic Nationalist, and such are the heroisms and self-sacrifice attached to the word nationalist in the pages of history. Who are the Provincialists? We vainly search the pages of history to find the record of any similar movement to free a nation from bond- age. There exists no such record, it has been left to unhappy Ireland NATIONALIST AND PROVINCIALIST. n to evolve out of her generations of slavery this abnormal and impossible means of saving a people from destruction. For the first time in the history of mankind, it is taught in the public rostrum that nations can be freed by installments, and the masses are purposely confused by con- founding the evolution which agitation within a self-governed state may bring to develop public liberty, and the slavery and decay that must of necessity follow foreign invasion, more especially when the invaded country is governed from the nation that defiles its freedom and stains its shores with blood. Had William and his Norman-French hordegoverned the English from Normandy, and eventually made England an appan- age of the French Crown, draining the wealth and life blood of the nation for the benefit of France — if to suppose such a possibility were not to insult glorious, liberty-loving France — would Englishmen think such a state of degradation could be removed by agitation and slavish loyalty preached in the Parisian chambers ; that the occasional cry, " England is a nation," raised by one of their English delegates, receiving applause from his confreres, was serving the people in England ? All the time these ebullitions of mock patriotism went on, their country was bleeding beneath the heels of the foreign oppressor. Slavery would have greatly changed the English race if this could be ; it is more likely they would have surrendered their nationality and passed out of existence as a dis- tinct people, and become Frenchmen. Who has been the parent of this blighting and mocking degradation that has so enslaved the minds of Irishmen ? Provincialism has been the •creation of the great wizard of the tongue, the witching orator with such slavish fancy in his imagination — Daniel O'Connell. What are the principles of Provincialism ? The first article of the new creed is that it is expedient to compound a felony ; to make terms with the brutal destroyers of Ireland, her foreign usurpers ; to sink the nation into the degraded condition of a province of the enemy ; to accept her flag and her so-called imperial sway ; to lower forever the banner of green or else to degrade it to the position of a Provincial ensign, or as it has been placed to-day by Provincialists, the emblem of an enslaved metropolis, floating in mock freedom from the City Hall, Dub- lin, guarded by the armed red-coated soldiery of the invader ; for without the permission of the chiefs of this soldiery, this degradation would not even be permitted. The Provincialists hope by compromise to receive back some of their stolen property, and hence are willing to share in the crime. Even if this could by any possibility be accomplished it would be infamous ; it would be a base and treacherous surrender after seven centuries of unceasing struggle ; the expenditure of so much blood and treasure ; the sacrifice of millions of lives. The warm red life stream of the Irish flowed in such volumes that it could fill St. George's Channel with its gory current. Who can bridge this bloody chasm across, by promising obedience to the invader? The conscience of the nation would revolt at such treason, the sacrifice of generations of heroes who fought and died that Erin might become a free and inde- pendent nation would be fruitless. The widowed and the orphaned, the myriads whose homes were made desolate by the innumerable crimes of the invader, would shudder with horror at so sacrilegious an alliance. The dead, were it possible, would stalk abroad to point the finger of loathing at those men who would dare sell their birthright ; who could attempt to traffic in the honor of their ancestors, or try to obliterate from the glorious page of history the immortal and desperate struggles of a heroic, valiant, and ancient race, who, although their country has been invaded by succeeding hordes of British robbers, and overwhelmed beneath the weight of centuries of oppression, is not yet subjugated. 12 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. What the enemy by every species of brutality could not do, treason or cowardice can never succeed in. Ireland will never become a willing province of the British Empire. But this policy of base surrender is impossible ; the enemy's interests are directly opposed to granting the smallest real concession, and these men are playing with treason toward their nation without one gleam of hope that they can be possibly successful ; they are hedged in and surrounded by hypocrisy, fraud, and lies ; the atmosphere they breathe is destructive to Irish national life — it is impreg- nated with the poison of British treachery, British deceit, and British avarice. These Provincialists have taught the Irish people, and endeavored to make them believe it, that they are powerless and helpless before the might of Britain. The power of the enemy and the weakness of the Irish nation have been exaggerated to sustain this debasing doctrine of accepting slavery as inevitable, only to be removed by the generosity of the conqueror. In trying to make the Irish people firm believers in this degrading creed, they used arguments which in part might have been used by Nationalists. They denounced British rule, and yet they struggled to make Ireland continue a part of the British Empire. They ignored Britain's idea of her own interests, and spoke of the generosity of one or other of the British parties, while they denounced the British nation. What an unheard of incongruity in solving an international issue ! " There is a theory for everything which proclaims itself common sense ; mediation offered between the true and the false ; explanation, admonition, a somewhat haughty extenuation which, because it is a mixture of blame and excuse, thinks itself wisdom and is often only pedantry. An entire political school, called the compromise school, has sprung from this. Between cold water and warm water, this is the party of tepid water. This school, with its pretended depth, wholly superficial, which dissects effects without going back to the causes, from the height of a half-science chides and condemns the approach or appearance of revolution." The Irish people, fascinated by the eloquence of their great leader, Daniel O'Connell, followed him in thousands, always believing he would give the word for action, even when he loudly protested and used that extraordinary statement denying the truth of sacred and of profane history: "That the liberty of a nation was not worth the shedding of a single drop of human blood." But at first among his followers and afterward as a distinct party came a body of younger and bolder spirits, that with no wavering or hesitation told their countrymen the truth. These patriots were termed the " Young Ireland Party " ; foremost among them and foremost among all Irish patriots, since the days of Wolfe Tone, were Davis and Mitchell. To these Nationalists of this Young Ireland school are the present generation of Irishmen indebted for many of the brave men who tried to aid their suffering land during the past quarter of a century. Their writings thrilled the Irish heart and illumined the Irish brain ; this generation, alas ! leaves none to succeed them. The Provincialist movement, which was thought to be dead with the break up of the Tenant Right Party in 1852, was resuscitated by the Irish Episcopalians at Dublin in 1870, some with truly honorable motives, others smarting under the then recent disestablishment of their Church. A great Irish orator and lawyer, Isaac Butt, became its leader. Irish Nationalists, although they did not join its ranks, hoped it would help to make all Ireland more anti-British. It languished for a while and fell to pieces from the necessity forced upon such movements to adopt a tone hostile to true Irish national aspirations. Before it passed NATIONALIST AND PROVINCIALIST. 13 away there came into political life Charles Stewart Parnell, who has since occupied the foremost position in the Irish Provincial struggle. The leader of the third Provincial Irish movement was aided at the outset by one of Ireland's perennial scourges, a famine. That is, the failure of one particular crop, and although there was a reduction in the general produce, there was more than enough left to feed the people but for the destructive, illegal edicts of the invader, who governed and plundered the Irish nation by the red hand of force. It will be the task of this history to trace this Provincial movement from its inception to the present hour (September, 1887). This movement tried to combat with the invader by words, but behind these the Irish people expect to see something more practical than arguments. The Nationalists admired the leader of the Provincial movement, for his energy and the whole-souled manner with which he threw himself into the breach to try to aid his starving fellow-country- men ; although the leader tried to do this by altering the illegal edicts made by a foreign Parliament, there was that about him which led many men to believe that when he saw the folly of his course he would adopt the National programme. Whether they were correct in their surmises, and that a brief dream of heroic and determined nationality came and passed away, posterity alone will be able to determine. The Nationalists in bodies joined his movement, aided him in every possible way, and made the Provincial movement the most perfect organi- zation of its kind ever seen before. The enemy grew alarmed, and not knowing what to think, forced the issue by a brutal and bitter persecution. The enemy at this period was called Liberal, and most liberal was he in his despotism, hanging, stabbing Irish women to death, and brutally slaugh- tering even Irish children. Men and women were arrested and imprisoned without even the semblance of an accusation, or even the mockery of a so-called trial. It was open red-handed tyranny and murder. There was but one tuay to meet this Liberal tyrant, one path alone left a nation possessing a single spark of true manhood. On this subject this history will speak. " // was the future entering on the scene; a future as yet unknown." The Liberal leader Gladstone carried on his bitter persecution ; this was boldly met by manly words from the Provincial leader Parnell. The whole Irish race was moved to its inmost depths. Gladstone arrested Parnell ; the crisis was forced by the Briton. A short dream of manly opposition, left unsupported, and afterward denounced, was Ireland's physical answer. A compromise which was a surrender was the sequel to the wanton and arbitrary arrest of the Irish Provincial leader. The cowardly surrender, called the Kilmainham treaty, was the beginning of the end ; but the turning point of the struggle was over, the decadence had set in, and the surrender was as abject as it was degrading. When the mist of fraud and misconception is removed from before her eyes, Ireland will speak to these Provincialists in some such language as the wife of Asdrubal, the Carthaginian general, addressed to her recreant husband : " May the gods of Erin and thou, O Britain, in con- cert with them, punish according to their deserts they who betrayed their country, their gods, their kindred ! " British rule in Ireland is one of the most extraordinary anomalies in the history of modern times. It has been and is the most masterly hypocrisy known to history. A nation through its great and learned men — as is witnessed to-day in Britain and has been glaringly apparent in Ireland during the Liberal regime from 1880 to 1885 — preaching public virtue and practicing the most vicious cruelties ! A nation that has es- poused patriotic aspirations all over Europe except in Ireland, where the 14 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. whip and the halter are its apostles ! British sympathies were with the Greek Heterists and Alexander Ipsilanti, their leader, in their war against the Turk. British ships in concert with the war vessels of other European powers destroyed the Ottoman fleet at Navarino, which materially aided the Greeks in throwing off the yoke of the barbarous Moslems. Their sympathies were with the Belgians in their war for independence. When France by her cannon and her fleet besieged Antwerp, the last fortress held in Belgium for the King of Holland, British war ships aided in the bombardment. British sympathies were with Kossuth and Klapka in Hungarian struggles for liberty. They were with Mazzini, Garibaldi, and " Young Italy" against the Austrian. How, then, do they face the Irish question — the independence of an ancient nation, which has suffered and is suffering more agony and torture than these once enslaved peoples did from their conquerors, for which British pity was so freely offered ? In Ireland starvation accompanies slavery and degrading tyranny, the most cunning cruelty allied to the basest hypocrisy. This hypocrisy has been carried to the highest pinnacle of audacity; it proclaims itself from the mountain tops as an effort of the British Liberals to undo the past and confer native rule on Ireland. The nations look on with awe, wonderment, and respect, and the liberty loving peoples of the earth cry aloud " Hosanna! " to the name of William Ewart Gladstone. This English statesman is preaching the most generous and liberal of doctrines, advocating the emancipation of a nation which he admits to be most cruelly and wrongfully treated by his country, and for these admis- sions of wrong and promises of atonement, he has been assailed by such of his own countrymen who are his opponents in British partisan politics. But not these alone, the most liberal and advanced British thinkers and statesmen (using that word liberality from a British standpoint) who have hitherto been his associates in political life and members of the same Administration, these men have joined the Tories in denouncing Glad- stone's policy as most ruinous to British interests and destructive to the unity and stability of the empire. In proportion to the assaults of Mr. Gladstone's enemies and their loud condemnation of his policy, so are the Irish Provincialists on the other hand in the same proportion equally overjoyed, or appear to be, at the great measure offered by Mr. Gladstone and rejected by his British opponents. What wonder if the Irish people were filled with hope, and that mankind was confirmed in the belief that this Liberal statesman was really in earnest ! But, when we go to verify the reason for this great confidence in Ireland's ex-coercer, by examining the Bill upon which is built up both the faith of a section of the Irish people and the hostility of British Tories and Unionists ; when the searcher after truth comes to examine this measure which with the most monstrous effrontery has been foisted on mankind as a measure to confer Home Rule — i. e., self government — upon Ireland, he finds by the most cursory glance that there is nothing mystified, compli- cated, or difficult to comprehend. He who runs may read : he finds that all the infamies and tyrannies belonging to British rule in Ireland are legalized, compressed, and comprised into two clauses which create a despot to govern the Irish nation — a man who would be controlled by neither Parliament nor Irish public opinion. Ireland, by this infamous and insulting Bill, was to be placed under the irresponsible rule of one man, who was to have been alike law-giver and judge. By whose single mandate the nation would have to endure whatever tyrannies or coercions he dared inflict. And yet this fearful and most outrageous insult has been borne in silence by men for whom this exposure of the truth is not palatable. This crowning act of infamy is dealt by an English statesman NATIONALIST AND PROVINCIALIST. 15 from off whose tongue fall words of seeming kindness and apparent friend- ship, words which enrage his own countrymen, who bitterly assail him as a renegade to their interests. No one appears to have taken even a glance at this hideous mockery — the Act of coercion and crime, which is with Mephistophelian humor termed "A Home Rule Bill." And there before the world stands this great Englishman, full of years, ripe in wisdom, over- flowing with benevolence to the human family, receiving the adulation and worship of his numerous admirers ; but he who has read this product of his brain and knows how a suffering and enslaved nation hangs with hope upon its eventually passing that British Legislature in the firm belief, as they have been told time and again, it would remove their shackles ; he who has read this Bill and knows all this, pointing to this aged British Minister will say: "There stands the Incarnation of Deceit and Hypocrisy." Violating pledges is the uniform and unchanging career of every English Minister, for this is quite a picture of alien rule in Ireland since first the foreigner invaded that country. From the very first time that a portion of the inhabitants of Britain planted their feet upon the Irish soil as invaders to this year of grace, their career has been one of bloodshed and treachery. The Goths, the Vandals, nor the Tartars have not been so brutal in their lust of conquest nor in their rapacities and fiendish cruelties as this nation of hypocrites which has pursued unceasing a war of extermination in Ireland. And while this arch-hypocrite, Ireland's ex-coercer, the Liberal chieftain, is preaching his hollow platitudes, which appear to- deceive mankind, the steady work of extirpation goes on unceasingly in Ireland. In spite of the natural increase of the race the population is steadily declining from fifty to fifty-five thousand yearly : a destruction greater than the most bloody revolution could inflict ; and this is what Britain calls peace. These so-called Liberals are profiting by the aid which their new alliance gives to them, in keeping the Irish Nationalists quiet while this fearful destruction continues, which would seem to pre- sage the removal of the Irish people from their native land. While this havoc goes on the British Liberals keep promising loudly that they mean to emancipate the Irish people. And newspapers written by freemen in this glorious republic profess to admire the peaceful attitude assumed by the Irish people in Ireland while this enormous drain is depopulating their island, and this policy of resting satisfied at denouncing the Tories, while national death is rapidly looming in sight, is frequently spoken of in some such terms as these : "The admirable behavior of the Irish under the pressure of tyranny to which they have been subjected shows their fitness for self-government, and the intelligent consideration which the English people and the great Liberal party is about to accord them is a sign that is full of promise for both countries." Such articles as this are written for the descendants of the patriots at Lexington and the heroes of Bunker Hill to read. And Irish Provincialists who have misled the great American nation call such expressions "American sympathy." If the attitude of the Irish people to-day is worthy of respect and proves their fitness for self-government, then the action of the heroes of the American revolution is to be condemned, and should, to follow out a parity of reasoning, prove their incapacity to rule themselves. This belief in the dignity of doing nothing has been spread broadcast by the Irish Provincialists and their Liberal allies ; what wonder if freemen in the United States, immersed in their own politics and business, give it a hasty indorsement by the use of some such utterances ! The Nationalists do not believe in this fitness for self-government by idly standing by while the enemy destroys their people ; their motto is or was, " Bear any arms- you can sooner than live in slavish submission to the enemies of your country and your race." 16 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Look at the Irish people and their treatment by their hereditary enemies, a treatment which has been unmitigated and unchanged through every succeeding tyrannic Ministry, whether Liberals or Tories. Mur- der and Pillage stalked abroad, assuming in mockery the name of law. Look into the pages of history and see them considered a degraded caste, and pursued by the malevolence of their enemy to the shores of this republic, gloating over the vices that by a devilish system of poverty and ignorance are the Briton's own deliberate creation — vices he had implanted in those unfortunate serfs that are descended from an ancient and noble race. Look at them through the penal years and since without one solitary guarantee for life, religion, or property. The only hope during these penal days held out to those who wished to escape from this intolerable yoke was in denying the faith of their fathers. There is not an Irishman t©-day who passed his years in his native land and attained the age of manhood, but has in some measure felt the iron sway of the island of Britain and has had to bend his proud soul beneath the rod of British oppression. Pestilence and famine have been the chief engines of war of the foe, but the bayonet, the bullet, the buckshot, and the gallows have not been forgotten, as the towns of Ireland, which have been stained with the blood of her people shed by the instruments of foreign assassins, can testify. To-day Ireland has another infliction added to foreign rule, and that is the false teachings of the Provincialists, who have receded from their alliance with the Nationalists and thrown themselves into the arms of their former bitter enemies, Ireland's ex-coercers. So great has been this deception that it seems hopeless to assail it. This alliance, created over a pool of blood, has blinded the great masses of the Irish people. The Bill called Home Rule has never been discussed on its merits ; light would be ruinous to its Irish supporters, and possibly the majority of even the mem- bers of the enemy's Parliament are unacquainted with its provisions. It is impossible to estimate this perverse ignorance. It would seem as if Gladstone and Parnell had issued a Proclamation — " The thing called human intelligence is suppressed." To try and let the light on this appears a superhuman task ; there are obstacles confronting him who would dare attempt it, that appear power- ful enough to crush him. Vials of wrath, misrepresentation, and slander to face, that would appear impossible to overcome, and an alliance solid as granite, a falsehood made to appear as the truth, graven on the hearts of mankind. It is indeed a giant task to attempt to assail this, but we may be able to speak of this unnatural alliance between the British Lib- eral and Irish Provincial leader, by partly assimilating and adopting the utterances of a great and illustrious leader in the path of human progress. " We are in Russia ; the Neva is frozen over ; houses are built on the ice, and heavy chariots roll over it. 'Tis no longer water, but rock ; the people flock up and down the marble which was once a river. A town is run up, streets are made, shops opened, people buy, sell, eat, drink, sleep, light fires on what was once water. You can do what you please there, fear nothing. Laugh, dance ; 'tis more solid than terra firma. Why it sounds beneath the foot like granite. Hurrah for the winter ! Hurrah for the ice ! This will last till doomsday ! And look up at the sky ; is it day ? is it night ? what is it ? A dull wan light drags over the snow ; Why the sun is dving ! " No, thou are not dying, O Liberty ! One of these days at the moment when thou art least expected, in the hour when they shall have most utterly forgotten thee, thou wilt rise dazzling ! thy radiant face will sud- denly be seen issuing from the earth resplendent on the horizon ! Over all the snow, over all that ice, over that hard white plain, over that water NATIONALIST AND PROVINCIALIST. 17 become rock, over that villainous winter of treason and slavery, thou wilt cast thy arrows of gold, thy ardent and refulgent ray ! light, heat, life, and then listen ! hear you that murmuring sound ? hear you that cracking noise, so widespread and so formidable ? 'Tis the breaking up of the ice ! 'tis the melting of the Neva ! 'tis the river resuming its course ! 'tis the water, living, joyous, and terrible, upraising the hideous dead ice, and smashing it. "'Twas granite," said you ; see, it splinters like 'glass ! 'tis the breaking up of the ice, I tell you ; 'tis the truth re- turning ; tis the light of progress bursting on the Irish nation. They behold that the infamy of this alliance with the men of Belmullet, and Ballina, is no less impious than would be a union with the men of Mitchelstown. 'Tis the truth resuming its sway, the breaking to pieces and burying fathoms deep and forever this iniquitious alliance between Ireland's despots and destroyers and Ireland's representatives. And for this immense engulfment, this supreme victory of life over death, what was needed ? one of thy glories, O Sun ! one of thy rays, O Liberty ! Oh, my country ! It is at this moment when I see you bleeding, inanimate, your head hanging, your eyes closed, your mouth open, and no words issuing therefrom ; the mark of the whip upon your shoulders, the nails of the excutioners' shoes impressed upon your body, naked and sullied, and like a thing deprived of life, object of hatred, of derision. Alas ! it is at this moment, my country, that the heart of the exile over- flows with love and respect for you ! CHAPTER II. (1868 to 1874.) HOME RULE ASSOCIATIONS. Ireland from the Formation of the Federalist Home Government Association to the Public Appearance of Charles Stewart Parnell — Waiting for the Long Looked for Time — Absence of National Teaching — Remarkable Speeches of Mr. Gladstone — Mr. Gladstone's Coercion in Ireland — His Challenge to John Martin — Execution of Pierce Nagle, the Fenian Traitor — Account of his Treason — His Death in London — Great Home Rule Conference in Dublin, November, 1873 — Federalist Programme Formulated by the Conference — Approaching General Election. On January 24, 1874, William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister of Great Britain, dissolved Parliament and appealed to his country to indorse his administration. His Government was defeated in the election which ensued and the incoming Premier, Mr. Disraeli, included among his appointments to office Colonel Taylor, one of the British members of Parliament for the County Dublin. The succeeding by-election brought to the public gaze a young Irishman who has written his name in strangely varied char- acters on the page of his country's history. This young man, who opposed the re-election of Colonel Taylor for the Metropolitan Irish county, stood as a candidate of the Federal- ist Home Rule movement under the leadership of Mr. Isaac Butt, and was ushered into political life with great promise by the Provincialists, who were then active in Ireland. It had been circulated in both Nation- alist and Provincialist circles that he was a sincere and devoted Irish- man, prepared to make any sacrifice for the advancement and progress of his native land. The Provincialists were appealed to by the memory of his grand- uncle, who sat in the Settler's Parliament House, College Green, to give him their united support, and the Nationalists were reminded of his maternal grandfather, Commodore Stewart of the American Navy, the gallant Irish-American officer who so daringly attacked the British war vessels with his single ship. It was a long and protracted fight (a tale which the Irish loved to hear) ; the superiority of the British arma- ment was more than counterbalanced by Commodore Stewart's splendid seamanship and the heroic valor of the American sailors. Stewart maneuvered his frigate with such rapidity that he outsailed the enemy. # Pouring broadside after broadside into the hulls and rigging of the British ships, raking them fore and aft until their lee scuppers ran with blood, and amid the cheers of the American seamen the boasted Miss- tress of the Seas had to lower her flag to the glorious Stars and Stripes of the Young Republic. When Commodore Stewart was entertaining with genuine American hospitality his prisoners, the British captains, the senior of these officers accused his comrade of unskilled seamanship, which was, as he said, the cause of their misfortunes. In heaping reproaches on his junior, the British captain insisted that if his orders had been obeyed the American ship would have been their prize, and that Commodore Stewart would have changed places with them and have been their prisoner. The fiery 18 HOME RULE ASSOCIATIONS. 19 American officer arose and said : " Gentlemen, put your crews on board, and by we will fight the battle over again." This description of this celebrated naval engagement, fought during the War of 1812-14 between Britain and the United States, which reflected such honor and renown upon Mr. Parneil's grandfather, was circulated among the Nationalists, and many stories of Mr. Parneil's National leanings created an enthusiasm which no ordinary recruit to the ranks of the Provincialists could evoke. They expected in a little time, when Charles Stewart Parnell had studied the Irish difficulty with her invader, that he would be found in the forefront of the National ranks, and like Wolfe Tone, of glorious and immortal memory, doing battle against the oppressors of his enslaved country ; such were the hopes at that time centered in the grandson of heroic old Ironsides. Whether he crossed the Rubicon that divided the agitator from the patriot, and feel- ing that the weight of the armor was not equaled by the strength of his man- hood, and so retreated back — whether this is so or not, this generation is not likely to be enlightened. He himself repudiates it, and with scorn and loathing, as if he thought that to be ranked among the immortals who died for their country was a disgrace. Nationalists think that his associ- ation with the vile enemies of his motherland is the act of a British politician, and is regarded by patriots as degrading ; this alliance with men whose hands are red with the blood of the murdered Irish women and children, wantonly slain in perpetuation of a foreign system of infamy. The County Dublin had been for years misrepresented by Tories of the old school in the enemy's Parliament in London. The then sitting mem- bers, Colonel Taylor and Ion Trant Hamilton, looked upon the Parlia- mentary seats of Dublin County as heirlooms in their respective families. Mr. Hamilton had lately succeeded his father, who sat in the London Parliament as member for the Irish Metropolitan county to within a short period of his death. The announcement that Mr. Parnell was to contest the County Dublin in opposition to Colonel Taylor, who looked upon his unopposed return as a matter of course, caused some indignation in Tory circles, more especially as this neophyte for Parliamentary honors advocated the new school of politics called Home Rule. He was considered to be by right a Conser- vative, and these people looked upon his conduct as most reprehensible. At this time he was High Sheriff of the County Wicklow, an elected member of the Protestant Church synods, and being also a landlord, the Tories were horrified at his alliance with the Federalist Provincial party. Much anxiety was evinced in Irish circles to see and hear the new candidate, and on the night of his first public appearance a crowded hall greeted him. Mr. Isaac Butt introduced him to the audience with one of those brilliant flashes of eloquence of which he was master. As Mr. Parnell came forward, there was seen a young man, with dark brown eyes, who gazed intently at the crowded house before him, as if his soul was in the glance that scanned that sea of faces — grave and pensive, with light brown full beard and tall slender figure, which appeared slightly stooped. The audience broke forth into an enthusiastic greeting — it was the homage of the warm-hearted Celt tendered to the descendant of a man whose record as a brave sailor fighting the enemies of his country is on the pages of history. Mr. Parnell acknowledged this splendid reception with icy manner, but with dignity. He appeared extremely nervous, and delivered his exordium in low tones and with some hesitation, but as his speech pro- gressed and the subject grew upon him he became more at ease. With- out displaying any promise of oratorical powers, he spoke as a man of 20 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. deep thought — one with a profound conviction that there could be no social or material prosperity in Ireland without self-government. After the close of the public meeting, Mr. Isaac Butt introduced to him several well-known Irishmen who were present, and whenever Mr. Butt indulged in any facetious pleasantries, as was his wont when with friends, giving extraordinary characters in the Irish cause to some men whom he presented to Mr. Parnell, a quiet smile was seen for an instant on the young man's face, which disappeared as quickly. His eyes evinced no corresponding sympathy; they looked coldly and inquiringly around. In conversation he showed thorough knowledge of the political situation, as that of a man who had given deep study to Parliamentary warfare and party politics. His strong dislike to the English Liberals, as dangerous and hypocritical in their dealings with Ireland, was most marked. He believed that any entangling alliance with them meant the decadence and speedy dissolution of any Irish party who would so betray their trust as to coquette with these men. As to the Tories, their open and undisguised hostility was of such a nature that it precluded all possible thought of any alliance with them, consequently they were not so much to be feared. In Irish affairs they were always the weaker government of the two. The Liberal party, when in opposition, hampered the coercive tendencies of the Tories, but when in power, became unscrupulous and tyrannic despots in their government of Ireland. He used no superfluous words, but left the impression on his hearers that he thought out each sentence as he delivered it. This distinction between Tories and Liberals has always been, since Provincialism was first called into being by O'Connell, a cardinal article of its political creed. These men completely forget that in all foreign questions and conquests, these parties were rivals only for the greater benefit of the British nation, and that to surrender the government of Ire- land to the inhabitants of that island was, and always must be, opposed to their interests and hence impossible. They never could be satisfied in their convictions, and people will say, reasonably so, that if Ireland was to get such control as she is asking in a very quiet and persistent manner, in spite of all the denials and rebuffs the enemy gives her, that another generation, growing strong by the power conceded, would not throw off even the Federal tie. But to this the Provincialist will reply that the British army will be there to prevent any such violation of the contract, and that it would be impossible. This reply, so often given before to similar queries, illustrates fully the idea the Provincialist holds of national self-government, when foreign soldiers in the pay and under the control of a foreign ministry would continue to garrison Ireland. Mr. Parnell was defeated ; the franchise, at that time so limited, was in the possession of the Tories and Whigs, who voted solidly against the Federal programme. A small number of the Nationalists supported Mr. Parnell with the hope that in a short time he would himself give his services to the National cause. But the great majority, who believed it as an admission of the foreigner's right in usurping the government of their country, refused to vote — as they had always — for any man to mock them by his presence in the enemy's Legislature, where he was powerless to serve his country, and only humiliated the nation by the studied con- tempt or insults with which the enemy's deputies treated him if he even had the semblance of Provincialism. Had the Irish nation been advanced enough in its political education to elect men to stay at home, these Nationalists would then both vote and work at each election. This National principle not to vote is still a part of the political creed of numbers of Nationalists. There are men in Ireland who proudly boast that they never sullied their National faith by voting for any deputy HOME RULE ASSOCIATIONS. 21 going to London, to whine and beg to Ireland's enemies for the restora- tion of her stolen nationality. During the remarkable election of 1885, the Provincialists foolishly believed in English deceit and hypocrisy — the Tory played the hypocrite — and expected to get self-government. In all the counties where the enemy's deputies had no possible chance of election, men were glad to be able to preserve intact their steadfast cus- tom of refusing to go to the polls, and yet not injure Mr. Parnell's over sanguine hopes. In Tipperary County alone more than one-third of the voters absented themselves from the ballot-box. Mr. Butt was pleased with the manly attitude of Mr. Parnell, and promised at the first vacancy in any constituency with what they called National tendencies Mr. Parnell should receive the united support of the party. What was the condition of Ireland when Mr. Parnell came on the scene ? The decay and decline of her population, somewhat arrested during the revolutionary period, 1865, 1866, and 1867, had set in with steady persistence — a decline in population that should teach the leaders that the hour to strike the foe is passing away from them fast, if they mean to try and arrest this steady emigration that must soon exhaust the vitality of the nation. The Nationalists, although somewhat disorganized at the inability and incompetency of their leaders to put them in the field — with which this history will deal later — were reorganized, but the absence of a healthy National literature and the spread of Provincialist teaching was doing serious mischief. In addition to this, the best intellects of Ireland had ceased to work in the National ranks ; both at home and in America they found themselves having so often to defend their own honor against the calumnies of brainless men, that they retired from the contest in despair. That curse of faction, which is a part of every enslaved race, was giving aid to the enemy, and men who would have shed luster on the movement were deterred from joining by the incompetent men, although sincere patriots, who conducted the movement in some districts. But the masses of the people, ever honest and faithful to Ireland, enrolled themselves in the ranks of the Nationalists. These simple-minded men felt satisfied that this was their duty to their country, but without leaders of ability or breadth of mind sufficient to grasp the situation they could do nothing. The Revolutionary movement became an opportunist organization, waiting — while the nation was being depleted by thousands every year, ?nore than the enemy could kill or put hors-de-combat in a war for inde- pendence — waiting for Heaven to perform some miracle by which they hoped to take the field. There was no healthy national teaching, no books written, no lectures delivered — except by Provincialists, on Ireland's wrongs, which the men in Ireland are a daily witness to — no spreading broadcast that true national faith among the masses who needed light and education, no teaching of the great question so hidden or darkened by the enemy, and so distorted by the Provincialists. While all these were lacking, the natural instincts of the people and the remarkable patriotism of even the uneducated left Ireland much room for hope, if Providence had only supplied her with brave and intelligent leaders. The British enemy had learned to fear them — the next step to respect. Hitherto it had been indifference or contempt. Soon it became that healthier feeling of hate. The Manchester rescue and the Clerkenwell explosion had irritated and annoyed the English people. So long as this war was confined to Ireland they did not care, but when the tragic inci- dents of the struggle became enacted at their own door, even the mighty metropolis of London itself, John Bull became seriously alarmed. 22 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. An unreasoning panic, a universal national fright, upset the usual equanimity of the stolid Englishman. Every conceivable atrocity was attributed to the Fenians. Mr. Gladstone's attention was drawn to the conditions of Ireland by the desperate action of the Fenian Nationalists, and needing a cry to go to the country, he appealed to the English people to disestablish the Episcopalian Church in Ireland. It drew large revenues from the Crown and from glebe lands in Ireland set apart for its maintenance, and in many districts in the south of Ireland the worshipers who attended the churches consisted of scarce a dozen souls. It was the church of an insig- nificant portion of the people, so far as numbers were concerned, but its communicants were all the wealthy landlords and the aristocratic pro- British portion of the population. It might be thought that men of such high station and great wealth could well afford to sustain their Church without state aid, particularly as the poor persecuted peasant supported his church, which flourishe'd in wealth and magnificence. Some of the most beautiful Gothic churches sprung up over the island, with handsome and expensive altars, imported from Munich and other foreign homes of ecclesiastical art, all built and supported on the voluntary system. For a nation steeped in poverty and every decade seeking alms before the world, it is the most extraordinary feature of the Irish character ; their piety and devotion to their faith is unexampled in the history of peoples. Mr. Gladstone, when he set out on his crusade against the Established Church, aroused powerful and influential interests, and all the Irish rebels of wealth and station, every aristocratic Irish traitor, who was disloyal to his country and loyal to her enemy and invader, was up in arms and hostile to Mr. Gladstone's attack, as they termed it, on their Church. The question assumed gigantic proportions in England. And a vast number of the people, knowing or caring very little about Irish grievances, and being strong partisans, took Mr. Gladstone's statements for granted facts, considered they were about to do Ireland great service, and confer upon her a substantial benefit by removing what they were told was an incubus on the nation, and one that retarded very seriously Irish happiness. Whether Mr. Gladstone believed the extraordinary speeches he delivered at this time it is impossible to say. 'It is self-evident that these state- ments are the stock in trade of English politicians and statesman, given before the world as sublime sentiments at suitable periods, whenever the policy of a particular party needs them. The Irish trouble has drawn from English Ministers a fair sprinkling of hollow sentiments, and a good deal of rant, possibly believed for the time by the speaker, as a first class actor in simulating a character loses himself in the impersonation, so that the applause given to the British statesmen, more especially to that remark- able man, William Ewart Gladstone, has the same ground for its approval. The Minister of England speaking of Ireland's woes is like the artist before the footlights: both are admirably simulating a character, and the more naturally they delineate the original, the more perfect are they each in his art. The role of the Minister is to pose as the friend, the lover, and the giver of good things to Ireland. To speak of any of these British meas- ures as conveying any real or substantial benefits is to state what every Irishman who cares to study the subject knows to be wrong. Ireland has not been benefited in the smallest manner by any of these many acts of the British Parliament. There is nothing complicated in the Irish trouble, no real mystery or scientific study, to give that admirable actor, William Ewart Gladstone, such splendid opportunities to talk for hours, twisting and intertwining a knot which he started out with the view of unraveling until his bewildered auditors — not in any manner understanding the question, but who were in a vague way impressed with the fact that Ireland complains HOME RULE ASSOCIATIONS. 23 of something, and admiring the patience and benevolence of their great and learned countryman — they at this time cried out, " By all means satisfy these troublesome Irish, disestablish the Episcopalian Church, and let them cease brawling." There is no complication whatever in Ireland's demand — that is, the national demand — not that of time-serving, selfish politicians. What the nation needs is as plain as noonday, as clear as the running brooks glistening in God's sunshine: The island of Ireland to be left in the complete and actual possession of her people, the British in- vaders to pack up and leave it bag and baggage, to take their officials, their army, their navy, and all the impedimenta of their execrable rule, and go home to their island of Britain, leaving the two islands as separate and distinct politically as they left the hands of the Great Creator. Two separate nations inhabited by as distinct a people, as foreign to each other in habits, in tastes, in genius, and ability as any two distinct races on the globe. All the statesmen that ever sat at a council board, all the philosophers of antiquity or the leading lights of science in our day, not even the most pious, most holy, and most learned fathers of all the creeds, could, if all united in one congress, satisfactorily settle this difference between these two islands in the west of Europe in any other manner. The Irish Church was no financial grievance to the people whatever ; it was simply the badge of serfdom, or rather one of its badges, and so long as the nation groaned beneath the weight of foreign oppression what emblems they bore upon their banner of tyranny made no material difference to the unemployed, poverty-stricken people of Ireland. This great agitation took place in the autumn of 1868. The Irish Church, then so much spoken of, had been an intolerable and serious grievance. When the produce of the soil was seized and sold for the payment of tithes, then the farmer felt the monstrous injustice of support- ing a Church to which he did not belong ; but this direct levying of the tithes had been removed more that thirty years previous. This Church was practically disestablished so far as the Irish people's interests were directly influenced in 1837. Since that period no Irish peasant paid one penny in support of the Episcopalian Church. This was brought about by the use of the only weapons which Britain, like every other conquering power, will listen to, namely : force, or the fear of force. Provincialists who are preaching in Ireland to-day passive resistance or peaceful plans of campaign, are deaf to the lessons of his- tory. Some few of them no doubt are sincere, but how shallow must their reasoning powers be when this is admitted. The Irish peasants had a great Provincialist at their head at this time, a man of superior ability, Daniel O'Connell ; but not all the passive resistance or plans of cam- paign that could be devised by the most ingenious could stay the tithe demand, like to-day with the land tax called rent ; it was pay or be sold out. Goaded by the small tyranny of the proctors the people rushed to arms, and their weapons were principally scythes. The armed forces of the enemy and the people came into collision, much bloodshed followed ; and the decisive battle of Carrickshock, which was a victory for the peo- ple, settled the question at once and forever. The British ministry were alarmed, as they always are when Irishmen resort to force. They natur- ally feared the tithe war might develop into a national war, which it pos- sibly might have done but for the teachings and policy of these most useful agents of Britain, the Provincialists. It is not conveyed by this statement that these people meant in any way to be England's allies, unless a few time-serving leaders, but their monstrous slavish teaching was of more value to keep the people from asserting themselves than all the forces of the enemy, as is witnessed in Ireland to this day. Mr. Gladstone made a series of eloquent and powerful speeches, as 24 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. this great Minister can, on any imaginable subject. He was determined to be restored to power and once more enjoy the honors and advantages of office, and the Irish Church was an admirable and useful party cry for the great Liberal. In all his speeches during the general election of 1868, he appealed to the most potent power in changing English opinion, namely, the fear of force. The dread of an Irish national war which might easily spread to England, causes more terror and panic to the British heart than a million Irish orators or all the passive resistance or voting power the Provincialists could bring to bear to solve their impossi- ble demand, a self-governed Ireland under the enemy's flag. In the course of a long speech in Wigan, October 4, 1868, Mr. Glad- stone said, alluding to Ireland and her past demand : " Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington, foregoing their deep and cherished con- victions, frankly told the country they accepted Catholic emancipation not as a good but a lesser of the two evils, and that if the people of this country were not prepared to accept it they must be prepared for the risk." " Duke of Wellington said : ' You must take the policy recom- mended, or else as honest and courageous men you must be prepared to face the consequences. .' " If those who are inclined to listen to the shallow teachings of the Provincialists would read these remarkable utterances of two of Britain's foremost statesmen in the past, quoted by the most prominent of her Ministers to-day, they would learn what kind of arguments influence British statesmen. To impress the British people with the necessity of disestablishing the Irish Church, Mr. Gladstone used the remarkable utterance that the explosion in Clerkenwell blew up that institution, and to further impress them with the seriousness and necessity for its dises- tablishment he quoted the speeches delivered by two Tory ministers dur- ing the struggle for Catholic emancipation. And yet Irishmen call Daniel O'Connell the liberator ! His power of oratory, the witching magic, the beauty of his voice that could entrance an Irish audience, had no influence whatever in the councils of the foreigner. He did not weigh a feather weight in the scale of their preju- dices. The Irish people might re-elect him for Clare until doomsday, before such an absurd means of influencing an enemy's councils would be seriously discussed by British ministers. The enemy was in possession of most important information, the Irish Nationalists were quietly prepar- ing to take the field against the British invader. In the face of this serious danger with which they were threatened, O'Connell was no more thought of, nor his speeches, which they considered as so much Billings- gate abuse ; he was no more to them than a fly would be alighting on the hand of a leader of a forlorn hope, who was about to mount a scaling ladder to enter the enemy's works charged with death, a something insig- nificant to be brushed aside. These British ministers remembered Oulart Hill, Enniscorthy, and Arklow, these sanguinary battles where British troops and British mercenaries were strewn by Irish valor in heaps of slain, upon these bloody fields, and they dreaded a renewal of those days. But what increased their alarm was the news they heard of the disaf- fection among the Irish Catholic soldiers. It was this terror which caused a panic in British councils and compelled England's bigoted king to sign the charter of Catholic emancipation. What a monstrous delusion, attributing this law to O'Connell's influence ! He had no more to do with the councils of the British nation, and he held there not even the same influence as the story teller in an Eastern court does in shaping the firmans of the Sultan. It is to the memory of the gallant men of '98 that Ireland should give the title " Liberator," if there was any liberation in the law. It i& HOME RULE ASSOCIATIONS. 25 not to the argument of the Provincialist, but to the fear of the pike of the National insurgent that Ireland remains indebted for this freedom of worship granted by his much extolled Bill. Mr. Gladstone continued his appeals to the fears of the British ; in another speech at this time he said : " In Ireland we have a population, a large portion of whom look either with aversion or sullen neutrality on the operation of the law. So long as that continues to be the case, and so long as tranquillity in Ireland is maintained only by the presence of overwhelming armed force, and the suspension of personal liberty — and when you have placed the guarantees of liberty in abeyance, you have arrived at a point only one step from civil war, or you have arrived at a state of things in which you find yourself engaged in a combat with a foreign foe, powerful enough to effect a landing on the shores of Ireland. . . We have thought it our duty to look in the face this dark fact of Irish discontent. Lord Lytton said, ' We talk of Irish bulls, but the words Irish Church are the greatest bulls in the language. It is called the Irish Church because it is a church not for the Irish.' " Mr. Gladstone, in his exertions to win over the English electorate to his views on the Irish question, told some very plain truths. He delivered the following very remarkable address on October 15, 1S68, at Liverpool : " They (the Tories) persist in refusing to take any true and adequate measure of the great evil by which Ireland is afflicted — I mean the estrangement of the minds of the people from that law, from public authority, from this country — aye and even to a great extent from the very throne under the shadow of which we are happy to live. Lord Mayo told us that a very large portion of the population of Ireland was either in positive sympathy with Fenianism, or else ready to seize the very first opportunity of armed resistance to the law. Mr. Maguire tells us he meets an Irish Southerner who has been crippled in the war fight- ing for the Southern cause, but that man holds up the other arm and says, ' This is the only arm I've left, and so help me God I'd give it and every drop of my heart's blood if I could strike one blow for Ireland.' Go to Canada and look for a few minutes at the state of the Irishmen in Canada. In what does Canada differ from the United Kingdom? Canada has a free Parliament and so have we, but Canada has not installed and enthroned in exclusive privilege the Church of the minority." How willful are English statesmen in refusing to comprehend plain truths when Ireland is being discussed ! Mr. Gladstone will not recognize the fact, which is apparent to any thinking man, that Ireland is not legally a part of the United Kingdom, and Britain holds no authority to frame her laws. Mr. Gladstone was successful in his appeal to the British people — the Irish Church was disestablished. The fears which he conjured up by introducing the specter of Fenianism helped him to thousands of waver- ing votes. But that which more especially broke down British prejudice was the knowledge that the passing of this Bill could not interfere with English interests, and that Britain could still enjoy her Irish trade monop- oly, and Irish industries continue paralyzed. The disestablishment of the Church had one effect in Ireland of which Mr. Gladstone never dreamt. Many of the better class Protestants who saw their country going to decay, used the irritation of their co-relig- ionists against Gladstone for the common good, for there can be no possi- ble reason that their motherland should not be as dear to them as to their Catholic brethren. This dissatisfaction even found an entrance to the Orange Lodges ; the Nationalists now began to awaken to the knowledge that a great fermen- tation was taking place in the minds of men hitherto opposed to even the 26 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. discussion of Provincialism. The experience of the Nationalists and the history of the country taught them that with the addition of these sturdy Irishmen to the ranks of patriots great hope in the near success of the cause might be reasonably entertained. The Nationalists had struggled to remove that deadly blight — religious bigotry; it had been the most ardent work which patriots, since the days of Wolfe Tone, set before them, and now there came the hope so exquisitely expressed in the lines of the poet : Come — pledge again thy heart and hand, One grasp that ne'er shall sever ; Our watchword be — our native land ; Our motto — Love forever. And let the Orange lily be Thy badge, my patriot brother ; The everlasting green for me, And we for one another. Behold how gallant green the stem On which the flower is blowing ; And in one heavenly breeze and beam Both flower and stem are growing. The same good soil sustaining both, Make both united flourish ; It cannot give the orange growth And cease the green to nourish. United in our country's cause, Our party colors blended ; Till lasting peace from native laws On both shall have descended. Till then the orange lily be Thy badge, my patriot brother ; The everlasting green for vie, And we for one another. Isaac Butt, a great lawyer who had been engaged during the so-called trials of the I. R. B. Nationalists, and a Conservative of the old school, joined in the new movement then spreading among the Protestant citizens of Dublin. During the Fenian trials he was associated with the prisoners ; his contact with these men, many of them men of cultured minds, all of them men of intelligence, sincerely and truly patriotic, their self-sacrifice and devotion to their native land made an impression on his mind and changed the once opponent to national aspirations into a believer in Home Rule. When the amnesty association started he became its presiding officer. The state of the country, the continued decline in trade, and unceas- ing emigration attracted the attention of men hitherto considered British Conservatives. The State Church was removed, but Irish ills remained. The dissatisfied members of the disestablished Church held a private meet- ing in the Bilton Hotel, Dublin, on the evening of May 19, 1870, and there was created the germ of the Home Rule movement. A second meeting was held in the Imperial Hotel, where a committee was appointed to con- sider and report what the nature and objects of the new organization should be, and prepare a draft report for the next meeting. A third private meeting was called for June 2, 1870, to which the committee reported. They recommended that a native legislature should be the object of the new organization, the Irish Parliament to have the power under a Federal arrangement to manage all matters relating to the internal affairs of the country and the control of Irish resources and revenues, subject to the obligation of contributing a fair proportion to Imperial expenditure, the Imperial Parliament retaining the power of HOME RULE ASSOCIATIONS. 27 dealing with all questions affecting the Imperial Crown and Government and the defense and stability of the empire. The meeting went on to say that the public mind was turning strongly on a Home Parliament as the only means of arresting the decaying condition of the country and infusing some life into the Irish social system. On August 12, 1870, the Home Government Association came before the world with an address from the provisional committee. Thus was born into political life the second great Provincialist movement, with the title which has since become so familiar, termed Home Rule. It will be noticed that all these movements which have for object not the removal of Ire- land's curse, foreign supremacy, but merely its reform, always start out with the demand for certain powers of an extensive nature for the Irish Parliament, so nearly approaching the authority of a national congress in a free republic that the Irish masses are easily captivated ; they are told that the procuring of this Parliament is within the scope of a peace- ful agitation, whose only weapons shall be the playing off of British parties one against the other, and the influence of reason on the British people. They only ask the legislative control of the internal affairs of the nation, including Irish resources and revenues. An independent con- gress in a free nation could not possibly have greater legislative authority ; the Imperial affairs which these gentlemen would leave to what they are pleased to call the Imperial Parliament, an Irish Republic would have no interference with whatever. Does it seriously enter into the belief of any thinking man that Britain will ever peacefully surrender such power and control over Ireland's internal affairs as were solemnly put forth by this assemblage of respectable Protestant gentlemen, containing at that time some prominent Orangemen ? It is just that she should, they will say. If truth and justice had any influence on the issue, most certainly she would restore to Ireland her stolen independence. To agitate peacefully to get back a Parliament with these necessary powers is the same as to agi- tate for separation politically. One will be granted by the invader as soon as the other. Let there be plain speaking here ; there is'no possible chance for this great issue to be peacefully settled. It must be decided by force or else the certainty of national death. It is a remarkable fact that all these Provincial movements that have agitated unhappy Ireland always started out with these demands for full and perfect control over the resources of the country, and yet would accept some miserable measure, a fraud, and not worth the paper on which it was written. This gave some of the less scrupulous agitators a something to show the people and an opportunity to prove by the wildest assertions that this delusion was a piece of coming liberty. From the top of the ladder they went down rung by rung until they mingled with the enemy's legislators as one of themselves, becoming British partisans, with no remains of the grand and much-praised programme with which they won the Irish heart. Their great argument to the British people, and even to the Irish, is that it is Britain's interest to settle this Irish trouble, and in her own interests it would be right for her to grant Home Rule to Ireland. It might be said to the burglar who has broken into a house and is laden with booty, that it is his interest to surrender his plunder, for if ever his victim whom he has gagged gets loose, he will most certainly be punished. While the victim remains gagged the burglar will be of a differ- ent opinion. Britain has Ireland gagged and with the passive resistance, which is to quietly submit to the gagging, counseled by the Provincialists the victim is not likely to be loosened. To give to Ireland what she demands would be a material injury to British trade interests, apart from the National tendencies of the Irish people, which are hostile to Britain. 28 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. The Home Government Association, when a vacancy offered in the representation of Dublin City, put forward a Provincialist, but one who professed very advanced views on the condition of Ireland. The first candidate of the new organization was Captain Lawrence King-Harman, at present (1887) known as Colonel King-Harman, Tory Assistant Secre- tary for Ireland, a rabid coercionist. The King-Harman of that day was a man whom the people believed to be sincere and honest in his advocacy of Home Rule for Ireland. The Irish followers of Mr. Gladstone, agitators of the old school, when Irishmen who believed that the Parliament of Britain was the proper place to plead for their country's welfare, loved to be called by one of the British party names, and were known like their English comrades as Liberals. The Provincialists who now misrepresent Ireland have taken their position in British parties. The only difference existing is that the Gladstonians have adopted the name of Home Rulers, which is a dis- tinction in title without a difference in policy. For they are as much in favor of giving to Ireland Home Rule as specified in the platform of that party — that is, full or any control over Irish revenues and resources, as their rivals the Toiies. The only liberality dealt to Ireland besides mock legislation was a liberal and generous supply of coercion. King-Harman was supported by a strange admixture of parties. The dissatisfied Orangemen — but with most of these it was more pique than patriotism — gave him warm support. The Evening Mail of Dublin, the Orange organ, preached Home Rule doctrines. Dr. Maunsell, its pro- prietor, was a member of the Home Rule party and a stanch supporter of the Home Rule candidate. Along with the Irish Provincialists, a small section of the Nationalists helped King-Harman. Among his ablest sup- porters and one who worked for his election, was the late unfortunate James Carey. Sir Dominic Corrigan was the Liberal or Gladstone Candidate ; he considered the Irish very ungrateful to put up a rival candidate to one of Mr. Gladstone's supporters — a man who had promised so much to Ire- land and who had conferred the great boon of disestablishing the Irish Church. What wretched cant and falsehood are these fulsome praises of the Chief of the enemy's Liberal party ! They are to be heard multiplied to-day as full of adulation and untruth as they were then. Sir Dominic Corrigan was elected by a small majority, which was termed, in England, Ireland's indorsement of Mr. Gladstone's policy. The first public meeting of the new Home Rule Association was held in the Rotunda, Dublin, on the evening of September 1, 1870. Alderman Mackay was in the chair ; on the platform were Mr. Brown, M. P., Mayo ; Mr. Shaw, M. P., Bandon ; A. M. Sullivan, Dublin Nation ; Dr. Maunsell, Evening Mail; Rev. Mr. McQuade, Roman Catholic parish priest, County Clare. There were present Protestant and Catholic clergymen, Orange and Catholic editors, all animated with one thought — the necessity for self-government in Ireland to preserve a dying nation and to create material prosperity in a country drained of its wealth by the people of a neighboring island. But ignoring the lessons of history, they looked upon any but peaceful methods as both unchristian and illegal, to recover this stolen Home Rule, forgetting that by the use of the word legal they recognized their enemy's right to rule them. They also never thought of the great importance of their peaceful request to England ; that justice to Ireland, *". e., full and complete self- government, which demand they were about to formulate, meant a gigantic loss to British manufactures and commerce and English interests. HOME RULE ASSOCIATIONS. 29 In a word, Britain was to create a native government and Parliament to develop and build up a rival commercial power, which, although like Canada under her flag and part of her Empire, would still be an injury to her trade and manufactures as a competitor in European markets. British statesmen were to do this peacefully and legally by- appealing to their sense of justice. Heaven help us out of this delusion ; what a strange species of insanity infects what is termed the Conserva- tive Irish mind ! Mr. Lawrence Waldron, a former M. P. for Tipperary, moved a resolution at this meeting, declaring that every day's experience more forcibly impressed the conviction that the Imperial Parliament (i. e., British) is unequal to the task of adequately legislating in detail for the varied wants and local requirements of the three kingdoms, and that the interests of Ireland are especially misunderstood, disregarded, or sacrificed in that assembly. This resolution was seconded by Mr. W. Shaw, M. P. Rev. Professor Galbraith of Trinity College moved a resolution to the effect that it is absolutely essential to the well being of the country that the present legislative system be terminated and the management of Irish affairs committed to an Irish Parliament sitting in the national capital, where Irish business can best be transacted, and composed of Irish representatives, who can best understand the requirements of their country. Dr. Grattan, nephew of Henry Grattan, and other speakers followed in the same strain. The last resolution was one which thrilled the hearts of every Irish patriot present ; by this resolution the meeting solemnly pledged themselves to each other and to their country to enter earnestly in this National movement, burying for country 's sake all bygone feuds and bitter memories. These resolutions express clearly and plainly this Irish demand. The Irish Nationalists thoroughly indorse them, but they know, and the Provincialists if they seriously reflect must admit, that they are impossible of accomplishment by peaceful means ; the word self-government in Ireland goes to the very root of English and Irish interests, which are unques- tionably antagonistic. At whose expense would Irish industries be developed ? At the loss of all Irish trade to English merchants and manufacturers, and in the words of Professor Galbraith these are essential to the well being of Ireland. The last resolution, union of creeds and classes for the national welfare, had always been the cardinal doctrine of the Irish Nationalists. Mr. Gladstone, true to his hypocritical position, that of an English Minister posing as the friend of Ireland, introduced a severe coercion measure for that country — the usual outcome of British promises, and more especially those of Ireland's most deceitful friend, William Ewart Gladstone. The pages of history reveal no greater turpitude than this statesman's generous promises, so quickly followed by cruel and despotic deeds. This serpent wooing is leading numbers of our people to politi- cal destruction to-day. Even in his last so-called Home Rule Bill, the measure when printed gives the lie to his speech in the House one week before. He never came to power without passing a coercion measure for Ireland, even during his last short term of office. Mr. John Martin, a veteran Irish patriot, returned to Ireland from America. He joined the Home Rule ranks and was elected member for Meath. During the passage of Mr. Gladstone's Coercion Bill, the famous challenge to John Martin was given by Mr. Gladstone in the House. Mr. Gladstone, in the course of an able speech, giving his reasons why Ireland needed coercion, with just as eloquent and forcible language as he now denounces the Tories for following his example, said : " The honorable member for Meath [Mr. Martin] has come among us with certain 30 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. stereotyped opinions which I will venture to call antiquated, for they are the inheritance of a former people — they are the growth of circumstances that have passed away ; but I cannot wonder and cannot complain if he be so far the servant of the evil traditions of his country and the evil tradi- tions of our country — for I fully admit that it is our, rather than his countrymen, who are responsible for the mischief that has come down to us; that he fails to exhibit on his first coming amongst us that flexi- bility of mind which would enable him to appreciate the full force of the efforts, and I may say the sacrifices, the British Parliament has made for the sake of carrying the spirit of peace into Ireland and giv- ing strength and unity to the Empire. I tell the honorable member for Meath we are not afraid to compete with him for the future confi- dence of Ireland. We see the nature of the challenge he makes to us ; he proclaims himself as one of those who are in foreign countries called the irreconcilables, and perhaps he does not decline the epithet. Well, sir, he will pass away and I shall pass away, but there are many who now sit here whom I firmly believe will outlive the opinions of which the honorable gentleman is now in this House the solitary organ. It is impossible that acts of justice and good will should not bear fruit. We acted on all the dearest principles of life and action when we proffered our confidence in the people of Ireland and when we ventured in those early days to say that we constantly received the most gratifying testi- mony to the effect that is being produced — tranquilly and gradually pro- duced — in the minds and hearts of the people by the acts of the British Parliament. . . ." The people of Ireland read this speech of the English Premier with surprise that so learned a man and so prominent an Englishman as Mr. Gladstone should allow himself to be carried away by the fancy that there was the smallest, even the very smallest material concession to Ireland in the disestablishment of the Irish Church. That measure had no more effect upon the comfort and happiness of the Irish people than if Mr. Gladstone had passed a law to regulate the Buddhist religion, or had deposed the Grand Llama of Thibet. His Land Bill was of similar importance. The Irish farmers suffered the same as if this wonderful measure had never been heard of. In the opening of his speech Mr. Gladstone speaks of frightful organizations and of secret societies spreading over the land. He repeats the stereotyped phraseology used by British Ministers when applying to their Parliament for those easily acquired coercive powers. How mag- nificent are Mr. Gladstone's sentiments, when he tells the Irish he is acting on "the dearest principles of his life," and he continues to tell them that he has the utmost confidence in the people of Ireland! Is coercion a proof of this confidence ? it is a repetition of Mr. Gladstone's old hypocritical cant. Ireland's choice lies between the poison of the Liberal Serpent and the fangs of the Tory Wolf. In his challenge to John Martin, Mr. Gladstone plainly proves the utter impossibility of English Ministers ever understanding, or trying to do so, the real issue between the two nations ; many are inclined to think they do not want to comprehend it. Mr. Gladstone repeats the antiquated statement that " previous generations of Englishmen mis- governed Ireland, but all this is a thing of the past, these evils have been removed." Irishmen who refuse to believe Mr. Gladstone are fossils representing the evil traditions of the past. Mr. Gladstone falls into the error of all his countrymen when speak- ing of Irish disaffection — i. e., Irish nationality ; they think the main- spring of this power exists in foreign countries. The most serious events in Irish history have been the work of men who never left their native HOME RULE ASSOCIATIONS. 31 land. Change of residence makes no change in the Irishman ; the patriotic members of the community are the same everywhere, possibly a little more " irreconcilable " in Ireland and Britain than in America. This may appear, to those who have not given this question the necessary study, a strange statement. It should be recollected that it is marvelous that the American Irish are so patriotic and faithful to their motherland, considering that their interests are so necessarily bound up in their adopted country. Their generosity in contributing money for Irish national purposes is unequaled in history. There is one class of foreign Irish that seems, owing to their silence, to be completely overlooked. These are the German, Austrian, Russian, French, and Spanish Irish, who may become more potent factors in the solution of this question than Britain or possibly Ireland dreams of. It is not meant those of Irish birth, those are of course patriotic ; but men whose ancestors have lived in Europe for generations. Their numbers are small but their power is immense. The Irish veteran whom he challenged replied to Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Martin said, that as one opposed to this measure both in principle and detail, in whole and in all its parts, he must renew his protest against it at every stage of its fatal progress. He did not expect that the Right Honorable gentleman would, on the second reading of the Bill, have come forward to vindicate this exceptional policy which had been applied only to Ireland, and never to England or Scotland ; but he had thought proper to leave this vindication of the policy for which he was morally responsible to the talented and learned gentleman, the Solicitor General for Ireland. That learned gentleman (the present Judge Dowse) had in his opinion a very comic way of doing rather tragic business. His statements and arguments might be satisfactory to the govern- ment with which he was connected, but he felt bound to say, however well those statements and arguments, or things which passed for arguments, might be received in that House, they would in Ireland be received merely as the statements of an advocate speaking from his brief. He believed the Right Honorable gentleman was desirous of conciliating the Irish people by redressing their wrongs, every one of which had resulted from the rule of which he was the head, so far as what he and Parliament regarded as English ititerests would permit. . . The Irish people had never asked this Parliament to take charge of their affairs, they had never consented, and he believed they would never con- sent, that this Parliament should have charge of their affairs. However the Irish people might submit to the laws of this country, they would never acknowledge the right of any other authority to make laws binding on the Irish people but the free Parliament of Ireland. The Right Honorable gentleman had challenged him as to the reception that would be given by the people of Ireland to his antiquated policy, as he was pleased to call it. He was willing to accept the challenge of the Right Honorable gentleman upon fair conditions. He would accept the Right Honorable gentleman's challenge on these conditions ! Let him suspend for one year the system of illegality by which Ireland was governed — the jury-packing system which had been the rule in all political trials, so long as he had been able to observe public affairs in that country ; let the rights of the constitution as they existed in England and Scotland be restored to Ireland ; let the people of Ireland be entitled to have arms, to learn the use of them ; to form themselves into volunteer companies ; let them have a free press ; let that system be tried for one year, and it would be seen whether the policy of this measure was a wise and patriotic policy to pursue, and whether on the other hand, the confi- dence he felt in the ineradicable love of freedom of his countrymen would not turn out to be correct. 32 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. The suspension of the habeas corpus in Westmeath and in portions of Meath had been advocated on the ground that offenses against the law were committed in that part of Ireland, and it was not practicable for the law authorities to obtain evidence by which to detect and punish the offenders. Then it was immediately concluded from that premise, that the Habeas Corpus Act should be suspended, and that the Lord Lieuten- ant should be enabled to seize and imprison for two years any or all of the inhabitants of these districts. It had, however, never occurred to any of the advocates of this measure, to show in what way the imprisonment of some or all of the inhabitants of these districts would enable the Government in Ireland either to detect or to punish the criminal. Although the people of this country had long ago got rid of the antiquated notion of the divine right of kings, they appear to have supplanted it by the worse notion of the divine right of ministers. It has been argued by the honorable and learned Solicitor General for Ireland, and also by the noble lord who introduced the measure in another place, that the Lord Lieutenant would know whom to imprison and whom to leave untouched, and the former had already congratulated the House upon the fact that even an attempt to pass the measure had induced suspected parties to fly from the country. If the Lord Lieutenant, assisted by the honorable and learned gentleman, the Solicitor General for Ireland, and the stipendiary magis- trates of Westmeath, Meath, and Kings counties, was as infallible as the Pope himself, and was all-seeing and all-knowing upon this subject, why did not the government pass a bill through Parliament empowering the Lord Lieutenant to hang and transport every inhabitant of Ireland whom he might suspect? There would be quite as much respect for constitutional law in such a measure as there was in that now before the House. He could scarcely express the indignation he felt at having to express sentiments, which were those of nine out of every ten of the Irish people, before a careless and impatient House ; he complained not of the manner in which he had been listened to, but of the gulf of mind that existed between the House and himself on this subject. Honorable members in that House frequently spoke of Irish crime and outrage with the utmost horror — Pharisaical cant ! but what would the simple, noble, pious, Catholic peasantry of Meath think of the criminal condition of this country when they learnt that a committee was sitting upstairs to inquire into the best mode of giving protection to infant life in England. He did not expect that that inquiry would result in a Bill being brought into that House with the title of " Protection of Infant Life (England) Bill." Mr. John Martin's speech attracted universal attention ; even the great "Thunderer" of Printing House Yard, then Gladstonian in its views, replied to the Irishman's speech, and of course tried to belittle his argu. ment. In its issue of May 29, 187 1 ; it said : " The Nationalist member for Meath has already made a certain mark in the House of Commons. His earnest and striking speeches have found a hearing which the crude and impracticable opinions they ex- press could scarcely be expected to secure, and his outspoken scorn for the Ministerial policy of conciliation toward Ireland, wrung from Mr. Gladstone on Friday night a defiance which had the ring of the confident and convincing rhetoric which carried the Church and Land Bills. " It is too late for Mr. Martin, or the party which he represents, to HOME RULE ASSOCIATIONS. 33 deny at this time of day that the Irish people cared nothing for the dis- establishment of the Church or for security of tenure. " In the face of all his friends' pleadings Mr. Martin tells us now that the Irish people never sought to have their wrongs redressed by the Imperial Parliament, and would wish us to infer that our work of the past two sessions has been rather officious than meritorious ; an impetus toward the sister island, rather than a message of peace. "The policy of 'the irreconcilables ' has at all events the disadvan- tage of being impracticable at present. " Meantime the policy of conciliation, which Mr. Gladstone's Govern- ment, the Liberal party, and the Reform Parliament have so earnestly pursued is at work. Is it to be abandoned because ' the irreconcilables ' tell us that Ireland can never be conciliated ? " The implacable hostility which the member for Meath proclaims, the animosity that no concession can appease, the whole tradition and policy of the irreconcilable party, are political fossils, the production of a past age and of conditions entirely different from those now existing in Ireland. " A man who was a baffled revolutionist more than twenty years ago, and who has since brooded in seclusion over his defeat, must find himself out of sympathy with the men of the new generation. " Dissaffection exists and for a time must continue to exist as a senti- ment and a tradition, but when the substantial evils upon which it fed drop out of memory, as they have dropped out of reality, it will perish of inanition. " These men talk as though Mr. Gladstone were a Castlereagh and the Parliament that passed the Church and Land acts a tyrannous assembly of persecuting fanatics. A heavy responsibility rests on all such politi- cians." It is now more than sixteen years since this article appeared in the London Times. Will these British writers and statesmen never learn that the doctrine of nationality is immutable ; that it will live in every genera- tion and knows no age ? Time can never dull its brightness ; next to our love of the Creator it occupies the warmest shrine in the human heart ; vain folly of those who try to govern by a so-called right of conquest. John Martin has passed away, and another generation has arisen, more determined, if possible, to wrest the crown of nationhood from England's ruthless hands, determined to put in practice whatever measures are neces- sary for the fulfillment of this noble mission. When the Times and Englishmen speak of the removal of substantial evils by their Parliament they speak of an utter and complete impossibil- ity. That House has never conceded one, no not one substantial benefit to the Irish people. John Martin replied to the English organ in an interesting letter which appeared in that paper on June 2, 187 1. These are the concluding sentences : "I must say that Mr. Gladstone's boast of his confidence in the Irish people, at the very moment when he holds them disarmed under guard of great armies of soldiers and police, gagged by a press ukase, under the terror of two Coercion Bills of his own infliction, is incomprehensible to 34 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. my mind on any hypothesis which attributed to that Right Honorable gentleman either justness of moral conception or appropriateness of lan- guage. " It is a strange political spectacle, that of Mr. Gladstone declaring that 'he is not afraid to compete' with me for the future confidence of Ire- land. He a Minister with absolute power over my country, disposing of every place of power, honor, and emolument in Ireland out of which he rewards his adherents, and with his two Coercion Bills to strike terror to those who may entertain my sentiments, and I with neither money nor honors to buy support, banned, because of my political sentiments, from office, honor, or emolument of the state — a pariah in my own country so far as English rule can make me a pariah. " I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, " John Martin. " Warrenpoint, County Down, Ireland, May 3, 187 1." The opposition of Mr. Martin and other Irish members to the Coercion Bill was as useless so far as practical results were concerned as similar recent attempts. On June 9 it passed its third reading and became law. The passing of the Coercion Act by Mr. Gladstone made him very unpopular in Ireland. A vacancy occurring in Westmeath the Provincial- ists chose P. J. Smyth as their representative as an answer to the English Minister's challenge to honest John Martin. In the course of the election there were several speeches delivered denouncing England's hypocritical Premier. Mr. P. J. Smyth in the hustings, after he had been declared elected, stated : " Mr. Gladstone challenged Westmeath to give an answer, ["A voice, He is answered now."] Here it is : . . . I charge Mr. Glad- stone that the object of his Coercion Act is not the repression of crime and outrage, but that the true object is to facilitate the work of depopula- tion in the country. . . I said in my address that I will oppose the government of Mr. Gladstone. I will do so in no factious spirit. . . Mr. Gladstone admitted while the Church and Land acts were prepared and passed into law that they were 7vrung from him by men who were at the same time being tortured in prison and who were only subsequently liberated to be exiled." Among the speakers on the platform that day in Westmeath was the renegade King-Harman, who came forward to indorse the Irish de- mand. He said, " Thank God they had returned a member in accordance with the views of the men of Ireland. . . For two years the press of England had rung with denunciations of Westmeath and had called its people murderers and assassins. If they were, how was it that he [Captain King-Harman] could come among them ? He dared to take his life in his hand and walk in Westmeath, but he would not dare to take his life in his hand and walk in the dark lanes of Sheffield. They had vindicated themselves and sent a man t Parliament to hurl back the challenge that Gladstone gave to Mr. Martin, to tell him that his mock legislation was a humbug, and that they would not stand a base, brutal, or bloody Whig in the country." What power have English gold and English honors on some Irish- men ! Think of King-Harman's subsequent degraded position in the esti- mation of every right thinking man — in the service of his country's enemy, ready to repeat the cruel stabs he has already given to his un- happy motherland. Another renegade and traitor met his death at this time, the notorious informer, Pierce Nagle. This wretch joined the Fenian movement in Ireland with the deliberate HOME RULE ASSOCIATIONS. 35 intention of betraying it to the British. At the time he was passing as a Fenian in the National ranks, he was giving what information he could procure, and any letters he could steal in the Irish People office, to Chief Superintendent Ryan of the G division of Dublin detectives, for a miser- able weekly pittance. On the day the British Government determined to seize the Fenian organ and arrest all of the leading Nationalists who were known to them, Nagle met Ryan in the Phoenix Park by appointment, when Nagle received his "blood 'money," and then and there arranged to deliver James Stephens, known as the C. O. I. R. (Central Organizer Irish Republic) into the enemy's power. On that evening, September 15, 1865, Stephens held a meeting at* rooms in Denzille Street for the purpose of conferring with his lieutenants. Mr. William Roantree, head-centre for the military members of the I. R. B. — a gentleman who has since sealed his devotion to Ireland by much suffering — was one of those present ; also Captain O'Boyle of the 69th New York Volunteers Irish Brigade, and Pierce Nagle. There had been some trouble ajnong the Tipperary centres. Such was the con- fidence Stephens held in Nagle that he was sending him to Clonmel to confer with the men, he being a native of that place. Nagle had received £\o ($50) for expenses, when Mr. James O'Connor, bookkeeper in the Irish People office, burst into the room, exclaiming to his astonished hearers the news that the office had been broken into by the police and all the contents seized, and that the enemy was making arrests rapidly. Stephens seemed completely astounded at the news ; the C. O. I. R. was not the master mind in an emergency which his countrymen thought. •" Why," said he, " in any country there would be a warning given before the seizure of a newspaper. Go back," he cried, addressing Mr. O'Connor, " and bring me all further particulars. I will stay here until ten o'clock." When Mr. O'Connor left the house Nagle began to fidget, and said to Stephens he had better leave and see how things were. He was anxious to have Stephens arrested, as he had arranged that day with Detective Ryan. Nagle was disliked by many of the men in Dublin ; they avoided him instinctively. Several of the leading men wondered at Stephens placing so much reliance on this man and intrusting him with any duties. His cat-like servility and fawning flattery won the vain side of the C. O. I. R.'s character. Although he was thought incapable and utterly unsuited for the duties occasionally given him by Stephens, none of the members dreamed for a moment he was a traitor. When he left Stephens' presence an uneasy feeling took possession of Mr. Roantree, and he hurried after Nagle. He overtook him as he was hurrying with the news of Stephens' whereabouts to have the C. O. I. R. captured. Roantree did not, of course, suspect this ; but by his action coming up and staying with Nagle he foiled the traitor in his object. Mr. Roantree suggested that they should take a cab and drive past the office in Parliament Street, but Nagle refused, hoping to shake off Roantree. They continued their walk up College Green into Dame Street. There was great excitement among the people. The news of the seizure of the National organ was spread broadcast, and the arrests were magnified ; all sorts of exaggerated stories were in circulation. The tread of soldiery was heard coming toward them. Roantree and Nagle stood aside to let the crowd pass. It was a military guard escorting some of that night's political arrests en route to prison ; at its head marched several detect- ives. Smollen, one of the notorious Dublin detectives of that period, espied the two men on the footway ; he shouted out to his detectives, " There stands Roantree and Nagle, arrest them." In a moment they were prisoners with the rest. None of the detectives was aware that 36 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Nagle was in the employ of Ryan, supplying their chief with information. Ryan kept this knowledge to himself, the better to guard Nagle and so protect his usefulness. When the arrested Irish Nationalists were brought into the Lower Castle yard, Nagle saw his friend, Chief Detective Ryan, who passed him by un- noticed. Nagle began to get uneasy and commenced a whine of explana- tion. Ryan replied to him with the Dogberry-like wisdom of a British de- tective, by making the original remark : " Show me your company and I'll tell you who you are." They were all locked up together. One of the prisoners had on his person some important letters — how reckless and with what lack of caution some of these men acted by carrying unneces- sary correspondence ! Nagle tried to get possession of these letters, but Mr. Roantree anticipated him by seizing and destroying them. They asked each other who was the traitor, for all felt certain that the enemy had some spy in their ranks, or he would not take action so hur- riedly. Nagle's blood must have curdled with fright at some of the remarks made by his associates. General Michael Kerwin of the 13th Pennsylvania cavalry, who com- manded a cavalry brigade under Generals Grant and Sherman, was one of the numerous Irish-American soldiers then in Dublin, having left America for Ireland when mustered out after the war. These gallant soldiers believed that Ireland was about to take the field and came over to do battle for their beloved motherland and give to her all the skill and knowledge they had acquired on American battlefields. Some officers in the regular army of the United States resigned their commissions to enable them to give their military knowledge to their country in the coming war for national independence. General Kerwin contributed to an Irish historical work a chapter on Fenianism, and in it he describes Nagle's treachery and the incidents of that memorable night : " Accordingly a privy council was held in Dub- lin Castle on the 15th day of September, 1865, and on the same night the city was startled with the intelligence that the Irish People news- paper was seized, and that everybody connected, with it was in the hands of the police. The excitement in the ranks of the confederates was intense. No one seemed to know the full extent of the damage done to the cause. ' Is Stephens arrested ? ' was the question on every tongue, and it was not until the following morning that it became gen- erally known that he was still at large. This knowledge tended some- what to allay the excitement and general feeling of despondency, which for the moment seemed to take possession of every mind. ' As long as the " Boss" is free,' was the cry, 'the fight is bound to take place this year.' " The extent of the seizure was soon known, and it was found that some of the choicest spirits of the movement were in the hands of the police. O'Donovan Rossa, Thomas Clarke Luby, John O'Leary, William Roan- tree, and many others, were among the first victims of the treacherous work of the perjured informer. 'Who is the traitor?' was heard whis- pered on every side, and a vow of vengence was uttered that boded no good to the wretch if once unmasked. " On the night of the arrest, Mr. Stephens was holding a reception at the rooms of one of his organizers — Mr. Flood — giving instructions to a number of the ' B's ' or centres, who were calling on him in turn, when the news of the capture was brought to him by Mr. O'Connor, one of his messengers. Mr. Stephens, on receiving the information, rushed excitedly into the waiting room with the news, which startled everyone present. Among them was Pierce Nagle, Stephens' trusted and confidential man, the one of all others who knew most of his surroundings, and of the men HOME RULE ASSOCIATIONS. 37 with whom he did business. This devotee, who fawned on his master with cat-like affection, positively shed tears when the news was commu- nicated, and no man present was more bitter in his denunciation of the English tyrants than was Pierce Nagle. A few days later when the pris- oners were placed before the bar, and all eyes were looking for the man who was to swear away their lives and liberty, Pierce Nagle took the witness-stand. A murmur of horror went through the throng in the courtroom, every eye flashed, and every hand twitched ; there were a hundred men within twenty feet of the wretch that day who could and who would have stilled his treacherous heart forever, had they been free from the restraint of a superior authority." The dropping of important documents, which the invaders found on Kingstown Railroad balcony, set the enemy in motion. The information of a positive and confidential nature contained in these papers, that large sums of money were coming from America, alarmed John Bull, who feared that his ill-gotten conquest might shake off her robber plunderer by the naked steel, the only argument the assassin of the Irish people will listen to. Pierce Nagle's information did not amount to much in Dublin Castle esti- mation. The invader did not think his rule could be seriously threatened by such creatures as this informer. It was the American documents which compelled his action. When it is recollected that the Irish Nationalists enrolled in Ireland to fight the foreigner at this period numbered over one hundred thousand men, the fact that but one informer was to be found in this immense force prove what is an undoubted fact, that no race to-day on God's earth are more loyal to their country and each other, during the struggle or possible struggle for liberty. It is vanity in some men for leadership, or trying to make it appear that they and they alone were the actors in certain events, and that accursed human frailty, jealousy, which has flooded America with so many assailers of characters among men who were good and faithful at home. There has been no more potent weapon used by Ireland's persecutor and would-be conqueror, than this cry of informer. When the National organ was seized in Parliament Street, the enemy procured enough of written matter to manufacture whatever evidence — so-called — they needed. Had they not Nagle they would have procured some perjurer for pay to do the work necessary to carry on the semblance of law and the mockery of trials. They tried to poison the mind of the general mass of the Irish people against the movement, by publishing a letter of a literary gentle- man not inserted in the Irish papers as the programme of the Fenians, as the Nationalists were then styled. And the further to prove their case before mankind, whose ear they unfortunately hold to pour their own versions of these events, they arrested this gentleman and sent him to penal servitude, although he had no connection whatever with the revolu- tionary movement, and was as free from complicity in the patriotic endeavor to free Ireland as the enemy's minions. When the news of the seizure reached the men throughout the country, their spirits rose with delight, they were indeed eager for the fray ; the enemy had struck his first blow, surely the hour had come to take the field ; so numerous and well organized a body of Irishmen would not allow the foe to occupy any further vantage ground. Several men in the larger cities resigned good business positions the better to make prepara- tions for the approaching fight. When the I. R. B. became cognizant of Pierce Nagle's treachery, manifested so publicly as appearing on the witness stand in the enemy's court, he was immediately put on trial ; he was found guilty of treason by the Irish court martial and sentenced to death. Unfortunately here stepped in the timidity of the C. O. I. R., who was a man of weak nerves, 38 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. and opposed to bloodshed, which incapacitated him for revolutionary- leadership, although an excellent organizer. He refused to indorse the findings of the court, and gave most peremptory orders to stay all action. He thus saved this wretch's life at that time. His was the "superior authority" spoken of by General Kerwin. It may be asked, would the sentence of this court be carried out. Yes, unquestionably ; the opportunity and the men both were at hand. In the Briton's stronghold, surrounded by the bolts, bars, and guards of the enemy, his treacherous heart would have been stilled forever — a fitting punishment for so infamous a treason. Pierce Nagle's treason haunted him for years. He suffered for some time the agony which all informers must undergo. In every approaching shadow he saw an enemy and an avenger. The British gave him employ- ment as a turnkey to preserve his wretched life. But as time wore on he became more confident, and anxious once again to mix in the busy world he left his prison home, and went to reside in the huge metropolis of London, thinking his identity would be forever lost in the great human vortex of the capital. But the sleuthhound of revolutionary vigilance was ever on his trail ; in 1873 ne na ^ a business place in London. He was then passing by the name of Kennedy. His movements were watched ; he was traced to his residence in South London, and the executioner of Ireland's law prepared to put the death sentence into effect. One night he was followed en roiite to his home ; he was usually accompanied by a woman, but this evening his pursuer found him alone. "Whenever enter- ing any quiet street, as was his custom, he looked anxiously around. He took his loaded revolver from his pocket, toyed with it a moment, and was about to replace it in his pocket when he was fired upon ; the first shot gave him but a slight flesh wound ; he was so paralyzed with fear that he never attempted to reply to the fire of his assailant, but dropped his loaded revolver on the ground, where it was shortly afterward picked up, and fled. A second shot brought him to the earth with the fearful scream of a damned soul. The horror and hell of his thoughts must have been greater agony than his physical pain ; a third shot and the avenger left him apparently dead. But the wretch still lived, and if he had not carried that poison in his soul which festered and corrupted his physical health, he might possibly have recovered. He was discovered by some residents of the neighbor- hood who were aroused at the sound of pistol shots and had the wounded Nagle conveyed to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where he lingered in agony of body and mind for some time. The shooting of Nagle was kept secret among a small circle of Irish patriots, for the enemy was using every possible means to come at his assailant quickly. Yet some men who knew the wretched Nagle heard the news and could scarcely believe the tale until they visited the hospital and saw the dying informer ; it is very hard to keep such information absolutely secret. Nagle died about the middle of July, 1873. The British Government, fearful of the loss of prestige they would incur in Irish Nationalist circles and among the patriotic Irish masses, kept back his identity as much as possible. The mistaken policy adopted by the Irish revolutionists was to do the same ; they forget always that secrecy in action is a distinct policy from the moral effect of a public announcement which would have been to their advantage, had the news of the death of this mercenary wretch, who sold himself for blood money, been spread broadcast over the world. An Irish pressman on one of the London dailies inserted a paragraph, but all further comment was sup- pressed. The man who fired the shot was after some time sent out of London ; he still lives under the shelter of a friendly flag. HOME RULE ASSOCIATIONS. 39 In November, 1873, the great Home Rule Conference was held in the Rotunda, Dublin. On the 18th, 19th, and 20th of that month this con- ference was called together by the Home Rule leaders to provoke dis- cussion of the National demand and to lay a solid foundation on which to build up the Irish federalist movement. Among those who attended were the following members of Parliament : Messrs. Bryan, Butt, Blennerhassit, Brady, Brown, Callan, D'Arcy, Dease, Delahunty, McCarthy, Downing, Hon. C. Munster, A. Redmond, Ronayne, Shaw, Smith, Stackpoole, Syman, N. D. Murphy, Sir John Gray, John Martin, etc. The Mr. Redmond, M. P., who attended this conference, and who was a finished speaker, and had made an eloquent address there, was the father of Mr. Parnell's two followers of to-day, Messrs. John and William Redmond, so well known to Irishmen all over the world. Mr. Shaw, M. P., Bandon, was elected to the chair. Captain King- Harman read the requisition, which was signed by twenty-four thousand persons. The following resolutions were passed by this great Provincial conference : " 1st. That as the basis of proceedings of these conferences, we declare our conviction that it is essentially necessary to the peace and prosperity of Ireland, that the right of legislation on all Irish affairs should be restored to our country. " 2d. That solemnly we assert the inalienable right of the Irish people to self-government. We declare that the time in our opinion has come when a combined and energetic effort should be made to obtain the restoration of that right. "3d. That in accordance with the ancient and constitutional rights of the Irish nation, we claim the privilege of managing our own affairs by a Parliament assembled in Ireland and composed of Sovereign, Lords, and Commons of Ireland. "4th. That in claiming these rights and privileges for our country, we adopt the principle of a Federal arrangement which would secure to the Irish Parliament the right of legislating for and regulating all matters relating to the internal affairs of Ireland while leaving to the Imperial Parliament the power of dealing with all questions affecting the Imperial Crown and government, legislation regarding the colonies and other dependencies of the Crown, the relations of the Empire with foreign states, and all matters operating on the defense and stability of the Empire at large, as well as the power of granting and providing the supplies necessary for Imperial purposes. That such an arrangement does not involve any change in the existing Constitution of the Imperial Parliament or any interference with the prerogatives of the Crown or dis- turbance of the principles of the Constitution. That to secure to the Irish people the advantages of Constitutional Government it is essential //W there should be in Ireland an Administration for Irish affairs controlled according to the constitutional principles by the Irish Parliament and conducted by Ministers constitutionally responsible to the Irish Parliament. That in the opinion of this Conference a Federal arrangement based upon these principles would consolidate the strength and maintain the integrity of the Imperial Crown. That while we believe that in an Irish Parliament the rights and liberties of all classes of our countrymen would find their best and surest protection, we are willing there should be incorporated in the Federal constitution articles supplying the amplest guarantees that no change should be made by that Parliament in the present settlement of property in Ireland, and that no legislation should be adopted to establish any religious ascendency ia Ireland or to subject any person to disabilities on account of his religious opinions." 4© THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. On November 20, 1873, the conference concluded its labors, but although some of the best of the Irish people tried to serve their country by formulating an excellent and practical platform with the Provincialist theory of asking the enemy to give Ireland self-legislation, their actions were willfully misstated and purposely falsified by the British people, whose vital interests would be affected if they quietly yielded to Ireland's peaceful demands. A number of men who were trained and brought up in the British school of Liberal politics espoused the meaningless cry Home Rule for the purpose of securing their seats at the approaching general election. The English members who use that cry to-day are just as sincere as were those men fifteen years ago. The Flag of Ireland of November 22, 1873, commenting on these people said : " Many gentlemen will now come forward on the popular platform ; they will discover by a sudden inspiration that the only hope for Ireland is Home Rule." The Parliament of 1868, elected on Mr. Gladstone's hypocritical cry <( Justice to Ireland," was drawing to a close. The English by-elections had all recently gone against Mr. Gladstone, the English people were growing weary of his rule and wished a change. That portion of the Irish people who hailed his advent to power were dissatisfied and disap- pointed. The Land and Church bills, ushered in with such eclat, were proven utterly worthless, as all these so-called English concessions have and must be. The Provincialists, who had raised the hopes of a portion of the Irish people, telling them of the great things for Ireland the return to power of the " Grand Old Man " would bring, were compelled to repudiate their former speeches, or else seek refuge in silence. They had deceived the people then as they are deceiving them to-day ; cloud- ing their intelligence with misleading statements, and slandering and misquoting any Irishman who would attempt to point out to his country- men the real position of affairs. But the stern logic of facts was against them at the close of 1873. Ireland had experienced the fruits of Gladstone's coercive rule, and the nation could not be hoodwinked. The near approach of the general election compelled Gladstone's Irish followers to drop away from him, and appear at least to embrace Home Rule. This was the condition of Irish party politics when Charles Stewart Parnell appeared upon the scene, soon to become an important leader in England's easily solved problem, Irish Provincialist Agitation. CHAPTER III. (1873 to 1874.) BRITISH PARTIES — DEATH OF JOH^T MITCHELL AND JOHN MARTIN. English Opinion Near the Close of the Gladstone Administration 1868-74 — Lord Chamberlain Suppresses Political Burlesque — Mr. Disraeli on the Gladstone Ministry — A Government of Plundering and Blundering — General Election, 1874 — Capture of Coomassie — Indian Famine — Disraeli's Sneering Allusion to Ireland — Irish Elec- tions — Return of sixty-one Home Rulers — Defeat of Chichester Fortescue in Louth — Ireland Accused of Ingratitude to Mr. Gladstone — Comments of the London Times — Crushing Defeat of the Liberals — A Large Tory Majority — Mr. Gladstone Resigns Office — Mr. Disraeli Forms an Administration — Mr. Gladstone's New Peers — Refuses to See an Amnesty Deputation — The Irish Electors of Greenwich and Mr. Gladstone — Denounced by his Former Friends — Meeting of Home Rulers in Dublin — Mr. Butt's Great Speech — Formation of Home Rule Parliamentary Party — Signing the Roll of Honor — Meeting of the New Parliament — The Queen's Speech — Mr. Butt's Amendment — Mr. Gladstone on Mr. Butt's Home Rule — Amendment Defeated — Effect of Gladstone's Coercion — Case of Patrick Casey — Great Home Rule Debate — Irish Attorney General's Crushing Reply for the Govern- ment — Dr. Ball's Emphatic Refusal — Defeated by an Immense Majority — John Mitchell's Return to Ireland — Ireland still at the Agitation Delusion — The Men of '48 — Beneath the Shadow of Mourne Mountains — Home Once More — John Mitchell — Scene in the Churchyard — John Martin's Death — Ireland's Grief — Tribute in the Dublin Irishman — Mr. Parnell Nominated for Meath — Mr. Parnell's Election Address — His Return for Meath. A keen observer of English public opinion near the close of Mr. Gladstone's Administration, 1868 to 1873, could easily see that this great statesman had " lost the touch " of public sentiment. A visitor to the London Clubs, where politics are daily and nightly discussed, could notice great despondency among the Liberals and an expressed feeling of approaching triumph in the Conservative camp. In Liberal circles a certain amount of weariness, of ennui had taken possession of the most ardent supporters of the " Grand Old Man." The giant energy with which he started out to demolish those castles, which he considered barred the road to a thorough union in sentiment as well as interest, between the English and Irish peoples, seemed vanished into cloudland. When he had succeeded in applying his theories to Ireland, he found the application had not the desired result. He found to his astonishment that he had not touched the seat of the evil which had estranged these hostile races for centuries. One the British, who in the flush of what they considered and still consider con- quest, tried to mold and shape the destinies of the Irish people to what they termed their useful position in the British Empire. The other, the Irish, never admitted that they were a conquered race, never gave up the struggle ; the war which commenced on the landing of Strongbow continues to this hour. Mr. Gladstone found his Irish Church Bill and his Land Bill had settled nothing. Ireland was in no way benefited by either measure but remained still dissatisfied and hostile. The Irish people had heard so often of these false phantoms, called stepping stones to liberty, that when they gazed upon the stream which these were supposed to bridge over, they saw that it was too deep and rapid, these airy British footholds were carried away by the fierce torrent of nation- ality and the broad river flowed on in its uninterrupted course, leaving 41 42 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. a wide and yawning gulf that can only be crossed by one means — means which are as old as the days of Joshua and the Israelites, and even then had been practiced by preceding generations. English public sentiment was estranged from Mr. Gladstone's Adminis- tration for many causes, but more especially that they had not satisfied the Irish people after all the so-called sacrifices made for them by the English voters. This extraordinary delusion under which the British people labor is partly the fault of a large section of the Irish who, led away by the illusory picture painted by their Provincialist agitators, some honest and some selfish, are seeking for an impossibility — good laws from the Alien Parliament in London i. e., good poison to strengthen the Irish people. Mr. Gladstone had conferred upon England a great number of useful measures. His endeavor to throw open the army to merit, not cash or caste, had a democratic tendency ; but owing to the conditions of social life in Britain, the results did not equal the expectations. His great boon to the British people was a pure system of voting by ballot, which is to this day as nearly perfect a system as human ingenuity can devise. Somehow John Bull tires of one party continuing long in power. The great changes which from time to time take place in British Administra- tions are not always the offspring of genuine cause for dissatisfaction. Mr. Gladstone's government had irritated the English people by many petty acts, which their political opponents did their best to magnify. Mr. Lowe, Chanceller of Exchequer, then familiarly spoken ,of by the English people as " Bobby Lowe," did a great deal to help this dissatisfac- tion, not only by his cold, insolent manner to the people, but in addition by the introduction of his unpopular match tax. This tax caused a great commotion among the London poor who make a livelihood in selling matches. So great was the excitement in London and the provinces at the mention of this unpopular tax that Mr. Lowe was compelled to abandon it. Mr. Ayrton, the Commissioner of Public Works, also brought the Administration into disfavor by his numerous petty tyrannies and over- bearing haughty demeanor, when questioned in the House. Mr. Glad- stone was at this time especially unfortunate in his colleagues. The production of a burlesque in one of the leading London theaters foretold the downfall of the Ministry ; there is no weapon so potent as ridicule. This burlesque introduced Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Lowe, and Mr. Ayrton as three benign fairies, who having discovered a paradise of peaceful retreat and happiness, visited this mundane world on the philanthropise mission of bringing the inhabitants to the enjoyment of this Utopian paradise. The usual topical songs were introduced, touching with keen satire on different Government measures. The actors who impersonated the Premier and the other statesmen were inimitable in their get-up ; they dressed and acted the character to life, introducing all the mannerisms of their illustrious prototypes. The press was filled with columns of notices of this new burlesque, and crowded houses nightly testified to its immense popularity. The Lord Chamberlain interdicted the political representations in the play, to the astonishment of the public. This was very unusual in free Britain ; it drew upon the Administration the satire of society, theatrical, and political journals. Several by-elections having gone against Mr. Gladstone he dissolved Parliament on January 24, 1874. The Liberal Premier used every exer- tion to get from the English people a renewal of power. His leading argument was financial management of the affairs of the Empire, and if given a renewal of confidence by the vote of the country Mr. Gladstone promised the abolition of the income tax, a huge bid for popular support. Mr. Disraeli, the leader of the Opposition, had styled the Liberal BRITISH PARTIES. 43 Administration a government of "blundering and plundering," which epigrammatic expression was re-echoed on every hustings. He also accused Mr. Gladstone of gross mismanagement of England's foreign policy- — always a weak spot in Liberal Administrations. In addition he accused him of serious neglect of British interests on the west coast of Africa, which resulted in the Ashantee War — a war then in progress and which brought to public notice the services of the commander of the expedition, Sir Garnet Wolseley, afterward styled England's " great and only" general. It is a remarkable study fn English history that Liberal Governments, which are supposed to settle foreign and colonial questions by arbitration and are essentially a party of peace, have been engaged in more petty wars than the Tories, who, in spite of all their brazen bluster, are careful to yield sooner than fight. News of the capture of Coomassie arrived in England, and although it was a splendid victory (?) the news arrived too late to save the fortunes of the Gladstone government. It however delighted the English people, who went into ecstacies of joy at the success gained over those brave, half-armed Africans. But the Britons, not taking this into consideration, congratulated themselves that they were still the same heroes as their brave sires who fought under Nelson and Wellington, still the great British nation that could conquer the world in arms. For some time after this Coomassie capture Britannia ruled the waves over pipes and beer in all the music halls, and did that ruling in a very noisy and boisterous manner. Mr. Gladstone issued one of his usual lengthy addresses to the elec- tors of Greenwich, and entered into an elaborate defense of his Adminis- tration. In one part of this address he said : " It may be stated with truth that next to the great Irish question of Church and Land, now happily disposed of, (?) the election of 1868 turned in no small degree upon expenditure." The numberless instances like this which have occurred in contempo- rary history are of themselves convincing proofs of the folly and fatuity of the Provincialists' agitation — a body of men then as now who assume the title Nationalist only to mock and make it contemptible in the eyes of thinking mankind. This great English Liberal, then in the plenitude of of his powers as a man, deliberately states in a state document addressed to the British people that the Irish land question was happily disposed of. If he believed so, it is proof sufficient Britons must ever remain in willful ignorance of Ireland's true position when a man of such eminence as William Ewart Gladstone thus expresses his satisfaction at having finally and happily settled the Irish land grievance. His bill had no more effect upon removing the evils under which the Irish farmer was burdened than it had in altering the condition of the people of the Flowery Land. This attempt at legislation was wrung from him, by his own admission, by the fear of armed insurrection. Mr. Disraeli's address to the electors of Buckingham was much shorter than that of his Liberal rival. In one part he says : " Generally speaking I should say of the Administration of the last five years that it would have been better for us all if there had been a little more energy in our foreign policy and a little less in our domestic legislation." This is the true Tory doctrine. The Conservatives teach the English people that at home they enjoy ample liberty, and that England's only needs are a vigorous foreign policy. At this time in India began one of these periodic curses so frequent under British rule. A terrible famine was scourging the land and the Indian people were dying of hunger like rotten sheep. 44 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. A British commission was sent to examine into the causes of the famine and to discover the proper remedies to be applied for its relief. This commission was a repetition of many similar ones — strangled in red tape ; its motto, " How not to do it." In the meantime the hunger was spreading in Britain's great Asiatic dependency. India, like Ireland, was suffering under that greatest of calamities to a nation — foreign conquest. Britain drained the wealth of the country away to enrich her own people in their island home, and also the pay- ment of a numerous crowd of office holders, who drew enormous salaries, and lived and fattened as leeches off the unhappy people of Hindoostan. In addition to these civil service cormorants, there is kept in India, what for Britain with her miniature army was a large military force, as an occupying soldiery to preserve and continue the conquest. This large standing army, which since the days of the famous Sepoy mutiny Eng- land has been compelled to keep in India to preserve her control there, with a host of camp followers, lived off the country in idleness and had to be paid out of the so-called Indian revenue, the taxes wrung from the peo- ple by order of the Indian Czar, the English Governor General. Instead of spending the wealth of India in canals and such means as would thoroughly irrigate the country when a season of drought arrived, instead of these they built expensive railways for mere strategic purposes, so that they could concentrate troops at any threatened point which would appear to interfere with the possession of their great Eastern prize. Those works of irrigation begun and completed under the Mogul Emperors were neglected by the British and permitted to become useless. In the course of an address delivered to the electors of Buckingham, during the general election, Febuary u, 1874, Mr. Disraeli thus sneer- ingly alluded to Ireland : " I was convinced that an Englishman remembering that he existed only in an island not of collossal size, must frequently have been struck with what would have been his situation if he had been an inhabitant of some other island to which it is not necessary to particularly refer. . . 1 must impress upon you that if Ireland is now tranquil it is not in con- sequence of those measures [Church and Land], but it is in conse- quence of being ruled by coercive legislation of the most severe and the most stringent kind. . . I call it severe and stringent legislation and which will go on until the year 1875. (Hear, hear.) It is a fact, as I men- tioned the other day, that no person can take a walk in the evening with- out being liable to be arrested by the military police. It is the fact that at any time in Ireland the police may enter your house, and examine your papers to see whether they can detect any resemblance between the writing they find and some anonymous threatening letter that has been sent by a third person. . . To say that if this [Church and Land bills] legislation of the government has produced the tranquillity of Ireland, where is the necessity for this coercion ?" Mr. Disraeli's contention was that Ireland was in a state of peace and tranquillity because of the five years of cruel coercion which Mr. Glad- stone had inflicted on her, and not because of this so-called remedial legislation. When Irishmen peruse the pages of history and learn for themselves the uninterrupted series of brutal coercion bills passed into law by Mr. Gladstone, and so cruelly administered by his directions when in power, they must be amazed at the astounding hypocrisy of the man who lectures and condemns his Tory opponents at this time of writing, who if restored to power would not be many years in office, when as cer- tain as the sun shines in the heavens he would enforce the coercion law of the Tories even more cruelly than they have done. This may appear to some as if impossible, but let them look back upon the term of Liberal BRITISH PARTIES. 45 coercion 1868 to 1873, when Ireland was unusually tranquil, calmly and peacefully bleeding to death. Let them look again at the terrific and monstrous cruelties perpetrated by the same miscalled Liberals from 1880 to 1885 ; read in history what Mr. Parnell and his fellow Provin- cialists have said of this cold-blooded and tyrannical Administration, which they properly characterized as the most monstrous and brutal Adminis- tration under which Ireland has ever groaned. And again look with astonishment and wonder at the last short-lived term of this man, this great Liberal Minister, then posing before mankind as Ireland's cham- pion would-be emancipator, and at the self-same time that honeyed words were falling from his tongue, he was not only permitting the eviction of the Irish people but was assisting the landlords to pull down their roof-trees by the help of the forces of the Crown. Mr. Disraeli was so far right in his statements that remedial legisla- tion had nothing to do with the tranquillity of Ireland, this calmness of a dying nation. But he was equally wrong when he attributed this quiet- ness to the power of Mr. Gladstone's coercion. It was the teaching of the Provincialists, a movement which has strangled Ireland's hopes of freedom, and helped to keep her in bondage for three generations. Although the march of education had improved the minds of the people, their intelligence was directed toward an evil channel, their ability to read and learn for themselves was made use of by the Provincialists, who supplied their literature ; their newspapers corrupted the masses by their false doctrines under the guise of Nationality. The strength of Ireland against the British forces that keep her in bondage is consider- ably greater than was the Greek power against the Moslem, or the Ameri- can colonies divided as they were by patriots and Tories against the then much more powerful Britain than the same nation is to-day. True, both countries were helped to independence by the interference in the struggle of a foreign power, but Ireland on the chessboard of Europe could not be permitted to fight out the quarrel alone. Some of Britain's numerous foes would be sure to strike in, and show what a bandbox of strength is the boasted power of this bloated and enervated British Empire. Like the steed that is held by a slender thong and thinks him- self fast — such is the ignorance of Ireland as to her strength under this destructive and cowardly teaching, that her people sit supinely by, howling and bawling at the Tories, which their teachers tell them is work, while the emigrant ship is destroying their strength — a destruction threefold more numerous than a gallant struggle for liberty could possibly inflict. The blessing of a little education, the power to read now pos- sessed by the poorest peasant, has been made their curse ; they eagerly devour the sensational and destructive literature of Parliamentary agitation served up to them by the Provincialists, who are perpetually making solemn promises before Heaven that freedom is coming, while national death — unless arrested by manly action, is as certain as that night will succeed the day. What Thomas Davis said to John Mitchell, in 1843, remains now and forever the only honest advice they can receive. " The study of this book," said the great patriot Davis to his sterling and manly colleague, pointing to a treatise on artillery, " is the only class of literature Ireland needs." Who are the teachers and leaders of Ireland at this time of writing? Men whose proudest boast is that they are Londoners, men whom the seductions and allurement of British society had won over to the enemy, and the wealth and social influence which their position as members of the enemy's Parliament gave them, aided by their own natural abilities. Their country's enslavement was the ladder by which they climbed to promi- 4 6 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. nence, they- have secured a sure footing and now ignore their former promises. They come out at this period of writing boldly as followers of Gladstone, whom they so bitterly denounced, and are mere British partisans denouncing the Tories, and trying to teach the Irish people the palpable lie that the Tories are acting without the authority of the British people ; when the merest tyro in politics knows full well that these Tories would not be in office but for the enormous majority vote of the English masses. To further deceive their Irish countrymen in Ireland, they col- lect together mass meetings of Irishmen in England with a sprinkling of British, and tell their people that these gatherings are British workingmen who sympathize with Ireland. Ireland needs light and truth to dispel the darkness and ignorance these men are trying to spread over the enslaved island. In the general election of the spring of 1874 which ensued after Mr. Gladstone's appeal to the country, Mr. Butt and the Home Rule party were most energetic in trying to get their representatives elected for the various Irish constituencies, that are so mockingly said to be represented in the enemy's Parliament. The same teaching as is heard to this day was preached all over Ireland. Give Mr. Butt a large majority of the Irish representation and he would overwhelmingly convince the British by his arguments that Ireland demanded and needed self-government. No Ministry could withstand the strain that the Home Rule party could put upon them, and Home Rule must be the result. And then the Irish members about to be elected would be the last Ireland would need to send with such a demand to London. They would next be electing members to legislate for themselves in College Green. The Irish people and their teachers completely ignore the lessons of history, that never since the creation has an enslaved nation argued the conqueror to surrender his spoils peacefully. Filled with the delusive teachings instilled into them, a great majority of the Irish electorate returned Provincialists to sit in the London Parlia- ment, and to further the energies of that brilliant and able lawyer, Mr. Isaac Butt. The Provincialists can never accuse the Irish people for their many failures, for they always contributed by energetic labor to the election of these men. The return of so many followers of Mr. Butt gave the Gladstonites, Irish and British, a good opportunity to call Ireland a nation of ingrates, after receiving what they termed these priceless boons the Church and Land bills, and so spoken of by many of the Provincialists before coming into law — a Land Bill which the English farmers did not enjoy ; ungrateful Ireland was now opposing the Liberal candidates by Home Rulers. They defeated Mr. Gladstone's Irish Chief Secretary, the kindly disposed Mr. Chichester Fortescue, the most lenient (so called) administrator of a coercion act that Ireland had known for a long time ; but then as a British Minister he was compelled to administer coercio'n. He was an exact counterpart of Mr. Gladstone's last Chief Secretary, who introduced and passed the coercion act termed "Peace Preservation Act," which coercion he would be compelled to administer, had he remained in office. Mr. Fortescue, like the much praised Mr. Morley, would give Ireland the same amount of self-govern- ment, which means subjection to British authority. Praising any British Minister is like saying good poison ; their business in Ireland as rulers means foreign despotism of a greater or less degree ; if self-government on their lips were anything but mocking, gibing phrases, their presence in Ireland in any capacity would be unnecessary. His (Mr. Morley's) speeches, at the time we write, have the same meaning as Mr.Chamberlain's a few years back. The London Times of February 16, 1874, writing on the then Irish elections, observes : " Rejection of Mr. Chichester Fortescue BRITISH PARTIES. 47 at Louth is a painful illustration of Irish ingratitude. No Administration has done so much to remedy the evil effects of past misrule and to attach the inhabitants of Ireland to Parliamentary government, and no Adminis- tration has been so ill requited for its pains and sacrifices. . . ." The Gladstone Government received a crushing defeat at the polls. The Tory majority was 54, counting the Home Rulers as Liberals. The Irish elected under the banner of self-government were 61 members, which would place the Liberals in a minority of 176 if they should find occasion to vote with the Tories. Among the prominent men elected by the Irish people that election was the father of obstruction, Joseph Biggar, and of the sixty-one Home Rulers then elected Mr. Biggar, Sir Joseph N. McKenna, and Captain Nolan are all that are remaining to-day (1887) among the followers of Mr. Parnell. Mr. Gladstone resigned office February 17, 1874. Mr. Disraeli was sent for by the Queen to form a new Administration. The Irish Liberal electors of Greenwich had supported Mr. Gladstone in the recent election with the expressed understanding that the remaining Irish political prisoners would be liberated. Previous to his resignation they sent him a letter, asking for their release ; he replied through one of his secretaries, stating that the result of the election debarred him from discussing the question. An English Minister, even though an election foreshadows his defeat, can, if he chooses, meet Parliament and test his Government by a vote of the House. He retains all the prerogatives of his high office until he places his resignation in the hands of his sovereign. Mr. Glad- stone, after this election, used his power as Minister by making several appointments before his resignation. He elevated some of his followers to the peerage, notably two Irish representatives, Mr. Monsell as Lord Emly, and Mr. Fortescue the rejected of Louth as Lord Carlingford. Mr. Palles, one of his Irish law officers, he elevated to the vacant judg- ship Chief Baron of the Exchequer. He could reward his followers, but when his signature to a document releasing the Irish political prisoners was required of him, he pleaded as excuse the result of the elections. Mr. Gladstone was never yet known to do a gracious action toward Ireland ; he never introduced what was meant to be a good measure for that country but it was accompanied by some drawback in the shape of coercion. Those of the Fenian prisoners he liberated in the early portion of his coming to power, he hampered with such conditions that took away from the act anything of clemency that could be attributed to him. He exiled them to a foreign country, and would not permit them to visit father, mother, sister, brother, wife, sweetheart, or child, or revisit even for a short time the beloved land for which they suffered. After years spent in England's convict prisons, their only glance of Ireland was from the deck of the steamer that visited Queenstown en route to America. The Home Rule Association of Deptford was very indignant at his refusal to amnesty the remaining prisoners. Presided over by Dr. Kavanagh, a former great admirer of Mr. Gladstone, the following resolution was introduced ; it was proposed by Mr. Coleman, seconded by Mr. King, and carried unanimously : " That we, the Irish Home Rule Branch of Deptford, representing as we do the organized Irish electoral element of the borough of Greenwich, have heard with surprise and regret the refusal of Mr. Gladstone to receive a deputation from the Irish electors of Greenwich in favor of an amnesty to our countrymen who are imprisoned for their political opinions ; that this last act of Mr. Gladstone is a further insult to Irish feeling, and an unhandsome mani- festation of ingratitude toward us, who were instrumental in securing his 48 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. election ; that we hereby record our sense of the mistake we made in inducing Mr. Nolan to retire from the contest after coming from Dublin to oppose Mr. Gladstone, but we did so believing at the time that we were best serving the Home Rule cause, and we now pledge ourselves that while a single political prisoner is incarcerated, we shall oppose every nominee of any Minister whose policy is coercion and vengeance toward Ireland." After all these lessons this man, Mr. Gladstone, is the idol of a large section of the Irish race to-day. But like the men of Deptford they will find out their mistake. Then will come another rude awakening. A meeting of the newly elected Irish members was called by circular to meet on Tuesday, March 3, 1874, to devise in what manner the Irish demand was to be placed before Parliament. The Dublin Freeman anticipated the meeting of the Irish members would "result in the formation of a Parliamentary party that will be strong enough to assert the claims of Ireland to self-government with success." It may be said that asserting Ireland's claim to self-government with success has been frequently done by Mr. O'Connell in years past and by many eloquent speakers since his time, and also since his successor Mr. Butt died, and possibly, if there are any Irish people left at home, after Mr. Parnell passes away. But shaming England by exposing her misrule — proving logically that Ireland suffers great injustice by British legisla- tion, asserting all these things and that of removing the evils spoken of — between the exposure and the redress there lies a great gulf, a chasm which all the agitators' words can never bridge over. Ireland does not require showing England up, but putting England down. A public meeting was held in the Rotunda, March 3, 1874. Mr. Butt spoke just as Mr. O'Brien, Mr. Davitt, or Mr. Parnell would to-day, always some victory which presaged the final success. Mr. Butt of course declared the advent of Irish independence, that independence which would not separate Ireland from England, but strengthen and unite the two coun- tries — was as certain as the rising of to-morrow's sun. Once they convince the people of England that they were not veiled rebels, and that all they asked was freedom, and that they were determined to be free and live as friends to England, the whole English nation would be with them except the corrupt aristocrats, who had some advantage to gain ; there would be no defaulters in their Parliamentary ranks the day of Ire- land's freedom, and without meaning to lower sacred things he repeated the words of the Prophet to another enslaved nation. "Awake ! awake ! O daughter of Zion ! lift thyself from the dust ; put on thy glorious apparel, cast off the bonds of captivity from thy neck and be free, for the day of thy deliverance is at hand, the day of thy redemption is nigh" — he said to the captive daughter of Erin ; " Arise, awake ! Put on thy glorious apparel ! lift thyself from the dust ! arise, cast off the chains of slavery from thy neck, for oh ! captive daughter of Erin, long enslaved and oppressed, seven centuries of thy slavery gone, and surely, oh, surely indeed, the day of thy deliverance is at hand — the day of thy redemption draweth nigh, arise and rejoice in your liberty ! " When Irish Nationalists read these beautiful orations and reflect what a strangely credulous race they are addressed to, they must sometimes despair of their people's redemption. Mr. Butt had as much foundation to promise Ireland the near approach of her redemption as the agitators of to-day, who are leading the people astray, preaching to them that their English enemy is to aid them to recover their stolen freedom. Mr. Butt speaks of the corrupt aristocrats, as the present Parliamentarians do, as an obstacle to Irish self-government. The facts are that the predominat- BRITISH PARTIES. 49 ing interests that need Ireland's subjection are the traders, the manufac- turers, and shopocracy of Britain. It is their votes and that of the British mechanic who have returned the Tory regime in power at this date, September, 1887. At the close of the great Buttite meeting, a roll of honor was produced to be signed by the members, something similar to the Parnell pledge. John Martin was the first to affix his signatnre to that document. Honest, faithful John Martin, would that all who signed their names there that day had thy truth, simplicity, and loyalty to country ! But like to-day, there were many mere party politicians in that Home Rule gathering. The new Parliament met. Mr. Disraeli had completed his cabinet, and the usual so-called Queen's speech was read. Mr. Butt moved an amendment to the address, asking the House to appoint a committee to inquire into the existing relations between Britain and Ireland. Mr. Butt made an able and eloquent appeal, showing up to Englishmen the oft-repeated tale of Irish grievances. In the course of an interesting debate on Mr. Butt's Irish Home Rule, Mr. Gladstone observed : " He says he brings a perfectly intelligible plan by which affairs exclusively Irish are to be discussed in an Irish Parliament, and affairs exclusively English are to be discussed in this Parliament, and the members repre- senting Ireland are to come here for that purpose. . . I want to know in what portion of his plan are we guaranteed against the danger that our friends from Ireland, who shall be vested with exclusive power over the consideration of Irish affairs in Dublin, may come here to meddle with affairs exclusively English and Scotch." These remarks of Mr. Gladstone will be read with interest in the face of a somewhat similar proposition of his own ; how inconsistent both English statesmen and Irish agitators are in this international issue ! Of course Mr. Butt's motion was defeated ; but the repeated rejections of Home Rule measures make no difference to Irish "legal and con- stitutional " agitators ; they call such refusals victories, and our deluded countrymen believe them. A question put by an Irish member to Sir Michael Hicks Beach, then Irish Chief Secretary, revealed some of the horrors of Mr. Gladstone's Coercion Bill. A young Irishman, Patrick Casey, had suffered three years' imprison- ment, and his health was failing under the prolonged confinement. He went into prison a fine stalwart young fellow of twenty-two years. He was at the time attention was drawn to his case a prematurely aged, feeble, and sickly man. He had been imprisoned for two years in that dungeon of horrors, Naas jail. He was next transferred to Kilmainham prison, where he had been incarcerated for the succeeding twelve months. This young man, Patrick Casey, was never accused of any offense, never brought to trial, never had an opportunity of defending himself ; by the despotic act of one of Mr. Gladstone's officials, he was deprived of his liberty and brutally treated in prison. The Tory Government, cruel as all English governments are in Ireland, against which Mr. Gladstone inveighed with mock virtue, never could exceed or equal the cold, callous cruelty of this Heaven-sent Liberal leader. Oh, horror of horrors to Irishmen are British dungeons, where the unfortunate victims are diabolically treated, driven to death and madness by refined cruelty in these English Bastilles and under the regime of Ireland's savior, Mr. Gladstone ! How often do Irishmen unthinkingly condemn the extravagance of expression and lack of judgment in the words and deeds of some of their liberated countrymen ! Think of their sufferings and have some pity on account of their cruel past. 50 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. The new Irish party was now fully organized with its own leader, whips, and other officers, but for all it affected the fortunes of Ireland it might have been as much merged into the Liberal party as its predeces- sor or as the eighty-six Parnellites are at this date. Mr. Butt brought forward his Home Rule motion on June 30, 1874. The British Ministry set up their Irish Attorney General to give it a most emphatic refusal. Mr. Ball, the British mouthpiece, gave Eng- land's reply, which was as effective as the reply of the English masses at the last election (1886). He said that a clear, distinct, and emphatic decision on the question now submitted to their consideration was imperatively demanded. That decision should be the answer of the Government, which for the time represented the feelings and opinions of the people of this country. For that reason he should give decided and emphatic negative to all the propositions that had been offered by the honorable member who had just spoken. If there existed a power- ful nation in immediate contiguity to a weaker one there was no safety for the weaker nation but incorporation, and no perfect safety for the stronger nation either, because the power of each to injure the other as long as they were separate renders the result incapable of being predicted. But by incorporation they elevated the weaker nation without in the least degree taking away from the power of the stronger one. The debate continued for two evenings ; the House divided and Mr. Butt's motion was defeated by a majority of 397. The British Ministry would object to the incorporation of Belgium by France or Holland by Germany, but these platitudes about Ireland and Britain suited their purpose. Might was right in their case then as now. Dr. Ball's emphatic refusal, no less emphatically indorsed by the British Commons, is to the Nationalist mind preferable to the hypocritical cant which pervades the Liberal ranks to-day and which means for Ireland exactly the same results. The peculiar state of mind which results from the pursuit of this phantom Home Rule by peaceful methods superinduces an additional phantasm which they term victory. No person but one crazed with delusions could term this Home Rule defeat by so enormous a majority an Irish success ; but we find the Dublin Freeman of August 1, 1874, claiming that it " Rejoices in the fact that a great victory had been won, and that notwithstanding his majority, Mr. Disraeli has shown him- self sensible of the sympathy which Irish industry and Irish energy and Irish eloquence have evoked by the fame of our country. . . The Irish members have learned that there is a real and active sympathy with them in the minds of the more independent English and Scotch representatives." Where Mr. Disraeli showed his sympathy for either Irish energy or eloquence, the Nationalists fail to see, or that of the British members. Was it by the novel expedient of voting down Mr. Butt's Home Rule motion, as only two British members followed him into the division lobby? United Ireland is still preaching the same silly farrago. When a debate in the German Reichstag raised by the Alsatian deputies restores to France her lost provinces, our friends the agitators will have some- thing to show us as one accomplished fact gained by agitation as an argu- ment to free nations. The year 1875 gave to Ireland sorrowful tidings : the death of two of the most faithful of her sons — John Mitchell and John Martin. John Mitchell, the stern and uncompromising foe to British rule in his native land, after years of wandering in foreign countries came home to the green island that gave him birth, to die there. To see once again, before the final adieu, the hills and valleys of his boyhood, to revisit the quiet town of Newry, the home of his early manhood, and to gaze once more with passionate adoration on glorious Rostrevor and the magnificent BRITISH PARTIES. 51 bay of Carlingford, which sweeps in majestic beauty from the coast of Louth to that of Down, dotted here and there with villas, havens of quiet rest. Towering above like giant sentinels guarding the approaches to the bay, stands that magnificent range of hills the Mourne Mountains. How often in his distant wanderings has he seen them in his dreams, happy once more to feed his eyes upon their beauty and feel all that wor- ship which is centred in the exile's heart ! And there can be no exile more painful than the knowledge that never more can you see your be- loved motherland, never more unless the foreigner is forever banished as a ruler. How exquisitely the Irish poet expresses this love of native land : No not the richest rose In an alien clime that blows, Like the briar at home that grows Is dear. An exile banished from Ireland, a felon in chains for endeavoring to spur his countrymen to manhood and resistance ; trying if possible to eradicate the false teachings of the O'Connell era, which culminated in an artificial famine the most horrible known in history. The scenes of poverty and degradation which Ireland then witnessed made many Irishmen exclaim — ''Better to have died facing Blakeney's guns at Clontarf." This was in reference to O'Connell's meeting announced to be held there, and which the British Czar in Dublin Castle proclaimed late on Saturday night, send- ing his armed forces under Sir Edward Blakeney to enforce the order. Cannon were shotted and every preparation made for slaughter, but owing to O'Connell's and his friends' exertions the meeting was not held. The most sanguinary revolution the world has ever seen could not pro- duce a tithe of the horrors or deaths of this black era in Ireland's sad history. John Mitchell left the shores of Ireland a prisoner, when all was indeed dark and gloomy, and after an absence of twenty-six years he returned to find even more gloom and wretchedness than when he left his beloved country. Concessions so-called even by some Irishmen had been granted by the British Parliament, concessions which conceded nothing, as if in mockery carrying on a delusion to ensnare the politically unedu- cated patriotic hearts of the Irish masses. John Mitchell found, notwithstanding the great natural increase of the Irish race, a reduced population, a steady flow of emigration taking away the bone and sinew of Ireland's young manhood, as there are no industries at home to give them employment ; and how bitter it must have been to him, after the many years of his banishment, to return and learn that the Irish people were still pursuing that phantom "legal and moral agitation." With what a feeling of hope and love of motherland the politically exiled feel in the strong conviction — which is after all a dream — that their sufferings and banishment will not be fruitless ; that those at home will have learned the lesson that by deeds and deeds alone can their suffering country be restored to her place among the nations ; that the hue of health can be brought back to her pallid cheeks by the labors and sufferings of her sons, and by that means alone; and if ever the dream of the political exile is to be realized it can be by that course which freed other peoples in our own time. Mtvourneen be thou long In peace the Queen of Song, In battle proud and strong As the Sea Be saints thine offspring still, There heroes guard each hill, And harps by every rill Sound free. 52 1 HE IRISH NATIONAL INV1NCIBLES. John Mitchell was the great prominent leader of the '48 move- men; his character stands out in bold relief and towers in giant strength above his associates. He was of the true metal out of which revolution- ary leaders are created. Had his advice been taken Ireland would have appealed to arms in '48. His departure for Australia without the slightest attempt at rescue on the part of the National leaders was an instance of cowardice and vacillation which proved they were mere tyros in revolutionary knowledge. The attempt might have been suppressed by the superiority in weapons and skill of the enemy, but it would have pro- duced even in defeat grand results. Some people may say insanity and useless shedding of blood ; will these good people try and recollect that Britain is not at peace — neither has she been since Strongbow's time — with Ireland ? She is carrying on war against the Irish people more destructive in its unhappy sequel than any loss of life Ireland could possi- bly sustain by armed resistance. Let those who speak of the folly of insurrection in '48 remember the countless graves of the period, the deep pits filled with the coffinless dead when Ireland was a huge char- nel house. In all the wars of Napoleon with their hecatomb of lives, they dwindle into insignificance beside the horrors and destruction of this British-made plague. For at the hour our people were dying of starva- tion, Irish food was being shipped to the English markets. Irish prod- uce during that so-called famine year would have fed her popula- tion were they twice told ! On the bed of the Atlantic Ocean, three thousand miles across, are strewn in heaps the skeletons of these famished murdered Irish, who sailed away in the floating coffins of that period ; others died in numbers in fever hospitals shortly after their landing on these hospitable shores of America. Let not Irishmen cry out in the prevailing cant that it was landlordism. No, Irishmen, it was not the landlords — as well blame the lash and not the hand that wields it ; it was foreign rule which made landlordism possible. Landlordism is one of its weapons, but not the greatest, by which Britain hurls death and destruction on your people. Go to the fountainhead, the source of this infamy, and brand it there where it belongs — British rule. British rule, permitted and encouraged by the British people, who are responsible before God and man for the murders of that day as they are for the murders of our people up to the present hour. John Mitchell, unchanged and uncompromising to the last, saw on his return to his native land his country still struggling in her death throes — a decimated people flying from a poverty-stricken, decaying nation ; blessed with all the beauties and loveliness God has ever given any land ; cursed in all the cruelties that man could bring to aid in her destruction. The signs of her continued decay were plainly visible to the dying patriot's eyes. On March 24, 1875, in his brother-in-law's house, Dromalane, near Newry, John Mitchell breathed his last. There then passed away from us one of Ireland's most devoted sons and one of England's most hostile foes. He was the soul and spirit of the '48 era, the man that lent tone and dignity to a sad page in his country's history. There was one mourner at his grave whom death was soon to claim as his own — the dead leader's brother-in-law, John Martin ; honest, incorruptible John Martin, Mitchell's fellow-patriot and felon. The English Minister, Mr. Gladstone, could use no sophistry to change this steadfast Irishman ; he fully comprehended what was meant by the bitter lesson of hypocritical English Liberal promises when in opposition to be canceled by cruelties or hollow acts of so-called concession when in power. He remembered Lord John Russell's wonderful speech in defense of Ireland and her people, and the scathing manner he BRITISH PARTIES. 53 denounced the brutal Tory Government who coerced her ; but he also recollected that when the same Liberal Minister had been scarcely more than restored to office, Englishman-like, regardless of his promises, he brought in and passed the Treason Felony Act, under which many Irish- men, himself and his dead friend included, were quickly transported as felons. No British blandishments or treacherous promises from any Minister could make John Martin deviate a hair's breadth from the course he had marked out for himself in the service of his country. This broken-hearted friend of the dead Mitchell felt he could not long survive him. His pale tearless face gazed with agony into the grave where his friend's coffin was placed ; he felt that in that patriot's grave lay buried his every hope of life. He got sick during the funeral serv- ice and was led away feeble and staggering. He took to bed in the house in Dromalane near Newry where John Mitchell recently died, and soon, very soon, the gentle spirit of John Martin went back to his Creator, and Ireland mourned another pure and patriotic son. In an ancient and quiet graveyard not far from Newry sleep all that is mortal of these illustrious men. Should Emmet's tomb ever rise in that Niobe of nations, Ireland, none more pure of heart, self-sacrificing, and devoted of her loyal sons than these immortal patriots can be given a niche in the great National monument. May the rains and dews of Heaven that kiss into green freshness the verdure of these grassy mounds, beneath which they sleep in that Irish churchyard, soon witness — and soon it must be, if at all — the resurrection of the Irish nation, the goal, ambition, and love of their lives. The Irishman of April 3, 1875, had an obituary article, it concluded as follows : " They gazed upon the sun of justice and they met the storms of perse- cution, therefore have their lives been radiant and their deaths mourned by a people whose feet are upon every shore of the rounded globe. For the same Lord liveth eternal who promised of old time to those who should draw out their souls to the afflicted that their light should rise in obscurity and their darkness be as the noonday. By the fire-touched lips of Isaiah he revealed it to comfort an oppressed nation, saying : ' Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward.' " To them was given with the pain of suffering the solace of unselfish acts and the consolation of good deeds. The felon's lowly fate opened to them the gates of the higher life. The dungeon's gloom endowed them with a newer and keener insight into the hidden marvels of the world as they who shrouded in a cavern's blackness can discern through the garish noon the tremulous light of distant stars. The horizon of life was broad- ened, its zenith lifted up, its scope enlarged, and its whole sphere made more wondrous beautiful before the new powers of the expanded soul. No voice of a bird lost in the blue empyrean fell down to earth unheeded where they moved. From the shaggy wood no snow-white flash of torrent failed to thrill their souls, nor did twilight pool o'er-arched by feathery lady-fern nor the sapphire sparkle of violets by the mossy oak escape a gracious glance. Never did more clear-eyed poets worship the spangled sky." The death of John Martin caused a vacancy in the representation of Meath, and Mr. Butt fulfilled his promise by causing Mr. Parnell's name to be put in nomination. Meath being a Provincialist constituency this was almost equivalent to an election. At the meeting of the electors, 54 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Mr. Parnell was proposed by the Rev. Mr. Tormy, C. C, and seconded by Mr. Kirk, M. P. Mr. Parnell made a short address, in which he •advocated " fixity of tenure and fair rents, without which the country ■could not be prosperous." Mr. Parnell was accepted as the National ■candidate. Mr. Hinds, a Home Ruler, was not satisfied and determined to go to the polls. Three names were before the electors of Meath : Mr. Parnell (Peoples' Candidate). Proposed by Rev. U. Behan, C. C, and Mr. Ennis, M. P. Mr. Hinds (Home Ruler). Proposed by Mr. Gerald Hubert and Mr. Patrick Ennis. Mr. Napier (Conservative). Proposed by Mr. Thomas Gerrard and Mr. John Leonard. Mr. Parnell was received with great enthusiasm ; his election struggle against the Tory, Colonel Taylor, and the reputation of his great name made him popular. Several bands came down from Dublin to make gay and rejoice over the nomination of Mr. Butt's candidate. Mr. Butt was then in the zenith of his popularity. The devotion of the Irish to great orators is proverbial. Mr. Parnell in his election address was compelled to be a pensioner on his dead ancestors. The following was part of the usual election manifesto of principles: " My ancestor, Sir John Parnell, was the advocate, in the old Irish Parliament, of the removal of the disabili- ties which affected his Catholic fellow-countrymen, and that in the evil days of corruption which destroyed the independence of Ireland ; he lost a great office and refused a peerage to oppose the fatal measure of Union." Mr. Parnell, in addressing the Meath electors, spoke of the land laws and of the necessity of improving the condition of the farmer, fore- shadowing the giant land movement which soon after followed, but which, unlike the mountain in labor, has not even produced a mouse of advantage to the farming community. It is strange how we never hear from the lips of agitators anything concerning the loss of Ireland's trade and manufactures, unless in a sentimental and incidental way. But no moral suasionist so far has attempted to start an organization to restore them, though they are of vastly greater importance to Ireland than the land grievance. Of course it would be Quixotic to attempt such a means to build up Irish manufactures in the face of British power, but not more so than to think that the land question could be so solved. Mr. Parnell was triumphantly returned for Meath, and from that time com- menced the career of a new Parliamentary leader, whose era was as eventful as either the O'Connell or Butt epochs. CHAPTER IV. (1S75.) THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT THE GRAVE OF IRISH PATRIOTISM. Coercion for Ireland — Introduced by the Tories — Vain Change of Ministers — Britain's - . Twin Blessings to Ireland : Hunger and Hardship — Mr. Gladstone Resigns the Leadership of his Party — Mr. Gladstone's Pamphlet on Vaticanism — Its Reception in Ireland — Dublin Freeman Attacks Mr. Gladstone — Marquis of Hartington Elected Leader — Mr. Parnell's First Appearance as Member for Meath — His Reception in the House — Debate on the Coercion Bill — Mr. Biggar Commences Obstruction — Scene During Mr. Biggar's Long Speech — The Pile of Blue Books — Mr. Parnell's Maiden Speech in the House — He Denounces Coercion — The Irish Farmers — The Farm Laborers — The Royal Irish Constabulary — Ireland's Great Need Manufactures — Mr. Biggar Notices Strangers in the House — A Scene — The Speaker — Prince of Wales Compelled to Retire — Coercion Bill in Committee — Irish Chief Secretary and Mr. Butt — Mr. Butt Thanks Sir Michael Hicks Beach — Irishmen in the Enemy's Parliament Lost to Ireland — The O'Donoghue — His Past — His Change in Parliament — Mr. O'Connor Power — His Early Nationality — His Destruction in Parliament — No Place for Irishmen. The Tory Government had scarce enjoyed twelve months of power when they introduced a consolidated Coercion Bill for Ireland, including in, its provisions all the scattered drastic remedies, of Mr. Gladstone's previous measures. Vain change of Ministers ! It makes no difference to suffering Ire- land which of Britain's great parties are in power, the ebbing of her life tide goes on steadily, the fever stricken cabins are filled annually by England's twin blessings to Ireland — Hunger and Hardship. The famine graves and the workhouse must be fed. The emigrant ships bring away their yearly drain of the young and stalwart, who go forth to be lost in other interests, and of whom but a small percentage remains faithful to their motherland. In the next generation fewer still ; many of these young men sneer in ignorance at their father's country. There are many noble and patriotic exceptions but they are, alas ! only a small minority of the Irish people who leave their native land. Will Irishmen ever rise to the dignity of saying to British parties with united voice — a plague on both your Houses ? In the early part of the year 1875, much to the chagrin of the Liberal party, Mr. Gladstone resigned his position as leader of Her Majesty's Opposition. The leading Liberals used every argument to try and dis- suade him, but they found all persuasion useless; he had made up his mind that in the future he would become a private member, only to occasionally revisit the House. He expressed a wish to devote his leisure time to literature. It was during this period of repose that his reputation as a wood cutter dawned upon the world, and was spread broadcast on the wings of the press, both in the cartoons of Punch, and in the Illustrated London News. At the present day we are told his son, with the shop-keeping instincts of his race, finds a ready market, as souvenirs, for the chips which fall from the ax of his illustrious father. Mr. Gladstone felt very keenly the crushing defeat inflicted on his administration by the general election of 1874. He was greatly irri- tated with the action of his hitherto obedient servants, the Irish mem- 55 $6 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. bers — a position they have now, November, 1887, resumed — in placing his government in a minority on the Irish University Bill. One of the first books which he produced during his retirement, was his famous pamphlet entitled " Vaticanism," in which he attacked the Roman Catholic dogma of Papal infallibility. It was, to say the least, a very curious and strange proceeding on the part of an ex-Liberal Premier, to make so wanton and uncalled for an attack on the religion of the great majority of the Irish people, and to so insultingly write upon a subject on which he must have known they were so extremely sensitive, and one which they would feel compelled to resent. He acted with lack of judgment for a great statesman, and displayed a bitter and vindictive mood when he relinquished the leadership of his party, doing this at a time when that party most needed his services in almost the very hour of their defeat at the polls. He acted as if animated by petty spite toward the English people — a feeling which finds no room in the breasts of the truly great. He thought that they were ungrateful to him for his great services, and that they had inflicted upon him undeserved humiliation by the immense majorities they cast against his administration. With the extension of the franchise, which he believed he was the indirect author of, and the pure ballot system of voting he had given them, he could not believe it possible there could be recorded against him such a sweeping verdict. It was the huge vote that went to his opponents which increased and intensified his bitterness. He was in this angry mood and looking around for some object to strike, when he selected the Irish as the most fitting subjects on which to vent his ill feeling, and the result was this book, " Vaticanism." He knew it would madden and irritate the Irish Catholics, and more par- ticularly that section which has always helped the Liberal party in Parlia- ment and at the polls. The Dublin Freeman, which might almost have ■been considered his organ, and which usually sang his praises in every mood and tense, retorted in an able article. It wondered what madness possessed him to write such a pamphlet, attacking the faith of his Irish supporters, he, a possible British Prime Minister in the near future. But a very little time passed away when the i Freeman and its constituents for- got this pamphlet, so that Mr. Gladstone was right in his estimation of these men, and could thoroughly appreciate their innate toadyism, no matter how he spurned or kicked them. The idol has been restored to its accustomed throne, and offerings of flowers and incense are presented _ -at its altar. The cry of the agitators has changed to "All hail! Grandest' of Grand Old Men ! " The Liberal statesmen held a meeting to select one of their number to succeed Mr. Gladstone as leader of the party ; then, as since, he has towered in intellect and ability above his colleagues ; they knew it was impossible to replace him by a kindred genius. The two leading candi- dates, over whom the Liberals were divided, were Mr. W. E. Forster and the Marquis of Hartington. After consideration, they decided on the latter, and accordingly Lord Hartington was elected leader of the party, to conduct the business of Her Majesty's Opposition in the House of Commons. The great debate on the second reading of the Tory Coercion Act for Ireland was set down for Thursday, April 22, 1875. It was on that evening Mr. Parnell took the oath and his seat as member for Meath. As the successor of John Martin advanced to the Speaker's chair, he was received with loud and continued applause by the Irish members. Few there that night could dream to what peculiar prominence in Irish poli- tics that quiet young man would be elevated. His icy, cold manner, so BRITISH PARLIAMENT THE GRAVE OF IRISH PATRIOTISM. 57 different from the usual impulsive Irishman, was noticed, and has been by many since, as not to Mr. Parnell's advantage in the making of personal friends. No one could anticipate the important position he would eventu- ally assume as the public leader of the Irish Provincialists. It was a curious coincidence of time, that British coercion for his country was then being debated in that foreign assembly when the young member for Meath crossed its portal. At that time he was full of hope and ambition for the future, determined to pursue with energy and intelligence a cer- tain path, which he had mapped out for himself. How often must he have since in the solitude of his own chamber, when words to conceal the thoughts are useless — how often there has he had to admit to himself that, to arrive at the looked for goal, rocks that bar the way must be blown up and trees and brushwood cut down to clear the path ! Words •cannot accomplish this ; it is impossible ; there must be blows, or else certain failure. Another event of that night was Mr. Biggar's first speech as an Obstructionist. The English members could not understand Mr. Biggar's tactics, for with one notable exception, when Mr. Gladstone exhausted the rules of Parliament with the avowed purpose of blocking a measure (which he disapproved of), obstruction was a thing unknown in the British Commons. As a rule it was a very exclusive assemblage of Britons, and one of the most often pronounced assertions used by the wealthy British, when speaking of that Legislature, that it was the first assembly of gentlemen in the world. They were soon to be rudely awakened from this happy dream ; the newly elected Irish members, or rather it should be said some few of their number, were determined that if they could not shape the Irish legislation they would give the Briton as much trouble and annoyance in making these obnoxious laws as possible. Mr. Biggar, before making his first great effort in Parliament, provided himself with a number of blue books, out of which he reads extracts, so that he could prolong his speech ; the British members looked aghast as hours rolled on, and the honorable member gave no sign of coming to a close. Mr. Biggar's voice getting tired, he rested by speaking in a somewhat low tone. The Speaker, noticing this, said he must call on the honorable member to address the chair ; at present his voice was inaudible. Mr. Biggar, who had by this time been addressing the House for three hours, said it was not easy to make his voice heard for so long a tune, but he would place himself in a more advantageous position. Taking up a glass of water, therefore, and a bundle of papers and the blue books, he, with some laughter from the Irish members, took his place on one of the front Opposition benches above the gangway, a seat only occupied by ex-cabinet ministers, or leaders of the Opposition. After speaking for another hour he said he did not wish to detain the House at greater length, but he hoped he had succeeded in proving to the satisfaction of •every man of unprejudiced mind that the proposition of the Government was perfectly unreasonable, and that the Government had made out no ■case for this bill. He concluded at nine o'clock a speech of four hours' duration by moving : " That in the opinion of this House it is inexpedient to proceed with the consideration of a bill re-enacting and modifying detached portions of several statutes until it is put into such form as to show clearly and dis- tinctly the provisions which are to form part.of the continued and revised •code." Mr. McKenna, Home Ruler, seconded the amendment offered by Mr. Biggar. This was the first speech that Mr. Parnell as sitting member of the British Commons heard in that chamber ; it was his debut in the midst of an interesting scene, and which led up to such a sad and tragic sequel. 58 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. It was his baptism of fire in the Irish cause, to use these military phrases, which Irish Provincialists are apt to use toward Parliamentary debates. Mr. Parnell was destined to see some tough struggles in that chamber, where pluck and vim were necessary in very trying moments ; but unfor- tunately for Irishmen, who were waging this wordy war only'to have one result, they were compelled to yield to the overpowering strength of numbers. It was during the course of this debate that Mr. Parnell made his maiden speech in the House in a very noble cause, arguing against coercion for his native land. Mr. Parnell observed that no arguments had been advanced against the amendment of his honorable friend, the member for Cavan. The honorable member for Derry, although he argued with the principle of the bill, said he should vote in favor of the amendment as being a just and proper one. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had of course opposed it, and so also had the noble Marquis, who was supposed to lead the Opposition in that House. What reason had the honorable member for Derry given for approving the principle of the bill ? It was that some coercion was neces- sary in his district to prevent Catholics and Protestants from flying at each other's throats. But was that any reason why thirty other Irish counties should be placed under Coercion laws ? It had been said that some half dozen Irish landlords had given it as their opinion that without Coercion they could not exercise the rights of property. He had seen Irish land- lords sitting in polling-booths as agents for the Conservative candidate, and their tenants trembling when they came to vote against that candi- date. That was an exercise of the rights of property of which he did not think Englishmen would approve. There had not been threatening letter-writing of late, or shooting, or agrarian crime, and was that, he asked, a time to bring in a Coercion Bill ? Was this a proper time to stop all discussion on this measure when Irish members were telling the House what the wishes of their constituents with regard to it were? The honorable member for Derry County had told the House that the Irish tenant farmers of the North were convinced that some remedial measures were necessary for the restoration of tranquillity in that part of the country. He did not profess to speak on behalf of the Irish tenant farmers ; not even those living in the black North. They were so locked up in their own self-interest as to be inclined to give up the interest of their country to serve that of their class. When the proper time came perhaps it would be found that he was a truer friend to the tenant farmer than even the honorable member for Derry County. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had found fault with the language which had been used by the honorable member for Derry County, but he did not know who had appointed the honorable gentleman the censor of the language used in that House by honorable members. But perhaps the Right Honorable gentleman thought that the time-honored and ancient Whig-hack would no longer be able to carry matters with a high hand in Derry County, and was holding out to him a helping hand in the event of thinking about changing his side of the House. For his own part, however, he did not think that the honorable member was likely to turn his coat, and he was convinced that he would always be found where he believed that the interest of his country required him. He trusted that the time would arrive when the history of the past would be forgotten and all would look forward to a future, in which Irishmen would possess equal rights of self-government with the people of England and Scotland, and in which England could rely with confidence on a truly independent, a truly free, and a t.-uly self-supporting nation. BRITISH PARLIAMENT THE GRAVE OF IRISH PATRIOTISM. 59 Mr. Parnell in the course of his speech, in alluding to the Irish tenant farmer as selfish, who would sacrifice country for class, says that which every Irish Nationalist must with great pain and reluctance endorse. The farmers of Ireland who come under the denomination respectable, or well to do, are the most unpatriotic portion of the Irish community. They have never taken any part as a class in Irish politics unless their landed interests were at stake. Those who rent small holdings find that their life is one perpetual struggle for existence ; they have little time to give their country. From both classes have sprung very good Nationalists — some of the finest men Ireland had produced, but these are a very small percentage of the farming community. The farmer's sons have invariably been good and loyal Irish patriots, before they in turn took to farming for themselves. Talk of an English garrison of landlords ! Why they would be multiplied one hundred fold, if these men's grievances could possibly be settled by an alien Parliament. Ireland would then have an addi- tional garrison to hold the country for the foreigner. As to the farm laborers, they, poor fellows, have always been ready to do any good in the Irish cause they were able, self-sacrificing and most reliable as a rule, and faithful to death. But, unfortunately, owing to their defective education, they are not always intelligent in the course they pursue, and are more easily swayed by the addresses of demagogues than their town brothers. If a British Parliament could solve this land problem — which is impos- sible — this latter class would share but little of the benefits the farmer would receive. It is only in the legislature of an independent Irish nation* that this important land question can be settled to be of sub- stantial benefit to the whole community. The grievances of the tillers of Irish soil, and their struggles to eke out what at best is but a miserable existence, have been written by many an able pen within the past few years. But no pen can fully depict the horrors and cruelties the Irish peasantry are undergoing through the tyranny of rapacious landlords, backed up, aided, and supported by the infamies of the invader's rule. Whether it is under the regime of the brutal Tory, Salisbury, or the no less cruel but hypocritical Gladstone, the evictions continue with heartrending agonies. And yet but a portion of the population of Ireland is engaged in agriculture. Ireland — without any industries, no national life, no manu- factures, all around ruin and decay. What, then, must be the suffering of the unhappy townspeople ? Visit any city or town and you see the ruins of mills that once flourished and gave employment to the people. You see the water power which Nature has so plentifully bestowed upon this favored island of heaven running to waste, and you witness numbers of idle men standing around leaning against ruined walls, eating their souls away in decay like their surroundings. What silent miseries this must entail ! Not so public as the agony of evictions, but with the same destructive results. Few know of the struggles with poverty and sick- ness brought on by lack of nourishment. How many a famine death takes place unknown or nearly so to the community, registered under the head of some disease — disease originating in hunger ! Absence of man- ufactures is the greatest evil of foreign occupation ; the land question is but secondary to this frightful evil. An incident occurred in the House of Commons that startled English- men, and told them that a new class of Irishmen were now in the enemy's Parliament. On the evening of Tuesday, April 27, 1875, Mr. Biggar rose in his place and called the Speaker's attention to the presence of strangers. 60 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. It was one of the old privileges of the British Parliament to exclude all but members at their sittings. This privilege could be exercised by any individual member unquestioned. Of course the custom had not only fallen into disuse, but was almost completely forgotten. The necessity for the presence of newspaper reporters, and the absurdity of exercising the privilege unless under grave circumstances, coupled with the conservative habits of the British nation, left the laws of Parliament unchanged. When Mr. Biggar called the Speaker's attention to the presence of strangers, the House was astonished at this strange proceeding. The Speaker said : u Do I understand the Honorable member for Cavan to take notice that strangers are now present ? " Mr. Biggar : " I do." (Murmurs and cries of " Oh ! ") The Speaker : " That being so, I am compelled to give notice that strangers must withdraw." The Speaker's and Members' galleries were crowded, and were then, at five minutes to five o'clock, soon cleared. The reporters were, of course, also compelled to leave. The following is said to have transpired when the House was cleared : Mr. Biggar explained that he was impelled to this action by the unsatis- factory position in which the members of the press stood in relation to the House, and stated it to be his intention to pursue a similar course every evening until reporters should be made He understood the member for Swansea had withdrawn the motion which stood in his name on the notice paper for this evening. Mr. Disraeli was quite indignant with Mr. Biggar for his con- duct. He considered the Honorable Member for Cavan's action unpar- donable, tending to lower the dignity of the first assembly of gentle- men in the world. Several Irish members condemned Mr. Biggar's course. Old members, who had accepted the Home Rule cry to preserve their seats or to procure new ones, were most emphatic in their condem- nation. A motion was put, and carried, that in future members should give notice if they proposed to call the Speaker's attention to strangers, which would have to be put to the vote of the House. What made Mr. Biggar's action more deeply hurtful to the aristo- cratic British tendencies of both sides of the Chamber, was the presence of the Prince of Wales, who was compelled to withdraw with the others. The Tory Coercion Bill was debated in committee and opposed by the Irish members. The Irish Secretary accepted an amendment pro- posed by Mr. Butt, limiting the right of search for arms to the period between sunrise and sunset, and also providing that the warrant of search shall only be exercised in the presence of the person to whom it is directed by name. Mr. Butt said that the Right Honorable Baronet, in assenting to these amendments, had done much to mitigate the evils of this coercive legisla- tion, inasmuch as it might now be said with truth, that the general right of domiciliary search no longer existed ; for his own part, he could, with a clear conscience, return his sincere thanks to the Right Honorable gentleman for the concessions he had made. Well and truly did that unflinching Nationalist, John Mitchell, write of the class from which the Provincialists spring as "genteel dastards and bellowing slaves." Hear this Provincialist leader eating dirt in the enemy's legislative halls. Heavens, what self-abasement for a man who represented a gallant nation — or has Provincialism sapped the manhood of a once high-spirited race — thanking the invader of his country for a coercion law ! There is nothing more monstrous or degrading in the history of any people. What effect had the trumpery change in the wording of a coercive edict upon Ireland's happiness, that this man, then hailed as Ireland's Provincial leader, should so humiliate his country in the legislature of her enemy ? He in no sense represented the feeling BRITISH PARLIAMENT THE GRAVE OF IRISH PATRIOTISM. 6l of Irish Nationalists, who must continue to wince under these inflictions, for their voices are stifled not only by the foe, but by these noisy bellow- ing slaves, the Provincialists ! Mr. Butt must have known, but that he wanted a victory for the agitation like Ireland's present Provincialists, that the acceptance of his clause prohibiting a search for arms after sunset was not of the value to Ireland of the paper on which he wrote it. Whenever it suited the exigencies of the invader's rule, their employees, the Royal Irish Constabulary, or the Metropolitan Police, visited the house of any man suspected of loyalty to Ireland, well knowing the seeming illegality would be condoned by their superiors in authority. Irish members in the British Parliament are like men in a maelstrom — they are whirled round and round and hear no sound but the rush and noise of the waters. They cannot save themselves from being swept headlong into a stream that leads to national destruction. Sooner or later the vortex that swirls them round will swallow them up, and they are lost to Ireland for evermore. When an Irishman reflects on the number of promising men sent from Ireland to the London legislature, he must feel deeply grieved at the thought ; some of them were good men who tried to do Ireland true and loyal service before they were sent there, but these national aspirations were completely destroyed by contact and association with the enemy's legislators, thereby doing a double injury to Ire- land — deceiving her people, their countrymen, by false and hollow promises, and deceiving the enemy's statesmen into the belief that they represent Irish feeling, and that the Irish nation has changed with these men's changed opinions and slavish subservience to some British party leader. The poisoned atmosphere of the British Commons is certain sooner or later to sap their national life ; it commenced in Mr. Butt's case by conciliation and gratitude to British statesmen for governing them a little milder than of old, until it is hard to find one trace of the original, so changed is he by a Parliamentary career. Instance The O'Donoghue ; he was a good Irishman when he entered the British Commons. His challenge to Sir Robert Peel had a manly- ring about it. He had strong revolutionary tendencies, and was at one time near joining the Nationalist ranks. Again, there is Mr. O'Connor Power, once a faithful Nationalist, a truly patriotic man before he entered Westminster as a legislator. The ability God gave him filled his heart with vanity, and a seat in the British Legislature completed the curse. While Irishmen condemn let them recall the cause of this defection, caused by sending these men into the enemy's Parliament — an act in itself of degradation and national stultification. Had they not been sent to the alien chamber they might have continued faithful Nationalists. As The O'Donoghue expressed it before his Irish manhood left him, " The British Parliament is no place for an Irish gentleman." CHAPTER V. (1875-76-) O'CONNELL CENTENARY — THE POETS OF '48. The O'Connell Centenary Celebration — Address of the Amnesty Association — Lord Mayor McSwiney — His Political Standing — His Complaint Before the Viceroy — Amnesty Banner Hung in Chains — The Procession — Immense Crowds — Scenes Around the Platform — Amnesty Men in Procession — Lord O'Hagan — The Monster Parade — Silken Thomas — Addresses on the Platform — The Lord Mayor — Mr. Butt Speaks — O'Connell and the Oath of Supremacy — History Falsely Written — Amnesty Meeting under the Presidency of Mr. Parnell — Condemnation of P. J. Smyth — Anecdotes of '48 Poets— D'Arcy Magee — Gavan Duffy — SliabhCuillen — " Dear Land " — [udas Barry and the Ballad Singer — The Limerick Resolution — Meeting in Nenagh — Mr. Gladstone's Land Act Denounced — Mr. Peter Gill and Land Bill of 1870 — Incidents of Disraeli's Coercion Bill — Scene on the Quays of Cork — Disraeli's Refusal to Release the Military Prisoners — Catalpa Rescue — The News Reaches Dublin — Great Torchlight Procession — Disraeli's Effigy Burned — Obstruction in the House of Commons — Opposition of Mr. Butt — Entry of Duke of Marlborough as Lord Lieu- tenant, December, 1876. The centenary of Daniel O'Connell was approaching and his country- men were about to celebrate the one hundredth anniversay of the birth of this illustrious Irishman, whose brilliant speeches and giant ability shed such a halo over the Irish bar. His struggles to free Ireland by moral suasion and the justice of her cause, is a household story of every Irish- man, and even foreigners are familiar with the career of Ireland's great son. On July 29, 1875, the Amnesty Association issued an address to the Irish people. Speaking of the herculean task they undertook in getting some of the prisoners released, it continues thus : " But there still linger in British Bastilles forty-four of our country- men. We therefore deem it right to appeal to you on this occasion, believing that the O'Connell Centenary will afford a fitting opportunity for uniting that assemblage. In fact, the whole celebration is one grand protest against the inconsistent and inhuman treatment of political prisoners by our alien and relentless rulers. It would be a sad thing indeed if in the glare of civic banqueting and glamour, and of plausible oratory, we forget those who dared the horrors of the British dungeon, who cast the die and never reckoned the consequences, because they loved old Ireland, not wisely — according to the theory of those who made profit and pretended patriotism — but too well. While we venerate the name of O'Connell, while we look upon him as the precursor of the future disenthrallment of Ireland, we must remember that the best and truest of Irishmen today wear the felon's chains and are being done to death in England's jails." A motion in favor of amnesty for the remaining political prisoners, made by Mr. Mitchell Henry in the British Parliament, brought Mr. Par- nell upon his feet, when he delivered an able and sympathetic speech in favor of complete amnesty. The Lord Mayor of Dublin for the year 1875 was Mr. Peter Paul McSwiney, senior partner in a leading dry goods firm. He was person- ally an amiable, pious, and conscientious man, one who would serve his kind if possible. He was politically West-British and a rabid anti-physi- cal force man. He had been Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1864 and had 62 O'CONNELL CENTENARY— THE POETS OF '48. 63 laid the foundation stone of the O'Connell monument that year. During his Mayoralty of that date, at the usual inaugural banquet, addressing the English Viceroy in the course of a long speech on Irish grievances, he took up the insignia of his office as Chief Magistrate of the city and complained of the law that prohibited him from wearing his S. S. collar and civic robes as Lord Mayor when entering a Catholic church. In so far as the removal of the grievance so complained of by Mr. McSwiney, Ireland is free. The Lord Mayors of Dublin can wear their state robes and what trapping they choose when visiting their churches. The control and management of the O'Connell Centennial celebrations in the City of Dublin were vested in Lord Mayor McSwiney, who looked upon the memory of the great Irish tribune with a reverence approaching worship. He believed, as do many of his countrymen, even to this day, that to O'Connell are Irishmen indebted for every (so-called) concession England gave in his time. The " no drop of blood " doctrine was the cardinal principle of Lord Mayor McSwiney 's national creed. This otherwise amiable Irishman was horrified at the depravity of his countrymen, when he heard that the Amnesty Association was determined to parade with the monster O'Connell procession. The Amnesty procession, though comparatively few in numbers, was composed of stalwart, determined upholders of Irish Nationality ; deputa- tions from Manchester, Liverpool, and several English cities had joined them. All of these were composed of men who had spent the greater portion of their lives in the service of Ireland. They assembled at Beresford Place, near the Custom House, with the intention of taking up their position at the head of the procession. Lord Mayor McSwiney and his committee, with questionable taste, had invited the ex-Lord Chancellor, Lord O'Hagan, to deliver the O'Connell oration. This incensed Nationalists and Provincialists alike, for Silken Thomas, as Lord O'Hagan was called, was a renegade repealer, who for rank and wealth had gone over to the British, although a mild politician and not an extreme partisan, gifted and eloquent, and possessed of that savoir-vivre, which gave him the above sobriquet. A loyal Irishman was considered the proper person to be the orator of the day and not a renegade. A grand high mass was celebrated with full Pontifical ceremonies in the Cathedral, and all the West-British Catholic wealth of Dublin and the tlite of the country were there, and of course the Lord Mayor and City Council. One could not help thinking, looking at the crowd of aristo- cratic worshipers, would it not have been well for Irish nationality if emancipation did not dawn until the sun of freedom shone upon that stricken island ? What has emancipation done for Ireland ? Are her people more partriotic, are they wealthier, are they in a more prosperous condition than they were in before the Fourth George, to save Britain from the bloodshed of an Irish insurrection, affixed his signature to that so-called document of emancipation ? It has opened avenues of promo- tion to the sons of rich Catholics in the service of Ireland's enemy. In the Indian service, the army, the navy, the civil service, but all these young men are lost to their country ; they are more confirmed Britons than those born in that island. Of what value to the Irish masses steeped in poverty, is the promotion or emoluments earned by this small number of men in the service of that nation which is daily impoverishing their country, and which is expatriating their race from the land of their fathers ? They leave to be swallowed up and disappear eventually in the vortex of peoples with which they mingle. It has given judges to administer the enemy's laws ! Yes, it has blessed Ireland with the notorious 64 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. and infamous Judge Keogh, who sent to the gallows innocent lives. It has given Ireland to-day Judge O'Brien, a renegade Home Ruler, or one who tried to get elected as such. Hierarchy of Ireland, search deep down into your hearts, and is there not some answering response that tells you that you are Irishmen as well as Bishops of God's Church, when you think of these horrors which British rule has entailed upon your people, this ruin and loss of faith and personal degradation which is happening daily, aye at this very hour ? Britain is seething with the vices of the fallen members of your flocks. They, who should be listening to your pious exhortations and those of your priests, are steeped in crime. Answer, as you pray for light and wisdom to the Most High, can you conscientiously condemn any action forced upon the Irish people, and done under Irish constituted authority, against this illegal and hellish Government, which is the author of all these infamies which happen to your people ? Will He, who caused the sun to stand in the heavens, to permit the Israelites to defeat and slaughter their enemies ; will the God of Joshua, who commanded the shedding of the blood of the enemies of his chosen people, look angry on the blessed struggle which Ireland should ordain against her treacher- ous and cruel foe ? As the years roll on, you waste them in idle protestations against the enemy's parties. Now the Tories are the object of this useless con- demnation, and anon it may be the Liberals. Remember your flocks are slowly leaving you, that your churches are losing their congregations yearly. Fifty thousand people are lost to Ireland every cycle the earth makes around the sun. Think of this, the population reduced in one decade by half a million souls ! Fifty thousand people yearly, and then take the loss of the natural increase ! How long can Ireland stand this drain ? How long can you continue to have people to attend your churches if this is not quickly stopped ? It will probably be said that this exodus did not come from emancipation. True, but emancipation delayed if it did not stop self-government. Britain offered this huge bribe to the Irish people to save her rule in Ireland from destruction. Had she not done so, eight millions of people, aided by the Irish Catholic soldiery, could have swept aside the driveling doctrines of O'Connell, and, ignoring his " not one drop of blood " doctrine, faced like men their country's foe. They would not have accepted the emancipation of the Catholic Church without receiving with it the emancipation of their country. Hence emancipation that came as a boon, like all Britain's enforced gifts, has become a curse to Ireland. Well might the Irish people repeat the lines of Virgil : "I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts." The morning of the O'Connell Centenary was misty ; and as the various processions marched through the city to take up the places assigned them many anxious looks were turned skyward. But soon the mist disappeared and the sun came out to cheer and smile upon this Irish fete day. Soon after the service was over in the Cathedral, the monster procession started, headed by the Amnesty banner with hanging fetters : fitting symbol of Ireland's continued slavery. The air resounded with Irish music, as thousands of men marched through the streets of Dublin to honor Ireland's great son — he whose voice when living could thrill the multitude with the wealth and beauty of his oratory. Before the huge parade had reached Capel Street, on its return down the Quays, the Amnesty men left the main body, and making a detour they reached the platform in O'Connell Street (then Sackville), where they ranged themselves with their banner. The platform — which was erected where now stands that magnificent O'CONNELL CENTENARY— THE POETS OF '48 65 work of Irish Art, the O'Connell statue, nearly completed by the dead sculptor Foley, and finished by his Irish pupil — could only hold 150 persons, and so particular was the Lord Mayor and his committee to have it select, that the greatest possible care was taken to allow no tickets into the hands of any of the Nationalists. Great, then, was the astonishment of the good Lord Mayor, to find the platform in possession of the dreaded patriots with their banner in front and their men in columns drawn up around it. Lord O'Hagan was well aware of the dissatisfaction which the Irish people felt at his being chosen to deliver the oration. The Nationalists and the Provincialists were of one opinion on this subject. With the good taste and good sense of his character, he absented himself and sent an apology, pleading the illness of his daughter as an excuse. Lord Mayor McSwiney and several of his friends got on the plat- form, and as Peter Paul stepped forward to address the multitude, it was the signal for loud hooting. In vain he essayed to speak. His voice was drowned in the noise of the angry crowd. In a few minutes Mr. Isaac Butt came forward, when the people broke into loud cheers. Mr. Butt's address threw oil on the troubled waters and restored good humor to the crowd. Mr. A. M. Sullivan of the Dublin Nation, member of a very brilliant and accomplished family, next addressed the crowd. He made a telling and finished speech. Mr. O'Connor Power spoke on behalf of the Amnesty men ; his address was received with immense applause. Lord O'Hagan, although he did not deliver his speech, took measures that the oublic should not lose what he had prepared for the occasion. He published a brilliant oration on O'Connell and his times. Speaking of the Emancipation year, Lord O'Hagan said : " He went to the House of Commons, the representative not of Clare only, but of Catholic Ireland ; he repudiated haughtily and in memorable words the qualifying oath. Of course he was denied a place in Parlia- ment, but the whole world saw that the fight was over. Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington accepted the inevitable, and gave us the justice they could no more withhold." Such a scholarly man as Lord O'Hagan must have been familiar with the facts, but it did not suit his purpose to tell them. He distinctly states in the above passage from his speech, what millions of his country- men have been taught to believe, that O'Connell's presence in the House was for the deliberate purpose of bearding the English Parliament and rejecting the oath, which he did in those historic words. The inference drawn from Lord O'Hagan's speech, was that emancipation followed O'Connell's appearance in the House. This was written by Lord O'Hagan with the deliberate object to impress upon the mass of his countrymen, who were not familar with its history, the great fact that O'Connell by his manly action in the House, in refusing to take the oath, thereby convinced Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington of the justice of his cause, and their yielding granted emancipation. Amid the many fictions with which history teems, this is one of those great false- hoods, and there is no more fallacious statement taught our people by those who hail O'Connell as the Liberator, than this hugely circulated lie. The facts are these : O'Connell was elected member for Clare on June 30, 1828. At that time and for years before Ireland was well organized to strike a blow at British rule in the country. Of course this movement was secret and revolutionary — a continuance of Emmet's organization and that of the United Irishmen ; they were preparing to take the field on the strength of the Catholic grievances added to the National one. The revolutionary doctrines had spread into the British Armv, 66 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. then largely composed of Irish Catholic soldiers. The religious griev- ance more particularly impressed these men, and they were anxious and willing for the signal for insurrection to make common cause with their countrymen. It is scarcely necessary to state that O'Connell knew nothing of this. Any rumors that reached his ear he gave no credence to. For if he really knew it, no English Minister could be more anxious than he to suppress it. He believed like most lawyers in arguing the question with the British in a legal and a constitutional manner, and convincing them of the evil of their actions by the force of logic. Once convinced of this, he thought they would of course redress the grievance complained of at once. Py educating the English masses to know the error of their ways toward Ireland, their liberty-loving spirit is so great that his country would receive the fullest satisfaction. Such was the great O'Connell theory and such are the principles upon which his successors act to-day. Although Mr. O'Connell knew nothing of this secret revolutionary movement, the British Ministers did. They were fairly well informed ; the spread of the revolutionary doctrines in the army alarmed them, they dreaded the prospect of another Irish rebellion — as they would term a national war for independence ; particularly as the Irish would be aided by Catholic soldiers whose banners would be inscribed with religious freedom. So they introduced the Emancipation Act in Feburary, 1829. They got the king's signature, through his horror of revolution and through that fear alone. They themselves publicly expressed this as their motive power, as the speeches of Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington, as quoted by Mr. Gladstone, confirm. It was not the justice of the cause which O'Connell advocated that they saw (as Lord O'Hagan expresses, in his oration); on the contrary they believed the cause most unjust. They fully admitted to their countrymen that they knew that the grant- ing of emancipation was a great evil, but then Irish insurrection was a greater evil still. Men like the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel were not likely to be influenced by sentimental motives. The king signed Catholic Emancipation on April 13, 1829. Mr. O'Connell did not present himself after his election of the previous year to be sworn in. But hearing of the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act, he concluded he would be permitted to take the new oath. He presented 'himself on the floor of the House of Commons on May 15, 1829, to be sworn and to take his seat as member for Clare, one month after the passing of the Emancipation Act. He asserted his right to take the oath prescribed by the newly passed law. He was heard in support of his claim at the Bar of the House and then requested to retire. Bigotry was still rampant in the British breast ; what they were com- pelled to surrender to the fears of insurrection and the dread of physical force, they were determined should be given to O'Connell grudgingly. As a foe they secretly despised him; the magic of his voice and the power of his oratory had no influence with them. He might as well have addressed the angry waves and asked them to be still. The Solicitor General (Sir Nicholas Tindal) made a motion that as he (Mr. O'Connell) had been returned for Clare before the passing of the Emacipation Act, he could not sit without taking the former oath, the oath of supremacy. This resolution was carried by 190 to 216. On May 19 Mr. O'Connell was sent for, and the resolution conveyed to him at the Bar of the House. He then asked to see the oath of supremacy, which the resolution of the House would compel him to take, unless he sought re-election for Clare. When he read the oath, he made the historic reply O'CONNELL CENTENARY— THE POETS OF '48. 67 so often quoted by Irishmen, and which is to be found in the archives of the British Parliament as follows : "Whereupon Mr. O'Connell requested to see the said oath, which being shown to him accordingly, Mr. O'Connell stated that the said oath contained one proposition which he knew to be false, and another which he believed to be untrue, and he therefore refused to take the said oath of supremacy." A fresh writ was issued for Clare on the 21st and Mr. O'Connell had to go through the form of re-election, after which he was of course per- mitted to take the new oath and his seat for Clare as prescribed under the recent Act. To this day are to be seen, in Irish cabins in the country and in the parlors of Irishmen in the town, engravings hanging on the walls depict- ing O'Connell at the Bar of the House ; and underneath the historic and memorable words used at the time. How firmly convinced are a large section of the Irish people that the thunder of O'Connell's eloquent voice in the English senate hastened Catholic emancipation ! The use of those historic words had nothing whatever to do with Catholic emancipation, a measure at that time a part of British law. Advocate as he was of this (so-called) great boon to emancipate the Catholics, and although "the largest souled and most gifted of her sons," he has absolutely no claim to the title of Liberator. Britain at insurrection's dread sound was forced to yield. " Ninety-eight " men dead — their name had won the field. Soon after the O'Connell Centennial celebration a meeting of the Amnesty Association was held in Dublin, under the presidency of Charles Stewart Parnell ; for this young tribune of the people at this time and up to 1882 identified himself with the Nationalists, and did not finally break with them until the spring of the year 18S7. This meeting received evidence which seemed to them conclusive that Mr. P. J. Smyth cut the traces of the Amnesty carriage on the day of the great procession. A resolution was passed declaring his explanation unsatisfactory and call- ing on him to resign or he would be expelled. Mr. P. J. Smyth's course in Irish National politics has been a peculiar one, and indeed it was the same with some of the orators and poets of the '48 era. Catholic emancipation had conferred upon those young gentle- men the boon of having a country to sell. Mr. Smyth, after a most erratic career and having avoided all entangling alliances with either of the great English parties, changed at the end of his life. He left the Irish Provin- cialists and after some time accepted a position from Mr. Gladstone. This Government appointment he received a short time before he died. Irishmen who remember what he was are inclined to think necessity drove him to accept it, and it is very probable that the knowledge of this act preyed on his mind and hastened his death. He did not live long to en- joy the luxuries purchased by British gold. Another of this brilliant group was Thomas D'Arcy McGee, the poet and historian who enriched the literature of Ireland with the labors of a productive pen, a man of great genius ; every line in his works or in his poems breathes the soul of a true patriot. What evil genius came upon this gifted man to change so completely it is impossible to say, unless it was the opportunities of rank and honors which he could receive in the service of the enemy. In the days of his patriotism no one was more scathing in the denunciations of a traitor, and in one or two poems he expressed the hope that if ever he proved false to Ireland that he should receive adequate punishment. The sad results all are familiar with; his melancholy and tragic end all 68 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Irishmen deplore. Among the small group that founded the Nation newspaper in 1842, was Charles Gavan Duffy, but, although he was the friend and companion of stern and determined patriots, he was not of them. It is strange to think that this intimate associate of Thomas Davis did not catch one spark of the fire of patriotism that burned within the breast of that devoted son of Ireland ; that none of John Mitchell's deter- mination of purpose and opposition to everything politically British could find a place in his character. Pleasing and graceful as a writer, like many Irish Provincialists (for he could be called nothing else), he would have been a useful and valuable servant were his country an independent nation, but he was constitutionally too weak, far too weak to aid effect- ively in giving any practical assistance to bring about such an event. He had not the slightest reflex of the great men who were around him in that stormy period. He is at this date wearing the honors of British Knighthood — a very respectable member of the Imperial subjects of Queen Victoria. Who that has read the stirring ballads of that charming poet " Sliabh Cuillen " would ever think that he could degenerate into a British official? But alas for the good that Catholic emancipation did for Ireland, this is lamentably true. Subjoined are two verses of one of his poems : My grandsire died his home beside, They seized and hanged him there, His only crime in evil time Your hallowed green to wear. His brothers twain across the main Were sent to pine and rue, But still they turned with hearts that burned In hopeless love to you, Dear land ! • In hopeless love to you. What path is best her rights to wrest Let other heads divine ; By work or word, by voice or sword, To follow them be mine. The breast that zeal and hatred steel No terrors can subdue, If death should come, that martyrdom, Were sweet endured for you, Dear land ! Were sweet endured for you. Sliabh Cuillen, the author of this exquisite national poem and many other similar ones, is John O'Hagan, the present Chief Judge in the Irish Land Court. He is earning a comfortable income in the service of his country's enemy, trying to make the farmers suffer by making the land to them truly dear land. But another story of a '48 poet is a very peculiar incident of its kind — M. J. Barry, one of the writers of that period and the author of several fine ballads ; one of these, " The Green Flag," is written to a stirring martial air, the lines are : Boys, fill your glasses, Each hour that passes Steals, it may be on our last night's cheer. The day soon shall come, boys, With fife and drum, boys, Breaking shrilly on the soldier's ear. Drink the faithful hearts that love us In to-morrow's thickest fight, While the green flag floats above us ! Think, boys, its for them we smite. O'CONNELL CENTENARY— THE POETS OF '48. 69 Then up with the green flag ; Down with each mean rag — The green flag above us in triumph be seen. Think of its glory, Long shrined in story ; Charge for Erin and her flag of green. Mr. M. J. Barry was an early deserter from the National ranks — that is the National ranks of making patriotic songs, of which he wrote a number of excellent ones. Mr. Barry was called Michael Judas by his former friends, but the Irish poet knew that financial glory was more easily obtained in the British than in the Irish service, which Catholic emancipation had opened up to this enterprising writer. After many vicissitudes Michael Judas was appointed police magistrate. During the close of the Fenian excitement one Saturday night the police arrested a ballad singer for singing seditious ballads. He was imprisoned in the police cells and brought up before the sitting magistrate, who happened to be Mr. Barry. The policeman made his charge against the prisoner for singing seditious ballads, tending to provoke a breach of the peace, etc., etc., in the then state of the country. Mr. Barry sentenced the prisoner to fourteen days' imprisonment. The seditious ballad which the prisoner was sentenced for singing was the " Green Flag," the magistrate s own composition. At a public meeting, held at this time in Limerick, the following resolution was submitted, and only withdrawn at the urgent solicitation of Mr. Butt : " That considering the manner in which the demand of the Irish people for self-government preferred through their representatives has been received by the Imperial Parliament, we now call on our representatives aftd their colleagues to make their final demand at the next session of Parliament." * Mr. Gladstone's Land Act of 1870 was now proven to be a worthless measure to the Irish tenant farmers ; but, like most of that statesman's Irish measures, of great service to the lawyers. Meetings were held call- ing on the British legislature to pass a law of some practical utility to the agricultural community. A great meeting was held in Nenagh to voice the sentiment of the Irish farmers in their just demand for fair rents and fixity of tenure. It was held on January 3, 1876. Among the many speeches delivered was the following address by the county member, one of the Home Rule party. Honorable Mr. O'Callaghan, M. P., said : "The Land Act of Mr. Gladstone can be twisted in different ways ; we want a Land Act that cannot be quibbled about by lawyers." Mr. Peter Gill, a veteran Nationalist and uncle to Mr. J. P. Gill, M. P., one of Mr. Parnell's most faithful followers to-day, and a firm and sincere believer in Mr. Gladstone's conversion to Irish Nationality, denounced the Land Act of 1870, and moved a resolution to the effect that this Land Act, instead of protecting the tenant farmers, had proved ruinous to them by aiding insatiable landlords to perpetrate legal felony by exacting renewal fines, or driving them to the verge of pauperism by rack rents. This description of one of Mr. Gladstone's concessions, by a man who thoroughly understood the situation of the farmers, residing as he did in an agricultural district, fully corroborated every Nationalist's description of Mr. Gladstone's so-called concessions. All of which measures were so ingeniously constructed that, as Mr. Gill expressed in * This resolution, it is understood, was drawn up by that gallant, whole-souled Nation- alist John Daly, now a prisoner in a British dungeon and an enforced companion of the enemy's felons. 70 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. his resolution, they were, instead of measures of relief, engines of destruc- tion to the people of Ireland. And it is for such deadly weapons, leveled at their existence as a people under either the pleasing titles of " Tenant Relief Bill " or " Home Rule," that Irishmen are asked to throw up their hats and shout hossanas to the Grand Old Man. Mr. Gill was a sincere believer in "moral suasion " and a consistent Provincialist. On the same platform was a patriotic Irish priest, the Rev. Mr. Horan of Galway. He said he hated the name of England and her accursed laws, and if he could emancipate his countrymen he would, for they were not emancipated, notwithstanding- O' Council's effort, as they were sub- ject to landlord tyranny. On February 7, 1876, the house of a respectable farmer, named Downey, was ransacked in his absence, to the terror of his wife, by a party of con- stables, and a minute examination made of every scrap of paper with writing upon it. On his return home he was informed of the visit. He complained to Mr. Hamilton, R. M., who stated that an information had been sworn against him by a person who suspected him of having written a threatening letter. He was referred by the magistrate for further inquiry to the sub-inspector of Constabulary, by the sub-inspector to the head constable, and by the head constable to a constable, who laughed at his indignation. He could not learn the name of the person who swore the unjust information against him. This is an incident of the effect of Mr. Disraeli's coercion law. Another case of coercion occurred in Cork. A man who rushed eagerly to be in time for the steamer Queen, leaving for Queenstown, arrived near St. Patrick's Bridge in time to see her steaming down the river. He was excited, and in his disappointment shotted : " To H — 11 with the Queen ! " A constable heard him and arrested him for using seditious and treasonable language. In vain he explained and expostulated ; he was brought before a magistrate, where he stated it was the steamer Queen he spoke of. He was sentenced to a term of imprisonment as a warning to those disloyal to Ireland's enemy. The news of the escape of the Australian Fenian prisoners had reached Dublin in June, this year. The Nationalists testified their joy • and delight at their escape by organizing a monster torchlight procession. The men in Dublin turned out in thousands, and with bands playing national music the torchlight procession marched by Dublin Castle, and through all the principal streets, followed by an immense crowd. Judging .from the enthusiastic and almost impromptu demonstration the National spirit still burned bright in the hearts of the citizens of Ireland's metrop- olis. They carried an effigy of Mr. Disraeli, filled with combustibles, which they burned on Grattan Bridge and then threw into the Liffey, while the bands played and the immense gathering sang " God save Ireland." It is a strange coincidence that Mr. Disraeli positively refused to release these prisoners two days before the news of the gallant Catalpa iiescue reached England. This year, 1876, the Eastern question occupied English political life. Mr. Butt introduced a Land Bill, which was rejected by a majority of 234. Obstruction in the House by Mr. Biggar and Mr. Parnell was in an embryo state, ready to come out with full vigor in the next session of Parliament. Mr. Parnell and Mr. O'Connor Power visited America this year ; during the visit Mr. Parnell met several Irish Nationalists. The close of the year brought a change in the Tory Viceroys. The Duke of Abercorn resigned and was succeeded by the late Duke of Marlborough, who made his triumphal entry as England's representative to govern Ireland, at the behests of Mr. Disraeli, in December, 1876. GENERAL MICHAEL KERW1N. In his uniform as colonel of the 13th Pennsylvania Cavalry. CHAPTER VI. (1865.) A RETROSPECT — THE PARTY OF ACTION — THE MILITARY COUNCIL'S PLAN OF INSURRECTION, 1865 — HISTORY OF JAMES STEPHENS* ESCAPE. Colonel Thomas J. Kelly's Mission to Ireland — Preparations to Take the Field — Musketry- Schools — Drill Classes — School of Military Engineers — Army Signal Corps — The Military Council — General Millen — John Nolan — Ribbonmen and Fenians — Colonel Kelly's Military Career — Battle of Cunifex Ferry — Kelly Severely Wounded — Chief of Signal Corps — General D. F. Burke — The Irish Brigade — Charge up Marye's Heights — Burke's Gallant Action — Promoted General for Bravery — General Wm. Halpin — General Michael Kerwin — His War Career — Joins Twenty- fourth Infantry — Enters Confederate Camp as a Spy — His Dangerous Mission — Fight at Middleton — Kerwin's Tactics — Advance of Lee's Army — Retreat on Win- chester — General Milroy Surrounded — Civil Administrator — Mustered Out — Leaves for Ireland — The Military Council's Plan of Insurrection — To Seize 30,000 Stand of Arms — Insurrection in the Military Barracks — Plan Rejected by the C. O. I. R. — Arrest of Stephens — His Defiant Speech in Court — Captain John Kirwan's Career — John Kirvvan and Daniel Byrne at the Battle of Castlefidardo — I. R. B. Secret Police — Daniel Byrne Promises to Release Stephens — Colonel Kelly meets Byrne — Duplicate Keys — Breslin and Underwood O'Connell — Stephens' Dispatches from Prison — Millen Sent to America — Journal De St. Petersbourg on Ireland — Colonel Kelly Plans the Rescue — The Six Rendezvous — The Paper Signals — Scenes Inside the Prison — The Ladder and Tables — Scenes Outside the Prison — Policeman in Love Lane — Kelly and the Locksmith — The Twelve Guards — Fearful Storm — Two O'Clock — Suspense — Three O'Clock — "Will He Never Come?" — The Shower of Gravel — The Rope — Stephens Rescued — Kelly Places Him in Safety — Excitement in Dublin — British Consternation — Arrest of Daniel Byrne — The Freeman on the Escape — Ballad on the Rescue — Miss Sarah Jane Butler — Nicholas Walsh — Miss Cecilia Walsh — Stephens Brought to Mrs. Butler's — Waiting the Signal for Insurrec- tion — Anxiety of the Country — Stephens Calls a Council — Postpones the Fight — Cowardice and Disaster — Stephens, Kelly, and the Detective — Miss Butler and the Military Patrol — Kelly Gets Stephens Out of Dublin — Stephens Reaches Paris — Break Up of the Organization in Ireland — A Remnant of Gallant Men Hold Together. When the news of the Australian rescue reached Ireland there was great joy all over the land. It was not so much the rescue of the prisoners, as the knowledge that the National movement was alive and active, and that their exiled brothers in America were still animated with the patriotism of years gone by ; clinging yet to the true National faith, those pure doctrines of Wolfe Tone, of Lord Edward, of Davis, of Mitchell, and the numerous other patriots and martyrs that struggled, suffered, and died for Ireland, trying to teach their people that by com- bating the enemy and by no other means could the dawn of independence come to their beloved country. This history will give a slight sketch of this epoch in Ireland's varied struggles to cast off the invader, the memorable years 1865 to 1867 — a movement which was born with high hopes and culminated in failure, but not in disaster. The propaganda which the great Fenian and I. R. B. organizations preached still lives on, and is to-day taking posses- sion of the Irish heart and fast removing from the people that bastard Provincialist doctrine which has brought degradation, surrender, sorrow, and disaster. Although many died in prison and others were sent to premature graves by the anxieties, sufferings, and deprivation of their 71 72 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. means of livelihood, the lessons taught the people by their lives and by their deaths still animates the Irish heart to a further and more successful endeavor. Of these losses but few, very few, were shot in skirmish with the enemy. Of those best remembered are O'Donoghue at Tallaght and Peter O'Neil Crowley at Kilcloney Wood. Four suffered death upon the enemy's scaffold — Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien at Manchester, and Michael Barrett in London. Ireland, while she deplores their loss, feels that their conduct cannot fail to exercise a most salutary effect on those who are left to sustain the contest and gain the palm of victory. Before the British Government became conscious of the powerful organization that was rapidly growing in Ireland, the leaders at home and in America were fast coming to the conclusion that the time for action had arrived. The Irish People newspaper was propagating healthy national teaching over the land and the men in the gap were straining their eyes toward the Great Republic of the west, and anxiously waiting for the signal to take the field. In the spring of 1865 the Fenian leaders in the United States decided on sending an emissary to Ireland to examine into the condition of the I. R. B. organization, and to see for himself the preparedness of the men in the gap to take the field against the British invader. They selected at Washington, D. C, for this important mission, Colonel Thomas J. Kelly, a man of brains and undoubted ability, and one of the number of capable men of superior capacity who left for Ireland during that important epoch. His instructions were to get from James Stephens, C. O. I. R., to whom he carried credentials, an order to visit the National circles all over Ireland and to learn for himself, untrammeled by the Irish Republican officials on the ground, the actual condition of affairs in that country. Seldom in the checkered history of Ireland, if ever in recent times, was Irish manhood better organized to take the field than during that year of 1865. Irish hopes, determination, and patriotic self- sacrifice animated the breasts of the people in the old land and the exiles in the new. That cup of joy to every Irish Nationalist, the near approach of meeting their enemy, the British invader, on the battlefields of Ireland, was dashed from their lips by the utter incompetence, weakness, vacilla- tion, and bombastic rule of a self-created autocrat, a man of great ability as an organizer, but no more intended by nature to guide a revolution or to conduct the affairs of a nation in the crisis of a struggle for independ- ence than he was destined to supersede a Von Moltke or a Sheridan in the command of armies. This " Old man of the Sea," filled with over- whelming vanity and egotism, clung round the neck of the National struggle until he strangled its energies in the hour when the blow for freedom should have been dealt to the foe. Colonel Kelly's tour through Ireland was satisfactory. The condition of the 1. R. B. was far beyond his expectations, and looking back at the then condition of the organization, it is only natural that he would be pleased and feel thoroughly satisfied with what he saw. Cork alone could have turned out a splendid body of well-drilled, magnificent soldiers — an army that might be expected to cope successfully with any force the enemy could bring against it, both for physique and intelligence. They lacked superior military skill in commanders, but these were soon after supplied them. The deficiency in arms was the great serious draw- back, and had Stephens not depended so much on the landing of American arms this condition of things would not have been so lamentably behind ; every man could have supplied himself with a rifle. Britain was completely hoodwinked as to the deep hold the movement had taken in the country. Nagle's information she did not place much reliance upon, and very naturally could not believe any insurrection serious that placed such a A RETROSPECT. 73 person in confidential communication with its chief. The men were armed through gun clubs, which supplied them with rifle and bayonet on the payment of small weekly sums, but Stephens did not permit the forming of these until it was almost too late to repair the previous inaction. Colonel Kelly, on his return to America, gave a favorable report of what came under his observation, which pleased the patriotic men here, and as men speak now of Home Rule, they then believed an Irish Repub- lic was soon to be born in the smoke and carnage of the battlefield. Military glory had seized possession of the Irishman of that period ; for them hope sat smiling on the hill, where to-day lies in the valley sad memory. The close of the war set free a number of Irish-American soldiers, and numbers of these men volunteered for service in the old land. Colonel Thomas J. Kelly returned to Dublin and became James Stephens' princi- pal officer and secretary. A great number of the men sent over to Ireland were brave but unskillful soldiers. But besides these were men who held high commands and fulfilled important functions in the American struggle. All over Ireland musketry schools were established and the manu- facture of cartridges was taught. As soon as the daily toil was over pre- paration for the coming fight was the young men's recreation. Drill classes, which have been in existence for years, increased in numbers and efficiency. Young men of education were selected to join the school of engineer- ing, and a number of fairly well-trained engineer officers, suitable for subaltern commands, were the outcome of this special branch of military study. The men worked hard, for their whole soul was in their task. For the superior commands there were on the ground some men who had gained their experience in the field, and fresh arrivals increased the number of these valuable officers. Colonel Kelly established a school to teach army signaling as prac- ticed in the Union armies, and as this was unknown at that period in the British army, the Irish revolutionary soldier would have had this advan- tage over his adversary. One of the arrivals in Ireland was an Irishman who had seen service in Mexico — General Millen. His presence was noised abroad among the men and marvelous and fabulous were the exploits attributed to this extraordinary man. It will be remembered that at that time General Millen was Ireland's only general, and although they received accessions of hard fighters a little later on, they were all of inferior rank to the Irish Mexican who held the title of full general. Of General Millen's military record nothing authentic is known ; his brother officers on the military council in Dublin, with all of whom the writer had some acquaintance, were unable to throw any light upon his career ; but all were duly impressed at that time with his valor and skill. Had he proved as successful in the field of Mars as he had been in the groves of Venus, he must indeed have turned out a veritable fire eater. General Millen won a bride, if he did not win military laurels during his Irish campaign. Had the control and authority of the intended revolution been sur- rendered over to the skillful military minds that now arrived on the scene, instead of being centred in the hands of such a vain, egotistical, and weak man as James Stephens undoubtedly proved, the British would have had a hard nut to crack before they could, as they termed it, " scotch " the Irish National movement. Mr. Stephens was undoubtedly a great organ- izer, and was as honest in intentions as he proved vacillating, braggart, 74 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. and impotent in practice. Those who recklessly accuse him of being intentionally false to Ireland do him great injustice. No man who knew him well charges him with any lack of patriotism. The man was sim- ply incapable, and that with which nature had not endowed him he tried to assume by an air of mystery and braggadocio. When spoken to by one of the newly arrived Irish-American officers about the arms in possession of the men, he told this soldier, fresh from the practical experience of American battlefields, that he had a great number of pikes, and that Michael Moore and others were turning out more of these weapons daily ; the military man turning on his heel told him in a contemptuous tone he would as soon command men armed with broomsticks. On another occasion he sent a man to one of the officers of the council ask- ing him to draw up a plan of an army in line of battle with the officers in position. He wanted this, it is supposed, to impress upon the men the melodramatic importance of himself as commander-in-chief. These silly acts of the C. O. I. R. were unknown outside of a few men. The masses of the people believed in him, as they do in another great man to-day, and his name was a magic talisman to conjure by. Hundreds of thousands of Irishmen were ready to dare anything at his command. He knew this well and it fed his vanity, tending to destroy any judgment he possessed. The men in America were told the most exaggerated stories of the position in Ireland and the amount of arms they possessed, while the men at home were all but convinced that an Irish- American expedition of at least five thousand men, armed with Spencer repeating rifles and accompanied by artillery, would be landed upon the Irish shores. The story was undoubtedly believed by many intelligent men and arrange- ments for their reception were actually carried out. The writer remem- bers one evening meeting the man who had sent over to America pilots to guide the ships having these Irish-American troops on board, and the manner in which he imparted this important information so impressed all that it was really believed such an expedition was being actually prepared in America. Few of the men at home were really aware of the actual state of things in America; to the enemy's press, which in many cases told truths, they naturally gave no credence. They were all prepared to do or die for the old land, and considered that all their countrymen everywhere were animated with the same noble sentiments. And so the great masses in the United States were ; they gave their money and their time, and all must feel sure that they would have given their hearts' blood for Irish freedom as readily as any of the men in the gap. No Nationalist ever accused the leaders in America with any lack of sincerity toward Ireland ; many of them were really able men, unfamiliar with the position at home, but most of those in superior authority were dreamers and utterly unfitted for their positions. The republican simplicity and earnestness that should have been displayed at this crisis was altogether wanting ; to speak of the Moffat Mansion and its uniformed guard, its magnificence and the paraphernalia of mock government, with its President and Senate, must have disgusted every serious American friend of Irish liberty. The men at home, while smiling at this extravagance, were more and more convinced that the resources of the Irish-American organization were almost unbounded. The fabulous stories always circulated of American wealth aided this delusion, and that the American movement owned a fleet of ships, and had crews and soldiers in their employ with the secret connivance of the United States Government, then believed to be hostile to Britain, was never for a moment doubted by the best of the men at home. A prominent member of the military school of engineers, who afterward joined the signal corps, left Dublin, throwing up a first-class position, and A RETROSPECT. 75 journeyed some distance to take command of men that were actually under orders to signal the arrival of this visionary fleet. But scattering away into dreamland this cloud of falsehood and rhodomontade which some men cast around the movement, the actual position in Ireland was excellent ; never since before '98 was the nation in a healthier condition to meet her foe. The Irish militia, which num- bered about thirty thousand men, and who had the advantage of some military training which they improved upon by secret drilling, were at least three-fourths enrolled in the I. R. B. ranks ; religion made no differ- ence. There was a larger percentage of non-Catholics in the movement than in any previous National undertaking ; the bone and sinew of the towns and cities were all enrolled ; mechanics, laborers, and shopmen, the flower of the agricultural districts, and, taken en masse, the manhood and intelligence of Ireland were ready to make any sacrifice to establish an independent republic. The organization in the British army was invaluable. The Irish-American officers could not be made to believe that this branch was so powerful and loyal to Ireland. Under the cir- cumstances of their training and military life in America this was perhaps only natural, but many of them since have confessed, with regret, that they did not fully appreciate what an important feature of the home movement was this military arm. The weapons in the invader's arsenals, by the aid and assistance of these soldiers, were at Ireland's disposal. A daring commander with full authority would have been in possession of the arsenals a few hours after issuing the orders. Ireland had many such daring soldiers at the time and on the scene, skillful generals of tried valor and experience, men who in many a battle proved their capability and courage, but they were crippled by the authority of Stephens and his cowardly delays, waiting for a visionary army from America. Had Ireland taken the field at that time, she could have easily raised in the country an army of over one hundred thousand men to begin the fight. Once the standard of green was unfurled to the breeze, men in thousands would have flocked to the national banner, and under the Irish flag there would have been found ranged a body of men second in bravery to no nation on the earth to-day. The disaffection in their army would necessarily paralyze the invaders for a time, and this would have given Ireland the needed short interval to organize in Dublin and elsewhere. This she could have done quickly with the material at her command. The farmers could have easily sup- plied the National government, either voluntarily or by requisition, with the nucleus of an irregular cavalry. These, aided by the number of dis- affected Irish dragoons anxious for the signal to leave the enemy's ranks — many of them veterans — would have raised this branch of the service to its needed proportion. By a bold and sudden stroke most of the invader's artillery could have been seized by the Irish government and, unlike heroic '98, the Irish republic could muster thousands of artillerists as well as engineers to serve the nation. The infection of an Irish uprising would have carried away every section ; all the people, agitators and revolutionists alike, would have flocked to the National flag, for hatred to British rule is shared by all. It is the policy of despair preached by selfish politicians and cowards that make any of the Irish mistake Provincialism for Nationality. An insignificant handful of rebel Orangemen in Ulster might have been wicked enough to try and aid the foreign ravager against their own people, but these matricides would be swept aside in a torrent of indigna- tion by their own co-religionists, for there is no sectarianism in patriots ; both Presbyterians and Episcopalians were at that time, as they are to-day, prominent leaders in the secret National ranks. -]6 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. The enemy might bombard and burn the fringe of the island, but he could not march far into the bowels of the land without impediment. The wealth, valor, and influence of the Irish people in this great con- tinent would at once be a unit in Ireland's favor. The bombardment of Irish towns not fortified, if resorted to in vandalism by the enemy, would stimulate Irish-Americans with redoubled energy. America, and soon France and Russia, would grant Ireland the rights of belligerents. Privateers would grow upon the ocean, tempted by the rich prizes in British argosies. Irish Alabamas would sweep down and prey upon those superabundant ocean luxuries — British merchantmen. Would Ireland be left alone in this gallant fight ? Would the nation that drenched American battlefields with their blood be forgotten here ? Would the gallant neighboring land of France remember the ancient race that gave them Fontenoy to blazon on their banners ? As the Irish Brigade saved Cremona, would they not sustain Ireland's heroic resistance ? Would the Northern Russian Colossus not avail himself of the advan- tages offered him by the entanglement of his enemy ? But suppose these speculations were all vain, and that Ireland was left alone to fight against generations of oppression! Her people were all animated with one feeling to endeavor to emulate their valiant sires ; each man felt the honor of the struggle and hopes of victory rested upon his shoulders. Once in the field all differences would have ceased ; each soldier would face death without fear of defeat or surrender. Had Ireland unfolded the National tri-color that September, 1865, as proposed by a valiant soldier, she would have had a glorious chance for independence. There were more provisions in the country than could be consumed within twelve months. This food in the interior of the country — or driven there — the enemy could not deprive them of while an Irish army held the field. Stores of ammunition could be had by the seizure of the enemy's arsenals ; the keys to the great magazine in the Phoenix Park were in the patriots' possession; its guard for the most part was I. R. B. men in the British ranks. With all his investing fleet the enemy could not have shut off Ireland's communications. She has hardy fishermen on the coast, full of Irish ingenuity and shrewdness, who would have carried through the enemy's lines messages to the outer world. They would have found secret friends manning the enemy's fleet. Take the converse picture and say they would be crushed, as many a cringing coward might say — they who term such noble efforts madness. Even were it so is it probable that Irishmen with arms in their hands would be defeated without a terrific struggle ? There is no such record in the history of the race ; the half-armed insurgents of '98 dashed them- selves on the enemy's lines sometimes to victory but always with valor. Would the men fresh from the daring fights and gallant charges of American battles wipe out their record by turning poltroons ? No ! their greatest enemy, even the British, would not prophesy such a conclu- sion ; no man would dare forecast such a result for Irish insurgent soldiers. But suppose they were defeated, as their brave fathers were in '98, look at the glorious page they would have written in Ireland's history, brighter far than the ignominious failure which occurred through the weakness and inability of James Stephens. Suppose the war for independence had been crushed in blood, would Ireland have lost the hundreds of thousands of lives in the carnage that she is losing yearly by this silly course called constitutional agitation ? With or without agitation this drain goes on, which is practically for Ireland the same as if the foe had massacred that number. There is'food for reflection to national Irishmen, when they think of the possibilities of 1865, and which with united and honest exertion could be repeated still, if healthy National teaching takes the place of the present slavish doctrines. James Stephens was compelled by the Ameri- A RETROSPECT. 77 can organization to create a military and executive council. This he did, but he was careful to preserve all real power in his own person. The men selected were from among the best of the American military men sent to Ireland, and one man represented the home organization, a non- military man, but one who would have won distinguished honors had Ireland taken the field, as the military council advised. This executive and military council consisted of General Michael Kerwin, John Nolan, Colonel Thomas J. Kelly, General Denis F. Burke, General William Halpin, Captain James Murphy, and for a few weeks the Irish Mexican general was attached, who for some days after Stephens' arrest, owing to his superior rank, acted as president. John Nolan was one of the finest and noblest specimens of manhood. He stood over six feet in height, and was built in proportion, strong but not massive. He had all the sinewy grace of ease and motion which were supposed to be in its full perfection in the Roman gladiator, yet winning, courteous, and withal dignified, and as manly and simple as a mountain peasant. His face always reminded his friends of the features of St. John the evangelist as the beloved disciple is depicted by most artists. He had the safme heavenly thoughtful eyes that seemed to look into your soul with kindness, and the same wealth of golden brown hair and full flowing beard of golden hue. John Nolan at this time was about twenty-eight years old ; he was organizer of the I. R. B. in the north of Ireland, and was the medium of bringing some hitherto strangely antagonistic classes of Irishmen into the national fold. His great trouble was with the Northern Ribbon societies, who were originally organized to resist landlord oppression and Orange aggression. In trying to get those into the National ranks he was aided by a celebrated Irish patriot, Mr. Edmond O'Donovan. By great difficulty they succeeded in overcoming these men's sectarian ideas. The negotiations were for a long time prolonged, and many humorous and interesting stories both gentlemen narrated of their experiences. It was very difficult to get these Ribbonmen rid of the idea that the landlord and the Orangeman were Ireland's only enemies. British rule was for a long time a very vague foe to combat them with, but eventually John Nolan won them over, and no more faithful Irishmen went inside the National organization. All the teachings of that period have been since undone. The Provincialist has once again split up the common enemy Britain into factions, one called Liberals, the other Tories, both pursuing the self-same career when in power, and they have taught the Irish people once more to look upon these creatures of British rule, the land- lord, policemen, and Orangemen, as Ireland's national enemies, forgetting that if once rid of the foreigner and that if Ireland governed herself, these local enemies must of necessity disappear. The laws Ireland would make to regulate the soil of her country would destroy all the evils and exist- ence of landlordism, and if the Orangemen did not begin to recollect that like the rest of the people they too were Irish, and accept the glorious heritage of freemen won for them by their patriotic brothers in spite of their narrow bigotry, then if not satisfied to belong to an inde- pendent nation, like the American Tories of Revolutionary days they could emigrate. John Nolan, as stated, was the only layman on the council ; his knowledge of the organization throughout the country made him invaluable to his colleagues. He came to America when the events of this Irish epoch closed ; he died in St. Louis, Mo. He is not to be confounded with another gentleman of the same name, John Nolan of amnesty fame, who recently died in New York, who was also a good and patriotic Irishman. Colonel Thomas J. Kelly, already mentioned, was born in Galway and 78 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. came to America about 185 1 ; he settled in New York, and with the military instincts of his race joined a regiment of the National Guard. After some years he removed to Nashville, Term., where he prospered in business and made a host of friends. He was a member of several socie- ties and knew the leading merchants and business people of the city, a friendship which was of value at a subsequent date. When the rumors of secession became thick in the air, Colonel Kelly was a strong Unionist, lost a number of his friends, and when the secession was accomplished he found himself in a dangerous predicament, for with the reckless daring of an Irishman he flew the Union flag from the roof of his house, in the presence of an angry crowd. He had a narrow escape for his life, and tried to get to New York to join the army, but changed his intention ; en route he enrolled in the 10th Ohio Volunteers. He took part in the campaign of the Army of the Cumberland under General Rosecrans. He was dangerously wounded by a musket shot in the mouth, at the battle of Canifex Ferry, where he was promoted on the field for valor, but so serious was he hurt that his comrades did not believe he could survive many days. After what seemed a miraculous cure he returned to the front and rejoined his regiment. At this time there was a demand for intelligent officers to join the signal corps, and Lieutenant Kelly's name was sent to headquarters. He was selected and commissioned captain. In this important service he was attached to the army under General Thomas ; he had for aide Captain, afterward Colonel, Taylor. When the Union Army entered Nashville, Tenn., Captain Kelly found himself once again in the city that he had made his home for so many years. But the majority of the people were Southern in sympathy so he found few friends. Riding out one day he was accosted by an old acquaintance, a Unionist, but one who kept his sympathies secret. He appointed to meet Kelly that afternoon, as he had something of great importance to communicate. Captain Kelly learned from his Nashville friend that there was a concentrated effort in progress to attack the Union Army from Shiloh. The Confederate troops were to concentrate at the junction of the Mobile and Ohio railroads, and at the junction of the Memphis and Chalmers line, and thus surround the Union Army, fall- ing with superior forces upon them and so destroy if possible the Northern troops. This was to be followed by concentrated action in Tennessee ; the residents were to tear up the railroads behind General Thomas' army corps. Captain Kelly knew this Nashville merchant well ; he had pro- cured this information from among the Southern friends he mingled with, and who no doubt looked upon him as a Southern sympathizer. Captain Kelly rode at once to headquarters and reported what he heard to General Thomas. The general was at first disinclined to place much credence in the Nashville gentleman's story, but taking down a map and studying it, he saw the importance of the position the Southern- ers meant to assail. General Thomas placed Captain Kelly on his personal staff. He was unaware until this time that Kelly was an old resident of the city they then occupied. Colonel Kelly was at this time a man about thirty years, with a stout well-knit frame ; he had a closely cut black beard and a shrewd, piercing eye. He was a thorough revolutionist — one of the most valuable of the officers who came to Ireland in 1865. General D. F. Burke, late colonel of the 88th N. Y. Vols. Irish Brigade, that famous Irish-American corps that shed such luster on Irish arms in the service of their adopted country, won his spurs by personal valor and gallantry displayed on many a hard-fought A RETROSPECT. 79 field. At the beginning of the war he accompanied his regiment, the famous 69th National Guard, and shared in the first battle of the war — the first fight at Bull Run. On the formation of the Irish Brigade he joined the 88th N. Y. Vols., taking part in every engagement until the final surrender of General Lee at Appomattox. He brought back the remnant of the gallant brigade as colonel of the 88th. General Burke's memoirs are so interwoven with the history of the brigade, which contributed a large number of officers to the I. R. B. ranks in 1865, that we are tempted to quote what distinguished writers have published of this gallant representative Irish corps. The Comte de Paris, in describing the battle of Gaines' Mill, fought on June 27 and 28, 1862, thus alludes to the brigade's participation in that fight. " The retreat of the Federals, which was hastened by the declivity which they were descending into the ravine, is, on the contrary, slackened when they climb the other side. The battle has suddenly ceased, an effort is made to ascertain the condition of things ; they halt ; twenty-two pieces of cannon have fallen into the hands of the enemy ; but there yet remains forty or fifty. Most of these are again placed in battery, and open from a distance upon the lines of the assailants a fire which restores courage to the Union soldiers. The latter listen once more to the voices of their chiefs, Porter, Morrell, Slocum, Meade, and Butter- field, and see increasing the groups gathering around them at random from every regiment. On the right the Federals have lost less ground and preserve better order in retreat. At this instant French and Meagher arrive upon the ground with two brigades sent by Sumner. The second is composed exclusively of Irishmen, the green flag, ornamented with a golden harp, floating in their midst. They arrive, shouting vociferously and displaying all that vivacity and dash for which the children of this ancient warlike race are noted when marching to battle. Their comrades, on finding themselves thus supported, respond with loud hurrahs, by which they seek to gain fresh courage. In the meantime the enemy has re-formed his ranks, and is again in motion ; but instead of a routed crowd he beholds a body of resolute troops, who seem to be calmly wait- ing for him on the slopes situated on the other side of the ravine. At this sight he hesitates, and approaching night puts an end to the san- guinary struggle." The historian here pays the Irish Brigade the high compliment that their presence on the field changed the fortunes of the day. The same distinguished writer speaks thus of the brigade at Antietam. " Further on, along the Federal left, the Irish brigade resisted all the assaults of the Confederates with uncommon energy ; its commander, General Meagher, was wounded. He was replaced by Colonel Burke, who led his countrymen with equal intrepidity and coolness." An English line officer, supposed to have been in the Confederate service, gives the following graphic description of the heroic charge of the Irish Brigade at Fredericksburg : "The defenders were concealed behind a stone wall. So determined was the advance that Colonel Miller, commanding the Confederate Brigade confronting them — for General Cobb had already fallen — ordered his men to hold their fire for a space. And now occurred a strange and pathetic incident. Though high was the courage of that thin line which charged so boldly across the shot-swept plain, opposed to it were men as fearless and as stanch ; behind that rude stone breast- work were those men who were 'bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh.' The majority of the soldiers in Cobb's Brigade were Irish like themselves. On the morning of the battle, General Meagher had bade 80 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. his men deck their caps with sprigs of green, 'to remind them,' he said, ' of the land of their birth.' The symbol was recognized by their countrymen and ' O God, what a pity ! here comes Meagher's fellows,' was the cry in the Confederate ranks. One hundred and fifty paces from the hill the brigade halted and fired a volley, while the round shot tore fiercely through their ordered line. Still no sign from the wall, looming grim and silent through the battle smoke ; and again the bat- talion moved swiftly forward. They were but a hundred yards from their goal, unbroken and unfaltering. . . Victory seemed within their grasp, and a shout went up from the shattered ranks. Suddenly a sheet of flame leaped from the parapet, and twelve thousand rifles plied by cool, unshaken men, concentrated a murderous fire upon the advancing line. To their honor be it told, though scores were swept away, falling in their ranks like corn before the sickle, the ever thinning ranks dashed on. . . But before that threatening onset, the Confederate veterans never quailed ; volley on volley sped with deadly precision, and at so short a range, every bullet found its mark. For a while the stormers struggled on desperate and defiant ; but no mortal man could long face that terri- ble fire, scathing and irresistible as the lightning; and at length the broken files gave ground, slowly and sullenly they fell back ; fell back to fight no more that day, for beneath the smoke cloud that rolled about Marye's Heights, the Irish Brigade had ceased to exist. Forty yards from the wall where the charge was stayed, the dead and dying lay piled in heaps, and one body, supposed to be that of an officer, was found within fifteen yards of the parapet." The body found so near the Confederate works was that of Adjutant R. Youngs, belonging to General Burke's regiment, the 88th N. Y. Vols. The correspondent of the London Times, a journal that no stretch of imagination could accuse of partiality for Irishmen, thus describes this famous charge as he witnessed it from the Confederate works : " To the Irish division commanded by General Meagher was principally committed the desperate task of bursting out of the town of Fredericks- burg and forming under the withering fire of the Confederate batteries, to attack Marye's Heights, towering immediately in their front. Never at Fontenoy, Albuero, or at Waterloo, was more undaunted courage dis- played by the sons of Erin than during those six frantic dashes which they directed against the almost impregnable position of the foe. . . After witnessing the gallantry and devotion exhibited by these troops and viewing the hillsides for acres strewn with their corpses thick as autumnal leaves, the spectator can remember nothing but their desperate courage and regret that it was not exhibited in a holier cause. That any mortal men could have carried the position before which they were wantonly sacrificed, defended as it was, it seems to me idle for a moment to believe. But the bodies which lie in dense masses within forty yards of the muzzles of Colonel Walton's guns are the best evidence what manner of men they were, who pressed on to death with the dauntlessness of a race which has gained glory on a thousand battlefields and never more richly deserved it than at the foot of Marye's Heights on the 13th day of December, 1862." And to point out the manner of men who came to Ireland to com- mand her insurgent army, these passages from American history are quoted. Hundreds of these gallant fellows, not only from the Brigade, but other regiments, came to Ireland to fight ; they either left in disgust at Stephens' indecision, or were incarcerated in Mountjoy under the sus- pension of the Habeas Corpus Act. So that when British writers and weak Irish ones, who through timidity or other motives aid the enemy, sneer at the 1865 movement, they know not what they talk about ; these A RETROSPECT. 81 brave soldiers, fresh from the war, had they full control, as they should, the sneering might be possibly the other way. Among the pile of dead and dying close up to the Confederate works on Marye's Heights was Cap- tain Burke. He was severely wounded, but with many a gallant comrade survived that desperate charge ; his good Irish constitution pulled him through and this gallant soldier was able to rejoin his regiment to take part in the battle of Chancellorsville, and the celebrated battle of Gettys- burg, said to be the turning point of the war. The Comte de Paris describes the Irish Brigade's participation in this decisive fight : " Fortunately Caldwell's strong division, which Meade has detached from the second corps as soon as he realized the importance of Long- street's attack, arrives in time to relieve the soldiers of Birney and Barnes. One of his brigades, commanded by the valiant Cross, supported the rem- nant of De Trobiard's command. Another, under Kelly, which forms the left division, has crossed Plum Run near the road, supports Ward along the slopes bordering on the right bank of this stream a little lower down. It is the Irish Brigade which, organized by Meagher, has already followed through the old gold harp embroidered on the green flag of Erin. It will fight with its wonted gallantry, for each soldier is ready to sacrifice his life with the more readiness that he has been prepared to die as a Christian. As the moment is drawing near for marching against the enemy all the ranks are kneeling, and the chaplain, mounted upon a rock which affords him a natural pulpit, has pronounced a general absolution on the whole brigade in the midst of a religious silence only interrupted by the fire of artillery. The command ' Forward ' immediately follows the sacred words of the priest ; the Irish have at once dashed into the thickest of the fight. They suddenly rout Anderson's Brigade in its advance." At this battle of Gettsyburg Captain Burke was in command of his regiment, the 88th Vols. With the remnant of his regiment General, then Colonel, Burke was on duty before Petersburg near the close of the war, when he was sent to take command of Fort Sedgwick, called by the soldiers Fort Hell, owing to its exposed position. It was garrisoned by four regiments belonging to the Second Corps, all numerically small. With these Colonel Burke had his own veteran corps, the 88th, now very much reduced by the cam- paign. The havoc of the long war had sent many a gallant fellow to a soldier's grave. Opposite to him was Fort Mahone, garrisoned by Finnigan's Confederate Brigade. At ten o'clock at night on October 29, 1864, he received an order from General Miles to make demonstrations on his front as far as he could succeed, and if the enemy retreated before his advance to follow him vigorously and occupy his works. Colonel Burke, with the energy and soldierly qualities which he displayed all through the war, made the desired attack, and led with a sudden dash his forlorn hope. He lost one-third of his little force by the fire of the enemy, but he succeeded in occupying the position, and made a number of prisoners. Among those killed was a prominent Irishman named O'Driscoll ; he was shot through the Fenian badge he wore upon his breast. His friends removed his body for interment. The following order was issued in connection with this engagement : Headquarters ist Division, 2D Corps, October 31, 1864. Major Septimus Carncross, A. A. G., 2d Corps. Major : In compliance with instructions contained in circular of this date I have the honor to submit the following recommendation : 82 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. That Colonel Burke, 88th Regt., N. Y. Vet. Vols., receive the rank of Brevet Brigadier General for gallantry in action, October 29, 1864. Colonel Burke, with a party of one hundred men, attacked and captured a portion of the enemy's line opposite Fort Sedgwick, taking some prisoners and holding the line until ordered to withdraw. Very Respectfully, N. A. Miles, Brig. Genl. While the army was investing Petersburg Colonel Burke's regiment presented him with a charger fully equipped and the following testimonial, which speaks for itself : TO COLONEL DENIS F. BURKE. Gratitude is a prominent ingredient in an Irishman's composition and we, the non-com- missioned officers and privates of the 88TH NEW YORK VETERAN VOLUNTEERS, take this opportunity of testifying our gratitude by presenting you with this HORSE and equipments. It is unnecessary to dwell on the circumstances which evoked the manifestation of the sincerity of our good feeling toward you, but to recapitulate a few would be neither flattery nor out of place. When the tocsin sounded the alarm calling men to arms, when traitors sought to destroy the national life, you shouldered the musket like a true patriot and as a citizen volunteer participated in the first clash of arms. You subsequently aided in the organization of the IRISH BRIGADE, selecting the renowned and historical 88TH AS THE REGIMENT of your choice ; with that you identified yourself through the varied phases of your old BRIGADE, clinging to the organization with zealous and patriotic tenacity, until you now stand at its head its acknowledged CHIEF, a proud position meritoriously earned, honorably and creditably upheld. You have commanded THE REGIMENT for a long period, during which your administration has been one of DISCIPLINE, JUSTICE, AND HUMANITY, bestowing no favors where men did not win them, while treating all alike with a fatherly care. You have been at our head in the hour of danger and among us in moments of relaxation, and your general conduct upon all occasions and under all circumstances has been such as to com- mand our highest esteem, and could our fallen comrades the brave DEAD speak, their willing, hearty lips would this day swell the glowing testimony to your worth. Thsse are a few among the many reasons we might adduce which have prompted this offering. We have called the animal ANTIETAM, in commemoration of the glorious battle won by a former beloved COMMANDER, when he drove the rebel hordes shattered and reeling across the Potomac and timely saved the NORTH from invasion, if not the CAPITAL r ^MK GENERAL DENIS F. BURKE, IRISH BRIGADE. From a photograph taken in 1866, shortly after his return from Ireland. A RETROSPECT. 83 from destruction. Take him, sir, and in your career may the name be auspicious of victory for the UNION first and last ! AND MAY THAT GOOD GOD THAT SAVED YOU THROUGH the dangers already passed continue to protect you until the day arrives when under the IMMORTAL GREEN you can perform similar service for your native land to those now being performed for your adopted country ! Edward Wilson, Sergeant-Major. Richard E. Dowdall, Hospital Steward. Edward Kennedey, Principal Musician. John Carver, First Sergeant Co. A. Francis Kiernan, First Sergeant Co. B. Charles Lannon, First Sergeant Co. C. J. G. Fawkner, First Sergeant Co. D. Patrick J. Healy, First Sergeant Co E. John McDonnell, Commissary Sergeant. Camp Before Petersburg, Va., October 26, 1864. General Burke brought back the remnant of the gallant brigade, and declining the offer of service in the regular American army went home to Ireland to fight for the land of his birth. At this time General Burke was a young man, with all the vigor of youth and health ; he had the build and set-up of a soldier, tall and slightly made, and with the well-knit figure of an athlete, his dark brown hair, nearly black, fringed a face round and full with the ruddy hue of health, slightly bronzed from campaigning, but looking as fresh as if he never left the silver Lee, for near its witching banks he was born. A dark mustache fringed a mouth as rosy, pouting, and full as a woman's, but in his eye was the stern glance of the soldier, which melted into humor and smiles when greeting an intimate friend. The writer regrets he has not the war record of General William Halpin, whom Irishmen in Dublin pleasantly remember, to put into these sketches. He commanded a Kentucky regiment in the war, and remained in Ireland to serve the old cause until he was captured after the abortive rising of 1867. General Michael Kerwin has not much changed since he first came to Dublin ; * his hair, now slightly silvered, was then of a dark brown, of so dark a shade that it seemed to vie with the tint of the raven's wing. He had the carriage and peculiar finished grace of the cavalry soldier, with a sternness and gravity far beyond his years, for he was then a young man about twenty-eight years old ; his closely shaven face and ascetic appear- ance bespoke more the student than the soldier, but there was that in the glance of his eagle eye and the decisive tones when he issued any orders, which told at once the man accustomed to command men. Bates' " Martial Deeds of Pennsylvania " gives the following sketch of General Kerwin's military career. " Michael Kerwin, colonel of the 13th Cavalry, was born on the 15th of August, 1837, in the city of Waterford, Ireland, from which place his family emigrated during his early boyhood to America. He was edu- cated in a private academy in the city of Philadelphia, and in youth learned the business of a lithographic printer. Of a studious turn of mind he early acquired a good fund of general information. He was member, for several years of a volunteer militia company, in which he attained considerable knowledge of military organization and duty. "Three days after the call for troops in April, 1861, he volunteered * Written in September, 1887. 84 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. as a private in the 24th regiment for three months' service. This organization formed part of Patterson's Army, with which he advanced into Virginia. Before crossing the Potomac, where it was known the enemy was present in considerable force, it became very important to the Union leader that he should know what troops he would have to meet. Some reliable soldier was required who should enter the rebel lines and gather the desired information. For this dangerous and important duty Kerwin volunteered his services. Full well he knew that, should he be dis- covered, death upon the gibbet awaited him. But he was not of the temper to hesitate when called for any duty which his country might demand. Adopting the necessary disguise he crossed the river, went freely through the enemy's camp, which he found near Martinsburg, and after making an estimate of the number of men and guns, and outlines of fortifications,, returned and reported to General Negley, then in command of the brigade to which he belonged. The successful manner in which this duty was performed and the judgment and daring which he displayed in execut- ing it marked him as worthy of a better rank than that of bearing the musket. "In September of this year, after having been discharged at the expiration of his first term, he was commissioned captain in the 13th Cavalry, and in July following was promoted major. During the 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th days of June, 1863, when Milroy's little force, in which the 13th was serving, was confronted and finally routed by the advance of Lee's entire army, Major Kerwin at the head of his regiment rendered important service, having frequent conflicts with the over-confident rebel line. After leaving the valley the regiment was attached to the Army of the Potomac, when Major Kerwin was promoted to colonel and took command of the regiment. On the 12th of October, while on the advance picket line near the White Sulphur Springs, he was suddenly attacked by a heavy force of the rebel army, Lee seeking by a sudden movement to turn the Union right. Colonel Kerwin with his own in connection with the 4th Cavalry, combated the head of Ewell's columns for six long hours, giving time for Meade to recross the Rappahannock and get his army into position to checkmate the wily scheme of the rebel chieftain. Gallantly was his duty executed, but at the sacrifice of the two noble commands, large numbers of both being killed, wounded, and taken prisoners. " During the year 1864, Colonel Kerwin led his forces with Sheridan in his operation with the Army of the Potomac, for a time being in command of the 2d Brigade of Gregg's Division. In February, 1865, he went with his regiment from before Petersburg to City Point, where he pro- ceeded by transport to Wilmington, N. C, to meet Sherman, who was marching up from Georgia. On joining the grand column at Fayette- ville, Colonel Kerwin was assigned to the command of the 3d Brigade of Kilpatrick's Division. After the surrender of Johnston Colonel Kerwin was ordered to Fayetteville with his regiment and was placed in command of the post. He had seven counties under his control, and managed the affairs of his department with singular skill and ability. After the con- clusion of hostilities he returned to Philadelphia, where, near the close of July, he was mustered out of service, having been on duty continuously from the opening to the conclusion of the war." The birthplace of General Kerwin is erroneously given in this memoir ; he was born in the old patriotic county of Wexford, full of the memories of glorious though sad '98. The term rebel, so often applied bylrishmen to their loyal and patriotic countrymen, should be condemned ; it is a quotation from the enemy. The rebel Irish are the pro-British Orange- men, who are filled with seditious thoughts and rebellious action against A RETROSPECT. 85 their native land. Irishmen regret this, but it is a melancholy fact. When Michael Kerwin, then a musketeer in the 24th Foot, got to the bank of the Potomac after his dangerous mission in the Southern lines, he some way missed his boat and had to wait by the river's bank not far from the enemy's pickets until morning dawned and his friends discovered his whereabouts. At break of day the Union pickets commenced to fire upon the Southerners, who briskly returned the fire. Kerwin being all the time under the fire of friend and foe; eventually he was released from his unpleasant position. With regard to the feelings which animated him under this very important duty when in the lines, those who held responsible positions can fully understand. There are silent posts of danger where a man's sense of honor can alone carry him through suc- cessfully. The fight in the Shenandoah Valley which Colonel Kerwin commanded, was interesting as being one of the movements which led up to Gettysburg, the turning point of the war. General Milroy, who was in command in the Shenandoah Valley, sent Colonel Kerwin to take command of an advanced post at Middle- ton, about eight or ten miles from Milroy's fortified post at Winchester. Kerwin had under his command one regiment of infantry, the 87th Penn. Vols., Colonel Shaw commanding ; Randolph Butt's artillery, half a battery ; and his own regiment, the 13th Cavalry. At a junc- tion of two roads leading into the Shenandoah Valley was situated a handsome country mansion. Some days previous a number of ladies, Southern in sympathy, arrived at this house ; they were rela- tives of the Confederate soldiers in General Lee's army and had fol- lowed the fortunes of their husbands, brothers, and fathers. They were aware that the whole of General Lee's army was on the march to enter Pennsylvania, of which Colonel Kerwin knew nothing. So they chaffed the " Yankee " officer on his probable fate as a prisoner with his whole command in the hands of the Southern Army. General Lee had stolen a march on the Union General Hooker. A. P. Hill's and Ewell's Army Corps were advancing into the Shennadoah Valley, and what the Union commander of this small outpost took to be a reconnoitering force of the enemy was the advance guard of General Hill's Army Corps. Kerwin posted his infantry, lining the road by which the Southern troops were advancing, ordering two troops of the 13th to advance and skirmish, to draw the Southerners into the line of fire. He awaited results close to the mansion occupied by the Southern ladies. His half battery of artillery he placed at the angle formed by the junction of the roads and the Southern dwelling ; sweeping the road with his artillery fire. The two troops of cavalry, after exchanging shots, retired on the regimental headquarters, hotly pursued by the eager Confederates. The Union infantry's fire on their flank and the artillery in front emptied a number of Southern saddles. The rebel advance was checked in confusion when Kerwin gave the order for the 13th to charge. The artillery officer, anxious for a farewell shot, fired as the command left Kerwin's mouth ; fortunately for that brave soldier, who was riding at the head of his men, the charge was an instant of time after Randolph Butt fired ; one more stride of Kerwin's horse and he was in the line of fire. Among the incidents of the charge, there was opportunity to record many cases of personal valor. Troop Sergeant Major Webb's (a gallant Corkman and married to a sister of Mr. O'Donovan Rossa's first wife, and like the last mentioned gentleman an Irish patriot) horse collided with the horse of a Southern cavalryman, and both animals stumbled, unhorsing their riders. " Surrender, you Yankee," shouted the rebel trooper. But Webb was on his feet in an instant, and reversing the posi- tion made captive his opponent, who had wounded him in the struggle. 86 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. " Why did you not shoot the rebel when he attacked you on the ground ? " said his captain. " He had such a pleasant face, Captain Meany, I had not the heart to do it," replied the Irishman. Kerwin, who was leading the charge, was assailed by the rebel commander Ransom, who rode for Kerwin with his sword at the tierce point. Kerwin evaded the rebel's blow, and when Ransom was riding by, he raised himself in his stirrups and cut the rebel leader down. The writer learned these details from Captain Meany of the 13th, who rode in the charge, and who was made prisoner a few days after by the Southerners in trying to break through with the regiment when Milroy was surrounded. Thus Kerwin drew first blood against Lee's advanced guard on that famous march through Pennsylvania. The Southern advance was driven back with loss and the Confederate commander Ransom mortally wounded. This engage- ment at Middleton took place on Friday morning, June 12, 1863. Kerwin fell back on the main post at Winchester to report the Con- federate advance and rejoin General Milroy. The following Saturday morning they were surrounded by the advancing Confederates. All that day and the following Sunday the fighting around the position held by the Union general was very severe. General Hill's advanced corps tried to capture Milroy 's works by sheer force of numbers ; every advance was checked by the deadly fire of the Union troops. Each time that the re en- forced Southern columns delivered an attack they were met by a hail of bullets at close range from the intrenched Northerners; again and again the gallant Southerners reformed and rushed to the attack, only to be met with a deadly sheet of flame from the trenches of the Union soldiers. The advancing columns went down before that rain of bullets like a swath of grass before the scythe of the mower. This tide of death passed on while Milroy 's little force was being slowly thinned, his foes all the time rapidly increasing as fresh troops from the advancing main army arrived upon the scene. General Milroy called a council of war ; the majority of the officers advised capitulation ; every possible defense that their honor and limited force permitted, they considered exhausted. General Milroy was seated in a thoughtful, undecided mood, when Colonel Kerwin returned from duty. As if glad at the opportunity afforded him of con- sulting another of his officers, he told Kerwin of the council and asked his views. The Pennsylvania cavalry officer replied promptly : "General, we have already decided to cut our way as best we can to Harper's Ferry. I see no reason to change our original intention, but any orders you have to give me I will endeavor to carry out." Milroy brightened up at hear- ing Ker win's answer ; he decided not to surrender. General Milroy and some one or two of his officers were rank Abolitionists, and it had been reported that the Confederates threatened to hang them if captured, as partisans before the war. Be this as it may, Milroy prepared for retreat from a position no longer tenable. Kerwin succeeded in reaching Harper's Ferry with the remains of his regiment, the 13th, after severe fighting. One squadron reached Pennsylvania by another road, separated in the fight from their comrades. American historians have not given this fight in the Shenandoah Valley the importance it deserved. Lee's army, having got away from Hooker, were they not detained at Middleton and Winchester, would have been in full march for Philadelphia. There was no Union army to bar their passage or any force that could be brought together in the necessary time to stay the career of the Southern legions. With General Lee in Philadelphia and his army encamped in such a prominent and important Northern city, it would be difficult to speculate what fresh dis- asters awaited the North. As it was, some Southern cavalry entered Harrisburg. The fight at Middleton and the determined and glorious A RETROSPECT. 87 defense at Winchester detained the Confederates in the valley from Friday morning until Monday following, giving Hooker time to recover from his surprise and probably helped to change the fortunes of the war and made the battle of Gettysburg possible. The other portion of General Kerwin's career is told by the historian Bates, which is here quoted. It will be read there that on a subsequent occasion, when in command of his own and the 4th Cavalry, he kept back Lee's advance twenty-four hours, giving time for Meade to recross the Rappahannock with the Union Army. After a brilliant career as a soldier he so conducted the civil affairs of the district round Fayette- ville, N. C, that the Mayor and citizens presented him with the fol- lowing address on his departure — a proof of his ability and kindness, for the Southern people had no strong love at this time for Northern officers : Fayetteville, N. C, July 5, 1865. Colonel M. Kerwin, commanding Post Fayetteville, N. C. Colonel : In behalf of the citizens of Fayetteville the Mayor and Commissioners desire to express the most decided approbation of your administration of affairs while in command of this post. It is not forgotten that when you came among us, we were in the- midst of confusion ; our condition was peculiar and anomalous ; the arm of the civil power was too weak to give protection to the citizens, even had we enjoyed comparative tranquillity ; as it was we were almost on the verge of anarchy — very near that point where brute force becomes the only arbiter. Besides this the waves of passion, produced by the terrible storm of war which had raged for four years, had not then subsided, and the Government whose officer you are was by many regarded as cruelly inimical to our interests. To restore order, by the exercise of just so much force as was neces- sary, and at the same time to so temper your rule as to make the people feel and know that you would protect and not oppress them, was the task before you. This task was a most difficult and delicate one — but you have performed it — the result proves the work. Your administration has been characterized by a happy blending of gentleness and firmness ; by gentleness you have won the hearts of our people ; by firmness you have secured respect for legitimate authority. The work of reconstruction will be easy in this community, and nothing, we assure you, has been more conducive to this than the manner in which you have discharged your duties. To-day the people of this com- munity are capable of self-government, ready to do all that is required of good citizens ; and it is felt that to your instrumentality, in a great measure, is this to be attributed. Allow us, in conclusion, Colonel, to tender to you, and to the officers and men under your command, the sincere thanks of our people for your successful efforts to promote our welfare, and to assure you that you carry with you the kind wishes of all for your health, prosperity, and well being. With sentiments of profound regard, we remain, Colonel, very truly your friends. Archd. McLean, Mayor. E. L. Pemberton, A. G. Thornton, N. M. Orrell, M. McKinnon, I. L. Pore, K. A. Black, James N. Lee, Commissioners. 88 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. General Kerwin left Fayetteville with his regiment, the 13th Penn. Cavalry, for Philadelphia, where they were mustered out. From thence he proceeded to Ireland to give his native land the benefit of his military skill and experience gained upon American battlefields. Captain James Murphy was a veteran soldier, although comparatively a young man when he came to Ireland. He had seen a great deal of frontier fighting in the United States Regular Army before the outbreak of the Civil War ; was in the Seminole War and in the dreary march over the plains to Utah. When the war of secession broke out, Mr. Murphy joined the 20th Mass. Vols. He was commissioned captain ; all his brother officers were Harvard men, and the regiment was frequently called after that famous seat of learning. To give Captain James Murphy's military career would be to write the history of the Civil War; like the hundreds of thousands of gallant Irishmen who took part in that gigantic struggle, Captain Murphy did his duty nobly by his adopted country. He was engaged in every battle that was fought by the Army of the Peninsula from McClellan and Meade, to Grant's command of these armies, and after the surrender at Appomattox, he offered his sword to his beloved motherland, to fight the self-same foe that secretly tried to disrupt the American Union. For Britain's hatred of Ireland for refusing to accept her sway is not more intense than she feels for this glorious republic that defeated her armies so frequently in the long fought out struggle for independence. These are the records of some of those men who sat in council to organize an insurrectionary war in Ireland, to establish a firm, stable, and independent government in the old Isle of the Gaels, similar to that 'established by George Washington in America, facing the same aggres- sive and relentless foe. The British enemy, always seeking to slander •and calumniate the Irish race, have in every instance tried to lessen the imoral standard and intellectual abilities of the Irishmen who were -engaged in the struggle against their domination in Ireland. It may be thought even by friendly critics that these memoirs are digressions from the main purport of this work, but it will be recollected that British writers have the ear of the world, and owing to the language •even use the literature of the United States to belittle and slander Irish National leaders, and that it is absolutely necessary to go into these American war reminiscences to show the manner of men who went to Ireland in the fall of 1865 to fight for the Irish republic. The few men -spoken of here are put before the readers as representatives of many others their equals both in rank and ability, who arrived in Ireland that eventful year ; and it is one of the unpublished important facts in con- nection with Ireland's many failures to take the field, that a great com- mander of historic reputation would have been forthcoming had events shaped themselves in a more resolute manner. It may be asked, why did not General Kerwin or the other members of the military council depose Stephens and assume the direction of affairs ? Ireland, unfortunately, had not found her Moses or her Washington among the men then in authority. The ablest man in the ranks of the American Fenians, according to general reputation, was Major General Thomas Smyth, who, unfortunately for Ireland, was killed leading a charge in the last battle before Peters- burg. It has been said by some of the thinking minds then in Ireland who knew General Smyth, that had he survived the Civil War in America he would have promptly assumed the responsibilities at this crisis. He would have placed at once the men in the field, sweeping from his path the nerveless and feeble C. O. I. R. General Kerwin fully believed this would have been the result if a strong man like General Smyth had been A RETROSPECT. 89 then in Ireland. He also gave many reasons why he or his comrades on the council could not assume the direction of military movements in opposition to Stephens by at once taking action, the necessity for which they at once saw. By far the ablest man then in authority, Colonel Thomas J. Kelly, failed to see the great power to the Irish republic and confusion to the enemy in the enrolled Irish soldiers in the foeman's ranks. All these gallant Irish-American soldiers only realized the importance of this element when it was too late. Had the war commenced as urged by the Military Council, Ireland would soon have found capable leaders, also sound and brilliant statesmen. Among the Irish people in Ireland there were hundreds of men then unknown whom the war would have brought to the front, fully equal to their brothers from America, and more experienced from the life-long knowledge of the nation and its wants and the political situation in Ireland. Whenever Ireland puts forth her strength, she has the same oppor- tunity while her population remains near its present standard. But the clouds which darken Irish intellect must be completely dispelled before she could take the field with hope of success. These degrading agitations, miscalled National, are as impossible of success as it would be to seek help from the planets. The invader will never, never, under any circum- stances, peacefully surrender the smallest modicum of power to an Irish representative assembly. Home Rule, as the Irish people understand it, is as mad a dream to be acquired by British legislation as the legendary leprechauns and their crocks of gold. To say that Britain will legislate against her own interests is the wildest dream imaginable. The Home Rule pursuit is the worst of all possible follies, for the enemy is destroying the Irish race though enforced emigrations while the Irish people are pursuing the Home Rule phantom. War with the invader on the other hand is quite feasible, and its success is neither impossible nor improbable, but it can never be commenced by Ireland while her people are taught the imaginary and exaggerated power of the foe. Ireland would find Britain's boasted strength as false as the cowardly teachings of her own physical weakness. If four millions of people cannot fight and conquer from sixty thousand to seventy thou- sand British mercenaries, the great majority of them boys between sixteen years and twenty years old, then Ireland is not fit for freedom. The stale British brag of thirty millions of population is all a fallacy. The British people en massexvlW not fight unless invaded, and even then Lord Wolseley, their ablest commander, positively states that should one hundred thou- sand foreign troops invade Britain she would be conquered. The lack of patriotism and the cowardice of the British people have been testified again and again. In Crimean days, when the drum beat over the 'land for troops, only the unfortunate and poverty stricken took the Queen's shilling. Again, in the feverish days of the Indian mutiny, when Britain was in doubt as to the result of the insurrection and the loss of her East- ern Empire hung in the balance, the stolid Britisher refused to come to the aid of his flag ; only the same unfortunate class enlisted. During the Franco-Prussian war a panic pervaded all Britain, and many imaginary battles showing her complete collapse under invasion were written. The "" Battle of Dorking " was one of these brochures, but all in vain as to any practical results. The thoughts of universal liability to service as on the Continent, was scouted by the whole people. Truly did Napoleon call them a nation of shopkeepers. John Bull pays an army to do his fight- ing ; he prefers to be brave over the tap-room fire. Ireland's success in a fight with this nation of wealthy braggarts is not by any means problem- atical. The heaviest battalions would most certainly be found on the 90 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Irish side if war was once commenced. The panic which pervades the British masses and classes at the vaguest rumor of Irish insurrection ought to teach Irishmen the lesson (and it would but for the pro-British agitators who pose as Nationalists) that Ireland's destiny lies in her own hands. The Boers who met this braggart and cowardly nation in open fight soon showed what mettle the boasted power of Britain was made of. Let Ireland take as manly a stand and the British flag will cease to cover an inch of Irish soil. On the arrival of the leading Irish American military men in Ireland,. as soon as possible they made themselves acquainted with the condition of affairs. Their first and greatest need was the arming of the men. Stephens" absuid talk of pikes in the then condition of warfare they cast aside ; they had better knowledge of the American Fenians' ability to help Ireland than the men at home ; they saw from what they came in contact with that there was splendid fighting material on the ground, and to arm them and begin the insurrection was the duty of the hour. The soldiery which had joined the Irish movement would be invaluable in aiding her people to capture the enemy's arsenals by surprise. The Pigeon House Fort, Dublin, at the mouth of the Liffey, held all the arms belonging to the Irish militia, and a great quantity of war munitions. Over thirty thousand stand of arms, with all the necessary military equipments, were stored in this fort, which was guarded by a company of infantry and some artillery, 160 men all told ; 60 of these were sworn members of the I. R. B., and like all the military at that time eager to see Ireland take the field. With this information in their possession the Military Council prepared a plan of insurrection which they first submitted to the more prominent officers then in Dublin city, and which met with their cordial approval. The plan of campaign was for the C. O. I. R., who unfortunately held despotic power, to order up from the country twenty thousand picked men. This force could be brought into Dublin without exciting any suspicion, as the Dublin Exposition was then open and excursion parties came into the city daily to visit the great crystal palace and view the international exhibits. On the arrival of these men, the Pigeon House was to be seized by two hundred Irishmen armed with revolvers, these,, to be admitted into the fort by the I. R. B. sentinels at the gate, making prisoners of the remnant of the garrison. Vans with a guard of eight hundred men were to be as near as possible to remove the arms and ammunition. During the transit of these weapons an insurrection inside the military barracks of the enemy would not only occupy the invader's officials, but add a valuable contingent to the patriot's ranks. In the Phoenix Park the Irish soldiers were to be massed ready to receive the captured weapons. The distribution of the arms could be soon accomplished and Ireland would then have an army well armed and with plenty of ammunition to begin the war of independence. As soon as organized into battalions and brigades, they were to march out of Dublin city into the interior or to follow whatever decision the Provisional Government came to. Among the large number of American arrivals, fresh from the battlefields in the South, there were numbers to take subaltern commands who were accustomed to command regiments. The general officers were practical soldiers, accus- tomed to command in the field and to handle every branch of the service and direct masses of men. There were plenty of skilled artillery officers, some who had been in the regular army of the United States and had the advantage of a scientific education. For minor commands there were a numerous body to select from ; many that were useless and encum- A RETROSPECT. 91 brances during the long delay enforced by Stephens' vacillation ; these would have proved valiant and intrepid soldiers in the field. When this plan was submitted to a board of officers and to the Dublin centres they were all satisfied ; as to the latter they were delighted and exuberant at what appeared to be the near prospect of fight. At this time the I. R. B. and the whole country was in a splendid condition to take the field ; the morale of the men was at the acme of perfection. Some of the centers suggested that more men might be needed to attack the Pigeon House, but General Kerwin convinced them that two hundred men was sufficient to make themselves master of the fort. Some of Mr. Stephens' immediate followers, who knew more about intriguing than fighting, sug- gested that a number of men surprise the Pigeon House by entering at low water from the Strand. This was scouted by the military men as absurd ; the real strength of the Irish attack depended on the loyalty to Ireland of the soldiers inside, and there was no need for any theatrical arrangement, but boldly march in at the open gate. The following is General Kerwin's published account of this plan of insurrection. " A Military Council was now formed by authority of Mr. Stephens at the request of the organization in America, which it was intended should take entire control of all the military management of the business in Ireland. But it was soon discovered that the C. O. I. R. had no intention of allowing any power or authority to pass out of his hands, and the very first proposition the council submitted, to have the country divided into military districts, was vetoed by the commander-in-chief. The reasons he assigned for refusing his consent to this plan of getting the people under military discipline were so absurd, that some of the members took occasion to express their opinions in a way which was not entirely complimentary to the C. O. I. R. This being faithfully reported to him, he was evidently convinced that to play the dictator with such men might endanger his standing with the American branch of the organization. So he thereupon called a council of all the leaders in Ire- land, who were instructed to meet him in Dublin on a certain night, for the purpose of discussing plans for the future. He also requested some of the officers of the council to prepare plans for the capture of the city and for a general ' rising.' This, it was supposed, would keep the military intruders busy for a time, and allow the statesmen to prepare their plans for a prolonged administration of the ' Irish Republic virtually established.' The night of the meeting arrived, and, as the expectation of a fight was in everybody's mind, the officers had their plans ready for the investigation of the C. O. I. R. and other leaders of the movement who were expected to be present. "The first plan submitted was for the capture of the City of Dublin, and as that was the principal achievement to be gained the plans were all minutely explained. The first point of importance to be taken was the Pigeon House, which was chiefly valuable on account of the large quan- tity of arms and military stores it contained. It was garrisoned by 160 men only, 60 of whom were sworn members of the organization and were ready to obey any orders they received from its chief. In this stronghold were stored twenty-five thousand stand of arms, and the plan proposed to Mr. Stephens was to get possession of these arms. He asked the officer : " ' How many men do you require to carry out the plan ? ' " ' One thousand men,' was the reply. " ' Well, I can give you six thousand if necessary. Now, let us hear what you propose doing.' " ' Well, I propose to take two hundred picked men, armed with 92 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. revolvers, and dispose of them at points already selected adjacent to the garrison. At a prearranged signal from our friends inside they will march in, take possession of the place, make prisoners of the enemy, and shoot those who resist. I will then have eight hundred good men, well organized and under command of competent officers, already under orders to assemble at a given time in the vicinity, into whose hands I will put the arms taken from the garrison, and this force will guard the wagons already provided to convey the arms and ammunition to Phoenix Park.' " ' And what will you do with them there ? ' " ' This : On the day previous you will have twenty thousand men ordered up from the country districts for actual service. The Exhibition is in progress at present, and every day excursion trains bring to the city from ten to thirty thousand people to visit it, so the arrival of our friends will excite no unusual suspicion. You will order these men to assemble in the Park, and, inside of six hours after the capture of the Pigeon House, we can march out of Dublin with an army of twenty or twenty-five thousand men. I will pledge my life to carry out this much of the plan, and after that you may issue such orders as you think proper ; I will stand in nobody's way.' " This plan was received with favor by all present. Some of the lead- ers from the country districts were enthusiastic over it. All the officers who were consulted approved heartily of it. The only difference of opin- ion was as to the number of men asked to carry out the enterprise. But it was clearly shown that a greater number of men would be simply in the way, and as everything depended on prompt and secret action, it was conceded that the force named was ample to do the work. Mr. Stephens seemed disinclined to express an opinion. But it soon became manifest that he was not in favor of the plan, as it was very likely to interfere with one of his own, which he very soon uncovered in his conversation with the 'centres.' The question he soon put fully developed his object, which was to postpone the fight. He asked the representatives if, in case of a postponement, they could hold their forces together for three months longer, could they be assured that where they had but one rifle now at the expiration of that time they could have three ? This was not a fair question ; the men had been summoned to Dublin to consult about the best way of preparing for a fight, and now they were being used simply to justify Mr. Stephens' back-out. This view of the matter was intimated in a mild way by one of the officers of the council. But Mr. Stephens resented the situation very indignantly. " The result of the conference, therefore, as might easily be foreseen, was to put off the fight for three months longer. Disappointment could be traced in every face, indignation and resentment on many, and more than one brave, strong man left the room in tears." General Kerwin is unconsciously mixing up two distinct meetings. It was in the early autumn when the plans of insurrection were sub- mitted to Mr. Stephens and the conference, when the great C. O. I. R. refused to take action until the close of the year to enable the Americans to come to his help. The meeting at which the fight was postponed for three months occurred at Colonel Kelly's lodgings ; it was at this meeting that General Kerwin rebuked Stephens for his vacillation, and questioned his promise of receiving an additional supply of arms. This happened at the end of December. On the morning of Saturday, November n, 1865, Dublin was startled at the news that James Stephens was arrested at Fairfield House, Sandy- mount ; with him were arrested Charles Kickham, Hugh Brophy, and Edward Duffey. Money and arms were seized by the police, who did not A RETROSPECT. 93 expect so easy a victory. For the first time it began to dawn upon the men who stopped to think that the great C. O. I. R. was a coward. What meant this ostentatious display of revolvers ? Were they merely kept for sensational exhibition to impress Irish visitors, or was there any intention to use them by any of the men arrested ? It was thought not, and that a great National movement had a nerveless man for its chief. One of the Dublin papers thus commented on these arrests. " Let us compare the arrest of Lord Edward Fitzgerald with that of Mr. Stephens. He who was to be the head of real revolution was con- cealed in a house in Thomas Street, being in bed ill when Major Sirr and the military entered ; but he fought desperately against his assailants and did not suffer himself to be captured till he had received a dozen wounds. Mr. Stephens, the head centre of this present wordy revolution, had been living luxuriously in a handsomely furnished house stored with provisions for twelve months, surrounded by a wall six feet high, enjoying the society of his wife and friends, with an ample supply of arms and ammu- nition. But though loaded revolvers lay near the hands of this little band of heroes — the proud representatives of the ancient Fenians, the bold asserters of Irish chivalry, they did not dare to touch one of them. Like Major Sirr, Colonel Lake went to Sandymounton Saturday morning with a detachment of constables prepared for some resistance, perhaps a bloody struggle, but not a blow was struck, not a scratch was received." General Kervvin thus mentions these arrests. " On Saturday, November 11, 1865, the City of Dublin was electrified with the cry ' Stephens is arrested ! ' ' Stephens is arrested ! ' It was soon found to be true. " Fairfield House at Sandymount, where Stephens resided under the assumed name of Herbert, was surrounded on Saturday morning just before daylight by the whole of the ' G ' division of police, guided by the notorious Dawson, the Dublin detective. The fences were immediately scaled and an entrance effected through the back door. No resistance was offered, though all the inmates slept with revolvers under their pil- lows. Stephens was first taken into custody and then followed the arrest of Charles J. Kickham, Hugh Brophy, and Edward Duffey. A large sum of money, amounting to nearly two thousand pounds, together with plentiful supply of groceries and wines, were found in the house. This coup d'etat, it was surmised by the Crown authorities, would end the struggle. But their surmises were doomed to disappointment." James Stephens was brought before police magistrate, Mr. Stronge, and remanded until the following Tuesday, November 14. In reply to the magistrate's question if Mr. Stephens wished to say anything, the C. O. I. R. replied : " Except that I wish it to be distinctly understood that 1 have no attorney or lawyer engaged." When Stephens was arrested without the slightest attempt at resistance, many men began to speak of him with contempt, for Irishmen hate cow- ards, but since have found a reasonable excuse, saying he was surprised ; there is no doubt that Stephens had not the faintest idea of police officers, he had lived in such fancied security, and had he not allowed his wife's family, who were tracked to Sandymount, to come near him, he might have rested in his mansion a little longer. When he went down in his nightshirt to answer the bell he thought it was the gardener, until the police officer's voice undeceived him. At that time, very fortunately for the C. O. I. R., a brave and gallant soldier, Captain John Kirwan, was then residing in Dublin. This soldier's conduct was so remarkable and his prominence as an active and energetic officer in the Irish Republican ranks of such importance that a sketch of 94 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. his career is necessary. Captain John Kirwan belonged to a class of Irishmen then resident in their native land, who would have undoubtedly- come to the front if the Irish forces had taken the field against the foreign invaders. John Kirwan was born in Dublin city, and in early life imbibed the teachings of Davis, Mitchell, and the men of '98. Like many of his com- rades he deplored the false teaching of the Provincialists, who were knowingly or unknowingly helping the enemy to depopulate the country by keeping inert the young manhood of Ireland, looking to a foreign Parliament for redress from grievances, that could not be removed while a foreign flag and foreign soldiery held sway in their native land. John Kirwan was a man of powerful physique, standing over six feet in height, of strong and stalwart build ; he was a trained athlete from his earliest years, and would have been a valuable addition as a trooper to any army in the days when personal prowess and strength decided victories. John Kirwan was a voracious reader, and every book on campaigning he could procure he eagerly devoured. The campaigns of Caesar, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon found in him a diligent student. Not content with trying to study the theory of war, John Kirwan was determined to become a practical soldier, with the one object in view — the determination of doing something to help his countrymen to drive the foreign usurpers from the sacred soil of his motherland. While yet a young man he joined the City of Dublin Artillery, and so quick was he in learning " the soldier's glorious trade " that he was rapidly promoted. But the life of a soldier in peace had few charms for the young Irishman. A number of his friends had volunteered to join an Irish corps then forming in Italy to defend the Papal Territory against all aggressors. John Kirwan became a Papal soldier. At the battle of Castlefidardo the Irish soldiers were in charge of eleven pieces of artillery. Kirwan's previous military training made him a useful soldier, and he had been rapidly promoted. In the midst of the battle, at the head of his men, he charged across the river Musone and, with the headlong valor of the Irish Celt, they planted their standard on some field works of the foe. Among the brave Irishmen who charged with Captain Kirwan across the Musone at the battle of Castlefidardo was Daniel Byrne, subsequently a warder in Richmond Bridewell, Dublin city. Captain Kirwan, as a recognition for his bravery, received the Gold Cross of Knighthood and the war medal. At the close of this short campaign he, with his brother Irishmen, returned to Ireland. He came back, like all his comrades, with scarcely an exception, imbued with strong revolutionary tendencies. The spread of the Irish National movement in Dublin found Captain Kirwan soon enrolled in its ranks. He was an invaluable recruit, both for his energy as an organizer and his military knowledge. In a short time he had recruited a circle of nearly one thousand men, of which he became centre. He endeavored to give them military training, notwithstanding the difficulties under which he, like all his comrades, was placed. But in spite of the enemy's vigilance, Captain Kirwan, assisted by other military friends, continued to drill the men in batches of ten and twenty. On September 15, 1865, Captain Kirwan was an Inspector on the Grand Canal in Dublin city. That evening he was drilling his men over a barber shop opposite Catherine's Church in Thomas Street, when one of the sentinels reported that the police were massing in the centre of the street. This was an unusual occurrence, and the Irish Republican recruits broke ranks and grouped around a centre table, where a raffle commenced, expecting a visit from the foe's detectives. They had scarcely more than seated themselves round the table, when a messenger A RETROSPECT. 95 arrived to notify him that the enemy had begun active hostilities by breaking into the Irish People office in Parliament Street, smashing and removing the type, seizing all correspondence, account books, etc. He was also informed that every man suspected of National opinions was made prisoner by the enemy's police. Kirwan's first impulse was to arm his men (rifles and ammunition were stored in the room over which they drilled) and attack the foe, commencing the fight by charging the police in the street below. But a peremptory order to remain quiet, purporting to come from Stephens, calmed the fiery Irish soldier for the present. His next step was the preservation of their arms. He ordered several coffins to be sent at once to his drill hall, and carefully greasing and packing his rifles and bayonets, he prepared them for burial. Three large floats called at 4 a. m. the following day, and with a small number of his men, he interred the coffins in a suburban graveyard, where they remained until March 3, 1867. The following morning (Saturday), Captain Kirwan attended to his duty, as Inspector of Canals, after which he proceeded to the house of Mr. Joseph Cromien, 33 South Great George's Street. This house was filled with indignant men, members of the I. R. B. Most of them were armed with revolvers. The events of the previous night were discussed. On Kirwan moving toward the street door, he espied his imprisoned comrades coming up from Dame Street en route to Rich- mond Bridewell. In Mr. Cromien 's shop there were several leading Dub- lin patriots, Edward Byrne, Matthew Neill, Michael Cody, Dennis Dug- gan, and many others. Acting on impulse, Captain Kirwan called on them loudly to follow him and rescue their brave friends from captivity. The police van containing the Irish prisoners was guarded by four mounted policeman, who it was thought would not display much opposition to an attempt to release their prisoners. Following close behind were two out- side cars filled with detectives, many of them equally impassive, and who would be only glad of a pretext to see their prisoners released. Byrne, Cody, and others protested against Kirwan's proposed action in the face of Stephens' positive orders. But the ex-Papal soldier was in no mood for peaceful advice. His comrades, seeing that their words were of no avail, seized him bodily and disarmed him ; so the opportunity which presented itself was lost. The men who restrained Kirwan from his attack on the prison van were not one iota less daring or patriotic than himself, but discipline kept them back. James Stephens' orders were followed with that prudence which so frequently takes possession of Irish leaders in emergencies, and the brave Irish patriots are made to appear poltroons before the world. Late that Saturday, and early the following Sunday morning, it was reported in Irish National circles that Captain Kirwan was captured by the enemy. This rumor, reaching Kirwan's ears, made him determine to show himself in the city. In his rambles he met a detective named Quinn, who informed him that there was a warrant for his arrest already issued. Captain Kirwan asked him if he were told to tell him that. It may be here remarked that one of the enemy's ruses in Ireland is to convey mysteriously, as if in friendship, to some female or male relative, that there is a warrant out for the arrest of their relative, son, husband, or brother, as the case may be, which so alarms his friends that he is at once sent out of the country, unless the Nationalist sought for is a man of courage and a genuine patriot. Many weak men come to the United States, boasting they've been " on the run " under such hints. The enemy find this a convenient and easy manner to rid themselves of a man who may become hostile to their usurpation, or become the occasion of rais- ing opposition in the mind of his friends. 96 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Captain Kirwan was made of sterner stuff ; he went home, put his house in order in the event of a visit from the foe, and calmly awaited events. He had determined he should not be arrested without making a fight, so he barricaded his house that Sunday night, and with a loaded revolver by his side, he went to bed. His wife was a most patriotic Irishwoman, and she encouraged him to resist capture by every possible means. Armed with a stout cudgel and a loaded revolver, Captain Kirwan left home to attend to his business on the Grand Canal. At 9 a, m. a posse of detectives visited his house. His wife, acting under instructions from her husband, demanded to see the warrant before admitting them. Kir- wan wished to know positively if such a document was actually in exist- ence. They made a search of the house but found nothing to repay their trouble. In the meantime Captain Kirwan, after reporting for duty at the Grand Canal House, saw three of the enemy's detectives, Giles, King, and Smith, waiting near a small foot-bridge which crosses the canal at James' Basin. Full well he knew their errand, and was prepared to defend his liberty at all hazard. When they saw Kirwan they hurriedly consulted together, and Giles, who knew him personally, approached as if to parley with him, while the others came up on either side to make the seizure secure. Captain Kirwan walked quickly away from his three foes. Giles fol- lowed, but failing to overtake him broke into a run, thereby betraying his purpose. Giles had now separated himself about one hundred yards from his two companions ; this was Kirwan's object, so he slackened his pace and allowed Giles to come up. The detective came up panting, a little out of breath and excited, fumbled in his pockets and produced the warrant of arrest. Quick as lightning the captain raised his cudgel and Giles, bleeding from a wound, lay prostrate. The other two detectives were advancing to Giles' assistance ; Kirwan assailed the foremost man, Smith, and he too measured his length upon the turf. King drew his revolver and swore he would shoot Kirwan if he did not surrender. The captain promptly got behind an elm tree, and pointing his revolver at King, told him that he and his comrades might now blaze away. Kirwan employed several men pulling weeds and doing other jobs on the canal. These men came now to Kirwan's assistance and interposed between him and his would be captors. Kirwan suddenly replaced his revolver in his belt and jumped into the canal and swam to the opposite bank. Hurrying along the banks, he met his wife and a lady friend, who came to warn him of his danger. He hailed a canal boat bound for Limerick and stowed himself away on board. The master, Hutchinson, and his crew, were active members of the National organization and in full sym- pathy with Captain Kirwan. On his arrival at Shannon's Harbor, Kings County, he met a friend, Mr. James Healy, who gave him shelter and sup- plied him with money. After a few days he reached Limerick City, where he met a numerous circle of friends. The following October Captain Kirwan returned to Dublin. The men who were employed inside Richmond Bridewell were mem- bers of Captain Kirwan's circle of the I. R. B. His former comrade, the brave soldier of Castlefidardo, Daniel Byrne, had brought every patriotic man he could into the organization. When Captain Kirwan returned to Dublin he ordered his men to resume drilling at that time, as no Irish- men for a moment doubted that the Irish war of independence would soon be inaugurated. Captain Kirwan, on hearing of Stephens' arrest, sent for Daniel Byrne to arrange for the C. O. I. R.'s escape. He also saw one of the officials of A RETROSPECT. 97 the I. R. B., John Ryan of Liverpool, and told him of his idea of taking- Stephens out of prison, and asked Ryan to have word sent to the council. He also bade Ryan see Daniel Byrne and arrange for a meeting at a house in Camden Street on Monday morning ; this interview with Ryan took place on Sunday next following Stephens' arrest. Ryan, who went in Dublin by the name of Captain Doherty, lost no time in having the information conveyed to the council. He sought the messenger who was one of the I. R. B. secret police named John Graham, who communicated Captain John Kirwan's proposition to Colonel Thomas Kelly, James Stephens' chief officer. Colonel Kelly sent word for Captain Kirwan and Daniel Byrne the warder to come to his house. General Michael Kerwin had, through Colonel Kelly's suggestion, arranged to meet Danial Byrne in Camden Street. This house in Camden Street was a convenient and safe rendezvous ; the young men who conducted it were earnest members of the organization. Captain John Kirwan met his friend. Daniel Byrne and told him that as he, Kirwan, could not openly move about to see the council and obey all orders from them, Ryan would put him into communication with the proper men. Byrne and Ryan had not long left Captain John Kirwan, when John Graham met them with General Kerwin's message. The hour appointed was a little later. Daniel Byrne had never met General Kerwin and did not know whom he was about to see ; but contented with the orders given him by his centre, felt satisfied he was all right. General Kerwin had a private interview with him, he told Byrne who he was and put the question direct to Daniel Byrne, Could he release Stephens, and, if he could, would he aid in his escape? To this question Byrne replied, " I am the night watchman and the only man in the prison who can do it easily ; you can depend your life on me to do what I can." Kerwin was struck at the manly, straightforward reply of this stalwart Irishman. He said to him, "You will have to go to America; when your duty is accomplished I will place ^50 at your disposal." " No, General," replied Byrne, " I want no money and will take none ; doing my duty by my country is all the reward I seek." General Kerwin then told him that Captain Doherty would bring him that evening to see himself and Colonel Kelly, where they would go into further details. Daniel Byrne, who was a sincere and practical Irish patriot, knew from the many conversations he had with John Breslin that he was an Irishman of sound, honest views, although not a member of the Revolu- tionary organization. Mr. Breslin's brothers were all in the movement, but he always laughingly put aside any questions when hinted to as to joining. He did not, as he afterward expressed it, believe there was any powerful organization in existence, seriously determined to struggle for Irish freedom. Mr. Breslin, who was hospital steward in the prison, had the freedom of moving about through the interior, and on the arrival of a prisoner of any importance Mr. Breslin would invariably come down to have a look at him before he was sent to his cell. On the Saturday morning that Stephens was arrested, Mr. Breslin came down to see him, and getting close beside Mr. Byrne, who was on duty as warder, they mutually condemned the cowardly action of Stephens and his friends in surrendering without firing a shot. At this time there was confined in Richmond Bridewell a prisoner awaiting trial for " high treason," Captain Underwood O'Connell, an officer in the 99th N. G. S. N. Y., Colonel John O'Mahony's regiment. Captain O'Connell was arrested at Queenstown on landing from America, and several Irish official documents were found upon his person. The day after Stephens' arrest Captain O'Connell felt ill and rang the bell for the warder and asked to see a physician. As there was none in the prison, Mr. Breslin, 98 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. being hospital steward, came to see him, when he asked O'Connell to accompany him to the apothecary's room. He began a conversation with O'Connell, and curious to learn what the Captain's opinions were of Stephens, he inquired concerning their new prisoner. Was he any good ? O'Connell, who was a sincere believer in Stephens at that time, replied with enthusiasm, " He is worth twenty thousand men for the cause." "If he is so great a man," said Breslin, " he ought to be released. " Released ? " replied O'Connell, " why you know that is impossible." The Captain returned to his cell. Although this interview had not the most remote connection with Stephens' subsequent escape, it raised the C. O. I. R. a little higher in the estimation of Breslin. That Monday night, November 20, John Ryan brought Daniel Byrne to Colonel Kelly's lodgings, 19 Grantham Street, where he met General Ker- win and Colonel Thos. J. Kelly, and some further conversation about get- ting James Stephens out of Richmond Bridewell was entered into. Colonel Kelly, who had been acting as Stephens' secretary and transacting the principal business for the C. O. I. R., undertook the outside management of Stephens' release. He did not see any obstacle to Byrnes' success in the undertaking provided he was supplied with duplicate keys, as the originals were always brought to the governor's room after locking up time, and Byrne was the only officer on duty at night. At this time neither Colonel Kelly nor General Kerwin knew anything of Mr. Breslin, and not being a member of the organization Byrne did not know what his sentiment might be on so important a question. . Ryan hinted at Byrne getting any money required, not knowing General Kerwin's offer. Byrne replied that all the money in the Bank of Ireland would not release Stephens, but he would do it for love of his country. When leaving Colonel Kelly's lodgings that night, Byrne received a note from Kelly to bring in to Stephens. This was the first communication brought to the C. O. I. R. from the outside. In the meantime Mr. John Breslin, unaware of Byrne's movements or of his meeting with the Irish leaders, was sent for by his brothers, Neil and Michael, and urged to aid in releasing Stephens from the prison. Their patriotic brother agreed at once to the suggestion ; he freely consented to do his best. He remembered he could get the aid of Daniel Byrne to further the escape. John Breslin knew that Byrne was an I. R. B. member, as he had approached him to join. The consent of John Breslin to help in the proposed rescue was com- municated to headquarters and an appointment made for Colonel Kelly to meet him. When Byrne went on duty that Monday night he deliv- ered to Stephens the dispatch from Kelly. Soon after Breslin came to the night watchman and broached the subject of releasing the C. O. I. R. ; then Byrne learned for the first time that he would have his assistance in the proposed rescue. When the news of Stephens' arrest reached the Military Council they held a meeting. At this meeting General Millen, by virtue of his rank as full general, assumed the right to succeed Stephens, and to preside over the council ; as he expressed it, he " outranked them all " ; his col- leagues acquiesced. There were more important duties before them than trumpery matters of precedence. A message was sent from the council in to Stephens and a letter to his wife, also a dispatch from General Millen informing the imprisoned chief of Millen's position of authority, that worthy general guaranteeing to keep the organization well in hand if necessary for the next six months. Mr. Millen had offended the chief in his weak point. The idea that anyone could be capable of succeeding the indispensable C. O. I. R. was too presumptuous. Mr. Stephens' dignity was ruffled. In an angry mood he sent out a A RETROSPECT. 99 dispatch by John Breslin, ordering Colonel Kelly for the present to assume the reins of government, and for Millen to be sent back forthwith to New York, with instructions to report at headquarters there, and to return to Ireland with the first expedition leaving the United States (the old delusion). Commenting on General Millen's promise to hold the organization in Ireland for six months, the C. O. I. R. said the Archangel Gabriel could not do so. It is a pity that Stephens did not think of this later on ; but possibly he considered himself greater than the Archangel. James Stephens at this time had set for his model the First Consul. His dispatches to his officers were written in the commanding style of that historic personage, and with the trifling drawback of not using revolvers or any death-dealing instruments, — as witness the tameness of his arrest in Fairfield House, — he tried to follow in the pathway of his illustrious predecessor in the world's history. The gallant General Millen obeyed the orders of his chief, like a true soldier. General Kerwin thus describes the action of the council, after Stephens' arrest. " A meeting was at once ordered and steps taken to ' fill up the gap.' This was one of Mr. Stephens' great boasts, that no matter how many men might be removed, there were others to step in and take their places. Acting in this spirit, the council organized a Provisional Directory, and wrote a very courteous letter to Mrs. Stephens express- ive of sympathy, and asking her to transfer to the council any documents that might be of use, and whatever money she had on hand belonging to the public fund. No reply was received to this letter, but soon, through the medium of friends employed in Richmond Bridewell, a correspondence was opened with Mr. Stephens. The first use he made of this established line of communication was to send out a letter banish- ing the president of the council from the country. This was a damper on the zeal of the council. They were soon made to realize that the 'filling up the gap,' theory had no reference to the C. O. I. R. No man on earth could ' fill the gap ' caused by his removal ! " On Tuesday, November 14, Mr. James Stephens was brought before Mr. Stronge, the police magistrate, on remand, and committed back to Richmond Bridewell for trial. On being asked by Mr. Stronge if he wished to make any statement, Mr. Stephens delivered the following manly reply : " I feel bound to say in justification, or rather with a view of my own reputation, that I have employed no attorney or lawyer in this case, and that I mean to employ none ; because in making a plea of any kind or filing any defense — I am not particularly well up in these legal terms — I should be recognizing British law in Ireland. Now I deliber- ately and conscientiously repudiate the existence of that law in Ireland — its right or even its existence. I repudiate the right of its existence in Ireland. I defy and despise. any punishment it can inflict upon me. I have spoken." This action of James Stephens was worthy the course that an Irish Nationalist should pursue when a prisoner in the hands of the enemy. It was a great redeeming feature in Stephens' conduct, which previous to his arrest appeared so bombastic. This action in the dock should be repeated by every Irishman who might have the misfortune to fall into their hands. Repudiate their mock trials, because, by making a defense, and engaging counsel, the Revolutionary soldier at once stultifies him- self and his comrades, and recognizes British law. This lesson cannot be too often impressed upon men who believe in making war upon Ire- land's foe ; they should recollect that they are prisoners of war, to whom the enemy will show no mercy — and in thus acting from his standpoint loo THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. he thinks he is quite right in not doing so ; they must be prepared to face the consequences with manly fortitude, giving no triumph to the enemy by their conduct. But above all they should never allow themselves to be arrested without offering resistance — not silly strug- gles, but the shooting down of the enemy's officials who attempt to capture them, even if they have to mount the scaffold. They should remember that they are soldiers engaged in war, and the gallows in Ire- land and for Irishmen is Britain's war implement. They must at all times be prepared to risk their lives, and lose them if necessary in the cause they have espoused. Instead of this, even among the best and bravest, witnesses for the defense are put forward, and all the silly formula of a trial is carried on as if they had committed a criminal offense against society. It very often may occur that brave men may be surprised and cannot offer resistance ; sensible people understand this, but no lesson should be more impressed upon Irish revolutionists than that they are engaged in making war, and that war is a struggle to the very death. If they are not prepared to face this death they should stand aside and not heap ridicule upon a sacred cause for which generations of brave men fought and died. As a rule the men would follow this course if they were properly instructed ; it is the effect of false teaching and false policy which induces them to put trust in alibis and humiliating legal defenses. The Russian organ Journal de St. Petersbourg thus commented on the then Irish situation : " The analogy is so striking, the circumstances are so identical, with a few differences of degree in the foreign interference, that we believe it will be necessary to remind Russian readers of the fact that it is Ireland in 1865 and not Poland in 1863 that is being spoken of." The Russian journal, when speaking of foreign interference, alludes to the famous dispatch of Earl Russell during the insurrection in Poland, which insurrection was one of the waves from the war for Italian inde- pendence. England, brutal and hypocritical, the persecutor of Ireland and India, tried to pose before the world as the lover of freedom and the sympathizer of struggling Poland. Colonel Kelly hastened his preparations for the rescue of Mr. Stephens. Mr. John Breslin and Mr. Daniel Byrne had promised him an impression in wax of the keys of the cell and corridor where Stephens was confined, They went together to buy the wax, but for many reasons sent a mes- senger to make the purchase. The young man they sent, a Mr. Durkin, was a member of the organization, well known to Mr. Byrne. He pur- chased the wax in Dr. Woodruff's of Bagot Street ; they paid for it out of their own pockets, the organization not expending one shilling in the transaction. Mr. Byrne was invaluable-in aiding the escape. As night watchman and warder he had access to the keys, which Mr. Breslin as hospital steward had no facilities to procure. Byrne got the keys, took an impression in wax with Mr. Breslin's aid, and Mr. Breslin brought these wax materials and gave to Colonel Kelly, who took them to a skillful lock- smith, one of the members of the organization, who made from the impres- sions duplicate keys. This man's name cannot be given, as he still lives beneath the enemy's flag and may yet be useful in the service of his country. The keys when made were given to Breslin, who took them inside. And now Colonel Kelly had to complete his arrangements ; it was neces- sary to have some safe retreat to bring the C. O. I. R. to after the escape, as convenient to the prison as possible, and in the event of pur- suit more than one retreat might be found important. The next necessity was to procure a permanent home for Stephens, where he could reside A RETROSPECT. 101 until the beginning of the fight. For it was on the clear and definite understanding that he would order a general insurrection at once and as soon as some definite military plan had been decided upon, that he was taken out of prison. The plan highly approved of was that of the Mili- tary Council already mentioned, but this should be somewhat altered, as the Exhibition having closed, the same pretext for bringing the men to Dublin was not available, and they would be compelled to come up in not so remarkable a manner as to numbers. In Dublin at the close of 1865 were a very large number of men, deserters from the British Army and men who belonged to volunteer regiments in Britain. These came over without any orders, paying their own expenses and trying to live under severe conditions, all waiting for the expected signal to take up arms for the green banner of old Ireland. These men endured great hardships, but did so of their own volition ; love of country and anxiety to take part in the coming revolutionary war more than compensated them for present ills. There resided at that time in Dublin a widow and her daughter, Mrs. Butler and Miss Sarah Jane Butler. Their dwelling was in 30 Kildare Street, where they had a beautiful furnished house in that quiet and respectable neighborhood, where British officials would never dream a Fenian chieftain could find a home. Mrs. Butler was an amiable Irish lady of quiet, unobtrusive character, loving her country as Irish women do, but having no revolutionary predilections ; neither had she any antipathies, but left these affairs to men and lived a quiet domestic life. Miss Sarah Jane Butler, on the contrary, was a most enthusiastic Irish patriot. Miss Butler was a young lady, a little below the medium height, with beautiful dreamy violet eyes, a white and regular set of teeth, which flashed out from lips of vermillion ; a voice, one of the most musical we have ever heard from woman. She had that deliciously sweet accent which belongs to the cultured of Irish women, and more especially to some ears, the pleasing tones of a Dublin gentlewoman. A shower of brown ringlets covered a shapely head, curls which hung in profusion on her neck and shoulders. Miss Butler was an accomplished poetess, and many beautiful effusions appeared from time to time from her pen in the columns of the Irish National press. She had no male re- lations in Dublin and no association of any kind at that time with revo- lutionists. So that Mrs. Butler's home would be a haven of rest for the C. O. I. R. Among the circle of Mrs. and Miss Butler's friends were, however, two revolutionists, for Dublin society at that time was honey- comed with patriots of the physical force school — what a falling off is there to-day ! One of these was an artist of no mean abilities. He came of a patriotic family ; his father and his elder brother, John, had been enthusiastic patriots in 1848, both then dead. Nicholas Walsh was one of the Dublin " centres." He was a man of intellectual ability, thought- ful and resolute, who would have made a splendid officer if Ireland had taken the field. His mother was a woman of remarkable endowment — the very ideal of the Spartan mother, a firm believer in Irish independ- ence. Mrs. Walsh had many trials to undergo through her son's con- nection with the Irish cause, but she bore them with dignity and fortitude. Nicholas Walsh had one sister. She was a friend and companion of Miss Butler. Cecilia Walsh was about the same build as her lady friend, but a trifle less in stature. She had the appearance of a Spanish lady — dark, short curly hair, which she wore in a foreign style ; a pale classic face that was lit up by dark eyes, now and then full of mischief and satire, but more often serious and thoughtful. She was a very exten- sively read young lady. She was full of repartee, and was the life of a social group. Many of Nicholas Walsh's friends enjoyed the good- humored raillery of the artist's pretty sister. She was the very imper- 102 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. sonation of a conspirator and was a most valuable assistant to Colonel Kelly and Stephens. Nicholas Walsh communicated with Colonel Kelly, and after negotiat- ing with Mrs. Butler, she consented to keep Stephens if rescued. In this decision Miss Butler had a great deal to do. Mr. Walsh made a stipu- lation with Colonel Kelly that on no account was Mrs. Stephens or any member of her family to be permitted to go to Mrs. Butler's, which Kelly promised to get as a consent from Stephens. It was said at the time that the " old man," as Stephens was sometimes called, had given this promise. Rightly or wrongly Mrs. Stephens' family were looked upon with suspi- cion by the men of the organization ; there was no reason for this at that time, but subsequent events proved their correctness ; in one instance George Hopper, Stephens' brother-in-law, having in a cowardly manner pleaded guilty when on trial. This was a triumph for the enemy, who wished to sow the seeds of suspicion against Stephens. At length the night came, when the startling event of that period was to come off. Colonel Kelly had selected twelve men to be present in the event of any resistance being offered. He had many volunteers, the Military Council having offered their services ; but Colonel Kelly rightly refused the aid of any of the prominent men in Dublin, as their arrest or death in a strug- gle which might possibly occur would more seriously effect the organiza- tion. It was absolutely necessary that he should be present himself, as no one knew his arrangements, which he kept locked in his own breast. He had prepared six different places of retreat at as convenient a distance as possible to one another. All of these people were pledged to absolute secrecy, and did not know but that their home was the only retreat en- gaged for Mr. Stephens. Colonel Kelly's orders were, that the I. R. B. man whose house was selected should take up his position as sentinel at his street door, which was to be kept all night unbolted and unlocked, in such a way that a person rushing by could push the door in easily, and if closely pursued he might be able to effect an egress through the back and make for another of their rendezvous, the sentinel to keep all pursuers parleying at the front door. These I. R. B. sentinels were ordered to take up their positions at the street door of their homes from two o'clock until daybreak. Five of these sentinels must have a vivid recollection of that night, for each one, unconscious there was another retreat, was anxiously looking for the C. O. I. R. These men were told to supply themselves with torn white paper, which they were to scatter in handfuls before their homes as soon as they went on duty, Colonel Kelly's reason for this was that a man rushing along in the dark could make no mistake as to the house. Every needful preparation that could make the rescue successful was carried out by Colonel Kelly, who proved himself in this as in other mat- ters a brainy and competent revolutionist. He ordered the Fenian lock- smith to procure a rope of the requisite length and have it knotted so that the C. O. I. R. could climb the outer prison wall. This rope was brought there that night coiled round the body of the locksmith. The night selected for the rescue was Friday night, November 24, 1865, and as if the heavens had joined in the undertaking a more fortu- nate night could not be chosen. It rained in torrents and stormed, a cold wintry blast coming with fierce gusts which nearly took the belated way- farer off his feet. All who could stay at home remained beneath the shelter of a roof that night. Those who knew that the escape was in progress, and these were few, sat with anxious, tumultuous feelings, listen- ing to the weird wintry blasts that moaned and whistled out of doors. The hour fixed for the escape was 2 a. m. Nearing that time Colonel Kelly appeared on the scene accompanied by the Fenian locksmith, A RETROSPECT. 103 who acted as his guide. The Colonel ordered the men to scatter in small groups by the prison walls, ready to concentrate at a given signal. Three of these he selected to stand close by the place where Stephens' signal from inside was expected. Colonel Kelly accompanied by the locksmith, then proceeded to reconnoiter. About halfway up Love Lane he met a policeman, who was sauntering along in the usual manner, no doubt cursing his fate for being compelled to remain out of doors such a tempestuous night. Running close by the prison was a low ditch, which the men crossed and remained near. All were armed and if neces- sary prepared to shoot. Meanwhile, inside the prison Daniel Byrne and John Breslin were ready for their most important share in the work. Daniel Byrne was on duty that night as watchman, to guard the prisoners and report any- thing irregular to the governor, hence he held a most important share in the escape from the inside. Mr. Breslin, as hospital steward, had no duties in the internal discipline of the prison, and without the assist- ance or connivance of the night watchman could not have accomplished his task. Byrne, on the other hand, as the official alone in charge, could have performed this duty if necessity compelled it unaided. Mr. Byrne also took upon himself the whole responsibility and danger, as it was his duty to guard the prisoners, and he knew that he would be arrested as a matter of course the next day. On the other hand, Mr. Breslin was not suspected of being out of his room that night, and as hospital steward escaped all suspicion. Daniel Byrne opened the corridor and unlocked the cell, letting out as quietly as possible the C. O. I. R. The cell of James Stephens and that of Charles Kickham were in the same row. The gover- nor, Dominick Marquez, had placed a convict criminal prisoner, who was instructed to give an alarm if anything unusual was heard by him in either cell. He gave as an explanation next day that he was frightened and had a presentiment of approaching danger. Byrne brought Stephens down the flight of steps leading from the corridor and led him into the yard, where Breslin was waiting their arrival. The ladder which they used in the prison to light the lamps they found too short to reach the top of the inner wall. So Byrne brought two tables from the dining hall, and with Breslin's aid they were placed one upon the other, and the ladder placed on top of the upper table. Breslin handed Stephens a loaded revolver, fearing there might be a guard between the inner and outer wall. Stephens took the revolver mechanically and mounted the tables, then on to the ladder and so to the top of the inner wall. When he reached the top of the wall Stephens threw down the revolver to Breslin, saying, "I have no use for this." The thought flashed at once on Breslin that the great C. O. I. R. was not a brave man. Meanwhile outside the prison wall the watchers kept pursuing their weary rounds in the drenching rain. The men near the place where Stephens was expected were eagerly listening for the signal that the C. O. I. R. was to give them of his presence. Two o'clock struck, and every minute seemed an hour ; the half-hour chimed by the distant clocks, and now weeks seemed to intervene, so great was the suspense to Kelly and the locksmith, moving about in the drenching rain, which pierced every crevice driven along by the force of the sudden gusts. Three o'clock pealed out on the stormy air. The men began asking each other " Will he come ? " Some thought there was a hitch inside. In the midst of these thoughts a shower of gravel fell among them. Quick as lightning the rope was uncoiled and flung across the outer wall. Stephens, who was in the garden between the walls, quickly seized the rope and by the aid of the knots hauled himself up to the top of the 104 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. outward wall ; from there he dropped into the arms of Colonel Kelly and the men who were waiting outside. Colonel Kelly did not lose an instant of time ; he ordered the twelve guards to scatter, each taking a different direction into the city, and accompanied by Stephens he reached one of the six rendezvous, pushing Stephens inside, as the man who was on watch knew him well, and greatly relieved in mind, Colonel Kelly, with a load of anxiety removed, made for his home at 19 Grantham Street. He was not only drenched by the rain, but his clothing was all besmeared with mud crossing the low ditch near the prison. In the meantime John. Breslin retired to his quarters in Richmond Bridewell, where he was supposed to be asleep. One hour after Stephens got away, and when he knew that he must be safe somewhere, Daniel Byrne gave the alarm. This was the ordeal which Byrne, like a brave man, knew he had to face, and while all connected with this escape are deserving of a tribute of gratitude from Irishmen — for they were not sup- posed to forecast Stephens' future conduct — the men who stand out more prominently in the affair are in the first instance Captain John Kirwan,and in the management of the escape Daniel Byrne and Colonel Thomas J. Kelly. Byrne was arrested by the enraged enemy, who tried every possible way to get evidence against him, but failed. He compelled them to pay him what salary they owed him and, with the financial assistance of a devoted brother, he left for this country. Not one penny would he take from the organization, and although the busy tongue of calumny keeps on unceas- ingly to slander men who ever did anything for Ireland, it circulated false stories about Mr. Breslin and Mr. Byrne. Not one penny did either receive in connection with Stephens' escape. Both these Irish patriots, Breslin and Byrne, whatever they were inclined to spend for the cause, would not touch any of its funds. Mr. Breslin, who was never suspected, as he had no duties to do in connection with prison discipline, as already mentioned, remained on in the prison, but the enemy removed all the Irish prisoners to Kilmainham, fearing another rescue. On the arrest of Mr. Breslin's youngest brother, Patrick, suspicion began to fall on all the family, so he left and came to this country. Next morning all was excitement in Dublin. The British enemy was confounded. The strongest prison in Dublin was no protection against the dreadful Fenians. Great was the joy among the Irish people ; they could not express it, but jokingly accused one another in the public streets of being the culprit who let Stephens out. The Provincialists, who numbered at that time a very small portion of the people, were astounded ; it was the first act which told them of the power of the organization. They were, strange to say, more opposed to the active party than even the Orangemen. They spread abroad the story that Stephens was let out by the government, and every plausible sneer they could invent they bestowed upon the patriots, whom they called the shoeless and hatless. An absurd statement, for the very low stratum of Irish society never joined these movements ; their abject poverty had crushed out all manly spirit of resistance. Revolu- tionists would never dream of looking in that direction for recruits. The Dublin Freeman, then as now the leading daily organ of the Provincial- ists and anti-Irish Republicans, in its editorials in the edition of Saturday, November 25, 1865, the morning of the escape, observes. " If the result, on full inquiry, should lead to the detection of the guilty person, we hope that the utmost rigor of the law will be exercised in order to make an example that will warn others from the perpetration of similar acts of criminal treachery. We ask the government — we ask those who for the vile purpose of party have sneered at the arrests and prose- cutions as needless efforts — is there no indication in the escape of DANIEL BYRNE. In the uniform of the Papal Army. Inside leader of the rescue of James Stephens from Kilmainham prison. A RETROSPECT. 105 Stephens of the depth and breadth of the ramifications of this con- spiracy ? " Then, as in most Irish troubles of recent years, Mr. Gladstone was in power. Earl Russell was the Premier of a Liberal English government., and the " Grand Old Man " was Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. That anything should disturb the happiness of the Liberal party was a source of trouble to these Provincialists, and this article from their organ shows how unpatriotic they were then, as they are to-day (1887). General Kerwin thus describes the escape of Stephens: " On the night of the 24th of November, only two weeks after his arrest, the plans were put into execution, and on the 25th, the day following, the city was doubly electrified with the startling cry : ' Stephens has escaped ! Stephens has escaped ! ' A look of confusion, bordering on horror, was on the face of every official of the government. One of their strongest bastilles had been invaded, and the chief conspirator against the peace of Her Majesty's realm actually carried off under their very noses I Let it be here recorded, to the honor of the prison officers engaged in this daring enterprise, that they declined to accept every offer of money, or to fly from the country to save themselves from prosecution." The British gnashed their teeth with rage. Lord Wodehouse, since Earl Kimberley, was Britain's Lord Lieutenant at the time. He issued a proclamation offering ^"1000 for his recapture, and ^300 for any private information ; but there was not gold enough in the British treasury to purchase Stephens' betrayal. The following description was published in the Hue and Cry of Stephens' appearance : "James Stephens, about forty-two years of age, five feet seven inches high, stout make, broad high shoulders, very light active appearance ; fair hair, bald all round top of the head ; wears all his beard, which is sandy, slightly tinged with gray, rather long under the chin, but slight from the jaw, approaching the ears ; broad forehead, tender eyes, which defect seems to be constitu- tional, and has a peculiar habit of closing the left eye when speaking ; high cheek-bones and rather good-looking contour; hands and feet rather small and well formed, and he generally dresses in black clothes." But reward and description were in vain. Stephens was in Dublin in control of the revolutionary movement, and all the power of the British enemy could not effect his recapture. The Irish soldiers in the barracks as they cleaned their accouterments whistled the Irish air called the " Shan Van Voght," or " The Little Old Woman," meaning gossip, or its nearest English equivalent, " So the Story Goes." The boys in Dublin and all over Ireland were singing a new version of this popular ballad composed on the escape of Stephens, a rather humorous production j two stanzas are given : Perhaps you'd like to know, Said the Shan Van Voght, Which way did Stephens go, Said the Shan Van Voght, When from Richmond snug and tight He walked safely out of sight, And never said good-night, Said the Shan Van Voght. They thought it very hard, Said the Shan Van Voght, That he did not leave his card, Said the Shan Van Voght, At Mr. Lawson's gate. Who'd much rather he did wait And see him in full state, Said the Shan Van Voght. 106 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. The Mr. Lawson here spoken of was one of the prosecuting Crown lawyers, since a judge, whose name cropped up years after. The Irish have long memories. Mr. Lawson's name will appear later on in this history. Colonel Kelly's clothing was sent up to him nicely brushed the morn- ing after the escape ; the news had spread everywhere, and when it reached the ear of Colonel Kelly's landlady, taken in connection with the state of his clothing, confirmed that good lady in her suspicions as to her lodger. Colonel Kelly was perfectly safe ; he found, as he would have found in most houses there in Dublin, perfect accord and sympathy for the success of the cause. The next proceeding of importance was to remove Stephens from his temporary concealment to Mrs. Butler's. Kelly had established an ingenious plan of hiring cars in Dublin. The system he employed was to send one of his men to a car stand or hazard as they are called, who drove to some point or other in the city and dismissed the car. The driver on his return to his stand was usually met and hailed by the colonel or his messenger, a youth at that time about seventeen years old, but although young a most useful assistant for Colonel Kelly. By taking a cab or car in this manner their movements could not easily be traced. Miss Walsh was selected as the safest escort James Stephens could have to conduct him to his retreat in Mrs. Butler's. Kelly's messenger, the youth spoken of, brought Stephens from the house where he was concealed since the night of the escape from Richmond. Miss Walsh met him as pre-arranged ; a cab passing to its stand was engaged ; this cab left the young lady and the C. O. I. R. at the head of Kildare Street on Stephen's Green ; they then walked down and entered Mrs. Butler's home, and the Fenian chief found himself in perfect safety. An armed guard followed at a distance and kept the C. O. I. R. in view until he was comfortably housed. When Colonel Kelly found it necessary to communicate with his chief, he either handed his messenger or Miss Walsh a dispatch written on a small piece of thin paper which could easily be swallowed. The colonel's dispatch was first brought to Synge Street, Miss Walsh's home, to break the direct communication between Kelly's lodgings in Grantham Street and the C. O. I. R.'s in Kildare Street. Stephens, in violation of his promise, communicated with his wife. That lady, disguising herself, as she thought, in a huge bonnet, but which was remarkable enough to attract attention, presented herself at Mrs. Butler's ; there was no help but to admit her. Colonel Kelly was annoyed and Nicholas Walsh indignant. Stephens explained that his wife knew what to cook for him, as his health was by no means robust, owing to his enforced confinement. All the time this sybarite was enjoying luxuries, men in Dublin were suffering hardships, who had come there from Britain anxious to commence the fight. The political trials caused a great stir in the city and excited the public mind. John O'Leary, one of the principal captures made at that time, in his speech from the dock, gave an indignant denial that he was guilty of treason. He said : "I have been found guilty of treason or of treason felony. Treason is a foul crime. The poet Dante consigns traitors to, I believe, the ninth circle of hell ; but what kind of traitors? Traitors against the king, against country, against friends, and against benefactors. England is not my country! I have betrayed no friend, no benefactor. Sydney and Emmet were legal traitors. Jeffreys was a loyal man ; so was Norbury. I leave the latter there." One of the Dublin papers remarked upon this speech of Mr. O'Leary's : " Here is the point of the whole question : England is not our country. Treason to England has often been true loyalty to Ireland. England claims allegiance from Irishmen ; but no power has yet been able to root A RETROSPECT. 107 out of their hearts the conclusion that their own country has the best claim upon that feeling. England is not our country. She rules us by brute force ; she makes laws for us without our consent, she taxes us beyond our capacities; she consigns our countrymen to the gibbet and the prison for endeavoring to resist her authority ; but all this does not alter the broad merits of the case ; the people of Ireland will not believe that in conspiring against England John O'Leary was committing treason against his country; they well know that it is not treason to Ireland, to Irish interests, or to Irish honor ; that England punishes by death and imprisonment, and in the tortures and indignities to which she is now subjecting him and other Irish gentlemen, they will see and feel only another pressure put upon their own hearts, another outrage on rights and principles which the Irish nation has at all times and at every cost struggled to assert, and which she is not now about to abandon." There was one remarkably bold and daring prisoner who, like James Stephens, refused to be represented in the enemy's court house by any lawyer owing allegiance to the invader and his laws. This brave man was Mr. Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. He bearded the renegade Pro- vincialist Keogh, who presided over these trials, and who was the enemy's useful tool. The Irish People, the Nationalist organ, attacked this vile instrument of tyranny, Keogh, and the enemy's prosecuting counsel put in as testimony against the patriots their suppressed organ, using several letters and articles from this paper to influence the packed Irish rebels, miscalled jurymen, to find a verdict (which was a foregone conclu- sion when they entered the jury box) in favor of the foreign invaders and against the Irish patriots. Mr. O'Donovan Rossa, taking advantage of this technicality, claimed the right to read what passages he wished from the columns of the Irish People, as the paper was given in evidence. He selected all the paragraphs which exposed Keogh's infamy, and the rene- gade, sitting on the British Bench, decorated in all the paraphernalia of wig and furred gown, had to sit there and hear the man, who was elevated by the dignity of truth to the position of his judge, lay bare, as it were with a scalpel knife, all the public treachery and perjury by which this infamous man climbed to office in the ranks of his country's enemies. Keogh sat there with pale face as the rich Southern tones of Rossa rang out, reading the condemnation of this perjured wretch from the columns of the National journal. The resonant sounds of Mr. O'Donovan Rossa's voice seemed like a death knell in the ears of the guilty man, who cowered and winced when, as Rossa's voice rang out, reading one special passage, the crime-stained judge shuddered as if the doom of blasphemy was about to be hurled upon his wicked head. Belshazzar in the banquet hall, or Macbeth before the bloody ghost of Banquo, could not have worn a more fearful look of horror. The eyes grew pale and glassy and appeared to protrude from the sockets as \i influenced by some super- natural dread ; his face changed from purple to the hue of death alter- nately, and the twitching of his hands in nervous fright appalled the beholders. Turning with hysteric motion to his brother judge, Fitzgerald, he addressed him in a hurried manner and the court rose. The departure of Keogh in such a frightened, abrupt way, betrayed to everyone in court the workings of a guilty conscience. The court at this remarkable junc- ture arose for refreshments. It was the player's scene from Hamlet, re- produced in the capital of a warring nation struggling for life in the grasp of a murderous foe. Keogh's departure was so like the frightened leavetaking of King Claudius in the play scene that Rossa might have exclaimed somewhat like Hamlet, " My words, my words have touched the conscience of this murderous and perjured judge !" What words were they that so paral- 108 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. yzed Keogh and caused such a scene in court ? Rossa, reading from the National paper, accused Keogh to his face with the deliberate and cold- blooded effort to convict the brothers McCormick of the crime of mur- der ; of his partisan attitude during the trial, although sitting on the bench ; of his bitter and malicious action in suppressing every iota of evidence in their favor, and finally his deliberate charge to a packed jury to find a verdict of guilty — his demoniac joy and fierce attack, when with a scowl of hatred he put on the black cap and sentenced these young men to die on the scaffold. In vain they attempted to protest their innocence. Keogh fully approved of the verdict, which was mainly of his own pro- curing. Pitiful humanity — even West Britishers — revolted at this immoral and hideous trial. An attempt was made to save these young men's lives, but this was stopped by Keogh's action. The monster was ravenous for the young McCormicks' lives and he got his brutal wish. They were hanged protesting their innocence on the scaffold. The quicklime had scarcely destroyed their bodies in their uncoffined graves inside the jail, when their innocence was made apparent as noonday^ But who could restore to life the murdered dead ? Who could restore their innocent young lives to the circle of friends and relatives from which, by a bloody engine called Brit- ish law, they were torn ? For the murder they were charged with was one of those agrarian killings, where tyrants are slain by outraged and per- secuted peasants ground down by poverty and degradation under alien laws. When Mr. O'Donovan Rossa read this statement before Keogh in a crowded court he winced and displayed nervousness, and a feeling of horror as if the ghosts of the dead McCormicks stood before him and in their bloody shrouds pointed at him the finger of condemnation and scorn. The untiring Rossa rose with the occasion, and read Keogh's own voluntary and most impious perjury during an election canvass at Athlone. Keogh called upon the Deity to witness his vow, that if re- turned to the British Parliament he would never accept any office from a British Ministry, but would work loyally with the Irish Independent party for the salvation of the Irish nation. To affirm his vow he called the Creator to register it ; holding his right arm aloft he exclaimed in solemn tones, " So help me God." Mr. Keogh violated this oath by ac- cepting a position on the Irish bench. When Mr. O'Donovan Rossa fiercely thundered at Keogh's public perjury the scene already described was enacted in Green Street Court House. After an interval the trial was resumed ; the spectators could easily see that Keogh had nerved himself with stimulants to brace the ordeal he knew he had to undergo. The dauntless prisoner re-commenced the attack, reading from the volumes of the paper, interspersed now and again with a manly address to the jury. Had these things in the shape of men held within their souls a single spark of manliness, or a shadow of love and respect for their motherland, they would have died in the court house before giving the enemy a verdict of guilty. But these craven traitors were curs dropped in a lion's den. The hours of the afternoon wore on and Rossa con- tinued his attack on the foreign criminals that style themselves Govern- ment in Ireland, and their guilty hireling Keogh. But nature cannot endure forever ; Rossa, growing hoarse, asked for a cup of water, which Keogh in hissing bitterness refused him. After a heroic and marvelous exhibition of endurance the dauntless Irishman closed with a peroration, hurling defiance on the enemy and his instrument on the bench, telling the jury that if they had a spark of patriotism they would never give a verdict to the enemy. Next day the trial closed. Keogh, well primed, charged the jury ; the stereotyped verdict was returned, and Keogh himself sentenced Mr. A RETROSPECT. 109 O'Donovan Rossa. He began by stating that he knew the prisoner was so steeped in crime that any words of his would be of no avail to recall him to a sense of the enormity of his guilt. (Thank God that implanted such guilt in the Irish heart !) He finished up by sentencing the prisoner to penal servitude for the term of his natural life. This was the heaviest sentence passed on any of the Nationalists during that special commission, and Keogh's voice could not suppress his rage and bitterness when he pro- nounced the words that he meant to be awful and to convey terror to the prisoner's soul. But the undaunted Rossa turned round in the dock as he was being dragged away, and in tones of scathing rebuke hurled defiance at the renegade judge and his country's enemy. That night the writer vividly remembers seeing Keogh at Westland Row Railway Station. His face was sodden and bloated, and as he was led to his compartment in a first-class carriage, he was greeted, in spite of his police guard, with hoots and hisses by those present. A group of young and middle-aged men was standing by a second class carriage looking at the scene, belonging to a class or caste supposed by the enemy to be British in sentiment. From this group came the exclama- tion of a man who seemed to feel strongly, " I would rather be O'Dono- van Rossa to-night in his prison cell, than that beastly brute who sen- tenced him to life-long torture." And many a heart anxious for the coming fight silently responded " Amen." The year was drawing to its close when Stephens summoned a general council of the Irish organization — representative men from every county and district. Owing to the watchfulness of the enemy, Stephens was compelled to meet these men in batches of five and six. The council was held in Colonel Kelly's lodgings, 19 Grantham Street. Colonel Kelly had men armed with revolvers patrolling the neighboring streets, so that the council should not be surprised by the enemy. The officers of the Military Council were present, and with bombastic display which formed part of his character, James Stephens had before him two loaded revolvers, which were certainly for show, not use. As well as we can charge our memory this council was held on Saturday, December 30, 1865. As the centres came into his presence Stephens put to them this question : " Will you vote for fighting now or wait for three months, and for every rifle we have, I will guarantee there will then be eight." The men, under the impression that Stephens was in possession of some wondrous knowl- edge, consented. General Kerwin, indignant at Stephens' misleading question, told the C. O. I. R. plainly that there was no such hope, and asked Stephens to further explain himself. Although the men accepted the C. O. I. R.'s wish, as there appeared no alternative, they were filled with tears of rage at the failure. General Kerwin's indignant expose of Stephens' cowardly vacillation for the first time revealed to them the true character of their idol, who created a gigantic organization only to allow it to fall to pieces through recreant cowardice. Stephens accused General Kerwin of disheartening the men, and so this brave soldier became silent. All the officers present were disgusted at the pusillanimous conduct of the C. O. I. R. The men left the chief's presence utterly broken in spirit at the collapse of the struggle ; not a man who came there, even the humblest, but could see that all hopes of fight were over. General Kerwin describes this scene, where he explains his plan of insur- rection ; as before stated he describes two councils as one. The writer will never forget that December night and the hopeless state of the cause which the news, when heard, revealed to all. Edmond O'Donovan, who was with the writer part of the time in Synge Street, tried to appear cheerful, but he could not. Dismay was in every face. While Stephens was absent from his retreat in Kildare Street, attend- no THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. ing the council in Grantham Street, the enemy, of course unaware of the important conference which was held and which put back the hour of the struggle for at least a generation, was making a display of his forces through the city. He had, it is supposed, the silly idea of overawing the Irish by his redcoats. A regiment of soldiers marching through Nassau Street, preceded by a fife and drum band, caused a stir among the city idlers and attracted some attention, for it was not usual for troops to march through the city at so late an hour. Miss Butler, seized with the idea that Stephens was arrested, for she looked upon the C. O. I. R. as quite a hero, rushed from her house bareheaded and eagerly inquired from one of the bystanders what was the matter. The man she spoke to replied bitterly and recklessly,' " Only the English playing a game of brag, trying to frighten us with their soldiers." Miss Butler, greatly relieved, returned home, which was not very many doors up the street, fortunately attracting no attention where so many were excited. That night, when Stephens and Kelly were returning to Kildare Street, they had turned into Camden Street, when two detectives followed them out of curiosity. Kelly, ever on the alert, commenced a merry story of some imaginary jollification, which caused the detectives to leave. They were not in search of Christmas revelers ; little did these industrious men know how near they were to one thousand pounds and promotion. Stephens' procrastination went on. He was asked to fight at once, but 'twas no use. At a council held in February, urged by General Kerwin, General Burke, and several officers present to give orders for the insurrec- tien, he finally refused. Next morning the enemy made a swoop and arrested some two or three hundred men in Dublin. Mr. Gladstone had introduced a bill suspending the Habeas Corpus Act, which was denounced by John Bright (what an extraordinary change comes over English statesmen where Ireland is concerned !), but not waiting for any legal authority, the police swooped down upon the Irish officers and imprisoned them, twenty-four hours before the measure became law. Had they not done so, all of the principal officers would have left, the greater number having already gone away. They saw Ireland was no place for them, as Stephens was a dreamer and did not mean to fight. On the night of the arrests Edmond O'Donovan and another man burst in on Stephens and demanded orders to fight, as the men were furious at the arrests which were taking place over the country ; but assuming an air of injured innocence, the great C. O. I. R. said he had decided to go to America and unite the factions there, and he would return with an armed expedition. With that strange fatality which has followed like a curse the Irish people in their devotion to leaders, when these men have proved themselves both incapable and cowardly, Stephens' name had even then a magic influence, and the men submitted to his authority. The enemy's cruisers were searching every vessel leaving Ireland, but Colonel Kelly determined to try and get the C. O. I. R. out of Ireland to fulfill his proposed American mission. Dressed as sailors in pea-jackets and woolen mufflers, they drove in a car belonging to a member of the organization to a small fishing village, Skerries, a few miles from Dublin. Putting up at an inn there, they told the landlord they were waiting for their vessel, which was to put into Skerries to bring them off ; after some hours' delay the proprietor rushed upstairs, suspecting they were smugglers, who are usually popular in Ireland, and told them there was something wrong with their ship, as she was coming into the harbor pursued by a revenue cruiser. It was time to leave, which they did quickly, and returned to DubUn. Kelly, always ready with an expedient, hit on a plan to throw the A RETROSPECT. Ill enemy off the scent. He circulated among the men in apparent confidence the information that the "captain " had succeeded in escaping and was on his way to America. This was considered good news, as the men had every faith in Stephens returning with an American expedition to com- mence the fight, the only hope then left them. Not considering there was any further necessity to conceal the successful escape, and to raise drooping and desponding spirits, they freely communicated it to their comrades, and many a bon voyage and Irish good luck and God speed him was drunk to their supposed absent chief. The news soon reached the enemy and was triumphantly recorded in the National press. Kelly's ruse was a great success. The British were completely nonplussed at the way they were baffled by the Fenians ; they of course believed the report. The cruisers were removed and the coast was clear. Colonel Kelly, accompanied by a splendid specimen of an Irishman, John Flood, hired a small vessel to take them off, the captain believing- they were smugglers. Wrapped in pea coats and seamanlike garb, Kelly, Flood, and Stephens entered the vessel in the Ringsend docks and put to sea ; they were one night in Belfast Lough through stress of weather, but next day were landed in Kilmarnock, Scotland. Changing their garb they took train for London, putting up at the Charing Cross Hotel, and next morning taking train for Dover en route to Paris. On approaching Dover Colonel Kelly's expedients were all used up. If the enemy was anyway wise he was sure to have some sharp detective at Dover. John Flood came to the recue. He got up a discussion of an angry nature with one of the men at the gangway, and allowed the C. O. I. R. to slip on board unobserved. Flood, who lived in Birmingham, had a thorough English accent ; after a little explanation they went on board. Kelly had never heard anything so musical as the order to remove the gang plank. Thus the C. O. I. R. got away safely. Stephens appointed Edward Duffey, a gentleman in delicate health, to represent him in Ireland during his absence. Duffey was a noble fellow, who afterward died in prison, but he was not equal to the position. Nicholas Walsh, who was in Paris, at the time was indig- nant with Stephens for not appointing an abler man. Walsh thought that Kelly should have been left behind to control the home movement, so much shattered by Stephens' inaction and not by the enemy, for the number imprisoned by the foe was insignificant compared to the strength of the organization. Stephens, with that jealousy of brainy men, which has been Ireland's curse to the present hour, and which has kept from power and authority some of the most competent of her sons, feared that Kelly, if left in command at home, might undermine the influence of the bombastic C. O. I. R. The power of the organization as a conspiracy was broken ; the enemy could not be surprised, as he would have been had the Irish taken the field in September, 1865. The vacillation of the leaders had disgusted many of the most intelligent of the Nationalists; the morale of a few months back was destroyed. The enemy quickly dispatched the regiments in Ireland on foreign service, and replaced them with all care by regiments with few Irishmen in their ranks. With Stephens' departure closed the first and most hopeful period for Ireland of the I. R. B. struggle. Several of the best men in Dublin and other districts were inactive ; despair of any fight began to take the place of previous high hopes. Nicholas Walsh paid a visit of condolence to a friend's house in the suburbs of Dublin, toward the close of 1866. His friend's wife had lost her father, whom the artist had a strong friendship for. Mr. Walsh had taken no active part in the movement since his return from France ; he was devoting himself to his art. The visit was one of pure friendship, and 112 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. had no connection with politics. The " centre " of the locality, a man who had been in prison under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and well-known for his strong Nationalist sympathies, had been followed by detectives all the day, as there was talk of the approaching insurrec- tion. He heard that Mr. Walsh was in the town from someone who saw him enter the residence of his friend. When the "centre " entered they were at tea. His visit to that house was a most unusual proceeding. The owner was a man not suspected of National proclivities ; the " centre" was followed by the detectives. Walsh's hair was rather thin about the forehead, and they thought at first he was Stephens. Mr. Walsh was made prisoner and lodged in Mountjoy prison under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act. He was in prison for some time and released to go abroad. He never returned to Ireland, but died in Florence some years after. Through the vacillation, vanity, and incompetency of James Stephens, the great revolutionary organization in Ireland, which culminated in 1865, was kept from taking the field. Had the Military Council's plan of cam- paign been adopted, and prompt action taken, the invader would have been involved in a bloodier struggle to defend his plunder than Ireland had witnessed since glorious '98. One fact stands out prominently now as then — the devotion, self-sacrifice, and determination of the Irish masses. Whenever there arises a leader capable, courageous, and honest, the people, if properly instructed in pure National doctrines, will be as ready to precipitate themselves upon the invader as they were in 1865. If the Irish people are ever removed from the Emerald Isle, it will not be by a war of independence, no matter how sanguinary should be the struggle ; but by the slow and certain drain which Britain's infamous system of warfare is sure to result in, and which she terms — Peace. CHAPTER VII. (1866-67.) PLAN TO SEIZE CHESTER CASTLE AND CAPTURE THIRTY THOUSAND STAND OF ARMS — THE KERRY RISING PART OF THE SAME PLAN. James Stephens' Public Promise to Fight in 1866 — The Organization Demoralized both in Ireland and America without Striking a Blow — Invasion of Canada Determined on by the Senate Wing — Battle of Ridgeway — Colonel Kelly and his Friends Deter- mine to Fight — The Troops in Ireland Changed — James Stephens in Hiding — Colonel Kelly Leaves for Ireland — Stephens Goes to France — Chester Castle — The City of Chester Filled with Irishmen — Captain John Kirwan at Runcorn Gap — Plan to Begin an Irish Insurrection — Corydon's Treason — Failure of the Enterprise — Determination to Begin the Fight in Ireland — McCafferty and Flood Captured on their Landing in Dublin — The Irish-American Officers in Liverpool — Difficulty of Getting at the Proposed Scene of Hostilities — Captain John Kirwan and Captain O'Rourke — Kirwan Demands to be Sent to Dublin — The Expedition From Gaston Near Liverpool — Captain John Kirwan and Irish-American Officers Set Sail for Ireland — Landing Effected at Killiney Strand — Night March on the Railroad Track — Arrive at Carrickmines — Friendly Shelter — Reach Dublin in Safety. When James Stephens reached the United States the Irish National organization in this country was divided into two wings. In Ireland the movement was seriously shattered and demoralized ; the failure of Stephens to take the field in 1865 as promised, the vacillation and inde- cision displayed in his conduct of affairs after his escape, had done what the enemy could not do — implanted a feeling of despair and desperation in the breasts of many of the leading patriots. The skilled officers of military reputation who had sacrificed their future prospects in America to serve their motherland, had either left- in disgust, or were incarcerated by the enemy in Mountjoy prison. Two of the Military Council, General Michael Kerwin and General Denis F. Burke, were among the American military prisoners captured by the foe. The Senate wing of the American organization decided on an inva- sion of Canada. This was looked upon by the home organization as a waste of their strength and resources, and a violation of the promises made to the men in the gap to aid them in a struggle with their invader on the sacred soil of Ireland. It was also considered by many of the people at home as both quixotic and unjust to invade Canada for the purpose of freeing Ireland, as Canada, a semi-independent province inhabited by a people of mixed races, never in anyway injured Ireland, and in no manner ever aided the British enemy in his usurpation in that country. Had Canada been a Crown colony under the direct control of the British Government (such as Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill would have made Ireland), there might have been some plea as an inva- sion of British soil, but'being a country that makes its own laws, and over which the British Government exercise no direct control whatever, it seemed to several Irishmen a peculiar idea on the part of the Senate leaders to decide on the invasion of the neighboring country. True, there was one delusive hope that the successful entry of armed Irishmen into the Canadian Dominion might bring on a war between Britain and the United States, then very much estranged over the Alabama ques- tion. Some people will very probably say that this was not patriotic "3 H4 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. action on the part of any portion of the American people. Others will answer them by saying that placing Ireland out of the question, a war at that time between America and her ancient foe and still bitter com- mercial rival would have been of incalculable benefit to the United States ; would have restored the prestige of the American commercial navy on the high seas, and made the Stars and Stripes float over every part of the watery world. It would also have welded the North and South in a manner that legislation cannot so quickly do. America will never rest at peace from British intrigue until she asserts her commercial and naval supremacy on the ocean. Had James Stephens been the able statesman he was imagined, he had a splendid opportunity to harmonize the two parties, more especially in policy. He came to America with all the eclat of his escape from prison, and his no less marvelous escape from Dublin to France. On his arrival in New York he was waited on by a deputation of Irish Fenian Senators. This visit was a gracious act of courtesy on their part to a distinguished Irishman. These patriotic and able gentlemen were surprised at the hauteur and dictatorial manner with which they were received by the C. O. I. R., who treated them as if they were Irish country peasants. Instead of healing the breach, Mr. Stephens, by his attempt at dictatorship, widened the separation of the two wings, and with a two-fold determination — to dethrone the C. O. I. R. and to gain a foothold to declare war against the British enemy — the Senators hurried their preparation for Canadian invasion. There can be no doubt that however mistaken the policy of invading Canada may be, the Senators and their patriotic following were sincere and earnest in their endeavors. The Irish-American people responded to the call made on them ; and in thousands, leaving their businesses and their factories, rushed with enthu- siasm to take the field against the ancient foe of their race. But alas ! disunion and demoralization had weakened the intellects and judgment of the leaders, a lamentable catastrophe with men in the front of Irish movements, when passion and not wisdom guides the ship of state. The proposed invasion ended in a fiasco. After three days' grace given to them by a friendly Administration in Washington, the United States Government interfered, and the small body of Irish troops that crossed the border, after fighting the victorious Battle of Ridgeway, were com- pelled to return to the States, as they were left unsupported. It is no part of this history to enter into the Irish-American move- ment, but it must be stated that the fight at Ridgeway showed the class of men that crossed the Canadian border. In this engagement with the Dominion militia the Irish soldiers displayed the ancient valor of their race. They routed the red-coated foe in a short time, and so great was the panic among the Canadian troops that had the Irish commander any cavalry he would have made prisoners of war of the whole force in his front ; but after defeating their enemy they were compelled for lack of supports and supplies to retrace their steps, and the invasion was over. The failure of making a foothold in Canada and the evidences of bad management displayed by those in authority dispirited the Irish-Americans hitherto enthusiastic in the cause. Mr. Stephens, in desperation, seeing that his prestige was slipping away from him, commenced to preach publicly the news that as sure as that the sun shone in the heavens he would be fighting British troops on Irish soil before the close of that year, 1866. The support which Mr. Stephens expected by this extraordi- nary and bombastic statement was not given to him. The people were growing weary of all this braggart talk and no fight. Every mail brought news of fresh captures by the enemy in Ireland, but not the faintest attempt at either resistance or striking back a solitary blow at the foe. V'n 3 O r 2 >-i3 re' O tag" Os5 > 3 2?* Q.C L 1 — I «5p 2 ft IK) • 3 3 <$ H " o ffi • g W r £• o 5- g •, B" "q S • o r w £. c =>">-, .<*£> |g£ <3 £-3 <| * 5" <~ : 1 7 ' PLAN TO SEIZE CHESTER CASTLE. 115 All this time those gigantic machines, the British press and British literature, were spreading broadcast over the American continent every imaginable slander they could invent against the character of the Irish leaders. They magnified and distorted every difference between the rival Irish wings. In these endeavors they were too often unfortunately aided by weak Irishmen, who, to air their personal grievances, forgot the injury done to the cause of their country by these silly and sometimes malicious stories. In Ireland demoralization had set in; that pure patriot, Edward Duffey, who was utterly unfitted for the duties left to his care, although as honest and sincere as any patriot who lives in history, proved his de- votion to Ireland by sealing it with the sacrifice of his life. He had not the capacity or strength of mind to control the warring elements that the C. O. I. R. left behind to his charge — the disintegrating and angry masses of a betrayed and once powerful organization. The enemy, fully alive to the importance of changing the troops in Ireland, removed their regiments and sent them on foreign service, replacing the disaffected troops with more reliable soldiers. Toward the close of 1866 Stephens' bombastic promises alarmed them, for Britain's stupidity as to the strength or weak- ness of Irish movements is a subject of contempt to every thinking Irish- man of any experience. Additional troops were hurried into Ireland to face the expected insurrection. Irishmen at home smiled at the alarm of the foe, and spoke to each other with bitter cynicism and sadness when they heard of Stephens' promises. All faith — except with a few of his own immediate friends — in the C. O. I. R. was completely smashed. His neglect of Edward Duffey was unpardonable, and confirmed in the minds of many the belief of Stephens' selfishness. To save the cause from ridicule a few brave men determined to leave for Ireland with the forlorn hope of trying to make an attempt at insur- rection there ; foremost of these, and indeed the chief of the party, was Colonel Thomas J. Kelly. At the time when Colonel Kelly and his friends determined to leave for Ireland to commence an insurrection, they could not possibly have chosen a more inopportune time. The organization was more completely smashed than if it had been fighting the enemy's whole army for years. The men were filled with disgust and contempt for the judgment of the leaders, more especially the C. O. I. R. Roderick Dhu's Highland fol- lowers never disappeared more quickly from the eyes of the Knight of Snowdon, than did the giant movement of one year before melt out of existence, or nearly so, through the cowardly temerity of James Stephens not fighting the invader in 1865. The enemy's action had nothing what- ever to do in smashing up the organization, only so far as it was permitted by leaders who could at a word have summoned one hundred thousand fighting men to hurl themselves upon the red-coated banditti of Britain. Colonel Kelly did not think affairs in Ireland were in so lamentable a con- dition, but like brave men, himself and his followers determined to make an effort to strike the enemy in Ireland, and come what may to try and wipe out the disgrace of inaction, even at the sacrifice of their lives. Where was the great C. O. I. R. at this crisis — the man who pledged himself before the world that the end of 1866 would find him in the field fighting British troops ? Colonel Kelly, filled with the belief that the name of Stephens would be a talisman by which to muster Irish troops to rally round the green banner, was anxious to have the chief to accompany them. At this time, when Stephens should be trying to redeem his plighted honor, he was discovered hiding in New York, and to further carry out the bombastic folly of his fancied heroism, he caused it to be printed in Ii6 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. the public press that the great C. O. I. R. had left for the theater of operations. Many earnest Irishmen believed this statement true, and others who were in doubt, and some who knew different, considered it good policy to have this misstatement published to deceive the British foe, so that Stephens could slip away unobserved. For not a single man, not even one, ever for a moment thought that James Stephens could play the part of poltroon before the world after his statements so publicly made. In vain Colonel Kelly and other friends urged on him the necessity of remov- ing his beard to effectually disguise himself. This modern Irish chief- tain prized — with the vanity of a silly girl — his ornamental hirsute append- age, and sooner than part with it, Ireland should accept the chances of the C. O. I. R.'s capture. Colonel Kelly and the officers were ready to depart, the colonel having taken passage for them all. Kelly sent John Breslin with a ticket to James Stephens. Mr. Stephens took it and promised Mr. Breslin he would be on the ship the night before sailing. These were his parting words to Mr. John Breslin. The men who were leaving on a forlorn hope and who were risking their lives to save their honor in fulfillment of Mr. Stephens' public pledge, were satisfied he had got quietly on board, and expected they would see him when the ship was out at sea. After a day or two, when Colonel Kelly, Mr. Breslin, and their fellow-voyagers learned that Mr. Stephens was not really on board — he having accepted his ticket to depart for the scene of approaching hostilities — according to his own public promise, they felt for him added contempt. In this, as in every incident for some time past, the C. O. I. R. displayed lamentable weak- ness ; he was not the man to take dangerous risks. He gave his passage ticket to his brother-in-law, John Hopper, who lately died at Paris. To several of his New York friends he stated he was left behind, but the would-be Irish chieftain was fast losing the sympathy of all men. A few generous Irishmen made up as much money as paid his passage from New York. But instead of leaving for Ireland or going there via France, even if he was to face the scaffold, Mr. Stephens sojourned in the gay French capital, where there were no chances of his receiving either wounds or imprisonment. In the meantime a number of Irish-American officers had left for the scene of action, believing that Stephens could not possibly refuse after his public promises to make his appearance on the field where that struggle, which he had so often described in his American speeches, was to take place. The home organization — or that portion of it still in existence — felt disgusted and bitter over the whole fiasco, and determined that if it was to be a failure, Ireland's hopes should be crushed in fight. Delegates left for London, where insurrection was decided upon. The much-spoken of Chester Castle raid was one of the plans submitted and about to be put into operation. This plan was opposed by many of the American officers, Colonel Rickard Burke being very determined in opposition. Stephens' cowardice and defection had loosened the bonds of discipline, and there was not the same unanimity as before. With the exception of Colonel Kelly, and one or two others who took no part in the Chester Castle plan, the most scientific soldiers had retired from the movement a long time before. The plan to seize Chester Castle — where the arms removed from the Pigeon House Fort, Dublin, were stored, and which but for Stephens would have been long since in the hands of Irish Republican soldiers — might have been successful but for the treachery of Corydon, for which he has since accounted. The seizure of the Castle could not be very difficult ; it had no defenders to resist an attack of armed men. Twenty thousand Irishmen were ordered out. A certain number to different PLAN TO SEIZE CHESTER CASTLE. 117 towns where officers were sent to command them. This part of the pro- gramme was carried out. The men left their employment as ordered, and twenty thousand Irish Republican revolutionists were actually concentrated ready for action in the enemy s country. According to the plans arranged, the arms and ammunition when seized were to be quickly put on board a train which was to leave at once for Holyhead. A portion of these arms were to be distributed among the Irish forlorn hope, who, with what arms they were already in possession of, were to take the field in England, and so cause such a diversion in favor of their comrades in Ireland and such a panic in England that before their defeat they hoped to make the towns of the enemy ring with the news of Irish retaliation, and that the war of centuries, carried on with the steady purpose of annihilating the Irish race, would re-act upon the British themselves. This desperate attempt, or rather resolution, on the part of officers and men, shows the despairing and reckless state of mind the demoralization which set in at the close of 1865 in the I. R. B. organization caused to the then leaders, who like the stag at bay were determined to sell their lives dearly. None of the brave fel- lows who volunteered to take the field in England expected to long sur- vive the desperate attempt ; but the destruction they would cause the enemy would be worth the sacrifice of every life. Men were ordered to Holyhead in advance of these preparations ; they went there and were out one night in that inclement season. Had they succeeded in surprising the Castle and seizing the arms and ammunition, they would have at once armed all their men in and about Chester. To seize the railway station and cut the telegraph wires would be the work of a short time. Among the men ordered to Chester were efficient engineers to take charge of the locomotives and also the steam vessels at Holyhead in the event of the movement being so far successful. A special train carrying arms and men was to leave for Holyhead ; the men there were if possible to get on board the mail steamer which was ready at the pier to depart for Kingstown, and on the arrival of their comrades and the arms from Chester seize the two mail steamers there, getting up steam, under the supervision of their own engineers, then cross over at full speed to Ireland, landing men and arms at the most convenient place on the coast. A "rising" in Dublin and another in Kerry was part of this plan, including a rising at Mallow Junction. Those who decided on this programme expected that the enemy, alarmed at a "rising" in the mountains of Kerry, would rush his troops into that part of the island and try to at once crush the insurrec- tion there before it would spread, for the enemy's only hope of retaining his foothold in Ireland was to extinguish instantaneously the first spark of revolution. If once the Irish could concentrate in any force to form the nucleus of an army, their numbers and valor would destroy any hope of Britain being able to reconquer the insurgent nation. When the enemy's troops had poured into Kerry, the Mallow insurgents had orders to tear up the railroads at the Junction, and in every possible manner impede the return of the enemy, to give the Southern Irish time to concen- trate into armed battalions, and make the "rising" general. The promoters of this plan of campaign were correct in their surmises about the alarm of the invader. In their fright to suppress the Kerry " rising " they drained a great portion of the island of troops, and many important positions were denuded of the enemy's soldiery, giving the Irish the needed opportunity had the plan of insurrection been successful at its source. The enemy by no means underestimated the force necessary to sup- press an insurrection of Irishmen in such a mountainous region. They dispatched General Sir Alfred Horsford with a complete British division, ready equipped to meet a similar number of regular troops of a hostile n8 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. character, although there was only a small attempt at " rising " in Killarney and the neighborhood. The fact was the Kerry " rising " was partially started before the order came that Chester was a failure and not to " rise." This Chester Castle plan of insurrection was a rash and desperate undertaking at best ; it depended on so many distinct movements coming together at the proper instant of time that it is difficult for even the most sanguine to believe that it could have produced a successful armed insurrection. The treachery of a wretch who could not resist the cravings of poverty betrayed the attempt to seize Chester Castle, the only part of the move- ment he knew about. But for Corydon's treachery the Castle would undoubtedly have been captured and the arms seized, whatever the sequel might have been. Among the principal leaders of the Chester Castle raid were Captain John McCafferty, Mr. John Flood, who helped Stephens to escape from Dublin to France, and Mr. Austin Gibbons of Liverpool, now a prosperous builder in New York city. Another of the men who went to assist in the Chester Castle plan of taking the field was Captain John Kirwan. After Stephens' escape from prison, principally through his control of the forces inside the prison, as already related, Captain Kirwan, in spite of his name appearing in the Hue and Cry gazette, endeavored under the difficulties of his position to remain in Dundrum, close to Dublin city. He inspired his men and tried to impart to his circle his own sanguine hope of taking the field. Stephens' conduct and his subsequent departure from Ireland amazed him, but he still clung to the belief that his country would soon commence the long looked for armed struggle with her foe. He was supported by his patriotic wife, who was not in any way behind her husband in patriotism. When Edward Duffey, who succeeded Stephens in authority, required some messenger to bring a box of revolvers and a quantity of ammunition to the West of Ireland Mrs. Kirwan volunteered her services and successfully carried out her mission. When it is recollected that the country was overrun with swarms of the enemy's detectives, and the fearful punishment of penal servitude, Mrs. Kirwan's courage and address will be appreciated. Ireland has a noble band of patriots in her loyal daughters. Kirwan found he had to leave Dublin and seek some employment ; he succeeded in getting to Drogheda and from thence to Liverpool, where he determined to remain near Ireland until the hour to strike had come. When he reached Liverpool he reported himself to Captain O'Rourke of the 88th N. Y. Vols., who was chief officer for the Irish cause in that city. Captain O'Rourke, who went by the name Beecher, was one of the most self-sacrificing and energetic of the gallant band of Irish-American soldiers of the Civil War that lent their assistance to their fatherland. Among those who were there in Liverpool was Captain O'Carroll, Captain Thomas Costello, Colonel John J. Connor, of the Mass. Vols., who left for Kerry to head the " rising " there ; Major Quinn of the 9th Mass., a glorious soldier and gallant gentleman, at this time he was in ill health, suffering from numerous wounds ; Captain Smith of the U. S. Artillery ; Captain Charles Joyce and another captain of the same name ; Captain Laurence O'Brien of 9th Conn. Vols. ; Lieutenant O'Brien (Keokuk), U. S. Regular Army ; Colonel Moran, N. J. Vols. ; Captain Heffernen, late of the C. S. A. ; Lieutenants Hartigan and Donovan ; Captain John McAfferty, C. S. A., and Colonel Rickard Burke, U. S. Engineers, and several other brave fellows who were waiting to begin the fight during that weary year of 1866. Captain Kirwan was with fifty men rendezvoused at Runcorn Gap. At this place was the only bridge within miles crossing the river Dee. PLAN TO SEIZE CHESTER CASTLE. 119 Kirwan's orders were to hold the bridge until re-enforced in the event of Chester Castle failing into the hands of the Irish soldiers. In the City of Chester itself there was concentrated four thousand Irish troops. The hotels were filled to overflowing, and numbers of men had to bivouack in the streets. The citizens were very civil to them. It was rumored there was a prize fight to come off in the neighborhood, which in a measure accounted for the large number of men who had come to Chester. The police were suspicious, but were powerless in the face of such a force. But the visitors gave no trouble, were very peaceful, and paid for all they required. When it was discovered that the secret of the attempt to capture Chester Castle was betrayed to the enemy, the men were ordered to dis- perse to their homes. And that numerous body of men returned to their various towns without the smallest trouble, so perfect was the discipline of the movement in the enemy's country. The information which was conveyed to the enemy and which upset the plan to capture the arms stored in Chester Castle caused a feeling of dissatisfaction among the leading spirits, who were determined that a fight should come off at all hazards. Captain John McCafferty and John Flood left in a coal brig for Dublin. Their mission was to make arrange- ments to take the field. Unfortunately, Corydon, who was one of the American visitors and who of course was never suspected of treason, knew of their departure and informed the enemy. The brig was watched on her arrival in the Liffey. Captains McCafferty and Flood tried to get ashore in the small boat, but were overtaken by the enemy, overpowered, and captured. When the news was circulated among the men in Liverpool that a fight in Ireland had been decided on, Captain John Kirwan called at Captain O'Rourke's quarters in Seymour Street and reported for active service. Captain O'Rourke tried to urge on him the necessity of not going to Ireland for some time ; that his appearance was well known to numerous detectives, and that not only was he sure to be made a prise ner of by the now vigilant foe, but that his presence would endanger the liberty of his comrades. Kirwan reminded O'Rourke that he was a Dublin centre, and had great influence among his men ; that he was a practical soldier, and that his presence would be of service to the nation at the commence- ment of hostilities. He further stated his determination to go to Ireland if he had to swim there. Captain O'Rourke, seeing the earnestness of Kirwan, told him that a vessel would sail from the port of Garston, some seven miles above Liverpool, on the Mersey, that she would endeavor to make a landing on the Irish coast, and that he would be accompanied by some Irish-American officers and some military stores. Captain Kirwan, being a native of Dublin and familiar with the country, was ordered to take military command of those he found on board the vessel en route to Ireland, and to aid in every way the successful landing of the officers. The spice of danger in the expedition delighted John Kirwan. He visited his place of business, drew ,£10 that was due him, pur- chased seven revolvers and suitable ammunition for his boys in Dublin, and packed up. He was as light-hearted going on his mission of death as if it were a pleasure excursion. He got in the omnibus for Garston, and on arriving at the dock the first person he met was Corydon, who came down ostensibly for the purpose of seeing them off, but of course in reality to betray them to the enemy. Fortunately for Captain Kirwan he had a personal dislike to Corydon ; he did not approve of his general conduct, and avoided the informer's company as much as possible, without giving him a direct insult. The ship was named S , and the owner and navigator was a mem- 120 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. ber of the I. R. B. The vessel was cleared with a cargo of coal from Garston to Douglas, Isle of Man, and the owner agreed to sail by Doug- las and land his passengers on the Irish coast before attending to his own private business. On nearing the Irish coast the captain of the vessel informed his guest that he had orders to land them at Malahide, nine miles north of Dublin. That they would be there met by a friend who would get them to Dublin city. To the American officers it was immaterial where they landed, north or south of Dublin, so that they safely arrived in that city. To Captain John Kirwan, who was responsible for their safety, it was of the utmost importance they should land near his friends. As there was no one he knew in Malahide he urged the captain not to land them there, that he would not be responsible for their safety. But if landed anywhere south of Dublin, where he had many friends, he thought that he could get him- self and comrades safe into the city. The captain of the vessel acquiesced in Kirwan's suggestion, and it was agreed to land on Killiney Strand, about eight miles south of Dublin. There was some hesitation displayed by some of the officers to land at this place. They feared they would be captured by the coast guards. Like most people unfamiliar with Ire- land, they had an exaggerated idea of Britain's careful guarding of the Irish coast, which the enemy endeavors to make mankind for her own purposes believe. The facts are, there is no trouble whatever in making a landing on any part of the Irish coast, more especially for an armed force prepared to fight. Nothing in the way of warfare is more easy of accomplishment, particularly in these days of steam power. Timid, vac- illating, and slavish Irishmen try to teach that this is impossible. There is no such a word as impossible to brave, earnest, and intelligent men. Captain Kirwan told his Irish-American friends that the most they could possibly meet would be an armed patrol of two men, and that he would volunteer after landing to go ahead with a comrade and meet the patrol if it came in their way. They were landed on the white strand at Killiney, at the foot of a road leading from the beach to Shankhill Station, Dublin, Wicklow & Wexford R. R. A force of ten thousand men could as easily have been landed. Two lines of railroad were within easy distance of the landing place. Captain Kirwan and Captain Heffernen leading, the party reached the road from Dublin to Bray near the villages of Shankhill and Crinkin. It was now midnight, and espying some unfinished cottages, Kirwan suggested that his friends should seek shelter and concealment there until he applied to his friend Luke Byrne, who kept a well known inn at Crinkenf for accommodation. Just as Kirwan awoke Mr. Byrne, a number of carmen arrived at the inn. He was compelled to change his purpose, as it would be the height of imprudence to bring his friends there in the presence of the new visitors. Kirwan was now in a dilemma and consulted with his comrades, Major Quinn, Captain Heffernen, and others. To advance by the coast road toward Dublin, he would pass Ballybrack, Kingstown, and several police barracks en route. If they took the Mountain Road they would pass Glencullen, Stepaside, or Cabinteely ; either road involved the risk of capture. To fight and resist arrest would mean premature action. Finally Kirwan decided they would walk along the railroad track, which in Europe is entirely private property and never patroled by any officials. The railroad here is flanked at both sides with grassy slopes. The little party walked upon this embankment, so as to make the least noise pos- sible. On reaching Carrickmines they left the railroad track, as Kirwan had a friend, a Mr. F , who lived near by. Leaving his friends resting in a field, accompanied by Major Quinn he sought the home of Mr. F , PLAN TO SEIZE CHESTER CASTLE. 121 who was an I. R. B man. F was astonished and delighted at seeing Captain Kirwan ; he cordially greeted his friends and gave them shelter and hospitality. The following morning it was agreed that they should start off early to the city. They eventually arrived, after some unimportant adventures, in Ireland's capital, to make preparations to begin a campaign under the most disheartening auspices that could be possible. CHAPTER VIII. (1867.) RISING OF THE 5TH OF MARCH — ATTEMPT IN SOME DISTRICTS TO COUNTER- MAND THE ORDER — TALLAGHT, STEPASIDE, AND GLENCULLEN. British Army — Numerically Small — Wretched Material Physically — Hesitation and Pro- crastination of Irish Leaders — Corydon's Attempts to Ensnare Kirwan — His Fail- ure — The Corydon Hat — Officers Arrested — Kirwan meets his "Circle" at Black- Pits — Preparations for the " Rising " — Getting Artillery Ammunition — Kirwan's Plans to Meet Emergencies — Meeting of Dublin Centres at Anderson's, Rathmines — Massey Present — Concentration at Tallaght Decided on — General Halpin's Meeting of Cen- tres on the Greenhills, Tallaght — The Night of the " Rising" — "Royal" Irish at Tallaght — Fright of the Constabulary — Death of Stephen O'Donohue — Rewards to Inspector Burke — Kirwan's Column Concentrates at Path-Fields, Rathmines — March to Dundrum — Capture of Policemen — Kirwan Looking for Aylward and the Ex- pected Artillery — Aylward Does Not Come — Dundrum Police Barracks Summoned to Surrender — No Answer — Kirwan Reconnoiters and is Shot — The Wounded Man is Removed on a Car — Captain P. Lennon Commands the Column — March Toward Bray — Attack on Stepaside Police Barracks — Inspector Mcllvaine Surrenders — Prisoners, Arms, and Ammunition Captured — Lennon's Disappointment — Bray in Possession of the Enemy — The Column Returns to Dublin — Attack on Glencullen Barracks — Glencullen Surrenders — March to Dublin — No News of Halpin — No Re- enforcements — The Column Disbands — Colonel Thomas F. Burke's Address in the Dock — Death Sentences — Inspector D. Burke's Nervousness — Captain John Kirwan Captured — Sent to Hospital — Plans for his Escape — Escape Successful. The men who then controlled the National policy of Ireland were determined to bring on a fight with the foe if possible. Notwithstanding the demoralized state of the country through the blundering inaction of 1865, these men felt that Ireland's honor demanded an appeal to arms. This remnant of what had been in 1865 a powerful and united organiza- tion held a convention in England and instructed the military leaders to put what men they could into action and place once again the fortunes of Ireland at the arbitrament of war in the open field. Every advantage that Ireland possessed in 1865 was gone. The disaffected troops were all, or nearly all, removed and replaced by others. The enemy was now fully alive to the importance and strength of the movement. The most skilled of the military leaders had left Ireland, disgusted at James Stephens' cowardly procrastination. That enthusiasm which is an important factor in all such movements had been succeeded by want of confidence in the ability of those in authority, and the enemy's daily slanders, followed by so many captures without the smallest retaliation, filled men's mind with doubt as to the intentions of the principal men. In a spirit of desperation and to save their own and the nation's honor, which they considered were pledged by Stephens' open declaration in America, the loyal portion of the movement decided to fight. Irish-American soldiers were endeavoring to reach their various commands in the different parts of the country. But unlike the freedom with which they could move in 1865, they found it almost impossible to safely reach the scene of the proposed operations, where their military knowledge or the prestige of having been in the American Civil War made their presence useful. The enemy had suspended their Habeas Corpus Act and arrested men on the smallest suspicion. There are two axioms which Irish patriot leaders are more than careful to follow : CAPTAIN JOHN KIRWAN, CHEVALIER AND KNIGHT OF THE GOLDEN SPUR, In the uniform of the Papal Army, RISING OF THE 5TH OF MARCH. 123 1. Be not too precipitate. 2. Never underrate the strength of your opponent. Had those whom the Irish people chosen as leaders recollected that successful revolutions are made by those who combine daring and audacity with wisdom, the fortunes of the Irish race might have been somewhat improved. It is certain that the history of Ireland would con- tain some brighter and more brilliant pages of the valor of her sons if the hour for action had not only been delayed but permitted to pass away under this theory of being not too precipitate. In 1798, 1848, and 1865 this was exemplified by events. The commencement of the campaign in in each epoch was kept back ; the leaders allowed the priming to fall out of their weapons without firing a shot. The contemptible force of the enemy that Ireland has to deal with is small numerically and wretched as to material. The British Army is composed of the outcasts of society and the boys who are unemployed in her large cities, the poorest of the raw material to make fighting men. The exaggerated and fancied power of Britain is purely imaginary. She takes care to spread abroad in her journals and her newspapers a belief that she is one of the great powers. There is not the smallest doubt that in point of numbers or valor the British army is contemptible beside even the smallest nations of Europe. Newly enfranchised Bulgaria could undoubtedly defeat this much bragged of British Army. The Bulgarians are patriots and every man is liable to military service, but the blustering, cowardly Briton prefers to hire the corner boys of his cities to do his fighting. He only defends his flag over tap-room fires. To those who are carried away with the influence and glamour which British writers and poets have endeavored — and successfully — to cast around the so-called glory and chivalry of Britain, we point to some plain facts. Since the commencement of the present century Britain has fouglU but two nations single-handed, that is, of the Caucasian race. In 181 2-14 she was met and defeated on sea and land by the American sailors and soldiers, and more recently by the Boers in Africa, who sent her crack regiments running down Majuba Hill. If Irishmen could only be made to understand that British physical power is like a huge bladder filled with wind, the sting of an American mos- quito would explode the monster sham. In point of numbers the Irish patriot soldiers could muster ten to one undersized Briton, regiments of boys in most part, many of them not over sixteen years. If Irishmen had modern weapons and proper commanders, resolute, brave, and deter- mined men, they would make the redcoats fly as quickly from Ireland as the Boers did in the Transvaal. But those who are responsible for Ireland's abortive attempts to take the field are not always masters of the relative conditions of the two nations, and in endeavoring to build up a big organization in Ireland, magnifying the power of the enemy, lose the opportunity, and when too late try to strike when the power had slipped away from their grasp. This was notably the case on the 5th of March, 1867, but the brave men who tried to bring on the fight are not to be held responsible for the want of determination shown by the C. O. I. R. To further cast confusion among the men who were planning a fight, Corydon, the informer, was endeavoring to find all possible information to give to the enemy. This, if Ireland had been in the same condition as in 1865, would have been of small importance. When Captain John Kirwan and his comrades reached Dublin, they learned that a party of soldiers and police were on the.lookout for them at Malahide, and that every vessel coming in there or in the neighborhood was carefully searched. Landing at Killiney instead of at Malahide, as originally intended, destroyed Corydon's pre-arranged plan for their capture. Captain Kirwan, fearing he might be arrested before striking a blow, 124 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. told his wife to deny him to every caller. Corydon was most urgent in trying to discover his whereabouts, but, fortunately for Kirwan, failed. It was Kirwan's caution which saved him, for although he disliked Cory- don he had not the faintest suspicion of his treason. Had Corydon taken the field in 1865 with the rest of the American soldiers, the chances are he would have conducted himself with credit, but thrown as he was in a vicious city (Liverpool), waiting for the prom- ised fight for over seventeen months, steeped in poverty and in suffer- ing, he succumbed to the temptation which he knew was always before him — British gold. Corydon at this period was stylishly dressed, and each time he called to try and see Kirwan, or through his wife entrap him into an interview, he had a posse of detectives near by. One article of his cos- tume was a half-high cassimere hat, then much in vogue, called the Muller hat. When chaffed about his hat and get-up by the American soldiers, he said that a friend presented him with his hat and kindly volunteered to pro- cure a similar head dress for his friends, who were wearing old head coverings, of various styles. This was Corydon's plan to have the officers arrested on reaching their destination. The enemy's police and detec- tives arrested every man who was unfortunate enough to wear the Cory- don hat, as it was called some time after. Major Quinn, on stepping off the railroad platform at Athlone, was pounced upon at once; his descrip- tion and the Corydon hat was in possession of the foe. February, 1867, was a very exciting time in Dublin. Hurried attempts were made to re-organize the shattered ranks of the I. R. B., but still men were doubtful as to the sincerity of the report that there was to be a fight this time. Kirwan's circle met at John Feury's Black Pitts, where he attended and carefully inspected his men. In addition to the rifles which were buried, he had 250 pike heads in a box, and a patriotic friend, William Cosgrove, a carpenter, engaged to supply him with handles for his ancient weapons. The rifles were taken out of their coffins and looked to ; every preparation that the brave fellows could make they did. A meeting of the Dublin centres was held at the close of February, 1867, at a Mr. Anderson's, in Upper Rathmines. General Massey was in the chair. The object of the meeting was to fix the date for the forth- coming appeal to arms. Massey asked if any of the centres knew a wooded height in the neighborhood of the city where the men could be drawn up, having the advantage of cover. Captain Kirwan suggested the " Scalp " as an excellent place to concentrate. The " Scalp " is a long defile or gap in-the range of mountains which divide Wicklow from Dublin. It is commanded by high hills on either side, which, if occupied and held in force by the Irish troops, with the works of the Ballycorns lead mines on their crests, it was thought it could be made defensible with field forti- fications. The road across the mountains leads to Enniskerryand within a short distance was the Dublin, Wicklow & Wexford railroad. Massey concluded that this place would not be suitable. He thought that some position in the neighborhood of the Great Southern and Western railroad from Dublin to Cork was necessary to occupy. He suggested that they make the campaign along this line, occupying all commanding positions, and there throw up intrenchments, fortifying and defending the villages, and if driven back to fall within striking distance of the line, tearing up the railroad track, destroying telegraph wires, and cutting off if possible the enemy's communication with the south of Ireland. Captain Kirwan and one or two other Dublin centres suggested Tallaght Hill as the place of rendezvous. Tallaght Hill is a wooded eminence about five miles from Dublin City. It is a spur of the Dublin and Wicklow mountains and rises abruptly over a little village of the same name. This elevation RISING OF THE 5TH OF MARCH. 125 stretches away to the left to meet the hill of Kilikee with a well-known mansion, easily defended, on the summit, and passing over it is the great military road made by the invaders to try and keep the man of Wicklow in subjection. On the right, with your back to the Metropolis, at about half a mile distance, lies the historic village of Clondalkin, with its cele- brated round tower and other ancient edifices. Here it was that Strong- bow's son engaged the Irish army and was defeated. Tallaght Hill is approachable from Dublin by the military or Naas Road leading west and passing the village of Clondalkin, the first rail- road station on the Great Southern and Western line, with the Green Hills and the Terenure Road from Dublin to Tallaght as the principal roads. Having discussed the advantages of this position, the night of Shrove- Tuesday, March 5, was decided on for the appeal to arms, and the Hill of Tallaght as the place of rendezvous. This order was officially announced to the centres present, with instructions to inform their circles and prepare for the expected fight. This was the last seen of Massey by the Dublin men. He was arrested through Corydon's information at Limerick Junction, and like his comrade Corydon weakened and betrayed to the enemy what secrets he possessed. One of the many mansions in the neighborhood of Dublin was Lord Gough's. It was situated not far from the city. On the lawn before the principal entrance were six 24-pound field guns, which Lord Gough cap- tured from the Sikhs during his Indian campaign. These cannon had been long looked upon as legitimate spoil by the Irish soldiers whenever a fight would commence, and in the impoverished condition of his armament Captain John Kirvvan determined he would have them for his command. John O'Clohissey, an ex-artilleryman, who had served Britain in her Indian wars and who was one of the old Dublin centres, was the officer appointed to effect the capture of these guns when the campaign which was promised in 1865 was to open. Clohissey was among the men captured by the enemy when the Irish People was seized in September of that year, and was among the men imprisoned. A Mr. Charles O'Callaghan succeeded to the command of the circle, and when the rising was decided on for the 5th of March, the capture of these guns and the giving of them over to Captain Kirwan's command by O'Callaghan's circle was ordered, he being an experienced artilleryman and a practical soldier. Among the members of this circle was a Mr. Alfred Aylward, who claimed to have served under Garibaldi in Naples. He was introduced to Captain Kirwan, of whom he asked and obtained permission to capture and take charge of these guns on the night of the " rising," and join Captain Kirwan's circle with them on the line of march. The next important step was to procure ammunition for these guns, but Captain Kirwan was equal to the occasion. One can scarcely refrain from smiling when the straits to which these brave men were put to are considered. The paucity of stores to commence a war of independence may possibly meet with sneers from critics who would do nothing them- selves, and who are always inclined to cavil and depreciate the efforts of Irishmen who would resort to manly methods to free their country from the horde of usurpers who are battening on the land and destroying its people. It should be remembered that the small number of men who commenced the war in 1798, which grew in power and numbers, had not even pikes to begin the fight, but with shovels and bludgeons disarmed the College Green Parliamentary Yeomen and lit a flame that brought the manhood of Wexford and Wicklow into the field. Several battles were fought by these peasant soldiers in which the enemy's regular troops were defeated. Oulart Hill, Gorey, Ennlscorthy, and New Ross speak in eloquent words of 126 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. the valor of these noble and heroic patriots. And had not Britain held in Ireland at that time an enormous army of foreign mercenary troops she would have been completely routed by the gallant men of '98. Fortunately for Ireland, the days of hiring Hessian soldiers to preserve British conquests have passed away. The Greek patriots, in their war against the Turks for freedom, in many instances came to join the patriot armies their only weapons huge bludgeons. There can be no possible conclusions come to as to what the result may be when a people are determined to die or throw off the yoke of the foreigner. Captain Kirwan procured over one hundred yards of drag rope and arranged it so that it could be used to pull the guns by hand, or as traces for horses. A young builder, one of the I. R. B., promised to procure him ten horses from his father's stable, and a leading business man tendered him whatever assistance he could to help his circle to take the field. He procured five hundred pounds of gunpowder, got flannel and made it into eight-pound cartridges. He got, through some of the I. R. B. who worked in a neighboring ironworks, twenty stone weight of screw punchings. He had these placed in twenty-four-pound tin cases, loaded and made to fit the bore of the guns ; made tubes for the vent, procured port-fire sticks and tinder, and in fact left nothing undone that his limited means would permit him, or the exigencies of the occasion demand, to make Aylward's mission on the 5th of March a success. He detailed twenty-seven young men, trained artillery soldiers, who had served with him in the Dublin City Artillery, to accompany Aylward to work the fieldpieces when captured. General Halpin, who was in command in Dublin and who had com- manded a Kentucky regiment in the American Civil War, called a special meeting of the Dublin centres on the Sunday previous to the " rising." The object of the meeting was to arrange the exact place where the Irish soldiers were to concentrate, and to concert a definite plan of action. The place of meeting was the Green Hills, Tallaght. The meeting took place in a sheltered spot between four hills, where the Irish patriots used to drill. After some discussion Captain Kirwan objected to their ensconcing themselves in a hollow, where nothing but the sky could be seen. He proposed that they proceed to Tymon Castle, which was on an eminence near them, and there they would have a full view of the surrounding country. The General overruled this, as he feared that other than friends might notice their movements. A discus- sion of the details of organization then took place, principally between Kirwan and Halpin. The Dublin centres had full confidence in Kirwan as a military man, and as one who was familiar with every part of the country. Matthew Neal and Charles O'Callaghan volunteered to place their circles under Kirwan's command on the night of the " rising." After what disposition was considered necessary had been made, the party broke up. Kirwan, accompanied by one or two of the centres, walked about the neighborhood, and from the best room of a friendly tavern had an excellent view of the country which they meant to make the theater of war. Captain Kirwan pointed out to his companions as they gazed on the splendid panorama spread out before them, the posi- tion he intended, God willing, to occupy on the morning of the 6th of March, namely, the hill and house of Kilikee already mentioned. He intended to have the house fortified and surrounded with fieldworks, fell- ing the trees and covering the approaches with abattis and rifle pits, tearing up the military road and holding the position till the last gasp, to RISING OF THE 5TH OF MARCH. 127 enable the country to rise en masse to drive out the foreigner from the sacred soil of their motherland. The concentration on Tallaght was to have taken place in three columns — the left flank commanded by Captain Kirwan as described ; the right by an American officer, who was to occupy the village of Tallaght ; to loop-hole the houses whose backs looked toward the city ; and to intrench as quickly as possible ; throwing up fieldworks across the roads leading to the city. It was thought that the Irish would have been able to reach the place of concentration before the enemy's troops would have joined in pursuit. In the event of this column being hard pressed, as it was thought it would first feel the whole force of the enemy, its com- mander was instructed to retire up the hill to Captain Kirwan's position and there reorganize behind his intrenchments. General Halpin, who was the commander-in-chief, was to lead a third column, and, if the concentration, as it was hoped, was successful, to take the further direction of affairs. Such was the crude plan of action intended to be carried out by those responsible for the success of the Dublin movement. The 5th of March attempt to take the field could not be properly designated a " rising," for in the majority of the districts there were orders sent out to countermand the instructions to " rise," so that the movement was but a partial and abortive attempt. There was no central union of authority or direction ; the idea appeared to be to get the men into the field anyhow, and let the chapter of accidents decide the rest. It has been thought that if the men of Dublin, instead of being ordered to Tallaght, had commenced the insurrection in the city of Dublin, and had thrown up barricades all over the town, there would have been no difficulty in concentrating the men. This action would have fired the spirits and enthusiasm of even those outside the organiza- tion. To collect a respectable force at Tallaght was indeed a difficult operation, when it is considered that it was the most bitter and arctic March remembered in Ireland during the present generation. One fact which all these abortive attempts at insurrection proved, was the willingness on the part of the men to obey their orders ; no man flinched, even men who had retired from the organization, disgusted at the vacillation and delay near the close of 1865, left their homes that bitter Shrove-Tuesday night to try and join their comrades. All were anxious to attack the enemy, but the leadership was in disorder, confusion, and chaos. Dublin was in a state of suppressed excitement on the Monday and Tuesday of that eventful week. Corydon was going about among the men procuring all the news he could for the enemy. There is no doubt that he made the British acquainted with the proposed place of concen- tration. In the ebbing tide of the organization, when want of confidence in the judgment of their chiefs had taken the place of previous high hopes, it was madness to attempt an insurrection. Had the season been the summer or autumn, that the men could gather together and sleep in the open air, there would always be the possibility of collecting an army disciplined and hardy to bear the sufferings of a winter campaign. Another stupid blunder was the attempt at secrecy, ordering the rising to take place at night. The early morning or broad noon is the time for an Irish insurrection ; the enemy, with his perfect organization, has always the advantage of scattered bands at night. The Dublin attempt to con- centrate a small force intrenched at Tallaght, displayed the stupidity of the plan decided on by the Irish officer in command. He concluded he could bring his men there before the enemy would be aware of it, and 128 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. that their arms, which were dispatched in vans and carts, would reach them : these arms ivere brought back safely. He was accustomed to the movements of regular troops, and not familiar with the duty of command- ing insurgents. Had he ordered the men to arms in Dublin and then march out in small bodies, concentrating near the city en route to Tallaght, he probably would have brought the men ordered out there all right ; whether he would have succeeded in intrenching before being attacked is impossible to say, but the affair would not have been so ludicrous and contemptible. There was material and enough of men, armed and partially organized, who left their homes in Dublin that night, to have given a good account of themselves. The scene at Tallaght, where the police fired on the first group of unarmed insurgents, displayed the weak- ness of the enemy as well as the chaotic condition of the Irish. Had there been an officer in command of the advanced body of the insurgents, and had these men been armed and thrown out as skirmishers, they would have captured Inspector Burke's whole command of constabulary. The enemy, aware of the "rising" through Corydon's information, ordered Sub-Inspector of Constabulary Dominick F. Burke to collect a number of men from the surrounding districts and concentrate at the Tallaght Police Barracks. These military police were supplied with sixty rounds of ammunition to each man. They were dreadfully fright- ened ; all kinds of imaginary horrors ran through their minds. They were in a nervous state of dread of meeting the Irish patriots, of whose number and power they knew nothing, and which was greatly exaggerated by their fears. Being renegade Irishmen in the service of the foreign destroyer of the nation, they expected instant death if captured. Like their worthy employers, their minds were filled with thoughts of the ferocity of the approaching body of patriots, which frightened every constable. The Tallaght Police Barracks was very conveniently situated, facing the centre of a junction of cross roads ; at the opposite right-hand corner was a shrubbery which was skirted by a stone wall about four feet high. Inspector Burke posted his men in this shrubbery, from which position these armed men could enfilade by their fire either of the roads. Behind this stone wall the constabulary lay down with their rifles pointed toward any hostile force that should approach. After posting his men, their valiant commander, Inspector Burke, sought shelter from the nipping air in the police barracks on the opposite side of the road, out of reach of the fire of either friend or foe. The senior sergeant left in command would have very much wished to have followed the inspector's example, and rested beneath the police office roof, but what was " choleric " in the officer would have been rank blasphemy in the sergeant. This non-commissioned officer, alternately praying and cursing, and in a state of nervous prostra- tion, implored one of his comrades to take the post of danger assigned him ; he gave as his reason the unfit condition he was in to die, having neglected his religious duties for some time. Placing another shivering man in the position he occupied, the second in command sought con- venient shelter from the assault of the dreaded foe. Such was the condi- tion of the enemy's troops defending Tallaght ; their morale was con- temptible, and had the approaching Irish been armed, and attacked them with any ardor, they would have surrendered through fright. The advancing I. R. B. consisted of about ten or twelve unarmed men, who had outstripped their comrades of the main body and were advancing to the place of rendezvous where they were instructed to con- centrate. A little in advance of his comrades was one of the Dublin officers, Stephen O'Donoghue, a law clerk, which gentleman alone of the party carried a rifle ; but the weapon was useless, as it was unloaded. RISING OF THE 5TH OF MARCH. 129 The I. R. B. never dreamt of an ambuscade, and did not think they would be attacked before concentrating, as they thought the enemy's forces were in the rear, and that they would reach the appointed place near where they were to meet their friends, with the vans containing their arms, accouterments, and munitions of war. According to their instruc- tions they were to quickly arm and be ready to receive the enemy, intrench- ing if possible ; they also understood a second insurrection of a more formidable nature would take place within the city, as soon as the enemy's troops had left for Tallaght. The insurgents hoped to intrench them- selves inside and on the roads leading west from Dublin, there to raise the standard of revolution. Lord Strathnairn, the enemy's commander- in-chief, with the greater part of the Dublin garrison, pursued these scattered bands from the city ; although the " rising " was abortive, the enemy was seriously frightened for a while. Meanwhile, the advancing I. R. B. was leisurely proceeding to their rendezvous, when the noise of approaching footsteps aroused the fright- ened constabulary. With chattering teeth and nervous trepidation, not knowing whether it was friend or foe was in their front, they pulled the triggers of their leveled rifles. Their shooting was as wild as their fears. Stephen O'Donoghue, who was a pace or two in advance of his friends, received a mortal wound. Another I. R. B. man, James Farrell, was wounded in the thigh ; the other shots scattered and so did the unarmed Irish. Mr. O'Donoghue was brought to a neighboring cabin. In the mean- time the police began to load and fire at random ; their courage was coming back to them, seeing that their foe had fled, and they were carry- ing on a sanguinary battle with the night. O'Donoghue lay dying on the bed of the peasant's cabin ; by his side stood crying a young lad of eighteen, sub-lieutenant of a regiment posted in the neighborhood ; possibly this British officer was an Irishman, but his grief was most remarkable. He assured O'Donoghue, who was nearly unconscious, and also the friends standing round, that none of his men fired the fatal shot. The whole of this Tallaght affair was the most peculiar and unique attempt at insurrection recorded in history. But let not Provincialists and cowards sneer; there were men there, disorganized as they were, who if armed would never have disgraced the race they came from, and not one man that left his home that bitter arctic Shrove-Tuesday night, but was filled with the resolution and courage to fight the enemy while life was left him. The grave of Irish success at that period was dug by James Stephens in 1865. This column which Stephen O'Donoghue belonged to, was to have been the body of men who were to intrench at Tallaght, what was called the right flank movement of the intended operations. General Halpin's column was alike unfortunate, although it preserved its formation, and after what appears aimlessly marching all night, failed to join Captain Kirwan's men, and disbanded. Neil Breslin, a. brother of John Breslin, was one of the centres with this column. Captain Kirwan's column was the only one that made the smallest attempt at fight on that eventful Shrove-Tuesday night, in the vicinity of Dublin. Captain Kirwan took a cab from the city and drove to Clon- skeogh bridge on the River Dodder, where the circle under the command of Captain Charles O'Callaghan had assembled. He went along the banks of the river to Milltown bridge, where he arrived about 9 p. m. He sent one of his men to the Path Fields near Rathmines Church, and over- looking Milltown, where the circle commanded by Captain Matthew 13° THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. O'Neil was to assemble ; as with the circle of Captain O'Callaghan, every man was at his post. His own circle, under the command of Cap- tain Patrick Lennon (an ex-British cavalry soldier, but of course an Irish- man), was drawn up at Palmerston Park. Kirwan quickly concentrated his force. The men were in the best of spirits and were congratulating each other on the success of their concentration, when Captain Kirwan gave the order " with ball cartridge load." This was before the days of breechloaders, and the rattle of the ramrods in the act of loading seemed to inspirit the men. " Lieutenant Lewis Duggan with eight men will take the advance, and Lieutenant L will deploy twenty-five men as flankers. Form fours, right march. Forward, march ! File closers will see that the men keep the muzzles of their pieces elevated and per- mit no man to leave the ranks without permission." And with these orders this gallant little band of Irishmen stepped forth on that bleak and bitter cold night. Their line of march led them past the dark arches at Milltown, where Lieutenant Duggan transferred to the column four of the Metropolitan police as prisoners. This capture enriched their arma- ment by four revolvers and four cutlasses. Thence they moved along the Dundrum Road to occupy the Kilikee Road. In Dundrum town the column halted. Aylward was to join the column at Dundrum .Railway Station, with the fieldpieces he was ordered to seize, but although they waited for a long time, and sent out scouts, there was no news of Aylward, and what Captain Kirwan considered a most valuable addition to his force did not appear. The men who were with Aylward, includ- ing the twenty-seven artillerymen, failed to report. Kirwan felt this was a severe blow to the success of his movement. It was afterward learned that. Aylward over-refreshed himself and became demoralized with some of his men. The others failed to find him, and his part of the movement was a disgraceful failure through neglect and what was treason through intemperance. Aylward since that time made a record for himself as a commander with the Boers in the war for independence in the Transvaal, but he never recovered the good opinion of his former comrades in the I. R. B. General Halpin, with the main body, was to join Captain Kirwan on the Kilikee road. Time was passing and there was no news of any of the expected supports. Kirwan advanced with twelve men to capture the police barracks. They battered at the door with the butts of their rifles, but there was no response from inside. Kirwan had just given the order to blow open the locks when a shot from a window above them struck Kirwan in front of the left shoulder, between the clavicle and collar bone, which placed him hors-de-combat. The column was then in the village of Dundrum, away from the stations ; there was no chance of Aylward's arrival and no supports from any quarter. Kirwan expected to have had Aylward's guns to strengthen his little force, and to reduce the police barracks. The very appearance of artillery would bring about a prompt surrender. The little column had now lost their commander, in whom they all felt the greatest confidence. An outside car was stopped and the wounded soldier was driven toward Dublin. Captain Patrick Lennon now assumed command of the column. He was a trained cavalry soldier, as fearless as a lion, but appeared to have no definite plan of operation. In fact, his march was principally to reach his supports, capturing the enemy's police barracks en route, which he successfully effected. He advanced to Stepaside, a small village at the foot of the Dublin Mountains, where he summoned the police barracks to surrender in the name of the Irish Republic. His demand meeting with a refusal he opened fire on the foe promptly, when Inspector Mcllwaine quickly RISING OF THE 5TH OF MARCH. 131 hung out the white flag and surrendered his whole force of constabulary. By this surrender they captured a number of rifles and other military stores. Their prisoners had also increased. Captain Lennon marched his men toward Bray. He was under the impression that General Halpin's force had captured that town, or that the Wicklow men were in possession of it. Lieutenant Duggan was sent off to reconnoiter, and returned with' the dispiriting news that the town was not captured, but was held by the British in force. The constabulary force from surrounding districts had concentrated there. A consultation took place, and it was decided to retrace their line of march and try to find if any supports were out to join them. Captain Lennon was unaware of the failure, and expected that General Halpin was somewhere in the neighborhood with the more numerous main body. When they reached the village of the Golden Ball, County Dublin, they breakfasted at a baker's store, and then resumed their march. They made a detour to their left up Glencullen hill. Not far from them stood the police barracks, with the British lion and unicorn over the door. The constabulary here were summoned to surrender, which they refused, and skirmish fire was opened on them, while others of the party advanced to the door, which they broke in with sledge hammers and crowbars. The barracks was captured and the third batch of prisoners was placed in the column. With their thirty-nine prisoners they resumed their march. By twelve o'clock noon they found themselves nearing Dublin. Their scouts brought them back news of the failure of the movement in other directions. They had now marched for fifteen hours, having been out the whole of that inclement night, and, with the exception of the bread they got at the Golden Ball, without any food. With bitter reluctance Captain Lennon ordered them to disband when he discovered that there was no Irish force in the field near Dublin. The " rising " was an abor- tive and mismanaged affair. ■ Among the gallant fellows who marched out from Dublin that night under Captain John Kirwan was Thomas Brennan, afterward engaged in the Catalpa rescue, and who still lives with the hope that he will strike a blow for Irish freedom, Sergeant Henry P. Filgate, and others. The prisoners were released. They had been courteously treated by their captors, but all of them became witnesses in the enemy's courts against any Dublin prisoners arrested by the British. Irish valor and Irish chivalry is never reciprocated by the swinish rule of the Anglo- Saxon in Ireland. Numbers of men were arrested over the country for this abortive attempt at " rising." Several were sentenced to death for what the enemy had the audacity to term high treason. These men owed no allegiance to an invader whose laws and usurpation the Irish nation has never recognized. The brutal sentence was hanging, beheading, drawing, and quartering. Robert Emmet was the last Irish Nationalist upon whose body this atrocious sentence was carried out. Among the number of manly and patriotic utterances delivered by brave Irishmen in the enemy's dock when about to receive these horrid sentences of death, was one very remarkable and beautiful address, one of the finest since Emmet. Mitchell and Meagher addressed the enemy's so-called judge from a British dock. The speech of Colonel Thomas F. Bourke deserves notice. There are some very beautiful passages in this address when the place and circumstances under which it was delivered are considered : " I, my lords, have no desire for the name of martyr, but as it is the will of the Almighty and Omnipotent God that my devotion to the land I3 2 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. of my birth shall be tested on the scaffold, I am willing there to die in defense of the right of men to free government — the right of an oppressed people to throw off the yoke of thralldom. 1 am an Irishman by birth, an American by adoption ; by nature a lover of freedom — an enemy to the power that holds my native land in the bonds of tyranny. It has so often been admitted that an enslaved people have the right to throw off the yoke of oppression even by English statesmen, that I do not deem it necessary to advert to the fact in a British court. Ireland's children are not, never were, and never will be, willing or submissive slaves ; and so long as England's flag covers one inch of Irish soil, just so long will they believe it a divine right to conspire, imagine, and devise means to hurl from power the oppressor and to erect in its stead the Godlike structure of self-government. " I shall now look only to that home where sorrows are at an end and where joy is eternal. I shall hope and pray that freedom may yet dawn on this poor down-trodden country. It is my hope, it is my prayer to God for forgiveness and a prayer for poor old Ireland. " I submit to my doom, and I hope that God will forgive me my past sins. I hope that inasmuch as he has for seven hundred years preserved Ireland, notwithstanding all the tyranny to which she has been subjected, as a separate and distinct nationality, he will also assist her fallen fortunes to rise in beauty and majesty — the sister of Columbia, the peer of any nation in the world." When the rostrum from which this soul-inspiring speech was delivered is remembered, and the solemn position of the fervent orator, then stand- ing at the brink of the grave, is considered, it was no wonder that the Irish people felt a thrill of agony as they read the words of their gallant countryman, their heroic defender, facing the foe with defiance and scorn of their rule upon his dying lips. It is marvelous to think that a nation that can command the services of so many self-sacrificing men should remain so many centuries in bond- age, and that force has not been tried against the enemy since glorious '98, although now and then gallant efforts have been made by a few devoted men. Their desperate attempts have failed through lack of support on Xht part of their leaders, not that of the people, and they fall back to suffer in silence for their patriotism. In all these trials before the enemy's illegal and mock tribunals, perjury and falsehood were used to slander the men and the cause, although they had sufficient truthful evidence to convict their prisoners before their packed rebel juries. Inspector Burke, of Tallaght fame, whose men so courageously made battle with the night, was the lion of the hour. British journals and magazines rang with his heroism. He was presented with a gorgeous illuminated address, setting forth all his virtues, his splendid bravery, loyalty, and unflinching courage. He was hailed as the " Savior of Society," who extirpated the rascally Fenians in their mission of massacre, and all the flourishes of style which the invader's following uses ad nauseutn on such occasions. He also received the more substantial present of a handsome service of silver plate. The splendid valor of Mr. Burke and the Irish Constabulary even reached the foot of the throne, and although the valiant Inspector was not invested with the Victoria Cross for his remark- able achievements (and they were indeed remarkable), the constabulary was graciously permitted by the British Sovereign to henceforth bear the title of " Royal " added to their escutcheon. They have also been per- RISING OF THE 5TH OF MARCH. 133 mitted to place a crown above the harp on their arms, and are known as the Royal Irish Constabulary since the sanguinary engagement at Tallaght. Mr. Burke, soon after that epoch, retired like a war-worn veteran on a suitable pension. Being so often hailed as the " Savior of Society," he imagines himself a hero who has performed prodigies of valor. He has a great horror of blood, and the sight of bleeding meat pains him very much. Whenever he visits the markets to make purchases and by acci- dent sees bleeding meat, he shudders with horror and exclaims frantically to the butcher : "Take it away ! take it away ! I have seen too much blood ! " Those who are present in the meat stalls invariably inquire who the horror-stricken gentleman is ? and when informed that the speaker is the celebrated martial hero, who was the commander-in-chief at the famous Battle of Tallaght, who saved his queen and country by his strategy and valor, they look on admiringly and listen with delight at his words. Captain John Kirwan, when driven from Dundrum on the night of the 5th of March, after staying at a friend's house in the neighborhood, where he had his wound dressed, succeeded in getting safely into Dublin. The enemy was very anxious to capture this daring man, whom they recognized as one of the ablest and most resolute among the Irish leaders in Dublin. His previous remarkable escapes annoyed the detectives, as did his success in getting away from them lately and staying in Dublin in spite of Corydon's treason. To all this the enemy was compelled to add his landing at Killiney with the Irish-American officers when they were seeking him at Malahide. A reward of one thousand dollars was offered for his capture. He was staying at the house of Mr. Edward Byrne, 39 Bishop Street. On the 6th of April the door of the room he occupied was burst open and nineteen detectives entered, and placing a revolver at Kirwan's head made the indomitable Irish patriot prisoner on the charge of high treason to the foreigner. Captain Kirwan's wound was not healed, and they sent for Dr. Carte, the Dublin police physician, to examine his wound and to see if he could be safely removed to prison. With the doctor came Sir George Anderson, the British Crown Solicitor, who placed a table in the center of the floor and went through the form of a legal committal. Dr. Carte being also a J. P. The physician pronounced Kirwan's wound very severe, and ordered him to the Long Lane Hospital. He was brought there guarded en route by soldiers and armed police. A police guard sat by his bedside, and the hospital was, as the blundering enemy thought, securely guarded. Although they took these precautions they never for a moment seriously thought that Captain Kirwan in his wounded condition would dream of attempting to escape. No male visitors were permitted to come near the wounded Nationalist. His wife and other ladies, however, got permission to see the sick man. On the Saturday evening after Captain Kirwan's admission to the Long Lane Hospital, a man was carried into the institution in a faint. He was brought into the ward where Kirwan was lying and was placed in a bed near the opposite wall. He glanced furtively around at every bed, and looked disappointed at the result of his inspection. Kirwan had so changed in appearance that he did not know him, but the captain recog- nized the newcomer as a friend. Kirwan sat up in the bed and coughed to attract attention, when the newcomer at once recognized him and located his position. The new patient was a man named John Gilleran, a B. or captain in Kirwan's circle. This man had a slight complaint of long standing which he exaggerated for the purpose of getting into the hospital and endeavoring to open communications with Kirwan. The 134 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. captain, when he saw Gilleran, knew at once that his friends outside had not forgotten him, and that his escape was being planned. A policeman, armed with sword and revolver, was on guard at the foot of his bed ; another armed policeman patrolled the corrider ; Inspector Doran had charge of Kirwan and had a number of police guards within immediate call. But although these careful preparations were made by the British to guard their prisoner, any attempt on his part to leave in his wounded condition was believed to be very improbable, and for any party of men to rescue him by force was considered, in the then prostrate condition of the Irish National movement, utterly impossible. All male visitors were strictly forbidden. His wife and a friend of hers, a Miss McArdle, were the only outside visitors he was permitted to see. But hostility to British rule in Ireland is more deep-seated than the enemy will ever permit himself to believe, and the women of Ireland have always been not only as patriotic, but stronger in their devotion to their country than many of the men. To rescue from the clutches of the invading Briton any Irishman who, not recognizing the foreigner's rule or his laws, finds himself captured by the myrmidons of the foe for his hostility to their usurpation in Ireland, is looked upon as sacred. Mrs. Kirwan and Miss McArdle were in communication with the men outside, and hearing that Captain Kirwan was to be removed to Kilmainham in a day or two, it was urgent that some arrangements should be made to get him out of the hospital at once. On Sunday evening, while a young lady visitor was engaging the policeman on guard at the foot of the bed in conversation, Mrs. Kirwan placed under the mattress a suit of under- clothing and a loaded revolver. The underclothing was intended to replace the hospital garments which the wounded captain wore. In the hospital, as a patient for a pulmonary complaint which was considered incurable, was an Irishman named Murrin ; he was a member of the organization, and had been permitted to move about freely in the hospital before Kirwan's arrival, and as he was not suspected of National pro- clivities the British officials did not interfere with his movements. Murrin had reconnoitered to the best of his ability the avenues of escape ; and as the front of the building was more securely guarded, it was decided that on the first favorable moment an attempt would be made from the rear of the hospital. Monday evening was decided on, as every hour was precious. Word was sent outside to the men to be ready to get Kirwan away. The yard at the back of the hospital was divided from O'Keefe's nursery by a twelve-foot wall ; it was necessary to have a ladder to cross this wall. Murrin procured one which the lodgekeeper, an Orange rebel named Hodges, had charge of, and placed it ready in the yard for use. But on a later inspection Murrin found that Hodges had removed the ladder for use elsewhere, and the project had to be postponed till the next evening, Tuesday. The men outside were made aware of the delay. Next evening everything was as on the previous day. The ladder was placed ready by Murrin. A stratagem was adopted to get the policeman on guard at the foot of the bed away. He was complaining of not being well, and Kirwan induced him to go to the apothecary for medicine to relieve his complaint. As soon as the policeman had left, Kirwan, quick as lightning, changed his clothes. One of Kirwan's visitors, a handsome young girl, had engaged the policeman outside in the corridors in a flirtation, and he was earnestly engaged in conversation with his fair enchantress, when Kirwan, dressed in shirt, drawers, and in his stocking feet, stole quickly by, the loaded revolver in his hand ready for any emergency. The policeman's back was toward the captain, and he did not hear the almost noiseless footsteps of the retreating Kirwan. Before leaving the ward Kirwan lifted up one of the front windows to deceive RISING OF THE 5TH OF MARCH. 135 the British. His ruse was successful ; when his departure was discovered it was believed he got out through the front of the hospital with the assistance of sympathizers outside, and a search in the neighborhood was rapidly instituted. In the meantime Kirwan and Murrin hurried to the rear of the hospi- tal, and to Murrin's horror and astonishment the ladder was again missing. Murrin seemed completely prostrate, and said there was treason some- where. " Never mind," said Kirwan, " it is do or die now ; escape I must, for I will not fall alive into British hands if I can." A shed that reached halfway up to the top of the wall met Kirwan's searching glance, and calling to Murrin to help him to reach the sloping roof, he succeeded in his endeavor. The excitement of the moment lent Kirwan strength ; he succeeded with some exertion in getting on the roof of the shed, but in his struggles he burst the bandages and re-opened his wounds, when blood began to flow. With apparent superhuman exertion he got on the wall and down into the adjoining Nursery grounds ; crossing these he came to a privit hedge with a ditch outside. He looked vainly for an opening. He ran breathlessly along the hedge until it terminated in a wall near which he found an opening into Heytesbury Street. By this time the hue and cry was over Dublin for his re-capture. He was fortunate in meeting his friends as pre-arranged, and they had a cab ready which quickly whirled him away from the hospital. This escape of Kirwan's took place on Tuesday, April 9, 1867, five weeks after the night of the ''rising." The enemy offered a large reward for his apprehension, but he was with friends whom British gold could not weaken. He was success- fully smuggled over to Liverpool, and with the aid of friends who were supposed by the British to be above suspicion, he managed to get a pas- sage in a steamer to New York, where he resides at this time of writing. Captain Kirwan may be said to have been essentially a man of action. His quick perception and ready wit never failed him : His Irish career was more like romance than what is termed often very incorrectly dull and commonplace reality. He is a type of Irish Nationalist that will never wholly disappear from Ireland while a foreign flag floats in the country as an emblem of alien authority. The various scenes which took place over the island on that memorable Shrove-Tuesday night, 1867, in con- nection with the so-called " rising," it is not the purpose of this history to narrate. Other incidents in connection with the 5th of March "rising" demand our attention. CHAPTER IX. (1867.) LONDON ON THE BRINK OF REVOLUTION IRISH PLANS FOR FOMENTING THE REFORM MOVEMENT INTO AN INSURRECTIONARY CONFLAGRA- TION IN THE BRITISH METROPOLIS. The Reform Agitation — Threatened Revolution in England — English Reformers En- raged at Tory Policy — Irish Plans to Foment Insurrection — Reformers Refused Ad- mission to Hyde Park — The Irish Assault — I. R. B. Break the Park Railings — The Home Secretary's Indecision — Massey's Treason — Government Alarmed — Radical Reform Bill Introduced by the Tories — Resignation of Ministers — Panic in Tory Councils Abates — The English Reformers Grow more Exacting — Determination to Hold Monster Meeting in Hyde Park, May 6, 1867 — Government Proclaims the Meeting — Great Excitement — Fifteen Thousand Troops Ordered up from Alder- shot — Search for Colonel Thomas J. Kelly — His Capture Anxiously Looked for by the British Government — Twelve Thousand Special Constables Sworn in — Irish Revo- lutionists Pour into London — Thousands of I. R. B. in the Metropolis — Armed Prep- arations by the Irish to Begin Revolution — English Reformers Determined to Resist the Government — Plan of the I. R. B. Council in London — Government Frightened at News of Irish Arrivals in London — Complete Surrender of Tory Cabinet — Military Orders Countermanded at the Eleventh Hour — Reform Meeting Permitted in the Park — Peaceable Close of the Excitement — The Reform Bill Made More Radical and Hurried through Both Houses. Colonel Kelly, who was in England, took no active part in this abortive attempt at insurrection in Ireland. He was busily engaged in maturing a plan by which he hoped to bring about a democratic revolu- tion in England, starting the insurrection in London itself. The proba- bility of this great undertaking, causing an upheaval in London second only to the great French Revolution of 1789, seemed decidedly in Kelly's favor, and but for the treason of that contemptible coward Massey, it is difficult to reason out any other conclusion. It will be remembered by students of contemporary history that all England was in a ferment over the question of Reform of the electoral franchise, and that the seething fires of revolution was spreading over the land. One or two prominent men were agitating this question, and foremost among these was Mr. Edmond Beales, who soon after was rewarded by a Liberal Government with a snug sinecure, to remove him from the domain of republican agita- tion. The Liberal Government had been defeated in their attempt to bring in a Reform Bill, lowering the franchise and giving power to a largely increased number of the people to vote for representatives to sit in the Commons Chamber. This vote was brought about by a coalition between the Tories and a certain number of renegade Liberals. Adullamites they were called, the mugwumps of that period. The defeat by the aristo- crats of this popular democratic measure stirred up the populace to a con- dition of excitement very seldom occurring with phlegmatic John Bull. This was fanned into a flame by the fervent and ardent speeches of the great English tribune, John Bright, then a democrat of the democrats, and Mr. Gladstone, the defeated Minister, lent his powerful and eloquent voice to help on the agitation. John Bright and William Ewart Gladstone at this period were the idols of the English people, and when at a later period the wave of popu- lar enthusiasm wafted Mr. Gladstone to power, he induced Mr. Bright for tiie first time to accept office in his Cabinet, and after a great deal of 136 LONDON ON THE BRINK OF REVOLUTION. 137 persuasion the great democrat yielded to the marvelous eloquence of the Liberal leader. From that time dates the departure of the great English tribune from the democratic principles of his life ; it was the commence- ment of his descent into Avernus, and he gradually became what he is at this period (1887), an aristocratic Whig. Behind Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright, and completely unknown to these men, was a small body of English republicans, few in number but sufficient to become the nucleus of revolution during that exciting and favorable epoch. Extreme as these men were from an English standpoint, the idea of an appeal to arms was very remote, if not altogether out of their calculations, but the events were marching on quicker than even these English republicans dreamed. A meeting publicly announced to take place in Hyde Park was stopped by order of the Tory Government. Without absolutely proclaiming the meeting, they refused to permit the reformers to assemble in this public park. The gates were closed by order of the Tory Ministry. Large bodies of the Metropolitan police, under the command of Sir Richard Mayne, patrolled the park, armed only with their batons, as usual in London. The reformers were roused to a high pitch of indignation. They chafed under the defeat of the Russell Ministry, by the coalition of the aristocratic element in the House voting against the very moderate measure of reform which the Liberals had introduced. Mr. Gladstone, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Com- mons in the Russell Cabinet, although he took part in the public agitation in favor of reform, did so in a conservative and constitutional manner. But Mr. Bright, although strictly within the limits of the constitution, was more outspoken ; he expressed his honest indignation at the reac- tionary tactics of the Tories, which inflamed the passions of the multitude. Those who had not the opportunity of mixing among the English people at that period could not have the faintest idea how powerful was the influence of John Bright with the masses. He electrified the reformers with his fiery eloquence. Next in influence after Mr. Bright was Mr. Gladstone, but the man who guided and directed the angry multitude, and who was the principal manipulator of the agitation, was an English lawyer, a Mr. Edmond Beales, a Radical of the Radicals. The news that Hyde Park was closed against the Reform meeting increased the public passion. Mr. Beales and the Reform agitators were determined to go on with the meeting, and refused to admit that the Derby Ministry was empowered by law to prohibit the gathering in the park. Earl Derby, the Prime Minister, called the Rupert of debate, was a Tory of the old school ; he was angry and indignant at the presump- tion of the people, and was determined to put his foot down and stop the encroachments of the plebeians on the sacred privileges of the upper classes. The leader of the House of Commons and Chancellor of the Exchequer was Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, a man who by his great abilities won his way into the exclusive ranks of Tory statesmen. He was as deter- mined as his chief, Lord Derby, in preserving the privileges of his order, but he was much more a Radical at heart than even his great rival Mr. Gladstone, and while anxious to deprive the masses of the franchise, he was careful to try and preserve a very liberal tone when addressing the people. The news that Mr. Beales and the workmen of London were deter- mined to enforce their right to enter Hyde Park and hold their demon- station there, while it outraged Lord Derby's ideas of the respect due by the masses to a government order, did not in the least annoy Mr. Disraeli. He knew the English masses, particularly the men who were foremost irt 138 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. the Reform agitation, better than Lord Derby, and concluded the whole affair would pass off peacefully ; that the Reformers would be satisfied at making a demonstration in front of Hyde Park and would then march to some other public place and hold their meeting, afterward testing the legality of the government decision in the law courts. Mr. Disraeli was in part correct, but there was an element that inter- fered and which upset that statesman's calculations, and this was the I. R. B. organization, ripe to take the field the year before to establish a republic in Ireland, and at that time waiting for the decision of its leaders and Stephens' promised help to embark in revolution. The Hyde Park Reform meeting was to take place on Monday, July 23, 1866. The Irish- men's sympathies were of course with the Reformers, and numbers of them were members of English Radical clubs, but the great question of Irish independence was as much hostile to the English masses as the English classes. This the Irish leaders in London knew well. But any disruption in England would have a tendency to weaken the power of the enemy in Ireland, and the I. R. B. London chiefs saw the time had come for the organization to do what it could to foment strife between the English parties for the benefit of Ireland. The men were suddenly ordered to take part in the coming struggle in Hyde Park, and the Irish concentrated in their thousands, armed with loaded revolvers and plenty of ammunition, to if possible commence a bloody fray between the people and the soldiery. The huge procession under the control of its leaders wound its way to Hyde Park, completely unconscious of the unlooked for assistance they were to receive from the Irish republicans. All the gates leading into the park were closed and a large force of police massed inside ; Sir Richard Mayne, the chief commissioner of police, sat on horseback at the entrance gate facing Hyde Park corner. The Reform leaders, after protesting in the name of the law against the illegal closing of the park gates, turned the head of the procession toward Trafalgar Square, where they purposed holding the meeting. Thousands of hand-bills were distributed among the multitude, informing them to assemble in Trafalgar Square. Mr. Disraeli was correct in his fore- knowledge of what course the English Reform leaders would take when they discovered that the authorities meant to enforce their order of pro- hibition to the Park. Meanwhile, the Irish circles, under the command of their officers, took up the positions assigned to them by their chiefs. They did not attempt to attack the enemy at the gates, where they were massed in force ; they took up three distinct positions at the Hyde Park railings, ready at the signal which their officers were to give them to force their way into the Park. These officers were acting under the control of a central authority. One of these bodies was stationed in Park Lane, another near the Marble Arch, the Oxford Street or upper side of the Park, and a third near Knightsbridge. The head of the Reform procession had not proceeded far on its return to Trafalgar Square, when the signal was given to the Irish, " Down with the railing." At this time immense crowds of people, sight- seers and agitators, were congregated round Hyde Park, when the Irish commenced to tug at the railings. The English crowd were at first irreso- lute. The perfection of organization was displayed at this crisis on the part of the Irish Republicans, and as the iron railings began to yield to the pressure and were loosening in the sockets a large number of the lookers on joined the men at the railings. In one place a passing dray was seized by the crowd and backed against the iron barriers. A very short time elapsed after the signal was given, when the Hyde Park rail- ings were demolished and a cheering, shouting crowd of English people LONDON ON THE BRINK OF REVOLUTION. 139 rushed into the forbidden inclosure. That portion of the Reform pro- cession that had not left for Trafalgar Square followed. Their leaders, who were hurriedly summoned back, now entered the park and thou- sands of people flocked round the speakers. A series of affrays occurred in different parts of the park between the English people and the police ; stones were thrown freely and staves and batons used. The police made a number of arrests among the English mob, but not one of the I. R. B. men was arrested. These men kept together on the skirts of the crowd, waiting for the next part of the programme. It was expected by the Irish leaders that the fiery Tory earl would send the Guards, foot and mounted, to disperse the crowd, and then would come the hour to strike. On the advance of the military the men were to receive orders to open fire. The crowd kept pressing into the park ; like the storm waves of the angry ocean rushing and leaping in mighty majesty through a burst embankment, so leaped and rushed the stormy crowd of Englishmen through the gaps in the railings. As they mustered in their thousands inside the park they expended their indignation in cheering for Bright, Gladstone, and Beales. It was well for the peace of London that the Government took no measures to disperse the people. So sudden and unexpected was the action of the crowd that the authorities had not time to consult together. A company of the Grenadier Guards and a troop of Life Guards entered the park late in the evening, but they merely marched and counter- marched, making no effort to scatter the crowd. Had the military attempted by force to stop the meeting, nothing could have saved London from revolution. The members of the I. R. B., who mingled with the English crowd, outwardly indistinguishable from themselves, were armed and ready to obey their officers in the event of being attacked by the soldiers. They would most certainly have retaliated. This would be applying a torch to a powder barrel ; a terrific explosion would have been heard all over England. The weakness and timidity of the Tory Home Secretary saved London from a conflagration ; not that Mr. Walpole dreamed the danger was so imminent, but by hesitation and procrastination he delayed any action until the Reformers' meeting was held and the crowd dispersed. Before separating, the Reform meeting passed a strongly worded resolu- tion, condemning the action of the Ministry, and calling on them to resign their offices. The Irish leaders were careful to instruct their men to keep the knowledge of their assistance from the English Reformers. For, taking the British people en masse, they hate the Irish, and the mere thought of an Irish nation even with greater detestation than they do their own aristocrats. The day after the destruction of the Hyde Park railings was an angry day in English annals. The Tories were enraged at the inaction of the Home Secretary, and were it not that it would appear to be a further victory for the Reformers, Mr. Walpole would have gone down before the wave of Tory indignation as effectively as the park railings went down before the Irish and the Reformers. The English people having tasted power and the sweets of victory over the Tory Government's discomfiture, were becoming more uncom- promising, not that the British people thought of armed resistance, neither did the Government look forward to any such possibility. The agitation went on fiercely through the winter. In February, 1867, a huge procession paraded through the streets of London. The Irish mingled in this procession and openly carried the American flag at 140 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. the head of the Poplar contingent, a significant hint of republican prin- ciples. The meeting, when done parading, assembled in the Agricultural Hall, Islington, where the prominent leaders of the English Radicals addressed the meeting. Resolutions were passed demanding manhood suffrage and vote by ballot, and the meeting dispersed after a severe condemnation of the Tory Reform resolutions introduced into the House by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This was the state of ferment all England was in while Colonel Kelly and a few devoted friends were planning to use this condition of the English agitation to further their object— the establishing of an inde- pendent Irish Republic. Behind these extreme English Republicans, without their knowledge, were men more extreme still. A foreign element was in their midst, men who were not only utterly indifferent as to which English party was successful in the seething cauldron of revolution that appeared to be approaching rapidly, but who would not grieve at what amount of ruin and destruction was brought upon the towns, cities, and manufactures of England by the strife of English faction. These men remembered their own ruined homes and their ravaged land, given over to the prey of every imaginable horror that satanic cunning could devise, and 'twas but what they thought just retribution if English cities were given to the flames. Irishmen born in England mixed freely with the Reformers and were members of English Radical clubs ; their sympathies were on the side of the English democracy in the issue between English classes, but their duty was to their own nation, for they were compelled to remember that these democrats were just as much the English enemy as were their aristocratic competitors, and Kelly's sole hope in using an English revolution was to liberate Ireland during the struggle in England, for if Ireland was not an independent nation at the time a British repub- lic became an established form of government, Ireland's hope of freedom would be as far off as ever. Irishmen remember the bloody days of Cromwell and the brutal massacres of women and babes by English republicans in Drogheda and Wexford. The liberation of a nation has nothing whatever to do with the form of government established by her conqueror. A German republic would not restore to France Alsace and Lorraine. This is written irrespec- tive of the disputed right or wrong of Germany's claim to these German- speaking provinces. A British republic would not restore India to the government of its own inhabitants, neither would they surrender Hong- kong to China nor Gibraltar to Spain. Irish Nationalists know very well that British politics have no relation whatever to the slightest change in Ireland's inexorable destiny so long as the British flag flies in their country, whether that foreign ensign is the emblem of a republic or a kingdom. Orders came from the I. R. B. council in London for Irish Nationalists, especially those of British birth, to mingle with the Reformers and take an aggressive attitude against the authorities, aiding and fomenting in every possible manner the commencement of an enieute. They did this effectively, and it was a small foretaste of what a dark future was before England had the agitation been permitted to continue. Public opinion in Britain was ranging itself into two hostile camps, and the spread of angry feelings against the Tory Government was fast becoming general all over England. The violation of Magna CJiarta and the right to public meeting was repeated again and again on public platforms all over the land. The London merchants and the moneyed classes in the Lowlands spoke of anarchy and communism, and called on the government to remain firm and not confer the franchise on the masses, opening the LONDON ON THE BRINK OF REVOLUTION. 141 floodgates to the lowest strata to destroy the grand institutions of the country. Their cry was, " No compromise with the gutter politicians and demagogues, who are upsetting the country for their own selfish purposes." Some journals called for the authorities to preserve order by arresting the leading Reform agitators. Those people who unthinkingly called for strong government little dreamed of the volcano they were sleeping over. Colonel Kelly and the Irish council in London were maturing their plans to create a revolution in London to support the Irish insurgents in Ireland, when Massey was arrested at Limerick Junction. This man's poltroonery and cowardice made him an easy prey to the British officials, and when they were unearthing all news of Irish disaffection, to their horror and amazement they learned of the giant plot to involve England in revolution. Alarm and consternation filled the highest Government circles. The officials in Ireland who knew of Massey's testimony were ordered under the severest penalties to keep the information secret. A Cabinet council was hastily summoned to consider the grave con- dition of affairs. The Ministry were aghast, and shuddered with inward horror when they learned the deep, wide, and yawning chasm toward which they had driven the vehicle of state. They felt that they were tot- tering on its brink, and that care should be taken in retreating from their dangerous position. The minister who was capable of boldly facing the emergency was Mr. Disraeli. He determined that he would cut away every possible chance of giving the Irish any opportunity to disrupt English society by introducing a most radical reform bill. He had some difficulty in win- ning over the Premier, Lord Derby, to his views, but the imminent danger created by the Irish left that old Tory chieftain no alternative. Three of his colleagues Mr. Disraeli could not convince — General Peel, Secretary of War, Viscount Cranbourne, and Earl Carnarvon. These three ministers resigned their portfolios sooner than be responsible for Mr. Disraeli's measure. But still they confessed in Parliament that their views on the reduction of the franchise had undergone a radical change. The English public, Radicals and Conservatives, were surprised at the extraordinary difference of sentiment which the Government so rapidly displayed, for Lord Derby in the Lords and Mr. Disraeli in the Commons- announced a Reform Bill of a most liberal tendency. They dreaded leaving the subject over for future legislation. It was necessary to at once appease the English masses, knowing the dangerous element behind the reformers. To the astonishment of the world, the Tory Government of Britain made this great change of front ; mankind attributed this political revolu- tion to various other causes. The Ministry kept the real facts from pub- lic knowledge just as they are to-day (1887) playing a part by affecting ignorance of the real issue between the London Times and the Provin- cialists. To give either facts to the world would be to show the power and vastness of revolutionary plans and to elevate the ability and influ- ence of the Irish who are at war with them. The effect of publishing these important and far-seeing tactics on the part of the Irish would be to lower British prestige. They try to preserve this by burying such knowledge out of sight, and Irishmen in their anxiety for secrecy and the false policy of hiding facts at the wrong time, unconsciously help British diplomacy by their mistaken silence. The introduction of the Reform Bill by the Government elated the English Radical leaders. Those at the head of the agitation were satisfied that their bold front had paralyzed Tory opposition. By con- 142 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. tinuing the agitation and insisting on the new bill being still further improved and many radical changes inserted in committee, they ex- pected a complete victory for their principles. These men never con- ceived the idea that the Irish Republicans were the great cause of alter- ing ministerial councils. Flushed with victory, they determined to try •another issue with the Government, and preparations were made for a monster procession and immense demonstration and public meeting in Hyde Park. This meeting was publicly announced to be held on Monday May 6, 1867. The British Cabinet held an important council oh the new challenge thrown down to them by the Reform agitators. They had crushed out, they thought, every vestige of active disaffection in Ireland and destroyed the revolutionary movement in that country, and from the reports brought to them they concluded that the Irish movement in Eng- land had become so utterly disorganized that they need not now consider any action of these people with the same gravity, more especially as they had by their bill, then in progress through the House, cut the ground for agitation from beneath the Reforrh leaders' feet. Thus reasoning, the Derby Ministry determined to make a stand against the agitation ; they at once decided to prohibit the meeting in Hyde Park and to use every power they could control to stop the Reform gathering. London was placarded next day with proclamations on which the Royal Arms were displayed, and beneath the Royal insignia were the words "God Save the Queen." Through her Ministers the Sovereign forbade the Hyde Park meeting and threatened with divers pains and penalties all undutiful and disloyal men who refused to obey these commands. This proclamation inflamed the passions of the English masses ; they were unanimous in their determination to uphold their leaders, and, come what may, they firmly resolved to attend the monster gathering, expect- ing, of course, that when the government saw that their resolutions were so firmly fixed they would, as on previous occasions, succumb, satisfied in the justice of their cause and the prestige of foregone victories. The reform leaders looked upon themselves as invincible. Meanwhile the British Government was anxiously looking out for the arrest of a leading Irish Nationalist. If it had him secure under lock and key it would feel less uneasy in facing the Reformers. This man, whom the enemy was so eager to capture, was Colonel Thomas J. Kelly. Both Massey and Corydon impressed upon the British the great impor- tance attached to this arrest, as he was one of the principal leaders con- ducting the Irish attempt at revolution in England. Massey gave an accurate description of his dress and appearance, also his London address near Tottenham Court Road, but Colonel Kelly was not to be caught napping. When the British detectives reached his lodgings they were informed that he had left for Paris to visit the Exposition. This was the message Kelly left at his lodgings when leaving. The Government felt satisfied that Kelly was in England, and was almost certain he was in London. Orders were sent to Scotland Yard to redouble their vigilance and capture the famous Fenian leader. The detectives were rewarded one morning by the capture of an I. R. B. centre for whom they were on the lookout ; this man, who had had a prosperous business in London and which he lost through his devotion to the cause of his native land, had been suffering many privations trying to avoid arrest. The detec- tives knew that he was certain of being convicted for his treason — as they thought it — and that very probably a life sentence awaited him. They were well aware he could place them on Colonel Kelly's track, so they commenced fencing with him before putting the direct question as to his assisting them to capture Kelly. This centre was a shrewd and trust- LONDON ON THE BRINK OF REVOLUTION. 143 worthy man; the exigencies of his position somewhat sharpened his intellect and he almost knew what was running in the minds of the detectives as soon as they opened the conversation. He affected great hatred for Colonel Kelly and other leaders, and expressed a wish that they would be captured and punished according to their deserts. The enemy fell into the trap so skillfully laid by the London centre, and told him that they were on Kelly's track and hoped to soon hunt him down, and solicited this centre's assistance, promising him rewards and freedom if he would aid in Kelly's capture. The Irishman told them he could not mingle among the men to procure the requisite information without a new outfit, as his garments were not fit to go anywhere. This demand for assistance confirmed the detectives in the Irishman's earnestness ; they supplied him with a new outfit and gave him ten sovereigns to meet all necessary expenses. This centre was no sooner free from the enemy's police than he was eager to communicate with Kelly and let him know how anxious the enemy were for his capture. He called on a brother centre, who found out where the colonel could be seen, when the two men waited on him. The released centre told Kelly the enemy had been to his lodgings and were looking for him, that they had an accurate description of his dress- and appearance, and cautioned him to be doubly careful ; he threw down on the table before Kelly the ten pounds given him by the enemy, at the same time exclaiming : " Take them away, they are burning my pocket, Colonel." Kelly knew the loyalty and patriotism of this brave Irishman. He told him he would give him every opportunity to give the detectives, useful information, but a little late, so that they would be kept engaged looking for him until the I. R. B. could get the centre away. He also thought to himself it would employ their time and throw the enemy off the scent until the 6th of May had passed. Colonel Kelly from this day forth changed his lodgings almost daily, and when he was leaving for another abode he communicated with this centre, who gave the detectives the information. In each case they found their much sought-for man had been there, but was fled. This made them certain the centre was seriously helping them. The organiza- tion succeeded in getting this centre out of the country, and when the Government heard through Scotland Yard of this Irish centre's duplicities (for when he disappeared the detectives saw that they were completely hoodwinked by the Irishman whom they thought they had purchased),, they grew somewhat uneasy and began to fear that Kelly was engaged in some new plot. As the time approached for the monster Hyde Park demonstration, the business people of London became alarmed. Although they did not fear bloodshed, they were anxious that there should be no disturbance, and of course Irish revolutionary interference never once dawned upon their intelligence. Not so the Government ; but from what they could glean from their numerous spies, they considered all attempts on the part of the Irish to create a row would be crushed out by the force that they were determined to concentrate in and around the park. The meetings in the English Radical clubs grew more angry every night. Irish speakers born in England and speaking with the local accent of their nativity, did their best to lash into storm the usually phlegmatic English workingmen. These speeches were noted by the press and attributed to the Reformers ; but at this time many of the Britons had been inspired by these addresses and followed in the same strain. The London Times of Saturday, May 4, 1867, two days before the proposed meeting, thus- comments on the situation : 144 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. " On this occasion the league expressly declare that they do not and will not ask the consent of anybody. They announce that they will repel force by force, and they summon the lowest classes from all parts of London by intimating that there is to be tumult and disorder. No min- ister would be worthy to serve the Queen if he allowed the rights of the Crown, which are really the rights of peaceful inhabitants of London, to be overridden in such a manner. . . " Mr. Gladstone said last night, ' Whatever be the intention of her Majesty's Government with respect to the administration and execution of the law in the exercise of its duty, my most earnest advice to those whom the proclamation concerns, is to conform themselves to the notifi- cation it contains.' " The time was nearing fast when the collision between these angry and hostile portions of the English community and the military element might possibly take place. The crisis they had tried to facilitate and develop was now upon the Irish leaders, and they made their preparations to meet the coming contingency and if possible make certain that revolution would be born at the approaching monster Hyde Park demonstration. All over Britain orders were sent out to the I. R. B. circles to have ready all the volunteers they could procure by Saturday, May 4, 1867, for a special duty and on active service. Several thousand men volunteered. They concluded it was another insurrection that was preparing, but they asked no questions. They were ready to obey their orders, hoping some good results would ensue for the Irish cause. The British Government called a consultation of military officers of high rank, and a decision was come to as to the suppressing of the meet- ing and by an overwhelming force to overawe either the Irish republicans or the criminal classes in any attempt to break the peace. Fifteen thousand troops were under orders to come to London from Aldershot. Two batteries of artillery were included in these. The cavalry of this force reached London on Saturday evening. The rest of the forces were to leave on Sunday evening and early Monday morning. On Saturday twelve thousand special constables were sworn in ; this force was expected to be increased to twenty thousand by Monday, the day of the threatened demonstration. The Grenadiers, Coldstreams, and Scots Fusileer Guards were confined to their barracks ready to sup- port the coming Aldershot army, and with these were the Life Guards and Royal Horse Guards, ready to assist in preserving the peace. Lon- don was agitated as it never was before ; the citizens were astounded when they heard of the large army the Government meant to bring to Hyde Park. Had it been to resist a Russian or French invasion they could not have made more gigantic preparations. When the Reform leaders heard of the extraordinary and unusual military display about to be made by the Government, they smiled with scorn and contempt at what they considered a game of brag, and felt certain that their meeting would take place without the slightest need of any force whatever. If told that the Government was preparing against any possible disturbance by Irish Revolutionists they would have laughed with derision at a government that would deem it necessary to move so large a force of military to suppress an insignificant handful of men, who could be easily overcome by the police if they attempted any interference. But the Government preserved its secret, and the Eng- lish leaders of the agitation considered the Government was absurdly foolish in its proposed measures. The I. R. B. Council, fully alive to the important opportunity that both English parties were offering Ireland, and learning what a large LONDON ON THE BRINK OF REVOLUTION 145 force they would have to encounter, made every possible provision to offer a strong and determined resistance. All the rifles belonging to each circle, with their ball cartridges, were placed as near the scene of hostili- ties as the organization could control friendly depots, from which they could be at once procured, while the fight was in progress, as the battle was to be opened by the fire of their revolvers. On Saturday morning orders were received for the I. R. B. volunteers to proceed to London, there to get orders for active service ; that these men were not to arrive later than Monday morning, every man to provide himself with a revolver and as many cartridges as convenient. These arms the Council knew were already in the possession of the men. The Irish plan of campaign was to skirt the English crowd, keeping the English masses between them and the foe ; as the British military bore down on what they considered a mob, the Irish were to open fire all along the line, a signal to be given when the first volley was to be dis- charged. This would be certain to bring on a sanguinary fray ; the military would return the fire, killing and wounding English and Irish alike. Passion would be sure to animate the raging crowd. The Eng- lishman, slow to cross the Rubicon which divides agitation from revolu- tion, would have taken the fatal step, and with the obstinacy and tenacity of the Anglo-Saxon was not likely to surrender tamely. To give force and object to their cause the Irish would then begin shouts for the British republic, and call out John Bright as their leader. The great tribune's name would be received with shouts by the English masses ; this was the time considered proper to bring in the fresh forces armed with rifles and bayonets to make the combat more deadly. In the mean- time several centres for insurrection and destruction were selected in the city and other parts of London. It will be remembered that this huge metropolis contains more than one million of criminals of both sexes, who, reckless of anything but plunder, would soon seek an opportunity to glut their appetites. Arrangements were made to give these human ghouls every possible chance to enrich themselves. It can be imagined what havoc and destruction would ensue, and what devastation this army of looters would create in a city teeming with the world's wealth and filled with squalor and poverty. The red demon of war was to be 'let loose in this modern Babylon, but all this scene of blood and pillage could not equal the fearful horrors that these people's accursed rule brings to Ireland, turning that smiling land as they are this very hour into a huge charnel house. No greater or more powerful combination was ever formed to destroy not only British rule in Ireland, but to annihilate aristocratic supremacy in Britain. Late on Saturday night a deputation of Conservative citizens waited on Mr. Walpole, the Home Secretary, to endorse the action of the Gov- ernment, and to offer them any support needed. The deputation also presented a numerously signed address approving the Government's determination not to permit the meeting in Hyde Park on Monday. Mr. Spencer H. Walpole thanked the deputation on behalf of the Government, assuring these gentlemen that the Government would remain firm, certain of the support of all law-abiding subjects of her gracious Majesty. Saturday night the I. R. B. men commenced to pour into London, and on Sunday morning the Irish were coming into the metropolis in great numbers as also were a numerous addition to the Reformers. Late Saturday night special news came to the Home Office ; the spies that were watching Irish districts over England and Scotland reported great prep- arations and excitement among the Irish. As this news reached the Ministers, they grew alarmed. Fresh rumors of excitement in Ireland, i 4 6 I ill: IRISH NATIONAL [NVINCIBLES. although groundless, excited fear. A few days previous Colonel Thomas f. Bourke had delivered his soul-inspiring address from the dock and the trials were causing excitement in Dublin. Fresh messengers brought alarming tidings ; so universal was the move- ments oi the Irish that it proved perfection of organization. There was some move on the chessboard which the I. 1\. B. chieftains meant to take ; the Ministers naturally thought of the Hyde Park meeting. Colonel Kelly was still at large ; the Government was certain there was a fresh plot hatching ill respect to Monday's parade ; Massey's former information made them nervous. A hurried meeting of Ministers was called for that Sunday, and on discussing the gravity of the situation they felt the neces- sity of surrender. There was no alternative. Either permit the Reform meeting, or else take the possible chances of bloodshed, revolution, anarchy, and chaos. It was a humiliating and disastrous defeat, but the bitter pill had to be swallowed. Orders were sent to Aldershot to stop the departure of the soldiers. Word was sent to the public press that the Government learned that to meet in Hyde Park was not against the law, and that they had withdrawn their opposition. The Government had to wear sackcloth and ashes; the Reformers crowed with delight. London and all Britain were stupefied. What meant this contemptible and cowardly surrender at the eleventh hour? Receiving deputations late on Saturday night with a determination to disperse anv meeting in Hyde Park, swearing in special constables, and taking warlike preparations, and now this lame and silly apology for not taking action. The press and people were astonished ; even the Radicals wondered at this sudden and unexpected collapse, for the great Tory Ministry to show such vacillation and weakness, was a proceeding unheard of with Conservative administrations. Rut although many strange specu- lations filled the public mind, no one ever thought o( the real cause. London had gone through a terrible crisis all unknown to the victor- ious agitators. The London Times and all the journals that had sup- ported the Ministry in their opposition to the Reformers were completely surprised at the Government surrender. Knowing nothing of the 1. R. B. movement in England they never suspected the real reason for Lord Derby's rapid retreat. The London Times thus comments on the situa- tion in its issue of Monday, May o: "•In our hands the doctrine of non-intervention has been developed into that of non-resistance.' So said a member of the party at present in office, and true to its own self-imposed law of action — the law of the weakest we suppose it must be called — Government has abandoned its opposition to the meeting in llvde Park, which is to be surrendered this evening to King Mob. It is not in our power, and certainly it is far from our wish, to dispute the soundness of the discretion which has tempered Ministerial valor. To all who contemplate the possibilities of the crisis, and the capacity of the metropolitan mob for almost any kind of mischief the prospect last Saturday was gloomy indeed. . . . " Mr. Beale and Ids colleagues will reign in Hyde Lark this evening, and may be considered the actual government of the country. Constitu- tional cynicism and foreboding has been justified by a further descent in the downward course of ministerial abnegation. The Government, which was in too emphatic a sense the other day on the floor of the House, is now on the turf of llvde Lark, and where next it is impossible to say. . . " We have endeavored to describe our mixed feelings on this occasion. Having screwed ourselves up to a crisis, not without danger, and a determination, which it was simple loyalty to accept from the persons charged with the maintenance of public peace and security, we find all at once that the effort has been wasted. Our feelings will not only be LONDON ON THE BRINK OF REVOLUTION. 147 thoroughly understood, but actually shared, by every respectable house- holder iu Loudon, east, west, north and south, and by we know not how many thousand friends of order who have offered to be sworn in as special constables." The Thunderer of Printing House Yard expressed opinions which were echoed and re-echoed over the United Kingdom of Britain. Not having the key to the mystery the British public were surprised at the incomprehensible conduct of the Tory Government. What placed the course of the Ministry in the worst light was their great preparations to enforce their authority and to fulfill the demands called for by the Royal Proclammation, and after swearing in thousands of special constables. The Home Secretary, receiving a deputation near midnight on Saturday, was at that hour fully determined to enforce Ministerial authority, and then when a large portion of the troops were on the ground and govern- ment preparations apparently complete, a Cabinet meeting is held on Sunday — in itself an unheard of thing — and the Queen's Government col- lapsed. There was great speculation as to what was the actual cause of these extraordinary proceedings, but the real reason for the Government's panic was never suspected by the people, The Times in a subsequent issue makes these comments: "The public will hear with surprise, and perhaps also with no little discontent, that the Government has at the last moment resolved to permit the Hyde Park demonstration. . . . "Messrs. Beales, Bradlaugh & Co., with all their colleagues of the Reform League, have carried their point, and the result of their reiterated defiance of the Government has been, as we see, that the Government has thought fit to give in. . . . "Crowds of special constables were sworn in last Saturday and pro- vided with staves ; as many as from twelve thousand to fifteen thousand were expected to be sworn in to-day. Re-enforcements were under orders from Aldershot. . . . "The military commanders were consulted and a sort of plan of operations resolved upon for the park, in case the police should be found inadequate to the duty of maintaining the peace. In the course of yesterday all the mounted police that could be withdrawn from the suburban districts were draughted into the Metropolitan Barracks, while the constabulary themselves received their orders to assemble in large masses at assigned points in the park. The credit of standing firmly to their purpose certainly remains with the Reform League." What was behind the Reform League was the cause of Ministerial surrender — the men of the race they met at Fontenoy and Oulart Hill, and which they are destined to meet yet in a final deadly struggle, when the flag of Britain will be forever pulled down in Ireland. The new Reform Bill was deepened and broadened sufficiently to satisfy the most extreme British Radical in the House. It was revolu- tionary compared to the moderate and cautious measure introduced by Mr. Gladstone. Even some of the Liberal members were astounded at the democratic nature of the measure. The Government felt the necessity of passing the bill for the sake of the peace of England ; it was like legislating while a hostile army was encamped in their midst demanding the Reform Act or else Mr. Lowe, afterward Mr. Gladstone's Chancellor of the Exchequer, denounced the measure as socialistic, and termed it " a leap in the dark." Lord Cranbourne, who had left the Ministry in consequence of this bill, had a serious quarrel with Mr. Disraeli over parts of the measure which he denounced ; this peer is at this date Marquis of Salisbury and Premier of Britain. Mr. Disraeli, in replying to him, called Cranbourne the 148 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. master of " flouts and jeers." The bill was termed a red republican measure. By tact and mysterious whisperings the Reform Bill was engineered through the Commons, the Chancellor of the Exchequer having to keep his own followers well in hand, for they were all disgusted and alarmed at the new sweeping measure which so widely enlarged the franchise ; the peers passed the bill, the most democratic measure that ever passed the British parliament. The English people little knew that they were indebted to the Irish revolutionists for household suffrage and a lodger franchise, which was only one step removed from the manhood suffrage of a democratic republic — and this extraordinary measure so strangely introduced and passed by a Tory party that had defeated a conservative bill a short time previous when the Liberals were in.ofiice. Thus closed the great agitation for reforms that so nearly convulsed England, and threatened to re-enact in London in 1867 the most exag- gerated horrors and atrocities which monarchical writers have ever depicted during the French revolution. How great things are changed by simple events ! The treason of the despicable Massey saved London for a few years longer from the lurid blaze of insurrection, which might have altered the condition of British and Irish politics by the whirlwind •of revolution. CHAPTER X. (1867.) " erin's hope " expedition from America — vessel with arms, ammu- nition, AND MILITARY OFFICERS OFF THE IRISH COAST. "Erin's Hope" Expedition — The Volunteers Sail for Ireland — Captain Cavanagh's Sealed Dispatches — Easter Sunday at Sea — Re-naming the Vessel — Hoisting the Irish National Flag, the Sunburst — Saluting the Standard — Scene on Deck — Colonel Tressilian's Ballad, " The Green Flag Now Waves" — Off the Irish Coast — Proposed Attack on Sligo — Colonel Rickard O. S. Burke Comes Aboard — Rendezvous at Cork — Debarkations off Waterford — Captured by the Enemy — " Erin's Hope " Pursued by British Cruisers — Safe Return to New York. When the news of the 5th of March rising reached America, the Irish people here were in a condition of great anxiety as to the result. The F. B. determined to organize a relief expedition. A special messenger was sent here early in February, asking for arms and war munitions to be sent promptly, as the men in the gap meant fight. The cry of wolf had been sounded so often that the men in the States were rather incredulous. The once powerful American organization had frittered away its strength in dissensions and procrastination, all of which would never have taken place but for the fault of the C. O. I. R. not placing the men in the gap on the field and commencing the struggle. But when they read in the public papers that Ireland had "risen" against her oppressor, a feeling of desperation permeated the circles and the cry was, " Send help to Ireland at once ! " The leaders in America were as ener- getic as possible under the circumstances, but were much shorn of power to help as they would have wished. The F. B. issued an order calling on the different circles for volunteers to go to Ireland — one man from each circle. It was indispensable he should be a military man ; those who had seen service and held com- mands during the war to receive the preference of selection. At this time there was much speculation and talk in different Irish circles as to a fleet of ironclads to convey arms, accouterments, and war munitions to Ireland. The strength of the organization and its power was much exaggerated. Like its sister organization in Ireland, its strength culmi- nated in October, 1865. The mock government, President, Senate, and Moffat Mansion not alone wasted its resources, but convinced all think- ing minds that the cause was hopeless that had such leaders. The call for volunteers to go to Ireland was promptly answered ; several hundred men sent in their names. After careful selection some forty men were chosen ; these received orders to hold themselves in instant readiness for embarkation. The men selected were considered suitable to partly officer one or two brigades. Every branch of the ser- vice was represented in the ranks of these volunteers. The Fenian Brotherhood understood that these men were but the advance guard of Irish-American assistance to their struggling brothers in Ireland. Another and much larger expedition was promised, and there is not the smallest doubt that had the men in Ireland been able to have taken the field and held it for any time that enormous help, both of men and war munitions, would have poured into the Green Isle. This would have been 149 150 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. the spontaneous offering of the Irish race, not the mere work of an organization. But without the organization this assistance could not be intelligently given. The Irish- Americans were in great suspense waiting for authentic news from Ireland, for they did not believe the information which filtered through British channels. They were sure there had been several skirmishes, and possibly a general engagement with the invader's troops. They were under the impression that there had been a " rising," while in fact it was but an imperfect attempt to countermand an order to "rise," and but few localities were represented in proportion to even the decaying powers of the I. R. B. in Ireland. The utmost secrecy was preserved at Fenian Brotherhood headquarters relative to this approaching expedition. The men told off were kept in ignorance up the last moment as to the details of the expedition. At last, on the morning of the 12th of April, these men, in obedience to orders, met at an assigned rendezvous in Grand Street, and from thence were conducted on board a tugboat, which in due time conveyed them to the vessel on which they were to make this hazardous voyage across the ocean, to brave a thousand dangers to try and succor their brave countrymen, exposed, as they thought, to all the vicissitudes of a revolu- tionary war in their half-armed condition. These gallant Irish-American soldiers were prepared to face the risk of falling into the hands of the enemy before touching the Irish shore. Great was the disappointment of the men when they saw the vessel that was to convey them to Ireland. They had expected to see a large ironclad that could offer fight in the event of meeting with the enemy at sea. Unpleasant was the reaction when a small brigantine of about 350 tons burden was the craft oh which this mere handful of men were put on board. The brave fellows thereupon concluded that they were fore- doomed, and came to look upon the voyage as one that must inevitably result in failure and possibly disaster. But there was no help for it ; there was nothing for it now but to bravely face the dangers as cheerfully as possible and put to sea, which was done. The name of this craft was the Jacmel Packet. This name was after- ward changed. She was from a maritime point of view a pirate craft. She left port with false clearance papers. The Jacmel proved a poor sailor, but such was the ardor of the men who were determined to aid their comrades at home to rally for a final stand against the foe, that these gallant Irish-American volunteers felt that nothing would daunt them. A cheery feeling of hope rose in their souls that they would be in time to contribute their mite to the insurgent Irish soldiers battling for freedom. There was more than the military success of the expedition at stake ; the men's honor and sense of duty impelled them to brave all, and sink or swim the danger must be faced. They knew that death awaited them in some shape, if not on the ocean certainly on shore, but they hoped that the Omnipotent would bless their endeavors, and if death was their decree, that it should be a soldier's grave in Ireland, and that their dying ears should be gladdened by hear- ing the shouts of victory as r their gallant countrymen drove back the invader in humiliation, defeat, and destruction. Last, though not least, another powerful motive animated them. It had become a maritime maxim that, owing to Britain's great fleet and the system of coast guard stations, no vessel of a hostile character could make a landing at any point of the Irish coast without being run down and captured ; nay, that a bird could hardly alight on shore seaward without having her flight noted. Well, this fallacy, at all events, was exploded in the most practical manner, as three different landings were made at night, and on different occasions, some in answer to what appeared to be signals. CAPTAIN JOHN F, CAVANAGH, U. S. N. Naval commander of the packet Erin's Hope. "ERIN'S HOPE" EXPEDITION FROM AMERICA. 151 Sealed orders had been given to the sailing master, Captain John F. Cavanagh, a brave and worthy officer, who had served in the U. S. Navy. These sealed dispatches were not to be broken until the vessel had been three days out to sea. It was then learned that the brigantine was to sail for the western coast of Ireland, where a delegate would hail them from shore, signals to that effect having been agreed upon. This was one of the sealed dispatches : "New York City, April 12, 1867. "Sir : You will proceed with the vessel under your command to Sligo Bay, on the coast of Ireland, where you may safely land your cargo and pas- sengers. You will use every precaution to insure their safe delivery, and if possible, after you disembark the men and land the cargo, you will return at once with your vessel to New York. But if you should see no chance of escaping with her, destroy her, if practicable, so that she may not fall into the hands of the enemy. You will in all exigencies that arise during the voyage use your own judgment. God bless and speed you. " Yours Fraternally, " John Powell. "Captain John F. Cavanagh, " Chief of Naval Affairs, F. B., " At Sea." On Easter Sunday morning, April 21, 1867, there was an unusual stir on board the Jacjnel Packet. The ship was about to be re-named, and the vessel, with all ceremony, put into commission in the service of the Irish Republic. The cases of uniforms on board were opened and the volun- teers put on their military clothing and fully equipped stood ready on deck to salute the raising of the flag. Captain John Cavanagh had issued orders for those under his immediate command to muster on deck for this momentous occasion. Lieutenant William Sweetman and ensign O'Neill came on deck, where all the Irish-American soldiers and ship's crew were ready assembled ; they brought with them the Irish National flag, which was attached to the color halyards. The artillery on board ■was loaded with blank cartridge and the firing party got into position. Captain Cavanagh took the quadrant and directed it to the sun. The morning, which had been dark and gloomy, grew rapidly brighter, and as it neared noon the sun shone out with splendor and the deep blue waves dancing with sunbeams, that leaped like diamonds from the glistening Avaves, animated and helped to stir the adventurous voyagers to enthu- siasm. When in lat. 43 n' and long. 55 52', at twelve o'clock to the second, the flag flew like lightning to the mainmast, and as it spread out its green folds to greet the sea and sky there gleamed the immortal sun- burst in the centre, Ireland's national banner fluttering over the waves ; on this flag was inscribed : " Presented to the Tara Circle by the ladies of Brooklyn, July 5, 1865." As the Irish Republican banner fluttered from the masthead, it was greeted with joy and delight by the fifty Irishmen on board. The cannon thundered out in salute, and the present arms to the old flag of an ancient and warlike race was followed by enthusiastic cheering. The men that saluted the national standard of their country and race were voyaging to carry that flag where cannon and rifles, shotted by the British enemy, would be directed in hostility against their banner and the men who were prepared to die in its defense. Glorious emblem of an unconquerable race ! all that the flag symbolizes to the brave soldiers of every land is doubly yours, for the Irish heart throbs with tumultuous emotions at the thought of seeing your 152 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. emerald folds flashing out the sunburst at the head of an Irish army on Irish soil ! The mountains, the rivers, the valleys, the lakes, and the forests would almost become animated with enthusiasm if this long, long looked for hour of triumph would come to grand old Innisfail ! The honor of their flag is doubly dear to the Irish soldier, because too oft it " has been down in the dust and ashamed to be seen." Those who think that they can make Ireland a willing province of the enemy's empire of plunder, and decked with the bastard nationality, miscalled Home Rule, and surrender the nation's flag and the nation's independence to the honor of politicians, know little of the sentiments that animate the Irish heart. When Irishmen gaze on the flag of Britain it is with scorn and hatred ; to accept that detested emblem — filled with the memory of generations of bloodshed and rapine in Ireland as elsewhere — as their own national flag, which would be the outcome if this abortion named " Home Rule " could be successful, would be to expect a revolution in national and patriotic feeling that would be a marvelous phenomenon. The Jaanel Packet was re-named the Erin's Hope, amid the cheers of the Irish soldiers and the rattle of small arms and the salute of artillery. The hoisting of the sunburst was celebrated on board the Erin's Hope by the gallant voyagers to the best of their ability ; what they lacked in being able to honor the day to the best of their heart's desires, they made up in light-hearted gayety and enthusiasm. Colonel Tressilian, one of the Irish soldiers on board, composed a special ballad for the occasion to the air of the " Star Spangled Banner." Annexed are two verses : THE GREEN FLAG NOW WAVES. What is that which we see from the mainmast afloat ? It never was seen before on the ocean. And what means that volley and wild Irish shout ? It must be the war cry of patriot devotion. Now it kisses the gleam of the Easter-day beam, Its sunburst is shrouded in emerald sheen ; The flag of old Ireland that floats o'er the waves, And her sons and her daughters shall no longer be slaves. Then fling forth your banner from hamlet and cot, Let the slogan go forth, 'tis the war cry of freedom. From Liberty's cradle by Irishmen brought, While thousands shall follow the few who now lead 'em. Then away with all fears, drown your sorrows in cheers, For the brave " Irish exiles " will battle for years ; Till the flag of old Ireland shall float o'er the waves, And her sons and her daughters no longer are slaves. The hoisting of the flag was one bright day of enjoyment to these adventurous patriots, and one which the survivors of that gallant expedi- tion will remember forever. It has often occurred to Irish Nationalists that whenever their countrymen celebrate Irish national events in their adopted country, that although they fly the green flag in their free Ameri- can home, it is seldom if ever the Irish national flag that is displayed, although such is the intention of those who celebrate these events. The flag usually and indeed invariably displayed is the Munster banner, con- taining the arms of that patriotic province, the harp, around which they wreathe the Irish shamrock. The sunburst on a green ground is the Irish national emblem. Perhaps it would be well if the arms of the four provinces quartered in the corner, like the stars in the American banner, were added. This would place the harp of Munster, the red hand of Ulster, the three glaives of Connaught, and the three crowns of Leinster on the national flag, making the Irish standard contain a union "ERIN'S HOPE" EXPEDITION FROM AMERICA. 153 jack, in the left corner, emblematical of the union of the four provinces in one independent nation, the only union Irishmen seek. But it would more worthily honor the Irish flag not to fly it, in any foreign nation, even a friendly one, until it can be raised in triumph over the ruins of Dublin Castle and over the razed foundations of the Yeomen's Parliament in College Green. When the sunburst of Ireland can flutter over a free nation, won by successful revolution and the complete defeat of the foreign invader, then Ireland's war-worn veterans can proudly honor the flag they fought for, and which was their beacon to guide them to victory. The Erin's Hope was speeding over the waves as quickly as her gal- lant commander could sail his vessel. She carried the following officers to lead the insurgent Irish at home to battle with the British foe : Brigadier General James E. Kerrigan, Infantry, commanding the detachment ; Brigadier General W. J. Nagle, Infantry, second in com- mand ; Brigadier General John Warren, Infantry, third in command ; Brigadier General George Whelan, Cavalry. Colonel I. R. Tresilian, Engineers ; Colonel Philip Dougherty, Infantry ; Colonel Patrick Dunn, Cavalry. Lieutenant Colonel James Prendergast, Infantry. Captain M. J. Green, Infantry ; Captain Augustine E. Costello, Infantry ; Captain J. J. Hasley, Zouaves ; Captain Jeremiah M. Buckley, Infantry ; Captain Andrew Leonard, Infantry ; Captain W. Millar, Infantry ; Timothy Horan, Infantry. Lieutenant W. J. Downing, Zouaves ; Lieutenant Robert Kelly, Zouaves ; Lieutenant M. J. Fitzgibbon, Artillery ; Lieutenant W. E. Nugent, Infantry ; Lieutenant M. W. Walsh, Artillery ; Lieutenant A. Downing, Cavalry ; Lieutenant J. P. Murray, Infantry ; Lieutenant P. Roach, Artillery ; Lieutenant P. Nugent, Zouaves ; Lieutenant P. Crogan, Zouaves ; Lieutenant J. O'Connor, Zouaves. Second Lieutenant Daniel Lee, Zouaves ; Second Lieutenant Laurence Doyle, Zouaves ; Second Lieutenant Michael Fitzgerald, Zouaves ; Second Lieutenant John Rooney, Zouaves ; Second Lieutenant William Sheehan, Zouaves ; Second Lieutenant James Coffee, Zouaves ; Second Lieutenant John Mangin, Zouaves ; Second Lieutenant John O'Brien, Zouaves ; Second Lieutenant J. O'Shea, Zouaves. There are a few names of the volunteers omitted from this list. The ship's crew consisted of : Captain John F. Cavanagh, commanding ; Lieutenant William Sweet- man, Irish coast pilot ; Ensign Henry O'Neill., second officer ; Thomas Hardy, seaman ; John O'Connor, seaman ; Andrew White, seaman ; James Lawler, seaman ; John Mullen, ship's cook and steward ; John O'Connor, ordinary seaman, cabin boy. The Erin's Hope was freighted with a precious cargo to insurgent Ire- land. She had on board six million rounds of ammunition ; six small cannons (field pieces) ; six thousand stand of arms, and accouterments sufficient to equip a brigade, including several cases of cavalry sabers. If these were landed and the rifles in the hands of the I. R. B. men at home, it would form the nucleus of a small army which might rally the people to renewed and more vigorous efforts. The sealed instructions were to the effect that the vessel was to sail for the western coast of Ireland, and there at some point from shore receive certain signals, which had been agreed upon by the Council in Ireland and those at the head of affairs in America. These signals were for a long time not forthcoming — so long that all hope was abandoned in this direction. A council of war was held on board the Erin's Hope, and they decided 154 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. to inveigle a pilot on board and to make a landing at Sligo harbor, attack the police and detachment of military there stationed, rally the people to the national flag, and land the arms, equip the men rapidly, and take the field. By this daring coup de main they hoped to create such a diversion from Dublin and Cork, that the insurgents, whom they still considered were under arms, would have increased chances of success. This warlike plan was in part carried out ; the pilot was got on board and in twelve hours with a favoring breeze it was expected that the town of Sligo would be captured. At this time the looked for envoy material- ized. He intercepted the vessel and was taken on board off a yacht. The vigilance of the enemy had been such that he had to await a favorable opportunity to make his connection. This envoy was Colonel Rickard O. S. Burke. He countermanded the sacking of Sligo, strongly advised that the expedition in general should be abandoned, as during the six dreary weeks consumed in the passage, many of the leaders had been captured in Ireland and imprisoned. This counsel the men on board refused to hearken to. It was finally agreed upon that a few of the mili- tary officers would accompany Colonel Burke in his yacht ashore ; that these would make rapid headway to the southwest coast of Cork and there make arrangements for the landing of the men and military stores : the vessel in the meantime to sail for that point. But the voyage, owing to unlooked for causes, had been so prolonged that water and provisions had almost given out. Head winds and a badly damaged craft again prevailed to still further prolong the long looked for landing. During the voyage a raft had been constructed under the supervision of Colonel Tresilian, and a barrel of gunpowder so placed that, if they were in imminent danger of capture, they could all take to the raft and blow up the ship sooner than that the vessel and her military should become a prize to the enemy. The Erin's Hope was now for some weeks off the Irish coast sailing in different directions, and although boarded by coast guardsmen off Donegal, their suspicions were lulled, and they succeeded in running the gauntlet successfully in spite of the enemy's cruisers. At last famine began to stare the brave voyagers in the face, and there was no alternative but to make a landing at the first favorable opportunity. They decided to try and effect an insurrec- tion in the South, as Cork County was a hot-bed of revolution. The Erins Hope was to continue her voyage, to the south, as agreed to by Colonel Rickard O. S. Burke. The men who landed were to scatter through the county, and in small groups concentrate at the place they were trying to make by sea. Having reached a common rendezvous in Cork, where they would be joined by those of their party who had gone before, these would have, it was hoped, rallied the gallant Cork men, and communicating with the Erin's Hope by signal, as agreed upon, land the arms and commence the fight. With this purpose in view, one foggy morning very early in June, this landing (the fourth) was effected by the captain hailing two small fishing smacks alongside, and while ostensibly negotiating for the transfer of two sick men on shore, a party of about thirty men threw themselves from the deck of the Erins Hope, and almost paralyzed the poor fisher- men and submerged their crude fishing boat. Enough men were left on board to bring the vessel back to America, if such a course were the only alternative. Those who landed were instructed to scatter through the hills and mountains, and by devious ways try to reach the appointed rendezvous. This fourth and final landing off Helrick Head, Waterford, was effected in broad daylight, and within gunshot range of two coast guard stations ; it was only then that the alleged vigilant coast guards proved GENERAL WILLIAM J. NAGLE. One of the military commanders of the Eriiis Hope expedition. CAPTAIN AUGUSTINE E. COSTELLO. One of the officers of the Erin's Hope military expedi- tion to Ireland. "ERIN'S HOPE" EXPEDITION FROM AMERICA. 155 their usefulness, and this they could not possibly avoid. This landing, being observed, caused a general alarm ; the enemy quickly sent out flying columns of soldiers and police ; these captured the wayfarers, only very few of their number escaping arrest. The men captured were held in prison for trial. Colonel John Warren and Captain Augustine E. Costello were, however, the only ones convicted — Warren being sentenced for fifteen years and Costello for twelve years. The Erin s Hope made for the southwestern rendezvous, and not finding her signals answered as agreed upon, made sail for New York. The arrest of the disembarked men and the demoralizing influences already stated destroyed all chances of making a stand. Every leader in the south of any ability had been swept into prison by the enemy. After several hairbreadth escapes the Eriris Hope remained off the Irish coast for a long period. It must be borne in mind that the British cruisers had been in the meantime on the alert for the capture of the adventurous craft, her coming having been heralded and her presence now so well known to the blundering enemy. But more marvelous still, with all of England's naval force, the gallant little brigantine ran the blockade successfully, and after all this transpired to the knowledge of the British officials, and in spite of their great fleet of cruisers that were on the lookout and in hot pursuit, the Erin's Hope still hovered near the Irish coast, having changed her course, and finally succeeded in returning to New York safely and thereby saving the military stores on board from capture by the enemy, and this also despite the fact that two large men- of-war which were in pursuit went down off the dangerous Irish coast and were lost. One important lesson Irishmen can learn from the Erins Hope expedition, and that is a practical denial of the coward's argument, that the British fleet is invincible in its vigilance. At any time an armed expedition can elude the enemy's cruisers and effect a landing on the Irish coast. Imperfect organization, unskillful and blundering leaders may destroy the success of such an undertaking, but it is unlikely that the enemy will do so. If officered and commanded by cool, skillful, and brave men, such as had charge of the Erins Hope — which from its departure from Sandy Hook might have been more properly called the " Forlorn Hope " — there is nothing more certain in human calculations but that men and arms will be safely debarked in Ireland. There is nothing more positive than that a nation which hesitates is lost. The favorable chance of raising the standard of insurrection by the officers who crossed in the Erins Hope was the original plan to land in Sligo, Colonel Rickard Burke's instructions and the state of the country notwithstanding. To the honor of the brave and gallant fellows who made the dangerous and perilous voyage across the Atlantic in so small a craft, they were with difficulty persuaded to change their plans, and in so hesitating, or rather being persuaded into doing so, the fruits of the expedition in giving Ireland a fair chance to at least make a decent fight was lost. The prestige of the landing of a party of American officers would have speedily rallied the men in the gap, their great wants — arms, accouterments, and military commanders — were already prepared, and ammunition enough to pile up the enemy's dead in rows like the sands in the seashore after an angry tide has ebbed. Even though they would have been eventually beaten, looking at the gloomiest side, they would have redeemed Ireland's honor from the contemptible fiasco of the 5th of March, for armed Irishmen under military commanders would give a good account of themselves before the invaders could succeed in plucking a victory. They would have made a heroic resistance and made 156 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. the enemy's ranks feel the force of their blows ere they would have suc- cumbed to numbers. Those who carp and sneer at such gallant, although desperate, enter- prizes as the Erin's Hope expedition should remember that the world's history would have little to ennoble it and that the triumph of right would become hopeless if there were not in all races and in all ages self-sacrificing men prepared to die in the cause of truth and justice, and venture their whole happiness, fortunes, and lives on the hazard of the die. Let these men ask themselves, if Irishmen, what they have done for their country, and if all sons of the Green Isle were to wrap themselves in similar selfishness, what would mankind think of such a race ? Where would be the " Stars and Stripes" and this glorious republic if the nation had not produced heroes ready and willing to offer everything they possessed on the altar of their country's freedom ? The Erin's Hope expedition should be remem- bered by Irishmen as a gallant endeavor in the face of almost certain destruction to come to their country's assistance in the hour of peril. To everyone who was connected with that adventurous and risky voyage Ireland owes a deep debt of gratitude, and posterity will honor them, should the nation emerge from thralldom to independence, or should she try to imitate them if there is yet a lingering spark of the unquenchable fire of patriotism remaining in dear old Innisfail. The writer had the pleasure of meeting General George Phelan a short time after his landing at Sligo, in company with Colonel Rickard O. S. Burke. He was forcibly struck at the time with the character of this dash- ing cavalry officer. He had fought during the Civil War in command of a Confederate cavalry regiment, and his views on Irish revolution were sound and practical, although he was utterly unacquainted with the actual condition of Ireland. He was born in the Southern States and was the offspring of two generations of Irishmen, who had emigrated from Ireland, and after the long exile of his family, this gallant soldier of the third generation comes freely to fight for the cradle of his race, as eager for the fray as the persecuted peasant who feels the whips and thongs of British slavery. What a God-given patriotism is it that animates the Irish race, and yet although more than capable of driving out the enemy by a united and determined endeavor, some strange fatality keeps them enchained ! The word useless effusion of blood is never applicable to Ireland. The war of extermination never ceases on the enemy's part. What is termed peace is the time of the most terrific destruction. The continued bleed- ing to death of the nation compels Irishmen to work to bring about the speediest revolution possible, if for no other object than to retard the frightful drain on the national life. A war for independence, no matter how carried on, and at no matter what daily sacrifice of life — the most devastating war recorded in history — would be a salvation to Ireland compared with this ghastly, death-dealing peace. GENERAL JOHN WARREN. One of the commanding officers of Erin's Hope expedition to Ireland. CHAPTER XI. (i86fr.) MANCHESTER RESCUE, SEPTEMBER, 1S67 CLERKENWELL EXPLOSION INTENDED ATTACK ON CORYDON IN DUBLIN EDMOND O'DONOVAN REMINISCENCES. Arrest of Colonel Thomas J. Kelly and Captain Dacey in Manchester — Feeling among the Nationalists — A Meeting Called — Captain Michael O'Brien Presides — Determination of the Meeting — A Special Levy Ordered — Michael Davitt as Arms Agent — Communi- cated With — Armed Videttes Posted to Watch Corydon's Arrival — Meeting of Officers — Kelly and Dacey 's Rescue Decided on — Eleven Unmarried Men Selected to Carry Out the Rescue — Names of the Eleven Rescuers — Captain Michael O'Brien to Take Command — The Morning of the Police Magistrate's Examination — Michael Larkin Ordered to go Home — His Request to Take Part in the Rescue Refused — Scene at the Railroad Bridge — The Waiting Irish — Arrival of their Videttes — The Van Ap- proaches — Guarded Securely — Two Cabs Filled with Policemen — Cahill and Boulger to the Front — Shooting one of the Horses — The Van is Brought to a Sudden Halt — The Panic of the Police — Roll off the Van — Rush to the Railroad Arch — Futile Attempts to Break Open the Van — Crowds of Onlookers Gather — Brett Refuses to Surrender the Keys — The Lock is Fired Into — Death of Sergeant Brett — Panic of the British Crowd — The Van Doors are Open — The Rescuers Retire — A Halt is Ordered — Kelly and Dacey do not Follow — The British Crowd Rallies — Numbers Approach the Van — The Return of the Eleven with Leveled Revolvers — The Crowd Retires Slowly — Dixon Tries to Rally the British — Cahill and Boulger Advance Toward the Crowd — The Leveled Revolvers — Dixon Falls Wounded — British Crowd Fly Panic Stricken — The Cells are Opened — Allen and Kelly — The Prisoners are Freed — Kelly's Handcuffs — The Eleven Separate — The Scene at the Inn — Walk to Ashton — Kelly's Coolness — The Irish Woman — Kelly Seeks Refuge — Kelly's Disguise — The Omnibus — The Arrest — The Loquacious Landlord — Return to Manchester— Letter from Paris Opened — Kelly's Decoy Letters — The Chief of Police Seeks Kelly's Re-capture — The Chief Makes a Raid — Kelly's Ruse — Letter from Liverpool — Chagrin of the British — The Chief of Police Resigns — Kelly gets Away Safely — Clerkenwell Explosion — Arrest and Death of Barrett — Captain Murphy and Casey Escape to France — Extradition Refused by the Empire — The Casey Brothers in the Franco-German War — Wounded before Paris — Andrew Casey Receives Legion of Honor for Valor — Captain Lawrence O'Brien's Escape from Clonmel Jail — Corydon in Dublin — Proposed Plan of Attack — Chancery Lane Detective Station — The Twenty-five Volunteers — Going for Greek Fire — Unexpected Delay — The Advanced Arrival — Cordon of the Enemy — Policeman McKenna Stops the I. R. B. Man — McKenna Shot — The Second Cordon — Sergeant Kelly Tries to Stop the Flying Irishman — The Sergeant Shot — The Castle Alarmed — Corydon Removed — The Irish- woman Secretes the Revolver — Mrs John Kirwan Takes Charge of the Weapon — Mrs Kirwan as a Patriot — Career of Edmond O'Donovan — Incidents in Fenian Days — Franco-German War—Three Days' Fight before Orleans — O'Donovan Made Prisoner of War — War Correspondent During the Spanish Campaign — Montenegrin Cam- paign — On Moukhtar Pasha's Staff — Adventures in the Montenegrin Lines — Swim in the Danube — Turkish Rout after the Battle of Aladja Dagh — Entry into Kars — O'Donovan and the Angry Ottoman — With General Lazareff in Central Asia — Death of Lazareff — Appointment of Tergukasoff — O'Donovan Leaves the Russian Lines — General Scobeloff Takes Command — O' Donovan's Telegram An Revoir a Merv — Ride in the Desert — O'Donovan Enters Merv — White and Black Russians — Prisoner of the Akhal Tekkes — Elevated Kahn of Merv — Ambassador to England — O'Donovan's Irish Patriotism — Slaughter of Hicks Pasha's Army — Death of O'Donovan — Miss Sarah Jane Butler — Cecilia Walsh — Her Death — Nicholas Walsh Dies in Italy — James Stephens — Reflections on this Epoch, Britain had yet to feel one or two waves of the retiring angry tem- pest of Irish wrath, the departing waters of an ebbing tide that was in full spring, flowing rapidly two years before. i57 158 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Coming from an I. R. B. council one night in September of that eventful year, Colonel Thomas J. Kelly and Captain Timothy Dacy were captured by the enemy's police. The British were not at first aware of the important arrests they had made. The wretched traitor Corydon was ordered to be brought to the prison to identify the newly arrested men. When the news reached the men of the organization that Colonel Kelly had at last fallen into the hands of the foe, a determined feeling of resistance permeated the Irish Nationalists of Manchester, which spread over the country as the other circles heard of the news. A meeting of the active members was at once called to take some action in this emergency. Captain Michael O'Brien, who was the brains of this movement and who soon after sealed his devotion to Ireland by dying on a British scaffold, presided at this important meeting. Among those present that evening were James Cahill, Thomas Boulger, Captain Edward O'Meagher Condon, Peter Rice, Daniel Redden, John Stoneman, Joseph Keely, Peter Ryan, James Doran, William Philip Allen, Michael Larkin, Michael Cluny, Dennis Hynes. The head centre of the district, who still lives and works for Ireland, with many others, were also present. These gallant men's names cannot be given, as they are still living under the foeman's flag. Owing to the many undertakings which died in the womb that eventful year, there was at that time a scarcity of arms. A special levy was ordered to be promptly made upon the different circles, and Captain O'Meagher Condon was made treasurer of this fund. A sum of twenty-seven pounds ($135) was collected that night at the meet- ing. When it is recollected that nearly all these men were poor working- men, the great sacrifice made by humble Irishmen in the cause of their motherland will be understood by sympathizing mankind who love liberty and hate oppression. Michael Davitt, now a sincere believer in the blessings that Ireland can receive under a foreign flag if local laws are only made in Dublin, was at this period an Irish Nationalist and a very fiery and enthusiastic member of the I. R. B. ranks. True, this was before the period of that bright vision in the enemy's dungeons when hate was to be conquered by love. At this period Michael Davitt believed that the enemy could only be conquered by the same weapons that George Washington and other great patriots adopted. So earnest was he in his creed of nationality that he was employed in the position of arms agent for the organization. He was instructed to procure as many revolvers as possible to meet all possible contingencies. Mr. Davitt wrote the men in Manchester shortly after the rescue, regretting and explaining his inability to procure these weapons at the time. Armed videttes were ordered to be posted in different directions, and every move of the enemy watched. That Cory- don would be sent to Manchester to identify the prisoners the men felt satisfied. Captain Michael O'Brien, who assumed command at this crisis in Irish affairs, gave orders to have Corydon attacked and executed for treason at no matter what sacrifice to the life of his men. Fiercely and joyfully volunteers came forward to carry out these orders. The Irish Nationalists expected the arrival of this infamous creature by the London trains, and had Corydon made his appearance, traveling by the ordinary route, Manchester would have been the scene of another excit- ing episode in the Irish war of retaliation. The Irish Nationalists were in a desperate state of mind over the failure of the cause, and Corydon played no insignificant part in aiding the enemy. Had this wretch made his appearance, even with a large guard, he would have been attacked, and possibly in slaying him an emeute of a sanguinary nature might have ensued. Corydon's abject fright and the necessities of the enemy obviated this '<■ m ' COL. THOS. J. KELLY, U. S. ARMY SIGNAL CORPS. Successor to James Stephens as C. O. I. R.; rescued at Manchester, England, Sept., 1867 MANCHESTER RESCUE, SEPTEMBER, 1867. 159 risk, which no doubt they calculated on. They brought their vile instru- ment by a roundabout route and drove him from a distant station to the jail. Had the Irish been able to have mounted their videttes — an impos- sibility in the then state of their exchequer in Manchester — Corydon would have probably been executed, for Captain Michael O'Brien was awake to every move of the foe, and had four armed men patrolling in the neighborhood of the prison. Corydon was driven rapidly by these sentinels; his appearance was like a flash of lightning, so swift was the horse and cab that flew by them into the prison yard. When Captain O'Brien heard of the safe arrival of Corydon he knew that all possible chance of concealing Colonel Kelly's identity was out of the question. He knew the enemy would feel overjoyed at their fortunate coup du guerre in at last capturing the famous Irish leader they so often tried in vain to get within their clutches. There was nothing else for the Irish to do but rescue him come what may. A meeting of the district officers was held, and preparations made for the attempt at rescue. Ten men, all unmarried, were told off to make an attack on the prison van which was to re-convey Kelly and Dacy back to the jail. The men selected were all reliable, determined men, who were prepared to take their lives in their hands and carry out their orders at any cost. Captain Michael O'Brien was to assume command and be himself on the scene. Two of these men were told off to watch the prison van outside the police- station in Manchester, to observe every action of the enemy, and on Colonel Kelly and Captain Dacy's removal to the van, noting the number of the enemy's guard, they were to drive rapidly ahead of the police coach and reach Captain O'Brien and his men where they were posted. Hundreds of Irish Nationalists could be easily procured to join in this attack, but the leaders had wisely decided to have the fewest possible number of men present, which would more easily facilitate the escape and also cause the smallest possible loss to the organization. Captain O'Brien very correctly gauged the courage of that loud-mouthed braggart John Bull, as the sequel showed, for although his soldiers and sailors are not second in valor to other Caucasian nationalities, as a military people they are the most contemptible in Europe. They have been truly called a nation of shopkeepers. The men told off to attack the van and rescue the Irish National officers from the enemy's clutches were James Cahill, Peter Rice, Wil- liam Philip Allen, Daniel Reddin, Joseph Keely, Michael Cluny, Dennis Hynes, and John Stoneman. The two men who were to bring them the news of Kelly and Dacy's being in the van, and who were afterward to assist in the rescue, were Thomas Boulger and Peter Ryan. The morning of Kelly and Dacy's examination before the enemy's police magistrate was a morning of excitement among the Irish in Man- chester. Many of the I. R. B., who knew that something of an unusual kind was about to take place, were very anxious to know the whereabouts of the expected attack, for they were eager to take part in it. Any of them recognized by Captain O'Brien, who reconnoitered about the police court in the early morn, were peremptorily ordered home. Among these was Michael Larkin. This brave fellow earnestly requested to be allowed to share in the danger of any enterprise on foot. But he had a family and his services could not be accepted. Captain O'Brien, who knew his worth, gently but firmly requested his immediate withdrawal from the courthouse. With reluctance and a saddened look on his face he obeyed the order. He was subsequently captured by the enemy in endeavoring to reach the scene after the rescue, in which he took no part whatever and was not near the place. The hanging of this faithful Irishman by the British as an active participant in the killing of Sergeant Brett 160 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. fully illustrates the panic of British so-called justice and the infamous system of perjury which haunt her witness tables, whenever Irish Nation, alists are arraigned at the bar for the crime of making war upon the hereditary destroyers of their country. It is past noon ; Captain O'Brien and his gallant comrades are posted near the railway arch which crosses the Bellevue Road in the vicinity of Manchester. The position taken up by the Irish is about three miles from the city, and about half a mile from the prison and within about seventy-five feet of the railway. There is a slight dip in the road as it passes under the arch. Captain O'Brien has, with the true instructs of a soldier, selected the very best position for the forthcoming attack. There is an anxious, expectant gaze in the eyes of these Irish guerrilla soldiers as they walk up and down, looking eagerly toward the city. But the humor of their race is now and then displayed in the merry badinage they give to each other. A vehicle is seen approaching rapidly and two men, signaling the Irish soldiers, are recognized by them as Boulger and Ryan. They drive away a little, get down, and dismiss their cab. They bring news that the prison van is approaching with eight policemen as additional guard, together with two cabs each containing four men. Sixteen of the enemy as additional protection. Captain O'Brien has walked up a little way to confer with a woman who has come with a mes- sage. The noise of wheels is heard, O'Brien takes his place, the men stand around in a determined attitude ready for any emergency. The prison van, drawn by galloping horses is seen coming toward them at a ter- rific pace ; behind in the turn of the road the two vehicles filled with British police are plainly visible. James Cahill, several paces to the front, in a loud voice calls out, " Halt ! pull up ! " The Briton who drives appears paralyzed ; he seems incapable of understanding. Cahill levels his revolver at the horses and one of the leaders is shot. Reddin and Boulger rush forward, and grasping the reins, hold the horses back on their haunches and the prison van comes to a stand. In the meanwhile the police on the top of the van and the driver quickly disappeared. They do not climb down, neither do they jump down ; they literally roll off the van in their fright. The two cabs stop quickly and their occupants jump out and all run toward the railway arch. They are quickly called to a halt by Thomas Boulger, who with leveled revolver emphasizes his com- mands. The sixteen policemen are now huddled together like frightened sheep under the railway arch ; two Irishmen are detailed to guard them. Oh, valiant John Bull ! and this is the race and these be the men, forsooth, who brag and bluster that they've beaten the world in arms ! O'Brien and his men now rush to the door of the prison van, which is assailed by every missile that the Irish can get, but the strong doors resist all efforts of the Irish to batter them down. By this time a British crowd of on- lookers arrived, who quickly grasp the situation, but hesitate before taking any action. These are soon recruited by others from the neighborhood and a large crowd is now collected. O'Brien quickly notices the increase of the British onlookers that may soon be possibly actors in this historic episode. Police Sergeant Brett, who is inside the van, has repeatedly refused to give up the keys. This brave man does his duty to his country fearlessly, the one bright spot in British cowardice on that celebrated day. Several voices shout out, " Break the lock with a bullet!" With this intention Peter Rice places his revolver to the keyhole and fires. Ser- geant Brett is looking through the key-hole and the bullet pierces his brain. Peter Rice, who fired this shot, was not aware of Brett's position at the keyhole. It was not to kill Brett, but to smash the lock, that Rice shot. Many writers and speakers, describing this famous rescue, take par- ticular pains to explain away the killing of Sergeant Brett by impressing on MANCHESTER RESCUE, SEPTEMBER, 1867. 161 their readers or hearers that it was the result of an accident and not pre- meditated. In a measure, so far as explained here, this was so. But that there was anything to explain away or apologize for in behalf of the Irish engaged is rank folly. These Irish Nationalists were prepared to kill every British guard present, or who might be sent there, if they could, or if it was necessary to accomplish their purpose. We deplore, as all Irish Nationalists do, the necessity forced on our people. But let the Briton look to it, all the blood shed in these guerrilla struggles, and all the deaths resulting from this cruel and bitter war rest upon his head. He wantonly commenced the invasion and he as ruthlessly is still carrying it on, and as sure as the sun shines in the firmament will the day of reckon- ing and the hour of retribution come upon him for his seven centuries of cruel persecution and bloody usurpation of the government of the Irish people. At the first sound of the shot a panic seizes the British crowd and they rush away in every direction. When Brett falls mortally wounded inside the van, a prisoner who was standing near him, an unfortunate woman, stooped in affright, and taking the keys from the prostrate police- man handed them through the wicket to the Irishmen outside. Quick as lightning the bolt of the lock is shot back and the van door is thrown wide open. O'Brien and Cahill call out to Colonel Kelly and Captain Dacey " Follow us quickly," and O'Brien orders all to retire. The Irish- men were under the impression that the prisoners were free when the van door was open. They were not familiar with the interior of these vehicles, which contained so many cells in each side in which the prisoners were securely locked. There were more prisoners upon this day than the cells could contain, and seeing prisoners standing around in the hurried glance they gave the Irish thought Kelly and Dacy were among the people who rushed to leave the van. Seeing the Irish retreat the British crowd, who had come to a halt after the first fright of the shot, now advanced more boldly toward the van. Even the frightened police mustered up courage to leave their place of refuge under the arch when their guard was withdrawn. O'Brien and Cahill look behind — they have gone some twenty or thirty yards from the van and Kelly and Dacy are not seen to follow. O'Brien calls a halt and the Irish prepare to return. This is indeed an exciting moment, and one well worthy the brush of a painter. The crowds are now nearing the van, some of them are between the Irish and the prison vehicle. With steady step and with leveled revolvers the Irish advance toward the van. These eleven men are now confronted by over a thousand British onlookers. There is a far-away look in O'Brien's eyes as he advances at the head of his men ; Cahill and Boulger, who come next, have a dangerous look in their eyes. They realize the situation and are prepared to overcome all opposition by the indomitable will of the unconquered Celt. These eleven humble men are transposed into heroes ; the rays of martyrdom surround two in that gallant band. The sorrows and agonies of their motherland fill them with superhuman courage. It is the moment of crucial test in the rescue. If the British advance by mere weight of numbers these devoted men will be over- borne and the day will be lost. There is a something in the eyes of these Irishmen that makes the Britons quail. Slowly but sullenly they fall back at the approach of the Irish. The panic that had seized them a moment ago is gone, they are recovering from their fright, but still hesitate to approach the Irish. O'Brien and his men now approach the van. They enter the vehicle and the unlocking of the cell doors is heard. A brawny Briton named Dixon now steps forward and addresses the mob, on the skirts of which are to be seen the police guard, who are even more timorous than the 162 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. people. Dixon's words of appeal to British courage is received with loud shouts of approval. Dixon shakes aloft a thick cudgel and advances, fol- lowed by the British, who now number fifteen or sixteen hundred people. Cahill and Boulger are standing a little way from the van with their backs to the vehicle, facing the crowd. A fierce light leaps from Cahill's eyes as Dixon harangues the mob ; Boulger also looks angry. They quickly walk toward the advancing foe. Cahill in a loud peremptory tone orders the British to retreat : the crowd is irresolute. Dixon turns and urges them, appealing to them as Englishmen ; quick as lightning Cahill levels his revolver and shoots Dixon in the thigh. With a scream of pain the Briton falls, and with a yell of fear the British run as swift as their feet can carry them. Two shots that are fired into the ground expedite if possible the fleeing mob. They are accompanied in their flight by the craven police guard. Oh, valiant and heroic Britons ! What a picture is this of your great chivalry ! Was there no Tennyson to sing or Froude to picture your gallant daring ? Eleven Irishmen in the heart of your own tight little Island breaks open your prison van, free their com- rades in spite of your sixteen police guards and several hundred of the bone and sinew of your citizens. All hail, gallant Irishmen ! Illustrious eleven, your action upon that day was far more daring than Tennyson's six hundred. It was no hairbrained piece of folly, like the much-vaunted charge ; but the well thought out, well executed work of daring men who succeeded in accomplishing their purpose. The British have now melted out of sight. Kelly and Dacy are freed. A shout of joy from the Irish informs the two statue-like sentinels, Cahill and Boulger, that success so far has crowned their efforts. Young Allen, who had borne himself manfully in the rescue, rushes to embrace Colonel Kelly, crying out, " Kelly, I would die for you." Were they words of presage ? Full well they were fulfilled, for the heroic boy soon after gave up his young life on the enemy's scaffold. The men soon scatter. Some accompany Captain Dacy, others go with Kelly. With the intention of disguising his friend Joseph Keely exchanges coats with Kelly. Colonel Kelly and his new companions hurry on toward Ashton, a suburb of Manchester. En route Keely procures a file with which he files Colonel Kelly's handcuffs apart, but although his hands were freed from the links which bound them together, he could not get the gyves off his wrist, as each was fastened firmly by a spring lock. He pulled down his cuffs as far as he could to conceal his bracelets. When Kelly's hands were freed from each other the whole party entered an inn, and after par- taking of some refreshments they separated. This was Colonel Kelly's suggestion, as there was a great possibility of recapture, and so many together might attract attention. Accompanied by Peter Ryan, who loyally remained by him, the colonel walked leisurely toward Ashton. His coolness, judgment, and self-possession on this occasion saved him from capture and possibly from death. By this time the news of the " Fenian " rescue, as it was called, spread like wildfire in all directions. It was such a daring act to attack a prison van in broad noonday and in the heart of the enemy's country that all sorts of exaggerated stories were circulated as to the numbers and ferocity of the atrocious Fenians. As Kelly and his friend walked toward Ashton in a leisurely, unconcerned manner, they saw before them, coming in their direction, two detectives who carefully scrutinized every pedestrian that passed. Colonel Kelly cautioned Ryan as he valued his liberty not to throw a single glance upon these detectives, but to look at his face. Kelly commenced the narration of some imaginary story, which he told with evident interest as the detectives came near. His coolness and sang fr oid satisfied the detectives, who glanced at them both and walked MANCHESTER RESCUE, SEPTEMBER, 1867. 163 by. A little further on there were two more of these officials, who, looking at the two men, crossed the road toward them. Colonel Kelly recommenced his story-telling, impressing on Ryan the necessity of not looking up or appearing to take any notice of the unwelcome officers ; one glance of an eye and they would be both arrested. The detectives, struck with their apparent unconcern, hesitated to accost them. They however followed, as if undecided. Kelly felt that affairs were growing critical with him. He turned a corner, shutting the enemy out of sight, and then said hurriedly to Peter, "We must separate. Have you any money?" "I have two shillings and some coppers," replied Ryan. "Well, I'll take one of the shillings." "You'll take them both," said Peter, handing Kelly the money. " Now," said he, " I will cross over to this shop to buy a pennyworth of putty, aud you can go off in another direction." As Kelly turned another corner he saw a shed in which he sought concealment behind some lines of clothing hanging out to dry. The detectives followed Ryan into the shop and arrested him. It was mere vague suspicion on their part ; a crowd gathered around the place, which convinced Kelly, who noticed the hurried movements of people passing by, that his friend was captured. At this moment a woman with a basket of washing entered the shed. She started as she saw Kelly, and in friendly tones told him to remain quiet, as his friend had been arrested across the next street. Kelly said he had been in a row and that it would ruin him to be taken prisoner, and asked this kindly disposed woman if she would give him shelter until the storm would blow over. After a moment's hesitation she consented, and Kelly entered her humble home, in which were a number of children belonging to his generous hostess. On looking round he recognized several religious and Irish national pictures on the walls, which revealed to him he was in the home of a country- woman. Colonel Kelly's position was a desperate one ; his life hung apparently on a slender thread. There was no alternative but to take this Irishwoman into his confidence. He did so, and found he was correct in his estimation of her character. When she discovered who her guest was she was filled with enthusiasm and anxiety ; and although his presence in her home if discovered would imperil her own and her husband's liberty, she was determined to do all that lay in her humble power to save him from his enemies. He asked her if she had a razor or a scissors by which he could remove his beard and alter his appearance. She had neither, but sent her daughter out to borrow a scissors from a neighbor, and with this Kelly clipped his beard as closely as possible. Then he gave his hostess one of his two shillings to purchase for him a cloth cap, such as mill-hands and factory workmen wear. This, when worn, as these people do, with the peak partly at the side of the face, and with his trimmed beard, made a metamorphose in his appearance. The proclamation and reward for the recapture of the rescued Irish officers described Colonel Kelly as wearing a deer-stalker's hat, and any wearers of that headgear in the neighborhood of Manchester found that an unpleasant day. Kelly remained under the shelter of his hostess' roof until the dusk of the evening, when this devoted Irishwoman, putting on her shawl, escorted her visitor to the highroad, where the omnibus for Manchester passed by. They passed police and detectives on the way who took no notice of them. Kelly looked a mill-hand to the life. As this generous-souled Irishwoman bade Kelly good-by, she told him that the police station was a little lower down the road and to be careful. Kelly, after parting with the friend who had so nobly sheltered him, thought that the passing omnibus might be searched when it came to the police station, and so walked on by that building. He was correct in his 164 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. surmise ; the omnibus was stopped at the police depot and the passengers examined ; an Irish laborer was arrested and taken out of the vehicle a prisoner. This was one of those stupid, haphazard arrests which British police always make when in a panic. Colonel Kelly stopped the omnibus a little lower down and climbed to his seat on the top of the vehicle. On-the route into town they halted at the inn where Kelly and his friends had stopped for refreshments in the morning. The landlord was standing outside the inn door, enter- taining a group of interested people with his adventure with the Fenians in the morning ; when the hue and cry was published the host of the inn recognized, or fancied he did, Colonel Kelly by his description. The omnibus driver and conductor listened, with open mouth, to the land- lord's grotesque and exaggerated account of a very simple incident, and all the time the jolly host was delighting his friends with a description of the appearance, sayings, and doings of his bloodthirsty visitors — as they were termed — Kelly was looking down on the group with apparent unconcern. When they reached Manchester, Kelly took another omni- bus and got safely home, where he had no fear he would be re-captured. Although all of the Gallant Eleven who took active part in the Man- chester rescue are worthy of honor from Irishmen for their conduct on this memorable day, there are three men through whose efforts more especially the affair was conducted to such remarkable success : Cap- tain Michael O'Brien by his leadership and brave conduct of the whole incident, and James Cahill and Thomas Boulger by their intrepidity and valor upon this occasion. Daniel Reddin must not be omitted. He was at this time a splendid specimen of an Irish athlete. The enemy turned him out of his dungeon a crippled, paralyzed, and decrepit man, who had to be wheeled about for the short time he lingered after his release. It would be a mercy to Irish prisoners of war if the enemy would shoot them, instead of the brutal, lingering death they torture them with. But their cruelty is quite in keeping with British courage. Captain O'Brien, who spent a few years in the United States army, was a gallant young soldier. His name is immortalized in the trinity of martyrs who died for Ireland on the enemy's gibbet. Michael O'Brien proved his devotion by his calm pure self-possession on the scaffold, and the few unknown words he spoke to his comrades Allen and Larkin consoled and cheered them during their last moments. As he came on the scaffold, he saw his youthful comrade pinioned; and raising Allen's cap he kissed him, whispering into his ear words of encouragement. Michael O'Brien died the representative of all that is heroic and godlike in human nature. Another Irish-American, whose life was spared by the British on account of his American citizenship, was Captain O'Meagher Condon. Although Captain Condon took no part in the rescue, his conduct in the dock should meet with the universal approval of Irish Nationalists. He will be remembered in Irish history as the man who first used the words " God save Ireland " in a British dock, which cry was taken up by his comrades near him, and which will remain indissolubly linked as the death slogan of the Manchester Martyrs. Colonel Kelly was residing in Manchester in safety. British gold could not purchase the secret of his retreat. At length a letter sent by Captain James Murphy from Paris gave Kelly the opportunity he so long desired to keep the police busy as to his whereabouts. Kelly knew that Captain Murphy's letter had been opened and that the chief of the police in Manchester held a copy of the letter. Opening letters passing through the mails is an everyday occurrence of the British when Irish Nationalists are sought after. Kelly sent a decoy letter to Captain Mur- phy to entrap the police chief, while he carried on his genuine correspon- MANCHESTER RESCUE, SEPTEMBER, 1867. 165 dence through another channel. Kelly mentioned a certain address where he was staying, and as he suspected the house was raided, and although searched from attic to cellar, the Irish colonel could not be found. Shortly after this Kelly sent Murphy another decoy letter, inform- ing the Captain that he had a very narrow escape from being captured by the police, mentioning the address to which he had allured them. He informed his correspondent that he had only left the house when the police arrived. This letter confirmed the police chief in his belief that he was near having Kelly in his clutches. The large reward offered, as well as the honor of re-arresting the celebrated Fenian chief, made this police officer extra vigilant to effect the capture of Kelly. He thought he had a certain channel to procure reliable information of Kelly's move- ments in his own correspondence with Captain Murphy in Paris. He boasted among his friends that he would have the Fenian under lock and key before many weeks were over. The papers at this time began to mysteriously hint at certain information that had reached the authorities about the Fenian officers. Even the London Times copied some of these. At length Kelly tried his grand ruse. He wrote to Murphy another decoy letter, telling him that he was now very comfortably situ- ated in Manchester, and that he was staying with a good friend, mention- ing the name of a well-to-do Irish merchant tailor. The man he spoke of was a sort of Provincialist-Irishman, a gentlemanly, nice fellow socially, but British politically. The chief of police was in ecstacies when he read Kelly's letter. A careful watch was set upon the suburban residence of this merchant to see that Kelly did not escape. The Mayor and several high officials were invited by this police officer to be present at the capture of the famous Irishman. A strong force of police was drawn up before the tailor's house. The Mayor and the other officials were present. The supposed residence of Kelly was raided. It was in vain that the owner protested, denying all knowledge of the Fenian colonel. The police chieftain knew better ; the house was searched inside and out ; drawers, beds, and bureaus ransacked ; every conceivable and inconceiv- able place that a man could be hid was searched in vain. Kelly was not to be found. With reluctance, chagrin, and humiliation the chief drew off his police force. The papers were filled with an account of this raid. Kelly seemed to bear a charmed life. The police officer was the butt for many jests among his friends for allowing the Fenian to dupe him. To add to his discomfiture, he got another of Kelly's decoy letters which informed Captain Murphy that there was some traitor giving him away in Manchester, that he just got word that the police were coming a moment or two before they arrived, or he would have been captured in his friend the tailor's house. Detectives were again put on this house, but the chief did not dare to raid the place a second time. Another letter of Kelly's informed him that he would leave for the United States, taking the steamer at Liverpool the following week. The chief of police conveyed his information to his Government. Liverpool was flooded with detectives ; unusual vigilance was noted in searching every steamer. The chief himself went down to assist in the search. The sup- posed residence of Kelly was carefully watched ; the weeks went by and no news of Kelly, and the expected capture did not come off. This failure annoyed the chief, and the jeers of his friends stung him to mad- ness, when one morning he received a letter from Colonel Kelly with the Liverpool post-mark, telling him that by the time he received that letter he, Kelly, would be on the Atlantic en route for America. He thanked the chief for his great attention and the polite interest he took in all his movements, and bade him a long good-by. This letter was too much for the chief ; he showed it to his friends and it made him the subject of 166 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. ridicule. The authorities could not believe the police chief did his duty intelligently ; they were annoyed at the news of Colonel Kelly's success in hoodwinking them by getting off from under their nose. The chief of police sent in his resignation, which was accepted. He was a sadder if not a wiser man by his encounter with Kelly. Manufactured reports of Kelly's arrival in the United States confirmed the bogus letter from Kelly. All extra vigilance ceased ; there was no necessity to look for the bird that had flown. Manchester became quiet after the restless fever of the past few months. But the bird had not flown ; Kelly was safe in Manchester ; the decoy letters had served their purpose, the coast was now clear, and one fine day in January, 1868, Kelly got away. His arrival was announced by the American press ; the British did not know what to think. They knew they were hoodwinked by the Irish colonel. As for the chief, when the real facts dawned upon him, he felt that Kelly had punished him for all his misdoings in connection with the recent trials and the forged and perjured testimony gotten up by him to procure conviction. Colonel Kelly proved himself to be one of the brainy men who were identified with the Irish struggle ; but alas for the folly and ruin of faction, which has been Ireland's curse in every generation, and which has often unconsciously transformed patriotic Irishmen, through passion and lack of judgment, into Ireland's enemies! Too often the wish to defeat an opposing interest or faction so animates them that they forget the common enemy altogether, and only think of overcoming the opposite party. These are men who would spurn British gold with loathing, yet from prejudice and bitterness do the enemy's work as effec- tively as if they were hirelings of the foe. Colonel Kelly was publicly insulted on a platform by men who knew not what they did, not to use a harsher term. The treatment of men who have been identified with Irish active work is one of the puzzles of Irish character. At first it is all sensation gush, and afterward it is cold neglect, if not animosity. Men of education and judgment like Colonel Kelly are too often cast aside for some worthless demagogue. Daniel Byrne, who manfully went through the rescue of Stephens and who refused to touch a penny as recompense, could not get any suitable employment when he came to America, and was compelled to enlist as a soldier. Irishmen too often love dead patriots and neglect living ones. When dead they may perhaps receive a grand funeral, as witness the circumstances in connection with John O'Mahony, so neglected previous to his death. And yet all this is complete want of thought, and not want of a kindly heart. Among the many romantic incidents during the Fenian epoch, was the escape of Captain Laurence O'Brien, of the 9th Conn. Vols., from Clonmel jail. Captain O'Brien was arrested, like a number of other Irish-American officers then in Ireland, under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. He went by the name of Osborne when in Ireland. He worked with patience at the bars of his cell until he got them so loosened that he could remove them. Fearing he would be removed from his cell he feigned to become sullen and refractory, and asked to be changed from the cell he was confined in ; as a punishment his request was refused. A rope was secretly conveyed into the prison, and with the aid of this he managed to effect his escape. After many adventures he reached Waterford and put himself in communication with the organiza- tion ; he was met by a boat and rowed safely across the river and kept in concealment until they got him off in a vessel to France. Captain O'Brien is a resident of New Haven, Conn., and one of the men who rowed him over the river is a gallant Irishman of the I. R. B., who was MANCHESTER RESCUE, SEPTEMBER, 1867. 167 engaged in many undertakings to serve his country. His name is O'Connell Harney, and he is now a resident of Brooklyn, N. Y. The explosion at Clerkenwell prison, London, so quickly following the Manchester rescue, set the English cities in a blaze of panic and excitement. This explosion took place to effect the rescue of Colonel Rickard O. S. Burke, who was imprisoned there. Colonel Burke, accom- panied by a young friend, a Mr. Joseph Casey, now of Paris, was arrested, and plans were laid for his rescue. The whole affair was under the direction of Captain James Murphy, an Irish-American officer. Among the prominent men connected with the undertaking were Michael Barrett, the brothers Desmond, Thomas Hamilton, now of Hartford, Conn., and Patrick Casey, now of Paris. Michael Barrett was captured, partly through his own want of caution, and suffered death upon the scaffold opposite the Old Bailey, London. Captain James Murphy and Patrick Casey escaped to France. Britain demanded their extradition from France. This the Empire refused, stating that they were Irish patriots carrying on war against their country's enemy, and as political refugees would find a secure asylum in France. Patrick Casey and his brave brothers, who afterward joined him in his exile, repaid this gallant nation for their shelter. When France was invaded and Paris surrounded by the German army, the four Casey brothers joined the French army and took part in the battles and sorties of that eventful winter. Three ot these gallant Irishmen were wounded during the siege. One, Andrew Casey, was seriously wounded fighting in the great sortie under General Ducrot, which was a stubborn and hotly contested struggle. It was thought by his comrades that Andrew Casey was mortally wounded at the time. He received the distinguished honor of receiving the Cross of the Legion of Honor for valor on the battlefield. With the military instincts of their race, these Irishmen distinguished themselves and were publicly complimented on parade. Such are the men that Britain seeks to hang or send to penal servitude. Two of the Casey brothers, Patrick and Joseph, still live at this time of writing in Paris. The other two lingered for a time after the close of the Franco-German war, but their wounds eventually carried them to the grave. Toward the close of this year, 1867, Corydon was brought to Dublin to give evidence against the Americans captured near Dungarvin, the men who had landed, as already narrated, from the Erin's Hope. When his presence in the city was discovered the Irish Nationalists tried to locate him, and succeeded in learning he was in Chancery Lane police office, the headquarters of the British detective system in Dublin. Edmond O'Donovan, who was then in the city, was consulted by some of the more daring spirits as to the best manner to get at Corydon. His base treachery had\ embittered every Irishman. The writer, who was closeted with O'Donovan on the evening of this proposed attack, has a vivid recollection of the feverish anxiety of the men who were aware of this new movement. All knew that Corydon was well guarded by the enemy, who, for their own prestige in Dublin, could not take any risks. The men who would undertake this affair must be men ready to meet almost certain capture, if not death. At that time there were a number of daring spirits in the city who, after the failure of the attempt to open a patriotic war, were keeping out of the way of the enemy's detectives pending their departure from their native land. Volunteers were quickly procured to make a raid on Chancery Lane station. Twenty-five men, all true and tried Nationalists, were selected to make this attack upon the enemy to get at Corydon and shoot him. To send more men would be to defeat the object aimed at, which was to get at the station before giving any alarm. The plan of attack was to set 168 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. ablaze the detective depot with Greek fire, a combustible then largely ilepended on as an auxiliary in guerrilla warfare among the Nation- alists. In the confusion caused by the fire the men were to enter the police office, shoot every man who offered resistance until Corydon was found and executed. The men who undertook this daring enterprise had all the necessary qualifications to succeed — audacity, courage, and cool determination. That some of them would be shot down by the enemy's detectives they expected, but they well knew the pusilanimity of these policemen, who, if once boldly and fiercely attacked, would look to their own safety and ignore Corydon's, whom they of course secretly despised and detested. The Briton had had plenty of experience this memorable year as to the daring and reckless action of Irishmen in the small incidents that swiftly followed each other in 1867. Never, of course, dreaming of so audacious an action as an attack upon the police depot in Chancery Lane, they nevertheless were prepared for all possible con- tingencies. As afterward learned by the Nationalists the soldiers in Ship Street barracks were under arms, and the sentries at the Castle gate not far away from Chancery Lane were doubled. They would have guarded Corydon by soldiers, but they did not wish to alarm the citizens by any outward precautions of an unusual nature. They wished the world to think that all seeds of opposition to their rule in Ireland were crushed out, hence they used the police force for what was actual military duty during Corydon's sojourn in Dublin. They placed a cordon of armed police all around the detective station, outwardly doing duty in the usual manner. This cordon of police extended to the quays in the vicinity of the police station ; an inner cordon of police guarded any possible outlet through which men with hostile intent might break. The Irish guerrilla soldiers who were to x make the attack this night would almost certainly have succeeded in getting to Chancery Lane station in spite of the enemy's precautions but for an unforseen incident which alarmed the city and placed the enemy on the quivive by an unmistakable event. The Irish soldiers who were to make this attack that night were ordered to come each man with a large bottle of Greek fire, in addition to his loaded revolver. This Greek fire was stored away in a place not far from Ballybough Bridge, a suburb of Dublin. The man in charge of this combustible was that night made the father of a newly born child, and in the anxiety of his family troubles he was near an hour late in keeping his appointment with the men. One of these Irishmen had a bottle of this Greek fire with a friend keeping for him. He appointed to meet some of the others at Grattan Bridge, which crosses the River Liffey a short distance from Chancery Lane. He arrived before any of the others came upon the scene ; under his arm carefully wrapped in paper was the Greek fire bottle, and in his coat pocket was his loaded revolver. He looked around, and seeing none of his friends, in a half irresolute manner was about to recross the bridge, when one of the enemy's police belonging to the outward cordon of armed men challenged the Irish Nationalist. The Irishman peremptorily ordered this challenger to retire, but the policeman, drawing his revolver, commanded the Nationalist to go with him as his prisoner to the station. The Irishman's answer was to shoot, which he did with deadly effect, and the British guardian fell mortally wounded on the sidewalk. The report of the weapon aroused the policeman's comrades, and those nearest ran toward the place where they heard the shot. The Irishman ran swiftly up one of the many streets leading to Dame Street, a leading and fashionable thoroughfare which approaches the Castle and Chancery Lane. As he crossed the side streets leading to Dame Street, he came upon the inner police cordon. The Irishman ran up against Sergeant Kelly, who, drawing his weapon, called If ^; CAPTAIN JAMES MURPHY, 28TH MASS. VOLS. Leader of the Clerkenwell rescue party, which resulted in the famous Clerkenwell explosion. COL. RICKARD O. S. BURKE, ENGINEERS, U. S. VOLS. In trying to effect his rescue from Clerkenwell prison the celebrated explosion took place. MANCHESTER RESCUE, SEPTEMBER, 1867. 169 the flying man to halt. The Irish guerrilla heeded not the summons but flew by the police sergeant. Kelly fired, but his shot took no effect. The Irishman came to a halt, turned swiftly around and replied to his foe- man's shot, and he did so with unerring aim ; the bullet entered Kelly's stomach and he fell apparently dead upon the street. The street where Kelly was shot is an unfrequented place at nightfall and the flying Irish- man quickly disappeared. The result of these shots was to alarm the city in the neighborhood of the Castle. The enemy was fully on the alert, and by the time the men came up after their unexpected delay they were told by an Irish scout that they had best retire for that night, for although they might fight their way successfully to Chancery Lane, the chances were that Corydon had been removed. The Irishmen were reluctantly compelled to go to their various abodes. The Fenian who shot the two policemen succeeded in getting to the house where he boarded without any other encounter with the enemy's police. He threw the bot- tle of Greek fire into a sewer, where it burned itself away. When he came upstairs he asked permission of his landlady to see her daughter for a moment. This young woman was an ardent Nationalist, and frequently helped the men in carrying or secreting anything they would not wish the enemy's myrmidoms to see. He was told that the young girl had retired for the night. " I must see her," he replied ; " this is no time to stand on ceremony." The young woman, hearing his voice, hurriedly wrapped her- self in a cloak and came out. When he saw her he handed her his revolver, two of the chambers of which were empty, and said quickly, " Take care of this for me." Changing his muddy shoes for another pair which he placed beside his bed he undressed and lay down. The young woman took the revolver and hid it in a small clothes closet which was off her bedroom ; a part of the flooring was broken, in this aperture she threw the revolver, and over it she placed her hoopskirts, then worn. A few minutes after the house was visited by a number of police. It was a boarding- house, and most of the lodgers were members of the National organization, but with the exception of the late comer none of them were aware of the projected attack on Corydon. The police had no special suspicion of this house, but called at all suspected houses where lodgers were kept and where well-known Nationalists resided. They searched the house thoroughly, examined the men's shoes and clothing, but they found noth- ing that appeared suspicious in their estimation. The women's rooms were likewise searched — the beds, closets, and in fact they looked every- where for any concealed arms. When they entered the closet where the revolver lay hid the young woman felt very anxious ; one of them kicking against the steels of the hoop petticoat said, " We had better not disturb the hoops anyway." They retired after their unprofitable search to pay another midnight visit elsewhere. Next morning Mrs. Captain Kirwan (the wife of the celebrated Irish Nationalist already written of in this his- ory), was surprised at an unusual early visit from the young Irishwoman who had charge of the fatal revolver the night before. She handed Mrs. Kirwan the revolver, saying, " Keep that for me until this evening, when I will call for it." The young woman had left the house but a few minutes when the police paid Mrs. Kirwan a visit. She hurriedly secreted the revolver on her person when the officials entered her room. There was the usual questions, and the place was searched with no results. That evening the young woman called, and, accompanied by Mrs. Kirwan, visited a house where the revolver was placed in safe keeping. It may be stated here that among the band of noble and devoted women who were trying to serve their country at this epoch, Mrs. John Kirwan was first among the first. During the long period when her husband was quickly chang- ing his abode and his place of hiding to avoid the enemy capturing him 170 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. and still determined to remain near for the fight, Mrs. Kirvvan aided in every way she could the work of Ireland's redemption ; carrying on a business which fortunately made her independent of her husband's shat- tered fortunes, her purse was always at the disposal of her suffering fellow countrywomen whose husbands were either in hiding or in the dungeons of the foe. On one occasion she carried a number of arms to the west of Ireland. The noble-hearted Edward Duffey was then in charge in Dub- lin ; as no convenient messenger could be had at the time who could travel to the west without certain capture, this heroic Irishwoman volun- teered her services and carried out her mission successfully. The day after the shooting of Policeman McKenna and Sergeant Kelly there was renewed excitement in Dublin and over the country. All kind of conjectures were hazarded as to the meaning of this shooting, but the newspapers and general public were all astray. Policeman McKenna got a grand public funeral from his comrades and the British sympathizers. Sergeant Kelly's life was saved by the wonderful skill of Sergeant Butcher of Dublin, who cut the bullet out of his stomach. Corydon was placed in a more secure residence, the enemy suspecting the meaning of the shots fired the preceding night. Several arrests were made over the country by the usual blundering police of the enemy, but with no results. This is the first time that the actual facts of that night's shooting affray has been given to the world. Among the many grand and noble characters enrolled in the National organization at this epoch was Edmond O'Donovan, whose name has already appeared in this history. The writer knew him first when quite a boy at the school of Military Engineers. He was the second son of John O'Donovan, the famous Irish scholar and one of the great Irish writers of the last generation. EdmOnd was the brilliant scion of a bril- liant family. His life was very adventurous and his death tragic. Edmond O'Donovan drilled the men and taught musketry classes throughout the country. On one occasion, to escape pursuit, he swam across the Shannon, and knowing there was a small constabulary station near, garrisoned by a few men, he made for it as a haven of refuge. These constabulary men were Fenians, a very rare circumstance, for the police were dangerous men to approach with revolutionary doctrines, but the brother of one man and the cousins of the others brought them into the Irish National ranks. They knew O'Donovan and he knew them. Going out on patrol they brought Edmond O'Donovan with them. They guided him to an illicit still, and in the company of the proprietor, also a Fenian, he was left. When they thought all safe they returned. O'Donovan described the scene as truly ludicrous to hear her British Majesty's guardians of the peace singing " The Green above the Red " in a shebeen house. These men soon after emigrated to this country. Mr. O'Donovan served in the French army during the Franco-German war. Mr. Lysaght Finnegan (member of Parliament afterward) served in the same regiment. They were both made prisoners of war at Orleans, after their regiment was nearly decimated during the three days' battles which preceded the first capture of that city by the Germans. Mr. O'Donovan afterward, as war correspondent, went through the Carlist campaign in Spain. During the Montenegrin war he was on Mouktar Pasha's staff. The Turkish commander entertained a sincere friendship for the Irish journalist. He afterward followed the fortunes of the Turkish army in Asia during the Russo-Turkish war as war corre- spondent of the London Daily News. He was supposed to be a non- combatant, but his instincts led him into many a wild adventure. One night during the Montenegrin campaign, after dining in the commanding officer's tent, he strayed away from his companions, listlessly smoking a INSCRIPTION AND AUTOGRAPH OF E. o'DONOVAN. Written by him on the back of the photograph, and presented to Mrs. P. J. P. Tynan. EDMOND O DONOVAN IN HIS ROBES AS KHAN OF, MERV. From a photograph taken in Constantinople in 1881. MANCHESTER RESCUE, SEPTEMBER, 1867. 171 a cigar. He took no notice of his route or the time, when to nis horror he found he had strayed near a Montenegrin outpost. The mountaineer sentinel challenged. He was now in an awkward predicament, as he expressed afterward when telling the story. The smallest honors the Montenegrins would have paid him would be either to cut off his ears or slit his nose, or perhaps both. The night was fortunately dark and he hastened back, making the least possible noise. The Montenegrin quickly followed his retreating footsteps. O'Donovan sought refuge in a thicket. The sentinel thought he was disturbed by a wild boar and thrust his rifle and sword bayonet into the bush. The steel passed unpleasantly near the Irishman's face. Driven to bay O'Donovan drew his revolver, and, firing at the soldier, quickly ran toward the Turkish line. In his eagerness and excitement he rushed into the Danube and was pulled out by the alarmed Turkish patrol, who were on the alert at the sound of O'Donovan's shot. He was marched before his friend the commander-in-chief. When the general and his staff saw the journalist's unlucky plight they laughed. O'Donovan's adventure was a standing joke against him for some time. After the defeat of the Turkish Army by the Russians at the battle of Aladja Dagh, O'Donovan was carried along with the Turkish fugitives, the demoralized crowd of a beaten army ; they sought refuge in the then Turkish fortress of Kars. An irate Ottoman commander thought to bar O'Donovan's entrance with the army. The Irishman's blood was up and he would take no refusal. The Turk fired on him and the bullet whistled unpleasantly near O'Donovan's head ; the Irishman made a passi of his sword at the enraged Mahommedan, which inflicted a slight flesh wound in the soldier's arm as some of Moukthar Pasha's staff coming up partly struck aside O'Donovan's blow, and made matters all right between the combat- ants. To relate the career of this adventurous Irishman would fill an interesting volume. At the close of the Russo-Turkish war, O'Donovan followed the fortunes of the Russian army of invasion in Central Asia. He arrived there shortly after the Russian defeat at Geok Tepe ; he remained with them until the death of General Lazareff, their commander. The new general who succeeded, General Tergukasoff, ordered him to quit the Russian lines, as instructions from St. Petersburg forbade any corre- spondents to follow the army. When in Persia O'Donovan learned that the gallant General Skobeloff, the young Bayard of the Russian army, was appointed to take command of the Central Asiatic troops. The Irishman, who knew him personally, thought he would succeed in getting permission to join the Russian army. He was particularly anxious, as he knew Skobeloff's presence meant fighting. He sent this telegram from Teheran to the Russian General : " Son excellence le General Sko- beloff a Baku : Voulez-vous me permettre accompagner l'expedition de Tchikislar comme correspondent du Daily Neivs de Londres ? " In two days he received this reply. " O'Donovan, Teheran : Ayant les ordres les plus positifs de ne pas permettre a. aucun correspondent, ni Russe, ni etranger, d'accompagner l'expedition, il me'est a. grand regret impossible d'obtemperer a votre demand. — Skobeloff." On the receipt of this decisive refusal Mr. O'Donovan sent a tele- graphic message to the Russian commander, thanking him for the prompt courtesy of his reply and concluding with the words : " Au revoir a Merv." He knew the objective point of the Russian campaign, and he was deter- mined to arrive in Merv before the soldiers of the Great White Czar. His ride through the desert and his arrival at the Akhal Tekke capital was a marvelous feat of daring and endurance. He was at once made a prisoner by the Turcomans, who were astounded to see what they con- sidered a White Russian in their midst without any followers but a single 172 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. servant. The Turcomans think all the inhabitants of the world outside of their own tribes are Russians. They class these as white and black. The Black Russian is an Englishman, whom they confuse with the natives of India, as a Turcoman chief could not be made to understand that Britain is an island far away. He was the first and only white man that entered Merv since its occupation by the tribe of Akhal Tekke Tur- comans until the Russian invasion. This daring adventure nearly cost him his life. He was under sentence of death, but his brave and manly demeanor and his superior intelligence won the Turcoman chieftains ; he could speak their language and communicated to them strange stories of people they had never heard of. And then he was a soldier ; this decided them. They elevated him from being a prisoner to the rather strange position of being one of their chiefs. As Khan of Merv he had a special flag, and was supposed to be happy for the rest of his life as an Akhal Tekke\ He influenced them to send him as an ambassador to Britain to plead their cause against the White Russian Czar, of whom they are now such devoted subjects and faithful soldiers. He was escorted to the Persian frontier and as Ambassadeur de Merv came to London. Here the writer renewed the friendship of early Irish Revolutionary days, and was pleased to find Edmond O'Donovan as faithful an Irish Nationalist as in their class days, twenty years gone by. He stopped at home for nearly one year, during which period he pub- lished a volume of Eastern travels, and after his prolonged stay, sailed for Egypt as Daily News correspondent, taking with him as secretary Frank Power, who as Times correspondent at Khartoum was known to most readers. Power was afterward killed by the Arabs, in company with Colonel Stewart, in their vain attempt to escape down the Nile. Edmond O'Donovan accompanied the fatal expedition under Hicks Pasha as correspondent, every one of whom were slain by the Soudanese, who enticed them into an ambush and destroyed Britain's advanced post. Thus perished this gallant and patriotic Irishman in the stranger's cause. His devotion to Irish independence never waned. Edmond O'Donovan remained a believer in making war on England in any manner feasible as the only hope for Irish freedom. From such like gallant spirits were the I. R. B. recruited. Miss Butler (in whose mother's home Stephens was left after his escape from Kilmainham) and her friend Miss Walsh made occasional visits to Paris for Stephens and Kelly. Miss Butler, after her mother's death, married Mr. Thomas Francis McCarthy, one of the editors of The Irish- man, who died a few years afterward. When last heard from she resided in Italy with some lady friend. She was a devoted and patriotic gentlewoman, who deserves happiness and prosperity. Miss Cecilia Walsh's keen satire and brilliant repartee often entertained her brother's friends. Among these were many of the would-be members of the Irish aristocracy. In social talk on art, public men, and society she often sur- prised these visitors at the varied fund of information she was possessed of. Edmond O'Donovan used to call her "Our Queen." To her friends she was a lovable, loyal, and affectionate girl. Ireland, in her generations of patriotic women, had no truer or more faithful daughter ; she was one who dared many risks in her country's cause. She fell a victim to that dread disease consumption, and the fading pinched face but still sparkling eyes, tried to call up a smile of welcome to the few friends who then visited them. The dashing crowd of Irish patriots who made Nicholas Walsh's studio and his mother's drawing room ring with their merry laughter — for that house was oft the home of the Irish revolutionary soldier — were **1 r " 1 " •-« -T- r? ^ d> nf Tifc: * •- zr V P n n> ■__ — d o ~ — o fl o P 5' r > 5' § n 2 C/3 3 w "■ i-i > -> p re r w *«5 w p W ITq P- > n H MANCHESTER RESCUE, SEPTEMBER, 1867. 173* either in prison, dead, or exiled. None of that gay, merry circle was then left in Dublin. The writer was the solitary Irish Nationalist at her simple funeral ; her remains rest in Glasnevin. If Ireland ever takes her rightful place among the nations, Cecilia Walsh's name should be inscribed upon the roll of the patriotic daughters of that struggling land. James Stephens, the organizer of the great Irish movement for liberty, and the unconscious destroyer of the edifice he helped to erect, was a very winning and charming man when he chose to exercise these gifts. He was spoiled in his estimation of himself by the adulation of humble although honest men, who looked upon him as a demi-god, and the secrecy that was necessary to keep around him gave him an exaggerated importance in the eyes of able men who never came in contact with him. The writer, who knew him, remembers meeting him on a certain interesting occasion. It was the night that by his orders the Provincialist meeting in the Rotunda was broken up — an act of unpardonable intoler- ance. There were Nationalists enough in Dublin to have gotten up a gigantic counter demonstration, and by intelligent addresses from the platform shown to their countrymen where the Provincialist programme was both destructive to national life and was actually helping the enemy to keep them enslaved. But smashing a meeting convinces nobody and increases an unnecessary bitterness and antagonism between Irishmen. Crossing over from the Rotunda with a friend still living in Dublin, we met James Stephens standing on the footway. After the usual words of greeting we adjourned to a neighboring house. On being asked why this intolerant act of upsetting a meeting was ordered, Mr. Stephens told the writer in sauve and persuasive tones that the men in America would not believe Irishmen at home were Nationalists if a public meeting of agitators were permitted to be held undisturbed in Dublin. George Hopper, Stephens' brother-in-law (who some time after pleaded guilty in a cowardly manner) at this juncture entered the room where we were seated. He told theC. O. I. R. very excitedly that the meeting had been broken up in disorder. Stephens' words and manner showed his elation and joy at the news ; no commander after a victory could be more over- joyed than the CO. I. R. appeared when told of this suppressed meeting. Irish Provincialists, when talking of this Fenian epoch, will say that force has been tried and found to fail. They offer this as an excuse for their inane folly in pursuing a career of agitation. The actual facts point the other way. Force has not been tried. Organization, a certain preparation and agitation to bring about the use of force, has been tried. But, unfortunately, since '98 Irish movements have always stopped short at putting into application the powerful structure which was built up with such labor and anxiety. When the organization was ready to fight it was stopped from doing that for which it was constructed. Ireland was ready to smash the enemy in September, 1865. The organ- ization was kept back from doing the duty it was created for, and the machinery went out of gear and eventually went to pieces to reveal to the enemy the powerful engine which might, and possibly would, have destroyed his tyranny in Ireland. It certainly would have strained his resources to destroy it, and would have cost him blood and treasure that could have made his repossession of the island a serious undertaking. _ Ireland for some years past has been wavering between two policies, agitating and building up revolutionary movements, to let the enemy suppress them without taking the field or beginning a genuine military campaign. These preparations that stop short of fight are then followed by a career of Provincial whining and begging from the enemy, and end 174 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. by the leaders, after squandering immense sums of their generous coun- trymen's contributions, joining one of the enemy's factions and becoming British politicians. As long as they can get dupes to contribute money to keep up the farce they will parade their false sentiments before their countrymen. Many of these Provincialists were honest and well-meaning when they began. Perhaps some few of them cling to this folly with pure motives. But to the great majority it is, as John Mitchell termed it, one of the most powerful means ever used by mankind since man first tried to get money from his fellow-man under false pretenses. Such is the finality of all Provincial movements. They could not be honest, for their very foundation is false. Nationalists, if they begin and use force, and persevere in action and not perpetual preparation for action, will, if earnest and energetic, with all the splendid valor of the Irish race, free their land from bondage, as the Boers and the American colonists did. The task is not impossible, although very difficult. The attempt to regenerate a people who have been long weighed down by tyranny and exposed to the influence of a corrupt and demoralizing foreign govern- ment, is a task of infinite difficulty, and must ever encounter obstacles almost insurmountable. The Italians and the Greeks suffered all this bondage and degrada- tion. By force they eventually succeeded ; by force Ireland can succeed if she will. It is for her sons to answer : Will they become freemen or remain an enslaved people ? The answer must be deeds, not words. CHAPTER XII. (1875-76-) HISTORY OF THE " CATALPA " RESCUE — THE TWO EXPEDITIONS — IRISH- AMERICAN AND NORTH OF ENGLAND. Organizing British Soldiers in the I. R. B. Ranks — Patrick O'Leary, Military Organizer — Pagan O'Leary's Eccentricities — The Beggar's Religion — The Robber's Religion — Effect of the I. R. B. Movement upon the Military — Color Sergeant McCarthy — John Boyle O'Reilly — Wm. Roantree Appointed Military Organizer — Roantree's Career — John Devoy Appointed — Arrests of the Military — Gunner Flood in the Barrack Square — Flogging a Soldier — ' ' Three Cheers for the Irish Republic, " — Captain O'Con- nell and the Fenian Soldier — John Breslin Reaches San Francisco — He is Joined by Thomas Desmond — They Leave for Australia — Arrival at Freemantle — Desmond Leaves for Perth — John Breslin at Emerald Isle Hotel — Opening Communications with the Prisoners — Arrival of John King — North of England Expedition — Arrival of John Walsh and D. F. McCarthy — Breslin's Alarm — He Thinks they are Dublin Detectives — Movements Watched — In Communication with Prisoners — Breslin's Message — Meetings — Mutual Explanation — CatalpaoR. Bunbury — Breslin and Cap- tain Anthony — Arrival of Tom Brennan — Delays in Starting — The Gunboat Conflict — Easter Monday's Departure — Drive to Rockingham Beach — Walsh and McCarthy — Midnight Ride to Cut the Wires — The Phantom Ship — The Phantom Boat — Cruise of Steamer Georgette — Race for the Catalpa — The Police Boat — Safe on Board — Head Winds — Cannot Double Cape Naturaliste — Compelled to Sail Back Toward Freemantle — Georgette Full of Armed Men — Cannon Loaded — Artillerymen at the Guns — Pursuit — Shot across Catalpa s Bows — Soldiers and Sailors Armed for Fight — Demand for Surrender — Stern Refusal — The Stars and Stripes — "That Flag Pro- tects Me, I am on the High Seas" — " Fire on Me and you Fire on the American Flag " — The Catalpa Tacks — Georgette Steams in her Wake — Bon Voyage — Exciting Scenes on Shore — Walsh and McCarthy Anxiously View the Departure — Freemantle Papers on the Escape — Lesson of the Catalpa Rescue. In writing the history of the Australian rescue a sketch of the revolu- tionary organization in the ranks of the British Army will be a necessary preface. Many who have been identified with Irish affairs are familiar with the details of this famous rescue, but there are a number of young Irishmen of the rising generation whom this event may not only interest, but ought also to strengthen their confidence in one another. This expedition teaches us how faithful and secretive — when secrecy during action is necessary — Irishmen can be ; for this Australian rescue was known as a forthcoming event among Irish circles all over the United States and ia Australia long before the men who accomplished the rescue arrived at the scene of operations. The Irishmen at home were also cognizant of the attempt at rescue about to be made from their side, for there were two distinct expeditions which at almost the same time were leaving from widely separated countries to try to effect the same object, each acting independent of the other ; neither were aware of their kindred Nationalists' action until they met at Freemantle, the scene of the rescue. The ubiquitous Gael — what an important factor toward human happi- ness he could make, with his noble aspirations and fine intelligent sentiments, with all the solidity of the Teuton and the fiery dash of the Gaul, and with all the artistic taste for beauty, culture, and music that belong to the refined of the Italian and other Latin races ! Alas ! under generations of slavery and false teaching, how many of them become the antithesis to what nature intended them to be ! 175 17 6 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. We have already referred to the valuable aid which the Irish soldiers in the enemy's ranks were prepared to give to their motherland in the event of the C. O. I. R. ordering the revolutionary organization to take the field for establishing in Ireland an independent republic. The Military Council's plan of capturing the Pigeon House Fort, with its large store of arms, would never have been prepared and submitted to the Dublin centres and also to the other skilled officers then in Ireland, but for the knowledge that they possessed inside the enemy's ranks men able and willing to further any and every enterprise undertaken to place their country in her rightful position among the nations of the earth. Few could calculate the invaluable service these men could and would render the cause of Irish independence. They had been the back- bone of the National organization from Waterloo until Catholic emanci- pation disarmed their resentment. Then they were falsely taught that Ireland was emancipated because the Catholics were permitted to enjoy their religion undisturbed. James Stephens and those who worked with him, in organizing the people at home for the purpose of fighting for independence, did not neglect the important feature of bringing the Irish soldiers in Britain's service into the I. R. B. — or Irish Republican Brotherhood. At that time the British Army was recruited by Irishmen much more than it is to-day. It was one of the resources for the young men who could not find employment at home, and valiantly they served the flag that was the emblem of destruction to their kith and kin. Wherever the British drumbeat sounds and wherever her ensign floats, it is a melan- choly fact for Irishmen to reflect upon, that the bones of the Irish soldier, who died in the service of his country's enemy, are to be found. Their desperate valor forms part of their foeman's history ; from Badajoz to Waterloo, from Alma to the assault on the Redan, from Cawnpore to Delhi, Irish blood flowed freely to sustain the banner of the plundering Briton ; and as they have robbed us of our poets, musicians, painters, and sculptors, and call them English, so have they robbed Ireland of the splendid valor of her sons ; that blood which might have been shed in the service of the Green Isle has been poured out like water in the ranks of the British in their many raids for territory and in their greed for gold. The British soldier at that period enlisted for twelve years, and to entitle the soldier to a pension, he had to re-enlist for nine years longer, thus giving up to the English twenty-one years of the best period of his manhood. Discipline was then enforced by flogging, and the life of a British soldier was very little better than slavery. The regiments that were then garrisoning Ireland were filled with Irish soldiers ; even the High- land regiments, that are supposed to be Scottish, had a great number of Irishmen in their ranks. In a very short time the regiments were filled with a nucleus of I. R. B. men, who in turn organized each other inside. This was done both by the first organizer and the soldiers in such a way that it is a wonder that the British did not learn of it much earlier than they did. This body of men were magnificent fighting material, and among the non-commissioned officers were soldiers of ability and skill more competent to command men in action than the British officers, who purchased their commissions and gave very little study to the profession of arms. From this organization Ireland could have obtained splendid officers to command and lead her insurgent army ; numbers of these men had seen service. Very few of the non-commissioned officers were arrested during Britain's panic, when she discovered how deeply Irish Nationalists had permeated her military. Whole regiments were quickly dispatched on foreign service ; she did not dare to probe too deeply, for fear of JOHN BRESLIN. Leader of the Catalpa rescue party. HISTORY OF THE " CATALPA '* RESCUE. 177 demoralizing her army. Among the brave men whose names became prominent at that time was Color Sergeant McCarthy, a man who had served England most valiantly throughout the Indian mutiny. He was wounded and promoted for bravery on the field. They afterward treated him so hellishly in prison that he died a few days after his liberation. Another prominent name among these Irish soldiers is that of John Boyle O'Reilly, the patriot poet and editor of the Boston Pilot, then serving as a private trooper in the 10th Hussars, one of the British cavalry regi- ments garrisoning Dublin ; and another trooper of the same regiment, William McCabe, now of New York City. In every regiment there was an I. R. B. centre ; the Pagan O'Leary was first head centre for the military, reporting to Stephens direct. Irish- men look back upon this period with sorrow and pain. It was almost an unpardonable offense the way these brave men were betrayed. Their only object was fight, and every chance that could possibly favor Irish revolution was in favor of Ireland if she only took the field. As far back as 1862 the regiments in Ireland were full of I. R. B. men. In 1864, when England was pledged under Lord Palmerston to defend the integrity of little Denmark against Austria and Prussia, and when she in a cowardly manner deserted her plucky little ally, and slunk from facing European troops, Ireland was promised by Stephens, in the event of England taking the field in Denmark, that he would begin the insurrection. If this event had occurred it would have been like all his promises of this nature — Ireland's great organizer had no courage to fight. The man whom Stephens selected to take charge of the army organi- zation as head centre was a man completely unfitted for the position ; a man without any solidity of character. Mr. Patrick O'Leary — known as Pagan O'Leary, who classified Christian faith with the terms "Robber's and Beggar's Religion," was a most eccentric character and considered by many not perfectly sane. He neither drank tea, coffee, beer, wine, nor any stimulants ; neither did he use tobacco in any form, because he said they all paid duties to the British Crown. He'styled himself an ancient Milesian pagan, hence the name he went by. Had he remained long in connection with the military organization, the probabilities are that he would have through his indiscretions caused some important arrests, and but for the ability of the man who succeeded him and the perfection of the internal regimental organization, matters would have been in chaos. Pagan O'Leary was sent with letters of introduction to some non- commissioned officers belonging to the Athlone garrison. At this time so loosely did he transact his business that the enemy's detectives began to suspect him ; instead of obeying his instructions and delivering his letters, he met three boy recruits and commenced tampering with them. One of them went out and had the Pagan arrested, who gave the name of John Murphy. The letters were got on him, which was an additional expose, but they were so worded they gave no important clew ; these, with the evidence of the recruits, convicted him. The Pagan, through his own reckless conduct, fell into the hands of the enemy and was sent to penal servitude. The man who succeeded him in the dangerous position of military head centre was Wiliiam F. Roantree. He was a man of a totally differ- ent class from the Pagan. Mr. Roantree had had an adventurous life, he was born in County Kildare and was one of a number of brothers ; strong, stalwart Irishmen. In early life the spirit of adventure took pos- session of him ; he traveled in many countries, and was one of General Walker's soldiers on his raid into Central America. Mr. Roantree joined the organization at an early date in its existence ; Stephens looked upon him as one of his most valuable men and intrusted him with impor- 178 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. tant missions from Ireland to America. When John O'Mahony's remains left America for Ireland, Mr. Roantree was the man selected by the Irish-Americans to escort the dead leader's body to Glasnevin. After the Pagan's arrest and Mr. Roantree's appointment to the post of military centre he made a great many important changes and left the military circles of the I. R. B. in a perfect condition to his successor. Mr. Roan- tree was arrested at the seizure of the Irish People, as has been related. William Roantree was succeeded by a young man named John Devoy. In the light of his subsequent unhappy conduct, it must be said that he carried out his duties faithfully and with patriotism. In February, 1866, with a number of others, Devoy was made prisoner by the enemy. But, unfortunately, when placed in the dock, he acted as George Hopper did, who had been so condemned for his conduct as little short of treason. John Devoy pleaded guilty, thereby casting a stain upon himself, his comrades, and the sacred cause of Ireland by imputing to the holy struggle for Irish freedom the stigma of guilt. This plea of guilty in the enemy's dock must also be characterized as the action of a coward, as the only reason that can be urged for it is the selfish one of reducing the punishment which the foeman accords to those who stultify their previous patriotic cause by casting a foul stain upon their motives. It has been often truly said that arrest by the enemy and subsequent imprisonment is not always proof of heroic patriotism ; there have been some instances where worthless men were sent to prison by the enemy in his blind stupidity, and many of these " suspects" traded on the ephem- eral glory, men who never struck a blow against the foe, but who paraded in free America as very terrible people when in Ireland. There have been numbers of men who have endeavored to serve their country by making war on the foe and who have been successful in eluding his myrmidons ; men who have never been in prison in spite of all the enemy's endeavors. The gallant Captain John Kirwan is a representa- tive of this class. When the British continued making arrests, during the time of Stephens' cowardly and supine inaction, some inroads were made upon the mili- tary ; flogging, imprisonment, and penal servitude followed as a matter of course. One prisoner, an artilleryman, Gunner Flood, was flogged in the presence of his regiment drawn up on parade, many of whom were waiting for the signal of insurrection — that signal which never came — as they stood drawn up around the place of torture, witnessing their comrade's degrading punishment, standing as immovable as custom and discipline required. But a flash of sympathy came from every eye as the bleeding soldier, pulling his tunic over the raw, bruised flesh of his cor- duroyed shoulder, stood up with unconquerable determination and called out fiercely, " Three Cheers for the Irish Republic ! Down with British rule in Ireland ! " The cry met many a responsive thrill in the hearts of the men who were standing in that barrack square ; even then they believed fight was in the air, and in the field they expected to resent the injuries on Ireland's enemy that they were daily enduring. Toward the close of 1865 Captain Underwood O'Connell, who was sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude, and who shared the feelings of all the men at the time, shouted fiercely in the dock when sentenced : " There will be an exchange of prisoners before half that time." He was sent as a convict to Mountjoy prison, Dublin. One day, when he was walking in the ring doing his hour's exercise, he noticed the sentry on duty belonging to the British military guard inside the prison look at him earnestly, and seemed anxious to speak to him. The soldier's patrol was in a straight line at right angles to the prisoner's recreation ring ; every five or six minutes touching the circle and returning on his march, O'Con- JOHN BOYLE O REILLY. From a photograph taken immediately after his escape from Australia. HISTORY OF THE " CATALPA " RESCUE. 179 nell altered his movements until the sentry and himself reached the angle at the same instant of time, when the soldier, whose eyes beamed with joy at some good news he had heard, hurriedly whispered, " Cheer up, Captain, we will soon fight and we'll have you out," and the sentry pursued his march of duty. It was a ray of hope to the Irish convict, never, alas ! to be realized. There can be no excuse offered for the black treason done these soldiers and Irish independence by Stephens and his kindred cowardly imbeciles. The British began to realize that their army was honeycombed with Irish National sentiments, and arrests would be useless ; the Irish gar- rison was changed as rapidly as possible. A number of the convicted military prisoners, after being confined for some years in England's penal dungeons, were sent to Western Australia, where Britain considered they would be safer than in England, and save her from the necessity of continually keeping special guard over the prisons where they were confined. Their sentences were for life, and there was little hope that any British government would release these soldier prisoners. The Irish revolutionists at this period had been taught by their leaders to prepare and wait for the time to come to fight England, it never occurring to the powerful intellects guiding the movement that it was their duty to make this time, while they were waiting for Providence by special dispensation to create for them the time for doing what they were organized for. It occurred to the leaders of the Irish- American branch of the revolutionary movement that the rescue of these soldier prisoners would be an admirable and worthy act, and would be calculated to confer as much eclat upon the Irish cause as a blow dealt to the enemy. They were correct in their surmise, for so peculiarly taught have been the Irish people for generations as to the manner of combating their foe, that they looked upon this rescue as of some importance in their fight with the British. An incident, daring and full of prestige as it was, it had no bearing upon the old struggle and could produce no results. To divert the national mind from the real revolutionary object by organ- izing a movement especially for the rescue of political prisoners, and subordinating everything to that aim, is hardly the way to secure the freedom of Ireland. A silent, deadly blow dealt against the foe would not have any such appearance of work in their eyes as the showy glitter attached to this action, really brave but barren of results. The organization, having decided on the rescue, began with com- mendable energy to put the work into execution, showing what they could do, if they intelligently tried, in another field. The bark Catalpa was purchased, its nominal owner being Mr. James Reynolds of New Haven, a patriotic Irishman, who, with several other leaders, spared no labor to bring the projected expedition to a successful finish. John W. Goff, a young lawyer, was most prompt in collecting money and urging on the expedi- tion. She was sent on a whaling expedition from New Bedford, Mass. She was commanded by Captain Anthony, a brave American skipper, to whose energy and pluck no small credit is due for the success of the enterprise ; she had on board as carpenter one of the Dublin I. R. B., Dennis Duggan ; he, with Mr. Smith, an American, who was the Cata/pa's mate, shared with the captain the secret of her destination. The crew was shipped as for an ordinary whaling expedition, and knew nothing about the contemplated rescue. The Irish-American council engaged in the preparations for the rescue selected Mr. John J. Breslin to take command of the expedition. To him were intrusted all the necessary details, leaving him full discretion in all emergencies. One-man-power can alone undertake missions of this 180 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. nature with any prospect of success, for if hampered by commands from a council, receiving their usual conflicting instructions, chaos takes the place of order. In this case the distance compelled them to delegate all authority to one man. Irishmen should remember Napoleon's maxim : " Better have a bad order well carried out than a good one indifferently executed." John J. Breslin, the man selected to lead and carry out the Australian rescue, was an Irishman of superior intelligence, and a devoted patriot. He had been engaged in many Irish enterprises since his first appearance as one of Stephens' rescuers. Mr. Breslin started from New York on his mission, calling en route at San Francisco on several leading National- ists and sympathizers in the movement. At San Francisco he was joined by Mr. Thomas Desmond, a brave and patriotic Irishman. After some little delay they started for their destination. Before visiting the penal colony where the military prisoners were confined, they opened communication with the Irish Nationalists of Australia, for Britain has organized foes the world around. After a short necessary stay among these men, they left for Western Australia, arriving in Freemantle on November 16. Mr. Desmond went on to Perth, the capital, and under an assumed name sought and got employment at his trade as carriage builder in that town. Mr. Breslin, under the name of Collins, took up his stay at the Emerald Isle Hotel, owned by an Irishman, Patrick Maloney. The day after his arrival in the colony he visited Perth and concluded from what he saw to make Freemantle the base of operations, being near the prison and nearer the coast. Mr. Desmond, who was called " The Yankee," did not appear to be intimate with Mr. Breslin; they lived apart and very seldom saw each other. One of the ex-military prisoners, William Foley, was at large in Free- mantle, and Mr. Breslin soon got in communication with him and used him to convey to the prisoners inside the knowledge of his presence in the colony and to arrange with another military prisoner, James Wilson, a method of communication. He was supposed to be by the people of Freemantle a wool buyer or American speculator of some sort, and his genial, pleasing disposition was a passport to society. Accompanied by two gentleman of the locality he visited the prison — or, as they styled it in the colony, "The Establish- ment " — about the middle of December. Mr. Donan, the superintendent, was exceedingly gracious to the American wool buyer, and showed him- self and his friends all through the building. They visited both the chapels where the convicts worshiped, passed along the various corridors, punishment cells, hospitals, cook-house, workshops, and storeroom, and so Mr. Breslin got a thorough knowledge of the building, and found it both well guarded and secure. Mr. Breslin succeeded in getting several interviews with Wilson, one of the military prisoners, and communicated through him to the other prisoners his plans of escape. He learned that the men he came to rescue were very fortunately working all day outside the prison, and that com- munication with them would be comparatively easy. The Catalpa had left New Bedford, Mass., a long time before on her whaling cruise, but was not expected to reach Bunbury before the end of January. To avoid any suspicion which might be aroused by his staying too long in Freemantle, Mr. Breslin left on a tour through the colony and on some apparent business, visiting Perth, Guildford, York, Northam, Newcastle, and the smaller villages on his route. January, February passed, and March arrived, but no news of the New Bedford whaler. The long wait and uncertainty was making Mr. CAPTAIN CHAS. UNDERWOOD O CONNELL, 99th Regiment N. G. S. N. Y. Sentenced to penal servitude by the British in 1865. HISTORY OF THE " CATALPA *' RESCUE. 181 Breslin anxious ; he could do nothing without the Catalpa, whose arrival off the coast he was looking out for daily. In the meantime the Irish in New Zealand, anxious to assist Mr. Breslin in his work, collected a large sum of money and sent Mr. John King, a patriotic Irishman, who arrived in the colony by the steamer Georgette from King's Sound early in March with the gold. The men in New Zealand were determined that Mr. Breslin should not run short of money. Mr. King had been engaged in mining operations in Australia ; he passed in Freemantle as a gold miner. A rumor of gold fields having been discovered in the Northwest accounted for his arrival in the colony, where he passed under the name of Jones. During this long delay Mr. Breslin and Mr. Desmond only occasionally met ; sometimes this would happen in Perth and sometimes in Freemantle, Mr. Desmond was generally known by the soubriquet of -" The Yankee." There was no suspicion of Mr. Desmond, who continued to work at his trade in the carnage factory owned by a man named Sloan. About the end of March an American whaler named the Canton put into one of the ports of the colony named Bunbury. Mr. Breslin tele- graphed her captain, inquiring if he had any news of the Catalpa of New Bedford ; the captain replied he had not heard anything of her. Mr. Breslin was now beginning to feel very uneasy ; any delay of the ship might upset all his plans. One Monday in March he left for Bunbury, •having engaged a seat in the mail car leaving Perth for that town, a dis- tance of 1 20 miles, and waited there for some time. But there was no news of the long expected Catalpa. On the following Saturday evening he left Bunbury to return to Freemantle, taking passage in a small coast- ing vessel called the May. While the Irish-Americans and their friends were preparing to get the military prisoners away from British punishment, the men at home were working for the self-same object, completely unconscious of the fact that their brethren in the States were making similar preparations. A letter, which got out surreptitiously from the " Establishment " in Free- mantle, found its way to the North of England into the hands of some of the Irish workers residing there. Immediately a call was made on the men in Ireland and Britain to subscribe funds to rescue these men from captivity. Out of their scanty earnings they gave with no less generosity than their brethren in other countries, and two well-known and tried Nationalists were selected to carry out the escape. The letter which came to them from Freemantle gave them some information as to how this rescue could be effected. Their plan was to bring with them ample funds, and having put themselves in communication with the prisoners, through a safe channel provided for them, charter the first American whaler that should put into Western Australia for wood and water and on board of which they might expect to find, if not countrymen, certainly anti-British men who would undertake for a stipulated sum to land the prisoners and themselves on American soil. The two selected to carry out this enterprise were John Walsh and Dennis Florence McCarthy, men who were old-time workers in the cause of Ireland. They left on their mission of mercy and journeyed to the antipodes, and after the usual chances and delays of such a voyage came to Freemantle on board the Georgette from Knip Sound. Whenever the Georgette arrived at Freemantle she brought with her some new arrivals to the colony, and it was very often Mr. Breslin's custom to stroll down and see the passengers disembark. The few strangers who visited the colony were easily recognized. Mr. Breslin took no more special notice of Mr. Walsh and Mr. McCarthy than of any other arrivals. Both of them were strangers to him and he to them. 182 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. The following morning he was looking out of the window of the Emerald Isle Hotel, when he saw the two arrivals of the day before pass down the street. It was not usual for new arrivals to delay in Freemantle, and something about the appearance of the men led Mr. Breslin to think they were Dublin police detectives. He called Mr. King, who was in the hotel, and communicated his suspicions to him. He instructed King to look them up and cautiously make what inquiries he could relative to the new arrivals. He feared that something had leaked out in America during the long delay, and that the British had sent out these men to see if they could recognize any strangers in Freemantle, and also to place the local authorities au courant as to the information possessed by the home officials. Both Mr. Walsh and Mr. McCarthy lost no time after their arrival in placing themselves in communication with the prisoners. Immediately they did so Mr. Breslin's anxiety was relieved. He knew they were brother Nationalists on a similar mission, and his next care was to see that no action of theirs would unconsciously interfere with his previously prepared plans. So he sent Mr. King with a message requesting them to call up to the hotel that evening, as he wished particularly to see and talk with them. When Messrs. Walsh and McCarthy received this message it was their turn to feel anxious ; but they determined to see what was in it, so they accepted the invitation and came as requested. In a few minutes the men understood each other, and mutual explanations ensued. Both Mr. Walsh and Mr. McCarthy found every possible provision had been made by Mr. Breslin to succeed in the enterprise, and that their duty was to rest quietly and await events. On March 29, 1876, the bulletin board at Freemantle announced that the Catalpa had put into Bunbury the day before, March 28. Mr. Breslin was overjoyed. It relieved his mind of the suspense which he had felt at the whaler's delay. As soon as the telegraph office was opened he sent this message to Captain Anthony on board the whaler : "Any news from New Bedford? When can you come to Freemantle ?" In the afternoon he received an answering message : " No news from New Bedford. Shall not come to Freemantle." Immediately commu- nicating the news of the ship's arrival to his friends, he took the mail car the next morning for Bunbury, where he arrived at 4 p. m., Friday, 31st. Captain Anthony was ashore expecting him, and he explained to Mr. Breslin what he proposed doing with the Catalpa. His crew were in a very discontented state, and attempted to desert the ship. Four of them stole away with one of the ship's boats and took to the bush. Three of them were captured and were put in irons as prisoners on board, and the fourth was arrested by the local authorities and confined in Bunbury lockup. This was rather disheartening news for Mr. Breslin. to hear, but there was nothing for it but to go through with the venture. Mr. Breslin selected a place called Rockingham as the place for embarkation. This part of the coast was about twenty miles south of Freemantle. It was conveniently situated at the head of the sound, and a narrow passage between it and Garden Island led out to sea. Mr. Breslin was anxious to have Captain Anthony examine the coast about Rockingham, so that he could know the best position to have the Catalpa. By sending a whaleboat to Rockingham and having the ship outside about sixteen miles, they could pull out, he calculated, in about five hours. So he arranged for the captain to accompany him to Freemantle on board the Georgette, which was due to reach Bunbury with the Colonial mails oh Saturday, April 1. By this arrangement the captain could take an exact survey of the coast and select some suitable place where Mr. HISTORY OF THE " CATALPA " RESCUE. 183 Breslin, on his arrival with the escaped prisoners, could conveniently embark the men. By this arrangement, Mr. Breslin hoped to have the captain back in time to put to sea and make him free to make the rescue on the morning of Thursday, April 6. It is well known to most Irish Nationalists how many men can be pro- cured for desperate enterprises, and if Mr. Breslin required more assist- ance at Freemantle, he had a sufficiently numerous body of good men in America or Australia to draw upon. In his case additional assistance was additional embarrassment. Some of his friends in New York sent to him a gentleman from that city, Mr. T. Brennan. It so happened that the steamer Georgette, which Captain Anthony and Mr. Breslin were wait- ing for to bring them up to Freemantle, was conveying a fresh American arrival to the colony. Mr. Brennan recognized the Catalpa and came ashore at Bunbury. Mr. Breslin was glad to meet him ; but his presence was particularly awkward at the time, as there were as many men as could be used to effect the escape, and additional help might excite suspicion. He could not send him on board the Catalpa without risking the suspicion of the sailors, as their delay off the coast was uncertain. He decided to bring his friend, the new arrival, to Freemantle, and do the best he could. On the following Sunday morning Captain Anthony was pointed out, by his friend Breslin, the position he had selected ; and they noticed from the bridge of the Georgette the coast outside Rockingham, Garden Island, Rottnest, and other principal landmarks. As they entered Freemantle harbor, they found anchored there her Britannic Majesty's gunboat Conflict, a fast sailing schooner-rigged ship, carrying two guns and thirty men. She had arrived there the previous day. The wind was light and variable, and the Catalpa required a stiff breeze to make any fast sailing, and all things considered, the risk was too great to attempt escape without probable capture. The presence of the gunboat delayed the attempt to escape. On the following Monday even- ing, Breslin learned that this gunboat came to Freemantle on an annual tour ; she would proceed thence to Adelaide or Sydney, and would prob- ably extend her stay in Freemantle harbor over eight or nine days. He was also told that another gunboat was daily expected, to take Governor Robinson to visit the Northwest. The captain of the whaler decided to overhaul his vessel and have her painted, delaying as long as possible in putting the necessary wood and water on board, as they had no alterna- tive but to await the departure of the gunboat. Captain Anthony was •driven out to Rockingham, where Mr. Breslin explained to him in detail all his plans to rescue the military prisoners, and showed him the place where he proposed to embark. The road, for the first ten miles, between Freemantle and Rockingham was a good road for the colony. But from the Ten Mile Well to Rockingham hotel, a distance of about six miles, it was a very heavy road, cut up with sand patches. From the hotel to the beach was a mere track of four miles, through sand and brush. They drove the whole distance, without stopping, in two hours and twenty minutes. On the following Thursday Captain Anthony left Freemantle to join his ship off Bunbury, but previous to his departure they arranged a code of private signals, so that Mr. Breslin could communicate with him by tele- graph. When the gunboat sailed, Mr. Breslin was to telegraph, " Your friend N. or S. has gone home," which would convey to the whaler that •" the war vessel had gone north or south, all right ; start from Bunbury." In the event of the arrival of the other gunboat to take the Governor aiorthwest, he was to wire, " Jones has gone overland to Champion Bay. When do you clear out of Bunbury?" And when the Governor had 184 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. departed and the coast was clear, " Jones has gone to Champion Bay ; did not receive a letter from you," meaning " All right again." Four days after Captain Anthony's departure to join his ship, the Conflict sailed for Albany, and the Catalpas captain was sent a telegram stating " Your friend S. has gone home ; when do you sail ?" On the following (Wednesday) morning Captain Anthony's reply was received. at the Emerald Isle Hotel : "I sail to-day. Good-by. Answer if received. G. Anthony." In the meantime the Irish expedition to Freemantle was remaining quiet ; both of the gentlemen who had come so long a journey to carry out a certain purpose, were now working in with the men whom they found on the scene of operations before them. Mr. Breslin, from the nature of things, could not use their services much in aiding him, but as their communicatio'ns with the prisoners were easily accomplished : he communicated to Messrs. Walsh and McCarthy Captain Anthony's mes- sage, so that they could convey, through Wilson, to the prisoners the final details. The sailing, according to Captain Anthony's telegram, would have the ship ready for sea off Rockingham on Friday morning, and that being Good Friday, a Government holiday, the men would be confined inside the " Establishment," and nothing could be done. So Mr. Breslin immediately telegraphed the Calalpa : "Your telegram received. Friday being Good Friday, I shall remain in Freemantle, and start for York on Saturday morning. I wish you may strike oil. Answer if received." At 7.30 p. m., the following reply was handed in at the hotel in Freemantle : ''Yours received. Did not leave to-day. Wind ahead and raining. Sail in the morning. Good-by." This fixed the start for Saturday morning, and the final arrangements were to be carried out. Mr. Breslin, at the last interview he had with Wilson, arranged a signal he was to make him, which he was to under- stand meant " Get ready ; we sail to-morrow morning." This signal he could not give on Friday, as they were confined inside in consequence of the holiday. But availing himself of the willing services of Messrs. Walsh and McCarthy, he had a letter conveyed to Wilson that morning, Mr. John Walsh bringing him back an answer that the letter had been delivered to Wilson. The letter contained full instructions as to the prisoners' action the following Saturday morning, and the final sentence contained these words : "We have money, arms, and clothes ; let no man's heart fail him, for this chance can never occur again." Mr. Desmond was in constant communication with his friend Breslin as to the condition of affairs. He was quite a favorite among the people in Perth, and was in the habit of driving out with the fastest pair of horses in the colony. He did this for the purpose of warding off any suspicion, which might happen when the time for escape came. He drove over to Freemantle, arriving there on Friday evening, with a four- wheeled wagon, which would accommodate half the number who were to start the following morning. Mr. Breslin had supplied himself with a similar conveyance, which he engaged for Friday and Saturday. He drove out with them on Friday to see if the horses went well together. All looked well for the morning start, but on Mr. Breslin's arrival at the hotel after his drive he found the following telegram awaiting his coming. " Freemantle 14, 4, 1876, 8:18 p. m. "J. Collins, Esq.: " It has blown heavy. Ship dragging both anchors. Can you advance more money if needed ? Will telegraph again in the morning. " G. Anthony." Mr. Breslin, when he read this message, was very anxious to com- HISTORY OF THE " CATALPA " RESCUE. 185 municate its contents to the prisoners, so that they would understand the delay. Cranston, one of the soldier convicts, was employed as post mes- senger to come in from the prison for letters. It was a criminal offense for anyone to be seen speaking to a convict ; they were compelled to walk in the centre of the roadway and avoid the footpaths, and it was a penalty of solitary confinement for these prisoners to in any way communicate with a civilian. Mr. Breslin was aware of these rules, but determined to meet Cranston, his only chance at that hour to communicate the post- ponement to the men inside. Halfway between the " Establishment " and Freemantle postoffice was a lonely shebeen house, by which Cranston should pass. This was the only place Breslin could make the desired interview. He was successful. When he got there, he met Walsh and McCarthy. The telegram was read to Cranston and so previous orders were countermanded. Desmond, King, Brennan, and Breslin were all disappointed at this new mishap ; they feared that the ship, having dragged both anchors, would drift on to the bar and delay the departure for some weeks. Mr. Desmond returned to Perth to resume work and wait the course of events. On the following Saturday morning Breslin received this message : " I shall certainly sail to-day. Suppose you will leave for York Monday. Good-by. "G.Anthony." To which was wired the reply : "Your telegram received. All right. Glad you got off without damage. Au revoir. " J. Collins.'' Immediately Breslin engaged the same wagon and pair. of horses for Sunday and Monday, and he dispatched King on a horse which he had purchased for any emergency, to order Desmond to turn up. He then walked down to the jetty where Wilson was working, and catching his eye, gave him a prearranged signal which meant, " We start to-morrow morning." As the following day was Sunday and the prisoners were confined on that day, Wilson was puzzled when he got this signal. Breslin, knowing this, walked across to where the convicts were working, and in a careless, listless manner got sufficiently near to Wilson to whisper, " Monday morning," without the warden or any of the other prisoners taking any notice. When Mr. Desmond received the message to start he found to his chagrin that the splendid pair of horses he had been accustomed to drive were engaged by some people to go to York. Easter Monday being a holiday, all the best teams were engaged ; he offered a hostler two pounds to get him a good pair of horses, but could not succeed. He arrived at 2 p. m. on Easter Sunday with a pair of poor looking cattle. Mr. Breslin was also disappointed. He found that Albert, who owned the horses which he had engaged, had hired out the best animal of the pair to Mr. Stone, the superintendent of water police, to go to Perth, as his brother-in-law, the sheriff, had been thrown from his horse and was lying there in a critical condition. Mr. Breslin was also told he could not have the horses on Sunday; that the clerk had done wrong in hiring them, but that on Monday morning he could have the team without fail. On Sunday evening all things looked favorable for a speedy departure the following morning. Mr. John Walsh and Mr. Dennis Florence McCarthy having to remain behind in the colony, they required to be very careful not to be seen in Mr. Collins' company — the name Breslin was known by. The eve of final preparations had come, and they visited Breslin to wish the rescuers Godspeed and render what final assistance i86 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. they could to expedite the work they were all anxiously engaged in. They offered Mr. Breslin money, of which they had plenty, and which they brought back to England with them. But he had more than he required, the additional supply from Australia meeting all demands. Mr. Walsh and Mr. McCarthy had hired horses ; their duty was to ride into the country and cut the telegraph wires between Perth and Albany, which would deprive the Governor of means of communicating with the gunboat Conflict, which was lying there, and sending this vessel on their track to intercept their passage to the Indian Ocean round Cape Leeuwin. At half-past five on Easter Monday morning Breslin had the hostler called up and the horses put to the wagons and the valises stored in the vehicles. Brennan was up and dressed. King and Desmond were called and the voyagers got ready to leave the colony without the usual permis- sion from the Governor, as Western Australia being a penal colony no one could leave, or was supposed to, without a written passport. Brennan left for Rockingham at 6 a. m. At 7 o'clock a. m. Breslin went to the stables and found a pair of horses and a light four-wheeled trap, harnessed and ready waiting. Desmond got his trap ready by half-past seven ; the arrangement was that he should drive from Freemantle by a side street, which, after a few turns, took him on to the Rock- ingham road. Breslin was to leave Freemantle as if going to Perth through the High Street, and turning sharp by the prison, get into the Rockingham Road. King, who was well mounted, was to remain behind, and when they had started some time he was to follow on the same road, bringing them news if there had been any alarm sent out. John Walsh and Dennis Florence McCarthy left at an early hour from Perth, well mounted, to carry out their part of the work. Getting into the woods they dismounted, and cutting the telegraph wires, twined them around the trees so that it would take a long delay, not only to repair them, but to find out where the mischief was done. Breslin drove up the principal street, passed slowly by the "Estab- lishment," passed the pensioner's barracks, passed the warden's quarters, and walked quietly by on to the Rockingham road. By this time the prisoners were beginning to assemble for parade ; the Irish military prisoners understood that the wagons would be waiting for them from a quarter to eight ; that the nearest wagon would be within five minutes' walk of the prison, and that they would wait there until nine o'clock. Desmond drove up and passed the vehicle containing Breslin. Driving up to a shaded part of the road they divided the hats and coats for the prisoners, three in each wagon. Then Breslin turned and drove back toward Freemantle, followed by Desmond. A few minutes later they saw three men in the prison dress wheel round and march down the Rockingham road. They were Wilson, Cranston, and Harrington. Breslin motioned them to get into Desmond's trap, which they quickly did and then Desmond drove away. The first three were scarcely seated in Desmond's conveyance when Breslin espied three other men coming toward them, one of these was carrying a spade and another a tin kerosene can. As soon as they came near enough to be recognized they flung away spade and oil can and made for Breslin's trap. The horses at this moment got restive, but after a little they were quieted and the last arrivals, who were Darragh, Hogan, and Hassett, then took their seats in Breslin's vehicle. By this time Desmond was speeding fast out of sight, and King riding up informed Breslin that all was quiet when he left. The prisoners, from their long years in confinement and their good conduct, had been promoted to what was called among the convicts the position of constable ; this gave them greater freedom than the other HISTORY OF THE " CATALPA " RESCUE. 187 prisoners, so they could talk and freely communicate with each other. Wilson and Harrington worked in the same gang, constructing harbor works. Hogan was a painter, and was engaged painting the house of one of the officials outside the prison walls on the morning of the escape. Cranston was employed in the stores and as messenger occasionally. Uarragh was a clerk and attendant to the English chaplain ; he enjoyed considerable facilities of communicating with the other prisoners. He took Hassett with him that morning to plant potatoes outside the prison wall. Cranston passed out as if going on a message. He overtook the warder who was marching the working party to which Wilson and Harrington belonged. Cranston showed the warder a key and told him he was sent to take Wilson and Harrington to move some furni- ture, so the warder at once told them to leave with Cranston. Dar- ragh took Hassett as if going to work in the same direction ; they were joined by Hogan, who made an excuse to the warder for tem- porary absence, and so they managed to meet Breslin at the place appointed. The whole party then drove off and reached Rockingham at 10.30 A. M. The whaleboat was waiting on the beach and the party quickly stow- ing themselves on board the boat shoved off. Captain Anthony, who was waiting for Breslin's party, gave the order " Out with the oars and pull for your lives ! Pull as if you were after a whale ! " The boat's crew were somewhat surprised at so many strangers armed with rifles and revolvers, and did not know what to make of the whole affair. However, under their captain's orders they tugged at the oars and pulled with right good will together, for they knew something unusual was the cause of these strange visitors. When they were about two or three miles from the shore they saw two mounted police ride up to the beach from where they embarked. The police drove the teams which brought them from Free- mantle toward the Rockingham jetty. About noon they were clear of Garden Island and were pulling seaward ; then hoisting the whaleboat's sails, they stood away to the southeast in search of the Catalpa; they held this course until four o'clock in the afternoon, and getting no sight of the ship, Captain Anthony ordered sails to be taken in and changed the boat's direction westward ; about half-past five the lookout man sighted the Catalpa about fifteen miles ahead, when the men bent to their oars with redoubled vigor to try and get alongside their vessel before dark. After about an hour's hard pulling they saw they were gaining on the ship. They could see her topsails quite plain from the crest of the waves. Sail was again set and they made for the ship as fast as possible. The weather was gloomy with rain squalls, so they were all thoroughly drenched. The whaleboat was swiftly moving along under sail and they saw with delight that they were rapidly gaining on the Catalpa; the whole boat's crew, sixteen men in all, were perched on the weather gun- wale, with the water rushing in from time to time at the lee side ; about seven o'clock a squall struck them, carrying away the mast, which broke short off at the thwart, and by the time they had stowed away broken mast and sail, the ship disappeared in the darkness. They again put out their oars and pulled for about three hours in the direction, as they thought, of the ship, but they could see no light to reward their endeavors with success. They then hoisted a jib on an oar and steered the same course over which they supposed the Catalpa had gone. All this time there was an ugly sea running and the weather was threatening to be more severe. Morning broke and found sixteen anxious faces peering through the struggling light in search of the missing whaler. Nearing seven o'clock they again sighted the ship, and with eagerness they steered for her. The lookout on board the Catalpa could not espy the whale- l88 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. boat in the trough of the angry sea, but their ship was fortunately at this time sailing toward them. In the meantime all was excitement in Freemantle. When the news of the escape of the six military prisoners reached the Governor, it flashed upon him at once, as they were political convicts, that a scheme of rescue had been attempted ; only two mounted police were left in Freemantle, their comrades having gone on duty at the Perth regatta ; these were sent out to scour the neighborhood, when they came on the track of the vehicles, reaching Rockingham beach at the time the prisoners had got safely off in the whaleboat. On their return to Freemantle they reported the departure of the men for sea, and they told of empty wagons and the riderless saddlehorse they found on the beach. The Governor saw he had heen outwitted by a well-laid and long-matured plan. John Walsh and Dennis F. McCarthy returned to Freemantle after their mission of cutting the wires ; they were secretly overjoyed that their friends had got away, but were still anxious until final success had been accomplished. The inhabitants of Freemantle, or a greater portion, were in sympathy with the escaped men, not on account of politics or nationality, but that feeling which humanity implants in the human heart of clinging to the weaker side in the struggle. The escape was the sole subject of con- versation that day, both in Freemantle and Perth ; the people of the former town were surprised when they learned that the quiet, amiable, companionable Mr. Collins, whom they all knew so well, was one of those dreadful Fenians. It has always been England's strong point to spread broadcast all sorts of slander and calumny against her foes, and she had painted the Fenians in such odious colors that people expected to find in one the incarnation of a living fiend. During the Crimean war she flooded the market with literature accusing the Russians of the most unheard of infamies and despotism ; every work of fiction thus issuing from the British press contained accounts of the horrors and brutalities of Siberia, the slavery in the Ural mines, Russia's brutal war against Schamyl the great Circassian chief, as if good, pious England had no tyrannies and manufactured famines to be placed at her own door. She then by her writings so inflamed the public mind that an intense national hatred to all Russia and Russians had taken possession of the Briton, and additional animosity to add to their old traditional hatred of French- men, both of which still survive. When the first Irish political prisoners were arrested she briefed to her Prosecuting Counsel Charles Barry, now judge, a statement of the crimes they purposed to commit: hamstringing of cattle, massacre of the landlords, priests, and bishops, and such unheard of infamies that they even overshot the mark in their anxiety to fasten outrages and crime upon the men and the movement. The good people of Western Australia were astounded to know that the quiet, gentlemanly men who lived among them so long were these horrid Fenians ; but the men in gaining respect for themselves by their conduct, had unconsciously elevated the cause they represented among the people with whom they came in contact. The people of Perth liked " The Yankee," as they called Mr. Desmond — his jolly, open-hearted manner, his bonhomie and cheerful disposition. He was also a great favorite among the ladies, and great was the wonder among the fair dames of Perth when they learned the news that instead of going on his honeymoon, as whispered about, their social, pleasant friend was a mem- ber of that terrible community called Fenians. There was something chivalric in the risks ran by these men in effecting the escape of their imprisoned comrades, which elevated Mr. Desmond into the position of a hero, and bright eyes and tiny ears were open for news that their knight errant had got off safely. Early the following morning the people col- HISTORY OF THE " CATALPA " RESCUE. 189 lected on the quay at Freemantle to watch the Georgette pursue the American whaler, for. the news had been noised abroad that the Governor had chartered her for that purpose. In the crowd standing on the quay, looking out to sea no less anxiously than the rest, were their Irish friends, John Walsh and D. F. McCarthy, and when the Georgette steamed out from Freemantle harbor, the great majority of those standing there were hoping that her mission would be unsuccessful. In the meantime the weary seafarers were steering for the Catalpa y and that good ship was apparently sailing for them. In a short time the men in the open boat espied the steamer coming out of Freemantle har- bor with all sail set. It was her regular day for sailing to Albany, and they watched her course with great anxiety, as to whether she was leav- ing on her regular mission with the colonial mails, or had been sent out in search of them. A little further observation convinced them she was out of her regular course for Albany, and in a few minutes they were con- vinced she was steering straight for the Catalpa, which she must have seen before they did. They put on redoubled exertion at the oars, and with sail set they made what speed they could to reach their vessel. In a few moments they saw that the Georgette was coming upon them fast, and their only chance of eluding capture was to lower their sails and remain quiet, hoping that that which was a misfortune in the case of the Catalpa, would be their salvation with the Georgette — escaping observation. In a few minutes the sail was housed and they remained resting on their oars in the trough of the sea. The commander of the Georgette evidently expected that they had long since got on board the Catalpa, and no look- out was kept for the boat, the Georgette steaming straight for the whaler. When the Georgette had passed them some distance, they pulled imme- diately in her wake. It was the safest course they could pursue, near- ing their ship and continuing to remain unseen by the people on the Georgette. At this time the whaler was about five miles away. Soon the steamer came alongside the Catalpa. The men in the open boat could see the steamer come up to the whaler, and after remaining alongside for about ten minutes she steamed slowly away, the whaler holding on her course. The Georgette, when she sheered off from the Catalpa, pursued her course more inshore, but in the same direction as the whaler, which was now sailing away from her boat that contained the rescued prisoners. The Georgette steamed closer inshore. She was plainly on the lookout for the whaleboat, but fortunately for them did not see the missing craft. She steamed along, pursuing the same course as the ship, which sailed on the wind, heading south-southeast. Both Catalpa and Georgette kept increas- ing their distance from Bresiin and his party. About half-past eleven the ship was about twelve and the steamer eight miles from the boat. The course of the steamer was carefully watched by the anxious rescuers, and they were satisfied that she was not steaming on her usual route to- Bunbury ; she was too far inshore. After a little time the Georgette came right around, and under sail and steam made for Freemantle, carefully examining the coast inshore for the escaping party's boat. The Catalpa ' s boat was now in a dangerous position. If the steamer altered her course a little more out to sea she would be seen and captured. They had no alternative but to pursue the course they were trying to make and endeavor to come up with their fast disappearing ship, the Catalpa ; those on board the whaleboat called her the phantom ship, she was so often disappearing from their gaze, and the more they strove to get near her the further off she sailed. The Georgette was now nearing the boat fast and getting every moment in dangerous proximity to them, 190 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. and they began to think their chances of remaining longer unseen were very slight. The men were ordered to He as low as possible in the boat ; every man in that whaleboat passed an anxious few minutes as the steamer came nearer and nearer to the object of her search. About half-past twelve the Georgette passed across their wake so very close that they could distinguish the lookout man at the masthead and the men on deck. Every instant they expected to see her turn and bear down on them, but fortunately for them, if the Catalpa was a phantom ship, they were a phantom boat, for neither friend nor foe appeared to be able to see them. The Georgette, when she had overhauled the Catalpa, made inquiries for the missing prisoners ; this query gave the desired information to the mate of the whaler, Mr. Smith, who was in charge of that ship, that the rescue had been accomplished. This made those on board now more eager in their search for the captain and the boat. The Georgette steamed away from the prisoners she was in search of, and when she had gone from them some distance, and began to sink her hull on the horizon, Captain Anthony made sail for his vessel. They now stood out under sail after the Catalpa and began gradually to near the whaler, and as quickly she loomed up before them. Wilson was placed in the bow of the boat, holding aloft a blue flag to attract the attention of those on board the ship. About half-past two p. M. it became evident the Catalpa had at last sighted them, for she altered her course and made for the boat. A few minutes after the Catalpa changed her course they sighted another boat coming out under sail, making for the ship. The newcomer was about the same distance on the land side from the Catalpa as Breslin's boat was to seaward. In a few minutes they recog- nized her as the water police cutter of Freemantle, and it now became a race which of them would make the whaler first. The police cutter, on sighting the boat containing the prisoners, crowded on all sail and made for the whaleboat, with the intention of intercepting her course toward the Catalpa and so capture her, but even if she had got alongside the boat she would not have brought her prisoners to Freemantle without a fight ; the rescuers and the soldiers were all armed and were determined not to yield without a struggle. The excitement of this triangular cruise had the Irishmen's blood up ; the race was an interesting spectacle to those on shore, and glasses were leveled by many an anxious and excited looker-on to see the sequel. About three o'clock the whaleboat came upon the weather side of the ship as the police cutter wasnearing fast on the lee side. The prisoners and their friends quickly scrambled on deck, when the whaleboat was hoist up into the davit, almost instantaneously. At that instant the police cutter came alongside. Mr. Breslin remained on deck while the others went below. " What shall I do now, Captain ? " said Smith, the mate. " Hoist the flag and stand out to sea," was the reply. Captain Anthony was now at his post in command of the ship, and never was maneuver more promptly executed or in a more seamanlike manner. The Stars and Stripes were flying at the peak : the ship wore, and was standing on her course inside of two minutes. The police cutter was dropping alongside. As the Catalpa sailed past, Mr. Breslin raised his hat and said, " Gentlemen, you have lost the race." As the cutter dropped astern the officer in charge responded by shouting back, " Good-by, Captain, good-by ! " The new arrivals on the Catalpa felt in a very cramped condition ; they had been for twenty-eight hours in an open boat, under rain and washed by the waves, without any food or drink for the greater portion HISTORY OF THE •' CATALPA " RESCUE. 191 of the time, and the cheering uncertainty as to whether they were to make the Catalpa or the "Establishment" with its chain gang and convict suit. Some supper warmed them up and circulated the blood more freely through their chilled and cramped limbs. After supper they walked on deck, enjoying a smoke and taking what they hoped to be the last look at the coast of Western Australia, the ship working to windward under a light breeze in the direction of Cape Naturaliste. All hands retired for the night at 9 p. m., watch on deck excepted. The men who had been so long in the open boat enjoyed the needed rest and slept soundly. A change in the wind necessitated the altering of the ship's course and compelling them to return toward Freemantle before getting out to sea ; at five next morning they were steering northwest under a light breeze and were off of Rottennest Island. About half past five o'clock the man on the lookout reported a sail on the lee bow, and the seamen soon pronounced her to be the Georgette. As daylight advanced the hostile ship could be seen standing right across their course under pressure of steam and canvas and nearing the Catalpa fast. About six o'clock the ship sailed past the steamer, which lay to. The Georgette was flying the British man-of-war white flag, with red St. George's cross, and union jack in corner. She also flew a vice-admiral's pennant at the masthead. The Catalpa flew out the Stars and Stripes to the breeze as they passed the Georgette, which steamed up again and followed in their wake, still keeping to windward. The breeze freshened and the Catalpa began to show her heels to the steamer, but the Georg- ette's people were determined not to let them slip. They fired up, and made all sail in pursuit ; the breeze began dying away fast and the Georgette was rapidly overtaking the Catalpa. Captain Anthony and those on board the whaler noticed as the Georgette neared them that she was full of armed men. About- eight o'clock they could see she had guns on board, and an artillery force. The water police were also on board and all the men the Governor could muster were placed in the steamer. The whale- boat belonging to the water police hung at the davits ; it was their evi- dent intention to board the Catalpa, and they seemed quite eager to capture her. In the cabin, standing armed with rifles and revolvers, were Messrs. Desmond, King, and Brennan, and the six soldiers. Mr. Breslin went below to explain the condition of affairs. He told them that if the Georgette officials were determined to fight for their recapture they would most probably succeed, as they had the advantage in every way ; they had more men, were better armed, had cannon and a steamer with which they could sail round them. While those of the rescuing party might only suffer imprisonment, the escaped military would be hanged if any lives were lost by resistance. It was simply a case of dying now or waiting to die in prison ; they had the option of fighting or surrendering if the Georgette fired into or boarded them. Their answer was, " We'll do whatever you say." Breslin replied, " I'll hold out to the last," as he again went on deck. The Georgette was now very close on the weather side, with a company of artillery on board, a field piece pointed at the ship, and the gunners at their quarters. A little later and the Georgette steamed ahead and fired a round shot across the bows of the Catalpa. Captain Anthony advised with Breslin, who replied : " Hold on your cruise ; take no notice of the shot yet." After the lapse of about three minutes the cannon was sponged out and again reloaded, both vessels sailing along side by side. Breslin said to Captain Anthony, " Now ask him what he wants." Captain Anthony stepped on the weather rail and raised his speaking 192 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. trumpet. As he did so the Georgette hailed, " Bark ahoy ! " The answer went back, " What do you want?" "Heave to," came back from the Georgette. "What for?" said Captain Anthony. No reply, but the question repeated still louder. During this colloquy the men below were satisfied there was to be a fight ; every man grasped his loaded rifle ready for the signal to shoot. Mr. Desmond, telling this stirring incident to the writer, said that he felt for the moment reckless of life, and seemed only too glad of a brush with the enemy. All this time the quay at Freemantle was crowded with sightseers ; every kind of glass was brought to bear on the Georgette and Catalpa. Besides Walsh and McCarthy, there were several Irishmen in the crowd, and when the Georgette fired the shot across the bows of the Catalpa, the old love of fighting the British filled their hearts ; but of course they had to bridle their feelings in suppressed rage. The people were all in sym- pathy with the Catalpa, and the crowd wished the rescued men would get safely away. " What will I heave to for ? " said Captain Anthony, through his trumpet. After quite a pause the Georgette hailed, " Have you any con- vict prisoners on board ? " " No prisoners here ; no prisoners that I know of." The Georgette then hailed, " I telegraphed to your government ; don't you know you are amenable to British law in this colony ? You have six convict prisoners on board, I see some of them on deck now." This was not true ; all the men were below, and no persons were visible to the Britisher except the captain and crew and Mr. Breslin, who was standing alongside the captain. Mr. Breslin said to Captain Anthony, "This fellow is lying and trying to bluff us ; he can't send a message to Adelaide before Saturday next." The Georgette then hailed, " I'll give you fifteen minutes to consider or you must take the consequences. I have means to do it, and if you don't heave to I'll blow the mast out of you." " Tell him that's the American flag, and you are on the high seas," said Breslin. Captain Anthony then shouted, standing on the weather rail and pointing to his flag : " That's the American flag ; I am on the high seas ; my flag protects me ; if you fire on this ship you fire on the American flag." The threat to fire on the flag incensed the first mate, Mr. Smith. He cursed the Britisher in good strong American phrase. He exclaimed : " Damn him ! let him sink us ; we'll go down with the ship. . I'll never start sheet or tack for him." " Mr. Breslin," said Smith, "what'llyou do if the fellow boards us ? " " Sink his boat if it comes alongside ; you have a cou- ple of good heavy grindstones ; let us have them handy to heave over the side," was the reply. Captain Anthony reminded Mr. Smith of some short heavy logs of tim- ber which were in the hold, and bade him order the crew to pass them on deck ; the logs were quickly brought up and laid on the main hatch ready for use. The lookout reported a sail on the lee bow, and they saw a small sail between them and Rottennest Island. This called the captain's par- ticular attention to the position of the ship, and he began to think they were coming too close to the land, and liable to run into British waters ; he wore ship and stood on the other tack, bearing down close on the Georgette, which backed out of their way. This movement seemed to disconcert those on board the Georgette. The fact was they feared the whaler was more heavily armed than she appeared, and concluding that the Ameri- cans came prepared to fight, their British courage began to ooze through their finger ends. They imagined, when the Catalpa tacked, she was going to board them, and so the Britisher thought discretion the better part of valor. The fifteen minutes' grace had expired and several addi- tional minutes, and as the Georgette steamed slowly across the Catalpa 's HISTORY OF THE " CATALPA " RESCUE. 193 stern, those on board the latter looked for raking shots among their masts. The Georgette did not fire, but ranged alongside again. The Irish-Ameri- cans knew the game of bluff was played out. The Georgette people had a battery of glasses leveled on the Catalpa, as Colonel Harvest, who was in command called out: "Won't you surrender to our government?" No reply. Again he called out, " I see three of those men on board now." Captain Anthony replied : " You are mistaken, sir ; the men you see are my ship's crew." The soldiers were all in the cabin, including Mr. Des- mond, Mr. Brennan, and Mr. King ; they had strict orders not to come on deck until a fight commenced. After about ten minutes' more sailing side by side the Georgette hailed : " Can I come on board ? " To this Captain Anthony replied : " No, sir ; I am bound for sea and can't stop." The Georgette still steamed alongside the Catalpa j as if unwilling to part company, but about 10 a. m. she slowly swung around and without even a bon voyage steamed back to Freemantle. The crowd on the Freemantle jetty were in great joy when the dis- comfited expedition returned, rather crestfallen after their pursuit. The Herald of Freemantle of April 27, 1876, thus describes the final return of the Georgette : "The early return of the steamer gave rise to every kind of conjec- ture, and as her approach was watched from the shore, wagers were freely made as to the cause of her return. Many declared that the Catalpa, warned of the steps the Government was taking by the previous visit of the Georgette, had attacked her and beaten her off. Other bets that, over- awed by the determination of the authorities and the demonstrations of force on board the Georgette, the captain of the Catalpa had quickly sur- rendered the runaways. As is usual in such cases, the sequel showed that neither was right. When the true conditions of affairs became known, there were some manifestations of indignation at the colony having being fooled by a Yankee skipper. The pensioners and police felt they had been taking part in a very silly farce, and had been laughed at by the Yankees at sea and the public on shore, and sincerely hoped that instruc- tions could be given to go out again and take the prisoners by force. The Governor, however, who had acted with most commendable energy and prudence, was not to be led into committing a breach of international law to gratify a feeling of resentment at the cool effrontery of the Yankee, directed that the armed parties on board the Georgette should be dismissed and the vessel returned to the agent, with his Excellency's thanks for the readiness with which the vessel had been placed at his dis- posal and for the hearty manner in which both the agent, Mr. McCleery, the Captain M. O'Grady, and all concerned, had co-operated with him in the matter. " These instructions were carried out and in a short time the crowds dispersed and the town lapsed into its normal condition of quietude, hav- ing suffered three days of the most intense excitement ever experienced in history." The Freemantle Herald of the following Saturday had an editorial on the rescue of these prisoners, with which we will close this part of the history : " Because six prisoners have been able under extraordinary circum- stances to escape from the Establishment and the colony, it must not be inferred that their escape is due to any improper laxity in the prison sys- tem, or of those in charge of the prisoners. On the contrary, nothing could show the difficulty of a prisoner in this colony effecting more than 194 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. a mere temporary escape from custody than the history of the recent res- cue. The six men who have got away have not got away by their own unassisted efforts or by the connivance of the prison authorities — they have been rescued, and the means taken to effect their rescue show more than anything else could have done, short of their immediate recapture, how extremely difficult it is for a prisoner to be got clear away. The rescue of these men has not been effected without a regular expedition, organized at very considerable expense — certainly not less than two or three thousand pounds — and carried out with consummate judgment and untiring patience. It has been planned and organized by the Fenian Centre in the United States, and four men have been sent over here and been making dispositions for getting the prisoners out of captivity for some months. The leader has been here as far back as November, and a ship has been engaged to stay on the coast and to carry away res- cuers and prisoners when once on board at all risks. The means taken to get the men first out of the custody of the warders and thus out of the colony have been extraordinary. " Even so, it is not easy to see how the affair was successfully accom- plished. How, in the first place, were the rescuers to communicate with the prisoners? How could they so much as ascertain which were the men they wanted ? They had, doubtless, a list of their names, but this would not enable them to distinguish the six men of whom they were in search from the three hundred other prisoners among whom these six were distributed. They could make no inquiries — of whom could they inquire ? they could trust no one, not even if they heard that any par- ticular warder was favorable. Still less could they trust a prisoner — who could have obtained his liberty by betraying them. Supposing some of the four conspirators knew any of the six men personally, or that they possessed photographs of all of them, still there would be the difficulty of getting into communication with them without being seen. Writing was out of the question. A single line might have been fatal to the whole plot. One or other of the six must be spoken with, and it must be when no one else was near. If Collins or his associates had been seen speak- ing with a prisoner — above all a Fenian prisoner — the affair would have been blown at once. It was as much as the relieving party could do to escape suspicion even with all their care. Several people, even as it was, wondered what they could be wanting — two of them especially, and Collins, who was the leader and who evidently held a superior position in life, only averted suspicion by great tact. People asked naturally, What was he doing here ? A stranger who is at once obliged to be idle and to be much in public, keeping his ears and eyes open, and who gives no account of himself or his object in stopping at a place like Free- mantle, further than that he is making inquiries about colonial industries, inevitably excites curiosity and has to meet troublesome questions. But how, even after arresting suspicion so far as not to attract the notice of the police, he was able to discover and communicate with the six prisoners, is a mystery. " Anyone who will ask himself how he could do this without its being known either to other prisoners or the warders or some passer by, will see what obstacles lie in the way. "It appears that it took a very astute man who had nothing else to do and was aided by three associates several months to do it. There are, no doubt, people who are ready to say that it ought to have been impos- sible for the men to escape ; but there is not a public works prison in England from which half-a-dozen prisoners could not have been got away at very much less trouble and expense than it was found necessary to incur to get these six men from Swan River. Patience, judgment. HISTORY OF THE " CATALPA " RESCUE. 195 and money will accomplish almost anything, but it has required a very large amount of all three to rescue these six Fenians, and even after a ll — after arrangements had been made with the men in custody, after provision had been made for getting them to Rockingham with as little observation as possible, after the sea channel had been surveyed and a ship engaged to wait and take them off, and every contingency had been provided for — they only reached the Rockingham landing-place ten minutes before the police, and only escaped being re-captured at sea before the boat joined the ship by His Excellency overlooking an unlikely contingency, and ordering the steamer to be back by noon to take the mails. In the end, they were only carried off under cover of the American flag. Nothing, in our mind, proves the sufficiency of the arrangement for preventing the escape of prisoners under ordinary cir- cumstances more than the history of this adventure. " Of course it would be possible to keep the prisoners who are on public works under a more strict surveillance than that to which they are accustomed, but it does not follow that such surveillance would tend to prevent what is really to be guarded against — namely, attempts to escape — or that it would be generally desirable. " In judging of a prison system, we must look at it as a whole, and at its usefulness for other purposes than the prevention of men being run off with by an expeditionary force of Fenians. Such an affair as that which has occurred is what has never happened before and is never likely to happen again. What the prison authorities therefore have to consider is, not how they may protect themselves against the Fenians, but what is most likely to keep the men resigned, orderly, and industrious. " The ultimate escape of prisoners is not a thing to be apprehended. The whole colony is a prison, and the nearest country is fifteen hundred miles off and offers no asylum to fugitives. " On the contrary, it constitutes an outer barrier against their escape which is jealously watched. Men are no nearer their liberty when they have got a few miles outside the walls of the Establishment than when they are inside them. They cannot get out of the country, and they cannot live in the bush, and must inevitably fall into the hands of the police. It is only under great irritation the men ever do anything so foolish as to break prison. " There have been fewer attempts to escape during the last few years than at any time in the history of the Establishment since the early days of Colonel Henderson." This editorial clearly points out the difficulties the Irish Nationalists had in sucessfully carrying out their mission, and which could not have been accomplished but for the fact of them having a whaler of their own, which they were able to control thoroughly. The chapter of accidents might have made the home expedition equally successful, but it could only occur by a lucky and fortunate sequence of events, which men cannot control. At the period of the rescue few whalers called into Bunbury ; during the whole stay of Mr. Breslin and Mr. Desmond in Western Australia from November, 1875, t0 April, 1876, but one ship, the Canton, put in there ; the colony had ceased to be a place of call for whalers for many years. True, that a short time after the departure of the Catalpa, and while Mr. Walsh and Mr. McCarthy were still on the scene, another American ship put in for wood and water. But the chances of getting these whaling captains friendly disposed as they should be to take upon themselves the risk of aiding even for money in the escape of 196 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. prisoners, was a problematical speculation, and could only depend on chance. It is very evident that the letter sent to the north of England from the prison must have misled the men at home, and like many attempts or plans arranged by Irish Revolutionists, they did not suffi- ciently take into consideration the difficulties to be surmounted, but left the sequel to the judgment of their men and chance. It has been most men's experience for many years in Irish business that no undertaking has ever been brought to a successful completion without some well thought out plan, and brains to guide and conduct it to a final conclu- sion. Even then, as Burns expresses it, " The best laid schemes o* mice and men gang aft aglee." Some blunder, neglect, or over zeal on the part of one of the men upsets and disarranges the plan by which a leader has arranged a certain course. The movement of a watch is not more delicate in its machinery than are revolutionary enterprises in the face of a skillful and powerful enemy, but like the correctness with which these small mechanisms record the time, just as absolutely certain of success can the revolutionary leader be who has the requisite qualities — bravery, brains, and staying powers. Courage first, for the man who is not prepared to coolly take his chance for life or death, or else the living death of imprisonment, should never try to serve his country in any active manner; it is necessary not only to enforce discipline in the men under his command, but to show them a good example. Men should always feel that their leader faces the same death that they are prepared to meet. His presence inspires a confidence which may be far beyond his deserts, but that confidence is an additional nerve to strengthen his men and make the undertaking have greater chances of success. The two men who journeyed from Britain to Australia to free their soldier friends deserve the grateful thanks of their patriotic fellow- countrymen. They never calculated chances of imprisonment, or even cared for them, — as brave men never do, — and it is the knowledge that Ireland has thousands of such patriots which makes men hope on and still induces them to toil on, until the acme of the struggle is crowned with success — Ireland a free and independent nation. Both John Walsh and Dennis Florence McCarthy were true and tried men in a crowd of true and tried men at home from whom they were selected, but with all their true manhood and devotion to the cause, thinking men fail to see how they could be successful with the materials under their control. True, the chapter of accidents might have aided them, but this is a frail anduncertain factor in revolutionary enterprises. To the American expedition must not only be awarded the palm of success, but the perfection of judgment that made every proper prepara- tion. The men selected, like their Irish comrades, were all true men, all loyal to Ireland's cause. To John J. Breslin, the leader of the expedition, the meed of praise must be given for the admirable manner in which he carried out every detail, and also for the patience and great tact he displayed in avoiding suspicion during such a prolonged residence as he was compelled to undergo in Western Australia ; to all of these men, both the Irish-Americans and the men at home, Ireland is indebted for this proof of courage, determination, and devotion which they displayed in her cause, and their names will be written in her history among that roll of patriots who, despite the sneers, scoffs, and slanders of a relentless enemy, have never swerved in their devotion to motherland. In Captain Anthony and the mate, Mr. Smith, Ireland witnessed the manly valor which upholds the Stars and Stripes in every sea. But with no intention of taking one bay from the laurels and just honors paid those gallant men, let Irish Nationalists reflect and consider what effect this line of policy can have upon the enemy, and what results HISTORY OF THE " CATALPA " RESCUE. 197 can be expected to follow in favor of Ireland. Its advantages were prestige and to show Irishmen that a living organization existed to aid the old cause. But if Ireland's object is only the release of men who are captured by the foe, then why attempt to struggle at all, and there could be no need for rescue. It has often been thought by many who read and heard of this gallant Western Australian incident, what real service to Ireland those brave men, who formed and organized that expedition, could do if hurled upon the enemy. It is not meant any particular line of attack, where Britain's superior forces could be concen- trated to resist and capture, but rather the swift and deadly blow of the guerrilla, who delivers his assault and disappears, only to reappear and deal as deadly a blow. There is no motto to free nations but Work I work ! work ! Ireland cannot be freed by the silly policy of Talk ! talk ! talk ! and this work resolves itself into the only road to liberty : Strike ! strike! strike! Never mind the losses undergone ; the enemy is destroy- ing ten times a larger number of the Irish people by the present hellish and demoniac policy. But be sure no men are captured until after they strike ! and strike with effect. The lesson of this Catalpa rescue is that Ireland has plenty of such men at her disposal. Has she likewise her men of courage and brain power in the councils of the Nation ? CHAPTER XIII. (1877-78.) OBSTRUCTION — IRISH INDORSEMENT. Obstruction Scenes in the British Parliament, 1877 — Mr. Parnell and Mr. Biggar — Prisons Bill, March, 1877 — Mutiny Bill — Mr. Parnell and Mr. Butt— South Africa Bill- Great Obstruction Scene — House Sitting Twenty-six Hours — Scenes During Night and Early Morning — Enthusiastic Approval of the Irish People — Reception of Mr. Parnell in Kilmallock — Banquet to Mr. Parnell — Letter from Mr. Biggar — Trium- phal Progress of Mr. Parnell to Navan — Address of the Town Commissioners — Mr. Parnell's Speech on Obstruction — Mr. Gladstone Visits Ireland — Presented with the Freedom of Dublin City — Great Speech in the City Hall — Irish Emigration — Ireland and Belgium — Mr. Gladstone Tries to Get the Views of the People — Libel Suit, Bridge versus Casey — The " Galtee Boy " Exposes Patton Bridge — John Bright's Friend Buckley — The Mountain Peasants — The "Galtee Boy" Wins the Suit — John Bright and Marcus Good body of Clara — The Irish Farmer's Lease — Liberation of Messrs. Davitt, O'Brien, and Color Sergeant McCarthy — Reception at Kingstown — Public Demonstration in Dublin — Causes which Led up to Davitt's Arrest — Death of Sergeant McCarthy — Britain's Penal Dungeons. When Charles Stuart Parnell first appeared upon the political horizon, r there was an intense hostility among the masses of the people against the doctrines of Provincialism or, as it is often termed, Parliamentary agita- tion. What, then, were the reasons which afterward induced so many to look with favor on the new aspirant for public leadership ? It was the introduction of the new weapon, obstruction, and Mr. Parnell's energetic tactics in the enemy's legislative chambers. This, coupled with a bold and manly outspoken determination to win self-government for Ireland in any case, or by any means should peaceful measures fail, which won for Mr. Parnell the devotion of so many Nationalists. Had Mr. Parnell v then attempted the dryrot policy of doing nothing which he preaches and ^practices at this date (1887), or had he attempted to form an alliance with any of the wings of the enemy's political parties, his -sun of leadership -would have never arisen. The energy at that time displayed by the young leader, the novelty and unknown power of his new weapon, by the use of which so much was promised to the Irish people, and also the open and avowed hostility of the professional Home Rule Provincialists under the leadership of Mr. Isaac Butt, all thes^ attracted the attention of the masses to the member for Meath. Since that time Mr. Parnell stole Mr. Butt's Home Rule thunder only to find it as powerful as the whirr from a popgun. When the young member from Meath and his small band of col- leagues, led by Mr. Biggar, interfered with the orderly and solemn course of British legislation, hampering and trying to render useless the Parlia- mentary machine, he awoke a feeling of joy and delight in the Irish breast which parliamentary tactics never before evoked. It was a species of physical force introduced into the British Commons, an upsetting of all the traditions and customs of that chamber, hallowed to British reverence. The action of Mr. Parnell and his colleagues annoyed and irritated the British statesmen and people, and was angrily commented on by the united British press. This new weapon could not be termed by any stretch of imagination, 198 OBSTRUCTION— IRISH INDORSEMENT. 199 " moral suasion." It was an attack on an ancient English institution which rendered inoperative the law-making power and crippled legisla- tion. It won over to the banner of Mr. Parnell Irish believers in physical force ; it strengthened and made more confident Irishmen who clung to milder methods. The more indignant the British became, the more gratified and satisfied were the Irish people. The masses of all peoples are not difficult to sway, when leaders can show them a course by which their needs and desires can be procured ; it is then only natural that the path which entails the less sacrifice and suffering, if it can be fruitful with the necessary results, will be eagerly embraced. Provincialism, miscalled Nationalism, took a forward step in the Irish mind ; it was impossible for any but close observers, and men with time to give to the subject study, to see that Buttism and Parnellism could only have one and the same result. How could the masses see this, when men who posed as leaders in the ranks of the Nationalists could not discern that this new departure was Provincialism, Mokanna-like, wear- ing a national veil ? Parliamentary politics — through the action of the young member for Meath and a few enthusiastic and determined men, who had outstripped their fellow representatives in trying to compel Britain to listen to Ireland's story and hearken to her needs by the bold course of " obstruc- tion " — had been invested with a fresh glamour for the Irish people ; they eagerly listened and accepted the statement made to them, that Britain must either grant " Home Rule " to Ireland or have the whole course of her legislation blocked. Ireland — 'twas told the people — had at last discovered a weapon by the aid of which they could wring from Britain a native Parliament and an independent Ministry. Mr. Butt, the Provincialist leader, was indignant and annoyed at Mr. Parnell and Mr. Biggar's course. He was a true believer in the efficacy of persuasion and conciliation, and as loyal to the British Crown as his great predecessor, Daniel O'Connell, or as Mr. Parnell is to-day (1887). He knew the course pursued by the members for Meath and Cavan would anger his British friends, and, as he expressed it, undo all his labor in trying to conciliate British prejudices against concessions (so termed) to Ireland. Mr. Butt did not then realize that the tide of popularity had turned, and was flowing steadily in the direction of his youthful competitor and eventual successor in the chameleon-like position of Provincial leader. Notwithstanding Mr. Butt's great ability as an orator and as a Parlia- mentarian, he could not show to the Irish people that which they believed Mr. Parnell had already accomplished : the discomforture of their foes by the member for Meath's perseverance in "obstruction." How many times has Ireland since been told by its new idol and his follower — men who are matchless in Parliamentary abilities — that their enemies would soon be routed, and that success would soon reward their labors. But alas ! the end is not yet ; neither is the goal in sight. The slight parliamentary skirmishes of the previous session, tending toward "obstruction," were followed up during this year, 1877, by the first real battles of the new movement. Mr. Butt introduced his Land Bill in March, which was again defeated by a large majority, Britain's usual answer to conciliation. During the debate on the Prisons Bill in March, 1877, Mr. Parnell tried to expose the tortures and cruelties practiced on Irish political prisoners in English penal prisons. He called attention to the treatment of Reddin, who lost the use of his limbs through the brutal punishment 200 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. lie received, even the prison doctor aiding in the cruel persecution. During the course of his statement he was interrupted several times by the British members, on some occasions very rudely and in an unparlia- mentary manner. The Irish members who supported Mr. Parnell opposed every motion to progress, and the House was kept sitting until near morning. Mr. Butt hoped the honorable member for Meath would not persist in his opposition to progress. Mr. Parnell said in deference to the honorable member for Limerick he would withdraw his opposition, and the tired House passed this measure and closed the sitting. Again the Mutiny Bill was in committee on April 12. Mr. Parnell and the small band who followed him were persistent in their attempts to improve and alter some of the clauses of the bill. Division after division took place, but Mr. Parnell and his determined followers kept the House on the defensive. The apostles and soldiers of the new departure were determined to test the power of their new weapon. Mr. Butt was very much annoyed at this persistent opposition." He thought that the honorable member ought to have waited till he came to a clause which he wished to amend. He regretted that the time of the House should have been wasted on this miserable and wretched dis- cussion, and condemned the course taken by the honorable member as one of obstruction. He had no control over the honorable member, but he had a duty to discharge to the Irish nation, and in discharge of that •duty he wished to say that he entirely disapproved of the honorable member's conduct. On April 24, 1877, the annual Home Rule debate took place with the usual Irish speeches in favor of the measure and a few British speeches in opposition. The only incident worthy of note in this debate was Mr. Gladstone's indignant denial of having written a note in support of a Liberal candidate who promised to vote in favor of the Irish demand. The motion for inquiry into the causes which necessitated Ireland to demand a separate Legislature and Ministry was rejected by an over- whelming majority. The South African Bill, to sanction the confederation of the British possessions on the dark continent, came before the House on July 25. The Transvaal Republic had been invaded and violently seized by the British, for which act Mr. Gladstone denounced the Tory Administration. He condemned their arrogant usurpation of the Boers' Government. These speeches of the great Liberal found an echo in every liberty- loving heart. Mr. Parnell opposed the Confederation Bill then before the House, principally on account of the Boers' right as freemen. Mr. Parnell was violently attacked by his British opponents. The member for Meath in the course of his remarks said : " I express my opinion that intimida- tion has been used by the English press. I express my deliberate opin- ion that deliberate intimidation has been resorted to by the press of this country in order to coerce me and prevent me from discharging my duty. As long as I have a seat in this House, I shall not allow myself to be prevented from speaking what I think it necessary to speak, or from taking such steps as I think it necessary to take." The first great battle of obstruction took place a few days later when the South African Bill was in committee ; the sitting of the House of Commons lasted for the unprecedented time of 26^ hours, beginning on Tuesday, July 31, at 4.15 p. m. and sitting unceasingly until Wednesday ■evening at 6.10 p. m. Hour after hour the British members were com- pelled to march through the division lobby on repeated motions to adjourn. The Government was determined to overcome the Irish opposition by OBSTRUCTION— IRISH INDORSEMENT. 201 mere force of numbers. The weary hours of the night stole away, each succeeding peal of the great clock of St. Stephens was answered by the tread of feet through the lobby as division succeeded division with the selfsame result, but still to find the unflagging Irish few in numbers but determined as at the start. The gray light of morning stole into the Commons Chamber to witness a scene never before known in British Parliamentary annals. The few members who assisted Mr. Parnell in his untiring opposition to the Tory Government were compelled to divide themselves into relief parties, so that some would be enabled to get rest while others sustained the struggle. Mr. Biggar, with his quiet, keen sarcasm and dry humor tried to inspirit his friends and abash his foes; he gave Mr. Parnell valuable assistance, as did Mr. O'Connor Power, once a Nationalist, now, alas ! lost to the cause he at one time so faithfully served. The Irish con- tingent dwindled down to three votes in the early morning, and on one occasion to two votes, excluding their tellers, but they refused to succumb and kept on the struggle as stubbornly as ever. The sun rose higher and higher in the heavens, but no change came in the aspect of affairs in Parliament ; the unyielding Irish would die on the floor of the House before they would surrender. For the first time since the so-called union, the British Government began to realize that a new order of men represented Irish interests in that house. With Mr. Parnell and Mr. Biggar came a new programme, and activity and determination was soon to permeate the Irish "ranks. But only to further prove and emphasize National teaching in all ages, that no amount of energy or activity can possibly solve or even help in the smallest manner the Irish issue in the enemy's Parliament. Ireland must either die or fight, as all nations were compelled to do for liberty and independence. Mr. Butt, who was a sincere Provincialist and as West British as Mr. Parnell and his followers are to-day — such is the end of all Irish Parlia- mentary careers — was horrified, as were his friends Mr. Mitchell Henry, Mr. Shaw, and the other so-called Home Rule members, when they entered the House that morning and witnessed the scene therein pre- sented. The House still sitting, or it would be more appropriate to say marching, as when they left it late the night before. The Buttites were as indignant with the Parnellites as these latter worthy gentlemen are to-day with the London Times for accusing them of association with the Invincibles. Mr. Butt was very indignant and felt disgraced and humili- ated at the ungentlemanly behavior of the Parnellites, but he knew he was powerless to suppress what he considered the outrageous conduct of the members for Meath and Cavan and their friends. The Buttites felt too alarmed to admit to themselves what they feared : that the Irish nation was ready to sustain Mr. Parnell in his "obstructive" opposition to British legislation. They knew, alas ! too well for their own political happiness, that Mr. Parnell could give no opposition to the British extreme enough, which would not meet the full sanction and approval of the Irish people. The Government was compelled to succumb, baffled and discomfited, notwithstanding their immense majority, for the Tories never dreamed of laying their hands on the sacred privileges of Parliament. It was left to the hypocritical and canting British party that style themselves Liberals to suppress debate and bring in a Closure Bill at St. Stephens. The wearied chamber rose after an arduous and prolonged sitting. Great was the joy of the Irish people when the news reached them. It was the first parliamentary struggle that had given them any confidence. They began to hope, inspirited by the delusive teaching of the time, that 202 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. they had found means by which they could compel the British to sur- render to them the management of their own island home. It seemed to them that they had something more tangible within their grasp than a vote on Home Rule. They were taught that they held the power to destroy the privileges of the British Commons so long as Britain refused to yield to their just demands, and that as the Tories succumbed in the House so would the enemy crumble before these new " obstructive " tactics. They believed a new leader had sprung into life to lead his suffering countrymen away from British bondage. Mr. Butt's eloquent oratory was not listened to in the enemy's Parliament, or heard only to be outvoted ; here was a new policy with a vigorous young leader, and Ireland was ready to enroll herself under his banner. Carried away by the wave of enthusiasm which followed this Parlia- mentary struggle, the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain at their Liverpool conference, and as an indorsement of his policy, elected Mr. Parnell as their president to replace Mr. Isaac Butt. Killmallock, County Limerick, through her member, Mr. W. H. O'Sullivan, tendered Mr. Parnell a public reception and banquet as an acknowledgment of his Parliamentary victory. The weather had been very broken for some time past, and a great deal of rain had fallen, but this Monday, September 17, 1877, dawned in mellow loveliness — a sweet Irish autumn day. The sun shone out in beauty and brilliancy on the green fields a*nd softened vales of Limerick. Erin had wiped away her tears and wore her sunniest smile of welcome to greet her young champion. Numerous bands made the air resound with Irish music, arches covered the roadway and banners were displayed in profusion, and everything that was possible was done to give Mr. Parnell a hearty Irish welcome. Patriotic mottoes were inscribed on flags and banners ; the usual Irish " Cead Mille Failthe " was visible, accompanied by " Welcome to our good Members," "Ireland demands Home Rule," "Free the Captives." The enthusiastic and impulsive people believed in the efficacy of " obstruction '* to win them victory. Mr. Parnell's arrival at Killmallock was the occasion of a most enthu- siastic reception. Speeches were delivered by several who came to do him welcome, including Mr. O'Sullivan, the resident M. P. Mr. Parnell delivered the following interesting address. The opening part in italics is appropriate to that gallant gentleman's position at this date (1887) : " Irishmen in their own country had always been the first to show they were Irishmen, but in the House of Commons they never could be Irish- men. I appreciate the sacrifice you have made in coming to welcome myself and others, and I appreciate the spirit which dictated the sacrifice. " Standing as we are in the midst of monuments that mark the ancient struggle between Ireland and the Normans, we are inaugurating a fresh struggle between England and Ireland which we will fight out like men, It is our duty not to conciliate, not to beg, not to crave from England. It is our duty to demand, and if we cannot get what we ask by demanding it, our duty is to show that England must give it. (Cheers.) In what- ever field we struggled, whatever weapons we employed, let us show we are Irishmen. (Cheers.) I have been accused of being a disunionist and a disruptionist. I am neither. I seek no personal aims in this matter, but I do say to the people of Ireland that their cause has been degraded by their representatives in the House of Commons. I wish to bring about a change and to ask you to see that so long as we are to have a Parliamentary policy of any kind it should be a national policy. There was no dis- union on this question. The people of Ireland were of one mind upon it ; or if they were not so to-day they would soon be of one mind." OBSTRUCTION— IRISH INDORSEMENT. 203 That portion of this truly remarkable address which is italicized should be remembered to-day. Every word of Mr. Parnell's speech in Kilmallock delivered ten years ago would bear repetition and teach a wholesome lesson to the people as to the mockery of Provincialist teaching. In the evening there was a banquet tendered to the " patriotic member for Meath." Letters of apology were read from Mr. Butt and other gentlemen who regretted being absent. Mr. Biggar, M. P. for Cavan, wrote : " I regret very much it is out of my power to be at Kilmallock on this day week. I see by the papers that Mr. Butt and Mr. Redmond have been trying to lead the people of Ireland astray by incorrect assump- tions and attempts to hide the leading question. Do the people of Ireland wish their representatives to be industrious or indolent? -Do they wish them to make their primary object what will be for the good of Ireland, or what will please the English members of Parliament ? I think whenever the issue is raised there can be no doubt of what the verdict of the Irish people will be in spite of the mutterings of a few insincere Whigs." At this banquet the toast of the British Queen was omitted, and the first toast was, " Ireland a self-governed nation." All over Ireland Mr. Parnell was welcomed, and in Britain, in Irish gatherings, they were eager and delighted to see and hear the apostle and leader of obstruction. But "royal" Meath did not forget her young member, and Mr. Parnell's appearance there was a triumphal progress. Bands and banners came to meet him as he stepped off the train at Navan. The Town Com- missioners of Navan presented him with an address of welcome which was read by their chairman. They observed with satisfaction that neither the fierce hostility of any intolerant alien assembly, nor the vile abuse of an unscrupulous press, nor the chilling abstention of his own Parlia- mentary colleagues could drive him from that course of action which his patriotism suggested as best calculated to serve the interests of his country. The chairman complimented him for his honesty and patriotism, his earnestness and ability, his indomitable perseverance as a faithful representative, and finally as "a great Irishman." Mr. Parnell said he thought the opposition to British rule which was best and most felt was that which brought about results, and that opposition was best which was determined and never flinching. The inde- pendent opposition of Gavan Duffy and Lucas had failed, because the British Government used means which it well knew how to use against it, and it was thwarted by treachery. The Government of the present day thought it would thwart this opposition by similar means, but they reckoned without their host. If the Irish people thought it was best to be craven and cowardly, he would submit to their judgment. If they chose to do nothing but kneel before England, let them kneel ; but when they found, as they should know well enough by this time, that they would not get anything out of England by cringing and kneeling and sup- plicating, they would adopt the policy of action, which had been shown in some slight degree to be a successful policy. Mr. Ennis, M. P., in the course of a long speech, said the truth was that when Irishmen went to Westminster they seemed to forget that they were Irishmen. The grateful Irish people lost no opportunity to testify their esteem and approval of Mr. Parnell's political course. Then commenced a series of public receptions to Ireland's favorite son that has since been continued by the people of both continents. 204 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. A new champion in favor of Home Rule for Ireland appeared at this time — that erratic but brilliant and able Englishman Lord Randolph Churchill. The Irish papers quoted his speeches and writings with approval. The English press said the only logical conclusion that Lord Churchill should come to was to join the Home Rule League. Alas for Ireland, she will foolishly listen to these meaningless, mocking speeches of affected sympathy offered by British statesmen for their own personal or party purposes. Ireland is for them a shuttlecock, which both Liberals and Tories use to toss about between them. Ireland was visited this year by one of the greatest masters in the use of kindly speech and fierce condemnation of Ireland's persecutors when out of orifice, William Ewart Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone's eloquent voice, when not hampered by the cares and responsibilities of office, has been often raised in the cause of suffering- humanity, when Britain is not the despot. He traveled England to denounce the cruelties and abominations which the " unspeakable Turk" had practiced in Bulgaria. His denunciations thundered over Britain and re-echoed over civilization, just as years ago his condemnation of Neapolitan atrocities toward political prisoners drew the attention of Europe. His subsequent campaign in condemnation of the Tory usurpation in the Transvaal received approval from all who love free- dom. His eloquent and able advocacy of the Boer cause reached the people of the late Transvaal republic and they felt they had a noble champion in this great Englishman, and one who would peaceably undo the despotic acts of the Tories when he came to power. Ireland, or rather a portion of her inhabitants, welcomed this suave Briton. They forgot the coercionist in the advocate of freedom. Mr. Gladstone was then denouncing the Tory Premier and his policy on every platform. Of course he was then Ireland's friend, so the Provincialists taught them. The Tory Parliament of 1876 had conferred one great boon on Ireland. It was a measure of justice and a concession, according to the Irish leader, Mr. Butt. It was granting to the Irish municipal corpora- tions the privilege of bestowing the honor of the freedom of their several municipalities on any prominent Irishman or distinguished stranger. 'Twas a mockery and an insult to the capital of an enslaved and decay- ing nation to go through the hollow and theatrical ceremony of confer- ring freedom — what it did not itself possess — upon any visitor or countryman. Mr. Gladstone was duly honored by the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and council of Dublin, and the freedom of the city was conferred upon the illustrious visitor on November 7, 1877. It was the occasion for several complimentary speeches and gave Mr. Gladstone an opportunity to speak at length on several interesting subjects. In the course of his speech he said : " My Lord, there is another measure which after all with the people of Ireland is greater than any of these others. I mean the measure which relates to the land question. This is an agricultural country. I for one should be delighted [?] to witness the growth of its trade and manufac- tures and of its mining interests, but the present is that which it is in our prime duty to deal with and to consider, and we must therefore ask our- selves what has been done or what can be done with respect to rendering secure and prosperous that which may be called now at the present day the staple occupation of the people of Ireland. . . " We have witnessed the partial depopulation of the country. For one, I may thank God that if we may rely upon calculations, I believe honestly made, though we do not yet know whether the population of Ireland is actually increasing, we may hope, and profoundly thankful am I OBSTRUCTION— IRISH INDORSEMENT. 205 for one, if it be true, that that depopulation, that decrease, is at an end. No doubt in the times when Ireland had more than eight millions of people those who examined its condition, and many of its best and sincerest friends, were in the habit of holding, and they conscientiously believed, that large emigration, which means undoubtedly decrease in numbers, was the only mode of bringing about a state of things when there would be a tolerable sure sufficiency of the means of livelihood in Ireland, but it was not by a scheme of emigration due to the wisdom of statesmen, but it was by a severe dispensation of Providence — severe, but in its results do not let it be supposed that / murmur at its extent — it was by a severe calamity that this great change was partly brought about and partly set in motion, so that instead of more than eight millions you have now less than five and a half millions." How like the Pharisee in the Temple as described in Holy Writ is Mr. Gladstone when he thanks God that he for one is thankful that there is no further decrease in the Irish population. It reminds the Irish Nationalist of the lines of Tacitus : " None grieve so ostentatiously as those who rejoice most in heart." Was Mr. Gladstone well informed on his subject, or did he really care to make himself so? He, an ex-British Premier, and a Cabinet Minister during many years of this depopulation of Ireland, uses an expression which must be termed an impious blasphemy to call the cause of the fear- ful famine and emigration a dispensation of Providence. There was no famine in 1846-47, but an artificial famine. The failure of a single esculent, the potato — this could not be called famine in a land that produced enough corn and cattle in either of these years to feed more than twenty millions of people ; but this corn and cattle had to be shipped to England to feed their British foes, while the Irish people died like rotten sheep by the wayside. It was the dispensation of that hellish machine, foreign government, of which this most respectable statesman had been a valued member for a long term of his public life, and for five years as Premier he adminis- tered its affairs (1869 to 1874) — a government which deprived the Irish people of many occupations, and compelled them to live on the land, the fruits of which were in greater part confiscated by minions of that alien power of which Mr. Gladstone was part, these instruments of British rule, the landlords. Since that date, now ten years ago, Ireland has been further depopu- lated by half a million souls. Mr. Gladstone tells us that deplorable as this loss of population may be it is a benefit, the cant phrase usually used by British statesmen. The kingdom of Belgium, which is but one-third the area of Ireland, has a population of 5,853,278 souls, which is increasing yearly. If Ireland were like Belgium she could easily support in comfort and happi- ness 20,000,000 of people. She is not only three times larger than Bel- gium, but she possesses many natural advantages that Belgium has not. She is a magnificent island possessed of not only every natural beauty, but every natural advantage to become a great manufacturing and commercial nation — an island guarded by the sea, and not on the frontier of any powerful nation such as those which threaten Belgium's inde- pendence. Belgium, though small and apparently feeble compared with that great braggadocio of nations Britain, who having in her coffers the plunder of other countries thinks herself the more powerful in proportion to her wealth — Belgium, small Belgium, can put upon the European battleground a larger army than this bloated mistress of the seas, as she styles herself. Ireland will remain cursed with the knowledge that she 206 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. is an agricultural country until she can manage her own affairs and develop her own industries as Belgium did since she became a self- governing nation. Mr. Gladstone's stay in Ireland was a pleasant one. He took the novel way of trying to get at the sentiments of the people by traveling portions of his journey in third-class carriages. Irishmen have been taught through coercion and tyranny, especially those of the humbler class, not to speak their real sentiments to strangers. Mr. Gladstone could not pos- sibly learn much in this way during his very limited stay. One of the many cruelties practiced on the Irish agricultural classes came before the public in a libel case which was tried at this time. An English merchant, a Mr. Buckley, a friend of that great English democrat John Bright, purchased an estate in Ireland. The agent on the estate was a certain Patton Bridge, who gained unenviable notoriety. This agent was a tyrant of the most despotic kind and one who looked upon the Irish peasant farmer as a degraded serf. A Southern slave owner had more mercy and feeling for his slaves than had this slave overseer of the Englishman Buckley for the Irish tenants. Buckley looked upon his purchase in the light of an ordinary commercial trans- action, which should repay him a certain percentage whether he had or had not bought it at its proper value. So he ordered Patton Bridge to perform the pleasing task of increasing the rents on the estate, whether the land could produce the additional impost or not. Among the tenancies were a number of small holdings. A bleak mountain side on the estate, which was stony and barren, was made capable of growing some potatoes in small patches here and there through the industry of the poverty-stricken peasants. As it came out in evidence on the trial for libel, the poor people carried up the mountain sides baskets of earth, and toiled on until they were successful in making the stony soil capable of producing some crops. Those who give currency or belief to one of England's slanders, that the people of Ireland are lazy, should visit this arid mountain and see what fruitful patches these poor people have won from the bleak hillside which at that time was covered with a series of small farms (as Irish farms go in size), by hard toil in all weathers from daybreak to dusk, proving the undeniable fact, that when Irishmen at home have an incen- tive for labor there are no more industrious people on the earth. Patton Bridge put high rents on these mountain patches, the creation of the toiling peasant. The English democrat's predecessor was a ruined Irish landlord, but he only charged a nominal rent for this stony hillside. Patton Bridge's life was attempted ; but while he escaped with a slight wound, an unfortunate youth in his service as car driver received the shots intended for the agent. Patton Bridge was protected by an armed guard of constabulary, who succeeded in arresting an aged farmer named Crowe, who was tried and executed. Some correspondence was printed in the newspapers on Patton Bridge's career. One of these com- munications was a scathing letter written by Mr. J. Casey of Mitchels- town, known by the nom de plume of the "Galtee Boy," an Irish Nationalist, one of the ex- Fenian prisoners. Mr. Casey exposed several of Patton Bridge's inhuman misdeeds. The result was a trial for libel. The case was heard in the Four Courts, Dublin, and such an expose of plunder and villainy came to light that even Judge Barry, one of the pre- siding judges, was compelled to condemn the system which made such infamies possible. Mr. Casey got a verdict, in his favor from the jury,, and on his return to Mitchelstown he received a great ovation from his fellow-townsmen. OBSTRUCTION— IRISH INDORSEMENT. 207 John Bright, whose friend Mr. Buckley became the owner of this estate by recent purchase, grew very much irritated at the thought that Buckley could be considered as acting in any way tyrannical, and expressed himself strongly in the House of Commons on the subject. Among Mr. Bright's friends are the Goodbodys of Ireland. Marcus Goodbody of Clara, Kings County, is an extensive landowner. Some years anterior to this period, it is currently related in the neighborhood, Mr. Goodbody had notified his tenants that their rents were to be increased next gale day. A few days after this notice was sent out Mr. Goodbody in walking through his grounds one morning saw the initial letters of his name, M. G., on several of the surrounding trees. The letters were formed by bullets fired from a musket, evidently the shooting of some skillful marks- man. Mr. Goodbody was alarmed. He knew full well these letters had an ominous meaning for him, so he fled to the Continent and remained there for some time, instructing his farm bailiff not to interfere with the rents. On his return he was welcomed home by his tenants with the heartiest good will. Nothing was said on either side about the cause of Mr. Goodbody's absence. Some years after Mr. John Bright was on a visit to Mr. Goodbody's house in Clara. He complimented Mr. Goodbody on the superior appearance of his tenantry and the comfortable snug farmhouses, in such contrast to the surroundings. He said to his host that he supposed his tenants held leases — this was considered a panacea for land ills at that time. Mr. Goodbody replied in the negative, that he never gave any leases to his tenantry, neither did they ask him for such. The Englishman was surprised at the reply. Some days after this conversation Mr. Bright in the course of his rambles came in sight of an exceptionally pretty farmhouse, with roses and creepers ahout the porch. He was surprised to see what might be termed a vara avis in Ireland, and going up to the farmhouse was accosted by the farmer with the kindly Irish greeting, " God save you, sir." Mr. Bright was invited to enter, and seating himself in the best parlor told the farmer who he was. The farmer was delighted to see Mr. Bright, whose reputation as Ireland's friend was very great at that time. Mr. Bright complimented his host on the taste displayed about the farmhouse and concluded by remarking that he presumed he had a lease. " Oh, yes, sir," said the farmer ; " I am a lease-holder." " Who is your landlord ?" asked the English visitor. " Mr. Goodbody of Clara, God bless him, and a good landlord he is," replied the Irishman. " Mr. Goodbody ! " exclaimed Mr. Bright ; " why, I understood he gave no leases. Have you any objection, friend, to let me see your lease if you have it convenient?" "With all the pleasure in life, and sure you are heartily welcome, sir," answered the farmer. The farmer got his keys and unlocking a cabinet displayed before the gaze of the astonished English- man a huge blunderbus. With a twinkling in his eye and patting the weapon the farmer said : " Yes, sir, here is my lease, and as long as I hold this there is no fear that Mr. Goodbody will dispossess me while I pay him his rent." Mr. Bright took a hurried departure, astounded at the farmer's audacity. The early part of this year, 1878, saw three of the Fenian prisoners liberated on tickets of leave : Color Sergeant McCarthy, Mr. O'Brien, and Mr. Michael Davitt. On their arrival by mail boat at Kingstown they received an enthusiastic Irish welcome ; crowds climbed on top of the railroad carriages struggling to shake hands with the liberated men. Among those who went down from Dublin by special train to greet them were Major O'Gorman, M. P., and Mr. John Ferguson, the famous Glasgow publisher and a stanch Irish Provincialist. Westland Row, Dublin, and the environs of the railroad terminus were crowded with people to give 2o8 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. the released men a cordial greeting. The Dublin bands turned out and they were escorted by a crowded procession to their hotel. Mr. Davitt, the most prominent of these men living, was arrested through the curious fact of an Irishman whose tendency was secretiveness carried to an extreme. Mr. Davitt had been arms agent for the Irish revolutionists in the north of England and supplied arms to any of the Irish circles that required to purchase them. As these duties were partly commercial, Mr. Davitt took into partnership an Englishman, a Mr. Wilson. The I. R. B. centre at Portlaw, County Waterford, ordered some rifles for his men and they were shipped to Waterford, to be kept at the goods depot until sent for. This centre was an exceptionally silent man ; he took no one into his confidence as to the route by which the arms would come. He took ill of fever and died, and his secret was buried with him. The baggage master at the depot, who was an ex- constabulary man, noticed this box lying in the store so long uncalled for, had it opened, and when its contents were revealed communicated with the British authorities. On the rifles were the names or private marks of the Birmingham makers. The British detectives were set on the track by the clew these captured arms gave them, and the result was the arrest of Mr. Davitt and Mr. Wilson. Mr. Davitt tried in the noblest manner to save the Englishman from punishment by volunteering to take upon himself the two sentences, but Mr. Davitt might have known that this could not be. The Englishman, to many men's view of the matter, deserved a very heavy sentence for his unpatriotic conduct. Although he might have been told nothing of Mr. Davitt's surroundings, still he must have suspected, no matter how carefully Mr. Davitt tried to mislead him, that these arms were intended for Irish revolutionists to use when expedient against Britons, his countrymen. And for the sake of the money in the business he was satisfied to be silent and assist. Most people believe in every man standing by his own nation and condemn this man Wilson. What in Mr. Davitt was a noble duty was an act of treachery to his country on the part of the mercenary Briton, who ought to have got the severest penalty. But Mr. Wilson only copied the treason- able actions of Birmingham gunsmiths, who arm Africans and Asiatics to fight their fellow-countrymen. Since his sentence Mr. Davitt has had a " noble vision." At this hour it is a cargo of dictionaries he would supply his countrymen with to teach them to collect a choice number of exple- tives to convince the Saxon. Words are Mr. Davitt's modern weapon of war. Of the three men released was one exceptionally noble fellow, whose assistance to Ireland had she taken the field in 1865 would have been most valuable, Color Sergeant McCarthy. This brave Irishman did not live long to enjoy his freedom. A few days after his arrival in Dublin he died suddenly of heart disease, brought on by prison cruelties. His wife, who was on the way to Dublin, heard of his death on her arrival in the city. All that British prisons had given up to her was her husband's corpse. What comparison can there be between the short terms of imprison- ment which our friends of the League can receive placed beside these men's sufferings, endured for many years, in England's savage penal dens ? Do Irishmen remember that there are to-day numbers of their coun- trymen — or has their sympathy all gone to the Leaguers — suffering the same mental and physical tortures which done to death Color Sergeant McCarthy ? CHAPTER XIV. (1878.) CLOSE OF THE FEDERAL ERA. The Russian War — Mr. Gladstone and the Fenian Prisoners — Home Rule Conference in Dublin — Mr. Dillon's Resolutions — Mr. Butt's Rejoinder — " Dealing a Death Blow to Ireland " — Mr. Dillon Implored to Withdraw his Resolution — Mr. Farnell's Amend- ment — Mr. Butt's Resignation — Meeting of Committee — Mr. Butt's Address — The Dublin Irishman on the Failure of Agitation — The Flag of Ireland — " Sinking of the Federal Ship" — Home Rule Parties — Mr. Mitchell Henry and the Parnellites — Mr. Butt on Obstruction — Mr. Butt's Letter to Dr. Ward, M. P. — Ireland a Nation versus a Province — Manifesto of Policy from Obstructionists — Mr. Butt's Criticisms — The Two Policies — Release of Messrs. Ahearne and Clancy — Story of Mr. Clancy's Arrest — Last of the Fenian Prisoners — Public Meeting in London — Mr. James Clancy's Able Address on Prison Sufferings — Close of the Year 1878. The year of grace 1878 opened with a great shock to the Tory Premier's policy. Russian troops, in spite of all English military prophets to the contrary, crossed the Balkan range, and were in victorious march toward the ancient capital of the Empire of the East. Lord Beacons- field called the Parliament together one month earlier than usual. The British Premier, having made his sovereign an empress, had retired to the quiet precincts of the Upper Chamber with an English earldom. He summoned the Legislature to vote his Ministry six million pounds sterling to pay for the expenses of mobilizing the army reserve and call- ing out the militia. It was simply a game of brag, as Lord Beaconsfield had not the slightest idea of taking the field, without an ally to aid him, against Russia. He pleased the British in making them believe he was frightening the Russian bear by mustering England's puny reserve and bringing a few regiments of Indian troops to Malta. Russia knew very well England would not and could not fight. For as Count von Moltke said of the British troops, they were splendid soldiers, but not numerous enough to make a decent baggage guard for an army. The Parnellite Parliamentary party took no active interest in this European question, only to hope that Britain would go to war, so as to enable Ireland to avail herself of any difficulties England might get involved in. The Premier's release of Fenian prisoners at this juncture looked suspiciously like trying to conciliate Ireland in the possible out- break of a great war. The Dublin Freeman in its issue of January 5, 1878, comments thus on the release of these prisoners : '• If the prisoners had been released in compliance with the public demand for justice and mercy made by the amnesty movement, and after the eloquent appeal of Air. Gladstone last autumn, it would have been regarded as an act of grace entitled to respectful acknowledgment, but like every other concession from England, it has come too late." How short-lived are the memories of politicians. The Freeman speaks of Mr. Gladstone's appeal for clemency in the autumn of 1877. If this statesman's words had any sincerity in them why did he not release them when he himself was Premier ? The indignation of the Greenwich Irish electors in 1874 will be remembered. Truly the "Grand Old Man " has always been toward Ireland the prince of hypocrites, and yet Irishmen continue to place implicit trust in this scholarly and able 209 210 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Englishman, whose deeds so outrageously contradict his honeyed words of sympathy. In one of the debates in the House of Commons Mr. Parnell thus commented on the effect of trying to conciliate English rule : Irish- men might hold meetings in Dublin until they were black in the face without securing attention to their grievances, but if war with Russia were to occur he thought that attention would be directed in a special and focible manner to redress the grievances of Ireland. What a difference between the energetic Parnell of that day, inclining toward Nationalism, and by his people thought so full of promise, and the same man to-day (1887). At a public meeting in Barrow-on-Furness, England, Mr. Parnell, speaking upon conciliation, said that his predecessor, John Martin, found out before his death that it was useless to endeavor by constitutional means and fair representation to get justice for Ireland. His (Parnell's) course was this — Englishmen insisted on their going to London to manage their affairs, and they would help them with a vengeance. A Home Rule conference was held in Dublin. Many looked forward to see a serious division in the Home Rule ranks over the question of obstruction ; the London press, ever eager to record differences among Irishmen, forgetting how Englishmen attack each other over party dif- ferences. There has been witnessed by Irish visitors scenes in English clubrooms during political debates between Tories and Radicals that would put to shame the insulting allusion to Donnybrook Fair. Never in any Irish gathering has there been seen the slightest approach to these English rows. The Home Rule conference was getting through its business as har- moniously as possible, and the question of "obstruction " had not been alluded to, when Mr. John Dillon proposed the following resolution : "Whereas, it is desirable to seize all suitable opportunity of demon- strating both to the English people and foreign nations that the Irish nation so long as it is deprived of its national right to self-government can have no community of interest with England in her dealings with foreign powers, this conference is of opinion, should the question of inter- vention arise, that the Irish party ought, through its leader, to repudiate all sympathy with England on this question, and that the party ought to emphasize this declaration by leaving the House in a body before the division." He said the adoption of such a course would no doubt create a great feeling of anger in the House of Commons, but it would do more to con- vince the British of the deep wish of the Irish people than even a repeti- tion of the scenes of 1867, and far more than any debates in the House of Commons, where Mr. Butt by his eloquence won nothing for the Irish people but the honeyed words of wily Ministers who, calculat- ing on his amiability of temperament, used him as their tool. Mr. Butt said if they passed this resolution all they had done in the way of conciliation was at an end. It would be the death knell of the Home Rule party. A more deadly blow at the heart of Ireland could not be struck. (Cries of " No ! ") Gentlemen might say " No." He thought he knew something of what would be the effect on public opinion. They had not watched with him over the cradle of this Home Rule move- ment, they had not watched over the efforts to build up a party such as they never had in Ireland before. He confessed he was tired and disgusted with men who had no experience putting forward their opinions there with an air of authority. It was a recision of the very first prin- ciples of the " Home Rule League "; he believed the resolution was illegal. Was there ever such an abandonment of the great cause of the Irish CLOSE OF THE FEDERAL ERA. 211 people? . . . He implored Mr. Dillon to withdraw the resolution if only as a sacrifice to that unity which characterized their proceedings. Mr. Parnell moved as an amendment that if any definite issue be raised on the Eastern question, which is an Imperial question, it will be the duty of the Irish Parliamentary party to consult together and to carry out as a party a united line of policy and of action. Mr. Dillon seconded Mr. Parnell's amendment, which was carried. Mr. Butt, in his appeal to Mr. Dillon to withdraw his resolution, said of it that " a more deadly blow could not be struck at the heart of Ire- land." The number of deadly blows — according to the logic of Irishmen attempting the impossible, conciliating England — that Ireland has received and the many times the actions of Irish patriots who run counter to these people's cherished West-British views place their country back a century is marvelous. If by the light of these people's reasoning Ireland were placed so often centuries behind in human progress, the logical infer- ence would be that, the country having been put back so many centuries, it could have no actual existence, and was effaced from the surface of the globe. The whirligig of British party politics, into the vortex of which Pro- vincialists are certain to be dragged, has strange contrasts ; the time was to come when, according to Mr. Dillon's supposed changed patriotic views, another deadly blow had been struck at Ireland's heart, and Ire- land put back at least another quarter of a century ; the language Mr. Butt used to Mr. Dillon and Mr. Parneil they in turn, as they became timid and vacilliating by British Parliamentary association, used to other men. But unlike Mr. Butt, the Parnellites were only playing a part when they denounced those who remained faithful to the standard of genuine self-government, which Mr. Dillon at this later time deserted. April 15, 1878, Mr. Butt communicated to the committee of the Irish Parliamentary party his intention of resigning his position as leader, assigning as his reasons ill health and his inability to attend to profes- sional and Parliamentary duties at the same time. The committee com- municated with Mr. Butt and asked him to reconsider the matter and then to inform them of his final decision. Mr. Butt, in response to a telegram, arrived in London to attend a meeting to consider the question of his proffered resignation of leader- ship. Mr. Butt, in the address he delivered to the committee, wakes a sad responsive thrill in the Irish heart. How many men of ability have eaten away their souls in trying to accomplish self-government for Ireland by the impossible course of British Parliamentary politics ! What a pity to see such a number of splendid Irishmen lose their health and corrupt their nationality in attempting what has never been accomplished, the granting of even the smallest material concession to Ireland by a British Legisla- ture ; listening to British statesmen promising, always promising, for the accomplishment of party purposes — if in opposition — only to realize what tyrants they become when in power ! Mr. Butt in addressing the com- mittee said : " I had hoped to associate my name with benefits to my native land. My colleagues will readily believe that I do not lightly give up that prized position and sever myself from those cherished hopes." The Dublin Irishman, April 13, 1878, speaking of Mr. Butt's proposed resignation said : " The resignation of Mr. Butt shows that the Home Rule organization is on its last legs, and with its final collapse will disappear forever the hopeless sham of constitutional agitation." Unfortunately for Ireland this prophecy has not been fulfilled. So 212 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. long as Ireland has slavish dreamers who in blind folly mislead the masses, and mercenary men who see the means to reap a golden harvest, so long will Ireland have agitators. When her people throw off their credulity and think for themselves, and are prepared to make sacrifices for freedom, if there are a sufficient number left at home, native govern- ment may hope to be on the true road for success. The Flag of Ireland speaking of the federal collapse observes : " The working classes heard all these fine platform speeches. They saw what it all meant : an agitation for the mere purpose of lifting a few score of ambitious persons into the English House of Commons. . . The federal bark is foundering. Luckily it does not bear Ireland's fortunes, or the nation would lament the impending shipwreck of her hopes. Perhaps the Irish race will not regret that the Home Rule skiff is about to heel over, for when she goes down she will drag with her and bury constitutional action into the deep." Some pressure was brought to bear upon Mr. Butt, so he resumed the leadership of the dying federal movement on May 29, 1878. The feeling between the two sections of the Home Rule party was becoming daily of an unpleasant nature, and nothing but the fixed deter- mination of the Parnellites to avoid collision kept the party together. The Buttites were very much in the majority, and except when questions of principle were involved Mr. Parnell and his party tried to keep from giving offense to those gentlemen, who were supposed to have possessed milder dispositions and more equable temperaments than their energetic and fiery rivals. Experience has taught Irishmen the sad lesson that the so-called moderates are very much more immoderate in the expression of their views than the Nationalists, and that they have often to bear with vitu- peration and calumny from the Provincialists sooner than by replying give joy to the common enemy. The Whig Home Rulers were very bitter at the course which Mr. Parnell and his few followers pursued in Parliament, but they felt com- pelled to admit from the results of recent by-elections that the country's verdict was in favor of what was termed at that time active Parliamentary policy. Mr. Mitchell Henry, a Whig Home Ruler, in a letter to the Dublin Freeman, made the following attack on the obstructionists : " Their policy is to bring Parliamentary action into contempt and substitute for it violence and crime. " I venture to say there can be no safety for the party collectively or for each of us individually unless a further repudiation is made by Mr. Parnell and Mr. Biggar than any to which their names have been put." There can be no stronger proof of the corrupting influences of Parlia- mentary life, when to-day these men whom Mr. Mitchell Henry accused of trying to create a policy of violence and crime are slandering their national brothers who have not changed as they did in their devotion to Ireland and their willingness to make every sacrifice in her behalf. On November 26, 1878, Mr. Butt sent a letter to an elector of Lim- erick in which he discussed the then much debated question of obstruc- tion. He said : " The obstructive policy may prevent the passage of a great many good measures, but it can never obtain the passing of one. I am satisfied there never was a time when by prudence and moderation more good might be accomplished for the country, and a heavy responsibility will fall on anyone who mars by indiscretion or violence the obtaining of that good." This letter was one of Mr. Butt's public protests against obstruction. CLOSE OF THE FEDERAL ERA. 213 He points to Mr. Parnell and Mr. Biggar, for he' considered they marred by indiscretion and violence Ireland's chance of Home Rule. " Prudence and moderation," said Mr. Butt : how little do these words apply to a dying, struggling nationality, sinking deeper in those shifting sands of destruction which her foreign foe designs should swallow her up. Better for Ireland to throw what in a different case might be the motto of wis- dom to the winds, but in hers would be the motto of " folly and inani- tion." Let her answer with McMahon at the Malakhoff, " Je suis ici, Je reste/ '.' when asked to retreat by the most "prudent and moderate " of leaders, or with Grant in the Wilderness exclaim, " We will fight it out on. this line if it takes us all the summer ! " It is a noticeable fact in Irish history that when leaders of the Irish people become what they miscall " prudent and moderate " they grow in proportion more loyal to the British enemy, and proportionately more disloyal to their own nation's interests. Mr. Butt, in a letter to Dr. Ward, M. P., one of the Home Rule party, written on November 29, 1878, deprecates any intervention of Irish business to interfere with British and Imperial interests in any manner. " Parliament is convened for the purpose of deliberating on matters- of vital importance to the United Kingdom. We should act very unwisely if without the most imperious necessity we interrupted or embarrassed these deliberations by the discussion of questions which we can bring forward with far better chance of success at a future stage of the proceedings of the session. Such a course would fairly expose us to the suspicion of pressing the claims of Ireland not for the purpose of obtaining a recognition of them from Parliament, but either with the object of serving the interests of party or of creating confusion in the councils of the nation at a time when to do so is to help the cause of its. enemies." How confusing are some of the passages of Mr. Butt's letter ! He speaks of serving the interests ot party, but by doing so it would cause confusion in the councils of the nation. The nation here alluded to it is presumed is the British nation, and the party whose interests are not to be served at the British nation's expense are the representatives of another nation — the Irish nation. Now if there exists no Irish nation, but a party ox province within the British nation, as Mr. Butt's letter would seem to imply, by what right did Mr. Butt demand for that party a separate Parliament from that of the British nation, of which they were — -to follow out the meaning of the letter — a part ? As well might Devonshire or Northumberland demand separate Parliaments, and call the legisla- tion of each of these shires Home Rule. How completely did Mr. Butt cut the ground from under his own feet and that of the most moderate of moderate Home Rulers when he speaks of the British nation as if it were his country and its enemies Ireland's enemies, and its interests Ireland's interests. Fortunately for Ireland the Great Creator of the world left this question in no doubt. Unlike the warring nationalities of France and Germany, Britain is not on Ireland's frontiers, and although through centuries of persecution she has forced upon that country her language, she has not yet destroyed hers. But she could never force upon Ireland her border line. The sea that dashes in all the glory of freedom against her rock-bound coast speaks in majestic tones the Almighty's decree that Ireland is a nation, and which decree her sons must fulfill by making her free and independent. Mr. Butt, in his third letter to the electors of Limerick, quotes a manifesto of what was termed the advanced section of Home Rulers,, which appeared in the Nation of November 2. This manifesto was- written with reference to a meeting in the north of Ireland, at which a resolution was passed calling on Irish members to retire from Parliament, 214 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. on the ground of the hopelessness of any effort to obtain justice. Against this resolution the writer of the letter protests, and argues against it by showing the use to which the Parliamentary representation of Ireland may be put. " Their very presence in Parliament will keep Ireland's claims before England and the world, and for the enforcement of those claims they can put upon the British Government a degree of pressure which will at last become intolerable and irresistible beyond doubt or question. The Irish people are beginning to have a clear conception of this fact. They are beginning to see that for them the British Parliament is the vital point, and at the same time the exposed point, of England's political system. They know that they can hurt England there and nowhere else. England's forts and barracks are constructed to repel hostile attacks, and without formidable means it is impossible to effect their overthrow. " The British Parliament, the most important of English institutions, the very citadel of her power — is not constructed on the same principles. It is open to our operations. We have the right of entrance there, and we can disrupt it from within. It is built on the assumption that every man who gets inside will be a friend, a guardian of England's interests, a helper of her designs, an abettor of her policy. There is where Ireland has the grip of her, if Ireland knows how to take it and use it. There is where the pressure can be put on ; the hurt can be given and the peril created and maintained until England consents to undo the injustice of the legislative union." He (Mr. Butt) must leave it to every man's conscience to say how far he would be justified in obtaining the power of sharing in the proceedings of the House of Commons by taking the oath of allegiance to the queen and then using that power to baffle all her measures, confuse all her councils, and disrupt the citadel of her power; but would any man who coolly reflected on it believe that a great and powerful nation would permit this to be done ; that any representative assembly in the world would allow itself to be forced into action which it disapproved by a small number of its members, declaring that until that action was taken the business of the House of Commons itself should be exposed to the various annoyances, troubles, and defeats that might be planned ? Why, they know very little of Parliamentary law, or of the power and temper of the House, who suppose that some means would not be found for speedily putting this down. At all costs and hazards it would be crushed. What power of resistance is there ? All ends in a miserable submission unless they have the means of defeating the British cannon and dismantling the British fortresses. To this it must come. England is plainly told there must be rebellion within the walls of the House of Commons, but they wouid soon find that rebel- lion within those walls could only be supported by rebellion in its most natural place — the field. Of all expectations that can be entertained, the wildest seems to him, that by such a course of policy England could ever be induced to undo the legislative union. It would put no pressure upon her. Any exercise of power that might be necessary to stop it would be approved of by the whole English people, and by numbers of Irishmen. The two Parliamentary policies are explained and simplified in this letter of Mr. Butt. The Irish leader's (Mr. Butt's) policy is the policy of the present hour : conciliate the British people ; the then policy of the new departure (Mr. Parnell's) was to use the forms of the House of Commons to obstruct the business of British legislation, and so exasperate the English people that they would eventually rid themselves of the Irish members by giving to them a native Parliament. Mr. Butt's criticism of CLOSE OF THE FEDERAL ERA. 215 this course is in a measure correct ; it could not, nor can any Parliamentary course gain for Ireland what she needs — self-government. To think that it would be possible to do England any serious injury in Parliament, as in the letter of the obstructive quoted by Mr. Butt, could only exist in the imagination of the writer. Material injury of any kind can only be done by some species of physical force. The action of Mr. Parnell drew upon him the attention of the Irish- Americans. Mr. Davitt, who came to America on National business, made a very able address in Brooklyn near the close of this year. Some of the Irish-Americans, carried away with this new weapon to hurt Eng- land, and not thoroughly understanding the position of things on the other side, advocated the sending of Fenian members into Parliament ; it is presumed the gentlemen meant Irish Nationalists, who believed in physical force, but were waiting for the time to come — that time which never comes to men or nations ; they must make it for themselves. Sending of men of this kind into Parliament would merely mean their loss to the National cause. A little while there, and they would turn out West-Britons like the rest. An Irish-American combated this idea by stating that, " No physical force formation as such have any business dabbling in agitation ; their very reason for being consists in the inflexible resolution which they should hold not to meddle with it." At the end of the year 1878, the last of the Irish revolutionary prisoners were released. These gentlemen were Messrs. Ahearne and James Clancy. The last named prisoner was one of the most gallant and determined of the Irish soldiers in the enemy's service. Mr. James Clancy was, like Mr. O'Reilly of Boston, a private soldier in the British army; he belonged to that scientific corps, the Royal Engineers, and was enrolled in the National organization, called at that time Fenians. Mr. Clancy, anxious to take the field, left the enemy's service at Chatham, where the engineers were quartered, at the end of the year 1865, that memorable year when Irish patriots expected that they would be in the field striking at the foe of their country and race. Mr. Clancy was one of the leading Irish revolutionists in London, and was coming from the residence of one of the then Revolutionary chiefs, when he was followed by Sergeant Choun of the engineers, who shadowed him, suspecting he was the missing engineer he was in search of, but not quite certain. On this Saturday evening, January 18, 1878, Sergeant Choun, accompanied by Constable Chamberlain, accosted Mr. Clancy at the corner of Tottenham Court Road. Irish Revolutionary soldiers, when armed, were under orders not to surrender to the enemy, but to shoot and if possible escape, but in no case to surrender without making a fight, as it was very prop- erly considered cowardly for an armed man to give himself up to the foe without a struggle ; else, why carry arms at all ? In this they were cautioned against following Mr. Stephens' and his companions' example, when arrested at Fairfield House, Dublin. Mr. James Clancy, like Lord Edward Fitzgerald, whom Major Sirr attempted to seize, resisted to the death. When Sergeant Choun attempted to seize him, he tripped up the Britisher by placing a stick between his legs, and giving him a parting kick, ran off swiftly to effect his escape. But Choun, helped by Chamber- lain, was soon on his feet and they promptly pursued the flying Clancy. After running some distance in the direction of Bedford Square, the Irish soldier found his pursuers gaining on him. Turning round and facing the British officers, he discharged a shot from his revolver at Sergeant Choun, the bullet whistling unpleasantly close to the ear of the sergeant ; for a moment the engineer and his comrade hesitated, Mr. Clancy resuming the race with fresh vigor ; but recovering themselves, the Englishmen again took up the chase. After running some further 2l6 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. distance the gallant Irish soldier turned round and discharged a second shot at his pursuer Chamberlain, who was nearing him fast. Chamber- lain staggered back in fright, but quickly recovering himself took up the pursuit, at the same time calling on those in the street to help them by stopping the flying Irishman. An English passer-by responded and seized Clancy, who would have got away,but for Chamberlain coming up. By their united exertions they tripped up Clancy and he fell to the ground, still grasping his revolver firmly. The Irishman's blood was up and the dauntless fellow would die before he would surrender. While he was struggling on the ground with his captors, he pulled the trigger of his revolver, aiming at Chamberlain's breast, who would most certainly liave been slain, but there appears to have been a pin in the pistol (join- ing the parts of the instrument) which projected and stopped the bullet. The bullet stuck between the chamber and the barrel, and was held there, though the powder had exploded. Had the ball passed the barrel, Chamberlain would inevitably have been shot, for as it was his face was blackened by powder and his hair and beard singed by the fire. As Chamberlain afterward expressed it, Clancy would be the last Irish Fenian he would try to capture ; they were the most daredevil fellows in creation. A crowd now gathered, and Choun coming up, the gallant Irishman was overpowered by numbers ; not content with bringing him off a prisoner, the cowardly brutes beat him on the head, face, and body, when he lay helpless at their mercy. What a contrast was this gallant and determined resistance to that of some would-be heroes of that period, who either were taken in arms or whined " guilty " when in the dock ! Mr. Clancy was brought before a British magistrate with his head bandaged ; the enemy made no charge against him for being an Irish revolutionist ; they wished it to be considered non-political, so that the world would not understand the reason for Mr. Clancy's desperate resist- ance, and that such a scene in connection with the Irish war was not -enacted in their great metropolis. Mr. Clancy was charged with an attempt to shoot the officers and for being a deserter from the Royal Engineers, and was sentenced to penal servitude for life. After serving eleven years of torture in the enemy's dungeons, at the close of 1878 Mr. Clancy was released, the enemy at last admitting he was a political prisoner. To Mr. O'Connor Power's credit be it said — although he is now lost to Ireland — he never deserted any of his former comrades, the Fenian prisoners, and while a Provincialist he used his parliamentary position and influence to further their release. It is a remarkable fact what a number of ex-Irish Fenian prisoners there have been on the New York press. It contradicts the lying state- ments of the enemy that the Fenians were recruited from the ignorant .and uneducated. Mr. James Clancy is to-day one of the brilliant writers von the New York Herald. Shortly after Mr. Clancy's release a public meeting was held in London to hear the lately imprisoned patriot deliver a lecture on the tortures of British prison life. The hall was filled with all the London advanced Nationalists. Mr. Parnell was to have presided, but he could not get there. Mr. G. F. Goulding, a prominent Irish Nationalist, took the chair. Mr. Clancy delivered a very interesting lecture, which was listened to with rapt attention. He evoked great sympathy, as he detailed with much pathos and great ability the sufferings he himself and his comrades had undergone in England's penal dungeons. The year 1878 closed to usher in the eventful year of land agitation, when the Provincialists, aided by Irish-American money, built up a gigantic organization to fight the Irish landlords. CHAPTER XV. (1879O BIRTH OF THE IRISH LAND LEAGUE. Machinery of British Rule — Land Bailiff, Agent, and Landlord — Chairman of Quarter Sessions — Resident Magistrate — Inspectors and Sub-Inspectors of Constabulary — The "Head" — Dublin Castle Privy Council — The Irish Peasant — His Humiliating Position — Illness of Isaac Butt — His Last Moments — Death of Mr. Butt — Meeting of the Home Rule Party — Election of Mr. Shaw as Chairman — Land Meetings — Mr. Parnell and Mr. Shaw — Fenian Convention in Wilkesbarre, Pa. — The Tory Chief Secretary — "Jimmy Lowther " — Land Meeting in Tipperary — " Pay no Rent without Reduction " — Attacked by English Press — Land Meeting in Mayo — Mr.T. D. Sullivan's Address, " Infantry and Cavalry of Mayo" — Meeting at Headfort — Duke of Marlborough's Speech at Agricultural Dinner — Lord Carlisle and the " Flocks and Herds" — Lord Mayor of London's Banquet — Speech of Lord Beaconsfield — Land Organization in Ireland. The year 1879 closed the Home Rule League era in Ireland, or nearly so, and ushered in that great social organization, the "Land League." Already there were mutterings around that boded no good to that haughty and insolent class, the landlords, and as if to hasten their destruction came the famine harvest of 1879. ^^ e price of Irish produce, owing to the competition with the United States, then rapidly increasing her exports to Britain, had seriously diminished in value. The facilities which were created by science to place American dead meat in the market alarmed the grazers and those engaged in the cattle trade. It needed no deficient harvest to make the farmers suffer ; the fall in prices was sufficient to give them grave cause for uneasiness. They who have read anything of Ireland must be familiar with the sad tales of eviction handed down from generation to generation — that one continued trail of blood which marks England's career, her laws, and management of the soil of Ireland. Well and ably has she been assisted by the harpies she sent to prey upon the land. First comes the bailiff to warn the tenant farmers that an increase of rent is necessary next gale day-»-more money for the idler who preys upon the peasant's toil ; next the agent, that mighty man at whose frown whole townlands tremble ; behind him and in the far-away distance stands the landlord, the supreme master. He holds the happi- ness and peace of mind of a whole countryside in his hand. His smile is the sun of their existence, his frown the depths of their deep despair. To assist this lordly potentate and preserve to him all the honors and glory of ruining the poor peasants and the power of evicting and flinging on the roadside helpless, poverty-stricken families, the sick, the dying, the aged, the young, and the feeble, stands the terrible machinery called British law. To work this death-dealing machine, there appears at intervals the Chairman of Quarter Sessions, a lawyer of possibly small ability, a man who worked his way by slavish devotion into one or other of the two great British parties, till he secured his position on the bench. Possibly in early life he posed as a Provincialist agitator, and told his admiring hearers on the hustings that he longed for the day when Ireland would " up with the banners and the spears," and all the fustian and claptrap belonging to such speakers, and thus induced the simple, deluded 217 218 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. peasantry to flock to the polling booths to elect this great patriot, who, when elected, gives his services to one of the British parties. Liberal or Tory, it matters nothing to the Irish people ; by and by he is rewarded with a chairmanship. Vested in his new dignity, he reproves his former peasant supporters for their many and numberless backslidings ; with what oily unction does he recite the statistics of crime in the district (at least seventy per cent. of it manufactured), and though addressing a peasant auditory, his words are intended for the greater ones not present, which would be borne to them on the wings of the press. His former admirers are summoned to his court to show cause why they should not be evicted from their holdings. Then the writs fall thick, as leaves in Vallombrosa, and a townland would be wiped out of exist- ence ; and where the cheery voice of the peasant laborer was heard, and the song of the milkmaid warbling the melodies of her beloved Erin, there came desolation ; the cabins were razed to the ground and the place knew them no more ; they were banished and the soil they tilled was made grazing ground for cattle. Next in magisterial dignity comes the stipendiary and resident magistrates. Their duty is to preserve the peace of the locality, to see that none of the serfs who dwell around give the smallest trouble to the even and destructive flow of London-made law under them, and sometimes in reality commanding and dictating to them, are the Inspectors of Constabulary. These haughty enforcers of the laws are generally a class that try to ape the manners and supposed dash of the British cavalry officer. The subs are in most part composed of white- gloved dandies of the " haw, haw " school ; underneath this foppish exterior lies cold cruelty, callousness of feeling to human suffering, cowardice in many cases, and in all a supernatural worship of the occu- pant of the British throne. Next to these Inspectors in rank, is that important Irish dignitary, the Head Constable. What pen could attempt to do justice to this imposing village monarch, the " Head," as he is invariably called ? See him strut down the village street ; how the poor and humble slink away as if to avoid the majesty of his frown ! even the police constables salute him with fear and trembling. They who are petty tyrants with the peasantry are abject and submissive in the presence of the mighty " Head." Mark the expression of the well-to-do farmers and the village shopkeepers ; how eagerly they look for his gracious nod, and how happy and proud are they to know that he condescends to unbend and talk friendly with them, and they mention the circumstance of a conversation with the >' Head " to give additional tone to their own importance ! The Head Constable speaks of " Her Majesty's mails," " Her Majesty's forces," " Her Majesty's Government "; the pompous way in which he pronounces, " Her Majesty," with slow, solemn, and sonorous tones, as if he did not wish to part with these two sweet words, as a gourmand lingering over the precious morsel of some favorite dish! Such is the paraphernalia which British law (or more properly the illegal man- dates of foreign usurpation), hedges around and assists those twin destroy- ers of the Irish race, the landlord and his agent, in their nefarious work of evicting and depopulating the country. Over these sits the dark and gloomy shadow of Dublin Castle, the citadel of foreign power in Ireland. There the machinery is set in motion ; there in secret conclave sit the " Privy Council," a despotically constituted body — to order the whips and spurs to be applied to certain districts, and sometimes the whole country. But beyond and looming above all these, there stands in the majesty of power, the government of Britain ; looking down approvingly on the work of her destroying angels. There, Irishmen, stands your foe! Do not waste your resentment BIRTH OF THE IRISH LAND LEAGUE. 219 on her minions, but at the fountainheatl and seat of power, that ordains these murderous missions in your fair land. 'Tis the British Ministry, who separately and concretely are the absolute masters of your country's ruin and destruction, commissioned and empowered in their cruel work by the vast majority of their fellow Britons. Is it not time that the seat of devastation and destruction should change from Irish mountain sides ? That the horrors of Glenbeigh, Bodyke, and Mitchelstown should be transferred in justice to the neighboring island ? The humiliation and abject servility of the Irish peasant farmers, in the presence of the agent or the landlord, was more degrading than even Oriental slavery. The writer remembers on one occasion in Newry, an agent who was collecting rents in the hotel where he was staying ; there were some aged peasants standing in the streets, bareheaded 'neath the downpouring rain, interceding with one of the agent's assistants with tearful eyes and pallid, trembling lips, for a little mercy. To travel then in Ireland was heartbreaking to any proud-spirited Irishmen who loved his native land. 'Tis true that in many respects things now are changed. The peasant bears himself with less abject servility before the agent or landlord, but these changes are but the outward forms ; the essentials are unchanged. There is no more the slavish doffing of hats and trembling limbs, when the master and the serf meet — for serf the tenant farmer remains j the landlord still indulges in the luxury of evictions ; the Land League, which has brought about this more manly attitude toward the landlord and his belongings, has but removed the serf's obedience to the landlord's master, British Rule. The peasants are taught to look upon the English masses, their cruel enemy for generations, whose votes created and endowed landlordism, as Ireland's friends. They whose actions made the horrors of alien rule possible, Irishmen have been taught to look upon as their allies against the infamies which these very people's rule inflict upon the Irish masses daily. To-day the mountain peasant, as he sees these agents of London rule — the police and emergency men — bent upon their errand of destruction, is taught to cheer for his arch-destroyer, William Ewart Gladstone, a man beneath whose sway more destruction has been caused in Ireland than any dozen living British statesman of this generation. These may be unpalatable facts to some Irishmen, according to the present policy of their vacillating leaders, but the fact remains to challenge contradiction from any of those men, who now doff their hats to that Gessler Gladstone, whom so recently they themselves, in coarse language, reviled as Jtidas and assassin. Mr. Butt found the toils of his professional labors in addition to his Parliamentary duties heavy to bear. In February, 1879, he caught cold returning from a professional visit. He got better and again relapsed. He was removed to Roebuck, near Dublin, for change of air. Great anxiety was evinced by the Irish people, for they honored him as another great Irishman who had served them according to his light, loyally and faithfully, and whose health was undermined in vainly struggling for them in the London Parliament. They also remembered his gallant defense of the Irish patriot prisoners, in which he exerted himself almost to a superhuman effort in their service ; his marvelous defense of Robert Kelly, who shot that doubly-dyed traitor and spy, Constable Talbot, the wretch who desecrated God's altar in the service of his no less infamous employers, the British Government, and who died in horrible agonies, blaspheming his Creator. Mr. Butt's defense of Robert Kelly was no less a triumph of forensic skill and mastery of the law on his part, than was the ability displayed by his witness Dr. O'Leary, who sat as Home Rule member for Drogheda up to his death. Dr. O'Leary's scientific skill as an anatomist proved to the jury's satisfaction that Talbot came 220 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. by his death through unskillful treatment in the hospital, in probing for the bullet, and not through the effect of Kelly's shot. No one had the smallest spark of pity for Talbot, not even those who used this murderous instrument to deceive and betray his Irish victims. Mr. Butt's days were coming to a close. The voice that often rang in the British senate, pleading for his country and exposing and denouncing her persecutor, was soon to be hushed in death. A little while and the last spark flickered and went out, and the loving soul of Isaac Butt passed away into that unknown country beyond the grave. He died on May 5, 1879, and his nation truly sorrowed at her loss, none more full of grief than they who did not believe his measures could be successful, but who knew his great heart and his honesty of purpose, and in the spirit of sincere regret they placed their wreath among the others on the dead patriot's bier. On May 22 a meeting of the Home Rule leaders was called for the purpose of electing a chairman of the party to succeed the late Mr. Butt. The following resolutions were put and carried : " That a chairman of the Home Rule Party be appointed, and that said chairman shall be official chairman of all meetings of the party and of its committee ; that he shall have authority to speak as the mouthpiece of the party in the House of Commons on any subject to which the party has come to a resolution, and that he be authorized to summon meetings of the Parliamentary committee and on any emergency of the party. " That Mr. Shaw be requested to act as chairman during the session." Commencing in January, 1879, Mr. Parnell started on a tour through England for the purpose of reorganizing the Irish element. The mem- ber for Meath was most untiring in his exertions. He got through more work in the Provincial cause and with his own immediate following of advanced Home Rulers, as they were termed, than did the whole remain- ing balance of the party. On August 9 Mr. Parnell was re-elected Presi- dent of the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain. The Convention Act, passed by the Yeoman's Parliament in Dublin to prohibit the volunteers from sending delegates or Irishmen to assemble as a representative body, was repealed this year. The advanced Home Rulers were anxious for the party to avail themselves of the repeal of this act, to call a Home Rule convention in Dublin. A meeting was held and arrangements made to issue summons to have delegates elected and duly instructed to attend this convention. The result of this meeting was published in the newspapers. Two weeks after the chairman of the party, Mr. Shaw, wrote a letter disapproving of this course. Mr. Parnell was very much incensed at the receipt of this letter, and in his reply to Mr. Shaw said that he had remained silent all these sixteen days, though he had notice that a course was to be proposed which he now tried to persuade them was fraught with the most direful results. Why did he not propose his course while there was still time to consider it ? If he considered a convention of limited capability of such vital moment, why did he not say so ? The Convention Act had now been repealed for many months, and the course to be adopted in consequence had been the subject of repeated notices at the council of the League and of much discussion in the press and in conversation, but Mr. Shaw, the Sessional Chairman of the Irish Parliamentary Party, takes no action. On September 18, Mr. Shaw wrote to the Secretary of the Home Rule League, declining to be placed on the committee to arrange for a National convention. A special meeting was called in consequence of this convention. It was moved by Mr. Parnell, M. P., and seconded by T. D. Sullivan, Esq.: " That the council, entertaining the highest respect for the opinion of BIRTH OF THE IRISH LAND LEAGUE. 221 Mr. Shaw, have attentively considered his letter, but feel themselves unable to take any fitting action in the matter of the convention, all control over it having passed out of their hands since the meeting of the League on the nth of September, of which due notice was given in the public press on the 25th August." The English journals at this time announced what they called a Fenian convention, held in August at Wilkesbarre, Pa., U. S. A. Several comments were made uncomplimentary to the gathering ; one particular fact they were all unanimous about, that there had been a serious quarrel among the leaders, which could not be settled peacefully, and that the convention broke up in utter confusion, which meant the abandonment of every attempt to revive the defunct organization. How absurdly ridiculous are British organs when they attempt to inform their readers of Irish movements ! The great land question now forced itself to the front ; the harvest was a failure, the crops in some portions of the country not equaling half the average produce. This, taken together with the great fall in prices, made the outlook a very serious one for the Irish tenant farmer. For numerous families who farmed small patches of land, which even at the best of times was a struggle for existence, it meant starvation. Ireland was threatened with a fearful famine, unless her alien rulers stepped in and saved the people from the impending terrible fate that was suspended over them. But the English Ministry was deaf to the voice of Ireland ; the Chief Secretary in Dublin Castle, who represented the Tories that then usurped Irish government, was the Honorable James Lowther, an English sporting man, and one well known on the turf, where he was familiarly spoken of as " Jimmy Lowther." This scion of English nobility had the most utter contempt for Ireland and every- thing Irish. He made not the slightest attempt to conceal this feeling, and both in Parliament and in Dublin Castle never disguised his detesta- tion of the inferior race of beings whose destinies had fallen 'neath his sway. Whenever deputations waited on him, even of the West-British por- tion of the community, he received them with such supercilious patron- age and sneering insults that Jimmy Lowther became very unpopular in Ireland, an honor, to do this gay sportsman justice, he seemed to court. He put aside as exaggerated stories the news brought him of an impend- ing famine. Even the Duke of Marlborough, the lord lieutenant, who was personally a very amiable man, looked upon all such statements at this time as highly colored and that it was most improbable that they would be realized. Mr. Parnell was fully alive to the situation, and with trumpet tongue gave voice to the fearful doom he foresaw awaited the people if prompt measures were not taken. Land meetings were held all over the country. Town and country people and dwellers in the large cities became now fully alive to the desperate condition of affairs. Mr. Parnell was ubi- quitous. He attended meetings and made addresses in every imagina- ble distant place. The amount of work he got through at this time was enough to tax the energies of half a dozen men. A great land meeting was held in Tipperary town on Sunday, September 21. The meeting was held on the Fair Green, where a plat- form was erected for the speakers. The country people thronged into the town from all parts of the neighborhood. They were anxious to see and hear Mr. Parnell, who was to be present ; also the patriotic Arch- bishop of Cashel,the Most Reverend Dr. Croke. Banners were displayed in all directions, and bands of music enlivened the occasion, which was quite a holiday for the people. Among the several mottoes displayed 222 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. were the following : " Tipperary," " Ireland for the Irish," " In the name of God and the Democrats of Ireland we Demand the Surrender of Castle Rack-rents." This last was a huge banner, which was promi- nently displayed. The Rev. Mr. Farrell, P. P., presided. Archbishop Croke said their crops had failed, their commerce was languishing, their money resources were exhausted ; creditors were importunate and landlords for the most part unrelenting. Indications were not wanting to show that the winter was likely to be rendered memorable by a dearth of food and fuel throughout the country. Mr. Parnell's appearance evoked long, loud, and continued cheers. He said : " Bearing in mind the four disastrous seasons which have crowded together on the Irish farmer, it was incumbent on them to stand together and ask for a reasonable reduction of rent. (Applause.) And if such reasonable reduction of rent were not granted, it was their duty to pay no rent at all. (Applause. A voice, " That's coming to it.") If they were determined they had the game in their own hands. Let them band together and strengthen those that were weak, and let them organize themselves and refuse to take farms from which tenants have been evicted. (Applause.) Providence was on their side, and even the ele- ments that day were fighting for them." (Loud applause). Mr. Parnell finished in torrents of rain. This advice of Mr. Parnell to pay no rent unless a reasonable reduc- tion was given was widely commented on by the British press and by the landlord organs in Ireland. They said that "Communism of the most frightful kind had invaded the country," and these newspaper articles usually finished up with an appeal to the British Government to take prompt and firm measures to nip in the bud this socialistic movement — a movement which had for its object the destruction of all private property. On September 20 a great land meeting was held in Tuam. The mottoes displayed were " Land for the people," " United we stand, divided we fall," " Behold the dawn of Freedom," "God save Ireland," " Down with the Tyrants." Mr. James O'Connor presided. Mr. P. J. Costello moved a resolution " That in view of the widespread and alarm- ing distress which threatened the people with a recurrence of the horrors of 1847, the tenant farmers should be allowed such a reduction of rent as their desperate condition imperatively demanded in order to save them from impending ruin." He deprecated the use of any language which would be taken hold of by their enemies, and repudiated the imputation of desiring to confiscate the property of the landlords or promote revolutionary doctrines. Mr. Michael Davitt seconded this resolution. He said it afforded an opportunity for the landlords to show their sympathy with the people, and he thought it would be for their interest to grant its request or demand. On Thursday, September 25, a land meeting was held in Listowell. A procession of farmers and laborers from the neighborhood and Bally- duff, headed by a brass band belonging to the latter place, entered Lis- towell with a large banner borne before it ; on one side was the inscrip- tion " God save weeping Erin," and on the other " God save the oppressed from the oppressor." The Rev. Mr. O'Sullivan, P. P., presided. He said he deplored the want of foresight in the Kerry landlords. He predicted a widespread and formidable agitation that would convulse the country and would not cease until the tenants got fixity of tenure with fair rents. Letters were read from two of the local landlords excusing their absence — the Knight BIRTH OF THE IRISH LAND LEAGUE. 223 of Kerry and Lord Listowel. The latter in communicating his reasons for not being present at the meeting, wrote : " I regret it the less as I should doubtless if there be asked to reduce my rents, a request with which I could not comply under the present circumstances." Thus spoke the typical Irish landlords. With these views on this ques- tion, held by Lord Listowel and men of ;his class in the presence of the severe distress prevailing, it can be easily 'seen what a difficulty the farmers' friends had before them in trying to rescue the people from the grasp of approaching famine, and also to reconcile these antagonistic interests : that of the landlord in abating his demand, and the action of the tenant, who by any precipitancy or lack of judgment in the course pursued, would deprive himself and family of even the shelter of a home. For behind the landlord was British law, backed up by the military forces of the invaders, opposed to which the Irish peasant had nothing to offer but the justice of his cause, and the utter impossibility of meeting the landlord's demand. This interesting land problem is still unsolved ; the Irish people have had occasion since to observe its vary- ing phases. On the day of the Listowel meeting, three hundred tenants on the estate of Lord Normanton went into the town of Tipperary, headed by the Rev. Maurice Power, P. P., to meet Mr. Taylor, agent, at Dobbyn's Hotel, and asked for a reduction of rent. Mr. Taylor at first refused, but after some time offered to abate fifteen per cent, to tenants whose half year's rent did not exceed ^25 ($125.00); to tenants whose half year's rent did not exceed £50 an abatement of ten per cent., and five per cent, to tenants whose half year's rent exceeded ,£50. The farmers refused the offer as insufficient. Mr. Parnell's advice to organize was quickly taken, and Land League branches started up all over the country. Meetings were held denouncing landlordism and advocating removing it from Ireland so far as resolutions of a strong and determined tone of expression could destroy this hated institution. At a meeting in Castlebar, presided over by Canon Magee, Chancellor of the Archdiocese, the princi- pal speakers were Mr. T. D. Sullivan, Mr. O'Connor Power, M. P., Mr. Daly, of the Castlebar Telegraph, and others. Mr. T. D. Sullivan, of the Dublin Nation, and author of the ballad " God Save Ireland," Lord Mayor of Dublin this year of grace 1887, in addressing the tenant farmers, styled them " The Infantry and Cav- alry of the County Mayo." Another meeting was held the same day at Headfort, County Mayo, Mr. Davitt being the principal speaker. Nation- alists have often noticed the erratic and contradictory views of their countrymen the Provincialists. At this Castlebar meeting, where so many prominent Home Rulers were on the platform, men who to this date profess what is called Home Rule views, Mr. Daly in his speech in their presence said that they did not want Home Rule — it was dead and buried with Isaac Butt. But they would not take anything less than that. The tillers of the soil should be the owners of it. It will be noticed that throughout this agitation, the speakers in all cases told the peasantry what their needs were, which, if conceded, would be an undoubted boon to many of his listeners, but they also impressed upon their audience the fact that they would, as a matter of course, by asking for it get it. The consummation of their hopes were all but accom- plished facts ; the same absurd conclusions are still preached. In the meantime the very respectable sporting gentleman whom Britain sent over to govern the neighboring island which she affection- ately calls the sister country, kept on never minding. Jimmy Lowther indulged in his sneers at the savage Irish and their proposterous demands. The descendant on the distaff side of John Churchill, Queen Anne's 224 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. coarse but successful soldier, lived in quiet ease, enjoying the pleasures and honors of his mock sovereignty. His gracious and amiable lady, the Duchess of Marlborough, tried hard to win the Irish heart by appearing in green poplin dresses on several occasions. She thought that wearing the national colors should win the Irish Celt to love the stranger's rule. She probably imagined their nationality was a mere sentiment caused, as her husband's chief, Lord Keaconsfield, expressed it, " by their dwelling on the borders of a melancholy ocean, which excited their fancy and inspired their imaginations." One of the strong characteristics of John Bull is his gastronomic propensities. He likes good feeding and plenty of it. Travel in Eng- land, visit at the country seats of the wealthy and exclusive, or any rung on the social ladder of English life, and you will be sure to hear cooking and eating discussed with intense relish and classic enjoyment. You will hear from the most aesthetic a description of their favorite dish, and the delicious effect if cooked in some especial manner. The agricul- tural dinner is one of the county events in English aristocratic life. They have tried to introduce many of their customs into Ireland, but they are not indigenous to the soil, and like rare exotics require the tender care of English training to preserve them in the Green Isle. Among these festivals comes the Irish agricultural dinner, at which England's lord deputy invariably attends. One of the standing toasts at this banquet, after the queen and royal family, is " Prosperity to Ireland," and coupled with the toast, as if in Mephistophelian humor, is the name of his British excellency, the lord lieutenant. It was at one of these agricultural dinners, that George Gordon, Earl of Carlisle, delivered his famous speech when responding to the stereo- typed toast " Prosperity to Ireland." Lord Carlisle might be termed Ireland's poet lord lieutenant. During his viceroyalty, he published a volume of poems, in which he speaks of " The weeping skies of Erin." He was a portly, pleasant, amiable old gentleman, with a rubicund face that bespoke good living. His silvered hair lent a dignity to his appear- ance which he rarely assumed. In response to the toast he recited the statistics, poured out for him with his port wine, of the number of sheep, cows, horses, etc., which the county contained ; this particular year the number of cattle had increased in Ireland ; they had taken the place of the expatriated people. This fact delighted the kindly British soul of the English earl, and he painted in glowing and poetic imagery the future great destiny of Ireland. She was to become " The fruitful mother of flocks and herds." No doubt there was more truth in the destiny he depicted than Irishmen would wish to admit. It is, however, the certain result of the disastrous war waged against Ireland, and gibingly termed " Peace." It is the destiny which Britain is forcing upon the Green Isle — banishment and death by starvation, and workhouse horrors for the people — to make Ireland a grazing ground for English beef and mutton. In the year 1879 the agricultural dinner came off on the 8th of August. The impending famine and failure of the crops were the subject of public discussion at the time, yet the crowd that sat down to that banquet did not believe in the truth of these statements. The Duke of Marlborough in response to the toast " Prosperity to Ireland," said that he believed that the farmers of Ireland were in a much better condition than the farmers of England, for the depression was more oppressive in England than here, as the holdings were larger and there were larger sums invested in them. He was told on competent authority that if a fairly scientific, intelligent system of farming was adopted in Ireland there was a latent amount of wealth in the country that would amply repay all efforts BIRTH OF THE IRISH LAND LEAGUE. 225 expended on it, and that Ireland was capable of returning more than twice its actual revenue at the present moment. In conclusion he expressed his belief that the prosperity of Ireland was internally connected with the pacification of Ireland. Let law and order prevail and, above all, let those bitter animosities which proceeded from religious differences be abated, and he would predict a future of great and exuberant prosperity for the country. The English duke was right. Irish farms are not scientifically farmed ; and if Irish tillage were properly developed, the soil could more than double its present produce ; but on this hinges diversity of industries to give employment to the people, so that larger farms could be created ; also the disappearance of religious discord at present mustered and fostered into life by British statesmen for their own vile purposes. All these changes, law and order included, all hinge on one factor, the disap- pearance of foreign rule, which is the author of all these evils. When Irishmen can haul down the British flag from Irish soil and bow the English invaders out of the country, these blessings will follow, but not till then. Land meetings were now taking place, north, south, east, and west. Landlordism and England was denounced in every possible manner, and the most convincing arguments used to show the Irish masses where the evil lay, and the crowded audiences were told these evils must go. But none of the speakers told their hearers that any other weapon was neces- sary but denunciation ; exposing the evils could of course remove them, and the speakers were applauded and the crowd shouted, " Pay no rent." If ever a government was arraigned at the bar of public opinion, then British rule in Ireland has certainly been ; their infamous treatment of the people has been exposed by generations of eloquent Irishmen. Charles Stewart Parnell took up the truncheon of exposure with determination to succeed by its power. He traveled and talked with indefatigable zeal to save his fellow-countrymen from famine graves. His expose of Lord Beaconsfield's Administration was masterly. Its neglect and apathy in the face of the fearful distress is to be said of all English ministries. Truly did Mr. Parnell depict them standing by with folded arms, and so they and their successors will continue to stand, while their machinery of government dashes the life out of the people in its crushing, mangling career, and they will take no heed, talk how you may, expose them how you may, bring to bear as you now have the public opinion of the world — they will continue utterly indifferent until you use some sharper and more effective weapon than the tongue, to stir their Anglo-Saxon blood into more effective circulation. At the Lord Mayor of London's annual banquet the English Premier, in response to the health of Her Majesty's ministers, invariably takes the country into his confidence and speaks of what the coming policy of her Majesty's Government may be ; anything of importance is usually fore- shadowed at these Guildhall dinners. So they have always been looked forward to with great interest by the British people, particularly if any grave question was on the tapis. At the banquet this year the Earl of Beaconsfield, K. G., rose to respond to the toast, " Her Majesty's Minis- ters." The English Premier, Lord Beaconsfield, was a brilliant and effec- tive speaker at all times, but he was considered more especially happy as an after-dinner speaker. The following are the allusions he made to Ireland in the course of his lengthened remarks : " I wish I could say the same of our brilliant brethren in Ireland. (Cheers and laughter.) I wish they had proved themselves a little more emulous of the English people. (Cheers.) The Irish are an imaginative race, and it is said that imagination is too often accompanied by somewhat 226 THE IRISH NATIONAL INV1NCIBLES. irregular logic. (A laugh.) But I confess I cannot bring myself to com- prehend how the Irish people have brought themselves to believe that the best way to encounter economical distress is political agitation and social confusion. (Loud cheers.) There is no doubt that there are portions of Ireland where it may be necessary that some means should be applied to avert considerable suffering, and the subject has duly received the atten- tion of Her Majesty's Government. But I think Ireland ought to remem- ber that in her distress she has never appealed to the sympathy of England in vain (cheers), and that sympathy has generally assumed a very substan- tial embodiment. (Loud cheers.) My Lord, it will be the duty of Her Majesty's Government to watch with the anxiety which the situation requires the state of those portions of Ireland ; last I would venture to hope that the Irish people, convinced, on reflection, that the sympathy of England — a sentiment which is never scantily supplied to them — will even condescend to recollect that if they have had a bad harvest, that harvest is much better than that of England." My Lord Beaconsfield was right ; the Irish have had English sympathy extended to them, and as he expressed it, a very substantial embodiment of it, in the shape of coercion. Some eighty odd coercion bills in as many years is full proof of England's sympathy. Many easily duped Irishmen are now ready to believe that a change has come over the English people. Hence, patience, Irishmen, and you will see what an ignis fatuis you are following ; that change will take place on that day and not till then, when the Ethopian shall change his skin and the leopard shall lose his spots. Each day that passed toward the close of that eventful year proved the correctness of Mr. Parnell's statements, that the country would suffer another of these British-made periodic famines, which swept whole fami- lies away, and filled the coffinless paupers' graves of 1847. But if organi- zation could save the people it was being carried out. Thanks to the un- tiring energy of the good men around Mr. Parnell, Ireland was growing fully alive to the importance of the emergency, and if she could avert the impending blow, Ireland was preparing. Her people were in possession of the important fact that something should be done quickly ; the founda- tion of the Land League had been laid, and Ireland was about to witness the formation of a gigantic agitation extending over the world, wherever Irishmen dwelt, to peacefully fix the tiller on the soil. CHAPTER XVI. (1879.) SPREAD OF THE LAND AGITATION. Mr. Parnell's Exertions — Irish Land Distress — Discussion in England — Opinion of English Merchants — Talk in Radical Clubs — English Workingmen's Hostility to Ireland — Irish Trade and Manufactures — Prospect of Irish Manufactures — Irish Water Power — Ireland as a Commercial Rival to Britain — Nations and their Flags — Mr. Pairiell's First Visit to Cork — Met at Cork Terminus by Accident — Land Meeting in Cork — Speech of Mr. Shaw — Gladstone's Bill Full of Principles — Mr. Parnell's Speech — Men of 1847 and 1879 — Condition of the Tenant Farmer — "Rational Resistance" — Article in Dublin Weekly News — Views on the Article — The Mallow Landlord and his Good Tenants. The distress in the country was becoming daily more severe. Mr. Parnell thought he saw the opportunity to build up a huge peaceable organization to relieve the suffering tenantry in the present by bringing such a pressure of public opinion on the landlord that he would remit a considerable portion of the rent, or else compel him to do so by refusing to pay him or his agent any money but what the struggling farmer could afford in the then state of the country — suffering with a deficiency in the harvest and a fuel famine over the land. Owing to the inclemency of the past summer the turf could not be saved, excessive rains having destroyed the farmer's winter stock. Mr. Parnell also thought he could remove the land evils which oppressed the agricultural community, and by Irish and American public opinion, expressed in public meetings, shame England into altering the land laws of Ireland so that there could be no future recurring famines. Upon this crusade of shaming England Mr. Parnell started out with commendable energy ; and to get the whole community enlisted in his movement he persuaded himself, and afterward the Irish race the world over — or the great masses who have neither leisure nor knowledge to think out this great problem for themselves, and who submit their judgments almost blindly to the care of others — that the English rule would disappear with the landlords. In all his public addresses he pointed out clearly Ireland's wants and his remedy : legal and constitutional agitation, coupled with what the British — who, having stolen the land now hold it by force — considered both illegal and unconstitutional, namely, the refusal to pay rent. True, Mr. Parnell qualified this advice by using the words "unjust rents," which in most Irishmen's estimation would be any rent, as the Irish land came to its present owners, not by purchase, but by confiscation, a polite word for robbery. The British Government and the landlords differed with Mr. Parnell and the farmers. They considered the rent levied off the soil both equitable and just, and termed the advice of Mr. Parnell to the community an incentive to public robbery. The thieves, secure in the possession of their plunder and with plenty of physical force to sustain them in its enjoyment, called the people of Ireland, whom their ancestors plundered of their property, "robbers," because they did not quietly not only surrender the fruits of the soil, but also the fruits of their own industry and toil and that of their generous kinsfolk in America and Australia, whose remittances they were pocketing, as the soil could not in the great majority of cases produce under the system of tillage the 227 228 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. farmers could employ near the rent levied off it by the lordly being who enjoyed the luxury of his ancestor's confiscations. The landlords to this day receive their rents in part through these foreign remittances. Now here was a plain and palpable issue between the landlords and the British invaders on one side, and Mr. Parnell and the Irish people on the other. Mr. Parnell's theory was and .is that public opinion would be a powerful weapon in his hands, and that by shaming the British people and their Government he would succeed. The British, who kept in Ireland a large standing army, and armed military police called constabulary but who really are more soldiers than police, did not keep these expensive and dangerous toys for show. They used them to enforce their demands, and no matter how unjust these demands might be in equity, they had to be obeyed, the British having the power to make what laws for Ireland they pleased, no matter what the Irish thought on the matter ; the invaders never consulted them. The voices of their representatives are powerless in the London chamber ; their logic and reasoning carry no conviction to the foreigner's mind ; it is all sound and no sense to them. Whatever they make up their mind to do, they will do ; and though these Britons wrangle and quarrel among themselves as to the most appropriate manner to destroy and plunder the Irish, they never during their own differences lose sight of British interests, which is Ireland's destruction, whether through hypocritical kindness and slow poison or by heroic remedies which irritate and madden. In either case national death must ensue if their rule in any shape or form continue. Nothing but the marvelous recuperative power of the people has hitherto saved them. Had this great continent of America been so easily reached one century ago, the Irish nation would have been wiped out of existence and would now be merged into the various races that constitute that magnifi- cent specimen of the Caucasian which is to-day called American. Mr. Parnell breathed new energy into the movement ; he galvanized into active life the lethargic and sluggish members of the community ; every important meeting possible he attended and addressed, and impressed upon his hearers the necessities of the hour. He was ably assisted by numbers of talented Irishmen — many of these young men enthusiasts who really did, but cannot possibly now, believe in this crusade of shame. Young men started out to collect funds all over the American continent and in Australia ; many of these who joined the movement were poor men, and were compelled to make a livelihood by the agitation ; and later on when they saw its folly, were still necessitated to cling to it as a means for promotion in worldly esteem and social and financial positions. They could not possibly quarrel with the goose that laid for them such golden eggs. The sums expended in keeping up the organization naturally were a great drain upon the subscriptions. When people read of the number of meetings held they must recollect the expense of travel by railroad and water ; all came out of the Provincialists' public treasury. Hotel bills had to be paid, so that additional meetings entailed additional expense. Nationalists find no fault with this ; revolutionists would have to expend money when engaged in any active work. But what should be pointed out is the gigantic interest created, the giant corporation, which had to be preserved even if it ran counter to Irish interests ; some of these men may have given their services for less than they would be worth in a commercial community, but then there exists no market in Ireland for these men, who but for the agitation would probably be unknown outside of their own circles. Hence it must be said agitation became an attractive career to brilliant young men ; and when they learned, as the majority of them must have, that their crusade of shaming England was an utter SPREAD OF THE LAND AGITATION. 229 impossibility, their own personal interests and future career became by degrees so inextricably involved that they continue preaching false doc- trines — doctrines which they believed were feasible when they started out. Hence it must be said that these Provincialist agitators are ruinous to Ireland, and cannot possibly serve real national interests. The agita- tion against the landlords was like stirring up a nest of hornets ; the sequel has been disastrous for the farming community ; evictions multi- plied, and those who did not remember the trite saying, " Better let sleeping dogs lie," brought suffering where they meant to bring relief. In one year the evictions were more numerous than during the ten years previous to the starting of this crusade of shame. They have created a giant Frankenstein that is crushing out all healthy national life. In a word, the people have grown more impoverished ; they have furnished speakers with ample food for discussion — the horrors of Glenbeigh, Bodyke, and numerous other similar scenes. But the agitators have prospered ; they have not suffered like the poor peasant who lost his all in the impossible course of ridding Ireland of landlords. Yet some of these agitators stand up unblushingly in the face of day and tell Irishmen they are near the end, that the landlord must go, and will soon. Do they mean to tell sensible thinking Irishmen that the system which oppresses and impoverishes their people will go and British rule remain? Nation- alists may blunder and may make many grievous errors ; they may have had selfish, mercenary men in their ranks, but a war for independence — guerrilla or otherwise — is practicable ; it can always be used as a weapon against the foe. If intelligently carried out it means destruction of some sort to the invader without sacrificing half the number of people that the present system is doing. It is Ireland's only real remedy. Wordy agita- tion is a huge soap bubble in its opposition to the invader, and must bring certain destruction to the Irish race in Ireland if persevered in. It wastes the supplies, it saps the energies, and poisons the national life, corrupting the young men by false teachings. A people might as well float a company to run balloons to the moon. It would be as intelligent a way to spend money as they are doing to this date in this silly attempt to rescue a nation. Revolutions have succeeded : Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, Chili, Peru, Mexico, and the other American republics, including this grand free nation, the United States — but agita- tion has never freed a people enslaved by another nation. The Provin- cial ists cannot name a single instance. The English papers began to speak of the Irish land agitation. Whole columns were transferred to the English press of Irish news ; even the London Times fully reported the various speeches delivered. The English people had ample opportunity to educate themselves on Irish grievances if they cared to do so. No Irishman could attempt to urge, as a plea for English opposition, lack of knowledge of the Irish grievance. In addition to the broadcast advocacy of Irish demands, the Irish element in England, through the exertions of Mr. Parnell and his friends, were thoroughly organized, and the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain seconded the exertions of their brothers in Ireland to inform the English masses of the exact position of affairs in Ireland. Irishmen living among Englishmen had a good opportunity of judging what effect this spread of knowledge on Irish matters had upon the English mind. Among the merchants and the commercial community the cause of Irish distress was attributed first to the inherent laziness of the people, who had acquired such sluggish, careless, and improvident habits, that it was almost impossible for the fostering agency of British civilization to reform them into anything like a decent mode of existence ; and another great evil, an immense surplus population, which having no 230 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. employment, was an incubus on the whole community, and their only remedy for this evil was emigration. These men, who were daily engaged in trade, manufacture, and commerce, could not be brought to see that it was Ireland's deprivation of these industrial occupations, which builds up the wealth of nations, that was the material cause of her poverty-stricken condition. This deprivation of manufactures was brought about through the jealousy and avarice of British merchants in the past, supported by British-made laws, and Ireland of to-day is completely crippled and can- not attempt to build up an industrial structure until she acquires the control of her own destinies, and thus becomes enabled to aid and foster their infant development. Tell this to the British merchant or manu- facturer and he would be unable to confute your reasons logically, but would be always sure to fall back upon that self-satisfying British conso- lation, that Ireland had the same laws and opportunities to progress and prosper as they, the British people enjoyed. Go into the British Radical •clubs where the aristocracy, the House of Lords, aye, and even the Sovereign herself, were handled in no kid-gloved manner — these people, who were advocating and struggling for more liberty for their class, were the most bitterly hostile and antagonistic of Englishmen against any attempt on the part of Irishmen to set up a separate legislature, or to have a separate national existence. These freely expressed views have been heard by Irishmen time and again, when the speakers were not -aware that anyone present was not of their own nationality — so that cour- tesy — of which the English masses are not overburdened — in no way interfered with the full flow of their opinions. When people nowadays tell the Irish that this is all changed, and that the English masses are ranging themselves upon the side of Ireland, they know little of the strength of English prejudice and hostility to the Irish race, which is innate in their character ; and where their interests would be in any way interfered with, popular opinion is by no means slow to express itself. And it is impossible to settle the Irish difficulty without interfering with British interests. It is not alone sentimental Home Rule Ireland demands, but material self-government, to enable her people to prosper in this world's comforts and necessities. An Irish legislature that would be a reality and not a sham, would be compelled to put pro- tective duties on British and all foreign manufactures going into Ireland, as Canada and the Australian governments do to protect themselves, against what is in their case, to a large extent, the mother country. And this Irish legislature would probably set aside a portion of the national revenue to offer as premiums to manufacturers to encourage and build *up native industries, as little Belgium did after her separation from the Netherlands and on the establishment of her independence. Not only Irishmen in the United States, but even the people at home, do not realize how vast are British interests wound up in this. No one but a person engaged in British commercial life could ever dream of the monopoly Britain enjoys in Ireland as a trading and a manufacturing •community. The land question dwarfs itself into insignificance in the presence of this mighty loss to Ireland. To establish manufactures in Ireland, which with her immense water power and natural resources would soon spring up under the fostering influence of a native government — and cannot possibly be created other- wise — Britain would not only lose her Irish trade, which is very large, but she would be growing within a few hours' sail of her shores a com- mercial rival, and all that Irish art, skill, and genius did for her, in her commercial career, would then be employed in developing the resources of their own nation. Manufactures by the Nore, Suir, Lee, Shannon, and Liffey mean a certain loss to Bradford, Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, SPREAD OF THE LAND AGITATION. 231 and Paisley. Is it in human nature that these people will peacefully sur- render this vast interest for mere words, or an appeal to their sentiments, appeals which have never yet solved an international question, and never will ? Look at the almost unanimous action of Britain when Mr. Gladstone brought in a bill to buy out the Irish landlords ; when the English people learned the immense sum necessary, the hundreds of millions of pounds sterling, their opposition was so gigantic that Mr. Gladstone was com- pelled to withdraw the measure at once, with but little probability that any Government will ever have the courage to repeat the experiment. Touch John Bull in the pocket and you touch a very vulnerable part, and to remedy Irish grievances and relieve Irish poverty, you must do this. Those who are talking to-day of a union between the two democracies, that of Britain and Ireland, are preaching the millenium. Class interests between the workingman and the capitalist may be very strong, and the grievances they (the laborers) suffer very keen, but beside the National question if sinks into insignificance, for the interests of the democracies of different nationalities are not the same; and although they may have just cause of serious complaint against the aristocrats and moneyed classes of their own country, as the democracy of a neighboring nation may have against theirs, there is no common platform save that of humanity — which no doubt has ennobling influences — for them to have anything like a permanent union ; their clashing and rival interests forbid it, and above all, for some inscrutable purpose, the great Creator has grouped mankind into families of nations, with different manners, habits, customs, and lan- guage. Each nation is proud of her history, jealous of her honor, devoted to her flag, and never, while human nature remains as it is, will they surrender for class privileges the glorious inheritance of nationhood bequeathed to them by their valiant fathers. Mr. Parnell, a young politician, had probably not looked upon this side of the question. He had not then learned that for the Irish people to resolve upon a certain course, did not mean the accomplishing of that purpose, for, like a wall of iron, right in their path stood English interest, English prejudice, and English opposition which were not susceptible to reason, any more than the flame of a candle could thaw an iceberg ; susceptible to one thing alone — force ; and if that could be properly applied, if the fingers that grasped the prize could be cut, then and then alone will she surrender her plunder. Mr. Shaw, the Chairman of the Irish Parliamentary party, was a wealthy banker, a fortunate marriage having poured wealth into the lap of this hitherto struggling Unitarian clergyman. He was a Provincialist, as many well-to-do Irishmen are in a social and sentimental sense. He coveted the honor of a seat in the British Parliament, and was proud of the position he occupied as the successor of Mr. Butt. One thing he par- ticularly wished to impress upon the Irish mind, and that was the amount of personal inconvenience he was willing to undergo in the service of his country. His old, conservative, slow methods did not suit the pressing condition of Irish affairs. Mr. Parnell chafed under the leadership of such a man, and the Irish people were beginning to see that if Parlia- mentary tactics were to be used, a more energetic man than Mr. Shaw was necessary to give it a fair chance of success. The Irish land agitation had grown rapidly to an immense size, when Mr. Shaw awoke to the knowledge that he should do something to aid the common cause. A land meeting was about to be held in Cork, and it became necessary for Mr. Shaw, as member for the county, as well as chairman of the party, to show himself on the people's platform. He 232 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. accordingly attended with his colleague, Colonel Colthurst, a political fossil that sailed under the Home Rule banner. The advanced Home Rulers were anxious to get Mr. Parnell to attend this meeting, and an invitation urging the young leader to come to Cork was mailed to him. Mr. Parnell was very much in demand to speak at the numerous Sunday meetings held at this time all over the country. A reply came to the Cork men informing them that Mr. Parnell would attend if possible. On Saturday night a deputation went to the station to meet him, but were disappointed, and so concluded that his engage- ments would not permit his coming. Mr. Parnell was announced to speak at three different places the next day, Sunday. The next day after church three Cork gentlemen, who happened to come into the Victoria Hotel a short time before the omnibus started to meet the incoming Dublin train, seeing the omnibus at the door, one of them suggested that they drive up to the station on the faint chance of Parnell coming. The idea was put in practice and to their surprise and delight Mr. Parnell stepped off the train, and but for their accidental presence, there would have been no one to meet him. The names of these gentlemen are William Conyngham, James Lynch, and John King, all earnest Provincialists. As he afterward told them, it was Mr. Parnell's first visit to Cork except passing through en route to America. He asked who was staying at the hotel ; he was told P. J. Smyth. He replied to them : " He is impracticable." This was Mr. Parnell's first reception in Cork City, the southern capital, that he has since represented in the enemy's Parliament. A public meeting was held in Cork City in connection with Mr. Parnell's visit, on October 5, 1879, and was attended by thousands of people with bands, banners, and the usual paraphernalia of Irish public gatherings. The chair was taken by Mr. Riordan, Chairman of the Cork Farmers' Club. In addition to the county members, Mr. Parnell and several members of Parliament were present on the platform, and of course all the leading Provincialists of the city and the surrounding country. After an interesting opening address on the sad state of Ireland, Mr. James Byrne, J. P., Chairman of the Farmers' Club, Mallow, proposed the first resolution : " That in consequence of three successive bad and inclement seasons, which have rendered the land unproductive, concurrently with low prices for corn, butter, and cattle, and with losses by disease in cattle and sheep, it is utterly impossible for farmers to pay the present rents, and we there- fore urgently and respectfully call upon the landlords to bear their share of those losses by making substantial abatements to their tenantry to enable them to tide over the present period of depression and to save the country and themselves from ruin." Mr. Shaw, M. P., in supporting the resolution, said he came there that day at considerable personal inconvenience, as he had been laid up in his own house for the past fortnight. But he was quite determined that this series of meetings should not pass over without his appearing on a plat- form to express his sympathy with the tenant farmers of Ireland. This was not a mere ephemeral agitation. It was not an agitation got up by a few men for their own selfish purposes. He knew very well that such things had been in Ireland. The bad years of 1877, 1878, and 1879 had not been equaled for the agricultural community in his memory. He acknowledged that this year as far as they could see the result of it at present was not as bad a year as last year was, but it would require one of the best years they ever had in agriculture to put the farmer in any posi- tion after the two years that they had gone through. This year it had been almost impossible to save the crops. The memory of the famine was SPREAD OF THE LAND AGITATION. 233 deep in the minds of the farmers, and its terror and fright had never left their souls ; and when they saw two bad years and the third worse than the average, they began to feel the position they were in and asked them- selves were they about to lose their substance ; and they met together to see whether they could not in any way lift themselves from this depression. He believed there were many landlords in this county who were the most excellent landlords in Ireland, and that it would only require the tenants to go to them and to show them they could not pay the rents to induce them to make a considerable reduction. This was a year in which every class in the community ought to combine together. They were not there to perpetrate any injustice between class and class, but the contrary. Was this depression temporary? Every farmer felt there were elements at work at present — different from every element at work ever before — and that this was no mere temporary depression ; it was a crisis in the affairs of the landed interests of the country, and they were bound not to apply any mere temporary palliatives. They were bound if possible to go to the root of the question and to prevent those periodic agitations and dis- arrangements of industry, and to obtain a settlement which could be the basis of national prosperity throughout all generations. They should discriminate between landlords and landlords. But the landlords were not the only persons to be blamed in this country. He had been examin- ing a district in that country lately ; he found that six men in that dis- trict should go to the wall. In only one case, however, had the rent any- thing to do with it. The land in that case was let at five shillings ($1.20) per acre above living point ; yet a neighboring farmer with two hundred acres of land bid for that land, paid the arrears of rent due, and paid the tenant a certain sum of money to go out. A voice here shouted : " He ought to be shot." As long as human nature is what it is' you will always find people on the watch to lay hold of small farms and to add them to larger ones. It would not surprise him at all if many men who were very eloquent on tenant-right platforms were men who had an eye on some of those small farms. We must look all around on this question. Now he would say to everyone of them on no account to put them- selves in the grip of the law. What were they to do in this crisis ? It would not do to have the country agitated year after year in this manner. He had brought forward a remedy in the House of Commons with the full sanction of the Irish party. But the Right Honorable James Lowther called their remedy rank communism. Well, he did not think the right honorable gentleman quite understood what he was talking about. There were in Mr. Gladstone's bill principles which if applied to the present state of the land question in Ireland would be a settlement of the question. He would change the whole tenure of land in Ireland. He would adopt the plan put forward by Mr. Vernon, one of the Governors of the Bank of Ireland, for appointing a commission to sell the lands to the tenants, and would make the Church Surplus Fund the foundation for saving the national exchequer from loss in carrying on the plan. He asked the Government to look at this question seriously. He would put the whole of the tenantry of Ireland on a foundation that no landlord could disturb without good cause ; that no honest and fair-minded man could object to. If these principles were applied there was no doubt that this country would soon right itself. He would give every day of his life to see the question settled on these principles, but it should be settled by calm common sense and by earnest and honest effort. He was quite sure that their meetings, which had been run down so much by some persons, would result in real and substantial good to the people of the country. It will be noticed that Mr. Shaw, in the opening portion of his address, in stating that the agitation was not got up for selfish purposes, really 234 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. insinuated that it was ; the dash and energy of Mr. Parnell did not suit this quiet, conservative Whig, and the allusion was intended for the member for Meath, who was fully alive to the fact. The chairman of the Irish party in the foreign assembly was a devoted follower and admirer of Mr. Gladstone, which Mr. Parnell was not at that time. Mr. Shaw tells his Irish hearers that there were principles in Mr. Gladstone's Land Bill which, if applied to Ireland, would settle the land question. It is one of Ireland's many misfortunes that all Mr. Gladstone's Bills for that country contain nothing but principles, of which they are plentiful, but when these principles are tried to be put into practice there is no machinery found in the bill to carry them out. The Irish may in vain search for the appli- cation of the principle ; slightly altering the lines of Moore, they are applic- able to the Irish search for substantial concessions to Ireland in all Mr. Gladstone's measures. They've been Like a Lagenian mine, Where sparkles of golden splendor All over the surface shine ; But if in pursuit we go deeper, Allured by the gleam that shone, Ah ! false as the dream of the sleeper ; Like love the bright ore is gone. They've been like the bird in the story, That flitted from tree to tree ; With the talisman's glittering glory Has hope been that bird to thee ? On branch after branch alighting, , The gem did he still display ; And when nearest and most inviting Then waft the fair gem away. And like to the Oriental talisman in those Eastern tales from which Moore borrowed his metaphor, has Mr. Gladstone's measures of relief been to Ireland ; they have always appealed to the Irish imagination, and it is supposed that like the Arabian writers, having pleased and satisfied the ideal, the people, he thought, would not seek for the real. At present, September, 1887, this able and accomplished statesman is dangling before the eyes of Ireland a talisman with all " the glittering glory " which his eloquent voice can shed upon it and around it. He has labeled it " Home Rule," and when it is examined it will be found to be like the Lagenian gold, false and illusory. Mr. Shaw's speech was followed by an address from his brother county member, Colonel Colthurst, who indorsed and emphasized Mr. Shaw's remarks ; other speakers followed ; the third resolution was proposed by Mr. Murphy, chairman of the Macroom Board of Guardians. It said : " That the Bright clauses of Mr. Gladstone's Land Act have failed when it was sought to put them into practical operation; we call upon Parliament to complete its work and make the clauses effi- cient for their object of creating a peasant proprietary." Mr. Parnell, in supporting the resolution, said he had no doubt in the next session of Parliament the Bright clauses of the Land Act would be so amended as to facilitate very extensively the purchase of their hold- ings by many tenant farmers in Ireland. But the amendment of the Bright clauses of the Land Act was not at the present moment the most pressing need of the country. What they had to consider at this moment was not how they might best amend the Land Act, but how they might enable the people of the country to tide over the winter, for they had a winter before them such as had not been equaled since the fatal year of 1847. Now, how were they to maintain the people of Ireland in SPREAD OF THE LAND AGITATION. 235 Ireland under these circumstances ? They had heard that many of the landlords of Ireland and of the County Cork were good landlords, and would reduce their rents. He was willing to admit that to the fullest extent, but it was not the good landlords alone that they had to consider ; they had the bad landlords to contend with. Now they had not been told to-day what the tenant whose landlord was a bad and inhuman man was to do under the circumstances. They had been told that the tenant farmer was to keep himself outside the grip of the law. In that advice he cordially concurred, but the misfortune of the case was this — not that the tenant farmer desired to put himself within the grip of the law, but that his landlord desired to put him within its grip. Now what were they to do under the circumstances ? He really thought this was the question to which the attention of the leaders of the Irish people ought to be directed. The good landlord would reduce his rents, but what were they to do with the bad landlord ? The bad landlord would endeavor to be bad, as they had always been, and if then the tenantry proceeded in the old-fashioned way of slavish submission to unjust exaction and foolishly bidding against each other for farms from which some of them had been evicted, they would have the old evil history of 1847 repeated again. While they were on the land was the time to take the necessary precautions in order that they should remain there, because a very good authority, and an English authority too — had told them that possession was nine points of the law. Now he thought they had the question very much in their own hands. If they but stood together, if they remained firm, if they refused to pay an unjust rent, he said the game was theirs, and was theirs already. They required no Act of Parliament as a remedy to meet the emergency of this winter. No Acts of Parliament would be in time for that emergency ; but they had their own strength of mind and their own love of country to rely upon. If they relied on these he believed from the bottom of his heart that they would win. The people of Ireland knew too much to-day to allow themselves to be exterminated as they were in 1847. They were not yet decimated by famine. They had still the spirit that physical strength gave to resist. When he said physical strength he did not mean to advocate an appeal to physical means. Such was not necessary. They could work and win their cause without them, by adopting a policy of passive resistance to unjust demands and by adopting this altogether and united. When they had secured themselves in their lands against unjust demands and exactions they could proceed to Parliamentary action to obtain settlement of the land questions. But the tenant farmers should remember that the country looked to them to help to obtain for them the inestimable blessing of legislative independence. To follow out Mr. Parnell's reasoning no one can come to any other conclusion, but that the logical sequence of the course he advised the tenant farmers to pursue must eventually end in the last argument between men and nations. Force ! He told them that the men of 1879 knew better than to allow themselves to be exterminated as they were in 1847. With all due respect to Mr. Parnell, and his Irish Parliamentary friends, on this political issue Irishmen know no better than did their fathers or grandfathers ; what was the only remedy fifty years ago remains the only remedy to-day. The world has not advanced in any manner in finding any other solution of antagonistic issues when diplomacy, or argu- ment, or reasoning if you will, exhausts itself, than the ancient weapon " Force." It is as true to-day as when Hannibal crossed the Alps, when Caesar invaded Gaul, down to our own time, even in this Grand Republic. When Fort Sumter was fired upon and the National flag insulted, Ameri- 236 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. cans found argument and persuasion were over ; the time for action then came, and they were equal to the emergency. The tenant farmers were to refuse to pay unjust rents. The bad landlords would refuse to believe they were unjust and would continue to evict. What could the tenant farmers offer in opposition to the peremptory demand for surrender, made with England's armed forces to sustain the demand ? Where would pas- sive resistance come in here ? The farmer finds the remedy presented to him no remedy at all ; himself and family must go, as there is no other employment for him, Ireland having no industries to offer. He must do one of two things, either emigrate or go into the workhouse when his money is exhausted. Under the advice of Mr. Davitt, they are pursuing a species of opposition to-day which he has given the dignified title of " Rational Resistance." With all due respect to Mr. Davitt, Irish Nationalists think this so-called rational resistance very irrational indeed ; if the object aimed at is a melodramatic presentation of Irish evictions to the world and not material results, this sort of rational resistance carries out to the full irrational folly. If the serious question of Irish nationality is only to be used for excitement and sensational display, this advice given by Irish leaders is productive of theatrical tragedy. The weapons of this class of resistance are the " rational " ones of white-wash, bees, and hot water ; the farm houses and cabins are defended by rude intrenchments and chevaux de /rise, and as if in mockery of these prepara- tions the defenders are armed with stirabout. If these self-sacrificing, devoted leaders who are only too ready to go to prison for Ireland — a rather novel way of helping the nation — would make a genuine test case of one of these farms ! Let all the women and children be sent away, arm the men with rifles and supply these cabins with ammunition, dig intrenchments properly constructed, place every kind of obstacle in the way of the evictors — chevaux de /rise, destroying the road, and all the preparations made for " rational resistance." Let some of these leaders who talk so bravely place themselves with the peasantry behind these ramparts, determined that the evictor can only reach the homesteads over their dead bodies. It will be said that the defenders would be all slain ; if so, so be it, but they would die beside their valiant leaders, who would be killed with them, sharing the self-same dangers they advised the others to practice ; but before they met death each man would put at least five of the foe hors-de-combat. This would be actual resistance, and might put the enemy to the inconvenience of using artillery to carry out future evictions. It is a nobler death to die this way, with manly fortitude, resisting tyranny, than to die of disease contracted on a prison plank-bed, or the miserable slow starvation caused by evictions. It may be said it would be madness and folly to expose the people to such resistance. If so, the " Three Hundred" at Thermopylae were guilty of madness, and so must have been Arnold von Winkelried at the battle of Sempach, July g, 1386, when the brave Swiss saw his country- men being overborne by the superior armament of their foes. He seized a bundle of the Austrian spears in his grasp, and crying out : " Country- men, look to my wife and to my children," threw himself with force upon the weapons, bearing back the enemy and making an opening in the armor-clad phalanx of his foes, and with the spears transfixed in his breast he made a gap for his gallant comrades, by which they pierced the Austrian ranks and defeated their enemy. His ears in dying were blessed with the Swiss shouts of victory ringing out as they smote the fly- ing foe. Such a glorious death was worth a thousand lives, and his name shall live while mankind can feel ennobled by sacrifice and suffering, and worthy to honor the heroic dead ; as Cicero hath it, " No one could ever meet death for his country without the hope of immortality." SPREAD OF THE LAND AGITATION. 237 Was the Roman hero guilty of madness who singly held the bridge against the hosts of the invaders of his country ? No ! " For how could man die braver Than facing fearful odds For the ashes of his fathers And the temples of his gods ? " What degenerate teachings to the gallant Irish race ! " Passive resistance " ! Their teachers must know that the farmers will either have to pay, fight, or be evicted. An interesting article, filled with the peculiar theories then and now taught the people, appeared in the number for October 4, 1879, of the Dublin Weekly News, a companion paper to the Nation, owned by Mr. Sullivan : " The landlord has no right, no absolute right, no right at all to have rent paid to him unless the produce of the land leaves a profit above the cost of cultivation ; what we call rent is not a thing that is always due to the landlord whatever happens. It is, properly speaking, a profit left over as a residue after the laborer and the farmer have been paid. The wages of the laborer are the first charge on the land. The due reward of the farmer is the next charge after that, and this should comprise enough to pay him for money advanced for laborers' wages, for manure, for seed, and such needful outlay ; and also enough to enable him to maintain his family decently, to feed, clothe, house, and educate them as befitting his position, and, in short, to hold his place and theirs on a par with the persons who do for other industries what he does in relation to the land. " Why should the farmer's way of living be kept down lower than that of the shopkeeper ? There is no reason whatever why it should. The farmer's service to the public is as important as the shopkeeper's. His calling requires as much care and skill, his labor is more anxious and more exhausting. Therefore it follows that he should be clothed and fed as well as the shopkeeper is, that his children should be dressed as well as the shopkeeper's children, and that they should be educated at schools of as good a class. The fund to provide for this is the second charge on the land — the laborer's wages being the first, and until these first and second charges are satisfied the third charge, that of the rent, does not arise. " Now Irish farmers as a body have hitherto done great wrong, both to their families and to themselves, by pitching their scale of living on a level wretchedly low, in order to give the bulk of the produce of the land, in rent, to heartless and grasping landlords. The farmer's house, as a general rule, has been poor and but rudely furnished ; the food upon his table has been of the coarsest kind — such indeed as English farmers would give their swine ; the clothing of his household has been rough, and worn to rags before he would incur the cost of a renewal ; the thought of a holiday trip has been outside his imagination, and seldom has it occurred to be able to lay by anything for such a trying time as is on him now. " All this must be changed entirely for the future. The farmer has as good a right to a decent living out of the land as the landlord has to the profit known as rent, and we have shown already that the farmer's right comes before the right of the landlord. A radical reform will be brought about ere long in the Irish farmer's ideas of his right as a skilled and valuable member of society ; but at this moment the point before us is that the farmer has a right to deduct his share from the produce, and offer the balance, if any, to the landlord. This balance is what is justly due as rent. The tenants should reserve from the funds in their possession 238 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. as much as will enable them to live on till the time of a fresh supply, and if the landlord will not give them a clear receipt for the balance, we see nothing for them to do, if they would save themselves from starving, except to make no payment to the landlord. Let him, then, if he will, resort to law. It is better to be evicted with a few pounds in one's pocket, than evicted without a penny in the world, and to this it would surely come with the unfortunate tenant who might render himself a pauper to content the landlord now, but would have no chance of paying the next gale." This reasoning on the part of the Dublin newspaper as to what the tenant farmers are entitled to — the second charge on the produce — is very pleasing reading for the farmers, but while this holds good in equity, it is unfortunate that it conflicts with London-made law, which the British sponsors for their own edicts have been and are determined to see enforced. The word landlord, according to the ethics of the writer in the Weekly News, has no meaning ; a man could not be said to own or be in any sense lord of his domain if he was only to receive rent after the first two charges, as set down in this article, were satisfactorily paid. With respect to the first charge, the payment of the laborer's hire, in all probability this would be moderate enough ; the farmer would see that no waste in sharing the produce would occur in this direction. There are no poorer paid, more hard-worked members of the community than the farm laborers of Ireland. Now, with respect to the second charge, who is to decide or how could it be decided what would be a just recompense for the tenant- farmer, conceding all that the Dublin Weekly News states as to the proper mode of living for himself and his family ? Conceding to him the right which all will cordially endorse, of not only enjoying the necessities, but also the comforts of life. Would our friend, the writer in the News, leave the farmer to be the judge of what sum he would choose to give to the landlord, or if he would give him anything? This, we think, would be rather a loose arrangement. Farmers are not more angelic than other members of the community, and if such a state of things would be per- mitted to work, it is possible the landlord would get nothing. Most Irishmen will probably say that the latter mentioned sum is all the land- lord is justly entitled to. No one will gainsay that ; but is this not peasant proprietary, without paying any sum of money for the land ; and is this teaching consistent with moral suasion ? Has it ever entered into the brain of the most enthusiastic apostle of the doctrines of peace that such a condition of things could be brought about without physical revo- lution ? And, yet, such have been the doctrines preached and are still preached to Irish farmers by men who are supposed to be capable of shaping their country's destinies under the banner of Parliamentary agitation. But suppose this doctrine had passed from the stage of theory and became law ; what if the farmer, after paying the small wages of the laborer, and giving nothing to the landlord, what if he could get from the proceeds of his toil and unceasing industry barely enough of the necessities of life, and would have to ignore the comforts and the proper education for his children, and be compelled to send them to schools other than those in the mind of the News editorial writer ? and this is so in a large number of cases. How fallacious, then, is it for men to say that the land question is Ireland's prominent grievance, and to hinge a national issue on this agrarian calamity, which would be at once removed by a native senate and government ! In the dispussion of this great evil, the question of the land, some SPREAD OF THE LAND AGITATION. 239 strange statements were put forth and circulated in the interest of the landlords and by their followers. The following extraordinary story was printed in the public press at this time : " A landlord near Mallow, who made an appointment with his tenants, offered them an abatement of fifteen per cent, on their rents due in May last, but was met with a refusal to accept it. They felt, they said, that thei'r landlord's treatment of them in the past had been kind and con- siderate, and that they had been large gainers in prosperous years under their arrangement with him. They determined, therefore, that, for the first year at least, he should not on their account be a sufferer by the existing depression. Several of them in consequence paid their full rent on the spot, and the remainder promised to pay theirs by the end of November." « It is positively refreshing to read about these good, generous tenants, and their gratitude to their good landlord ; they actually refused to accept a proffered reduction. These must be the class of tenant farmers whom the Dublin journalist had in his mind when he wrote about the three charges on the land. It makes one feel what a good world it is, and after all how much of Utopia there has been in discussing the solution of the land question of Ireland on both sides. CHAPTER XVII. (1879.) WILL BRITISH LAND LAWS CREATE IRISH PROSPERITY ? Appeal to the Irish Race for Sustainment — Land League Manifesto — Peasant Proprietary — Evils of the Land System — Subdivision of Farms — Small Hqldings — Poverty- Stricken Occupants — Peasant Proprietary no Remedy under Alien Rule — Reasons Why : — Congested Districts — Scene at an English Meeting — Irish Cockney — His Patriotism to Ireland — English Farmer — Diversified Industries — Rents in Ireland — Fall in Price of Produce — Instances of Subdivision — Speeches of Michael Davitt and P. J. Sheridan of Tubbercurry — Fiery Speeches of James Boyce Killen, B. L. — Mr. Biggar's Advice to Farmers — London Vanity Fair on the Situation. The exertions and superhuman energy of Mr. Parnell was bearing fruit so far as Irish organization was concerned. The Land League grew rapidly, new branches opening in different parts of the country. An appeal to the Irish race for its sustainment, a very big and able document on the land evils, soliciting financial aid from Ireland's exiled sons to enable the organization to be put into action against the landlords, was issued on October 9, 1879 '■> ^ concluded as follows : " In pursuance of this intention we issue this appeal to Irishmen the world over, and to those who sympathize with the object in view, to aid us in our efforts to obtain for our people the possession of an unfettered soil and for Ireland the benefits which must result from an unrestricted development of its products and resources." This appeal was world-wide in its circulation. It was printed in every European tongue and spread broadcast in the columns of the public press. It was printed and commented on by every Radical and demo- cratic journal of the extreme and moderate section of the English repub- lican element. What response did it receive from English democrats ? Were there any monster meetings of English workingmen ? Were there any organized bodies empowered to collect money to aid Mr. Parnell's movement ? On the contrary they were actually hostile. These English workingmen and Radical republicans were and are more opposed to Ireland and Irish interests than even the British aristocrats. This appeal fell dead upon English ears, and for aught of effect it had in educating the English masses to understand and sympathize with the peasant farmers and those who lived by work on the soil of Ireland, it might as well not have been written. A small band of Britons, the extreme or socialistic element of British republicans, who have for leaders Mr. Hyndman, Dr. Clarke, and other thinkers of that school, were in sympathy with the Irish movement. Whatever assistance the Irish element in England, particularly in London, could give the English republicans in swelling their meetings owing to the Irish numbers, the British democracy on the other hand (eliminating Gladstonians, who are not pure democrats) owing to their small numbers could give in return but little assistance. But even these extremists would never agree or permit, if they had the power, a separate Irish national existence. They wished to leaven the masses of both islands with their doctrines, and ignoring nationality bring about what they con- sidered a millenium of happiness, which is trying to bring about the con- 240 WILL BRITISH LAND LAWS CREATE IRISH PROSPERITY? 241 federation of mankind. One or two of the Provincialist leaders are animated more with these Utopian doctrines than with that of Irish self-government. A deputation of these republican Britons went to Ireland under the guidance and superintendence of the Land League. Their object was very laudable — to see the wretched condition of Ireland, and on their return to report what they saw to the English masses, trying if possible to influence public opinion in favor of Ireland. One evening, shortly after their return, at a public meeting of English workingmen, among whom were a large sprinkling of Irish, who met regularly to debate and discuss current political topics. Dr. Clarke, a very able Briton and a liberty-loving man, whose sympathies were and are with the Irish, as they were also displayed in favor of the Boers, attempted to address the audience. Although a follower of Mr. Glad- stone no man could more oppose the tyrannies, despotic acts, and inconsistencies of that remarkable statesman. Dr. Clarke had been one of the deputation to Ireland, and the wretched misery he saw there filled his soul with horror. When he ventured to speak at the meet- ing he was snubbed by the chairman and another speaker called upon. The hot blood of the Irish present felt this insult and throbbed with suppressed indignation. Again Dr. Clarke essayed the attempt and was again treated with contempt and refusal to be heard. The Irish could stand this treatment of their advocate no longer ; they protested against this partisan treatment of Dr. Clarke. The chairman threatened expulsion, and the English workingmen howled with indigna- tion and shouted " Put out the Irishmen." The Irish blood was up and would not be silenced. John Bull could not control them. The few who at first resisted the chairman's arbitrary ruling were quickly re-en- forced by Irishmen in different parts of the room, born in London and speaking a pure cockney accent ; but the blood of the " O's " and " Macs " coursed in their veins, their foreign birth and accent did not change their love of Ireland. The English workingmen would not hear Dr. Clarke and the Irish would not hear their speakers, so the meeting was broken up, and on adjourning outside the Irish Cockneys gave three cheers" For Hold Hireland" with as much ardor as if they were born at the foot of Slievnamon. Mr. Parnell's appeal met with a different reception from the exiled Gael, and money flowed into the Land League treasury in thousands of pounds. And what has it done for the farmers ? True, they can take consolation in the knowledge that their enemies are suffering as well as themselves. But of what advantage is this to the public good ? Is it not like the old phrase "cutting off your nose to spite your face"? The land is lying idle, and farms instead of being cropped* and adding to the national wealth are lying fallow. Reclaimed lands and partly reclaimed ground is going back into its original state of sterility, while poverty, coercion, and suffering stalk abroad. Could Ireland's material wants be satisfied by land legislation alone ? No ! emphatically no ! In Ireland at this time there were 600,000 tenant farmers ; only 10,000 of these paid above ^100 ($500) yearly for their farms, only 30,000 above ^■50 ($250) a year, and 217,000 under £§ a year — under $40 yearly. With the exception of the 10,000 farmers mentioned in the first category the remaining 550,000 could not live comfortably if they even were made a present of their farms, and as to the 217,000 who pay from $5 to $40 a year, their case is one of perpetual poverty, which even a revolution in the land laws of the most drastic kind could not elevate out of their wretched condition. Although the landlords have contributed to make Ireland suffer many calamities, her destroyer is not landlordism but alien rule. 242 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. The English farmer lives under the same land laws and there is no such poverty with him ; on the contrary the English farmer is a well-to-do, comfortable man, who not only enjoys the necessities, but the comforts of life. How comes this? The English farmer is not absolutely depending on the land. He farms largely, and if he cannot meet his liabilities he throws up the business and enters another, for England is filled with diversity of industries. There the landlord will at once reduce the rent and voluntarily, for if the value of produce depreciates he knows he must bear his share of the loss, or he will have his farm on his hands, for England is not cursed with the misfortune of being an agricultural country. No ! her wealth lies in her many and various industries, in her manufactures, trade, and commerce. Self-government alone could give Ireland these. People will probably say that this is too difficult of attainment, that the people would starve while they were waiting for self-government, and that something in this acute crisis was necessary. Certainly, but this was a case of creating a charitable fund, which was done, but Mr. Parnell wanted and got huge sums to establish a gigantic organization to repeal the infamous land code, which so many suffered under, and which if repealed could not in the nature of things do anything like the good for Ireland intended, as already pointed out. But so long as Irishmen have British rule in Ireland so long will these land laws remain practically unchanged, for even if the tenant farmer were to be made owner of his holding, it could only be by paying for a greater length of time than the present generation can expect to live through, large sums yearly to pay back the purchase ; and this drain, particularly if he finds produce still further reducing, will leave him very little better off. It means simply a little less starvation ; as for the 217,000 whose rent varies from $5 to $40 yearly and another 200,000 whose small farms are not much above these in value it is sheer folly, the very height of absurdity, to say that even if these people got their farms free — which would be an impossibility — that they could live comfortably. Mr. Parnell has sug- gested migration, removing the people from certain districts to others. But supposing that Ireland was parceled out into equal proportions and given to the tenant farmers, how long would this condition of things last ? A farmer should provide for his sons and daughters and the land would again be divided, and sub-divided, poverty would ensue, and next emi- gration, so the last state of Ireland would be as the first. Ireland needs native government. The only union she requires is the union of Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connaught. With respect to what was said about the suffering of the land- lords, Irish farmers should not put too much confidence in being able to turn the loss of the landlords into a gain for their own just demands. Their leaders have been and are pointing out this as a subject not only of consolation in trouble but also a hope that they must succumb to the necessities of their position. Like many statements set forth on this land question, this one has been exaggerated. The Irish landlord who suffers through not receiving his rent, belongs to a class who own but a small proportion of the land of Ireland. The great landowners, who are the lords of the greater portion of the Irish soil, either have large English estates, or they own mines, or are embarked in commerce, have railroad stock and other shares, and can enjoy life's pleasures without even their Irish rent roll. But although this rent roll is seriously crippled by the fall in prices as well as the agitation, as long as Britain's flag flies over Irish soil every inch it covers must eventually pay this tribute. This agitation claims to have been successful in reduc- ing the farmer's rents. This is not so ; the fall in the price of produce WILL BRITISH LAND LAWS CREATE IRISH PROSPERITY? 243 compelled this reduction. In England the reduction has been greater without any public agitation, and here it should be stated this apparent concession is in reality no concession at all. If produce has fallen fifty per cent, in value, as the Irish farmer and his advocate tell us, what relief can it be to the farmer if his rent is reduced even forty percent.? In all cases of rent reduction it has never met the actual reductions in prices, and as to putting a rent upon the land that would enable the farmer to live comfortably, in the great majority of cases it should be no rent what- ever, and even this as already stated could not accomplish more than giving the farmer and his family sustenance. There is no hope for Ire- land but self-government, by which employment can be given the people and so remove them from off the land that at present is in a state of con- gestion with small poverty-stricken holdings. To illustrate what the absence of native government and consequent absence of manufactures does in affecting this land question, for instance — some cases which have occurred in Ireland in respect to this enforced tendency to subdivision of farms : Many years ago several generations back, a landlord, whom Mr. Shaw would call a good landlord, leased fifty-five farms at what was considered then — and would much more deserve that title now — low head rents. These leases were forever. They were given to the fifty-five tenants then occupy- ing the farms, so that practically they became peasant proprietors. What was the condition of these farms at the opening of this great land agitation ? Two remained intact in the possession of the descendants of the original lessees, three others were still in the hands of descendants, but miserably subdivided into small lots ; one farm was partly held by the descendant, partly by poor wretched squatters, his undertenants. The remaining forty-nine farms had entirely changed hands — many as the result of mortgages — and were then held by middlemen, who had por- tioned out the lands (in some instances to descendants of the original lessee) to a miserable poor class of undertenants. These lands were all subdivided, one farm of ninety acres being then occupied by fifty families, holding down to an acre and a half. What a miserable fallacy to say that these poor people, who are at least 550,000 out of the 600,000 tenant farmers of Ireland, could live comfortably, if they even got their farms free. Their normal condition is one of semi-starvation and hard, laborious toil, which landlords of them- selves cannot remove. The evil lies deeper ; it is in the cause of foreign rule and the absence of that healthy public spirit which would spring from national independence. When that time comes, if it should come, the anvil, the loom, and the whirr of machinery will be heard over the land, the agricultural community could get employment elsewhere in Ireland at various industries, farms could be so managed that the farmer would be enabled to develop the resources of the magnificent soil that is now becoming fallow, and by scientific farming increase the produce of Ireland twofold. Large farms would be needed to obtain these results. Manufactures, trade, commerce, and the many various pursuits of life could give ample room for the surplus agricultural population. Then and then only could occupying proprietary become a blessing, and it would be at once established by a native senate, not a sham, as Mr. Glad- stone proffered, but a genuine legislature, having power to make laws for the whole people and for every want and necessity of their existence. Yet another case of this tendency to subdivision of farms will be cited here. On the lands purchased from sales made by the Church Commis- sioners to occupying tenants, a farmer who purchased his holding, a 244 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. shrewd, intelligent member of his class, died shortly after completing his purchase. By his will he divided his twenty acres of freehold land, leav- ing one moiety to his eldest son, and the other to his widow for life, and after her death to his second son. Will not the lapse of another genera- tion multiply the occupants of this small farm and the sequel be wretched poverty ? No wonder General Gordon — afterward killed at Khartoum — said, after traveling through Ireland, he had not witnessed even in the most savage regions of the earth, in the wildest and poorest places he had traversed, anything to come near the squalid poverty, the rags, the famine-pinched, hungry faces, and the miserable hovels or cabins that he witnessed in Ireland. Now the Provincialist press cry out " The land- lords," ignoring the landlord's creators and masters, the British Govern- ment. Landlordism is but one of the fingers of the bandit's hand that holds the country clutched by the throat. Agitators are vainly trying to remove this finger, forgetting that if even they were successful the remain- ing four fingers would retain their clutch. Why not cut the wrist ? The wrist ! the wrist ! there is the vulnerable part of his anatomy. In God's name cease this babbling, and out with your falchions and sever tendons and muscles and stand erect as freemen in the land God gave your fathers ! On November 3, 1879, was held the memorable land meeting at Gurteen, County Sligo. From this meeting came the first arrests for the use of what the enemy called "seditious language." Numerous contingents came in from the surrounding country — Boyle, Ballymote, Tubbercurry, Carrick-on-Shannon,' Kilkee, and Ballagha- derin. They were accompanied by bands and carried banners. Among the mottoes displayed were, "Irish Lands in Irish Hands," " Remember '47," "God Save Ireland," "Faith and Fatherland," "The Land for the Tillers," " Down with the Land Robbers ! " Rev. Canon James McDermot, P. P., proposed the first resolution, which was seconded by Mr. John O'Connor of Dublin. Rev. Dennis O'Hara moved a resolution in favor of peasant proprietory. Mr. Davitt spoke, and was followed by Mr. P. J. Sheridan of Tubbercurry, who publicly burnt a local paper, which described the attendance on the platform at the Tubbercurry meeting as characterized by fustian and vulgarity. Mr. J. B. Killen, barrister, said, since the time when the cursed feudal laws were introduced by Norman savages the land of Ireland had been three times confiscated, but always in favor of the aristocracy. They wanted a fourth confiscation, or rather restitution, now in favor of the people. He left them to say whether that was to be done by the pen, the pencil, or the sword. The time for namby-pamby speaking had passed ; they had been beggars long enough, and now they must be men, and, acting like men, the day would be won. That night there were great rejoicing bonfires lit on several hills about Gurteen and Boyle. The misguided people were filled with the day's oratory and its false teaching, and felt as if they were victors in a great battle, and that England had surrendered her power to the witch- ing influence of the silver-tongued speakers whom they had heard that day. Mr. Biggar, M. P., at a conference in Dublin, expressed it as his belief that the only panacea is to buy out the land. If the landlords refused the reasonable and fair concession now asked for, they might have to suffer a great deal, because ultimately a bloody revolution might take place in the kingdom and the land might be taken entirely from the landlords, as it was in France. WILL BRITISH LAND LAWS CREATE IRISH PROSPERITY? 245 A leading London society paper, Vanity Fair, of October 11, 1879, thus commented on the Irish anti-rent agitation : " It is worse than useless to blind ourselves to the fact that serious difficulties are likely to arise in Ireland. We read of threats used to hitherto popular landlords — landlords in connection with whom it is absurd to talk of rack-renting or injustice ; of violent language at meetings by priests, of wholesale refusal to pay rents at all, and of arrangements for a more thorough agitation through the winter. The most caustic or the most convincing leaders in the London press will do nothing to avert the state of anarchy which is fast approaching. When will it be time for 'something to be done'? When how many landlords and agents have been shot ? How far are Mr. Parnell and his followers to go? If a man goes into the street and creates a disturbance, he is held responsible for the disturbance. Mr. Parnell is preaching doctrines that can only end in bloodshed. Will he not be held responsible for the bloodshed ? It is useless for him to say that by standing together and his other phrases, he means resistance by legal means. To advise a man to stay in another man's house, refusing either to pay rent or to go, is to advise him deliber- ately to break the law. It may be right that the land of Ireland should be taken from the present landlords and given to the present tenants. But until it is so taken the tenants must wait for possession." In this article the hard-headed practical English enemy calmly dis- cusses the situation from his standpoint, and indeed from the common- sense standpoint. He naturally thought that the Irish people were pre- paring to fight. The natural sequence of the doctrines preached ought as necessarily to end in bloodshed as the doctrines which the French and German people differ about as to Alsace and Lorraine must end in blood- shed some day. But mercurial as our French brethren are, or are said to be, they never yet promulgated the absurd idea of getting back Alsace and Lorrain without fighting for it. They would consider, and justly so, any set of men lunatics, who would dictate to the Alsatians and Lorrainers how they were to break German laws, admitting them to be as unjust as these in Ireland, and to tell these people that they must be victorious for their German democratic brothers would sympathize with them. And then to turn round to their French countrymen and tell them and in tell- ing them tell the world that the German army is all powerful, and the French all powerless, and that it would be destruction and rashness to attempt to cross arms with Germany, but they were to get Alsace and Lorraine without fighting. This is the very doctrine that Irishmen have been and are to-day preaching to their felfow countrymen, announcing from the hilltops Ireland's weakness, and her utter inability to fight, but if they could have the least chance, what mince-meat these valiant heroes would make of the Saxon ! The doctrines that are to-day preached to a brave but uneducated people (in a political sense uneducated, as are the masses of many nations), are enough to sap the manhood of the race. It is teaching the young men to look to their foe, the bitter hostile enemy of seven hundred years, for that gift of freedom which Britain robbed from their fathers. The English writer in Vanity Fair says, It may be right to take from the landlords the land and give it to the tenant, but the tenant must wait for' possession until it is so taken. But not so say the agitators, who, with possibly good motives, advise the Irish ten- ant farmers what to do as if they were the actual possessors of the soil,, without striking one single blow or firing a single shot. They forget England's flag still floats over the la.nd, emblem of the conquest she has not yet completed. CHAPTER XVIII. (1879.) SHADOW OF APPROACHING FAMINE. Balla Proclamation — Protest of Home Rule Executive against the Arrests — Imposing Dis- play in Balla — Military Discipline — Balla Demonstration — Speech of Mr. Thomas Brennan — Speech of Parnell — Proclamation — "Ready" — Speech of Mr. Lynch of Elphin — The Three Islands — Bonfires for Davitt's Release — Arrest of Thomas Bren- nan — The Dublin Freeman on the Arrests — Constitutional Agitation — British Opinion on the Approach of Famine — The Work of Agitators — Starch Manufactory — Duchess of Marlborough's Fund — Subscriptions from the Queen and Prince of Wales — Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Foster — Ireland a Mendicant — Departure of Mr. Parnell, Mr. John Dillon, and Mr. Tim Healy for America. The agitation was now in full active work. The great meetings of O'Connell were nearly equaled by the giant meetings of Parnell, and Ireland, after the loss of over three millions of people, since the great tribune's time, as pluckily faced the British, determined to argue the point with him. But the British gets tired discussing the issue, and having force ready at his hand, he tries what imprisonment can do to solve the question from his view of the needs of the case. The British opened the ball and, as the papers in the English interest said, the long expected blow was struck at seditious agitation. At six o'clock on the morning of Novem- ber 19, 1S79, they arrested Mr. Michael Davitt and Mr. James Bryce Killen on a charge of having used seditious language at the anti-rent meeting in Gurteen, County Sligo, on Sunday, November 2. At the same hour Mr. James Daly, proprietor of the Mayo Telgraph, was arrested in Castlereigh. Messrs. Davitt and Killen were conveyed by nine o'clock train to Sligo, and Mr. Daly was also brought there, and having been charged before the magistrate, they were remanded for further examina- tion and committed to prison. The following placard posted throughout the County Mayo was torn down by the police. " Fellow countrymen : The hour of trial is come. Your leaders are arrested. Davitt and Daly are in prison. You know your duty. Will you do it? Yes, you will. Balla is the place of meeting and Saturday is the day. Come in your thousands and show the Government and the world that your rights you'll maintain. To the rescue in the mightiness of your numbers. Land and Liberty ! ' God save the people ' Balla, Balla ! Saturday next, Saturday next ! " What arrant nonsense is contained in this placard ! Irishmen are sum- moned to go to Balla on Saturday in their thousands to show the British that their rights they will maintain, by so doing they show the British the very opposite — that their rights they will not maintain except to shout and cheer. James Grant, the Scottish writer, in one of his works, gives a reason why the British soldier is clad in scarlet ; he tells his readers that a charge of British infantry, as the sun shines on the bright-colored dress and glistens on their accouterments, the steel of their bayonets flashing in the sunlight so frightens their enemy that he gets panic stricken at their mere appearance and flies in disorder, terrified at the martial sight. It must be some such idea that animated the writer of the Balla placard. 246 SHADOW OF APPROACHING FAMINE. 247 He held his countrymen in such high esteem that the mere gathering at a public meeting in their thousands would release Davitt, Daly, and Killen, as announced in the placard, " To the rescue in the mightiness of your numbers." The Home Rule Executive, in their rooms at London Bridge, also came to the rescue in the same daring manner. Resolutions condemning the British Ministry were passed which must have seriously incon- venienced these English statesmen ! On Saturday, November 22, 1879, the great Balla demonstration took place ; on the same day the Nationalists turned out to celebrate the anni- versary of the men who were hanged at Manchester for the rescue of Colonel Kelly and Captain Dacey. These were all trained and well-drilled men who were foolishly ordered out to display their strength to the enemy. Splendid material, but lacking brains to guide them in the proper course. At two o'clock the procession formed in the Claremorris road. The English writer who described the scene was evidently impressed with the marching and discipline of the Nationalists : " The contingents fell into their places with the regularity and order of a disciplined force, and defiled through the town in semi-military array; each contingent marched four deep under its own officers in the style of men accustomed to step together, and obeyed their orders with a promp- titude and precision which would have reflected credit on regiments of militia. They were all under the command of an imposing looking person, well mounted and distinguished by a red band round his hat. In the several files, thick blackthorn sticks were carried over the shoulder like guns, and the strictest silence was observed in the ranks. Behind the field officer in command, as he may be called, was a bugler who sounded the orders to ' halt,' ' fall in ' and 'fall out ' with the facility of a trained hand. In front of the procession was borne on two poles a large black banner with white fringe, with inscriptions in white letters — on one side ' God rest our martyred three,' and on the other ' In memoriam — Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien,' with a cross underneath. In the center of the procession a green flag was carried, having in gilt letters on one side, " On in your masses — dense, resolute, strong, To war against treason, oppression, and wrong, and on the other side, " God Save Ireland. " Green scarves were worn by the processionists, and about fifty men carried little bannerets of bright colors which fluttered in the air with picturesque effect. Then from two hundred to three hundred men, mounted on fine horses, brought up the rear of the procession. These horsemen kept the same military order as did the footmen." On the platform were assembled the leading Provincialists, including Mr. Parnell. There were also a few Nationalists in the group. Several resolutions were put to the meeting and carried. Mr. Thomas Brennan, now an enforced exile in the United States, in seconding the first reso- lution, delivered the following able address : They were there for a threefold purpose to protest against eviction and possible death of nine of God's creatures ; to protest against the unconstitutional arrest of their leaders, and to declare their determination to go on with the movement until victory was secured ; until the last trace of feudal landlordism was swept from the country. The English Government was coming to the rescue of the accursed institution, but 248 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. it could not be saved. The crumbling edifice must fall. He for one was not there to withdraw aught he had ever said. Whatever might have been the words used by Mr. Davitt at the Gurteen meeting, he adopted them, and if he knew them he would repeat them, for he believed in his soul they were the words of justice and of truth. The time for mere speeching had gone by and the time for the resolve and the act had arrived. The speech that day was the indignation he saw flash from their eyes and the determination which rested upon their brows. Let them think of the possible scene they might have had to witness with the persons lying ill with fever and the poor child who every time he asked for a morsel of bread to eat, a pang worse than a bayonet shot through its mother's heart ; let them think of that and then of the evictor. He had fled from the country that his ears might not catch the execration of the people. Let them think of him as he enjoyed the luxuries of life and pocketed the money which the sweat of the poor man had wrought from the land, for in this enlightened nineteenth century, God's first decree to fallen man was contradicted by human hand, and the majority of mankind must work and toil to support the few in idleness. He appealed to one class of the community, the men of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and he asked them if they were content to remain the destroyers of their own people and of their own kith and kin ? Let them look at the possible picture — the dear brother lying in yonder ditch dead and naked, the last garment sold to buy a measure of milk for the poor child in whose body the tooth of the lean dog was now fastened. Ah! men, are you human ? Can you look upon such scenes, and strong men as you are, do not feel your knees tremble, and is there not a curse gathering in your throats ? Need he remind them of 1847, when they were called upon to do some work like that with which they were now threatened, when one of the force fired upon an unoffending crowd and found a few minutes later that the bullet had lodged in the breast of the mother that bore him. They were Irishmen, and he doubted not that beneath the policeman's jacket a warm Irish heart beat. To the people he said, Pay no rent until you get a reasonable reduction, and till no land from which another has been evicted. If there is found wretch enough to do so, mark him well and cast him out as an unclean thing ! Mr. Parnell, who was warmly greeted, said that after the magnificent •speech they had heard, it would ill become him to occupy their time. They had showed by coming there in the face of intimidation that calm ■determination to do their duty by their suffering fellow-creatures. He ^had alluded to Mr. Brennan's magnificent speech, but it was too true -that in these days the most talented men were marked out for imprison- ment, and he very much feared that the result of the lead he had taken ; in this movement would be that he also would be sent to share the fate of Messrs. Davitt, Daly, and Killen. Lord Beaconsfield had shown him how he could appreciate the strength of this movement. Too well the aristocracy of England and Ireland also recognized it, and the movement which began in the plains of Irishtown, Mayo, had set the handwriting on the wall for the downfall of the most infamous land tenure that the world had ever seen. The Charles Stewart Parnell of that Balla meeting was a pure and sincere Irishman. A man who was fast forming his mind upon the solu- tion of the Irish nation's troubles, and their removal, by association with the Nationalists, whom he to-day slanderously denounces ; true, at that time he clung to Provincialism, but he had promised Irishmen that if it failed he would be with them in anything. Believing in his promise, the party of action helped him, and the huge League was the result of their SHADOW OF APPROACHING FAMINE. 249 labors. In America they formed branches outside of their revolutionary work to collect money to build up the movement, which made Mr. Par- nell and his followers so numerous before the world at this date. These men did not believe in agitation, and their speeches on public platforms did not convey their real sentiments, but by what they considered diplomatic tactics, they hoped to ripen the Irish question by the agitation and behind it strike at the foe. Mr. Parnell, they believed, would be with them when the hour came. He believing that what Ireland required could be got peacefully, yet if not so, and that it was proven different, his remarks and associations would lead his most intimate friends to believe that he would assume the role of the leaders of '98, Fitzgerald, Emmet, and Tone. Each party deceived the other and both parties deceived the peo- ple, not intentionally, for neither stopped to examine what this false teach- ing was sure to lead to. The moderate movement crossed the Rubicon — possibly driven there by passion and not judgment — and when they did so became more extreme in their acts than the party of action had hitherto been. But victory had no sooner fallen to their flag than they grew alarmed. They were not equal to the emergency ; they precipitately retreated, threw down their arms, and left the brave men alone in the gap to face all the dangers. They even deceived these men, for they kept their camp fires burning as if they still occupied the same advanced ground. Not content at this foul desertion in a crisis, they started a propaganda of slander, and denounced the men and their actions, whom they so basely betrayed. Some men condoned this as a proper and necessary feature to deceive the enemy. What fatuous reasoning! These men have befouled their own conduct. They would no doubt swear a thousand oaths that they had no association with what their movement was the actual founders of, and this hateful perjury and prevarication is called by these men diplomacy. Mr. Parnell that day had not experienced imprisonment — and as Mr. Hyndman, the great English democrat, once said in the writer's hearing, " No man can tell what effect the salutary lesson might not have upon him." The eminent English republican leader could scarcely repress the sneer of contempt he felt for Mr. Parnell's change of front and his Kilmain- ham treaty surrender. But that day at Balla Mr. Parnell defied arrest. He was then sincere and faithful ; the man he praised was a stanch patriot, Mr. Thomas Brennan, who was afterward compelled, when Carey turne informer, to fly to this free country. Mr. Parnell's alliance with the excoercer, the enemy's Minister, Mr. Gladstone, and his denunciation of the national feeling held by Mr. Brennan and so many brave Irishmen, was then in the womb of time. On the morning of the Balla meeting a placard was posted up in different parts of the locality, but was quickly torn down by the police. It read as follows : " TO THE IRISH PEOPLE. " Irishmen ! — does one spark of manliness remain in you ? If so, up forvengence and right! You have seen a terrible wrong committed at your door. The innocent who pleaded for your freedom and your land thrown untried into a British dungeon. Will you stand it ? Will you, the sons of brave sires, sit tamely by and see this system of tyranny and wrong extended ? Never ! Up, then, and demand the freedom of your leaders— your benefactors — who have manfully pleaded your cause. (Signed) " ' Ready ! '" The promoters of the great Balla meeting, which was made more imposing by having the Manchester martyrs' procession added, had one particular object in view, and that was to protest against the eviction of 250 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. the Dempseys, a family of nine people ; the meeting as recorded was held, the protest was made, but the evictions took place notwithstanding. Another meeting was called to assemble at Carrick-on-Shannon to pro- test against the evictions having taken place. The case of Micawber satisfying himself his debts were paid when he tendered his creditors an I. O. U. is illustrative of this particular phase which the Irish people have been taught and believe in. This thinking they do their duty by their country by simply protesting against wrong is worse than folly ; it is destructive of national life and tends to destroy national hope. The meeting at Carrick-on-Shannon was attended by over 5000 people, who protested very loudly, cheering the resolutions which were read and endorsed with great applause, and when the meeting broke up and the people scattered to their homes they felt satisfied they had done some good for their country, and that by attending a public meeting to applaud speakers they had discharged a duty they owed their suffering nation. God help the Irish people ! they have been and are still taught to pursue this silly work. Among the many speeches delivered that day in Carrick was one remarkable address, but quite representative of the better class of farmers' views on national questions — the people whom we are told will help on the struggle for " Home Rule " if the rest of Ireland can get them free land. Mr. Lynch of Elphin, in seconding a resolution, said in the course of a rambling speech : " Queen Victoria is one of the greatest monarchs that has ever been on the English throne since the time of Alfred the Great, and were she to come over she would receive a Cead Mille." (Cries of " No, no ; speak to the resolution.") " Her Gracious Majesty is not the maker of the laws." (A voice, "Tenant right and Home Rule." Cheers for Parnell.) "Ire- land is part and parcel of the British empire. Nature evidently intended the three islands to be one." (Cries of " Never, never. You put your foot in it.") The unemancipated farmer was a bad advocate for the alien connec- tion. The cry England, Ireland, and Scotland had got so fixed in the good gentleman's head that he considered there were three islands instead of two. Mr. Lynch is not the only speaker who falls into this error ; they forget that Scotland and England bear the same relation to each other in the island of Britain as Ulster and Munster does in the neigh- boring island of Ireland. The north and south of two separate and distinct nations. The magisterial investigation into the charges made against Messrs. Davitt, Daly, and Killen commenced Monday, November 24, at Sligo. They were met by Mr. Parnell, M. P., Mr. Dillon, and other gentlemen, and appeared none the worse for their confinement. Mr. Daly was first put on his trial ; he was defended by Mr. John J. Loudon. Mr. Daly was committed for trial at the ensuing assizes, the magistrate agree- ing to take bail, two sureties in ^250 each, and the prisoner, Mr. Daly, in ^500 ; bail was procured and Mr. Daly was released. Mr. Davitt, who refused professional assistance, defended himself ; he was put on his trial the next day, when the stenographer or short hand writer, Mr. William C. Johnson, on the staff of the Dublin Daily Express, gave evidence of the Gurteen speech. He was released on similar bail to that given by Mr. Daly. After Mr. Davitt was released a large tar-barrel was set on fire opposite the house of Dr. Cox, where he was dining. A crowd assembled before the house and called for speeches. They were addressed by Messrs. Davitt, Parnell, Dillon, and Loudon. Mr. Parnell said the Government had overshot the mark in releasing Davitt on a ticket of leave as an ordinary felon instead of a political convict. Mr. Dillon said SHADOW OF APPROACHING FAMINE. 2 5* the Government made no greater mistake than arresting Mr. Davitt. Mr. Loudon said that he regarded the action of the Government as a sublime joke in a serio-comic drama which will only bring shame and disgrace upon them. Mr. Parnell, it may be presumed, meant that the Government's mis- take in not releasing Davitt as a political prisoner prevented them from re-arresting him on the former political charge, hence the necessity of a fresh prosecution. Mr. Parnell, like a good many of the agitators, clung to the belief that the British respect the forms of their own laws in dealing with Irishmen. This may be said to a certain extent of the Tories, but never of the Radicals, Ireland's most bitter foes with honeyed tongues. Mr. Parnell lived to see the violation of this form when the Liberal, Mr. Gladstone, revoked Mr. Davitt's ticket of leave and had him re-arrested and sent to Woking convict prison. Mr. Dillon said the Government made no greater mistake than these arrests. From Ireland's stand- point — yes ! The Germans made no greater mistake than capturing the French army at Sedan, that is, from a French point of view. Irishmen read these statements almost daily and of the dire consequences which must overtake the enemy's Government if they proclaim a certain meeting or make certain arrests, and the strangest part of these strange assertions consists in the wild statement that the injuries are to come from the English people — the people who elected this Government to carry out the programme of which these men complain. Yet men of Mr. Dillon's caliber will tell their countrymen such puerilities in sober seriousness. Then take this burning of a tar-barrel because a countryman is sent for trial for making a speech. What strange victories ! Mr. Loudon's title of serio-comic suits the whole situation. Mr. Thomas Brennan also fell a victim to Lord Beaconsfield's admin- istration. The Tory chief ordered his arrest for the Balla speech. He was made prisoner on December 5 in his own house at Russell Street, Dublin, at eight o'clock in the morning, and taken in a cab to Broadstone Railway terminus, thence by the nine o'clock train to Castlebar. He was brought before the magistrate at Castlebar, who remanded him on bail. The Freeman's Journal, commenting on the arrests, observed that constitutional agitation forms the armory of the people, and the keenest and most potent weapon in its case stands freedom of speech. Of the general constitutional character of the land agitation, it did not believe that any questions were raised. It was similar to that which preceded the land bill of 1870. Constitutional agitation is a potent weapon in a self-governed com- munity which, if it is not satisfied with its government, can remove it by its votes cast at the ballot box. But in the case of a con- quered and invaded nation it is rank folly to speak of such a procedure. The writer in the Freeman calls the land movement "constitutional agitation." There exists no Irish constitution. The constitution which the people of the island of Britain live under was not constituted by the Irish people any more than the French constitution was created by them. They have neither voice nor influence in shaping the laws of that British constitution. Whatever the dominant party of Britons, Tories or Radicals, wish, the Irish must either submit to or resort to force. What- ever blessings are to be found in that constitution are not extended to Ireland. They are violated and suppressed by special legislation and, even apart from these laws of special coercion, the constitution becomes inoperative in the very nature of things. It was created for the happi- ness and well being of the inhabitants of the island of Britain, and was 252 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. not intended nor would it suit the inhabitants of the island of Ireland. It is intended to develop the trade, commerce, wealth, and prosperity of the British isle, and not to develop, but to extract all the wealth and pro- duce of the Irish isle, as Britain does in India and other Crown colonies for the greater aggrandizement and pleasure of the islanders who framed this constitution, and alter it at their own wish and convenience. It can no more feed, enrich, or invigorate the people of the western island than can the food that one man takes into his system make healthy and robust a different organism. The medicine which maketh the Briton healthy would make sick the Irish Celt. We Irish have no constitution, unless handcuffs, bayonets, buckshot, bullets, the dungeon, and the scaffold. These are the legal weapons used by the invader to keep the Irish quiet while he methodically and systematically plunders them of everything they produce which can benefit him in any manner. One other constitu- tional blessing has the Briton conferred upon the Irishmen. He has given them from time to time silver-tongued British statesmen, who deplore with crocodile tears the sorrows which Ireland has suffered by British connection, but who would not sever that connection, though they keep on deluding the infatuated Irish who listen to these serpent woers — they who breathe upon a mirror, and then trace upon the vapor that dims the brightness of the glass their vows of service, vows which fade as quickly as they are made. These serve the purpose of attracting the Irish gaze and distract the national thought of the masses, while Britain's work of destruction goes on and the people are passing away from the Green Isle. Year by year they leave her shores and the emerald gem of the Western ocean is fast becoming a foreigner's farm, while her drugged people listen to the flageolet notes of the orator and dreamily utter the mocking parrot cry " Constitutional agitation." The Freeman speaks of the Land Bill of 1870 as a measure accepted by the Irish people, as a concession to the farmers, but not as a finality in land legis- lation, which was the reason for another Land Bill. The plea for all these frequent measures is that, although not fully settling the question, they do a little good. More of the fallacy of this so-called " Consti- tutional agitation." None of these measures can or ever had any effect on Irish wealth or Irish farmers. They no more affect the pros- perity of Ireland than they change the mountains in the moon. There is no "little " in all these visionary laws for which Irishmen are agitating. They were at this time looking for " Fixity of tenure." They have it now nearly seven years, and there is no more substance in it than the soap bubble which reflects the tints of light in the beauty of the sunshine, but disappears in the grasp. You cannot get any law that will give you the " half loaf " you are so anxious to accept. No, not even a slice of material prosperity, or less still, not a single crumb. The most powerful micro- scope ever manufactured could not magnify the fruits of British legisla- tion for Ireland into an infinitesimal atom of nutriment. There is but one thing the British Parliament can do — which it will not unless com- pelled — and that is to remove itself and all its belongings from Ireland, and let that nation remain outside the sphere of its operations. Any other measure which passes its portals for Ireland can have no more power to stop national death, than looking at a Punch and Judy show can satisfy the cravings of a hungry man. The Daily Express, the Orange Castle mouthpiece, said that for the last three months the public had looked on with amazement at the for- bearance displayed by the Government. Day after day seditious language had been used, the law had been openly set at defiance and an attempt made by revolutionary means to wrest the land from the rightful owners. The British in Ireland and in their own country tried to make it SHADOW OF APPROACHING FAMINE. 253 appear that the distress and threatened famine was the creation of Mr. Parnell for political effect. Their organs preached up the " selfish agita- tors " who were disturbing the island, and denounced in no measured language the demagogues who were disturbing the peace of the country and preventing the flow of English capital coming into Ireland. This cry about frightening away capital has been often and often repeated whenever the suffering Irish make any protest and fancy by such means to lighten their intolerable burdens. Ireland needs no capital from England ; if Britain would only take her hands out of Ireland's pocket, the Irish would have ample capital to begin housekeeping for themselves. It is not agitation which frightens away the investing of capital, but the monopoly England enjoys through her specially manu- factured laws. Some few years ago under the influence of the cry Native Manufac- tures, then prevalent, two young Irishmen started a starch factory. People were anxious to purchase home-made goods, and they found the Irish starch equal to the best English made, so they soon established a good local trade. The British manufacturers became alarmed, they saw their monopoly melting away, and soon formed a pool, and being wealthy, could afford to lose money to break their native competitor. They undersold the young Irishmen, and also got their wares passed off as Irish, and with long credit and other inducements got back their trade. The consequence was the young men failed and they lost their money and time in a hopeless struggle against their powerful foreign rivals. Native rule would have stopped these British goods at the Irish Cus- tom House, and given to Irish manufactures a free field in their own land, and so built up their industries, which sentimental cries for native goods never can do. They may make a small spasmodic effort out of which nothing permanent can possibly come. Under self-government administering native laws, there would be ample room for the investment of capital, which opening is not in Ireland to-day. The spread of the distress became too serious to be ignored, and the English thought they should do something, and that by giving Ireland back a trifling moiety of her stolen money under the name of alms, gain a name for generosity to her suffering sister, Ireland, among the nations. This plan took shape in getting the amiable woman who presided in the Viceregal Lodge to open a famine fund. The Duchess of Marlborough sent a most touching appeal for contributions to the English wealthy classes. This letter appeared in the London Times. This famine fund was started under most distinguished auspices ; several ladies became suddenly interested in the duchess' charity. A committee was formed of the wives and daughters of the wealthy, and, as they term it, the ennobled. Several titled ladies became members of this committee, and collected from their friends in England large sums to swell the fund. Her Most Gracious Majesty Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India, and with a roll of minor titles. (What a pity the sovereignty of France was dropped after her grand- father's time — Queen of France would sound so dignified and add additional luster to the royal herald's proclamations !) This most puissant sovereign, the greatest that sat on the throne of England since Alfred the Great, as Mr. Lynch of Elphin put it, subscribed the munificent sum of ^500 to the Lady Lieutenant's fund. What generosity for a woman of her immense wealth, $2500 to feed the starving people of her kingdom of Ireland (?), the land that gave her " the great and only," as well as several other military and naval heroes — the country she loves so much, as did the other members of the house of Guelph, who styled themselves 254 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Ireland's sovereigns, most conspicuous in her generosity as in her virtues ! What sufferings would the Irish not undergo but for Victoria's imperial subscription ? The Prince of Wales gave ^250, which, in pro- portion to his wealth, was ten times his royal and imperial mother's donation. Amid the list of contributors are to be found Mr. Gladstone's name for ^50, and Mr. W. E. Forster for the same amount. The Provincial press complained that instead of the Government giving them some remunerative employment, they started this beg- ging list, which was for the purpose of degrading the people. And Ireland was once more a mendicant before the world, repeating the per- petual cry, give me alms, good and generous nations ! Alms ! alms ! No wonder that the Irish nation could spawn forth such a creeping thing as Lynch of Elphin, of a class that crawls along to kiss the hem of the royal garment, a class that stoops to whine beneath the tyrant who vents his rheum upon their prostrate carcasses, and who has made Ireland pro- duce generations of hopeless poverty and ignorance, and placed her in the degrading position of a beggar looking for charity. There must be some great fiat of the Eternal that has saved Irishmen from degenerating into a savage race with little above the intellect of the Australian aborigine. This system of alien rule was designed with demoniac and serpent cunning to destroy not only the nation, but the instincts, the education, the heroic, noble, manly qualities that naturally belong to the Irish Celt, and substi- tute in their place meanness, suspicion, cowardice, avarice, crouching slavery, and whining beggary. Why need Irishmen wonder when they see some members of their race possess these latter qualities ? It is one of God's great miracles that the Irish race have not hopelessly sunk genera- tions ago into the slough of ignorance and poverty which surrounds them. But that which Britain meant to be her triumph over them, may yet be her most fearful scourge. For, if Macaulay's New Zealander comes to sketch the ruins of London, he will probably be the descendant of some exiled Celt. The race that shall — if ever the prophecy be fulfilled — lay in ashes and raze to the ground that modern Babylon, London, will be the oppressed and outraged Celt, who to-day crieth : " How long, O Lord, how long ? " Britain is not content with destroying Ireland's material prosperity at home ; she has pursued the Irish people with malevolence and slander in their exile. Through her literature and the similarity of language, she has in these United States, time and again, tried to poison the mind of the American people against them. At the same time hating America, her institutions, and above all her manufacturing prosperity, with no less venom and animosity than she does Irish existence. She holds up to scorn and ridicule the vices which her accursed system implanted in some of the impoverished Irish emigrants. In Europe she has tried the self- same mission of slander, but the difference of language and the high social standing of the foreign Irish, who occupy some of the leading and most honorable positions in their several countries, bar her way. She has tried to make Ireland's national issue with her a religious struggle, and thus appealed to the prejudice of bigots. History records that Catholic England was as brutal in her horrors and persecutions as Protestant England could possibly be ; there are to-day no more potent enemies of Ireland than Catholic Englishmen. She has gone to Rome to slander Irishmen, in the palace of the Vatican she accuses them of religious backslidings, and she tries to fan into secession and rebellion the Northern Irish, working upon these men's prejudices, accusing Irishmen of supposed Papistical leanings, thus playing off one prejudice against another ; totally devoid of honor, seeking by every base intrigue to pursue her destructive career. What SHADOW OF APPROACHING FAMINE. 255 stories were circulated in higher Catholic circles in Rome men can easily speculate on. One of the Papal organs displayed its lack of true knowledge of the Irish situation in the following, which appeared at this time in the Osservatore Romano : " It is evident that the Irish press is trying to get rid of all Catholic members who are too high-minded to pander to revolution. Mr. Parnell, instead of demanding along with his Catholic colleagues better legisla- tion, urges his hearers to confiscation, and allows them in his presence to utter prayers for assasination and armed revolt. " Exciting harangues cannot but produce agrarian outbreak, which will be severely repressed and which will augment the misery a hundred fold." The mid-winter brought bitter sufferings to the poverty-stricken peasants. Men's hearts bled in agony and suppressed rage, when they thought how powerless they were to aid their suffering fellow-men, and elevate them from a pauper's position. Mr. Parnell prepared to depart for America on his mission of patriotic duty to his native land. A great crowd came to see him off at Queenstown, whence he sailed, accompanied by Mr. Dillon and Mr. Healy, on December 20, 1879. An immense throng waited the arrival of the train at Queenstown which conveyed Ireland's envoys to the great republic of peoples. When Mr. Parnell, M. P., Mr. W. H. O'Sullivan, M. P., and others stepped out of the train there was loud cheering from the crowd. They immediately went to the covered portion of the platform, where speeches were deliv- ered, thanking Mr. Parnell for his exertions in the interest of the tenant farmers and wishing him a good voyage. In reply he said he hoped one of the results of his visit would be to show that the hearts of the Ameri- can people would beat warmly toward Ireland. They had every day tele- grams of the great movement that was progressing in all the vast cities of America. The people there were already organizing and forming themselves for the purpose giving Ireland practical assistance. Mr. Parnell went on board the steamer Scythia, accompanied by Mr. Dillon, and Mr. T. Healy, his secretary. Mr. Parnell stated that he expected to return by the 1st of March next, but that if Mr. Davitt and Mr. Killen were put on trial in the mean time he would return home immediately. After the steamer left Queenstown the Land League of Ireland sent a cable dispatch to the Parnell reception committee of New York, informing them that Mr. Parnell was authorized by the home organization to collect funds for the relief of the distress in Ireland, and that the League here would see to its proper distribution. As the Irish representatives steamed out of the magnificent Cove of Cork, hundreds of voices wished them a Godspeed on their noble mission. CHAPTER XIX. (1880.) MR. PARNELL'S CRUSADE OF SHAMING BRITAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. Preparations to Receive Mr. Parnell — Parnell Reception Committee— Arrival of Scythia in New York — Reception on Board the Steamer — Demonstration in Madison Square Garden — Mr. Parnell's Great Speech — The American Nation the Arbiter in the Struggle — The Land System — Shaming England — Irish Poor Law System — " Slowly Torturing Our Country to Death " — Ireland's Great Weapon — American Public Opinion — Reply to Mr. Kavanagh of Borris — Free Land — Speech of Mr. Dillon — Cut off the Landlords' Supplies — Resolutions — Mr. Kavanagh's Letter to the New York Herald — Solid Interest in the Soil — Only Remedy Emigration — Effect of Emigration — Disband Armies, Dismantle Fleets — Peasant Proprietors Under Foreign Rule — Purchase of the Land — Interest and Repayment — Belgium Under Self- Government — Protected Industries — Glasgow Contract. While the good ship Scythia was steaming over the mighty waters that divide the New and Old Worlds, carrying Charles Stewart Parnell and John Dillon on their mission of mercy, the exiled children of the Gael in the United States were preparing to give them a due and fitting reception. On the departure of the Scythia from the Cove of Cork this message flashed over the cable to the honorary secretaries of the Parnell recep- tion committee in New York — Dr. Philip Donlon and Thomas B. Bannerman : " Queenstown, December 21, 1879. " Parnell and Dillon have just sailed. The Land League has com- mended them to receive assistance for the relief of the distress which the League will distribute. The distress is very pressing. (Signed) " Land League, Dublin." Names, which were then unknown outside the circle of their imme- diate friends, and which have in the past few years become household words, were not appended to this dispatch; it contained no name, but was simply signed Land League, which in concrete contained the endorse- ment of many men — men who have since fruitlessly struggled in the great crusade just then inaugurated. A public meeting was called to assemble at Newark, N. J., on Decem- ber 29, 1879, to collect funds for the relief of the Irish distress. The New York relief committee met on December 29 at Room 24, Cooper Union. Judge Elkin presided ; Dr. Donlon and Mr. Bannerman acted as secretaries. The chairman of the reception committee, Mr. Charles O'Rourke, reported that the receipts amounted to $415. It was there and then decided by the committee to have headquarters at Room 118, Astor House. Collector Merritt promised the committee who waited on him to allow the use of a revenue cutter to go out and meet the incoming steamer. A little later another portion of the reception committee met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, General Martin T. McMahon in the chair. A large collection was made ; several subscriptions of $100 were handed in. The delegates that arrived from Chicago were Mr. Stone, Mr. John F. Fin- nerty, and Mr. J. J. Fitzgibbons. Dr. William Carroll associated with him several prominent gentlemen to organize a reception committee in 256 CHARLES S. PARNELL. From a photograph taken in Washington, D. C, and presented by Mr. Parnell to Captain J. Murphy, leader of the rescue party that caused the Clerkenvvell explosion. MR. PARNELL IN THE UNITED STATES. 257 Philadelphia. All the vast cities of this great continent were aroused to activity in the cause of Ireland, not alone to feed the starving poor in that country, but to aid in any feasible movement made known to them for the permanent removal of the cause which had so dire and distressing an effect. The Scythia, with C. S. Parnell, John Dillon, and Timothy Healy on board, dropped anchor at Quarantine at two o'clock in the morning of January 2, 1880. The reception committee left the pier at seven o'clock and steamed down the harbor to welcome the new arrivals from the old land. In the mean time the ubiquitous New York reporter got on board the steamer and had procured an interview with Mr. Parnell. "I am," said Mr. Parnell, "a delegate from the National League. I do not come to America as a private gentleman, or as a member of Parliament." " Do you think that the change you propose can be brought about without violence ?" " It should be so, and it is to this end we are striving. There is force enough in moral power when it is brought to the support of a just cause. We propose only that the tiller of the soil shall be its owner. Then and then only will he have a permanent interest in it, and then he becomes a good citizen. We are in no way Communists, as you know the word here, or as we know it from the French models." " How do you propose to work your reform ? " " One way is when estates come forward for sale, buy them in the Landed Estates Court." While Mr. Parnell was taking his breakfast and talking to the news- paper men, a rousing cheer from over two hundred lusty throats came into the cabin where he was seated, and the ringing cheers rang over the waters — Irish America's reception to the envoys of the suffering sons of the Green Isle. The revenue cutter with the reception committee on board came alongside the Scythia, the deputation climbed up the dangling rope ladder and clambered on to the main deck. As Mr. Parnell a moment later emerged from the saloon he was received with another ringing cheer of welcome. With some of the committee he was ac- quainted, having been introduced to them when in America with Mr. 0"Connor Power, in 1876. Hasty introductions were given and received. Without further delay they adjourned to the saloon and stood in a group around Mr. Parnell and Mr. Dillon under the skylight. Mr. John E. Devlin, chairman of the reception committee, read a very complimentary address, promising on the part of the citizens of New York hearty co-operation in the envoys' mission. The Chicago deputation presented an address and invitation to their beautiful city, promising on behalf of their citizens earnest support for the cause Mr. Parnell and Mr. Dillon advocated. After suitable replies were spoken by the Irish envoys, thanking the several deputations for their cordial and kindly reception, the whole party drove to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, where apartments were taken for the Irish guests. While Mr. Parnell and his friends were resting themselves, the recep- tion committee held a meeting in Mr. Parnell's parlor and decided to have a sub-committee of six in attendance at all hours to wait on Mr. Parnell. This committee was to wait on him during his stay in New York. Every delegation was to be received by this committee, who were to present them to their visitors. The committee was composed of the following men : Messrs. Bannerman, O'Donoghue, John Devoy, John Breslin, Michael Kerwin, and P. McGuire. There was great stir in Irish circles in New York consequent on the 258 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. visit of Messrs. Parnell and Dillon ; that excitement which Irishmen love so much they had then to the full. A great demonstration and public meeting was organized for Sunday, January 4, 1880, in the Madison Square Garden. The place was literally packed with people. When the Irish delegates made their appearance on the platform it was the signal for an outburst of applause that was repeated for some time. Gilmore's band supplied the music and all the arrangements were perfect. On the platform were a crowd of prominent Irishmen and Americans. Among the latter were William E. Robinson, Thurlow Weed, Judge Gildersleeve, Judge Acker, and others. Judge Gildersleeve was elected chairman of the meeting. In his opening address he said, alluding to his position as chairman : " It is an honor which I highly appreciate. The right to heal upon the Sabbath day was established two thousand years ago, and on this first Sabbath of the new year we come together to learn how best we can help to heal the sufferings of impoverished Ireland. The audience will soon have the pleasure of listening to a gentleman who is an honor alike to America and Ireland, the grandson of one of America's most distin- guished naval officers." With these few words of introduction Judge Gildersleeve took his seat. On Mr. Parnell coming forward the audience renewed the applause which greeted his advent on the platform. Mr. Parnell said : "Judge Gildersleeve, ladies, and gentlemen, I have to thank you, in the first place, for the kind cordiality of your reception, and I have to apologize in advance for my imperfections and to regret that the great cause which I stand here to-night to plead before the people of New York has not been intrusted to far better and abler hands. (Cries of " No ! no ! ") But, ladies and gentlemen, I fear not for this cause. (Hear, hear, and applause.) Imperfect and inadequate as must be the way in which I shall place it before you, I feel confident that from its greatness and its justice it needs no great effort on my part to set it before you in such a way as to have the heartiest sympathy of this great and free nation. (Applause.) The American people occupy to-day a proud position in respect to this question — a position which I as one who boasts of some American blood (applause) feel justly proud. And I am glad when I think I may have had some moral share in directing the attention of this country to our cause. (Applause.) " The American nation has by common consent been made the arbiter in the great struggle for land in Ireland. Within the last few days a most extraordinary occurrence has taken place. The landlords of Ire- land for the first time in their history have recognized their true position as culprits, and have come before the bar of American public opinion to plead their cause as best they may. (Applause.) I rejoice that the pages of the New York Herald " At this point the speaker was interrupted ; the audience burst mto a storm of hissing which Mr. Parnell tried to calm down, but which lasted for some time. When the troubled passions of the angry audience sub- sided, the speaker resumed his address. " There is no necessity to hiss the New York Herald. (Hisses re- peated.) It has certainly been indirectly of the greatest possible service to our cause. (Applause.) I repeat that I rejoice that its pages have been opened to the landlords' side of the question. (" Bravo ! " and hisses.) I rejoice that a man of great ability like Mr. Kavanagh has come forward to make the best defense that he can for the accursed system that prevails in Ireland. (Hisses.) Thinking people in this country will now feel an interest in a question which they could not have felt upon a mere ex parte MR. PARNELL IN THE UNITED STATES. 259 statement. And it is fitting that the people of America should know the very best that can be said for the landlords. (Applause.) " Now, I wish to explain very shortly our object in visiting this country, and I may say that the intention we originally formed has been con- siderably modified by the pressure of circumstances. Originally we pro- posed only to address you on behalf of our political organization, but the course of events in Ireland has culminated so rapidly — a terrible far and wide spread famine is so imminent — that we feel constrained to abandon our original intention and to leave ourselves open to receive from the people of America money for the purposes of our political organization, and also money for the relief of the pressing distress in Ireland. (Applause.) We propose, then, to form two funds — one for the relief of distress, and the other for the purely political purpose of forwarding an organization. (Applause.) "These funds will be kept entirely distinct, so that the donors will be afforded the opportunity of doing as they please in the matter. It has been suggested by a very influential paper in this city that we ought to devote our attention only to the relief of distress (hisses), and that we should only join the committee which has been proposed by the New York Herald (hisses) for the relief of distressed Irish landlords and the British Government in general. (Great laughter.) But if we accept the very good advice that has been so charitably extended to us in the shape of words within the last few days, I am afraid we should incur the impu- tation of putting the cart before the horse. (A Voice — " The Herald is getting well paid.") " The cause of the present distress is the unequal and artificial system of land tenure which prevails in Ireland. The effect of that cause is of course the distress, and while we take care to do the best we can — and the best we can will be but little to relieve distress, we must also take care that we take advantage of the unexampled opportunity which is now pre- sented to us for the purpose of sweeping away this bad system. In '47 and subsequent years when the great Irish famine took place, America came forward first among the nations with unexampled liberality. But did that liberality prevent the famine ? Did it prevent millions from dying of starvation or the pestilence which followed ? (Cries of " No! no!") Did it prevent the banishment of many more millions ? Did it prevent the scenes in Ireland in these years — the scenes on board the emigrant ships ? No ! No charity that can be given by America will avail to prevent Irish distress. That must be the duty of the British Government and we must see that we shame that government into a sense of its obligation. (Great applause.) " Where, where is the process of charity to end ? Are we to be com- pelled continually, every ten or twelve years, to appear as mendicants before the world ? (Cries of " No! no! ") Then I say to the people of this country : ' If you wish to rescue us from that position, help us in destroy- ing the system which brings it on.' (Applause.) " America subscribed and subscribed liberally in those years. The people of Ireland living in this country have been subscribers ever since. (A voice : " It all goes to the landlords.") " My friend in the crowd has anticipated me by telling you that it goes to the landlords. Yes, the hard-earned savings that you have sent with such true devotion to your fellow-countrymen over there have gone in payment of excessive rents and bolstering up this terrible system. " / have said just no7V that we must shame the British Govern- ment into a sense of its obligations to Ireland in this matter. (" Hear, hear!") But I regret that they have shown their usual want of recogni- tion of those obligations up to the present. What was the Irish Chief 260 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Secretary's reply to those who waited upon him to establish fuel depots through the wastes of Ireland ? — for I must explain to those who are not acquainted with Irish matters that almost all Ireland is depending for its fuel upon the turf that is cut in the bogs. This fuel, owing to the exces- sive rains during the whole summer, is in a state of mud. It is entirely unfit to burn, and in addition to the pressure of hunger, we have the added pressure of cold. Well, Mr. Lowther (hisses), when he was asked to establish fuel depots,— and I only mention this as an example of the way in which our rulers over there treat this -grave question, — said : * Oh, they have fuel enough to burn bonfires in honoring Mr. Davitt.' (Applause.) Because a few dried or half dried furze bushes were lighted on the Irish hills in honor of the release of Davitt, this paltry excuse is put forward, gravely put forward by the responsible Minister of the Crown. " But if we examine the further action of the Government we find it equally marked by the same cold neglect and indifference. The Govern- ment desired to drive the people of Ireland upon the Irish Poor Law system, and they have replied in answer to every appeal that they cannot interfere, and that the ordinary action of the Poor Law is sufficient to meet the emergency. Now it was proved in the years gone by, and it has been proved frequently ever since, that the Irish tenant will die in the ditch rather than enter the poor house (applause), and he is right. (Applause.) " The Irish Poor Law system is the most fiendish and ungenerous system of all those we have received from England for the purposes of slowly torturing our country to death. The ties of family are broken up. The father is separated from his children, the children from their mother, the wife from her husband, and the wretched inmates of the workhouse, from the day they enter, are consigned to what is for many of them but a living death. ' All ye that enter here abandon hope ! ' may be appropriately written upon the portals of every workhouse in Ireland. (Applause. A voice : " Shoot them from the word go.") " Now, if in 1846, before the Irish famine had commenced, the ques- tion could have been brought before the American people as it is being brought to-day, whether by one side or the other, or by both, that famine would have been impossible, for the Government would have been shamed into stopping it. But what happened ? I do not wish to excite your passions by reference to the past. You know the past very well. The history of the past is written in letters that will never be erased from the Irish mind. (Cries of "Never! never!") But we have sufficient evidence in the present for our purpose. It is now admitted on all hands that distress is imminent and the discussion of this question will undoubtedly force the British Government to take action. Americans will come forward as they have always come forward, and be the first to help our people nobly and generously. They must not forget the great value and benefit that is to be derived from this question and its open discussion in the face of the nations of the world. (Applause.) But if, as we have been so frequently advised, we had allowed the present moment to go by with- out any attempt at organization, we should have had a repetition of '47 and its terrible scenes. Government neglect would have been the same as ever. The hearts of our people would have been broken by physical suffering and devotion. They would have become disorganized and exasperated. Evictions in multitudes would have taken place. Retaliatory action would have been adopted by the exasperated masses. We should have had another ineffective rebellion. The wild justice of revenge would have been invoked against the Irish landlords. What a contrast is there ! Instead of chaos and dis- integration, the Irish people now present a remarkable spectacle. Firm, MR. PARNELL IN THE UNITED STATES. 261 confidant, and self-reliant, with death literally staring them in the face, they stand within the limit of the law and the constitution, and the first to set them the example of breaking the law and outstripping that law and outstripping the constitution has been the very government of the country which was sworn to do only that which is right. (Hisses.) " The attention of the whole civilized world is ce?itered upon Ireland and very shortly the merits of our question will be known in all parts. We have saved the lives of the landlords and we have saved the lives of the people. (Applause.) Now I do not wish, in fact it would be impos- sible for me, in the presence of this immense multitude, to go into many details. I can only speak very generally in reference to many branches of this great question, but if asked what do you propose? I may state generally that we propose to make the occupiers of the soil its owners. (Great applause.) We wish to do this with as little injury to what may be consid- ered to be vested interests as possible. No physical violence, no unconstitu- tional action is contemplated, but in my judgment what " A terrible tumult here arose in the audience and the speaker could not be heard. It was evident the last words spoken were not in harmony with those addressed. " As I have repeatedly said, American public opinion is one of ouv great- est weapons, and the landlords themselves, by invoking that public opinion, have shown the very high value that they place upon it. I feel that this is a very great compliment to you, that the proud British aristocracy should humble itself and appear as suppliants before this great democracy. (Cries, applause, and loud whistling.) And they have put forward a gentleman, Mr. Kavanagh — (hisses) — a man of signal ability, to plead their cause. And I will do him the justice to say that he has been the very best advocate that the circumstance admitted. (A Voice — " Where are his legs ? " Laughter.) " Well, never mind his legs or his arms, he has got a very good head. And this gentleman has advanced a variety of objections to our plans. He has told us that the system of ownership will entail subdivision and subletting, and he has pointed to the old history before the famine (when subdivision and subletting did undoubtedly exist to a very great and evil extent) as a proof of the justice of his assertion. But the circumstance, the condition of affairs that we seek to establish, is very different from that which obtained before the famine. Before the famine the system of renting land was enforced, and that system of renting necessitated sub- division and subletting. But we contemplate to replace that system by one of rule. We desire to make land free, so that everybody who has money to buy it, may buy as much as he needs of it. Under the system of renting it is impossible to sell. The difficulties of proving a title are so great under the present laws, that in the case of small holdings, the cost of proving the title exceeds, very frequently, the purchase value of the holding itself. Then, as now, the laws of entail and settlement were in full force. We desire to abolish the laws of entail and settlement (applause) which prevent the natural crumbling away of properties that wise nature has ordained, in order to prevent the property of the world from passing into a few hands. (Applause.) Local registration of land, such as you have in this country, should also follow, so as to make it as easy to sell a bit of land as it is to sell a haystack or a bale of cotton. (Applause.) " Subdivision is also produced by the system of letting, but I contend that no injurious subdivision would take place if we had a free system of sale of land existing in Ireland. I believe that under such a system the size of the farms would be regulated by natural causes ; that a man would not care to buy a farm which zvas too small for profitable cultivation. 262 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. And in that way the size of Irish farms would, by natural causes, gradually become suited to the markets, the method of cultivation, and the crops grown. Then we are also told, by Mr. Kavanagh, of the example of a pro- prietor who leased in perpetuity their farms to fifty tenants, with the result that they passed into the hands of middlemen. The same reason that I have just explained induced that action also. If you sell an estate in Ire- land and sell the farms of the tenants, if you leave the laws of entail and settlement as they now are, if you render it impossible for a man to sell a small bit of land save at a cost which exceeds the purchase price of il y then, in the ' course of a generation or two, you would undoubtedly have those farms back in the hands of middlemen or of landlords. We, on the contrary, desire to arrange the conditions so that they shall be suited to the great change that we contemplate. And we can point to the example of other countries — of France and of Belgium, where land is limited as it is in Ireland — for the best, the very best, example of the truth of our reasoning and of the explanations we lay before you. Well, those gentlemen have proceeded to make certain statements, or rather misstatements, of a rather barefaced character. (Hisses.) Now it is a common saying in legal circles over in Ireland 'If you have a bad case abuse the plaintiff's attorney.' And so, I suppose, Mr. Kavanagh thinks the best thing he can do is to abuse us, since he knows that his case is hopeless. We do not intend to follow his bad example in that respect. We intend to treat him with the utmost courtesy and consideration, and we hope, if possible, to induce him to come before you again in order to give us opportunities of replying to him again. He tells us we propose to apply money raised in America to buying out the landlords. He need not be uneasy, for not one cent of your money will ever go into his pockets. (Applause.) And then he goes on to say that none of it will go to the relief of distress, and that we propose to organize an armed rebellion with it. (Cheers.) Well, I have no doubt that many of my fellow country- men in this country would like to organize an armed rebellion (great cheer- ing, the audience burst into shouts and cries of " Yes! yes! "), but I must regret to disappoint them also, because I must in truth and honesty tell you that, however unpopular such a statement maybe, not one cent of the money contributed and handed to us will go toward organizing an armed rebellion in Ireland. " I do not wish to abuse Mr. Kavanagh. and I am bound to admit that during the high prices of the last few years his estate was let at a fair value, although I regret to say that he, like some other Irish land- lords, has refused to grant any reasonable reduction of rent, which has become necessary owing to the extraordinary fall in prices and American competition. But the fact that Mr. Kavanagh's land was rented at a fair value during the last few years, will not excuse the many rack-renting Irish landlords who have taken the last pound of Irish flesh and the last drop of blood. We know too well that Irish land is high-rented and that a very large proportion is rack-rented, and until Mr. Kava- nagh proves by statistics that this is not the case, he cannot expect to be believed in supporting the negative on such evidence. " Well, then, he says that rents are not made in respect to improve- ments made by tenants. Now I shall put one landlord against another. In refuting this I shall choose two estates of a large absentee landlord, — a class who, as a rule, do not rack-rent their lands, — and I shall choose the testimony of a man of Mr. Kavanagh's own rank and proclivities, an extensive land agent in Ireland, Mr. Stewart Trench, speaking of the Barony of Farron. I wish you to understand, gentleman, the sup- position is that rent is raised in respect to the tenant's improvements. Speaking in his book ' Realities of Irish Life,' at page 68, of the Barony MR. PARNELL IN THE UNITED STATES. 263 of Farron, in the county of Monaghan, over which he was their agent. Mr. Trench tells us that in the year 1606 the whole Barony was rented for the sum of ^250. What do you suppose is the rental of that Barony to-day ? The rental of that Barony to-day is somewhere like ^"80,000, and the added value, from ^250 to ^80,000, has been the work of tenants. Not anything that the landlord has done has added one penny value to this property. He has toiled not, neither has he spun, and is now in receipt of ^80,000 out of a property which in 250 years has been raised by the exertions of these poor people from the value of ^250 to ^80,000. Mr. Trench admits that this was done by the exertions of the tenants, and not those of the landlords, for he says at page 69 : 'It was during the period that the native inhabitants, few or some of whom were even disciplined by the aristocratic owners of the soil, increased and mul- tiplied to a great extent and that the waste and wild lands were fenced and enclosed and ultimately converted into cultivation to meet the wants of the rapidly increasing population, so that in 1843, only seventy-four years after the estimated value of the year 1769, the rental of the estate was raised to upward of ^40,000, while the inhabitants had increased so that by the census of '41 the population amounted to upward of 44,000 souls. " Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is the process that has gone on in every estate in Ireland. The example 1 have chosen was under a bettet landlord than the majority, and yet you see that during this period the rent roll of this estate has been rolled up this serious amount. I think I am entitled to contend that I have proved by the mouth of Mr. Stewart Trench that Mr. Kavanagh's assertions that rents are not raised in respect to improvements by tenants is false and utterly groundless. Now he tells us also that capricious eviction has not taken place. Well, I say in reply to that, that your own knowledge of the history of the Irish land ques- tion suffered in your own person, experienced by yourselves, is a sufficient refutation of such a statement. (Applause.) I have now come to the close of the few observations — I am afraid rather lengthy ones — that 1 venture to make to you to-night. (Cries of " Go on ! ") " There are others to speak. My honorable friend Mr. Dillon (great cheers), the son of the late J. B. Dillon, member for the county of Tip- perary, who found in '48 a congenial home in this country during the few years that he was under the ban of the British law as a prosecuted felon, would like also to say a few words on this important question. " I can only in conclusion express my conviction that the time has come when victory is about to crown the exertions of the Irish people in their great struggle for land. (Applause.) The handwriting has appeared upon the wall, and though vain attempts may be made from time to time to misdirect public opinion to bolster up an expiring system, I confidently look forward to the time when the tiller of the soil in Ireland may, as in other free countries, reap the benefit of his exertions (applause), and hand that result down to his children, and when instead of proscribed labor, instead of offering every inducement to the tiller of the land to allow it to remain idle and barren, the great exertion which our people have shown themselves always ready to make when they are, working for them- selves and not as slaves, may be spent upon Irish land and then I believe ihat one great step toward the freedom of Ireland will have been made (applause); that we shall have put a nail into the coffins of the system of English misrule in Ireland (applause). Remove one great impediment to the union of all classes and all religions there (great cheers), and that we shall have the wish of every Irish patriot in all ages realized that the orange and the green may be united (deafening cheers continued for several minutes), the Protestant and the Catholic enabled to work to- 264 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. gether for the good of their country (applause), and no cause may exist to prevent any class of our countrymen from doing their duty by the land that has given them birth." (Enthusiastic cheering.) As Mr. Parnell concluded his able address an Irish harp, the work of two young Dublin ladies, the Misses Bogan and Wyeth, was presented to him on the platform. The waving of hats, handkerchiefs, and the loud and continued cheering displayed the enthusiasm of the vast audience. Judge Gildersleeve then introduced Mr. John Dillon. The son of the '48 patriot received an ovation from the multitude as he stepped to the front of the platform. Mr. Dillon said that when he and his companion had decided to leave Ireland and come to America in search of sympathy for the cause for which they were working, he expected a hearty welcome, but this recep- tion outdid his highest hopes. After alluding to the joy with which the news of this meeting would be received in Ireland, he said he thought the feeling which prompted it was the most honorable that could obtain in any nation. He and his associate came as envoys of an oppressed nation, and had been received not coldly but with honor. His country had been held up to the civilized world as a nation of paupers, but coming here as its representatives they had been received as ambassadors. The honorable reception which had been accorded to them as the envoys of Ireland would meet with more gratitude than could be felt for any mere charity. The Irish, he said, are a proud and sensi- tive people who know how to set a high value upon the sympathy of a nation like the American. The Land League, lie said, has already achieved a remittance of rent to the amount of one mil/ion pounds. This movement was started with the intention of keeping in view the history of the great famine of 1846, which was well known to many of his hearers. In spite of the warnings in that instance there was no remission of rents. Rents were exacted in November from men who died of starvation in January. In the present case he said they were determined that the world should know that a famine was approaching in Ireland, and that the Government would take no action for the relief of the people. Their rule of conduct now was to cut off the supplies of the landlords and save the people. The result, he said, is that the landlords already admit that there is a famine, and are trying to defend themselves before the American people. It is impossible, he said, to disassociate the Land League movement from the movement for relief. In proof of this he cited the case of the Widow Driscoll. She had barely enough to keep a family for three months, and yet she was forced to allow her old father to starve because the agent had put his mark upon the stock for rent. It was proper then to consider whether it would be wiser to collect money in this country for charity or for assistance of the Land League in this work of forcing (?) the landlords to do their duty. Charity, however liberal, would feed the Irish people for about three weeks only. In closing, Mr. Dillon illustrated the pitiable condition of the Irish peasantry and workingmen — men he claimed who work in the shop for eight cents a day and in some cases fall dead in the streets returning from their labor. After the close of Mr. Dillon's speech, the resolutions indorsing the Land League programme were read. After reading them, the meeting separated, crowds remained outside to cheer the Irish envoys, and the new programme of freeing Ireland from foreign Rule by first shaming England into creating an occupying proprietary on the land, received a MR. PARNELL IN THE UNITED STATES. 265 gigantic impetus in the United States by the masterly and intelligent statements of Mr. Parnell and his companion, Mr. John Dillon. The following is the landlord's letter alluded to by Mr. Parnell in the course of his able address : " Borris House, Borris, Carlow. "To the Editor of the New York Herald : "Allow me to thank you for the opportunity you afford of endeavoring to place the landlord's side of the case in true unwashed colors before the American public. " The question, always an important one, is more than ever before the public now, on account of the action of Mr. Parnell and the associates of the political agitator, who is influenced by no consideration or principle save his own advancement. " It is no doubt a tempting course to go to the poor and uneducated, and working on their poverty by promises of riches and on their ignorance by gross and studied misrepresentation, endeavor to obtain their confidence and support for political ends, and then when their purposes are secured leave, as they invariably have done, their unfortunate dupes to the con- sequence of their own folly. " This, in my opinion, has been the main and guiding influence actuat- ing those who have made themselves so conspicuous in the present agita- tion. It is in fact the corroboration of the old axiom that history repeats itself, and Ireland is again suffering from what she has often suffered before, by being made the battlefield of political strife, not this time directly by the contention for power of the two great political parties in the state, but by a small lot of adventurers who, counting on the proba- bility of a political crisis in which the members of those two great parties likely to be returned to the House of Commons at the next general election may be nearly even, foresee the prospect and the chance of grasping the balance of power and thus earning for themselves that notoriety which otherwise it might not be easy for them to obtain. " So far as we can judge from Mr. Parnell's speeches and the utter- ances of those who act with him, his proposed object in appealing to the American public for aid in money is to find means to establish a peasant proprietary in this country by sweeping the present owners from the soil. Some in more moderate moments have hinted that the landlords should receive some compensation, but advise the tenants in the mean time to pay no rent or only so much as they think they can safely spare after meeting their other requirements, in order to make the landlord accept their terms. A proposal such as this, I think, requires no comment. Citizens of a republic, or any man who lives under free institutions, will see at once the drift of such a policy, and appreciate how far any social con- dition can be preserved when the principles of meiwi and tuum are to be regarded as false as stairs of sand. " But supposing for argument's sake that the terms of this transfer of property were arranged ; we come to the question of the policy of the establishment of a tenant pfoprietary. // was a proposal with which at first I must confess I was strangely taken in the belief that by increasing the numbers of those who had a real, solid, inseparable stake in the well being of the country we would be adding to the natural supporters of law and order, and strengthening the true foundation on which the stability of a country must rest. " But while I cling to the hope and belief that some steps in that direction may yet be safely taken, I cannot ignore the force of the objec- tions which are raised against it. The main one is the danger in the 266 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. future of subdivisions and sublettings, and I fear not only the possibility but the probability that after a few generations we should have the country in the same condition as it was before the famine. The tendency among the farmers to sublet is strong, and in the case of old leases where this is not guarded against we have examples remaining even now of what the effects are : families struggling to live on farms of from ten to two acres of poor land, that are quite inadequate to support them, and ground down by middlemen — a class which I am thankful now are almost extinct — who are the worst types of landlords, and whose acts of tyranny and oppression are gladly seized on by the agitators for their own pur- poses and quoted as examples of the working of the whole system. This is an evil against which I can see no safeguard if the proposal to estab- lish a peasant proprietary is carried. But supposing for argument's sake this could be prevented, you have a more insidious danger, and that is subdivision. Supposing, for example, a tenant proprietor with a holding in fee of fifty acres and a family of five children — a very small one as Irish families generally run — for whom he had been unable or careless to make provision, what would be his course at his death ? He would divide it among them and settle them down in allotments in fee of ten acres each, and, of course, there would be nothing to prevent these five pro- prietors doing the same thing in their turn. By degrees it is most prob- able that the majority of these small proprietors would become paupers, and their lots by process of either sale or mortgage pass from their possession into the hands of the district money-lender or of some wealthy or more prudent proprietor, and then by the natural course of events in no very long space of time the large proprietors would reappear possibly with more objectionable affinities than those who exist now. I have heard of a case in point which occurred some time ago where a landed proprietor, with more benevolence than wisdom, influenced by the same opinion as I have held as to the general advantage of converting the occupiers into the owners of the soil, gave leases at a nominal rent for 999 years to some fifty tenants on his property, leasing the whole of one portion of his property in that way. What result have we ? If I am rightly informed there are now only two of the original lessees upon the lands, the other forty-eight holdings having passed by the processes to which I have alluded into the hands of middlemen. As I have already said, I was not long ago strongly in favor of the peasant proprietary pro- posal, but I must confess the facts which have since been brought under my notice have tended to shake my confidence in it and to make me to doubt even if the sweeping away of the landlords, which Mr. Parnell so kindly contemplates, were satisfactorily arranged, whether the movement would result in so much good to the people and to the country as he asserts would be the case. " I have not any figures by me by which I could give reliable informa- tion as to what the average size of English farms may be, but I believe I am not far wrong in my statement that they run up to over iooo acres, and there are very few under 200 acres. Now what have we in Ireland ? We have a gross number, 584,882 holdings. At or about 500 acres there are only 1529 holdings ; between 500 and 200 acres (the latter I take as about the English minimum) we have 8197 holdings, leaving 575,156 holdings under 200 acres. Of those, 498,239 are at and under 50 acres and 287,546 are under 15 acres. " For my part I would gladly increase the size of every small holding upon my property, but the land is not to be got. " And then the only remedy that I can see for them ever is emigration MR. PARNELL IN THE UNITED STATES. 267 to other countries many of which I could name, your own among the number, where land in abundance is to be had for very little and where there is ample room and opportunity to thrive and grow rich. And in this direction if the American people are inclined to help us, it would in my opinion be the truest charity ; it would be providing for those who are able and willing to emigrate a fairer prospect of prosperity than they could ever find at home, and it would afford the opportunity and facilities of enlarging the holdings of those who remained behind, thereby in the most practical and material manner improving their condition. " Yours truly, " Arthur Kavanagh." Mr. Kavanagh's reasons for at one time favoring peasant proprietary in Ireland was, he tells us, he thought that by increasing the numbers of those who would have an interest in the country he would make them upholders of law and order (the law he speaks of is British law, and the order submission to robbery) ; in other words, he hoped to make them traitors to their own nation and devoted solely to the interest of another island ; he had hoped that for the bribe of being permitted to live in a little comfort at home they would ignore the banishment of their kith and kin and the poverty of their brethren not belonging to the agricultural community. Irishmen have already expressed their fears on this subject ; it is believed that peasant proprietary under foreign rule would have that tendency. Mr. Kavanagh cannot look upon the national cause of his country but as*an incitement to break the law and to scenes of violence and disorder, upsetting of society and marring the progress of the island's prosperity. That which Mr. Kavanagh calls law is no more binding upon the Irish people than would be a bandit's orders to his prisoners captured for the purpose of ransom. The edicts of the British people made in their parliament — where to further mock Ireland, Irishmen are supposed to have a voice in the manufacture of these edicts, but where they find that they are outnumbered by six to one — these illegal mandates, called laws, are cunningly contrived to hold the Irish nation in bondage for the better interest of their British captors. Scenes of violence and disorder are the outcome of this cruel war of destruction which Britain has never ceased to carry on against Ireland ; a war which entails famine, death, and that demoniac machine, the Irish Poor Law system. Mr. Kavanagh's panacea for Irish ills is to depopulate the Irish nation. Were Mr. Kavanagh's large farms an accomplished fact, and were the dwellers on the smaller holdings swept away and banished to strange lands, the farmers them- selves would have families, and would they rear up their stalwart sons and fair daughters only to have them banished from them, as they would be according to Mr. Kavanagh's theory. And the doom this landlord passes on the Irish race is banishment from the beloved home, and when the dying parents close their eyes in death, the loving glances that should soothe the last lingering hours on. earth, the fond faces of their children, are banished to the land of the stranger, through the necessities of British supremacy in the isle of their birth. What a destiny for a nation ! That Britain's flag should flutter in the same breeze that wafts over that green island of Western Europe, and that continued plunder and rapine should go on undisturbed ! This •cruelty and torture to loving hearts must be perpetual. Mr. Parnell puts the cart before the horse — to use one of his own phrases — when he advocates peasant proprietary before Irish nationality. When Mr. Parnell told us he would not take off his coat to work at the land question, but that that road would lead to Irish self-government, he starts out from false premises. If he and his followers had devoted all 268 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. their energies in every way to struggle for Irish independence, he would be serving the farmers ; for occupying proprietary, that would intelli- gently and successfully solve the land troubles of Ireland, can only come after the establishing of native government. There are no stepping- stones to self-government but destruction of illegal British power in Ireland. It is now eight years since Mr. Parnell delivered the famous New York speech that was to convulse the landlords. He told us that that was the time to settle the Irish land question, but the settlement of that Irish evil is removed to the Greek Kalends so far as talk can be a solution of it. Since that time 150,000 people have been evicted, which proves his remedy is no remedy, that it has hastened the uprooting of the people to carry out an impossible peaceful programme, so that Mr. Parnell's crusade of shame, which was to compel Britain to bow to outside public opinion and yield to Mr. Parnell's honest, sincere, and just demands, by this doctrine of shaming England and of educating the people of Britain as to the justness of Ireland's cause. As if the intelligent British, against whom this campaign of shame is leveled, cannot see that Britain's interest is to hold Ireland, and that her retention of that country must, as a matter of course, mean booty to Britain and ruin to Ireland. This dream of shaming a conqueror to surrender his spoils may go on, but the English public will continue voting for the retention of Ireland, even if the whole United States, from the President down, cried shame on her. And if England thought the United States would only cry shame over the Alabama question, not one penny would England pay. - This Govern- ment might amuse itself crying shame to its heart's content. This silly war, called exposing English misrule (as if foreign rule could be aught else) to the execration of mankind, can never remove that misrule. These doctrines have been sown broadcast and have produced a plentiful harvest of shame to hustle against English opinion. What have been the results? Five years of brutal and bloody coercion under the premier- ship of Mr. Gladstone, followed by a short interregnum of Tory rule, and next by an almost equally short term of the Liberals or, what has been called, as if in mockery, " A Home Rule " government. During all these years the evictions multiplied fivefold, and even during Mr. Gladstone's last government, with Home Rule Morley as Irish Chief Secretary, the evictions never ceased. Eleven thousand people were evicted during this Home Rule government of Mr. Gladstone's — his six months of horrors in Ireland, aided by armed forces of the Crown. On an appeal to the English people on the principle of Home Rule, they voted against it by an overwhelming majority, and brought another coercion ministry to power,, although three-fourths of the Irish members were elected to demand Home Rule. Their eighty-six votes were powerless, showing up the mockery of Irish representation in an alien chamber. They tell the Irish people the fallacious story that the English people are with them in their demands. Its fallacy is plainly demonstrated by accomplished facts, that it is not so. This is what the crusade of shame can show as results so far. It would be well for mankind if public opinion and justice always went hand in hand. It would be a millennium of happiness if wrong-doing would cease by the express condemnation of just men. If so, nations might disband their armies and dismantle their fleets. The crusade of shame would take the place of that crusade of murder and arson called war. The United States need have no dynamite guns to destroy hundreds of human lives at one shot ; neither need they build ships to carry the destructive weapons of Captain Zalinski, nor any necessity to commission officers as dynamiters to go forth on their career of destruc- tion. Nay, more. We need not police our cities if we logically carry MR. PARNELL IN THE UNITED STATES. 269 out this doctrine ; preach a crusade of shame to the thieves, burglars, and other criminals, instead of resorting to the much-condemned doctrine of violence ; do away with force and let shame do the needful work on the criminals. For that great criminal, England, who robbed a nation not only of her freedom, but of her national wealth, and drove to death millions of her people, for this murder and robbery she is only to be shamed into discontinuing it. Any attempt, even the faintest resistance on the part of the plundered, would be a crime, and would be violence and outrage, and, according to the apostles of the doctrine of shame, would destroy the country and put it back a century, whatever that phrase means ? As if the English enemy was not destroying it hourly ! Many of those who preach and try to practice this Utopian doctrine are sincere in their views, or at least the great masses who follow these agitators are. Irishmen will probably tell us that they believe in force, but that Ireland is powerless to resist. Nationalists deny this cowardly and shameful falsehood. Men call themselves patriots who publicly preach this shameful and degrading statement. Ireland must be a nation of pol- troons and cowards were this slavish assertion true. United Ireland tells the Irish people that no man can have a rifle without the risk of forfeit- ing his liberty. Patriots wish that the British would make the penalty death, and the same for agitation, and then national life would be purified. These scribblers would make the people a race of curs fitted only for the Saxon's whip. A man who cannot keep a rifle and the necessary ammunition safe without the British fear of capture, even with a death penalty if discovered, will never belong to a nation of freemen. If Ireland was in the helpless state these scribes tell the people, there would be nothing more certain than that they were a doomed race. For the course of shame never can as it never has yet saved a people. Better for the Irish race to die out quietly as they would deserve, than to prac- tice such folly as agitation, making Ireland ridiculous in the eyes of all the statesmen of Europe, wasting their time and money on a movement termed national, but which has no more to do with Irish nationality than it has in altering the solar and lunar ellipses. Mr. Parnell told his hearers in his Madison Square speech that he proposed to make the occupiers of the soil its owners. This, he says, is to be accomplished by peaceful means, and with as little injury to vested interests as possible ; that must mean to buy from the landlords. Let it be supposed this were possible, so as to examine into the proposed panacea for the poor victimized farmer, who, between agitators and landlords, is compelled to suffer. The rent-roll of Ireland is about ^20,000,000 yearly. At twenty years' purchase the amount needed to buy the land would be the enor- mous sum of ^400,000,000 sterling, or $2,000,000,000. The interest on this huge sum at three per cent, would amount to ^12,000,000, or $60,000,000 annually. This interest should be paid the first year, and its proportionate reduction every year. In addition to this sum there would be the yearly repayment of the borrowed principal which, in lieu of rent, should be paid for more than one generation to the new landlord, the British Government. So that the Irish farmer would still continue to pay a large yearly sum to the absentee landlord, the London executive ; and should he not meet his engagement with that impassive and relentless creditor through failure of his crops, cattle plague, or the many causes that makes farming unproductive, he would be instantly evicted, his farm sold by public auction, or by whatever machinery would be in the bill to meet this contingency. His only resource then would be emigration or the workhouse. But how would this repayment of the purchase loan and its attendant 270 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. interest affect the small holdings, where three-fourths of the Irish agricultural community are crowded into a small space? these small occupiers who could not live decently and comfortably even if their small farms were given to them free. It would be the height of absurdity to say that such a measure, even if it could be accomplished, would bring any great boon to these toiling, suffering poor ; and in a very little time both themselves and the country would learn that this measure brought to them no material change from their normal condition of poverty. Now, this is supposing that the British Government could be induced to ever guarantee such an enormous sum even on such good security as the soil of Ireland. They would naturally fear that their security might slip from their grasp, and to think that the most liberal of British tax-payers would consent, is only another of the delusions that follow such a course of reasoning as, unfortunately, come with moral suasion when it is applied to a whole nation, and when, as Mr. Parnell here states, American public opinion would be its greatest weapon. Mr. Parnell's weak point in this celebrated New York speech is where he tries to contend with Mr. Kavanagh's arguments with respect to subdivision and subletting. Take, for instance, the free land which Mr. Parnell speaks of, and which would, as he tells us, stop this subdivision. Many would be inclined to think, and common sense and human instincts bear them out, that this very fact of free land — if it could be accomplished — would hasten sub- division. Mr. Parnell states that no injurious subdivision would take place if they had a free system for the sale of land. But Mr. Parnell gives no reason why they would not ; it is a mere assertion ; he states that the size of the farm would be regulated by natural causes ; but these very causes would not only tend to, but compel subdivision or sub- letting. The Irish leader further states that no one would care to buy a small farm ; that may be, but this subdivision would not come from buying or selling, but through the wish of keeping his family home the farmer would subdivide as already pointed out. The blot and infamy of alien rule is the destruction of our industries, which brings about the over- crowding on the land. Mr. Kavanagh is correct when he states Ireland needs larger farms to develop the agricultural interests by scientific farming, which in the present condition of the country would be an impossibility. Mr. Kavanagh's remedy is emigration, and Mr. Parnell's migration from the congested districts to the more fertile lands ; but neither of these remedies is meant to affect the large portion of the people not engaged in agriculture ; these always seem to be lost sight of, but neither of these changes, even if effected, could eventually stop emigration. Both Mr. Kavanagh's large farmers and Mr. Parnell's migrates would be compelled to subdivide their farms as their families increased, and the land would go back to its present condition. The remedy is as plain as noonday, but can only be put in practice under native government. Establish, as already written in a previous chapter, manufacturing industries all over the island, first creating a native market by shutting out all foreign goods as soon as Irishmen can make them at home. These factories would give employment to the surplus farm laborers and the mechanics and idlers of the towns, making the country what God and nature intended it should be, one of the richest islands in proportion to its size in the universe. Independence would do for Ireland what it did for Belgium — develop her manufactures, artistic and mechanical, so that Ireland in a few years would be able like Belgium to go abroad in search of markets. Some years ago the writer was in Glasgow, when a Belgian firm successfully competed for the iron girders that span the large dome at St. Enoch's railway terminus in that city, which was like sending coals MR. PARNELL IN THE UNITED STATES. 27 r into Newcastle, for Glasgow is almost the center of the North British iron trade, tons of it being used weekly in shipbuilding on the Clyde. A British manufacturer, in course of conversation on the subject, said that the Belgian firm procured this contract not by the protective tariff alone, which originally built up Belgian manufactures, but by the premium offered by the Belgian government to successful competitors in foreign markets. So wonderful has been the growth of manufactures in Belgium that it seems quite phenomenal. This British merchant said that ten years previous to that period Belgian cutlery was very inferior to Shef- field goods ; at that time British cutlers did not fear Belgian competition. But by -bringing over to their country the most skilled workmen to teach their people, their cutlery at that time coming into England was well able to compete with the best Sheffield make, and their superior skill has been growing ever since. When Belgium became independent, and the wise King Leopold was chosen head of a parliamentary governed state, he influenced his government in the course they have since pursued. The Belgium of to-day is spreading out into Africa, colonizing and seeking markets for her surplus manufactures. Belgium's area is 11,373 square miles, and through her numerous industries she supports a rapidly increasing population of 5,853,278, while Ireland, with an area of 32,531 square miles of the richest land on the globe, has to-day a semi-pauper population of 4,500,000 ; and yet the cry is more emigration to increase prosperity. Foreign rule and not landlordism is what keeps them and forces them into poverty and overshadows and darkens their position as a people. The blessed light of freedom and prosperity will never dawn upon them until they apply the sharp-cutting ax Force to its roots. Agitate how they may, they will still continue to wither 'neath its blight- ing influence. CHAPTER XX. (1880.) THE BRITISH "DYNAMITE FIEND " — BLOWS UP THOUSANDS OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN AN AFRICAN KOPPIE — THE CRUSADE OF SHAME IN THE TRANSVAAL. Britain's Career in South Africa — Invasion of Zululand — Destruction of the Twenty-fourth Regiment at Islandula — Rorke's Drift — Scenes in British Theaters — Song " Here Stands a Post " — Re-enforcements Sent to Africa — Sir Garnet Wolseley Sent to Take Command — Lord Chelmsford Fights the Victorious Battle of Ulundi — Capture of Cetewayo — Invasion of the Transvaal — Suppression of the Boer Republic — Hoisting the British Flag in Pretoria — Wolseley's Boast — "This Flag once Raised will Never be Lowered" — The Boers Commence a Crusade of Shame — Meeting at Doom Kip — Resolutions Passed — British Cavalry around Pretoria — Meeting at Wondersfontein — Protesting Against British Rule — Boer Belief in the Justice of the British People — Comments in the British Press — War against the Basutos — Wolseley Attacks Seku- kina, the Basuto King — Ten Thousand Men, Women, Children, and Babes Seek Refuge in a Cave — Pursuit by the British — Gallant Defense of the Basutos — British Held at Bay for Three Days — English Writer's Description — The Cave Blown to Pieces by Dynamite — Horrible Carnage — Sickening Scenes — Dead Women and Chil- dren — Fearful and Atrocious Acts of the British "Dynamite Fiends" — A Scene of Horrors too Fearful to Contemplate — Wolseley's Dispatch — The Chief of the "Dynamite Fiends" Gloats over the Destruction of the Basutos — Warrant for the Arrest of the Boer Leaders — A Replica of Foreign Rule in Ireland — Disarming the Remnant of the Basutos — Sham Fight in Pretoria — Impressing the Boers with British Prowess — Grand Banquet — Wolseley Declares the Transvaal a Crown Colony — Boers Cannot be Trusted — Opinion of the Boer Newspapers. While Mr. Parnell was speeding through the towns and vast cities of America, preaching his crusade of shaming the British enemy of his nation, and trying to create for the advancement of Irish Provincialism American opinion in its favor, the British, with restless love for fresh conquests whereby they could open up fresh markets for their trade, were completely ignoring all "shame," and were planting their flag wherever there was to be gained new territory and more plunder. Britain is far too practical to think of such folly in her career of de- struction as preaching doctrines of shame. She believes in spreading her commerce and increasing her markets by the logic of a blow. She still clings to the Cromwellian motto, " Put your trust in God, but keep your powder dry." At this period of th* world's history she had put forth her strong hand, and, ignoring all shame, forcibly seized and retained in her numerous scattered possession certain portions of South African territory occupied by both white and black races. Looking after her material interests and her greed of gain, she invaded the territory inhabited by the Zulus, a brave and fierce tribe of Africans governed at that time by a king, Cetewayo, a man of great ability for an unlettered savage, possessed of heroic and splendid qualities, and with a dignity that even captivity could not subdue. The British, despising their enemy, marched into his country, and paid dearly for their temerity. At Islandula the Twenty-fourth British Regiment was surrounded by the Zulus, and though the white men fought bravely they were mowed down by the assagais or native spears of their fierce assailants. A few men who succeeded in intrenching them- selves round a temporary field hospital, under the command of two 272 THE BRITISH "DYNAMITE FIEND." 273 English lieutenants, one belonging to the engineers and the other an infantry officer of the line, made a splendid and successful defense at Rorke's Drift. Vainly did the brave Zulus assail the small British intrenchment. They were received with the deadly missiles of the equally brave British inside, who were fighting for their lives, which they had justly forfeited in thus invading the Zulus' country. A steady, well-directed fire from the Snider-Enfield rifle in the hands of the white men was more effec- tive than the Zulus' assegais, and yet with what murderous aim could the natives send a cloud of those steel-pointed weapons into the British camp ! But skill, science, and determination succeeded over savage valor, and the Zulus, bringing away their wounded, were compelled to retire, baffled in their attack on the small intrenchment. With all its brutality, war brings out manly qualities that men are compelled to admire. The Zulus fighting for their homes have all true manly sympathy, and their brave and rash exposure of their persons in their attack on the British laager proved them to be worthy sons of Afric's soil. And the few brave white men, who were defending their lives in the worst cause men were ever engaged in, — uncalled-for plunder and spolia- tion, — gallantly remained faithful and steadfast before the repeated charges of their numerous foes. True, they were at bay and compelled to fight, but they made a very splendid defense. Two young officers, try- ing to bear dispatches for succor, who left the line of the 24th with the regimental flag wrapped around one of them, were intercepted by the Zulus and slain. English artists and painters with English sympathies have covered their canvases with scenes depicting in the most heroic manner these episodes in British plunder, and of course raised the two officers who were slain and the defenders of Rorke's Drift to the dignity of heroes. After all, when people come to reason on it, there was nothing very extra- ordinary in armed men defending their lives in such an extremity, as there was no hope in surrender. The most cowardly of animals will fight under such circumstances. A war fever seized upon the British people, and to read their newspapers and listen to their conversation one would imagine it was the 24th Regiment who cut the Zulus to pieces instead of the fact that their unfortunate regiment was wiped out of existence. In the theaters — no matter what the subject of the piece that was being performed, whether tragedy, comedy, or melodrama — the public taste was catered to and the national vanity flattered by celebrating what they called British victory. A number of young ladies of the corps-de- ballet, dressed as British tars (for no matter what branch of the service is engaged in war the Briton believes Jack Tar comes in somewhere), one of their leading vocalists carrying a British flag, would appear upon the stage. This young lady, striking the staff on which the ensign was fas- tened with a thud upon the stage, would then sing a popular ballad specially composed for the occasion and heard over Britain at that time in every theater or music hall, entitled "There stands a post, touch it if you dare" (meaning, it is supposed, the flagstaff and British union jack); and the young lady personating the British seaman tossed her head with such determination of manner and looked so brave and sang so brave that the enthusiastic Briton applauded and came away with the fixed idea that he belonged to a nation of heroes, who could beat the world in arms. The Ministry hurried out re-enforcements to South Africa. Several infantry and three crack cavalry regiments were at once dispatched to the scene of operations. Lord Chelmsford, the son of a deceased British chancellor, was in command there, but became at this time very unpopular in England owing to the fact of what they called his mismanagement of 274 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. the troops and his permitting the Zulus to draw the 24th Regiment into such a fatal ambuscade. After the dispatch of the troops to the Cape of Good Hope, the Government thought the occasion warranted the send- ing out of Sir Garnet Wolseley to take the command and to supersede Lord Chelmsford, who was ordered home. So this well-known soldier in the British service, England's " great and only," was dispatched to the scene of operations. In the meanwhile Lord Chelmsford, receiving large British re-enforcements and learning that Wolseley had arrived in Africa and was on the way by sea to Durnford to reach the front, hurried his men into the field and, forming a solid square of picked troops, armed with Gatling guns, fought the decisive battle of Ulundi against the Zulus com- manded by Cetewayo — the Zulus with their assegais falling in showers near the British square. They died where they charged, close up to the British lines. What could the splendid bravery of the Zulu regiments do against the phalanx of white men, pouring forth deadly volleys from the Gatling guns and no less destructive streams of fire from the rifles of the troops ? The British square literally mowed down the daring and reck- less Zulus and when the British cavalry made a final dash from out their square, the victory was already secured ; a few broken flying Zulus, the remnant of that morning's deadly destruction, were all that remained for the British horsemen to display their chivalry upon. When the "great and only" arrived at Durnford he received the news of Chelmsford's victory and shortly after of the capture of Cetewayo. But Wolseley, having come so far in search of honors, was not to be disappointed, so looking about him soon found a favorable pretense for invading the Transvaal, a South African Republic inhabited by a brave race of white men, descendants of Hollanders, who colonized that por- tion of Africa. It is a rather remarkable fact, in the face of history, that the British have got, among many Europeans, or had until recently, the undeserved reputation of being a just people, loving liberty for liberty's sake, and wishing to spread that freedom abroad which she is supposed to practice at home, while the very opposite is the case. If the British drum beats around the world, it is because the said sheepskin was brought there to sound the signal for plundering and murdering, and under the cover of British interests or some other convenient phrase, they deprive the natives of their freedom and their wealth. When the " great and only " invaded the Transvaal and took posses- sion of the Boer capital Pretoria and raised there the British flag, the ensign of conquest, the sturdy Dutch farmers could not and did not realize that the British meant to take absolute control and possession of their country. Filled so strongly with the idea that the liberty-loving English would retire when remonstrated with, the Boers, who were peace- able men interested in their business affairs, remonstrated and explained and, in fact, requested England's "great and only" general to retire and leave them to pursue their course in peace. But Wolseley, to their sur- prise and astonishment, absolutely refused, nay, more, he told them that they must now consider themselves British subjects, and any refusal to obey British laws would be treason against the majesty and dignity of the imperial crown and would be punished accordingly. The general also told them that wherever the British flag was once raised, over what- ever territory or province, it was never lowered again. The " great and only " forgot there was such a nation as the " United States of America." British officials can have convenient memories. However, Wolseley was right in one thing, and that was that the flag was never pulled down in any place it once covered as British soil by the crusade of shame, and the THE BRITISH "DYNAMITE FIEND." 275 Boers, not believing it possible that the British people could endorse such a high-handed proceeding as was taken by General Wolseley, patiently bided their time, expecting liberty-loving England would con- demn her general's proceeding. But that nation of hypocrites in their dealing with subject races sent a different message to the Boers from the one they expected. They assured the people of the Transvaal that their country was now part of the British empire, and would receive all the blessings which come from living under that glorious flag — that flag that for one thousand years braved the battle and the breeze, of which Johnny Bull sings so lustily, quite unconscious that the poet who wrote this song drew upon his imagination for the fact. The Boers soon discovered what the Irish had known for centuries, that the loss of their independence was something more than a mere sentiment, and material losses followed, as they always do the loss of freedom. The Boers grew more and more dissatisfied and the British papers said they were influenced by a handful of agitators, who were working on the feelings of the Boers for their own purposes. How unconsciously the British press supplies satires upon their own institutions! Here we have the cause of Irish discontent moved to South Africa. But the Boers had one great hope that their demands would be gained peaceably, or rather it should be said the Boer leaders had this hope, and this was based on the knowledge that England had one great, just states- man, a man not only of transcendant ability, but a liberty-loving, just man, who, towering in the God-like genius of his great affection for the human race over that of his compeers, and in dignified and noble contrast to the Tories then in power, — he who loved justice for justice' sake, — had raised his voice in sweeping and scathing condemnation of the Tory policy in taking over the Transvaal. This great and good statesman (according to the superficial cant of the age) was William E. Gladstone, the idol of so many Irishmen at the present time of writing and truly the "Grand Old Man." As the Irish people to-day look to him for succor and hope in the fulfillment of his promises to give them back native government, so did the Boers of the Transvaal hope that when this venerable statesman came back they would get their native rule peaceably restored to them. In the meantime the Tory Government was irritating the Boers and the leading men found it difficult to restrain them from expressing in some forcible manner their indignation at such treatment. The Boers held a meeting at a place called Doom Kip on December 10, 1879. There were present at the meeting 6305 men and 510 wagons. The following resolutions were passed at this great gathering : " 1. As it has been shown that her Majesty's High Commissioners are deaf to justice and right, and it has thus become clear that we shall never get back our independence, so cunningly robbed from us, by petition and supplication, it is now our decided and earnest demand that the Vice President shall at once come forward as State President and take up his position at once as well. " 2. That the President shall at once convene the Volkraad according to the Grondwet. " 3. We hereby proclaim that we will never submit to the British Gov- ernment, and that we continue emphatically to protest against all procla- mations issued by the English authorities. " 4. We desire nothing else than our independence, and we solemnly declare to be prepared to sacrifice our lives and shed our blood for it. " 5. We demand to have our Government reinstated as soon as pos- sible according to the Grondwet of the South African Republic. 276 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. " 6. It is therefore the humble but earnest wish of the people that our national committee shall as soon as possible take the requisite steps for the recovery of our independence. " 7. Should, however, the committee know of a better method, it is our humble but earnest wish that the committee should at once submit such method to the consideration of the people." The Vice President referred to was Mr. Paul Kruger, who was so elected by the Volkraad just before its dissolution by the British. This gentleman had on more than one occasion declared that he would have nothing to do with any movement that invoked an appeal to arms. During this time the British cavalry picketed about the Boer capital, Pretoria, became most insolent to the Dutch people. Their attitude was most offensive and overbearing, as troops usually are in a conquered country. Irishmen have plenty of experience of this kind up to the present hour. Another great and most important meeting was held by the Boers to form a working committee and organize to see what was to be done. This meeting took place at Wondersfontein. Mr. Paul Kruger, the late Vice President of the Transvaal, spoke at this meeting. He said : " My friends, the way you propose to take leads to life or death. England is a strong power and our strength is only insignificant. You wave your hats, but when the strife comes will you not say then that your business calls you away, that your farms require your presence ? "I also want my independence restored ; but you advocate no small matter when you cry out without any reservation : ' Yes, for we will fight."' Mr. Joubert called on the chairman to elect foremen of the meeting. The foremen were appointed and the meeting took a recess. On reas- sembling the next day, one of the foremen, addressing the meeting, said : 41 Chairman, Gentlemen, and Members of the Boer Committee. "Gentlemen: After having yesterday received your report, we hereby wish to thank you heartily for the welfare and happiness of our country and people. " We now wish humbly that Mr. Joubert and foremen of the people's committee hold a consultation." The committee then adopted ten resolutions with those adopted by the foremen : " The people of the South African Republic made known their will last Friday and now proceed to carry out the same resolution. " The time for memorials to the English Government is past. In that way no deliverance is possible. " The officials of her Majesty the Queen of England have by their untrue and false representation closed the door to her Majesty and to Parliament. This is their responsibility. The people have done what they could. Again and again would they approach the Queen of Eng- land, for the people believe as certainly as the sun shines, that if the Queen of England and the English nation knew that a free people were oppressed here they would never allow it. England has been the protector of liberty everywhere and would also protect our liberty, which is now being violated by her Majesty's officials in South Africa, who continue to defend the necessity of the annexation, conceal the truth, and smother THE BRITISH "DYNAMITE FIEND." 277 our voice. We cannot, therefore, address ourselves to England. Nobody there replies to us. It is therefore, that we, the people of the South African Republic, proceed to resolve : " 1. That the people of the South African Republic have never been, and do not wish to be Her Majesty's subjects, and that everyone who speaks of us as rebel, is a slanderer. " 2. The people desire that the Government of the South African Republic, whose functions have been stopped, shall resume the same as soon as possible. " 3. The people desire that the Volkraad shall be convened as soon as possible. "4. The people desire to show to friend and foe that they wish to avoid everything in the way of bloodshed and violence, and therefore expect their Volkraad to take such steps as will make possible a peaceful solution of the difficulties with the English Government. " 5. The people expect from the Volkraad in furtherance of that object in the first place a procedure or law on the following points : " a. That it is the right of the present inhabitants of the Transvaal to become the protectors of the laws of the country. " 10. The people declare by God's help they desire to have a strong Government for the South African Republic, respect for the law, the development and advancement of the country. They promise man for man to co-operate for that purpose and to defend their Government till death, so help us God Almighty. " This done by us the foremen elected by the people, in the name of the people of the South African Republic at Wondersfontein on this 15th day of December, 1879. " Signed by thirty-two foremen." The Boer resolution which is in italics, and the tenth or last resolution, is recommended to Irishmen's best consideration, now that the crusade of shame has proved abortive. The people of the Transvaal were rudely awakened from their dream of English justice. They learned a little later the bitter truth, that the English people, even the English democracy, love liberty only for them- selves. The British press, commenting on the resolutions passed at the great Boer meeting, said " They were mere rhodomantade ; there was no real purpose in these resolutions." Such has been ever Britain's reply to prayers and entreaties ; as this history progresses they will be found open to hear these resolutions when backed up by manly deeds in a more amiable and conciliatory mood. After the defeat of the brave but unfortunate Zulus, the other African tribes felt that their subjection to the skilled force of the invading Briton was but a question of time. There was a noble chivalry in the savage breasts of the Basutos that would not permit them to succumb to the British without striking a blow. Their Chief Sekukina was the William Wallace and Owen Roe of Southern Africa, an intrepid warrior and a skillful barbarian in the practice of the rude warfare known to the tribes. He was beloved by his people, and his dusky breast throbbed with rage at the wanton cruelties practiced on the natives by the more savage and barbarian British. His proud soul, full of manly aspirations, would not tamely surrender even to overwhelming force ; so summoning his tribe around him he told them he meant to contest every inch of his native soil against the bloodthirsty invader, and that their last rampart of freedom should be the bodies of his braves. His resolution met with approval by 278 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. his tribe, and chiefs and clansmen said they would die as become men, but wouid never surrender. The refined cruelty and cunning of the British in the wars against mankind to enforce their rule upon them was exemplified in the war against the Basutos. As they employed the North American Indian to aid them during the American War of the Revolution to murder and scalp the wives and children of the gallant colonists, as to-day they use the fanaticism of the Orangemen to strike at their brethren in Ireland, so they made use of tribal disputes and induced the Zwaris, a South African tribe, at feud with the Basutos, to be their allies in their campaign against that noble savage Sekukina. The Basutos were defeated and driven back by General Wolseley. Sekukina, after contesting every foot, sought refuge in one of the great caves or koppies of the country. Ten thousand men, women, children, and babes at their mother's breast entered this cave, which became their tomb. For three days the British were held at bay before Sekukina's stronghold. But God's gift of intelligence and scientific skill was used to destroy his creatures. A mine was sunk and charged with dynamite to complete the destruction of the gallant Basutos. These British dynamite fiends had no respect for the babes, the children, or the women. William Howard Russell, the English war correspondent, who was present, described the assault in Sekukina's koppie ; here are some para- graphs from his lengthened letter. He thus describes the cave where the Basutos sought refuge : " It is a remarkable specimen of the strange geological formation called koppies by the Dutch, in which this part of the Transvaal abounds. Viewed from the outside it appears to be an ordinary koppie, but it is, perhaps, one of the most singular cavernous structures in the world. With a vast honeycombed interior, full of galleries and passages, leading into large chambers, with apertures opening out through chinks and clefts — natural loopholes and casemates — and in one place there is a chasm, the depth of which no living man has sounded, yet which is said to contain water. This koppie is, in fact, like a vast tortoise shell, with partitions and galleries around. " By degrees, from six till half-past, along the serrated rugged outline there flashed out from the brushwood more numerous sparks of light as the sun's rays fell on the assegai sheaves of the fantastic barbarians, who were about to engage a foe as cruel and ferocious as themselves. " Well, then, at half-past ten the fighting koppie in which Sekukina enshrined his faith belonged practically to Queen Victoria, but inside its stony bowels was still hidden a band of desperate resolute men, of women and children, wounded and of dead — a fearful combination. When next day the resources of science were brought to bear on the hard rocks, and gun cotton or dynamite — perhaps both — in the skillful hands of Captain McGregor, tore open the caves or filled them with a rain of broken boulders, and the madness of thirst and hunger and the stench of corpses came upon the survivors in that dreadful charnel house, there must have been an accumulation of horrors which it would not be easy to match in the records of human misery. " But Sekukina was still at large. Clarke's spies declared he was still in the caves alone — one still higher up the gorge than that which he occupied when the fighting began — and immediately steps were taken to seize him. THE BRITISH "DYNAMITE FIEND." 279 " No Highlander in by-gone days — no follower of the ancient Lochiels, of the Farquharsons of old, or the Forbes of Newe— could display more devotion to their chief than these black fellows to Sekukina. They died in the koppie. When all was over they sought death almost certain in attempts to break through our lines, driven desperate, as they were, by thirst and starvation, because he told them not to surrender ; and they guarded the secret of his hiding place most tenaciously, coming out of their caves to give themselves up to their mortal enemies in the hope of decoying the pursuers by the assurance that the king was not there." The writer remembers once when traveling through the Scotch Trossachs meeting a party of tourists, among whom was a British officer who had been present at this attack on Sekukina's koppie. His description of the dynamite explosion and the number of women and children destroyed, which amounted to thousands, was so sickening in its studied brutality — for he spoke of the Basutos as if they were vermin — that it was revolting to any but the most callous to listen to. Where, where was public opinion to shame and denounce this outrage on civilization and humanity ? Was there no legislative body in Europe to condemn this brutal warfare ? No, not one. If this is war, and who can doubt it when civilization is dumb, and when this very act is trumpeted forth to the world as an act to glory in, why do these British dynamite fiends assail the character of those people who will not submit tamely to their brutal savagery ? Why should not Britain's enemies do likewise ? If an explosion of such a terrific nature took place in London, and women and children were even in hundreds destroyed, humanity would stand aghast. Is there an equal law for these brutal deeds ? Has England got a pre- scribed right divine to murder ? Can she burn cabins in Glenbeig, hurl them down in Bodyke, shoot on unarmed crowds in Mitchelstown ? Blow up Sepoys in India from the cannon's mouth, carrying her punish- ment beyond the grave — for she knew the superstition of these men ? Hurl death and destruction by use of dynamite against the hapless Basutos, sending thousands of men, women, and babes to eternity? And he who lifts a finger against her, whose race for generations she has murdered in every species of ingenious torture, becomes a criminal. Out upon such a doctrine! As nations have no hereafter, it is to hoped that this hoary-headed criminal, drunk with the blood of nations, shall soon meet that just retribution which is sure to come upon her. The London Times printed a dispatch of Wolseley's ; speaking of the destruction of the brave savage Basutos, he said : " The destruction of Sekukina's stronghold and of his power, and the breaking up of the rob- ber clans who looked up to him as king, cannot fail to have a quieting effect on the native mind generally in South Africa, and will, I am sure, go far toward settling all native difficulties in the Transvaal." Hear this, oh prophets of Home Rule, and crusaders of shaming your country's foe by exposing his misdeeds ! Hear this British general proudly gloating before mankind that the brutal dynamite murders of these women and babes will have a tranquilizing effect upon the natives ! Surely, for in the grave there is peace. The chiefs of the British murder conspiracies do not deny their complicity in crime, but vaunt their savagery as if 'twere a deed of valor — this brutal massacer of these helpless people. The Boers' meeting caused some uneasiness in British official circles. A warrant was issued for the arrest of Paul Kruger, and on January 12 280 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. the British press in Africa was informed — the same news was cabled to Britain — that the Transvaal Government had arrested Messrs. Pretorius and Bok, chairman and secretary of the Boers' committee, on a charge of high treason. As the British murder conspiracy in Ireland styles itself the Irish Government, the nest of usurpers that settled in Pretoria took to them- selves the title of the Transvaal Government, and were about to inaugurate in the Transvaal all the horrors which their infamous system in Ireland has entailed upon that suffering land. This arrest for high treason in South Africa is transferred from Dublin or Cork to Pretoria. The Boers were still as inclined for peace as some Irishmen who have had long experience of the folly, but unlike the Boers at that period, the Irish had bitter and convincing reasons to know the hope- lessness of agitation to solve such issues. The Boers clung to the hope of British justice, and believed in shaming the British invader from their country. How like an article in an Irish Provincialist paper this reads : The Volkstein, a patriot organ of Pretoria, in a leader, strongly urges the Boers to do nothing that will give Sir Garnet Wolseley any excuse to attack them, but to quietly disperse and await the departure of his excel- lency and the troops, meanwhile persisting in their attitude of passive resistance and refusing to pay taxes. The disarming of the remnant of the Basuto tribe was proceeded with ; they were requested to loyally surrender their arms to British magistrates. There was held in Pretoria a review and sham fight, to impress upon the Boers by military display Britain's all-conquering power. Sir Garnet AVolseley invested Commander D'Arcy with the Victoria cross for bravery, probably for storming the Basuto koppie. At a banquet held in Pretoria, at which, after their career of blood, the British officers and officials sat down to feast, Sir Garnet Wolseley declared that the Transvaal should be henceforward considered a Crown colony, and that it would be unsafe to trust the Boers with executive functions. The arrest of Mr. Pretorius caused much indignation among the Dutch farmers, but as yet it had taken no shape ; it was simply a crusade of shame. Sir Garnet Wolseley, speaking again on the Boer question, said : " The Boers will see the futility of resistance and see the advantage of a State Government under the British flag. " Her Majesty's Ministers have anxiously waited since the annexation of the Transvaal for a cessation of the agitation which has been carried on by a few designing agitators to fulfill the promises they made. " How can they receive a liberal constitution, when from fifteen hun- dred to two thousand men of the High Veldt are talking sedition and coquetting with rebellion ?" English usurpation asserts itself in the same hypocritical language everywhere. Of course General Wolseley said to the Boers, as others say to the Irish, it is folly to resist ; and he speaks of the advantage of living under the British flag. In what a benighted condition the nations of the earth are in who do not enjoy that ineffable blessing! The liberal constitution which Sir Garnet talks of is a Crown Colony's rule, which simply means a despotism. The Transvaal Volkstein said, speaking of Wolseley in pursuance of the crusade of shame in Africa : " If he does it will be of no use. Will he then use force ? Will he incur the terrible responsibility of forever dividing the two white races of South Africa into two hostile camps ? Will he undertake to put the THE BRITISH "DYNAMITE FIEND." 281 whole of South Africa in a blaze ? Will his hand make forever impossible the future union of South Africa ? We hope not. We trust his excel- lency will refrain from carrying nameless misery to all South Africa by a forcible perpetration of an act at which the whole world would cry 1 shame!'" This digression is made from the Irish question to point to a perti- nent case nearly similar to Ireland's, leaving the sturdy Dutch farmers to try the effects of their crusade of shame, which they soon found a crusade of folly. CHAPTER XXI. (1878-80.) THE NEW DEPARTURE. Position of Irish Parties in the United States — Opportunism — Negotiations with Parnell — Platform Accepted — Irish Opinion — Irish-American Views — The Men in the Gap — Real Opinions Withheld — Provincial Legislators — Moral Force and Moral Suasion — Letter of Mr. Webb, Home Rule Treasurer — Degrading Doctrines — Logical Con- clusions — Irishmen and Cornishmen — Disrupting the Kingdom — A Mere Con- spiracy — Joseph Mazzini and Italy — Statue in Central Park — Apostle of the Dagger — Wendell Philips and Ireland — Orsini's Conspiracy — Paris Explosion — Napoleon the Third and the Austrian Ambassador — War with Austria — Freedom of Italy — No Opportunism for the Italians — Captain McGregor, the British Dynamiter — Wolseley Stealing on the Sleeping Egyptians — Honorable Warfare — Bombardment of Alex- andria — Killing Women and Children — British Hanging Juries — Cant of the Age — Irishmen and Britons — Russian Nihilists and their Country's Flag — Literature of Ireland — False Teachings of To-day — Good Diplomacy — John Mitchell and Agita- tion — "Compound Vengeance" — Irishmen in British Dungeons — False Policy — " Irishmen Gain Nothing by Deceiving and Cheating One Another" — Mr. Parnell on Fenianism — A True Revolutionary Movement — Blighting Influence of Cowardly Teachings. The position of Irish parties in the United States when Mr. Parnell arrived in America to preach his crusade of shaming Britain was almost altogether in his favor. After the fiasco and failure to completely countermand the order for insurrection in 1867 the close of that year found the home organization completely demoralized. The disintegrating influence of Stephens' refusal to fight in 1865 left the country in no condition to meet the enemy in the field in 1867. The spirit of faction, which was unfortunately rampant in the United States, had secured a foothold at home. The men, knowing there had been gross mismanagement and that the affairs of the organization were in confusion, too often unjustly attached blame to the wrong people. There was for a time a complete smash, and the bonds of discipline were broken and destroyed. Mankind has had an opportunity of seeing this feeling displayed when Bazaine surrendered Metz. The bitter feelings of the French officers and soldiers and their cry of treason were something like the Irish at the close of the year 1867. Angry, and sometimes unjust, they blamed every leader for the contemptible attempt at insurrection. The National organization, in Ireland and America, however, survived the disasters of 1867. Changes which were deemed necessary were made in both, but the policy of the leaders was the continued old cry, Prepare ! prepare ! After years of weary waiting it was the self-same echo ; there was no apparent choice but wait. Hundreds of the best men in Ireland stood aside disgusted at the inactive policy. They could do nothing to aid a movement whose watchword was to wait for an imaginary time to come, which time was to come of itself, not to be hastened or brought about as in the case of other nations similarly circumstanced. The organization in America was controlled by honest and patriotic men, but, looking at the vastness of the undertaking, they were utterly incapable. They had not the ability to meet the exigencies of the situ- ation. With the exception of the Catalpa rescue no action was attempted. They were not men of sufficient resources to strike out in a new path except 282 THE NEW DEPARTURE. 283 in theory. They were in no way lacking in bravery or devotion to Ireland; for the salvation of their country they would have freely sacrificed their lives. But they were wedded to old ideas and held antiquated notions, which were becoming fossilized by the rapid march of science. The revolutionary movement at home as elsewhere became an oppor- tunist organization — the opportunity was supposed to come to them unsought. When Mr. Parnell began his obstructive policy in the enemy's Parliament, and was attacked by Mr. Butt and his followers for so doing, it drew the attention of a number of Nationalists to Mr. Parnell and his new active policy, and more especially the Nationalist leaders in the United States gradually came round to the conclusion that an alliance in support of Mr. Parnell's new Parliamentary policy would be a wise course in the interests of Ireland. A change from the policy of opportunism, — which was an idea, and necessitated waiting, — to that of becoming active agitators, had a charm for many in this free land, and by degrees fresh recruits joined Mr. Parnell's ranks. Several of these held to the belief that the young tribune when he discovered Parliamentary agitation useless would, like Wolfe Tone, take a more practical stand. His speeches on the Irish question had a manly ring, and the great majority of the people believed that he inherited the determination and valor of the American seaman who beat the British on the sea. But a few years in that lazar house for Irishmen the enemy's Parliament destroyed all these hopes, and he is, alas, to-day a pure West Briton and his party the mere tail of a British faction. Provincialists keep on continually preaching the cowardly doctrine that Ireland is a disarmed nation. This may be so in a measure, but not as much so as these timid people think, who by their waste of the public funds in talk are depriving the nation of receiving additional weapons of destruction. To point out continually to the people their incapacity to take the field instead of endeavoring to remedy the evil is both unpa- triotic and cowardly. The Irish-American leaders at this time were honest and sincere patriots, but their training and mental caliber did not qualify them to lead a revolution. All the men of superior ability had long since ceased active work in Ireland's interests. The then leaders decided on opening negotiations with Mr. Parnell, to place before him certain propositions which if accepted he could have the support of the American organization and also if they could possibly influence it the assistance of the sister movement at home. The opposition offered by Mr. Putt to Mr. Dillon's motion at the Dublin conference naturally led these American leaders to think that Mr. Parnell and his friends were men of advanced patriotic opinions. Shortly after the conference in 1878 these propositions were sent, and it is easy to see the judgment and ability of the men conducting them when it is found that this delicate negotiation was printed in the public press before the Nationalists in Ireland or Mr. Parnell had time to decide on its accept- ance. The New York Herald contained this communique, supplied by one of the ablest of the Irish-American leaders of that year: "The following is a copy of the dispatch cabled to Dublin yesterday and signed by men who will be accepted as representatives of the advanced Irish National party in the United States. It is addressed to Mr. Parnell and his political friends, but before reaching them it will be submitted to a number of representative Nationalists in Dublin for their approval. " 'The Nationalists here will support you on the following conditions: " 'First. Abandonment of the federal demand and substitution of a general declaration in favor of self-government. 284 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. " 'Second. Vigorous agitation of the land question on the basis of peasant proprietary, while accepting concessions tending to abolish arbitrary evictions. " 'Third. Exclusion of all sectarian issues from the platform. " 'Fourth. Irish members to vote together on all imperial and home questions, adopting an aggressive policy and energetically resisting coercive legislation. " 'Fifth. Advocacy of all struggling nationalities in the British Empire and elsewhere. " 'An answer to the above dispatch is expected in a day or two, when the Nationalists will decide what form their action will take.' " This extraordinary document bears on the face of it, to every thinking man who has had time and opportunity to study the Irish question, the utter incompetency as a statesman of the man or men who penned it, and shows of what intellectual capacity were the Irishmen who were conduct- ing the affairs of the Nationalists at that time in the United States. The propositions from the Irish-American Nationalists were to be placed before the council in Dublin ; and after they had thought out and dis- cussed the merits of the New York policy it was to be submitted to Mr. Parnell. The framers of this treaty with the Provincialists did not give either Mr. Parnell or the Dublin Nationalists any time to digest the newly proffered alliance, but rushed precipitately into print and gave the whole transaction to the world, almost as soon as the message left New York for Dublin. Is it any wonder that Ireland continues an enslaved nation when men who are ignorant of the first principles of statesmanship either climb or crawl to a position of leadership in the national cause? Ireland's curse has been that for years in both Provincial and National movements she has been too often represented by intriguers and conspirators ; but it is not conspiracy against the foe that is practiced. These vain, weak, and incom- petent people conspire to destroy the reputation and standing of men of some ability and undoubted sterling honesty toward their country whom they consider rivals. These acts of intrigue disgust honest men and drive them outside of the National ranks, while the great mass of the people with singleness of purpose, having no object in view but to redeem their nation from destruction and decay, cannot understand why these men are not working in the ranks of their country's patriots. Oh! that the Infinite would raise up for Ireland a man with ability and determination allied to social and financial position — the last is absolutely necessary to cleanse out Ireland's Augean stable of the charlatans and incompetents who are preying on the vitals of a godlike and noble cause. Numbers of Nationalists both in Ireland and Britain repudiated the new policy, and but for the magnified opinion held in Ireland of the ability of the men who promulgated it the repudiation would have been unanimous. The new departure, as this negotiation was called by its originators, built up Mr. Parnell's movement, for without the help of the Nationalists it could never have been a success as to finance or organization. The American leaders did not fully comprehend the nature of the alli- ance they had made; international politics formed no portion of their studies; thoroughly honest, no doubt, in their devotion to Ireland, but as thoroughly incompetent for the positions they occupied, they had stulti- fied themselves and the principles they were supposed to represent. With the promise of future greatness as an Irishman which Mr. Parnell then dis- played, an alliance with him on certain defined national principles might have been very proper. He appeared at that period and many years after to have that latent fire in him which gave Ireland a Wolfe Tone, a Lord THE NEW DEPARTURE. 285 Edward, an Emmet, a Davis, and a Mitchell, and many Nationalists thought that he would emerge from the ranks of the Provincialists and, like Thomas Davis in 1843, tell Irishmen that a treatise on artillery was the literature proper for patriots to study. But the absurd series of propo- sitions contains not one National resolution. Mr. Butt or Mr. Mitchell Henry might have drafted them. No one would think that a National brain could conceive or a Nationalist pen indite such silly trash, and term it a new departure. The first resolution was, no doubt, considered the piece de resistance by the gentleman who penned it. There was nothing in this federal demand that was in any way different from advocating self- government in the enemy's Parliament. The principles laid down by the federal Dublin Home Rule conference of 1873 was as full and broad for the internal government of Ireland as anything Mr. Parnell or the most advanced — if that term can be used to Provincialists — of the "obstruc- tionists" could possibly formulate. A Nationalist leader if he knew the first principles of his creed should know that it is not the Provincialist's platform for the self-government of Ireland that Nationalists object to; both Mr. Butt and Mr. Parnell's parties laid these down so broad and well defined that they approached very near an independent government, very closely approaching the power of an Irish republic; but it is the delusion and corruption which Provincialist teaching creates among the people when they are taught that this Will-o'-the-wisp, an independent Parliament and Ministry, can be wrung from the invader by any kind of parliamentary efforts or any possible peaceful methods — against which Nationalists have always protested. They know that the enemy's interests are seriously bound up in his possession of the plunder of the Irish nation, and the suppression of all possibility of raising up a commercial and manufacturing rival so close to his shores compels him to strain the power of what he calls the whole empire sooner than give Ireland inde- pendent control of her destinies, as the Federalists demanded in 1873 and the Parnellites since. This power of the whole empire on examination is confined to the occupying forces in Ireland, and a small army corps, which would drain Britain. If Ireland cannot defeat these if she really became earnest as a nation in the struggle for freedom she is not worthy of independence. It is a sad fact that the greatest power which keeps Ireland in slavery, and greater than the force of the whole British army, is the Provincial movements; no matter how patriotic in intention the masses may be they are helping the enemy in his war of extermination, which never ceases. As for the leaders, they probably start out with pure inten- tions, but with a crude and imperfect knowledge of the issue, and they end by becoming politicians in the enemy's ranks, corrupt and time-serv- ing, trying to continue their Provincialist swindle as long as they can find dupes to make it pay. Ireland needs a public as well as a secret movement, but it must be a National movement, not a Provincial one. She should not recognize her brutal invader by sending any delegates to the enemy's Parliament, but should keep these men at home. The public movement should be the means of propagating the national creed: Ireland an independent nation ; and when the enemy sends Irishmen to prison it should not be for a question of how much rent any man was to pay, or other trumpery charges, but for boldly advocating the doctrine of independence. Evictions, which are acts of war, should be resisted with rifles, revolvers, pikes, shells, and every instrument of destruction. The secret movement should not be one of perpetual organization, but one of perpetual action. The enemy's war of extermination should be met by a war of retaliation and destruction. Nations that are free, have all gone through this agony of blood before they were rewarded with the blessings of peace and independence. The 286 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. heroes of Lexington, Bunker Hill, and the sufferings of the terrible and bitter winter in Valley Forge gave to this great republic the Star-Spangled Banner and all the happiness and prosperity which it symbolizes. Ire- land is dying under an opiate delivered by the Gladstonians, Parnellites, and Balfourites. While these are quarreling over the slumbering nation, is there none to arouse her from the lethargy, which will end in death if the manhood of her ancient race does not come at once to the rescue? The leading spirit in America, who was conducting what he called the new departure, sought every possible publicity to emphasize his opinions before those with whom he was in negotiation had any time or oppor- tunity to come to any decision. It was rather a novel way to conduct the affairs of a nation; and it is no wonder that Ireland is so sunk in poverty and degradation, when it is only from the ranks of weak, incompetent men she can find leaders to champion her cause. Not content with giv- ing publicity to the dispatch sent via the Nationalists to Mr. Parnell, this gentleman sought by a series of interviews with leading Irishmen to influence the decision of the men in Dublin, all of which he published. He commenced by interviewing himself; he says: "If we are ever to be properly understood by the world, and especially that portion of it which is inimical to England, we must secure the public voice of the country by electing men to Parliament and to the local municipal bodies who will not misrepresent us. ' 'There is no use sending men to the British Parliament to beg, but we can send them there to protest before the world against England's right to govern Ireland, and when all is ripe we can command our representatives to withdraw fro7ii the British Parliament and meet in Ireland." This is pure Provincialist teaching; the very fact of sending delegates to the British Parliament is an admission of Britain's right to govern Ire- land. The Irish people should no more send representatives to London than they should to Paris or Berlin. The true way that Nationalists should protest is by some sort of action, and by keeping their delegates at home. As to "commanding" their representatives to withdraw, this gentleman reckoned without his host. The entrance to Parliament has been to Irish Provincialists like Aladdin's visit to the magic cave ; there opens up to their vision such beautiful fruit that they are lost in the contemplation of these personal treasures and forget their mission, or remember it at intervals to learn its complete folly. Arguing in a den of wolves for a flock of sheep is not more ridiculous. If quadrupeds were gifted with speech, and possessed the same instincts, the sheep would reveal better judgment than Irish Provincialists and their former aiders and abettors, weak and incompetent National leaders. The interview continues thus: "Have you seen the resolutions cabled to Mr. Parnell?" "Certainly. The conditions therein named are the only ones in which the advanced Nationalists here will support Mr. Parnell and his friends." Mr. John J. Breslin was interviewed and said: "I am entirely in favor of the proposition forwarded to Mr. Parnell by cable, and think it is necessary to prevent Ireland from being misrepre- sented before the world. . . At the same time I think the Irish Nation- alists here should not relax their preparations for active work for one moment, for by aggressive and active work alone ca?i we ultimately succeed." A prominent military man whose connection with the Fenian movement in the past was very close, but who has special reasons for withholding his name, said : "I am strongly in favor of the proposed alliance with Mr. Parnell and his party if they will accept the very reasonable co/idition we sent them by cable yesterday. At the same time I am in favor of vigorous military THE NEW DEPARTURE. 287 preparations, so that we can avail ourselves of any opportunity that may turn up." Mr. O'Donovan Rossa said: "We shall be dead before long, and I want to see something done that will hurt England before we go. . . I want to make her feel that Irish vengeance is something to be feared." When the "new departure" became an accomplished fact, and when Mr. Parnell accepted its terms and adopted its platform, then was removed to a more remote distance the hope of fighting the foe, and for the future guerrilla warfare or any kind of force would be compelled to wait on the exigencies of the agitation. This may not have been originally intended, but it was the only possible ending to such an alliance, and events that have transpired since prove this fact. Had the organization been engaged in active revolutionary work in Ireland, and especially in Britain, as it should have been, this alliance would have been impossible. It was no fault of the men at home that this was not the case ; the self-elected officials, who had been accustomed to power and any personal advantages which might arise therefrom, had grown rusty and enervated, they abused the ears of the Irish-Americans on one side and their own people on the other, and nothing but actual work could break the spell they wove round the home movement. This alliance turned revolutionary circles organized for fight into League clubs, and but for the cohesion which a secret movement gives in concentrating power they might have dissolved into public branches of the League, for any revolutionary work dreamt of was too sporadic to have any permanent results. This perpetual cry of being understood before the world is a lamen- table drawback to Irish freedom. To gain this overvalued and consider- ably overrated assistance Irish leaders sacrifice the substance for the shadow. What can this public opinion do for Ireland. It is a myth, when applied to the restoration of a nation's independence. It has a certain value, no doubt, but nations will weary of a country which does nothing but keep pouring out her grievances and exposing her wrongs; they get sick of this perpetual whine, and no self-help tried to remedy it. A public national movement would arrest the attention of mankind, for it would appeal to their patriotism, but a provincial movement is nothing more than the internal politics of a nation, and not an issue between two distinct peoples. When countries settle their quarrels without going to war it is by moral force, not moral suasion, that is, the force which both disputants can bring to bear in the event of peaceful negotiations failing, and one or other, or perhaps both, give way sooner than face the probable disastrous conse- quences of refusal. The Alabama dispute was an illustration of this prin- ciple; sooner than face the enormous military and naval power displayed by this glorious republic during the war of rebellion Britain grew alarmed and felt that her interests compelled her to appease the United States in preference to braving the fearful risks of war. But what consequences can Ireland threaten England with in the event of refusal? Dread of insurrection alone, or else some species of destruc- tion, which compelled her to yield minor, and in a measure sentimental, grievances in the past. Parliamentary agitation is doing its best »to destroy fhat power, which is the only thing that can make British statesmen even listen to their plaints. They are seeking to get public opinion of the world to take the place of physical power. Was there ever such unheard of folly? Is Ireland a nation of sentimentalists who are filled with the glories of the past and mere dreamers of independence, men who will do 288 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. nothing practical to give their country freedom. This sympathy and pub- lic opinion Poland has had for generations, and what benefit has it been to her? Do Irishmen think that any nation is so Quixotic as to go to war to free Ireland? Such ideas are unworthy of a great race. They are simply absurd. Strike Britain and the nations of the earth will know what it means, and even if they denounce the method you are compelled in self- defense to pursue — for always recollect Ireland is reducing her population on the average every year by fifty thousand souls, the result of England's demoniac silent war — continue to strike ! strike ! Don't wait to count your losses, go on with the work. And when done let your Nationalists of America publicly endorse it, not as in the recent past denouncing what they were in full sympathy with. There is nothing more despicable than for a Nationalist to go upon the public platform and denounce the result of the work he planned in the secrecy of the council chamber, and call this diplomacy. Men can be silent on these questions when necessary, but to denounce them — never. This public approval could not of course be so well expressed at home. Still men there have been more free in their expressions of joy at certain results than would be expected considering the consequences of those expressed opinions under the enemy's flag. How confidently the gentleman who heads the interviews speaks of com- manding the members to leave the House of Commons and meet in Ireland. The Irish Nationalists have created a Frankenstein over which they have no control. The Provincialist movement has grown beyond their authority. True, if they withdraw their support it is certain to go to pieces even without the enemy, who can strike down their peaceful combinations whenever he chooses to put forth his strength, and which he is likely to do this winter (1887). If the National element in America had not been its pillars it would have had but slender props to support it. It is from the Nationalist ranks that the best and most determined men that aided Mr. Parnell came; it is they who have subscribed and collected the many thousand dollars sent home to sustain the movement. An Irish writer at this time stated that in the event of war Ireland would remain at peace, at least for a while, under the present outlook. War would come and pass away and peace be made without in any way affecting Ireland but by a mere temporary respite. No European nation would interfere in a domestic dispute, for so appears the Irish question to- day before the world ; no nation, not even by its unaccredited representa- tives, would make any terms with a loyal British subject such as Mr. Parnell represents himself to be at the head of a peaceful movement to settle domestic troubles by legislation. Neither would it make terms with a so-called revolutionary movement that only agitates physical force, but will not carry it out. What confidence can any power have in a people who want a foreign nation to free them without they themselves striking a blow? By doing work themselves aid may come, and then this much spoken of opinion of the world might take practical shape and give Ireland material help. An enemy of England about to make war on her might help the Irish for interested motives, knowing by their acts that there was stamina and determination in the race. When this "new departure" was published in the Irish Provincial press of Dublin it gave great annoyance to the genuine agitator. The men who loved agitation and hated and detested every thought of physical force were alarmed. To reduce all the Irish people to this level of Provincialism has been the tendency of the "new departure," no doubt undreamt of by its pro- moters. There is no greater proof of what a fearful and poisonous degradation generations of foreign rule can have on a high-spirited race THE NEW DEPARTURE. than to know that an educated Irishman can be found to preach the policy of self-abasement contained in the following letter: "the new 'departure.' Dublin, November 20, 1878. «' To the Editor of the New York Herald: "Here in Ireland we have of late heard by telegram somewhat of a new Irish departure brewing on your side of the Alantic. "A belief in isolated insurrectionary movements seems to have died out and to be replaced by a determination to obtain such a public standing in Ireland as will attract the attention of the world and secure alliances with England's (/. loy, let us show we are patriotic Irishmen : " That O'Brien should preach it when he penned the fiery words, " The brave descendants of an ancient race, whose souls neither fire nor sword, neither the gibbet nor the dungeon, could subdue to slavery. The time has come — the very hour has struck, that demands the sacrifice, be it fraught with sorrow or with suffering : " That Biggar should prepare for it when in Parnell's presence at the Cork banquet he publicly stated "that if the constitutional course they were then pursuing in Parliament failed in its objects he thought Ireland might be able to produce another Hartman, and probably with better results." All honor to these men's noble sentiments. That it was not enough that Parnell should foresee it, that O'Brien should preach it, nor that Biggar should prepare the public mind to receive it : the Invincibles must dare it. As a great revolutionary writer expresses it: "The cry ' An dace' is a fiat lux ! " The onward march of the human race requires that the heights around it should be ablaze with noble and enduring lessons of courage. Deeds of daring dazzle history, and form one of the guiding lights of man. The dawn dares when it rises. To strive, to brave all risks, to persist, to persevere, to be faithful to yourself, to grapple hand to hand with destiny, to surprise defeat with the little terror it inspires, at one time to confront unrighteous power, at another to defy intoxicated triumph, to hold fast, to hold hard — such is the example which the nations need, and the light that electrifies them. The same puissant lightning darts from the torch of Prometheus and the steel blade of Joseph Brady. CHAPTER XXX. (1882.) MAY 7TH IN DUBLIN — SCENES AND INCIDENTS AFTER THE TRAGEDY. Sunday in Dublin — Feverish, Anxious City — Groups of Men Discuss the Events of Last Night Outside the Churches — Scenes in the Phoenix Park — The People Remove the Soil as a Memento — Various Opinions of the Citizens — " If it had been Forster" — "Not Personal Revenge" — "British Rule in Ireland Struck Down" — The Police and the Taverns — Temporary Arrests — Britain's Secret Police — Sailors of the Royal Navy Dragging the Liffey — British Government Proclamation — Reward of $50,000 — Proclamation of Some of the League Leaders — Surprise among the People — Conster- nation Reading the Irish Proclamation — Knitted Brows and Gathering Scowls of Wrath — "Is that the Way they Thank Gladstone for Sending them to Prison" — United Ireland's Condemnation — Haphazard Arrests — The London Merchant and the Police Sergeant — Rising in the City Expected — " Keep by the Tram Lines" — Arrests in Newcastle-on-Tyne — European Politicians and Statesmen — Opinions of the European Press — Victor Hugo's Rappel — " A War of Independence Seems Foreshadowed" — The Mot d'Ordre — "Continue the Struggle without Truce or Mercy " — Irish Lack of Political Education — Organ of Prince Bismarck, Berlin National Zeitung — " Till their Country is Sundered from Great Britain " — Henri Rochefort's Intransigeant — " Cannon the Ultima Ratio of Kings, the Dagger the Ultima Ratio of Subjects" — Austrian Journals — Vienna Presse — " Wonder how Men Could Escape from so Public a Place " — The Citizen — " Two Organizations in Ireland " — Citoyen, Paris — " Ministers Determined to Try Trickery " — " Triumph of Independent Ireland is Certain " — " Ireland in Broad Daylight does More for Revolution than Nihilists who Hide Underground " — " Irishmen Strike Openly and Straight at the Heart" — Russian Semi-official Journal, Golos, St. Petersburg — " Movement is Political and Not Entirely Agrarian " — ' ' Secret Party Aims at the Overthrow of English Authority " — Bataille, France — "Time is Past for Political Jugglery" — " Resolve to Reach the Goal, Irish Independence " — Marseillaise, France — ' ' No longer Landlords " — " They Strike Down the Queen's Delegates " — " What Friend of Humanity Would Think of Blaming her for it ? " — Most Serious Act Since '98 — Irishmen Lack Moral Courage — Secretly Ap- prove, Openly Denounce — The Dublin Irishman — " The English Began the Bloody Struggle" — " First Declared War against Ireland" — "War Brought Down to our Own Times " — London Times — " Not only Brutal, but Defiant and Insolent " — " But those who Examined the Scene can Understand this Fact " — " All Dublin and Others who Examined the Locality See what it Means" — "Secret Societies Challenge Whole Power of the Executive." The morning of Sunday, May 7, dawned on a feverish, anxious city. The cry of the newsvenders giving the latest news of last night's tragedy could be heard in every thoroughfare. For the first time since men communicated their ideas to each other by the medium of the printing press Dublin City published Sunday newspapers, and each edition was bought up as fast as it came from the publishing room. Every rumor and canard was eagerly discussed, and the information circulated by the British authorities, no matter how absurd, found its way into the city journals. Groups of men could be seen outside the different churches discussing the gravity of the situation. Various opinions were expressed and debated by these good citizens. Among the small Sunday gatherings of the people groups of men who had just come from divine service in their churches could be heard to express themselves approvingly of the tragic deed of the night before. Though in some cases they spoke guardedly, yet the smile of joy that lighted up their faces and flashed from their eyes revealed the depth of their feelings. There are peculiar mannerisms by which Irishmen convey their real sentiments to each other 411 412 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. even though their tongues speak differently. This gift is not possessed by any other people. It was born of the long ages of slavery, which has so eaten into their souls that even the best and bravest and most daring of the race unconscious to themselves are its possessors. Yet though sur- rounded by a cordon of spies and detectives of the English enemy, their pent up feelings will burst forth ; too often unguardedly they break the walls of discretion. In Dublin City, upon that memorable Sunday, men could be heard to express themselves in strong approval of the great event of the night before, words that would imperil their liberty if heard by any of the invader's myrmidons. Brave citizens, worthy sons of a nation ! not a miserable province, as cowardly men, who presume to call themselves Nationalists, would make you — when will you shake off your credulity ? When will you take back the right to control your destiny, which you have so long surrendered to men, many of whom, like ^Esop's Donkey, parade as lions ? Artisans, mechanics, students, and toilers in Ireland's metropolis, it is time that you, who were wont to be so fervent, should throw off the toils which mock you, and show yourselves what you have ever been — the vanguard of the party of action, even though sur- rounded by so many willing slaves ! The Dublin carmen that Sunday brought numerous visitors to the Phoenix Park. A kind of mysterious fascination drew the people there ; crowds walked over the brilliant greensward, and groups in all direc- tions were discussing the question of the hour. With superstition be- longing to many of the people, in their love for mementoes, the early comers had removed portions of the earth where the slain British Secretaries were found, and by midday a perceptible hollow was guarded by the police to stop the visitors from relic hunting. Not far from this place a small group of serious, earnest men, apparently mechanics of the most intelligent class, were listening to a speaker who was giving his views upon the situation. He was interrupted by an elderly man, who exclaimed : " If it had been old Buckshot Forster I could easier under- stand it. The whole affair is a puzzle to me ; this man Cavendish had no time to do any harm. And if what we have heard the last few days is true Gladstone was going to remove all coercion and give us back our Parliament in a few months. All our members are rejoicing over the great victory, and this is a strange way to celebrate it in Dublin. I tell you it will bring ruin upon the country." The first speaker replied : " Let us look at it from the standpoint of the men engaged in this daring deed, that is, if they were Nationalists' and not Orangemen, as some people say. From their view they would not agree with you. Had they killed Forster the world would have said it was the act of personal and political revenge ; the lesson read to England would be, ' Send us kindly disposed Chief Secretaries and we will cor- dially receive them ; it is not your rule we quarrel with, but Forster's tyranny.' The slaying of the British Secretary Cavendish was not an act of personal revenge. He had never been identified with any action that could create this feeling. In his person the office of Britain's chief officer was struck down. It was British rule in any manner which these men protested against. As to the Under Secretary, Burke, he was a tyrant, but, after all, a mere tool in the hands of his chief. He could have been easily killed at any time ; a man who went about the city so much and who moved in gay circles must have given many opportunities to his foes. I do not believe either man was slain accidentally. This matter must have been as well planned as it was successfully carried out. It was a brave and daring action in the presence of so many guards ; the slightest hitch would have surrounded the actors with numerous foes. The suddenness of the attack and the unusual weapons must have para- The surgeon HAMILTON WILLIAMS, M. D. whom it is said purchased the weapons used in the Phcenix Park SCENES AND INCIDENTS AFTER THE TRAGEDY. 4*3 lyzed their British guardians, and the men where gone when they came to their reason. The papers are trying to make it appear that these men were not guarded ; that is the British policy to say so now ; but anyone who knows anything of the park yesterday evening must be aware there were armed police and detectives scattered round. It is not convenient for them to acknowledge this fact, and no doubt with the many distorted statements that will hereafter be told of this tragedy this story will be published and believed. Had one shot been fired how quickly these scat- tered guardians of British rule would have clustered round, and in almost a twinkling the Constabulary would be on the scene with shotted rifles and fixed bayonets, and these men would have been surrounded, captured, or shot down. These probabilities must have been in the mind of their leader ; these men must have gone there prepared to take all chances, death or capture — which would mean death — or else a daring and, for them, fortunate escape. What puzzles me is the complete mystery which shrouds the whole affair ; all seems imaginary speculation, and there appears to be no official information of any kind." The speakers con- tinued their debate. Everywhere the subject was discussed ; avoid it how one might it was continually introduced ; it was an event which perplexed and caused great excitement in the public mind. The guardians of that crime British rule in Ireland, i. e., the police, were given orders on that Sunday to guard the exterior of taverns and every place of public resort. Any visitors to the Dublin taverns were placed under temporary arrest and their persons searched, the police carefully reading every scrap of printed or written matter found, seizing anything which their imaginations could distort into suspicious documents, and taking the names and addresses of the men arrested. To carry this out effectually was a very difficult task where these employees of the alien power have reason to suspect nine-tenths of the inhabitants of a city with over two hundred thousand inhabitants. On Monday morning those not engaged in any employment — and these are numerous in every Irish city and town — could see the steam launch belonging to the British warship stationed at Kingstown harbor sail up the Liffey. This launch had on board the most approved grappling irons. The detectives in the employ of the enemy were trying to recover a little of their lost prestige. They wished the public to believe that they were in possession of information of great moment, and to further the ends of what they called "justice" they were keeping it from the press. They allowed it to be published that they knew the men engaged in the tragedy, and that they held important clews as to their whereabouts. These they described as four fierce-looking men in the garb of sailors, of American appearance. They also stated that these desperadoes when leaving the park killed the driver and the horse, and to conceal and leave no traces of their crime they threw car, horse, and driver into the Liffey. It was to recover these and to grapple and bring to light this necessary evidence that the seamen of the Royal Navy came from Kingstown in their launch. But it so came that although the British tars worked very diligently for several days they were not rewarded by success in their search. Neither vehicle, horse, nor man could be found. But the enemy insisted he was well informed, and permitted to be published portraits of the men they were in search of in the London illustrated press. Of course it was enough for these men to be enemies of British rule in Ireland to satisfy the English public that they must be hideous-looking individuals. The portraits published were of the lowest type of English civilization, and were believed to be authentic by the British masses. Early on Monday morning Dublin City was placarded with two British proclamations : one bearing the signature of the red earl, chief of 414 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Britain's banditti in Ireland, the other signed by Charles Stewart Parnell, lately the beloved and respected Irish Provincial leader, but who on this occasion played the part of chief of Ireland's cowards, the offerer of con- solation and assistance to Ireland's brutal and unrelenting foes. Earl Spencer's proclamation bore the royal arms of the neighboring island at the top, which was sufficient to show even Irish patriot loyalists who could not even read (if there are any of these in Dublin) that this document was both illegal and criminal. The proclamation of the Irish leaders could not bear the arms of Ireland without armed force to protect it. But this proclamation of theirs was an act of treason against Ireland, for it expressed sympathy toward Ireland's invader and enemy, and con- demned the secret armed soldiers of Ireland who struck down the new chief of these invading foes.* The proclamation of the Dublin Castle officials commenced with the usual u Whereas" that certain persons not having the fear of God and British displeasure before them did maliciously slay and murder in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, on Saturday evening, May 6, 1882, Frederick Cavendish, known as Lord Frederick Cavendish, her Majesty's Chief Secretary of State for that portion of the United Kingdom called Ireland, and also Thomas H. Burke, her Majesty's Under Secretary of State for the same portion of the United Kingdom : This to inform all good people that the sum of ten thousand pounds sterling (fifty thousand dollars) would be paid to anyone who would give such information as would lead to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator or perpetrators of this murder, and also the further reward of five thousand pounds was offered to anyone who would give private information, and a free pardon was guaranteed to any such informant other than the actual perpetrators of the crime. " Done at Dublin Castle, May 8, 1882, in the forty-fifth year of the reign of her Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria." (Signed) Spencer. It was the first proclamation of this inauspicious and blood-stained vice-reign. The West-British proclamation was written by a man in frenzy and panic, a politician, not a patriot, and who compelled the frightened Mr. Parnell to affix his signature to the document without giving him scarce time to read what was about to go before the world. This we have been credibly informed of from a source that knew of this unfortunate and disastrous occurrence, the first downward step that has removed these men so far from the Irish patriot ranks. It was posted alongside Spencer's proclamation, and attracted greater attention from the Irish people than even the Castle document. It fell like a thunderbolt among the loyal, patriotic men of Dublin City. It read as follows : " To the People of Ireland : " On the eve of what seemed a bright future for our country that evil destiny which has apparently pursued us for centuries has struck at our hopes another blow, which cannot be exaggerated in its disastrous con- sequences. In this hour of sorrowful gloom we venture to give expres- sion to our profoundest sympathy with the people of Ireland in the calamity which has befallen our cause through this horrible deed, and with those who determined at the last hour that a policy of conciliation should supplant that of terrorism and national distrust. We earnestly hope that the attitude and action of the Irish people will show to the * Captain O'Shea's description of this Parnell proclamation in his evidence before the London commission displays the treason of the Provincial leaders. This proclamation was brought to Chamberlain's house by Parnell before it was issued, and no doubt shown to the enemy's Cabinet Minister. SCENES AND INCIDENTS AFTER THE TRAGEDY. 415 world that an assassination such as has startled us almost to the aban- donment of hope of our country's future is deeply and religiously abhor- rent to their every feeling and instinct. We appeal to you to show by every manner of expression that amid the universal feeling of horror which the assassination has excited, no people feel so deeply a detesta- tion of its atrocity or so deep a sympathy with those whose hearts must be seared by it as the nation upon whose prosperity and reviving hopes it may entail consequences more ruinous than those that have fallen to the lot of unhappy Ireland during the present generation. . We feel that no act that has been ever perpetrated in our country during the exciting struggles of the last fifty years has so stained Ireland as this cowardly and unprovoked assassination of a friendly stranger, and that until the murderers of Cavendish and Burke are brought to justice that stain will sully our country's name. "Charles S. Parnell. " John Dillon. " Michael Davitt." Anything more infamous never was done by trusted men against their nation since Benedict Arnold went over to the British and tried to sur- render West Point to America's enemy. Neither O'Connell nor Mr. Butt ever at any time showed anything more than an invisible sword, but these men were associated with revolutionists. The party of action built up their movement, believing they were sincere and pure patriots. When Mr. Parnell told O'Donovan Rossa in Philadelphia that he purposed calling on him before he left that city Irishmen believed he was a stanch patriot, and although sincere in advocating quiet and peaceful measures, he did so because he believed that they had not been properly tested, and that he could succeed in shaming England into surrendering Ireland to its people. But he never condemned the men who thought differently ; on the contrary, he sought their aid and assistance. They had every reason to believe that Parnell would prove himself a worthy descendant of the gallant race he sprang from, and when he found that words were useless he would resort to blows. When Mr. Kennedy in Troy gave him a donation for bread for his starving countrymen and also handed him five times the amount for lead Mr. Parnell could not mistake the belief so openly expressed of many of his supporters. When Mr. Biggar told him and the crowd in Cork that Ireland might need another Hartman was there no significance in the words ? This proclamation is an indelible stain upon men whom Ireland loved and trusted ; they should have held their peace and let Britain do her worst. She is doing that to-day and did also under the sleek Gladstone and his despot underling Spencer. But when the hypocritical falsehood and cowardly nature of this proclamation are considered, it can be only characterized as the most infamous in history. The Irishmen in Dublin City when they turned from reading the Castle proclamation rubbed their eyes and looked again at its companion document ; they could scarce believe the evidence of their senses. They read it over carefully, noting every sentence. Some shook their heads in disapproval and silently walked away, not exchanging words with each other. The enemy's police and officials were pleased with the message of condolence to Britain and her seared hearts. The seared hearts of Mary Deane's family, of Ellen McDonagh's parents, of Patrick Melody's sorrow- ing mother, the invader's brutalities, his murders in Belmullet and Ballina, do not call for any notice from these recreant Irishmen. But the slaying of a new tyrant sent to carry on these infamies is called the " assassination of a friendly stranger." Spirits of our patriot dead ! it is enough to 416 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. make you turn in your graves to hear men the beloved of Irish National- ists term an invading foe a friendly stranger. It was a study in Irish human nature to watch the features of the various readers — the knitted brow and gathering scowl of wrath, the pale face and startled, astonished look of some. These Irishmen showed by their manner not only approval and sympathy with the tragedy, but also that innate detestation in the Irish heart of men calling themselves patriotic who go out of their way to condemn any act done against the infamous tyranny of English rule. Groups of men gathered together were discus- sing Parnell's proclamation in suburban Dublin ; they seemed very out- spoken in their condemnation. One old Irishman said : " Musha, the devil's cure to them ! So they thank Gladstone for sending them to prison by doing the Government's dirty work. Och, but imprisonment takes the pluck out of the best of them." Some speakers indorsed the Irish Par- liamentary leaders' address and most heartily approved of every word. Others criticised and condemned it as uncalled for. " John Dillon," said one intelligent-looking speaker, " publicly stated in the House of Com- mons he would shoot any landlord who attempted to dispossess him of his farm, and believed before God he would be justified, and here in what I must call craven cowardice he condemns the killing of an arch-evictor, the delegate of that robbing Government which is trying to evict our whole nation, and which protects and aids the landlords." " Hush, Felix ! " said one of his comrades. " I tell you," replied the other, " I have no patience with these men and their English proclamation. It should be torn down and walked upon to show Irishmen's contempt for these rene- gades. They call this Englishman Cavendish a friendly stranger. He was an invader, who came here to carry out the usurping foreign Govern- ment's mission of murder and plunder. What other reason had he to leave his English home ? He was as much an invader and robber as the Dane, who was killed at Clontarf. If these foreign delegates were killed when they put foot upon our shore we would protest against their insolent assumption of coming here at all to in any manner assume the role of governing us. To do this would be to protest in a more manly way than by this perpetual talk, which I am hearing since my boyhood and which I am heartily disgusted with ! " "Well, Felix," said one of his hearers, " I must admit there is strong force in your reasoning." " I tell you," said the other, " I would not give the snap of my fingers for the death of Burke, England's paid instrument. But God strengthen the arm of the man who struck down Cavendish, England's Minister, who came to plunder and murder our people, for take British rule in its mildest form and it is nothing but highway robbery, and destruction to our hearths and homes." Walking away, he said in solemn tones to his sad-looking and thoughtful friends : " The proper action for Irishmen is to destroy all these blood- stained invaders. They are all, mild or tyrannical, serpent or wolf, invad- ing robbers, who would not visit our country but to assassinate and depopulate the nation." But the capital of the Irish nation was determined that it should not stultify the faith of generations of patriots by submitting in silence to these two infamous placards. The Executive of the I. R. B. issued a national proclamation in condemnation of the cowardly utterances of the Parliamentarians. " ' God save Ireland.' Dublin, May 8, 1882. " To the Irish People and all Lovers of Liberty, and particularly our Brothers of the I. R. B. and Kindred Organizations : " As there seems to be a grave misunderstanding as to the aim and scope of the late executions at Dublin, we the Executive of the I. R. B. SCENES AND INCIDENTS AFTER THE TRAGEDY. 4*7 hereby request all the aforesaid to withhold their opinion of this matter for the present, and to refrain from the expression of sympathy at public meetings, which tend to humiliate Ireland and to give aid and comfort to England. "As to the monster Burke, he has preyed iipon the lives and liberties of his countrymen for many years, and has deserved death a thousand times at our hands ; and as to Lord Frederick Cavendish, the lineal descendant of the infamous Lord Broghill, who hanged the gallant and patriotic MacEagan, Bishop of Ross,at Carrigadrohid, because he would not betray his country — his very name stinks in the nostrils of the Irish people by the iniquities of his brother, Lord Hartington, and the whole- sale evictions of his father, the Duke of Devonshire, thereby driving thousands of the rightful owners of the soil to the poorhouse, exile, and death. " This organization has tolerated the vagaries of Mr. Parnell and his late treason-mongers until they have filled the bastiles in our country with the victims of a useless Parliamentary agitation, which left 20,000 persons homeless last year, and drove millions of the flower of our people to exile. This ceases to be harmless when a truce is made by which he himself and his friends are allowed to go free, and eighty (80) of Ireland's bravest sons are left to languish in prison, to be exiled or assassinated, and these the men who by the so-called ' outrages ' opened the prison doors to Mr. Parnell and his friends. " If England really wished to deal fairly by Ireland why did she not issue a general amnesty, by which the prison doors would be opened and thousands of our exiled brethren who now pine in foreign lands could return in safety and honor ? Instead of this Mr. Gladstone sent emis- saries to the venerated head of the Catholic Church, who by lies and false representations have deprived thousands of our poor, persecuted people of the comforts of religion by turning our altars into political platforms. Let us ask the people of Ireland, Are there no classes of the people to be considered except the farmers, and of what avail will it be to Ireland if a selfish class is firmly rooted in the soil and becomes thor- oughly loyal to England ? " We ask our friends in America to ponder on our desperate circum- stances, to think of a brave and honorable people driven to despair by witnessing the white bosoms of our women torn open by the bayonets of English mercenaries and our children of tender age shot down in the highways, while our wails of anguish are stifled in our blood. " We are convinced that no true prosperity can exist in Ireland so long as England possesses her customhouses, these allowing her manufactures to pass into Ireland duty free, thereby leaving our Irish mechanics unemployed. The destruction of Irish manufactures, added to the enormous war tribute exacted by England, which takes away the produce of the land, thereby forcing the Irish people to starve. " Now, furthermore, we call upon all our brothers in America, particu- larly t the advanced Nationalists, to aid, by every means within their power, the men who have carried out this execution, and we hereby further declare that they deserve well of their country. " By order of the " Executive of the I. R. B." * As the week slowly passed and no news with any truthful appearance presented itself men wondered more and more. Mingle with Irish * This proclamation we have since learned was not issued by the official executive of the I. R. B., but by some of the officers who were in sympathy with the Invincible action in Dublin. 418 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Nationalists and a quiet smile of joy could be seen to now and then flit over their features when Saturday's memorable event was discussed. After the first burst of indignation had swept away like a hurricane at the Parnellite proclamation men began to smile and look knowingly to each other, and shake their heads and give a quiet laugh when the denuncia- tion of the Parliamentary triumvirate was mentioned. It would be useless to tell these men that this proclamation of the Parnellites was published in all seriousness and with no diplomatic re- serve whatever. Already the lessons of deception had entered into the Irish masses, leaving them completely at the mercy of ambitious politi- cians, whom they mistook for patriots. They felt (or a large number of them did) that the stronger the denunciation the more heartily was this deed indorsed by the leaders of the public movement. These men's personal associations and past speeches could have for these people no other meaning. These and many other speculations and surmises troubled the public mind of Ireland. False and misleading was the information then and since which was permitted to percolate through the National ranks. This historic and immortal event has suffered at the hands of weak friends and unrelenting foes ; it has been covered over by the vile excre- ment of renegades as well as enemies, the former by infamous slander, equivocation, and subterfuge, centred round their one ideal — self. It has been befogged by the vanities of weak and inane minds, who sought to be known as the comrades — when they were merely the companions and associates — of Titans ; they who were among them, but not of them. It has suffered and been assailed by the malignancy of the foe, but much more grievously by the slander of traitors and the folly of weaklings, the latter, froglike, seeking self-glorification, while the traitor was digging a grave for his own self-degradation. They have slandered with foul abuse their nation and the cause for which heroes have suffered. Great historic event ! brave men will salute thee. You will remain a landmark for all time to tell the tyrant that Ireland was not disarmed, that his edicts were powerless, to speak to him in words of fire that the brave nation had manhood to strike and courage to dare — courage that can only be supplied by the supernatural conviction of the God-given justice of her cause, for the patriot needs a higher order of daring than even the soldier of the forlorn hope surrounded by his com- rades in all the pomp and panoply of glorious war. Let slaves and cow- ards whine as they may, they cannot obliterate the glorious 6th of May from the pages of Irish history. The Irish leaders of the public movement evidently issued their proc- lamation when suffering under nervous shock ; fright alone can explain this terrible infamy. Not content with madly rushing to the enemy's rescue at a momentous crisis when the Briton's rule in Ireland was quivering under the effect of the mysterious lightning stroke so fiercely dealt at his presence in the country, they permitted their official journal, United Ireland, reinstated in Dublin by the enemy's permission, to aid the invader by its vain attempts to cast the stain of crime upon the unknown patriots. They allowed, or possibly instructed, the editor of that journal, Mr. O'Brien, a man with the volatility of a windmill and the fanaticism of an illusionist in his faith in the use of words to free nations, to publish an editorial upon this historic incident worthy of Britain's murder organ the London Times, attacking his own countrymen who tried to hold the breach when the foe had imprisoned the orators. This paper may possibly be found in a few years in alliance with the man it calls " Bloody Balfour " to-day, as it is now singing the praises of the "red earl," Spencer, whom it charged — and truthfully — of having blood-stained hands, red SCENES AND INCIDENTS AFTER THE TRAGEDY. 419 with the life current of his murdered victims. The Orange rebel organs the Daily Express antl Mail, or even the London Times, could not approach it in the use of ferocious abuse and misleading statements, leveled at the Irish party of action, including an extraordinary and misleading cartoon. A somewhat similar cartoon appeared one year later in England's comic journal Punch. It was shortly after Carey's information became public. This cartoon in Punch was in Teniel's best style. It represented Britannia and Erin, two female figures clad in classic drapery. Erin was of course in grief, and was shown leaning for comfort and consolation on her beloved sister Britannia, whose protecting arm was thrown about her companion's form. Britannia looked fiercely and wrathfully before her. She was holding by a string a bulldog, who was sniffing the ground, and underneath were the words : " On the scent." Events proved that the bulldog got on a false trail. If he had been a keen brute what a dainty dish there would have been to serve before the Queen. Or perhaps, as it now appears more probable, it did not suit the vile purpose of the bull- dog's master to develop matters too much. He was content with his knowledge, and was determined to use it for his own purpose, the com- plete subjugation of the Irish nation, aided knowingly or unknowingly by the men it loved and trusted. Vain folly of tyrants. Nations cannot be so easily destroyed. As a great writer expresses it : " The protest of the right against the fact persists forever. The robbery of a people never becomes prescriptive. These lofty swindles have no future. You cannot pick the mark out of a nation as you can out of a handkerchief." The arrests made haphazard by the police at this time told everyone the British officials had altogether lost their heads. English visitors in Dublin were much frightened, and all sorts of absurd stories were put in circulation. On the night of the " suppression " a London merchant came into his hotel in College Green at a late hour. He was in a com- plete state of nervous prostration. His deathlike face, protruding eye- balls, and chattering teeth denoted a condition of abject fear. He was a poor representative of the fire-eating John Bull. He had scarcely strength to ring up the waiter, and when the attendant came he tried to articulate brandy. After applying himself to the stimulant he sum- moned courage to tell the few gentlemen in the room what caused his fright. When the rumor circulating in the hotel reached him he went up to the Castle to make inquiries, and the exaggerated stories he heard frightened him. He turned out of his way down the quays, and was roaming there the victim of an excited imagination. He was too nervous to ask any stranger to direct him. At last he met a sergeant of police, who told him he was walking away from his hotel. The sergeant, pro- ducing a lantern (an unusual article with Dublin policemen), drew the slide and threw the light into several doorways as they passed, looking for mysterious lurkers. The sergeant was much frightened and told, the English gentleman, whose name and address he placed in his note- book, that the authorities feared trouble that night, and that the Government thought it very probable there would be a " rising in the city." They were not at all satisfied at the deep silence with which the news of the park tragedy was received. When he had escorted the Englishman to the corner of Parliament and Dame streets he left him,, pointing out the route back to the hotel. He particularly cautioned him against walking on the footway, and told him to keep by the tramway lines in the centre of the street and he would then be safe. What this Englishman had to fear during so short a walk in the usually peaceful city of Dublin he knew not. The danger was in his own imagination. The 420 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. wretched demoralization which takes possession o| British employees, police, and detectives when they think that the Irish are preparing to strike back shows that the old maxim, " He is thrice armed whose cause is just," acts upon the nerves of Ireland's persecutors. The English merchant, whose fear the police sergeant helped to intensify on that famous Saturday night, left Dublin a few days after, making a business visit to Newcastle-on-Tyne en route to London. He and two friends were arrested in Newcastle ; the police having learned that they had come from Dublin, these sagacious officials con- cluded they must have been participants in the recent tragedy. After the inconvenience of temporary arrest they were of course released. This and numbers of other cases of a similar nature occurring in both countries are illustrative of the sound sense and good judgment of British guardians of the peace, and especially the secret service police of that kingdom, when political prisoners are sought after. The intelligence of these men is always at fault in revolutionary cases unless they are supplied with information. Of course if they once get a clew they will follow it up to all possible success. The blundering stupidity and gross vanity of some men, who ought to have known better, have occasionally set them on a trail, which made the rest easy ; but any quiet man, with resolution and no bluster, can easily beat them in any, even the most dangerous, under- taking. Nationalists have sometimes asked, reading of the many arrests made at this time, did any of the real parties think of the lines of Livy, "By flying men often meet their fate." The following week Dublin began to settle down into a more calm feeling; the newspapers were announcing important arrests in every edition, and of course the detective department had it impressed upon the news- paper reporters that it was in possession of grave and important information, that it held a clew, which, in the interests of justice, it could not allow to be published. The action of the Dublin patriots rang with a clarion sound over Europe. It was discussed in cabinets and courts, and in every gathering of diplomats. Ireland was forcing herself into the European question. Greece, who struggled and now lives, by manly deeds emerged from the darkness into light. Bulgaria, overrun by the Ottoman banditti, struggled to strike back, and the great Slav nation Russia came to her rescue. Italy, overrun by the Austrian, met her invader with the dagger of the revolutionist, and afterward by the valor of the soldier. Hungary, crushed and defeated, saw hope in the campaign of 1866. Kossuth in Florence and Klapka in Berlin at the approach of war against their Austrian oppressor entered into an alliance with the allied enemies of Austria, offering help against the common enemy for the restoration of Hungarian independence. Insurgents were mustering over the Magyars' land, and when Klapka's address to his insurgent countrymen awoke the national life : " Brave warriors ! At my country's call I assume the com- mand of the Hungarian armies and address you in the capacity of com- mander-in-chief. Our country is no longer left unbefriended. The powerful kings of Prussia and Italy hold out their right hands to us. Garibaldi will assist us from Italy. Turr will operate against the Danube, Bethlen take the field in Transylvania, while I will lead you forward from Prussia. Ludwig Kossuth will be in our midst. Thus united we will expel the Austrian, that has so long shed our best blood and robbed us of our wealth. The country of Arpad is our own, and we will secure it to ourselves. In 1848 and 1849 we gained immortal glory without obtaining our wishes ; this time we shall gather fresh laurels and succeed. Forward, then ! gather round the Hungarian standard and remember that wherever it is unfurled it is the duty of SCENES AND INCIDENTS AFTER THE TRAGEDY. 421 the Hungarians to rally round it. But a few days' march from here are the frontiers of our beloved country. There I will guide you, there where parents, sisters, and brides await us with open arms. You have to choose between remaining prisoners of war and sharing the honor of fighting for the liberty of our country." But the fates had willed it that Austria should crumble beneath the blows of her German rival Prussia. When at three o'clock that famous afternoon of July 3, 1866, the crown prince's army pierced the Austrian right and entered the village of Kulm Hungary had won self-government. The ping of the Prussian needle gun, the eloquence of the cannon, and the tread of martial men had created a nation. The Austrian surrendered. To meet a fresh enemy in Hungary in her crippled state she knew she was powerless to attempt. The request of Hungary, which was refused at the opening of the campaign against Italy and Prussia, was now eagerly offered by the Austrian emperor. Hungary became a self-governed kingdom. The only link remaining to-day between the separate parts of the empire is the personal tie of the same sovereign. Greece! Italy! Bulgaria! Hungary! Irishmen hail you, noble nations, and glory in your freedom ! Ireland too must show the nations she is likewise worthy of a deliverer, but to make herself heard mid the clash of warring nationalities she must strike. The bared steel of the Phoenix Park gleamed in the face of Europe, and the nations and the peoples knew that Ireland was in earnest, and that she would never cease to toil and to face death until the sunburst gleaming on her green banner flying proudly over Irish soil witnessed the consummation of her hopes and the fulfillment of her destiny. The peoples of Europe, who were confounded at the peculiar and con- tradictory tactics of the agitators, seeing an economic question put forth as if it were a national demand, became alive to the importance of the position ; and when the winter's horrors, like the Bulgarian atrocities, only disguised in more hellish cunning, had passed over Ireland and that unhappy land seemed prostrate 'neath the British marauders, suddenly, as if a perpetual and darkened eclipse had burst into sunlight, there shone forth upon the path of liberty the upheaving of the indignant nation, and in the broad light of day Britain, personified in the new Minister of her banditti rule, fell prostrate beneath the arm of outraged Ireland on the grassy sward of the Phoenix Park. Irishmen, read what the European press has to say of your country. The Citizen, writing of this great event, says : " This is evidently a war of extermination — that is, of Ireland's extremists against monarchical England. A country where in broad daylight four resolute men stab officials of high position does vastly more for the designs of revolution than does Russia, where the Nihilists hide underground, dig mines, and resort to timid means instead of striking straight and openly at the heart. " We hope the English Government will resume a policy of repression. The dagger having once commenced its work, the struggle will go on mercilessly and end in the triumph of Ireland, aided by the co-operation of revolutionists." Through the cowardism of those to whom Ireland intrusted her destiny, and who are trying to sell her over to her ex-tyrant William E. Gladstone she has ceased to strike ; but, nevertheless, the war, as spoken of by this European writer who so nobly sympathized with her sufferings, has not ceased. It goes on without mercy. Ireland sitting helplessly bewails her fate, as she is taught to keep on wailing, while the foe unmercifully strikes her hourly. The Russian organ the Golos of St. Petersburg writes thus upon the Irish situation : 422 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. "We think that the tragical death of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke proves that Mr. Gladstone was profoundly mistaken in sup- posing that Mr. Parnell and his friends were the real leaders of the Irish movement, and that peace could be obtained by mere agrarian reform. The movement is political, and not entirely agrarian, and there is a secret party behind the Land League which aims at nothing short of over- throwing English authority." This journal, the organ of Britain's rival in the struggle for Eastern empire, could not understand that an agrarian reform could be called a national issue, as if reform, either agrarian or of any kind, were possible under foreign tyranny. The affair in the park at Dublin showed Russian journalists and statesmen that Ireland had determined and brave men ready to make sacrifices for her freedom, and that she would be a useful ally in any coming complications. The Rappel of Paris, the organ of the great French poet, the illustrious and immortal Victor Hugo, and also numbering among its contributors Louis Blanc and M. Vacquerie, all then living, makes these remarks upon the 6th of May : "Such an event happening just when Mr. Gladstone had liberated the Land League leaders shows how implacable is Ireland's hatred for England. It is not so much a political and social insurrection as a war of independence that seems foreshadowed." The Irishmen who were the actors in this immortal drama held the independence of their country absolute and free from all British control and influence as Ireland's only hope and redemption, and those who live hold fast this precious and undying faith in their country's regeneration by manly deeds. M. Henri Rochefort, whom Mr. Parnell had visited to gain the aid of his powerful voice for Ireland, writing in the Intransigeant, said : " The cannon is the ultima ratio of kings and the dagger is the ultima ratio of subjects. " Ireland immediately saw she was trifled with and she replied to this irony with the dagger. This style of reply, perhaps useless in Russia, where the officials, however ferocious, are generally brave, has already pro- duced considerable results in England, where the cowardice of the shop- keepers who govern her is inveterate." M. Rochefort concluded a very ably written article by citing the case of the Austrian Gessler and William Tell as a proof that tyrannicide answers, and by regretting that Orsini did not kill Napoleon III., which would have saved France from the calamities of 1870. The daring of the deed in the Phoenix Park seemed to strike the European writers, both those in sympathy with Irish aspirations for inde- pendence and reactionary organs. The Austrian newspapers were astonished at this unprecedented Irish action. The Vienna Presse thus alludes to the subject : " We wonder how the men could escape from such a frequented place as the Phoenix Park. We do not doubt it is a political murder, but who can have been the perpetrators?" The Mot aVOrdre in its comments on the Phoenix Park tragedy says : " We hope that the Irish will show they are worthy of liberty by not allowing themselves to be lured by a few paltry concessions. We exhort them to continue the struggle without truce or mercy to reconquer their independence. We have not to trouble ourselves with the means by which this transformation will be effected. The change of policy of the English Ministers leads us to hope that violence will not be essential to the triumph of justice, but even if some excesses are to be feared and deemed neces- SCENES AND INCIDENTS AFTER THE TRAGEDY. 423 sary, we should not indulge in hypocritical lamentations on the fate of privileged victims of this defense of property based on confiscation and fraud." Brave Frenchmen, the men who would try to reconquer Ireland's independence see their unhappy country in the grasp of politicians who have given to the nation a narcotic ; but soon, very soon, they expect that the effects of the drug will have passed away, and that awakened Ireland will stretch out her limbs and shake off Gladstonism and this Provincial agitation, which is a mockery and sham, and once more embrace the doctrine of Tone and Emmet and her glorious patriots. The National Zeitung of Berlin, a journal which has from time to time published many a political communique" from Europe's great statesman the Iron Chancellor, Prince Bismarck, writes thus upon the Phoenix Park incident : " There is no doubt here we have a political murder. . . It is pos- sible that the deed of horror expresses the disappointment of the Irish conspirators at the nomination of Lord Frederick Cavendish. But it is equally credible that it is traceable to the men who will hear nothing of the compromises effected between Gladstone and Parnell, who are averse to any diminution of the hostility existing between Ireland and England, and who desire to carry on the movement till their country is sundered from Great Britain." The Bataille, a French journal, writing on the subject says : " By executing Cavendish and Burke the unhappy slaves of English land law publicly declare that pseudo-liberal measures cannot satisfy them ; that the time is past for political jugglery, for that trifling which always conceals some snare ; that they have a goal in view, with a firm resolution of reaching it — namely, Irish independence." How clearly these foreign journals understood the real meaning of the 6th of May in Dublin ; and yet numbers of Irishmen all over the United States permitted themselves to believe that the release of Mr. Parnell and the resignation of Mr. Forster were an Irish victory. When Irishmen study more carefully the intrigue and duplicity of English Ministers toward Ireland they will be slow to believe in victory until it is actually obtained. When the Irish flag, the standard of an independent nation, flutters in the breeze over the ruins of Dublin Castle, then, and only then, will victory be assured. To accomplish this let Irishmen take a lesson from their enemy Mr. Gladstone, and let their words take the shape of acts. The Marseillaise thus comments upon the Irish situation : " Thus it is no longer at simple landed proprietors that the musket balls of Ireland are aimed. They strike down the Queen's delegates in broad daylight. We pity the victims, but the immense pity we feel for the horrible situation of the Irish people forbids us to show too much sympathy. Ireland since the first day of the conquest has been in a state of legitimate self-defense. If at the cost of a series of outrages she suc- ceeds in casting off the terrible yoke which the sister island imposes on her what friend of humanity would think of blaming her for it ?" Irishmen will do well if they reflect upon the situation of their country and look on the position of their nation as seen by European eyes. Strange to say, the Irish National journals in free America had, not anything like the intelligent criticism these European journals published of the 6th of May in Dublin. The Citizen criticised the manifesto of the Land League leaders. The English journals were exceedingly displeased with the tone of the comments printed in this paper. In its columns it substituted " execu- tion " or "suppression" for what they termed murder. It said : 424 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. " This manifesto explains itself. There are two organizations in Ireland, one public, the other secret. The former pretends to keep within the limits of legality, and for form 's sake is obliged to protest against the terrorist measures. The above manifesto has at bottom no real sig- nificance." The Citoyen of Paris said : "The Gladstone Cabinet resolved to change its tactics, force proving powerless to checkmate force. The Ministry were determined to try trickery. Then they liberated the suspects, received the Irish members with mellifluous compliments, and lastly sent to Ireland a man of recon- ciliation — Lord Frederick Cavendish. This statesman and his lieutenant one hour after having taken command of the island have been summarily executed by the agents of the Land League. . . If the Government removed coercion it was not out of humanity, but from impotence. It is right that the Irish should take advantage of the situation. . . The triumph of independent Ireland is certain. Thanks to a secret organization composed of tried men and considerable capital furnished by inter- national combinations, the Land League will one day or other win, . . " The means must be adapted to the circumstances. Since in Ireland and Russia there is no liberty, Irishmen are forced to employ what weapons are left to them." The Dublin Irishman, the property of the Parnellites, spoke very differently from their official organ, United Ireland, and gave more strength to the belief of the Dublin men that the Parnell and Dillon proclamation was a ruse to deceive the enemy. No Irish journal in this great free continent spoke with a more patriotic ring than did this newspaper pub- lished 'neath the shadow of Dublin Castle. The Dublin Irishman said : " Without excusing crime of any character or for any purpose, we hold that aggression is always followed by retaliation, and that repression is invariably the cause of outrage. It is not in Ireland alone that hostility on one side begets enmity on the other. Human nature is the same everywhere. No nation suffers injury without making an effort in its own defense. The English people ought to remember that we did not begin the bloody strife which has lasted for seven hundred years. Let them remember it was they who first declared war upon the people of this country. With armed bands they invaded the island, slaughtered the inhabitants, seized their lands, and took possession of their worldly goods. Year after year for centuries the English forces perpetrated many out- rages in the catalogue of crime. As the Irish race could not submit to murder, robbery, and conquest, it fought and struggled against the stream of invasion which continued until recent days. Thus the war has been brought down to our own time, not of our own will, but because the rapacity of the invaders was never satisfied." These- opinions of the European press and the article of the Irish journal speak eloquently in support of the patriots' action in the Phoenix Park. The Parnellite proclamation calls the tragedy cowardly. We question if ever any of the three men whose names were affixed to that lamentable document will ever dare near as much for Ireland. Three or six months' imprisonment for howling at the British is the pinnacle of their martyrdom. The London Times, Ireland's bitter enemy, was com- .pelled to admit that this slaying of the Secretaries was a daring action. This admission was wrung from it. Ought not Irishmen to hide their heads with shame who attempt to belittle the heroic acts of their more self-sacrificing countrymen ? The Times, speaking of the tragedy in its issue one week after the event, in a howl of rage said : "The crime itself was not only brutal, but it was defiant and insolent SCENES AND INCIDENTS AFTER THE TRAGEDY. 425 No one who has not actually examined the surroundings of the scene can be adequately impressed with this fact. All Dublin and many others examined the locality, and they see plainly what it all means — that the secret societies have challenged the whole power of the Executive, the Lord Lieutenant, the Constabulary, and the military in the very heart and centre of their stronghold, and that they have inflicted a blow which will be all-powerful for evil in the immediate future if the authorities are baffled." That was so. The Invincibles sought their foe in the heart and centre of his stronghold. They went there prepared to give Irishmen and the enemy a lesson that will long be remembered. And as long as daring deeds and heroic actions to redeem suffering nations are cherished by mankind, so long will these patriotic Irishmen receive a niche in the temple of fame. There, surrounded by his military, his Constabulary, and within sight of the Lord Deputy, in broad daylight they "sup- pressed" British rule in the person of the chief invader. Not in this generation, perhaps, will the sacrifice be appreciated by their countrymen, for whom some died and others suffered, but when the green island assumes her rightful place among the European nations and the banner of independent Ireland shall be flung to the breeze, free men will remember that amid the hideous night of oppression that William E. Gladstone gave to Ireland there flashed like a star a guiding light of liberty, a steel blade 'mid the black, inky gloom of tyranny, and Irishmen will place the 6th of May in their calendar of great and memorable anniversaries. CHAPTER XXXI. (1882-83.) THE APOSTLE OF VICTORY — SPENCER'S BATTUES OF HANGINGS — "THE BLOODY ASSIZE" — "ACCUSING SPIRITS." The Irish Crimes Bill — Star Chamber Clauses — Became Law July 12, 1882 — Arrests Under the Suspect Act — James Carey Arrested as a Suspect — Scene in Grafton Street — Seizure of a Rifle and Knives — Carey's Horror at the Name Informer — Unveiling the O'Connell Monument — Description of the Festive Scene — Lord Mayor Dawson's Oration — John Mitchel on O'Connell — Imperial Legislators — Lord Mayor and High Sheriff — The Murder Assize — Judge Lawson — Letter from William O'Brien — Francis Hynes' Drunken Jury — Midnight Orgies in the Imperial Hotel — Dublin Freeman on Packed Juries — Irish Protestants — "We've Hands and Hearts for you" — " I'm in Blood " — Callanan, the Perjurer — Judge Lawson and Mr. Gray — Mr. O'Brien Expelled the Court — Judge Lawson Sentences the High Sheriff — Three Months in Prison, .£500 Fine — Sent to Richmond Bridewell — Mr. Barrett, Catholic Foreman of Hynes' Jury — Results of the Bloody Assize — Francis Hynes, Death — Patrick Walsh, Death — Michael Walsh, Death— Penal Servitude for the Others — Perjurers Suffer Remorse— Innocent Men Hanged — Dock in the Court House a Shambles — Mr. O'Brien's Leader in United Ireland — "Accusing Spirits " — Dying Men Protest their Innocence — In the Dock — On the Scaffold — Francis Hynes : "I am Innocent" — Patrick Walsh: " The Day Will Come to Account for my Innocent Life" — Michael Walsh : " Before God and the Virgin I Never Lifted Hand or Foot " — Patrick Hig- gins : "lam Going before my God ; I am as Innocent as the Child in the Cradle " — Myles Joyce : "On my Dying Oath I Never Fired a Shot in my Life" — Thomas Higgins : " I Solemnly Swear I am Innocent ; this is a Slaughtering House " — Michael Flynn : "I am Innocent; I am Glad to go to my God " — Glutted with Blood — " Kicked into Eternity by Marwood " — O'Brien's Arrest — Sent for Trial — Before the Assize. As soon as the excitement into which British Ministerial circles were thrown by the 6th of May tragedy had subsided, and the Land League leaders had resumed their normal condition after the terrible fright which permeated their ranks, caused by the incident in Dublin, the machinery of British Parliamentary rule began its accustomed work. As the machine ran in the usual groove, it met at this time with no unusual friction. The now weak and puny resistance of the Irish changelings was not perceptible. What a contrast to the bold, determined, and out- spoken opposition of one year ago, that is, so far as Parliamentary oppo- sition in an alien assembly can be so characterized. Mr. Gladstone, pale, weary, and irritable, was suffering under a twofold trouble : the death of his friend and colleague, Lord Frederick Cavendish, who was a relative of his wife, and the wound inflicted on his vanity by the upsetting of his deep-laid scheme for the pacification of Ireland. Yet the lesson which the Irish Secretary's death taught him stung him to the soul ; he scarce gave a moment's reflection to the many lives which were sacrificed by the policy he enforced in Ireland and in the Transvaal ; many who lost their lives in that bloody struggle were his own countrymen. He had thrown off the mask of amiability, with full determination to strain every engine of persecution to the utmost to make stubborn Ireland subservient to his will. His new Crimes Bill, which he originally intended to intro- duce under the plea of having to combat with Irish secret societies, as admitted by Mr. Chamberlain, one of his Cabinet, at a subsequent date, was made more stringent by the addition of a new clause, a renewal of the Star Chamber inquisition of a few centuries back. This clause was 426 THE APOSTLE OF VICTORY. 427 restored to a British Act of Parliament by the enlightened and liberty- loving Premier who had denounced before the world the despotism of Neapolitan prison life, and wrote so appealingly to the humane peoples of the world of the imprisonment of Silvio Pellico. He was now again forging fresh fetters for unhappy Ireland. This inquisition clause com- pelled men who were arrested and charged with no offense to testify to their own opinions and actions and those of their friends before Mr. Gladstone's "Grand Inquisitor," John Curran, in Dublin Castle. It was unfortunate for Mr. Gladstone, as it has been both before and since that period for other English Premiers, that he could not, when a crisis came upon him, punish Ireland in proportion to his desires ; as that island has as much coercion as British ingenuity can invent, it is found impossible to conceive any new or fresh torments. There is but one great and serious loss which Ireland can be com- pelled to endure in addition to her normal woes, and this great loss she is told is irremediable. It is this grief, which she was then about to suffer under : the absence of all encouraging, friendly, and hopeful speeches from England's great Liberal Premier. To hear angry words from that good man, whose heart was wrung with grief and agony, and to know that he felt compelled to utter them — this was indeed additional punish- ment, and of more import to Ireland than all Britain's chains and tor- ments. To learn that she no longer lived under the sunshine of the benevolent smile of that noble and whole-souled Englishman — it was the last cup of her many sorrows, and was, or ought to be, according to the legal agitators, sufficient to drive unhappy Ireland into the depths of despair. Mr. Gladstone introduced his Irish Crimes Bill into the British Com- mons, and after passing that chamber it went in due course to the House of Lords, and on the famous anniversary of a battle in Ireland between two foreign kings, on July 12, 1882, the British sovereign's consent was given to the measure and it became law. On Wednesday, July 5, 1882, there were, arrested in Dublin City some four or five men under the " suspect " provisions of the expiring " Protec- tion to Life and Property Act," which was soon to be succeeded by its sanguinary relative entitled the " Prevention of Crimes Act." Among these prisoners of the English enemy were Daniel Curley, Edward McCaffery, and Peter Doyle, names which became familiar a little later. The cause of their arrest was suspicion of being identified with the kill- ing of John Kenney, who was executed for treason, giving information to the British enemy which had resulted in the seizure of some arms belonging to the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The British suspected these men of being energetic in the I. R. B. ranks, and without a tittle of evidence to connect them with the execution of Kenney the enemy arrested them on vague suspicion. James Carey, since much spoken of, was imprisoned for the same cause. Previous to his arrest under the Suspect Act, and a day or two after Kenney was shot, Carey in talking to an Irish Nationalist of this occur- rence said in reply to some remarks made to him : " It would be a terri- ble thing to be shot as a traitor and to be really innocent ; it is not so much the loss of life as the stain and degradation on your memory, and then think of the infamous name which would be attached to your children and their posterity. It is too horrible to think of." Carey was really sincere in these expressions ; he had the Irishman's horror and dread of the name of informer. He would have shuddered with disgust and repulsiveness himself if he could have been shown at that time the picture of his future degradation. There was not money enough in the British Treasury to have purchased Carey's betrayal of any secret of importance, 428 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. and yet he carried within him that speck of rotten cowardice which, plaguelike, spread itself over the whole frame, destroying the goodly pro- portions that were there before. A few days after Carey's imprisonment one of his tenants, named John Fitzsimons, who noticed him making secret visits to a loft in the tene- ment house where this man lived, hearing of his arrest, was curious to pay a visit to the loft and see what was secreted there. He did so and found two surgical knives and a very expensive and valuable rifle. Tempted by the large reward, and suspecting they were in some way connected with revolutionary business, of which he probably knew nothing and was one of the utterly indifferent, he visited the police and made his bargain for their surrender. The Government considered it got a prize, but this prize was not very long in its possession until its capture was known to the Irish Nationalists ; it filtered through the supposed secret portals of Scotland Yard. The account of this seizure was not published until some time after Carey's release, which occurred, owing to the expiration of the " Suspect" Act, late in September. The great event of the year, the completion of the O'Connell monu- ment, came round, which filled with joy those patriotic and noble souls who believe in freeing nations by the force of words. On August 3 the bronze statue of the great talker arrived in Dublin and was taken to the pedestal at the foot of O'Connell Street (late Sackville) ; it was safely deposited, and over it was raised the national flag, Ireland's green banner. The gentlemen who did this no doubt thought they were honoring the memory of O'Connell, but it seems a satire. Mr. O'Connell was a faithful subject of the Queen of Britain ; he never wavered in any manner from his allegiance to that royal throne from the days of his early manhood when as a volunteer he wore the British livery against the men of '98, whom he must have considered rebels, down to the year of the Queen's accession when at a banquet in England in that year of grace 1837 he proffered the English people 100,000 loyal Irishmen to keep their young Queen on the throne if necessary. There had been some rumors at that time of a conspiracy to depose the young Queen and place one of her royal uncles on the throne instead. In this conspiracy the Orangemen were supposed to be implicated, which story the pious and loyal O'Connell, a faithful upholder of British legiti- matists and of their banner the union jack, most devoutly believed in. On the morning of the 15th day of August, 1882, Dublin put on her holiday attire to honor the memory of her matchless orator, Daniel O'Connell. An English writer, a close observer of Irish processions, thus describes the scene : " The demonstration, viewed as a whole, was picturesque and imposing. The effect of the procession was, however, marred by the want of order and compactness in the leading files. They were directed to walk six deep, but they did not observe any fixed arrangement, the files being quite irregular and ranging from three to nine deep. They also got mixed up in the crowd, and when the procession halted, as it frequently had to do, its members were quite undistinguishable from the dense throng in which they stood. They all wore green embroidered scarves across their shoulders, green ribbons in their hats or tufts of palm and and other leaves ; but as the crowd of spectators wore the same badges there were no marks by which the men who marched would be recognized, as numbers of people not belonging to their ranks, especially females, walked along with them. " Each trade and other organized body was preceded by a carriage, in which the standard was borne, and immediately behind these were the bands, which were dressed in showy, and in some instances fantastic, uni- THE APOSTLE OF VICTORY. 429 forms of green and gold. Small bannerets of different colors were carried by the files, and men on horseback with white wands were supposed to act as marshals, but in the presence of the immense crowds through which they had to make their way the authority of the marshals was of little avail. Many of the banners were of an elaborate and costly character having various pictorial representations upon them, in which Erin with her harp and other attendant emblems was the most prominent figure. Some of the scientific decorations were artistically done, and they were mounted in heavy gilt frames or hung on burnished poles. They had expressive inscriptions upon them, such as ' Divided we fall, united we stand,' 'Ireland a nation,' 'Success to Irish industry,' and numerous national mottoes. " The irregular movements of the processionists suggested a belief that the Fenian element was little if at all represented in the demonstra- tion. The spectator who had seen the anniversary processions and the McManus funeral could not fail to remark the absence of the solid bodies who then marched with military precision and with a bold and resolute air, which seemed to challenge comparison with the disciplined forces of the Crown." The writer truly depicts by this procession the state of Ireland then and now, the work of legal and moral agitation ; it has sapped the revolutionary energy of the young men. The surrender of the leading men of the old school to the doctrine of talk had produced these sad and disheartening results spoken of by the writer and plainly visible even in a procession. The people were publicly taught to follow this gigantic fraud " moral and legal agitation " to coax England to surrender her control of Ire- land to Irishmen. At the foot of the statue was a raised dais for those who were to- take part in the ceremonies of the day : Lord Mayor Dawson, High Sheriff Gray, Mr. Parnell, and other prominent Irishmen. One of the most conspicuous of these was The O'Gorman Mahon, who seconded the nomination of O'Connell at the remarkable Clare election. Lord Mayor Dawson, M. P., delivered a magnificent address on O'Connell and his times ; two paragraphs are here quoted : " It is owing to the exertions of O'Connell in a most particular man- ner that to-day one of his co-religionists can wear the official robes of the Lord Mayor of the city of Dublin. " The very portals of the Imperial Legislature had previously been opened to the members of our faith." Of what benefit, Mr. Dawson, has been this concession you speak of to your people that it should continue to still further deceive them into the pursuit of these imaginary honors ? Has this concession, as you think and term it, started one loom in Ireland, or lifted one fetter of tyranny from off the Irish breast ? You know it has not. Even at the present time of writing the Lord Mayor of Dublin (T. D. Sullivan) in this year 1887 is imprisoned, sentenced to two months for publishing the announce- ment of a meeting of men who call themselves the " National League," and whose whole programme for the freedom of Ireland consists in denouncing the British Government, and passing resolutions against the acts of tyranny performed daily by that Government, and loudly protesting against the murders of their countrymen. This organization has offended the powers that be, and Ireland's Lord Mayor is sent to jail because he, forsooth, published an account of their proceedings and of their speeches. Does he wear the insignia of his office in prison in honor of the great benefits O'Connell showered upon him ? 43° THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. The portals of that Legislature which Mr. Dawson calls " Imperial " have been opened by the great O'Connell. What a doubtful blessing to Ireland. " What a great victory." Ireland should rejoice ! One year before this Mr. Dawson and thirty-five other Irishmen were turned out of that Legislature by the instructions of the " Grand Old Man." Is it possible that these courteous gentlemen, of such varied literary attainments and ability, and the soul of social enjoyments, are deprived of all true man- hood — that a craven, degrading and coward spirit animates their frames ? Yes, yes ! it must not be forgotten the influence that the British Parlia- ment has had in corrupting and destroying any spark of manly dignity or Irish patriotism that ever animated them. Mr. Parnell was loudly called for ; he came forward, oh ! so changed. The Phoenix Park tragedy and his imprisonment were noticeable in his nervous, twitching manner and gait. Gone were the dash and energy once possessed by the grandson of Old Ironsides. His carelessness in appearance, which has developed so much lately, was noticeable. He spoke a few words, tried to be hopeful : it was but the sickly echo of other days. Very many good Irishmen, truly patriotic, sincerely believe in that great man Daniel O'Connell as a Nationalist. Let there be quoted for them the words of an undoubted Irish patriot, one who believed with William Tell, and who would neither doff his hat nor bend his knee to Gessler Gladstone nor any British statesman — John Mitchel : " At the head of that open and legal agitation was a man of giant proportions in body and in mind ; with no profound learning, not even indeed in his own profession of law, but with a vast and varied knowledge of human nature in all its strength, and especially in all its weakness ; with a voice like thunder and earthquake, yet musical and soft at will as the song of birds ; with a genius and fancy tempestuous, playful, cloudy, fiery, mournful, merry, lofty, arid mean by turns as the mood was on him — a humor broad, bacchant, riant, genial, and jovial ; with profound and spontaneous natural feeling, and superhuman and subterhuman passions ; yet, withal, a boundless fund of masterly affectation and consummate histrionism — hating and loving heartily, outrageous in his merriment, and passionate in his lamentation. He had the power to make other men hate or love, laugh or weep, at his good pleasure — insomuch that Daniel O'Connell, by virtue of being more entirely Irish, carrying to a more extravagant pitch all Irish strength and passion and weakness, than other Irishmen, led and swayed his people by a kind of divine or else diabolic right. He led them, as 1 believe, all wrong for forty years. " He was a lawyer, and never could come to the point of denying and defying all British law. He was a Catholic, sincere and devout, and would not see that the Church had ever been the enemy of Irish freedom. He was an aristocrat by position and by taste, and the name of a republic was odious to him. Moreover, his success as a Catholic agitator ruined both him and his country. By mere agitation, by harmless exhibition of numerical force, by imposing demonstrations (which are fatal nonsense), and by eternally half unsheathing a visionary sword, which friends and foes knew alike to be a phantom, he had, as he believed, coerced the British Government to pass a relief bill, and admit Catholics to Parlia- ment and some offices. " Poor old Dan ! Wonderful, mighty, jovial, and mean old man, with silver tongue and smile of witchery, and heart of melting ruth — lying tongue, smile of treachery, heart of unfathomable fraud ! What a royal yet vulgar soul, with the keen eye and potent sweep of a generous eagle of Cairn Tual — with the base servility of a hound and the cold THE APOSTLE OF VICTORY. 431 cruelty of a spider. Think of his speech for John Magee, the most powerful forensic achievement since before Demosthenes, and think of the ' gorgeous and gossamer ' theory of moral and peaceful agitation, the most astounding organum of public swindling since first man bethought him of obtaining money under false pretenses. And after one has thought of all this, and more, what can a man say ? What but pray that Irish earth may lie light on O'Connell's breast, and that the good God, who knew how to create so wondrous a creature, may have mercy on his soul." And we heartily and prayerfully say Amen to Ireland's true patriot, whose noble soul was wrung with anguish many a time to see the follies by which Irishmen aim to serve their country. To-day Ireland is inflicted with a repetition of O'Connell's movement, but one that started out with brighter hopes. The manhood of Ireland thought it would, like the United Irishmen's legal and moral open agitation, become a moral and truly legal — in an Irish, not an alien sense — movement following in the footsteps of George Washington, and that its leader, like Wolfe Tone, would devote all his energies to the salvation of his country, Ireland. Instead it has fallen back into the O'Connell groove of perpetual talk ; it is now in its senility and dotage, depending for success on the smiles of an aged Englishman whom all its leaders bitterly and justly denounced. But, worst of all, it has instilled its poison into the young manhood at home, many of whom are steeped heart and soul in this doctrine of arguing English rule away. The new engine of torture that was invented by the diabolic side of the Premier statesmanship, the " Crimes Bill," was now about to be put into practice, and the most astounding and infamous of crimes were to be enacted in the light of day, sanctioned by the pirate rule of Britain. Murder was about to be perpetrated by the invader's myrmidons under the outward forms and ceremonies of law. It was not alone that the courts were illegal, having no authority for their existence in Ireland but the mandate of a foreign government ; but even according to the enemy's own supposed authority they were an outrage and a lie on any- thing that men could call justice. So glaring and brutal was the system of manufacturing what was termed evidence, and the packing of hostile Irish traitors as jurymen — that the jurors selected were prepared to bring in any verdict that the enemy's lawyers required. Men also sat on the bench who represented that foreign law, and who went there with the deliberate purpose of hanging and imprisoning any men arraigned before them, utterly indifferent as to whether these men were associated with the so-called offenses or crimes charged against them. The enemy's object was to strike terror into the community, and make his rule so feared, if not respected, that the Irish serfs would not dare to dream of any opposition to his sway, but would bow and cringe inwardly as they did outwardly through their weak-nerved Provincial leaders. The manufactured and perjured testimony which British gold and British corruption bred among the dregs of the population was appalling, using as their tools the vilest and most atrocious scoundrels — wretches who were always infamous in their private lives; these witness concocted vile stories, or they were prepared for them by the enemy's lawyers for the deliberate purpose of sending Irishmen to the scaffold. These perjurers never had any association with the events that they were trained to swear to. These polluted tools of British law, these " saviors of society" as it is organized under the pirate flag of Ireland's invader, were put before mankind as Crown witnesses for a twofold purpose. In the first instance, their evidence gave the enemy a colorable reason for murder- ing certain Irishmen whom he suspected of hostility to his rule, or 43 2 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. else that he considered necessary to hang, to impress upon the people of a district his great power and the vengeance which was certain to follow the violation of his code of laws. But his second reason was even of more import to his rule. He wished to break down confidence among Irishmen, one with another, and to show the uneducated and unthinking masses that all associations and combinations against his rule in the country are permeated with treason, and that the patriot ranks are filled with British spies. This black and damning lie, which Irish Nationalists know to be as false as the hearts of the wretches who conceived it, has been of incalculable service to the British enemy and of terrific destruction to the Irish cause. There are men in Ireland to-day who, if this was true or even wore the semblance of truth, would long since have been put to death by the foe, and others who would be to-day toiling in the enemy's dungeons. It is with the full, complete, and perfect knowledge that this statement of the enemy is an infamous lie, that these brave Irishmen remain toiling in the patriot ranks under the pirate flag of the enemy, thoroughly convinced that not one of their comrades would betray them to the foe for all the gold in the British Treasury. These hired, per- jured wretches put forward during this Crimes Act Special Com- mission never had a spark of patriotism in their filthy souls, although the enemy paraded them before mankind as informers to blacken the character of the men who combine against his rule, and coupled with this degradation they enabled him to give a semblance of legality to the crimes he was about to commit against the unhappy men he had selected as victims. Some of these wretched perjurers were terrorized into giving evidence by some police constable seeking promotion and reward, and then turned over to the skilled care of Bolton, the Crown solicitor, who carefully drilled the witnesses. Many of these abominable creatures, when free from the grasp of the police and the lawyer, felt a remorse for their wicked conduct ; some ray of their early innocence dawned upon their blackened lives. They sought out their religious advisers, and under their advice made a public confession of their guilt and of their complete ignorance of the various transactions which they so circumstantially swore to in the enemy's court house, giv- ing publicity to the system by which they were trained to commit the foul crimes they practiced on the witness table. These retractions were brought to the notice of the British pirate chief in Ireland, Spencer, by in one instance no less an authority than a Roman Catholic archbishop, but this British criminal, acting under the instructions and authority of his master, the sleek and wily William Ewart Gladstone, would not even grant a respite to reopen the evidence, but deliberately, willfully, and knowingly sent to their graves men who had taken no part whatever in the alleged offenses charged against them. This is a serious and solemn charge and likely to shock the minds of those who, by previous preju- dices and preconceived impressions, are not in a condition to receive the truth. Of so great a depth is this infamy foreign rule in Ireland that the plainly stated facts appear incredible to those who are blest with the glorious freedom of this Grand Republic. It is like the glare of the noonday sun on the eyes of a man confined in a dark and gloomy dungeon. The present writer in arraigning before the high court of mankind the black and foul crime of alien rule in his country, and in showing by what demoniac contrivances the invader tries to fasten his destructive rule upon it, feels that he cannot filter this light, but must use harsh and con- demnatory language in trying to publicly expose a system more hateful than the Inquisition, more barbarous than the rule of the Turk in Bulgaria, more abominable and more detestable than the infamies of a Nero or a THE APOSTLE OF VICTORY. 433 Caligula, because of the skilled hypocrisy by which Ireland's relentless enemies, Tory or Radical (it is immaterial which faction rules), try to corrupt, ruin, and destroy the inhabitants of the island they have impov- erished and degraded by their rule. He wishes to show liberty-loving and just people that if ever there lived a race under God's sunlight justified in revolting against tyranny, justified in the eyes of the Deity and all mankind in resorting to all and every melhod of destroying their barbarous and inhuman persecutors, who are seeking to drag Irish intellect to the level of the brute creation, that people to-day is the Irish race. There can be no possible compromise with this hideous crime. The unspeakable Briton must leave Ireland bag and baggage. So palpable was the enormity of the offenses committed by the Brit- ish courts in Ireland at this period that they shocked the Provincial organs, and even compelled the Provincial leader, in spite of his secret alliance proffered to and accepted by Mr. Gladstone, to denounce the hideousness of these offenses. The Special Commission opened in Green Street, Dublin, early in August, 1882. The Dublin Freeman s Journal, in its issue of August nth, in its editorial column comments on these trials : " Yesterday at the Commission Court the first jury trial under the Crimes Act took place. John O'Connor and three others, all natives of Kerry, were placed in the dock charged with, on the 17th of March last at Fahey in the county of Kerry, having attacked the house of Mrs. Murphy, the widow of an officer in the army. Under the ordinary law the men would have been tried in Kerry, where the alleged offense took place ; but availing himself of the provisions of the Crimes Act, the attorney-general moved the case to Dublin, and under the same measure a special jury was impaneled from a joint county and city panel. The Crown exercised its right to challenge on a wholesale scale, and no less than nineteen persons, some of them most respectable citizens, were ordered to ' stand aside.' The facts of the case will be found reported elsewhere. All the prisoners were convicted, but the jury accompanied the finding with a strong recommendation for mercy, and sentence was deferred." The Dublin Freeman of the 12th of August, further alluding to these trials, observes : " We are unwilling to credit the rumor that the court has resolved that juries exclusively or almost exclusively Protestant shall determine in some cases the liberty, in others the lives, of the prisoners on trial at Green Street. Yet color is lent to the report by the fact that yesterday in the capital case, just as on the previous day in the Whiteboy case, Catholic gentlemen of admitted respectability and position were ordered to ' stand aside ' when they took the book to be sworn. To the gentlemen in question no stereotyped trade objection can be alleged, and the inference therefore is that they were shoved aside from their duties as jurors simply because they are Catholics. If this is true an odious and, it was hoped, obsolete practice has been revived, and the course, if taken, as unnecessary as it is injudicious, must naturally cause indignation and resentment in Catholic circles. The notion that such men as Edward Lenehan of Castle Street, William Dennehy of John Street, and others whom we could mention could not be trusted to find a true verdict according to evidence in county cases brought to Dublin for trial, which is the simple and only inference, is offensive in the extreme. The representatives of the Crown could not venture to publicly make such a declaration. Yet the names of the gentlemen specified appear in the public list of the rejected. The matter is one that calls for inquiry and explanation. For the present we will only express 434 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. our regret that the representatives of the Crown should deem it neces- sary and expedient to boycott Catholic special jurors of the city and county of Dublin. That this has been done we fear there is no doubt, and we apprehend that no other interpretation of the action of the Crown can be given than that Catholic gentlemen are subjected to the shocking imputation that they are not unprepared to violate the solemn obligations of their oath in cases which are supposed to arise out of political agita- tion in the country. " Would the managers of the Crown prosecutions in Green Street dare openly to make such an accusation ? " It is difficult to characterize this article ; it was evidently written by a narrow-minded bigot, a serf and slave to foreign rule in Ireland. Is it an Irish Catholic gentleman's duty any more than an Irish Protestant gentleman's to perform England's office in upholding her monstrous system in Ireland ? These gentlemen who were told to " stand aside " were honored by the request. They were loyal Irishmen, and not rebels and traitors to Ireland, whom the enemy could count on returning what verdict suited the almighty majesty of the usurping foreigner and his courts in the country. They were not told to " stand aside " because they were Catholics, but because the enemy believed them honest Irish- men, who would not stain their souls in his degrading service. It has been proven to the satisfaction of Irishmen, even of those who hold narrow and bigoted views, that England's hirelings hugged to their heart any Catholic as well as Protestant who would do her work of infamy in the island of the Gaels. The Nationalists of Ireland had been struggling for years to remove the monstrous British lie that Irish nationality meant nothing but sub- serviency to one particular form of Christian worship, and that it also meant persecution, if successful, to all non-Catholics. In the history of falsehoods which have been circulated and believed in by deluded mankind there has been no more atrocious and wicked lie than this British mendacity, except its counterpart, which is equally mis- chievous — Mr. Gladstone's " Home Rule," which will be spoken of further on. The great heart of Ireland is throbbing with love and devo- tion to all her children ; she knows no difference between them, be they but honest, leal, and true. Irish Nationalists, sincere, pious, and faithful Catholics as many of them are, would rise up in indignation and repu- diation if any such unheard of doctrine as the British enemy preaches were attempted to be put in practice : the faintest hint of prejudice against their non-Catholic fellow-countrymen. They revere and respect the memory of their great Irish Protestant patriots, whom England done to death for loyalty to their native land. No, Protestant fellow country- men, your Catholic brothers say to you : We have no curse for you and yours, But friendship's ready grasp, And faith to stand by you and yours Unto our latest gasp — To stand by you against all foes, Howe'er or whence they come, With traitor arts, or bribes, or blows, From England, France, or Rome. We do not hate, we never cursed, Nor spoke a foeman's word Against a man in Ireland nursed, Howe'er we thought he erred ; So start not, Irish-born man If you're to Ireland true ; We heed not race, nor creed, nor clan, We've hearts and hands for you. THE APOSTLE OF VICTORY. 435 The following letter, published in the Dublin Freeman, explains itself : " THE JURY IN THE ENNIS MURDER CASE. " Imperial Hotel, Dublin, August 13, 1882. " Dear Sir : I think the public ought to be made aware of the fol- lowing facts : The jury in the murder case of The Queen v. Hynes were last night ' locked up,' as it is termed, for the night at the Imperial Hotel, where I also was staying. I was awakened from sleep shortly after midnight by the sounds of a drunken chorus, succeeded after a time by scuffling, rushing, coarse laughter, and horse-play. Along the corridor on which my bedroom opened a number of men, it seemed to me, were falling about the passage in a maudlin state of drunkenness, playing ribald jokes. I listened with patience for a considerable time, when the door of my bedroom was burst open, and a man whom I can identify (for he carried a candle unsteadily in his hand) staggered in, plainly under the influence of drink, hiccupping, 'Halloa, old fellow, all alone?' My answer was of a character that induced him to bolt out of the room in as disordered a manner as he had entered. Having rung the bell, I ascertained that these disorderly persons were jurors in the case of The Queen v. Hynes, and that the servants of the hotel had been endeavoring in vain to bring them to a sense of their misconduct. I thought it right to convey to them a warning that the public would hear of those pro- ceedings. The disturbance then ceased. It is fair to add that not more than three or four men appeared to be engaged in the roaring and in the tipsy horse-play that followed. I leave the public to judge the loath- someness of such a scene upon the night when these men held the issues of life and death for a young man in the flower of youth, when they had already heard evidence which, if unrebutted, they must have known would send him to a felon's grave. These facts I am ready to support on oath. " William O'Brien." This description, so graphically given, describe the class of men who performed the mockery of trial over Irishmen whose political views were inimical to the stranger's rule, and who were arrested to glut the venge- ance of the gentle and peace-loving Mr. Gladstone, who was the high priest of the oracle "justice to Ireland." The "Grand Old Man" could have said at this time with Macbeth : I am in blood Stept in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er. Many Irishmen will remember the recent case of the killing of Head Constable Whelehan in a contest with some peasant laborers who call themselves "Moonlighters," and of the evidence of a suborned perjurer named Callanan. Some men with conveniently short memories held up their hands in horror at the infamies of the brutal Tories — and brutal they are and have been. Some English Liberals denounced the Tory Government for the hiring of this degraded wretch. This self-convicted thief Callanan was first engaged under the Government of the sanctimoni- ous Mr. Gladstone, and during this scarlet regime very probably per- formed some secret infamies for his paymasters, they not requiring him on the witness table. He was one of the infamous legacies which the Tories took over from Mr. Gladstone when, with Irish rejoicing, it came to be their turn to take the reins of office. The red earl and his entourage in the government of Ireland were 436 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLKS. indignant at Mr. Gray for publishing such an expose" of their hanging machinery, and notwithstanding the two blessings — as Mr. Dawson would term them — which the great O'Connell gave to the Irish people and which they conferred upon Mr. Gray — namely, High Sheriff of the city of Dublin, and a member of the " Imperial " Legislature, he was brought before the commission, presided over by that Solomon and Daniel comprised in one man Judge Lawson, whose memory to Irishmen is as pure (?) as his judgments were just (J). Before his Lordship he was arraigned, we cannot say for judgment — for that decision was no doubt settled at the privy council of Castle conspirators of which this tyrannic judge was a member — but for sentence. The following scene took place in court : Mr. Gray. " Therefore the solicitor-general may have something to say if I prove that these jurors misconducted themselves. Was it not my duty as a public journalist, being informed they had heen drinking in the public billiard room, and " Judge Lawson (interrupting angrily). " I think you had better not make any statement of the kind, for it will not at all assist your case." Mr. Gray. " I will not follow up those statements further." Judge Lawson. "I believe them to be totally devoid of truth. It was a most respectable jury, and the foreman said all were perfectly sober, and I believe him." Mr. Gray. " My Lord " The Judge. " Mr. Gray, you had better not repeat these statements at all. If an action for libel were brought against the man who wrote this article, then you might be justified in trying to justify your action, but in the present instance you are not. The charge is that you com- mitted a contempt of court by writing these statements." Mr. Barrett of Kingstown (the foreman of the jury). " The jury courts the fullest inquiry into their conduct." Mr. William O'Brien. " As writer of the letter I wish " His Lordship. " Sit down, sir." Mr. Gray tried to justify his position before Norbury the third — his Lordship Keogh being the second bearer of that judicial Irish title — but he might as well have tried to get back the snow which fell in his childhood. His sentence was decreed in the Castle. Mr. William O'Brien. " Do justice to Mr. Gray." His Lordship. " Remove that man ; he has no right to be there at all." Mr. O'Brien. " My Lord " His Lordship. " Remove him at once from the court." A police constable then touched Mr. O'Brien on the shoulder and he arose and left the court. Judge Lawson then proceeded to pass sentence on Mr. Gray. After a long preamble he said : " I therefore feel bound, in the exercise of the undoubted discretion which is vested in me, both to imprison and fine. Accordingly the sentence of the court is that (it appearing that these articles committed contempt of court) you Edmund Dwyer Gray be imprisoned for the term of three calendar months, and pay a fine to her Majesty the Queen of ,£500, and after the termination of that three months to give securities (yourself in ^5000 and two securities in ^"2500 each) to be of good behavior and to keep the peace for the term of six months, or in default to be imprisoned for a further term of three months. " Let Mr. Gray be now taken into custody." The officials of the court were puzzled what to do ; there was no prec- edent for thus arbitrarily arresting a High Sheriff; but the instructions of THE APOSTLE OF VICTORY. 437 the amiable Judge Lawson were from a higher source and from a man equally as amiable and just, the sanctimonious Mr. Gladstone. The order was repeated in still more peremptory tones. Thus Mr. E. D. Gray, High Sheriff and Imperial Legislator — which honors O'Connell had opened up to him — had to go to prison, for that great Irishman whom Mr. Gray and his friends were doing honor to a few days previous by unveiling his statue had by some oversight neglected to place a barrier between Irish- men and arbitrary arrest, so that Mr. O'ConnelPs " Imperial " Legislators have often since, and recently, aired these honors as inmates of a jail. Mr. Gray, a loyal subject of the house of Hanover, and who always scolded those wicked physical force men, and tried to lecture them into a fitting state of respect and reverence for the authority of that good and great Hanoverian lady who wears the crown of the Guelphs — Mr. Gray was sent off to Richmond Bridewell escorted by a troop of Hussars, and there he was taught that wholesome moral lesson " Cease to do evil, learn to do well." Mr. Gray's paper the Freeman complained that Catholic jurors were told to stand aside. That they were so told is unquestioned, but, as stated, it was not because of their religion, but because of their National tendencies or supposed National tendencies in the eyes of these gangrened employees of the " Grand Old Man." The foreman of Francis Hynes' jury, Mr. James Barrett, J. P., who so heroically defended his brothe* jurors was a Catholic of the Catholics. He was the devoted servant and faithful friend of his Eminence Cardinal McCabe, the then Archbishop of Dublin. No man could look with more horror than he did upon Orange- men ; he hated them as a faithful henchman of Mr. Gladstone and as a West-British Liberal, and he looked upon them with horror as a zealous son of the Church. And yet this devilishly cunning system — British rule in Ireland — has so manipulated the training and education of these opposing ele- ments, pandering to the prejudices and the bigotry of both ; it has so successfully blinded both with false and lying teachings — teachings in- stilled into them from childhood — that they emulated each other in their worship of that foe to their country's prosperity, the rule of England. Each of these upholders of British law and order was always ready, when necessary, to fly at each other's throats, because they were maddened and made insane by the fatal drug which the Briton administered to them for his own vile purposes. The Freeman and other Catholic journals com- plain, in true West-British style, that their co-religionists are not asked to do England's degrading offices. They are always not only invited, but given the robe of honor when they present themselves, as they did in the person of Mr. Barrett. For the " ruler of the waves " cares nothing about their forms of worship, whether Buddhists, Mohammedans, or idol- ators. The religion Britain wants is loyal and dutiful obedience to her laws and respect for her flag. This assize, over which Norbury the third, Judge Lawson, presided, produced a generous supply of perjury on the part of the witnesses, an equal abundance of prejudice and cringing servility on the part of the jury, and of bitter, unrelenting partisanship on the part of the judge, who was also one of the Executive Council who ordered these arrests which he was to go through the mockery of trying. This assize turned out victims for the scaffold and dungeon enough for one short, maiden effort of the Crimes machine, which must have made glad the heart of the benevolent Mr. Gladstone, from whom all blessings flow to Ireland. The following was the list of work the Prime Minister's patent turned out : Francis Hynes, to be hanged September n in Limerick jail ; Patrick 43 s THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINC1BLES. Walsh, to be hanged September 22, Galway jail ; Captain Rorke, penal servitude, sixteen years ; Maurice Costello, Richard Savage, and John Cromien, ten years' penal servitude ; Luke Kenny, penal servitude for life ; John Kinsella, twenty years' penal servitude ; Jeremiah Duggan and William Brosnin, ten and fifteen years respectively ; George Ward, seven years' penal servitude ; and Michael Walsh, to be executed in Galway jail October 28. The offenses these men were charged with were not crimes of the ordinary kind ; they were the outcome of the condition of Ireland under despotic alien laws, and the men arrested and convicted — even to death — were not the actual perpetrators of these alleged crimes. Mr. Gladstone's agent of peace to Ireland, the man whom it was said would bring an era of happiness in exchange for Forster's tyranny — this man, then irreverently called by Mr. T. D. Sullivan and Mr. O'Brien " Foxy Jack," must have known he was sending men to the scaffold who were wholly innocent of the offenses charged against them. He was not only made aware of this by men of National tendencies, but by the most ultra-loyaliststo Victoria's throne. Instance Canon Pope of Dublin, who, like Mr. Lynch of Elphin, no doubt believed her Sacred British Majesty the greatest monarch since the days of Alfred the Great. Canon Pope stormed the viceregal throne with his petitions of mercy for Francis Hynes. But all in vain ; the red earl had to do his master's duty, to strike terror into the disaffected Irish. Innocent or guilty, some- one must hang to glut British Liberal vengeance. The red earl came to celebrate Mr. Parnell's great victory, and he was carrying out his mission in a gratifying manner according to the Premier's instructions. The men who were witnesses against these prisoners were hired perjurers of the Callanan type, who swore to order, whether they knew anything of these cases or not. Some of them out of some species of remorse publicly retracted their statements, and although it was proven to the satisfaction of any man open to conviction that these men's testimony was a hideous, black, blistering, murderous lie, yet the men were hanged, and the others, also innocent, were and are still incarcerated in penal dungeons. Although Mr. Gladstone enjoyed six months' term of office in 1886, when he posed as a " Home Rule " Premier and savior of Ireland, he did not release from prison these falsely convicted men. Mr. William O'Brien in his paper went so far as to state that Lord Spencer hanged these men full well knowing at the time they were inno- cent, but that he wanted victims. In this very strong statement he was indorsed by his Parliamentary colleagues, and there is no reason, as already stated, to doubt the truth of this most damning statement. This was the opening of that new regime of peace which American Irishmen, on the platform and in the columns of their leading organs, hailed as a great victory, and which the people at home turned out with bands to cheer their countrymen with the music of their rejoicings, but which the continued sanguinary rule of the divine William marred by the groans of mangled and murdered children in Ballina, and various brutal assaults on bandsmen over the country. It may be said that the Phoenix Park tragedy caused this change in the Premier. Facts, not opinions, contradict this. The offenses alleged against these innocent men had neither connection with nor relation in any way to that historic event. The offenses they were charged with were those which arose from the land struggles and retaliation for cruel injuries, all of which were the offspring of alien misgovernment. They were not in any sense intended as an opposition to the rule which was the author of all these cruel distresses, nor could they in any manner affect that rule. They were the fruit of foul injuries done under the name of THE APOSTLE OF VICTORY. '439 law, and against which the perpetrators struck in the person of that law's agents, whether as the law's administrators or the recipients of some benefits unjustly acquired. The victims were in nearly all cases Irish peasants with the grasping miserly habits engendered by centuries of poverty and all its attendant evils and the degradation which foreign rule has tried to instill into the souls of Irishmen. It was what might be, and has been, called the " wild justice of revenge." Irish Nationalists have never made such internal semi-social struggles any part of their programme; on the contrary, during Fenian days, many of these small local societies, organized to resent the foul injustices done them, were broken up and merged into the great organization then pre- paring to fight Britain for independence. Every National leader has always had results in view whenever action was taken. In the rescues it was not alone to free their imprisoned brethren, but to give morale and prestige to the movement — a morale, in the humble judgment of many, better given by striking the foe. When Irishmen think of the hecatomb of crimes which foreign rule has engen- dered and still produces in that beautiful western island which God gave to their forefathers, it is no wonder that they cherish feelings of bitter hostility against the ruthless inhabitants of the neighboring island that have so insolently and wantonly invaded their country. This invader's career is marked by blood from the day the first Anglo-Norman stepped upon the Irish shore to the last insolent assertion of usurped authority, imprisoning the people at his good will and pleasure. Out upon the cant and moral cowardice of Irishmen who secretly rejoice at blows struck at this cruel foe and who outwardly condemn any action taken against British rule in Ireland. Have you not, good friends, begged and whined long enough ? If you think differently be it so. There are men who will not be of your belief, good, gentle Irish brothers. And as you are for peace at any price, out with your handkerchiefs and weep more of those melting tears. Perhaps the grim Saxon foe will fling you your island out of pity for your dolorous woe. This bloody assize was the opening of gentle John Poyntz's mild sway, which was only different from Forster's by its quadrupled cruelty. Where Mr. Forster arrested as a " suspect," my Lord Spencer arrested with the full determination, right or wrong, if not to punish the actual perpetrators of these alleged local crimes, to at least hang or imprison somebody, no matter whom if he was a hostile Irishman. And behind these Irish tragic scenes sat England's gentle Premier, Mr. Gladstone, guiding and controlling his Irish lambs. The good shepherd sat playing the same soft, dulcet strains to which the lamb-like Mr. Forster danced. He had now attuned his pipes to a sylvan measure, which the red earl ambled to with grace and ease, and the judges, juries, and perjurers treaded the goodly measure in excellent time, in such perfection that the courthouse dock became a very shambles, and Mr. Marwood (the com- mon hangman) also ambled with such vigor that the gentle English shepherd's victims were bowed into eternity. United Ireland thus speaks of Judge Lawson's Special Commission in an article entitled " THE BLOODY ASSIZE. " The jury was shamefully concocted, its partisanship was indecent, and the evidence was evidence upon which an English jury would not hang a dog." Mr. O'Brien probably forgets that England is self-governed. No foreign flag flies over Britain, no foreign soldiery tramp British streets. England is not cursed with native renegade hirelings in the foreigner's 44° THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. pay to strangle her liberties. Ireland enjoys all these foreign luxuries, and so there is no use complaining. Words will not shatter the chains, though it is well to expose these infamies ; but let us not think that exposure is enough. Mr. O'Brien very properly was determined to expose the infamous government of Mr. Gladstone. There is nothing written so strong as this article from United Ireland .• " ACCUSING SPIRITS. " ' Of the fact that since his condemnation and previous to Saturday last he declared that he was innocent of the murder there is not the slight- est doubt.' — Freeman's report of Francis Hynes. ' I am going now to my doom ; going before my Maker. I have to declare my innocence of the murder.' — Patrick Walsh on the gallows, September 22. ' I do not deserve it ; there is no claim against me. The day will come when, sooner or later, you shall account for my innocent life.' — Michael Walsh as he was sentenced to death, September 29. ' I leave it now to God and the Virgin that I never lifted hand or foot, or anything else against that man, and 1 leave it to the court to do what it likes with me.' — Patrick Hig- gins on being sentenced to death, December 13. 'I am going before my God. I am as innocent as a child in the cradle.' — Myles Joyce on the gallows, December 15. ' On my oath I never fired a shot at John Huddy, nor Joseph Huddy, nor any other man since the day I was born. Kerri- gan has sworn falsely.' — Thomas Higgins on being sentenced to death, December 16. ' I can solemnly swear that I am as clear of that deed as any man who ever drew breath. This is a slaughtering house. I am as glad to go to my God as to my home and family.' — Michael Flynn on being sentenced to death, December 20, 1882. " Two of these men spoke from the gallows with the noose round their necks. They were unquestionably Catholics. One moment more and if the protestations on their lips were a lie they knew they were stepping into an eternity of torment. The world's opinion was to them a feather- weight. The rustle of the unseen was falling mysteriously on their ears. Which are we to trust — the last words of man after man as he faces the All-seeing Judge, or the verdicts of tribunals carefully concocted to ' con- vict murderers by hook or crook ' ? There was an old-fashioned maxim of the Books, " Better ninety-nine guilty ones should escape than one innocent man should suffer." The theory of the manipulator of the Crimes Act seems to be that somebody must be hanged — the right person if possible, but at all events somebody. Mistakes will occur, but out of any given half-dozen victims, though there may be one or two who do not deserve hanging, there will almost certainly be one or two who do. Better in any case that a garrulous peasant should be kicked into eternity by Mr. Marwood than that the detective police should acknowl- edge itself baffled and cream-faced loyalists go about in terror of their lives. It is impossible to study the trials and scaffold scenes of the past few months without putting this humble construction upon them. If Higgins, or Walsh, or Joyce, or Flynn had the fair trial by their peers which has been the proud right of the meanest churl in England since the days of Runnymede their dying protestations need not have troubled the rest of the public. We desire to avoid exaggerated language, for we recognize the gravity of the subject and our responsibility ; but our attachment to the elementary principles of justice impels us to deliber- ately say that both as to the tribunal and as to the evidence, the proceed- ings against these men bear an indelible taint of foul play ! "Upon their trials the ordinary detective machinery — vigilance, re- source, ingenuity to discover the scraps of evidence, the intelligence to piece THE APOSTLE OF VICTORY. 441 them together — counted for little. Packed juries and bribed witnesses were the all-sufficient implements of justice. Anybody can govern with a state of siege, or win with loaded dice, or hang with obstructed machinery. When the art of trying a man consists in picking out of the panel twelve of his deadly enemies, and the production of evidence means chiefly the getting at the worst side of the veriest villain in the community and humbly consulting his prepossessing as to the reward and the little precaution necessary to make the bed of the informer a bed of velvet, verdicts of guilty and hanging may be had in any desired quantity. But if this is moral government in the Victorian era why cut Strafford's head off for tampering with Irish juries, or strike King James's crown away for influencing the English ones, or hold Torquemada accursed because he did with hot pincers what the great and good Earl Spencer does with bags of gold ? What is worst about the White Terror set up in Green Street is the ghastly pretense that it is all done to save the sacred right of trial by jury in Ireland, that it is necessary to pack juries, that we have no juries at all, that it is better to convict upon paid swearing than to adopt drumhead ideas of evidence. Out upon the imposture ! that the trials of the last few months are trials by jury such as Englishmen bled to maintain. We solemnly declare that the sooner we have the tribunal of the three judges or the rough-and-ready justice of the court-martial the better for public decency and for the accused themselves. An Alex- andria telegram of last Friday tells us that near ' five hundred prisoners have been discharged for want of evidence.' In Alexandria they have the advantage of martial law. We wonder if these five hundred had been tried by packed juries of Levantine shopkeepers, and sums of ^5000 dangled before every needy wretch that would come with obliging evi- dence, how many of the five hundred would have escaped the rope and boot of the Egyptian Mr. Marwood. Again we say the dying declarations affixed to this article may be all false, but they may be also, some of them or all of them, true, and the scandal — a scandal which would set England in a blaze if the victims were Sidneys or Russells, and not mere Gaelic-speaking mountaineers — is that there was nothing in the mode of trial to satisfy the public conscience that murder may but have been avenged by murder." These statements of dying men are sufficient to send a thrill of horror into the quiet and peaceful who live in this free land far away from these scenes of sanguinary strife. But after all we must reflect that it is England's mode of carrying on war in Ireland — the partisan judge, the packed jury, the bribed and perjured witnesses who learn their part by rote before they go on the witness table, and lastly the common hangmen. These are the cannon and rifles she uses to cut off the disaffected Celts, and to try and strike terror into her enemy, the Irish revolutionist. Nationalists think she will not be successful in this latter mission; they feel confident this terror, as England thinks it is, has little influence on their peace of mind. They accept this as war, and they expect Britain to be equally gen- erous and not howl so loudly next time she is struck. This pow- erful article of Mr. O'Brien was an excellent expose" of Mr. Gladstone's- amiable rule in Ireland, and so far as teaching mankind what a hypo- critical and cruel nation Ireland has to battle with it does good.. But then Irishmen must not think that this expos/ alone can serve them ; they must be up and doing. It is this thinking that an expose is material strength where they display weakness. True 'tis the effect of Provincial teaching. Mr. O'Brien's powerful article would be an unanswerable argument in a self-governing country that was tyrannized over by a section of its own people, but in Ireland's case, having to 442 THE IRISH NATIONAL INV1NCIBLES. combat with a foreign nation, all such articles are worthless ; they will not remove one armed soldier from the soil of Ireland. Mr. O'Brien alludes to Magna Charta and speaks of Englishmen bleeding to preserve trial by jury. This is all very true, but Englishmen did not bleed to give trial by jury to the French nor to the Russians ; neither did they bleed to give it to the Irish. And if Irishmen wish this and other boons they must be prepared to do what Englishmen did — namely, bleed for its establishment. But at present they are taught to talk for it instead. Ireland is a country overrun by a foreign army, with a large number of her own renegade sons in the pay of the enemy assisting in trying to establish British rule there, which after seven centuries of bloody struggles is not yet quite com- pletely an accomplished fact. For Irishmen to recognize the mock con- stitutional form which British hypocrisy chooses to try and clothe her despotic rule with is not only arrant nonsense, but something closely approaching treason, particularly among educated men who profess to be Nationalists. What is the use of complaining of these packed juries and perjured witnesses ? They are a part of her machinery to do to death Irish- men, and which she in irony gives the title of trial. British rule carries on different kinds of hypocrisy in governing conquered countries as it suits its purpose. Justice or right has no place in these councils, unless it is her own standard of right, and this is regulated by British interests. In defense of these interests she went to Alexandria, and to Ireland, and to the Transvaal, and to every part of the globe where she could do a little profitable burglary. Her standard of right, her interests are the same as animate the pirate, the sneak thief, highwayman, and cracksman. They are all satisfied it is to their interest to do so and so, and they will if they can go on plundering. Fortunately for society there is a power that can step in here and put these self-interested gentlemen in jail. No one dreams of arguing them into surrender of their booty unless it is with a threat of force behind which these gentlemen know is a reality, and no sham. But in the case of nations there can be no going to jail in a concrete sense. Here we have two nations whose interests are distinctly antagonistic — Britain and Ireland. Ireland wants to go into business for herself, to give her people employment, so that they can live at home and without which she cannot exist. She wants to develop the soil of her fruitful and beautiful island ; to see the wings of commerce enter her spacious and magnificent harbors. So she pleads to her tyrant to permit her to go into housekeeping on her own account. Britain peremptorily answers no, for if Ireland could create these industrial interests, and put up looms and other machinery to supply her people with the numerous articles at present supplied by Britain, why, then, Britain would lose a good custo- mer, and would expect by and by to have Ireland as a competitor in the world's markets. And remember, some Irishmen expect that Britain is to do all this wonderful work for her, by coaxing, and what they term moral agitation. Look at this seriously, moral agitating friend, and you will, if you are a reasoning being, see the absurdity as well as the impossibility of such a piece of folly as you have been carrying on since the immortal Dan first charmed you with his wizard tones. You say you will get a little, and by and by you will get more. Will you ? Reflect seriously : have you had one — one single material concession from all the bills which passed the alien Legislature these eighty-seven years? You are more poverty-stricken to day than you were then. The enemy has per- mitted you to obtain modern improvements — railways, gas, and tele- graphs — but all these are useful to him to hold the island by force. You are permitted to worship where you like, and your clergy can dine if they so please at the tables of your masters. These are termed great conces- sions, but do they give you employment? THE APOSTLE OF VICTORY. 443 You have had land laws passed through the British senate almost every decade, and yet evictions go on unceasingly. Your rents have been considerably reduced, but your produce has been reduced in value greater than your rent reduction. Where is there one streak on the political horizon, unless you fight in some way ? You say you cannot do this and you talk of England's great strength. Did the Americans reason this way, did the Boers, did the Swiss mountaineers ? Nations are not freed by cowards. David killed Goliath with a stone from a sling. There are many ways of crippling your enemy's power if you are determined to do so, and, above and beyond all, if you are prepared to face death and make sacrifices. Remember that this sacred undertaking is no holiday pastime ; if you enter into it in any such spirit you are sure to fail and bring the Briton's gibe and sneer upon your brave fellow-countrymen. If you are not prepared to make these sacrifices, and think you can win by the easy folly of arguing with England, you will become in a few generations a race without a home. Your island, which is full of glorious tradi- tions and memories of a brave and gallant ancestry, will be a grazing ground for British cattle and its nationality obliterated. The present drain will soon cripple you for any effectual physical resistance, for it is the men at home in the future, as it has been in the past, on whom Ireland must count for carrying on the policy of action. At present the greater portion of the people are lulled to sleep under the potent and destroying narcotic " moral agitation." Your leaders talk of a union between the British and Irish democracies ; if this can be accomplished, where comes in the doctrine of nationalities? Is not this the beginning of the millennium ? Why not include all the democracies of Europe — French, German, Russian, Turkish, and Italian — in this ollapodrida of peoples ? You say we have these in the United States ; but remember, friends, this is a great, free nation that is quickly swallowing up in the national life of the country her numerous immigrants, and leavening them into one united whole, with the distinctive and proud name of American. Here we have one national flag to protect us, and we are jealous as citizens of this national honor, and within a century will probably become as distinct a type of people from the various races who originally came here as they are from each other in Europe. In Europe there is no neutral ground to bring about this union of the democracies ; neither can there be a union of the aristocracies. National and conflicting interests forbid it, and these conflicting interests must necessarily be a barrier to any real union between the British and Irish peoples. The British workingman of Leeds, Bradford, Paisley, Hull, Birmingham, and Wolver- hampton, and the shipbuilders on the Clyde, would not wish to see any of their trade go to Cork, Dublin, Belfast, Kilkenny, Limerick, London- derry, or Galway, and the numerous Irish inland towns whose water power would make them desirable centres for manufacture. Another strange delusion is that of getting freedom by installments — an utter impossibility. Were you, like the British or other nations, a self-governing people, requiring reforms from your own Legislature, trying to remove class legislation, you could then appeal to your own people, and the ballot box and agitation would be the only proper engine to procure these ; from your own senate you could get extensions and benefits that, while it would not wholly remove the evils of which you complain, would in a measure remedy them. But remember that all these nations have the corner stone, the solid foundation of their liberties, in being a self-governed people. No foreign nation with directly antagonistic interests and hostile sentiment makes their laws or shapes their destiny ; and Ireland's interests are not class, but national ; it would be grave and serious injury 444 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. to the foreign governing power to have the governed people develop their manufacturing capabilities. Britain aims to be the workshop of the world ; she spends millions of her plunder from the weaker races and the profits from her people's industries to try and break down the walls which other nations have put up against the free inflow of her wares. Is she at all likely by mere empty words to create a rival on her western seaboard ? and that most certainly Ireland would become under self-government. Will she lose the genius and services of a brilliant and inherently cultured people by an act of her own volition at the demand of mere empty words ? Irishmen, there are times when Nationalists feel astounded that you still entertain such insane views after the long roll of men whose teachings and whose melancholy deaths for principle ought to have made you think so differently. There is a wall of adamant between self-government and foreign government. There can be no compromise, no half measure, between them,, neither can there be between right and wrong. Your position must be either one or the other side of this wall. You say you are not looking for abso- lute independence, that you seek " Home Rule " as enjoyed by the Aus- tralian governments and the Dominion of Canada. This, Irishmen, is virtual independence in so far as it develops material prosperity, and to call these self-governing colonies dependencies or part of the British Empire is a pleasing fiction which will continue as long as Britain is willing to exe- cute and carry out in her diplomacy the only tie remaining — their wishes. It is a dream to think you can surmount or overthrow the barrier between you and freedom by mere force of words. At this date, 1887, you are working harmoniously with a section of the English democracy. The reason is very simple : they want their Heaven-sent leader, Mr. Gladstone, restored to power, and you have got the craze that he offered you Home Rule of some sort and expect to get this measure passed into law on his restoration. Had Mr. Gladstone offered you any measure by which you could control or govern yourselves people might consider you had some slight foundation upon which to rest your hope ; but the facts are directly opposite, and this measure, called " Home Rule," which has been offered, is one of the most gigantic frauds of the age : it cannot be expressed in milder language to really convey a slight sense of its falsehood. The moment that this bill would become law, or as soon as you could practi- cally realize what it really meant, you would find that Mr. Gladstone was cheating you with a sham ; you would certainly discover that if he ever comes to power — and it would not in the interests of his country be reasonable to expect him to act otherwise. Yourselves and the English democrats would then be as far apart as you were at the time of recent Irish history recorded in this chapter. Mr. O'Brien was not allowed to continue very long undisturbed by the liberty-loving Mr. Gladstone. He was brought before the courts for daring' to question British justice in Ireland. It was certainly very wicked of Mr. O'Brien to doubt the benevolent intentions of the "Grand Old Man," who knew much better than Irishmen what was good for them, as one year previous to this date he knew better than Mr. John Dillon what was passing in Mr. John Dillon's mind. He is truly a marvelous old man, and should be worshiped for his versatility of genius, as some of you are doing to your heart's content at present. Mr. O'Brien was brought before the courts and sent for trial, being allowed out on bail. Mr. Healy, Mr. Davitt, and Mr. Quinn were sent for a short time to enjoy the luxury of a plank bed, and the Crimes Act went as merry as a marriage bell. In the meantime Mr. O'Brien was enthusiastically returned as member of Parliament for his native THE APOSTLE OF VICTORY. 445 town of Mallow in opposition to one of Mr. Gladstone's lambs. This was of course called a victory, and even by no less a person than Mr. Parnell called a great victory, while it was simply the people placing on record their demand for self-government, which demand both they and their newly elected member were powerless to enforce. Crown your new- made member, good people, with Iaure\_ ; he and his colleagues are certainly making a gallant fight in this war of words, and if talk could win they certainly deserve to do so. Mr. O'Brien was duly brought to trial, but an event occurred at this time which loomed over the editor's libel with such dread importance that it became of world-wide interest for the time. So completely was Mr. O'Brien's trial overshadowed in this new drama that the pious Liberal rulers forgot to pack a jury, and the result was a disagreement in finding a verdict. Mr. O'Brien received ten votes for acquittal and two for con- viction. But the times were hastening to further developments. The curtain is about to unroll itself and reveal another Irish catastrophe. CHAPTER XXXII. (1883.) ARREST OF INVINCIBLES — BRITAIN'S STEALTHY WARFARE IN IRELAND — TRYING TO ENTRAP THE PRISONERS INTO BETRAYING THEIR COMRADES. Arrest of Dublin Invincibles — The Royal Marines — First Gleam of Light — Check for Check — Attack on Justice Lawson — Arrest of Patrick Delany — Attack on Juror Field — Another Proclamation Issued — The Star-Chamber Inquisition — Examination of Witnesses — Training Crown Witnesses Mallon and Curran — Inquisitors' Confusion — Head of Charles the First — Close of Act 1st — Plrst Examination in Court — Robert Farrel Yields — Second Examination — No Informers Yet — The Mental-rack Fails — Third Examination — Arrest of Fitzharris and Caffray — Fourth Examination — Mal- lon's Ingenuity — Mallon and Fitzharris — Kavanagh's Confidence Shaken — Mallon in Kavanagh's Cell — Kavanagh Falls — Mallon's Triumph — Bolton to the Front — Fifth Examination — Kavanagh as Crown Witness — Surprise of the Prisoners — Bolton, Curran, and Mallon — Not Yet Satisfied — Mrs. Carey Calls on Mallon — Carey's Torture — Mallon's False Statement of Curley — Carey Yields — Mallon's Victory — Sixth Exami- nation — Carey Still in the Dock — A Short Demand — Saturday, February 15 — Seventh Examination — British Trump Card — James Carey as an Informer — Conster- nation and Indignation in the Dock — Public Excitement — General Execration of Carey — Debate in the House of Commons — Forster's Attack on Parnell — The Greco Conspiracy — British Ministers Engaged in a Murder Conspiracy — Arrest in Paris — Seizure of Shells — English Gunpowder and Poniards — Attempt on the Life of the French Emperor — Mr. Joseph Mazzini — Greco's Letter sent under care of the British Minister — Mr. Forster Defends Mr. Mazzini — Letter from the Italian Patriot — Mr. Stansfield, British Cabinet Minister — Banker for Tebaldi's Murder Conspiracy of 1857 — Mazzini Letters to Daniel Manin — Lessons to Irishmen — " Most Men Feel in their Hearts as I do" — " I Express it " — Captain O'Shea and Mr. Parnell — Surrender of Position as Irish Leader — Induced by Gladstone to Remain — Eight Examination in Kilmainham — Sent for Trial to Special Commission. On the night of Friday, January 12, 1883, and morning of Saturday, January 13, the British forces, or that portion of them comprised under the name of detectives, policemen, and marines, made a swoop on several houses in Dublin City, and in the small hours of that Saturday morning made prisoners of fifteen new victims. Many of these men were arrested in bed. It was evident that the British officials expected resistance, for they went armed and in sufficient numbers to overcome all opposition. The Irishmen arrested were not expecting these midnight visitors, and whatever arms they were possessed of were safely put away. The police procured no weapons, neither did they seize any documents ; probably there were none of these latter to seize. The British love of bringing in their naval forces at every imaginable contingency has been mentioned ; at this period of the British invasion of Ireland they were compelled to re-enforce their occupying army in Dublin City by sending a large contingent of marines to do police duty, or what the invaders so termed in Ireland, where the arresting and seeking for Irish Nationalists who are opposed to alien rule form the greater por- tion of these so-called police duties. For in spite of the great power of the invading army and police, Irishmen will continue to plot and to endeavor, if not to drive away, to at least make the enemy feel he occu- pies a hostile country. The writer remembers arriving in Dublin about this period, and when entering a cab to drive to the hotel he noticed a stalwart stranger take his seat beside the driver ; on arriving at the hotel he asked the cabman who 446 ARREST OF INVINCIBLES. 447 his fellow occupant on the box-seat was, and he replied, in the humorous tones of a Dublin carman : " He is guarding you. He is one of the marines that the English, God bless them ! sent over to take care of us." The cabman shrugged his shoulders and went off with a broad grin upon his expressive face. The writer entered the hotel deeply grateful for the care taken by Her Britannic Majesty's Royal Navy. The men arrested in this midnight raid were James Carey, Thomas Martin, Joseph Hanlon, Peter Doyle, Joseph Brady, Timothy Kelly, Robert Farrell, John Dvvyer, Henry Rowles, Edward McCaffray, Daniel Delany, Joseph Mullet, James Mullet, Peter Carey, William Moroney, Daniel Curley. On the morning of January 14, 1883, they were arraigned before the sitting magistrate and without the slightest evidence offered, or any charge preferred against them, they were remanded for one week and committed to prison without bail. When James Carey was arrested as a "suspect" six months previous, John Fitzsimons, his lodger, discovered arms in the loft of the tenement house. The old man at first did not acquaint the British officials with the news, but secreted them in another part of the attic. He was evi- dently nervous and feared he was treading upon dangerous ground. He took no further action. Some days after this Mrs. Carey, accompanied by a man, as afterward stated in evidence, entered the loft. Fitzsimons, on the alert, watched them, and fearing that the concealed weapons might be removed, his cupidity overcame his fears and he rushed to the police office with the news of his discovery. He returned with the officials, who found the arms where Fitzsimons pointed out, Mrs. Carey and her escort having left the premises after apparently a fruitless search, if that was their mission. When the enemy discovered the peculiar class of arms seized, he felt satisfied he had got the first clew to the 6th of May " suppressions." and was convinced he had the actual weapons used. It might be reasonable to expect that a wealthy government could command agents of sufficient ability and judgment to keep secret what it considered an important clew in the discovery of the revolutionary organ- ization that had inaugurated a new species of warfare against them. But this was not so. This seizure had been scarcely effected, when from the supposed sealed doors of Scotland Yard it reached the ears of the Irish National Government. The British officials boasted in circles which they considered confidential of their fortunate capture. They said that they had discovered in the person of a respectable Dublin mechanic the leader of these terrible conspirators. It will be remembered by those who read the opening of these so-called trials that the British believed, or for some purpose wished the public to believe, that Carey was a leader among the Invincibles. The actions of the British agents in Irish political affairs have been one series of stupid blunders. They were now, they considered, in possession of a valuable clew, and having, as before mentioned, crowed about their victory, they set about trying to follow up the traces so opportunely placed in their hands. Having no specific indictment to bring against Carey, they felt com- pelled to release him in September, at the expiration of the " Suspects Act ; " it was, however, a convenient excuse to let him out and watch his movements. This they did, but no clew — not the faintest — was derived from this careful espionage. Time passed ; they began to despair of unraveling any further portion of this mystery, when another chapter of accidents dropped something into their arms unexpectedly ; then these astute and 448 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. wise British agents, called " secret police," as if in sarcasm, got a more important clew still. It has been mentioned that Mr. Justice Lawson arbitrarily sent a British connection loving yet withal a leading Provincialist to prison, Mr. E. D. Gray, the High Sheriff of Dublin City. Judge Lawson's whole career was passed in the British service, and like a good many of his colleagues he confounded gentlemen such as Mr. Gray with those men who believed in the potency of using weapons of destruction to get rid of foreign usur- pation. Consequently Judge Lawson was bitterly disliked in all National and Provincial circles, probably more so in the latter, as the " Constitu- tionalists" concentrate all their energies in strong feeling. Mr. Gray, who was deservedly popular from a " Provincialist " stand- point, was one of the many agitators which Ireland is blessed with. This feeling of dislike to Lawson was intensified, and detestation of the Judge was the prevailing sentiment in all circles in Dublin. One Saturday night the citizens were surprised to hear that in spite of his guard a man had attempted to shoot the Judge in Nassau Street, near the Kildare Street Club House, but that he was overpowered and captured. The story told stated that the man was noticed by Lawson's guard — which consisted of three armed marines and four armed constables — to act in a strange manner ; twice crossing the street he was seen to approach the judge ; the last time he was stopped in the act of drawing a revolver and was captured. The name of this man was Patrick Delany. Judge Lawson left his home carefully guarded and walked down Mer- ion Square, then up Leinster Street and toward the Kildare Street Club ; the Judge was walking en route to his destination at Henrietta Street, to attend a dinner given by one of the so-called legal societies. Patrick Delany was evidently following the Judge for some purpose, and was suddenly seized with the impulse of shooting him. It is not believed that that was his original mission, and if as reported he was a member of any revolutionary movement, he must have violated his instructions. The Latin races have a large amount of mercurial and excitable characteristics, very noble in some cases, but when this feeling controls the judgment it frequently leads to disaster. Delany was influenced by ner- vous excitement ; he literally got intoxicated with recklessness ; he was no more master of his own actions than a man under the influence of alcohol. He ran up to the marines guarding the Judge and, clutching one of them by the arm, loudly whispered " It's all right." He then crossed to the College railings on the opposite side and as quickly re-crossed, repeating this movement twice, then suddenly appearing in the presence of the Judge he was overpowered by the guards and brought off a struggling captive on an outside car to jail. It would be difficult to tell whether Delany or the Judge's guards were the most stupid ; it was evident that Judge Lawson's life was very little guarded by his five armed protectors, and Delany, if he was sane, could easily have shot him at that time. Why they did not arrest this excitable madman on his first approaching them is incomprehensible, considering the special duty they were on. Delany's arrest was the pin-hole by which the British hoped to brighten their vision. No statement could be got from their new-made prisoner, but they knew they had him in their power, and were prepared to apply moral torture to wring some information from him. He was defended by lawyers who are a part of the machinery of foreign rule in Ireland — a monstrous inconsistency, which had been practiced by Irish revolutionary Nationalists for many generations. James Stephens has been the only Irish leader who did not stultify himself by anaking defense in a British dock. The Irish people are not properly ARREST OF INVINCIBLES. 449 educated on this important principle ; they think they are deserted by their friends if not defended by lawyers. The British, as a matter of course, will either hang or imprison any enemy to her rule she can capture, and these mock trials have no bearing on the result. Irish patriots have no right to complain ; it is a death struggle, which means either death to the invaders or the invaded. Irish patriots know they face death or imprisonment in every move they make, but it is their duty in spite of these to strike the foe when and how they can; they must face the issue boldly; men must die sometimes and a nation which cannot command the sacrifice of her sons will always remain subject to foreign power. Ireland has plenty of brave, daring men to take every chance and face any danger to serve her, but their leaders are unfortunately weaklings, too fond of agitation; their cowardice and hesitation are strangling their unhappy country. Patrick Delany was found guilty and sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. Then commenced Delaney's ordeal. The British secret police all this time were busily gleaning what infor- mation they could as to Delany's associates and the men who em- ployed the lawyers who defended him. They carefully traced the ante- cedents of these men and their friends. In the midst of their espionage and care, guarding all their hirelings by an unusual display of armed force, Dublin was startled by an attack made on one of the twelve men whom Wm. O'Brien exposed for their infamous conduct, one of the brutal jurors of the murdered Francis Hynes. This man had a miraculous escape. With all their precautions and care, and armed as they consid- ered themselves in every possible way against the Irish enemy, here was another and nearly a fatal swoop made by their mysterious foes, and the men, whoever they were, that attacked the British juror, disappeared, leav- ing no traces of their whereabouts. Another proclamation was hurriedly issued ; the Dublin Castle rulers were alarmed. Spencer, who was carefully guarded by half a troop of cavalry, looked anxious and careworn as he rode through the streets of the hostile city. Did Spencer's guards preserve his life while he was enforcing his Crimes bill and enjoying his battues of hangings? From accidental and impulsive attack of some outraged native of the island, possibly yes. But not from any Irish organized assault. There were men in Dublin who would have attacked him in open day and even in defiance of his uniformed banditti have slain the tyrant. True, the greater num- ber of these patriots would have fallen in the assault. There are times in the history of nations when such sacrifices are not only a duty, but become imperative. Such was the condition of Ireland at that time. The Castle proclamation, in addition to the original rewards of ^£10,000 and ^5000, supplemented these by a reward of ^1000 for the slightest useful hearsay evidence* But all in vain, for Irish Revolu- tionists are foremost in the history of mankind in their faith and loyalty to each other. In every revolutionary epoch in Europe or in any country, there were more erring and traitorous slaves to be found than can be traced in Ireland's history. The contrary false statement has been so circulated abroad by the infamous slanderous and treacherous foe, even some Irishmen believe this abominable lie. Perjurers British gold have manufactured, and for Britain's own vile ends, these men were dubbed informers or traitors ; but from the ranks of the patriots they have suc- ceeded in but very few instances. And in modern times all these of any notice have been executed in spite of British protection. Not one man, not even the poorest or humblest within the ranks of the Invincibles, ever for a moment felt dazzled by these enormous bribes ; other Irish movements have had one or two foul traitors in their ranks, 45° THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. but inside this heroic organization not one, not a single individual, would betray to the foe any important secret for the wealth of the British treasury. These rewards brought a plentiful crop of perjurers ; the police, tempted by the gold, especially the higher and more venal officials, aided in procur- ing these. This outside information the Castle people knew was fabrica- tions on the part of those who volunteered these statements. They turned these people over to George Bolton, their infamous crown solicitor, a use- ful instrument to manufacture any evidence necessary to murder an Irish- man by the mockery of a trial. They had Delany in their power and were determined to squeeze the very soul out of him by every species of mental torture, until they got him to admit that he knew certain men whom they suspected of being members of the hostile organization ; but beyond this Delany would not go at that time. Remembering the capture of arms in James Carey's house, and learn- ing who his friends were, coupled with Delany's admissions in prison, they commenced a number of haphazard arrests. These men were brought before John Curran, the presiding genius of this secret star- chamber, and subject to his legal scalping knife, they were examined by this suave Mephistopheles, the cruel counterpart, but lacking the ability of Goethe's creation. Strange to say, this man had been engaged to de- fend Mr. Parnell, Mr. Egan, and other traversers in a previous trial. What a satire in thus employing lawyers in a political trial where the enemy controls both attack and defense ! Among the principal star-chamber arrests were James Carey, James Mullet, Daniel Curley, Joseph Brady. Bolton's staff of perjurers were at hand to identify these men ; the Castle people were determined to convict some of them in any event. They were examined, and every ingenuity used to extract information, but all to no purpose. The British felt necessitated to make this plunge, for the Dublin and other Anti-Irish jurors in their interests were getting panic-stricken after the attack on juror Field. They were asking for protection in open court ; they felt the necessity for a coup d'e'tat or their mock constitutional machinery would be useless ; already the Invincibles or some body of men had put it sadly out of gear. One fact they had made up their minds about, that this mysterious conspiracy was purely of native growth. Their hackneyed cry of foreign elements and transatlantic origin was of no use here. The men sus- pected had never been out of Ireland. Before England's inquisitor, John Curran, these suspects were brought, to undergo the crucial ordeal of having their intellects put in competition with this trained master of fence in words, this able and subtle lawyer. Around them were displayed some of the forces of the enemy, ready to obey the slightest nod from their sauve chief Mallon, who, cat-like, watched every movement, now and again purring as he looked in the eyes of the black-browed inquisitor on the bench. There was a more important reason for the presence of these suspects than their mere examination. The British had made up their minds that these men were actively hostile to their usurpation in Ireland ; they did not expect to be able to wring from these patriots any important admis- sions or elicit any very startling information, but to carry out a new plan of manufacturing evidence, they were walked slowly up and down the hall leading to the pillory of examination previous to being brought before Mr. Curran. A perforated screen shut off a passage from the hall lead- ing to the chamber of mental torture ; behind this screen the detectives had stationed their false witnesses, these necessary and useful instru- ments of British revenge — a revenge which the enemy was determined in ARREST OF INVINCIBLES. 451 all eventualities to wreak upon these captives. Rightly or wrongly — rightly according to British ethics if possible — the most prominent of these whom they strongly suspected, both from their antecedents and associa- tions, as Irish Nationalists, they decided should suffer the death penalty, and all the remaining men be sent to penal dungeons. They were thoroughly convinced that these men were enemies — practical enemies of British rule in Ireland. It was thus absolutely necessary that the witnesses should be able to identify the people against whom they were about to swear and of whom they knew absolutely nothing. Behind this screen stood the bribed upholders of the Majesty of British Law in Ireland, not informers, but perjurers. People who were tempted by the large rewards and having previously manufactured a story which did not deceive the Castle officials, but which was shaped to suit the purpose of these British employees. They were instructed by the 'infamous George Bolton, the Crown lawyer, in their evidence ; one man's story so arranged as to dove-tail into the other, and alas for human nature, one witness was a young girl little more than sixteen years old ! The reason of their presence there concealed was to make certain of the identity of the prisoners whom the detectives pointed out to them by name. These witnesses attended day after day, during the Castle examination of the suspects, learning their fearful lesson, and to make assurance doubly sure, that when upon the witness table there could be no possible mistake. It needed neither Kavanagh nor Carey's subse- quent information to hang these prisoners. That work would be as easily accomplished as the death of Hynes and Joyce on similar perjured testi- mony. It was necessary to train these perjurers well, for it will be remem- bered they had to swear to events which happened nearly twelve months previous, and identify men never before known to them. Any man in possession of the key to the revolutionary situation could readily understand from the questions put by Curran that the British were completely at sea. Dickens' gentleman who got the head of Charles the First into everything, had a counterpart in that black-whiskered, sallow- faced inquisitor, for a priest or one who passed as a priest got into every other question put by him. The young lady in Thackeray's novel who played "such a getting upstairs " never performed with greater amount of variations that classic piece, than did Mr. Curran try to get upstairs into the intellects of the prisoners before his seat of torture, but that wise and well-informed hireling of alien rule in Ireland, put questions easily answered. The pious reverence he was alluding to, the Head of Charles the First in his queries, had no more to do with the event about which he was trying to elucidate information than Thackeray's tune and its per- former. Inquisitor Curran was mixing up different and distinct under- takings, and with his pestle was pounding in the mortar the different ingredients to make an excellent " olla podrida," and instead of unravel- ing the threads of what he termed " a terrible conspiracy " he was confus- ing himself and puzzling those he questioned as to what he was really/ driving at. Oh, wise grand juries who bring in British verdicts so compla- cently, what Solons you are ! One thing he succeeded in doing with the men before him, who were determined to admit nothing : They actually went so far as to deny knowing one another. This might be called superfluous caution and bad judgment, but it must be recognized that they were under the influence of the subtlety and deep scheming of the inquisitor and the oiliness of his feline friend Mallon, who kept purring his sweet song of friendship and advice into their ears " to tell all," which was accompanied by the basso threats of the Inquisitor, " Answer this question, or I'll have you on the table." Varied with, "Answer, or I'll commit you," and then the feline song began again to purr its tale. Joseph Brady was detained in prison two nights, but from none of the men could 45 2 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. any of their threats wring the smallest useful information. James Carey and Kavanagh the carman were as firm through this trying ordeal and in their lack of knowledge, and the inquisitor dismissed them. So ended the Castle torture scenes, Act i. The British gains were : further confirmation of their suspicions, or what suited the British Torquemada and his attendant Mallon just as well. These men refused to affirm the queries put to them — ergo they were guilty. These men were of course keeping some information back — ergo they were guilty. But the great and important gain was the fact that all the perjurers were now thoroughly familiar with their personal appearance, and could successfully go through the justice-loving form of picking them out from a row of other prisoners, and so George Bolton, afterward pub- licly charged with being a thief, and associated with the infamous Dublin scandals, commenced his manipulation of evidence before they made the arrests. So closed the year 1882, so sanguinary in the Irish war against the invader ; and the invader was about to inaugurate the New Year by some more sanguinary work. Already the victims were selected for the sacrifice, and the " Saviour of Ireland " Mr. Gladstone, in the pious rectitude of a Liberal career, presided over all these various move- ments and the destinies of the Empire so providentially committed to his care. The Dublin Freeman's " Achilles " was now bending his bow and sending Parthian shafts among his dear "fellow-countrymen " which he so kindly termed the Irish, so as to make them better and happier under his much-prized rule. These three officials of the enemy, Messrs. Bolton, Curran, and Mallon, had now completed their arrangements, and as mentioned in the opening of this chapter, at midnight they made these fifteen arrests, as they were unaware of what the ramifications of the Invincible movement were. They considered that hour the best to select to arrest men whom they knew, if in any way identified with the Phoenix Park tragedy, could not easily be captured if on the alert. From the number of men afterward released and not brought to trial, the enemy evidently made these arrests on very vague suspicion ; they succeeded after a short time in procuring a witness from the prisoners, but apparently a man who could scarcely be said to belong to the National ranks. He was, however, useful to them in a measure by his public appear- ance on the witness stand to corroborate the lies about informers they were pouring into the ears of the imprisoned men. The name of this witness was Robert Farrell. The second day's trial, Saturday, January 20, 1883, was Farrell's first appearance on the witness stand ; nothing of importance was elicited, another remand was asked for, and of course granted. Farrell's evidence gave the clew to the press that the British were on the right track. At first the newspapers were skeptical'of any results coming from the trials. But Ireland's foreign rulers had little real information ; so far the thumb-screw and rack of mental agony had weakened no man ; their work was so far undone. They now commenced a system of moving the prisoners about in special squads, and with subtle cunning, tried to impress on the minds of one batch what information they had procured from the others. Mallon purred away among them with his claws carefully concealed, suppressing his rage with great care ; but the softer he purred the more was he on the alert to capture a witness from among the men. The third day's examination, Saturday, January 27, 1883, came, and still no informers. Were ever torturers more to be pitied ? — for during these two weeks the prisoners were suffering a thousand deaths in the artificial terrors and agonies which intellect when devilishly applied can harrass ARREST OF INVINCIBLES. 453 those in their power. At this third examination the enemy demanded from their satrap on the bench a longer remand ; the men felt they were standing the ordeal well and wished their fate decided ; the inuendoes and slanders on their character were told to them by their visiting relatives. In the meantime the detectives were on the lookout for every man they suspected, and succeeded in capturing two additional prisoners, Thomas Caffray and John Fitzharris, the latter kuown by the sobriquet of "Skin the goat." It has often been a puzzle, reading of these events, that these two men last arrested were not assisted in leaving the country ; they had ample time to have crossed the Atlantic from the time of the first arrests ; it was deplorable neglect, to say the least of it, somewhere. The fourth day's preliminary trial came, Monday, February 5, and no fresh evidence ; another remand was asked for and granted. The arrest of Fitzharris enabled Mallon to put a ruse into practice to try and procure another witness. He knew that there was a personal difference between the cardrivers, Cavanagh and Fitzharris, a matter of long standing dispute. One morning they were both brought from their cells and taken to the prison courtyard. Kavanagh's outside car was there and Mallon told him to get upon the box and drive around the yard to see if Alice Carroll would recognize his seat on the box. This girl having sworn she followed the car on the night of the attack on juror Field — A piece of concocted and ■willful perjury. Her story is false from first to last. During the time Kavanagh was driving round, Mallon engaged Fitzharris in conversation. Mallon purposely assumed an air of great mystery and earnestness while talking and listening to Fitzharris' replies, the subject they were discussing having no reference to politics. Mallon's unusual solemn manner was noticed by Kavanagh, and he feared Fitzharris was giving information ; a scowl of wrath was visible on his face ; Mallon thought the poison was working. He ordered Kavanagh down and told Fitzharris to take his seat upon the car and drive round. With a look of triumph on his face, Mallon commenced making notes of the imaginary information, furtively watching the effect on Kavanagh, whom he did not speak to. After a few turns he called Fitzharris to him, and seizing him confidentially by the collar he whispered in low tones some pleasantries. Fitzharris suspected this display of friendship was to induce him to give information. But Mallon entertained no such idea ; he knew torture would not wring any knowledge from Fitzharris. He used Fitzharris as a trap to weaken Kavanagh, and induce him to become a Crown witness. He dismissed both men, and after the lapse of about an hour he entered Kavanagh's cell and commenced a friendly conversation with him, telling him that all the men had volunteered to become approvers for the Crown to save their lives, and that " Skin the goat " that morning had made a clean breast of it. Kavanagh had been told a portion of this story before, but always received it with sullen silence. He was 'enraged with Fitzharris, and having witnessed the cleverly arranged maneuvers of Mallon that morning, believed that he was telling the truth. He replied in angry tones that he would get even with Fitzharris, and volunteered to give evidence. At first Mallon appeared to hesitate ; he had so much evidence already (the usual stereotyped British lie), but afterward accepting, Kavanagh was brought before the master spirit that guided the perjurers, George Bolton, and, Kavanagh forgetting in his temper, the horror, infamy, treason, and certain fate of the dreaded "'informer," had his information taken down and arranged by Bolton for Saturday's trial. On Saturday, February 10, the fifth preliminary examination took place. The British were confident they had a trump card in the car- 454 THE IRISH NATIONAL INV1NCIBLES. driver, and were certain the fortress of concealed information was tottering under their blows. When Myles Kavanagh was called to the witness table, there was great astonishment perceptibly visible in the faces of the men in the dock ; more especially was this noticeable in the nervous action of James Carey, who had hitherto displayed an air of aggressive bravado, kid-gloved and smoking cigars to and from the court house to the prison. But when Kavanagh's evidence was analyzed it did not appear to throw very much additional light on the situation. He was not aware, accord- ing to his statements, for what purpose he was used by the orders of those who controlled his movements ; he was an Irish Revolutionist, who obeyed his orders unquestioned. His drive from the Park on that 6th of May evening was the sensation piece-de- resistance of his evidence. The Crown asked for a short remand until Thursday, February 15. After the evidence of Kavanagh, the British felt the necessity of getting either Carey, Curley, or James Mullet as witnesses. They considered that these men could give them some clew to the intricate labyrinth which per- plexed them. Having these men completely in their power, they spread broadcast on the wings of calumny the statement that all three were only too eager to purchase safety by laying bare the secrets of their hearts to the British officials. This scandal was so cleverly concocted that the families of all these men believed the story true of the others. A writer observes, alluding to someone who professed to despise this hideous monster, " Calumny, sir ! You do not know what you disdain. I have seen the worthiest of men all but ruined by it. Believe me, there is no wickedness, however ignoble, no horror, no story, however absurd, that you may not make the idlers of a great city believe if you set yourself to it. And we have people here so clever at the work. First a low rumor sweeping the ground like a swallow before the storm. . ." This calumny has eaten away the characters of most reputable men in the National ranks ere now ; how much more easy could it work its vile ends to steal away the good name and honor of these imprisoned men ! Those who knew him would as soon believe that Robert Emmet offered to turn informer as Daniel Curley. He was one of God's noblest crea- tions, had always been a true, honest, and fearless Nationalist. Mr. James Mullet, who was of an impulsive nature, a man who often acted without thought, and might possibly under such impetuous feelings commit acts of indiscretion, but treason never ; he was a true and manly Irish Nationalist and the very soul of honor. It was a foul lie to try and blacken this brave Irishman's name with this false and unsupported charge. It is possible that Carey, who was weakening, believed this story of the other two men, but they did not think so of him. What some people in Dublin feared, came true ; Carey's wife was the first to move. She went to Mallon, as she expressed it, to save her husband, and being in posses- sion of any information known to him, satisfied Mallon that he would have a trump card in placing Carey on the witness table. Kavanagh's appearance as a witness helped to corroborate Mallon's statement that he was keeping back other important testimony, and urged on by the appeals of his wife, Carey finally succumbed. At first he was indignant at his wife's statements, for along with his lifetime's detestation of an in- former, he dreaded the doom that would always remain suspended over him as chief traitor to his comrades ; but the belief implanted in his weak mind that it was a race between him and Curley decided the issue, for this foul lie was purred out with proper emphasis by the feline Mallon. So Carey fell, and the machinery of British rule in Ireland dreamt they had found a savior. The man was now sold over to his wretched destiny. He who had before him the previous day a patriot's death, was now steeped in the ARREST OF INVINCIBLES. 455 slime of poisonous treachery, and his name stained for all generations, not only of Irishmen, but all patriotic liberty-loving mankind. By one fell stroke he had precipitated himself from virtue to infamy. The British ■enemy tried to get information he did not possess, and some of which was not true, but merely the offspring of their own suspicions. Every kind of gossip which ever came to Carey's ears they tried to distort into evi- dence. Mr. Frank Byrne, the Land League secretary, Carey never saw in his life. These two men had never met, and yet this gentleman was in- cluded in his list of suspected persons. It may be said of Carey in the lines of Seneca, " Courage leads to heaven, fear to death." He was dead to every feeling which hitherto animated him ; every shred of news he could give to the treasury solicitor, Mr. Bolton (whose own infamous career was exposed later on), he did, and Bolton put them together. His Phoenix Park story was a miserable picture ; Carey was ordered away before a blow was struck. He was a coward and so fell, and with the aid of his more contemptible confrere George Bolton, the two worthies tried to save British rule in Ireland from those men spoken of by the poet, •General George Halpine of New York : Honor the brave who battle still For Irish rights in English lands ; No power except their native will, No strength except their naked hands „ Who fight by day and fight by night, In groups of two or three or ten, The savage unrelenting fight Against two hundred thousand men. The jails were yawning through the land, The scaffolds fatal click is heard. But still moves on the scanty band By jail and scaffold undeterred. A moment's pause to wail the last Who fell in freedom's fight, and then With teeth set firm and breathing fast They face two hundred thousand men. You call them ignorant, rash, and wild ; But who can tell how patriots feel With centuries of torment piled Above the land to which they kneel ? And who has made them what we find, Like tigers lurking in their den, And breaking forth with fury blind To beard two hundred thousand men ? Who made their lives so hard to bear They care not how their lives are lost ? Their land a symbol of despair — A wreck in ruin's ocean tossed ? We, happier here, may carp and sneer And judge them harshly — but what then ? No gloves for those who have as foes To face two hundred thousand men. Of the officers or executive of the Invincible movement neither Carey nor any other Crown witness could offer the faintest conjecture. And when the Privy Council read the information of their leading witness, Dublin Castle was very much dissatisfied at Carey's limited knowledge. Speculation of the wildest and most reckless kind took the place of absolute information ; no man whom they suspected of hostility to their rule was safe from attack and possible arrest as an Invincible. The one advantage of Carey's evidence was the seeming truthfulness 45 6 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. with which they could now invest the coming trials, by putting so impor- tant a witness as a man they called a leader on the witness table. Yet after all in a conquered country this did not so much matter ; their perjurers could easily satisfy the partisan and prejudiced juries selected from their own ranks to bring in suitable verdicts. But they hoped — and strained every energy to accomplish it — to spread demoralization through the Irish revolutionary ranks and among the masses of the Nationalists ; the amount of information of the most secret and important nature as to Irish projects they were possessed of they particularly wished the people to believe, and they impressed through the press and other channels upon the Irish masses the fact that Carey was the head of the Dublin organization, that he organized the movement to betray it. Several of the Provincialists played into their hands, by ring- ing the changes on this absurd statement. There may have been a little panic in the ranks of the Provincialists who had changed front by embrac- ing doctrines more extreme than those hitherto adopted by the party of action ; there were a few of those revolutionary neophytes. But the men who are to be counted on when active work against England is made pos- sible, looked upon these bogus terrors with indifference. "Constant exposure to dangers will breed a contempt for them," so that the feline Mallon and others of his species will have more purring to do before they succeed in planting such feelings in Nationalist Irish circles as they would wish to see there. The morning of Thursday, February 15, 1883, the sixth day of the preliminary examination before the police magistrates, saw no change in the previous hearings. Carey, who had committed treason the day before, stood for the last time in the dock beside the men whom he had already betrayed. Near by him was his young friend Joseph Brady, who greeted him with the usual friendship. Carey's youngest child, a few months old, had for sponsor Joseph Brady, for whom James Carey had always pro- fessed great personal friendship — the God-father of his young babe, against whom Carey was as merciless as against Daniel Curley, whom he believed had premeditated the same treachery as he himself had already practiced. Truly saith Caesar, " In extreme danger, fear feels no pity." How degraded had Carey become through that wretched vice of cowardice ! And yet his defection was not the cause of his companions' death, as some of the people think. Their deaths were certain, even if Carey or Kavanagh had not mounted the witness table or given to the enemy the slightest infor- mation. British suspicions, as already stated, and the evidence of their trained perjurers, would have enabled them to go through the form of trial suc- cessfully ; it would only have necessitated a little more hard swearing • on the part of their witnesses, which made little difference to those well paid satellites of British law in Ireland. But Carey's defection gave the British Government the opportunity of posing as the great moral reformer, and the more indignant the Irish people grew, lavish in their condemna- tion of Carey's infamy, the more they were playing the British game of showing to the world how horrified the good citizens of Dublin were at these wicked opponents of British rule in Ireland. And Mr. Torquemada Curran stroked his beard in his inquisitorial chair in the Castle and began to dream of a judgeship in the near future. And the detective chief Mallon licked his lips with satisfaction, and purred his song of pleasure at the result of his labors ; promotion and gold were hanging suspended before his pleased vision, soon to be all his own. And Treasury Solicitor Bolton, who was preparing the legal machinery, the forms by which Britain sends to the scaffold and the dungeon her Irish enemies, also saw before him a rich harvest of gold to spend with his ARREST OF INVINCIBLES. 457 infamous associates in their unspeakable orgies. The presiding genie of Downing Street, Mr. Gladstone, was pleased at his agents' work, and money was supplied unstintingly from the British treasury. Saturday, February 17, 1883, in the Court House, Kilmainham, the British Government in Ireland launched its great thunderbolt — James Carey, as a public informer ! and to be certain to impress upon the world the importance of their new witness, they were particular in giving his social status as Town Councilor to the press. Dublin City was astounded, all Ireland was horrified, and British journals rang the changes on Irish treachery and duplicity, and the good pious Irish newspapers which are always inveighing against English misgovernment read their countrymen a moral lesson on the evils of secret societies, and of the great benefits of peaceful and legal agitation. It is unknown in the history of peoples, there never has been a nation so poisoned by slavery that any appreciable number of her people could hold such extraordinary views as do a very large number of respectable and in other respects well-educated Irishmen. Upon this question of the solution of their country's ills they entertain opinions which appear a direct outrage to common sense. They will seriously tell one another that all these revolutionary movements, if not in the pay of the enemy, are really working in the interests of the invader, and give the British an excuse for further tyranny and coercion. This monstrous assertion has been put forth from the press, the pulpit, and the public rostrum by men who profess to be lovers of their country, completely ignoring the actual condition of things, that Ireland is being crushed to death by the peaceful and ordinary process of British rule. What effect has it, or can it have on the life of a nation to see six, ten, twenty, or even one hundred men die on the scaffold, in material loss, compared to the thousands who are starved to death and compelled to emigrate from the island. While these men are preaching their silly platitudes the ordinary course of alien rule is drawing away the nation's life blood. And as to excuse, Britain needs no excuse ; it is absolutely necessary that she crush out Irish National sentiment and keep depopula- ting the country, fearing that some epoch might arise when Irish hostility would be Britain's destruction. Very recently a good Irish-American who had returned from a visit to Ireland, told the writer that he has become an unbeliever in physical force, seeing the wretched condition of Ireland and how powerless the people are under the hands of their armed taskmaster. Not powerless, fellow-countrymen, but cowardly and degraded, steeped in the poison of moral agitation and dying in thousands under its baleful and pernicious influence. What could resistance to their oppressor bring to them ? Death ! That is the limit of punishment which their enemy can inflict, and that penalty he is now exacting tenfold in the added horrors of his accursed system. In the British Commons about the time of these Invincible arrests, a debate took place, which gave Mr. Gladstone's former Irish taskrhaster, Mr. Forster, an opportunity to make a violent attack upon Mr. Parnell and to accuse that peace-loving Irish leader of being the principal cause of crime and outrage in Ireland. Mr. Forster's attack was a very violent one, and he marshaled all the facts which his position as Chief Secretary enabled him to furnish. These acts in the agricultural districts which Mr. Forster spoke of were the outcome of British misrule and plunder, and were more naturally the outcome of moral agitation than physical resistance to alien rule. In the footsteps of a peaceable agitation these retaliations for injuries always take place ; they are in no sense any oppo- sition to the cause which fosters these injuries, and are in fact more an 45 S THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. injury than a service to that cause, for although the people are advised to peacefully follow a certain course and they will be sure to win, they cannot resist the temptation of enforcing this programme by physical attack upon those of their neighbors who resist its mandates by taking evicted farms and other acts of mercenary selfishness, which draw down retaliation, and so the national hatred of tyranny is wasted warring upon each other for the benefit of the common enemy, which is not the land- lord nor the policeman, but the diabolic master of both these scourges — foreign rule. Mr. Forster and other Englishmen are only too eager to take up the position of hurling upon the agitators this unfortunate fact, that while they were unsparing in their denunciation of the Park tragedy — the one great hostile act against Britain during that sanguinary regime — they appeared not to notice these country crimes. And it must be said most emphatically that they or theirs never held up their hands to denounce with anything like the same vehemence the slaughter of Ellen McDonagh, Mary Deane, or the boy Melody, as they did that Park tragedy. There was no procla- mation for these murders, showing the inconsistency of men who have been and are still deluding the Irish masses into the belief that they are gaining concessions for them. Mr. Forster and other Englishmen who try to pose as moralists and lovers of liberty and haters of crime, are like all English tyrants, not only inconsistent, but in dealing with Ireland, appear as the monstrous and hypocritical opponents of what they profess to advocate in other countries. The Invincible trials gave this Englishman what he considered a high moral standpoint upon which to denounce Mr. Parnell. Nineteen years before this denunciatory speech of Mr. Forster there occurred in the City of Paris four arrests for what was termed the " Greco conspiracy," which was a plot against the life of the then Emperor of the French, Napoleon III. On the 7th of January, 1864, the French police arrested four Italians in their lodgings in Paris ; they were said to have recently come from England — Greco, Tambuco, Imperator, and another. The police seized a quantity of English gunpowder, four poniards, four revolvers, four air guns of a new and ingenious construction, phosphorus, percussion caps, fuses several meters in length, and eight hand grenades made on the Orsini pattern. In the pockets of one of the men were found compromising letters. The French Procureur General stated at the trial that in the event of Greco, who was their leader, requiring money, he was to write to Mr. Flower, 35 Thurlow Square, Brompton, London. This matter was brought before the House of Commons by the then member for Finsbury, Mr. Cox, who stated that the gentleman mentioned by the Procureur General for the Empire at whose London House the Conspirator Greco was to write was no less a person than the Rt. Hon. Mr. Stansfield, then a member of the British Liberal Cabinet, and that the Mr. Flower men- tioned by the French public prosecutor was Mr. Joseph Mazzini. The British Minister neither admitted nor denied that Mr. Flower and Mr. Mazzini were one and the same person ; but refused to believe Mr. Maz- zini's complicity with the Greco conspiracy. Mr. W. E. Forster spoke in the highest terms of the Italian patriot Mr. Joseph Mazzini. Further, the British Minister, Mr. Stansfield, did not deny what was said against him by an English member when accused in the House of Commons of being the banker for the Tebaldi conspiracy of 1857 against the Emperor Napo- leon s life. These facts are not written in the slightest sense of reproach against the memory of the great Italian patriot, or any other nationalists who have felt compelled to aid the freedom of their land by resorting to extreme measures, but to show up the hollow mockery and hypocrisy of ARREST OF INVINCIBLES. 459 these British rulers of Ireland, when it is found that a British Minister is the banker of a conspiracy whose avowed object was the death of the French Emperor. Mr. Joseph Mazzini, who was then staying with the British Minister Mr. Stansfield, wrote a letter denying his association with the Greco con- spiracy, but unlike the Irish leader's denial, he did not denounce his fellow-countrymen nor the proposed assault on Napoleon. He speaks of Greco in his letter thus : " Greco I know. Hundreds, I might say thousands, of young men belonging to our party of action are known to me. Greco is an enthusi- astic patriot, who took an active part in the enterprises of i860 and 1861 in the south of Italy ; and he has had, as such, contact with me. Any note of mine in his possession, if there be any, must, however, belong to at least nine or ten months ago. " Enough in reply to accusations hitherto merely grounded on French police reports. I remain, "Yours faithfully, " Joseph Mazzini. " January 14, 1864." Most of the European revolutionists found a home in England, and not knowing enough of that hypocritical nation's rule in other countries, looked upon Britain as a most liberty-loving nation. M. Blanc, who was a great favorite in English society, one of France's illustrious sons, in his *' Histoire des Dix Ans," thus speaks of the Italian patriot Mazzini and of his revolutionary organization : " Differing from Carbonarism, which had been skeptical and liberal, 'Young Italy' was profoundly religious and democratic. Its founder and chief was M. Mazzini ; and it had for its object the independence and unity of Italy ; for symbol a branch of cypress ; for device ora e sempre ; and for means, insurrection and propagandism, the sword of the conspirator and the pen of the journalist." These were the principles British statesmen endorsed in European lands. But the unity and independence of Ireland, a nation as old as the Italian, was and is in their eyes high treason. They who did not object to the Austrian empire being dismembered by the independence of Italy, express very different sentiments when the old Gaelic nation of Ireland is mentioned, but with the hypocrisy of all tyrants try to make a com- parison between Ireland and the Southern States of America, and call Ireland's demand for independence secession ; they even try to breed seces- sion in the Northern province Ulster, by endeavoring to excite religious animosity there. Like the Italian people and the Austrian, the Irish are a distinct race from the British and will never live peacefully beneath the same flag. Joseph Mazzini's letters to Daniel Manin, the president of the Vene- tian republic of 1848, should be pondered upon and thought over by Irish- men, particularly when they recollect that English statesmen have endorsed these views for Italy and Italian independence. Mazzini com- plains of his fellow-countrymen chiming in with the cant of the despots who ruthlessly shed blood for their own purposes — preservation of power : " And as if to substantiate beforehand such an accusation and allow others to suppose that a powerful secret organization for murder exists — you speak repeatedly of the courage needed to write your letter. Courage ! You well know that by declaiming against the dagger you will obtain, without the smallest shadow of risk, the name of the most moral among 460 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. all the leaders of Italy from all those who, secure beneath the shelter of their national flag, secure in the exercise of their right, secure in a well- organized national justice, coldly judge the irregular and convulsive efforts of an uneducated and oppressed people, who have no hope left save in a bloody struggle, and no tribunal to establish the balance of justice between them and those who tyrannize over them. " If your oppressors have disarmed you, create arms to combat them ; make weapons of the iron of your crosses, the nails of your workshops, the stones of your streets ; the dagger you can shape from your workmen's files. Snatch by artifice and by surprise those arms by which the foreigner takes from you your honor, your property, your rights, and your life. From the dagger of the Vespers, to the stone of Ballila, and the knife of Palafox, blessed be in your hands every weapon that can destroy the enemy and set*you free. This language is mine, and it should be yours. The weapon that slew Mincovjtti in your arsenal initiated that insurrec- tion of which you accepted the direction in Venice. It was a weapon of irregular warfare, like that with which three months before the Republic destroyed the minister Rossi in Rome. " In the culpable indifference of governmental Europe to an idea of country, and an immense aspiration nourished by a people, and forcibly restrained for more than half a century — in this state of things is the true source of the theory of the dagger. " All European governments, by forbidding Italy to become a nation, are responsible before God and man for the daggers that glitter amid the darkness in our land. " To the men who are suffering under the knife of the executioner, ' Use not the knife in your turn,' is the same thing as to say to a man dying in an atmosphere of pestilence, 'Let your blood flow calmly through your veins — cure yourself.' It is a similar error to that of the worthy men who would refrain from initiating republican institutions until those born and educated under a monarchical despotism have acquired the virtue of republicans. " The dagger will disappear whenever Italy shall have a life of her own, her rights recognized and justice done to her. " I abhor the shedding of a single drop of blood when not absolirfely neces- sary to the triumph or consecration of a holy principle. There are excep- tional moments in the life and history of nations not to be judged by the normal rule of human justice, and in which the actors can only receive inspira- tion from their conscience and from God. " Whenever justice is extinct and a single tyrant cancels through terror, and denies the conscience of a people and the God who willed them free — if a man, pure from hatred and every baser passion arises, in the religion of country and in the name of the eternal right incarnate in him, and says to him : " Thou torturest millions of my brothers ; thou withholdest from them that which God has decreed them ; thou destroyest their bodies and cor- ruptest their souls ; through thee my country dies a lingering death ; thou art the keystone of an entire edifice of slavery, dishonor, and wrong, I overthrow that edifice by destroying thee, I recognize in that mani- festation of tremendous equality between the tyrant of millions and a ARREST OF INVINCIBLES. 4^1 single individual the finger of God. Most men feel in their hearts as I do. I express it." The Irish Nationalists have adopted these sentiments as being as applicable to Ireland now as to Italy then. The attack made upon Mr. •Parnell was replied to by the Irish leader in a very able and argumentative answer to the ex-British Minister which, so far as Ireland was concerned, left the issue in the same position. Cap- tain O'Shea came to the rescue of Mr. Parnell in the following letter, the concluding portion of which is quoted : " The House of Commons and the public know Mr. Parnell only as the man of hard, cold, undemonstrative bearing. I have seen him with the mask off. When the news of the murders in the Phoenix Park reached London, he came to me, and if ever a public man was overcome by horror and grief for a public crime, it was he. He then and there drew up an address announcing in a few words his retirement from public life. I myself approved of this course under the circumstances, but I insisted on an hour's delay in order that / might consult wiser heads than ??ii?ie. In deference to their counsels I eventually prevailed upon him with the greatest difficulty to alter his determination. " Your obedient servant, " W. H. O'Shea." An Irish Nationalist who remembers the hopes and aspirations which the enthusiastic Irish race tried to place around the young Tribune a few years ago, must feel saddened at the miserable weakness here displayed. Those who remember this gentleman who bears the outward appear- ance and name of Charles Stewart Parnell and remembers the original who in his Wexford speech styled Mr. Gladstone " The greatest coer- cionist," " The most unrivaled slanderer," and the "Pretended champion of liberties," must be horrified at this contemptible cowardice. Here is found his changling representative surrendering or offering to surrender his position as leader of the Irish movement into the hands of Ireland's enemy ; as he himself styled him, " The greatest coercionist and most unrivaled slanderer," Mr. Gladstone ; for no less a person is the "wiser head" here spoken of by the West British Captain O'Shea. Mr. Glad- stone himself informed the public of having received a letter from Mr. Parnell offering to resign his position as Irish leader to the English Premier. Mr. Gladstone corroborated Captain O'Shea as to the attitude of the Irish leader at this epoch ; he made the announcement when the London Times attacked Mr. Parnell that it was owing to Mr. Gladstone's advice and in " deference to his counsels " he resumed the Irish leadership. This astounding piece of information was unknown to the Nationalists,, and until Mr. Parnell made the public statement in the House of Com- mons, slandering the memory of dead patriots by the bitter and infamous appellation of assassin, there was a lingering hope in some breasts he would return to the cause. The Mr. Parnell whom Irish Nationalists hoped to see as their leader spoke the following words in the course of a speech- delivered in the United States during his mission of mercy : " It is impossible to suppose that a great cause can be won without shedding blood." There is not recorded in history anything like the treachery and slander by which the Nationalists have been treated by the Provincialists. This action on their part was the offspring of pure cowardice, not of malice, but the result to Ireland and the movement has been the same. But to continue this subject of Mr. Parnell's treason to Ireland after the Phoenix Park tragedy by anticipating dates: 462 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Mr. Gladstone, in a speech delivered at a dinner given by labor mem- bers of Parliament on Tuesday, April 26, 1887, declared his disbelief in the accusations made by the London Times. Mr. Gladstone said that in May, 1882, immediately after the Phoenix Park deaths, Mr. Parnell wrote him a letter with reference to that crime. The contents of the letter, which had obviously been written under great mental distress, threw con- siderable light upon the topic of the present hour and were strong evi- dence in favor of the contention that the Times' letter was a base and malicious forgery. Mr. Parnell, apparently seeing that in the public mind he would be associated with the crime, offered to place himself without reserve in Mr. Gladstone's hands. He wrote that he regarded the murders with the utmost abhorrence, and he offered to resign the leadership of the Irish party, and retire altogether from political life if Mr. Gladstone con- sidered such a step advisable in the interests of Ireland. Mr. Gladstone said he would refrain from saying what reply he made, adding that it was only a short time since he obtained Mr. Parnell's assent to his mentioning this matter. Comment upon- this cowardly surrender of Irish leadership to the enemy's chief should be superfluous. Unfortunately for Ireland, there will be men found still to cling to their early fetish and his sham move- ment. The British enemy, both Tory and Radical, are in full possession of all the facts connected with the recent Invincible movement, and were completely astounded at the stupid blundering of the London Times, who in its mad and blind hatred of everything Irish, played a most injurious part for British interests in its recent so-called expose', and has made itself the instrument of some malicious fools, acting no doubt without a single shred of genuine information. It is the British enemy's vital interest that every Irish hostile movement directed against its rule in Ireland should be made as insignificant and as unrepresentative as possible, consequently it is most important that for the ends of British diplomacy Mr. Parnell and the Provincial movement should be successful in rebutting the Times' statements. Few would think that the Mr. Parnell of a few years back could prove such a moral coward as Mr. Gladstone's speech makes him in the eyes of Irish patriots.* The genuine Charles Stewart Parnell said in Wexford: "Perhaps the day may come when I may get a good word from Englishmen as being a moderate man when I'm dead and buried." Charles Stewart Parnell pronounced his funeral requiem at Wexford. Better had he accepted the invitation of the gallant Wexfordmen when * Since this was written the Parnell Commission has been holding court in London. The enemy's assassin organ, the Times, is not making any inquiries into the Invincible movement, but is assisting the Tories to try to degrade the Irish cause before the world. The interest of both British parties is to slander Irish patriots before mankind. The unfortunate victims of Britain's demoniac presence in Ireland are brought to London for exhibition, and all the evils attending on foreign misrule which are deliberately the crea- tion of that diabolic institution, are paraded before the world. The Irish social land war, which is the direct effect of Britain's destruction of Irish industries, and her brutal system ■of impoverishing the people, are exhibited in the persons of these unfortunate beings that the enemy has used every engine to degrade and make savage. The London illustrated papers contain pictures of these poor people, and every species of wickedness in the shape of testimony they are bringing before the world as the doings of Irish patriots. These persecuted people's actions had no more to do with the Invincible organization, which had for ultimate object Irish independence, than the melodramatic scene in court introduc- ing Lady Mountmorris as a witness had to do with agrarian outrages. Lord Mount- morris' death had no relation whatever to the Land League or to any political question. But the infamous object of this exhibition is to try and degrade the Irish cause before the world, and especially in the United States. But Americans remember that the country- men of General Philip Sheridan, Generals Anthony Wayne, Green, and Montgomery, and Presidents Andrew Jackson and Chester Arthur, are second to no race in intelligence and honor, and it is Britain's brutal rule that causes these unhappy victims which that cruel power has now on exhibition, December, 1888. ARREST OF INVINCIBLES. 4^3 they shouted they would be Boers, and died at their head fighting for lib- erty, than leave such a record for posterity. He himself and his followers are busily heaping degradation and infamy on their heads. On Tuesday, February 20, James Carey closed his examination in Kilmainham police court. Joseph Brady, Daniel Curley, and their friends' disgust at Carey's infamous conduct was intense. If the flash of indigna- tion from their eyes could have killed him, Carey would have been smitten by the lightning of their glances. The conclusion of Tuesday's examination terminated the magisterial, series of remands, this being the eighth day's preliminary trial in the police court. The Crown, now having its case completed, returned the pris- oners for trial before a Special Commission appointed to sit in Green Street Court House early in April. It must be recollected by those who condemn the cowardice and treachery of Carey and Kavanagh, that those who should have set them an example of courage had not only weakened, but deserted all the men arrested, leaving their helpless families utterly unprovided for. Irishmen who have sacrificed themselves to try and serve their native land, in the only practical manner that nations can be aided in the path toward inde- pendence, too often find that their families suffer for their patriotism. It is one of the saddest and most cruel pagesin the history of unhappy Ire- land. These captured men, after the first few weeks of their arrest, were condemned to live on prison fare. The food that had been supplied to them from outside was suddenly stopped. The officer of the organization to whom they and their families looked for financial assistance, found himself completely cut off from all communication ; this was through no misadventure, but the deliberate and cowardly act of prominent men who controlled large sums, fearing to place themselves in jeopardy by doing. their sacred and solemn duty at this crisis. The men alluded to are still under the enemy's flag, and very probably are to be numbered among the renegades that Provincialism brought over to the foe. Deserted and utterly alone, surrounded by treachery and neglect, these brave and noble-hearted men silently awaited in their bitter cold cells their approaching death for the land of their birth. The curtain in the star-chamber of Dublin Castle will be raised once again to exhibit Britain's two saviors, Curran and Mallon, examining another prisoner. This time it is a man of more than the ordinary ability pos- sessed by the average suspect of previous examinations. On the morning of Thursday, March 1, 1883, a raid was made on Blackrock Station, County Dublin, situated on the line of the railroad between Kingstown and Westland Row, Dublin. Mr. Patrick Kinsella, who was in charge of the station, had been in the service of the Dublin, Wicklow, and Wexford Railroad Co., and its predecessor the Dublin and Kingstown company, since his boyhood. He filled the important position of station master for over twenty years. He was a trusted and able official of considerable ability. Upon this gentleman at Blackrock, chief detective Mallon made a swoop in the early morning. The - British raid was disappointing ; neither pris- oner nor arms rewarded the enemy's sbirri. But Mallon, determined that he would not be altogether foiled, sent out a police officer, after the search had failed, who made prisoner of the station master. To the astonish- ment of all the respectable inhabitants of Blackrock, Mr. Kinsella was led away a captive and brought to Dublin Castle. There in the chamber of mental torture he was put by Curran upon the inquisitorial rack. From his somewhat public position as station master at Blackrock, Mr. Kinsella had a very extensive acquaintance ; most of the arrested men he knew personally, and much to the surprise of both Mallon and Curran he freely 464 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. admitted it ; he made no mystery of any of his movements ; he had no need to. He had contracted a strong personal friendship for both Daniel Curley and Joseph Brady on purely social grounds. Mr. Kinsella was a man who had the reputation of having never interfered in politics. The majority of his friends and associates were by no means men of National proclivities, but rather the opposite. The gentleman's manuscript is given here, and may possibly be read with interest. CHAPTER XXXIII. (1883.) RAID ON BLACKROCK RAILWAY STATION — ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE "NUM- BER ONE " THE INVINCIBLE ORGANIZATION — SECRET EXAMINATION IN DUBLIN CASTLE, WRITTEN BY PATRICK KINSELLA, LATE STATION MASTER AT BLACKROCK, COUNTY DUBLIN. Raid of Police on Blackrock Station — Chief Inspector Mallon Late — Mallon Arrives at 7.30 A. M. — Every Exit and Entrance of the Station Guarded by Police — Search for " Number One " — Searching Beds and Mattresses — Mallon Shows " Number One's" Photograph to Station Master — Staggered and Surprised — The Invincible Move- ment — The Invincible Executive — " Very far Behind ' Number One' " — Cowards who Think it Diplomacy to Publicly Lie — Carey's Description of the Invincible Com- ^nander — Finding of the Photograph — Queen's Guard of Honor — Speaker at the Hyde Park Demonstration — Large Reward for his Apprehension — The Star Chamber in the Lower Castle Yard—" The Room was Small and a Cheerful Fire Burned in the Grate" — " Curran Posed in an Easy Attitude, Smoking a Cigar" — " No Tear of Sensi- bility ever Appeared to have Dimmed the Fire of his Strong Black Eye " — "Between Twenty and Thirty Policemen, who were Permitted to Remain on the Platform from 6.15 a. M. to 7.30 A. M. to be Stared at by the Passengers, with No Leader and Apparently without an Object" — " Signals from Right to Left Flank of the Enemy " — " My First Shot had Told " — Fired Another — " Number One " had Time to Get Away — Private Door Left Unguarded — Confusion in the Enemy's Ranks — Retire to Consult — Mallon and Curran Reappear — " I had Whistled in the Storm" — Curran has Fury in his Looks — " Make a Clean Breast of it and you will be Looked After" — " Oh, Most Sapient, I have you Now " — " Verily, Most Wise, you are not a Daniel " — " By God, you will not Find this a Laughing Matter" — " The Locker on the Left of the Office as you Enter was Left Untouched " — " After Four Hours of Sharp Practice he Sullenly gave it up " — " Why, so be it " — " I will be a Dainty Dish to Set before the Queen" — Waiting Room for Crown Witnesses — "He Suggested I go to the Crown Witness Room as More Convenient" — "The Wind had gone to the Butt of the Clouds, Bringing the Rain" — Another Attempt to Entrap a Witness — "I will Speak to No One in Private" — Halston Street Court Room Hall — "I'll not till you Force me " — George Bolton, Crown Solicitor, goes to Blackrock Rail- way Station — The Station Master Refuses to see him Privately. On the 1st day of March, 1883, a force of Dublin detectives numbering about fifteen left Westland Row railway station by the 6 a. m. train and alighted at Blackrock. They remained on what we call the down plat- form, announcing their profession by the loafing mien and furtive looks peculiar to their class. The 6.30 train from Kingstown brought up half a dozen police in uniform, and these were joined about seven o'clock by seven or eight of the local police. What meant this array of force ? They came to arrest "Number One," "acting on information received" from the unfortunate Carey, who told them that that gentleman was the friend and guest of the station master. Why they came in such extraordinary force, and why they were not led rather than followed by their chief, Mr. Mallon, were questions that I, station master, could not answer myself with any other reasoning than attributing it to police stupidity ; for it is certain that, had " Number One" been my guest, he could have been far away before Mallon appeared on the scene at 7.30 to put his force in m©tion, especially as that gregarious force kept together like sheep on the plat- form, leaving the private entrance, which is not in view of the platform, unguarded. Mallon appeared at 7.30 and the loafing mass got into action. Every exit and entrance was taken charge of, and I was ordered 465 466 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. by a warrant signed by Spencer to admit them to my private apartments. Every nook was explored, even to the coal cellar, and all on and /';/ the beds, as well as under, for a plethoric inspector from Kingstown turned down the covering from each of four beds and fingered the mattresses with an appearance of most profound sagacity. This same sage examined all the books he could discover, and carried off one with some scribbling which he found on the pages, but which meant nothing. The unsuccess- ful search over, I was called aside by Mallon, and for the first time that morning was startled on seeing the photograph of a friend. I was really staggered and frightened, for up to that moment I thought that no breath of suspicion was attached to him. The photograph shown me by Mallon was the portrait of " Number One," whom the British Government were using every means in their power to capture. The reward of ^10,000 — $50,000 — which had been offered for his apprehension had no claimants up to this morning ; there appeared so far no one to betray the Invincible chief to the English enemy. I had strong hopes that the Castle people would not be able to trace " Number One," for not one of his following, save only myself, knew the slightest thing about him, but when I saw the picture in Mal- lon's hand an indescribable feeling of alarm almost deprived me of tjie power of speech. I knew not where he was, but then the comforting thought came to the rescue, and bringing with it a smile to my pale face, whispered " You know where he is not — he is not in the hands of the enemy. Smile ; let them laugh when they catch him." My fear for my friend was for the moment very great, but this happy thought gave back the strength to my limbs and freedom to my tongue. So I said to my- self, " There is no ill but what might be worse, if they had him he should be the first to die." I have been a follower of this gentleman from the earlier days of the sixties, when men's minds were filled with hopes of great things to be done under James Stephens and his Irish Directory. I was given a soldier's training — so far as it could be given in Dublin — by him and his friend, the afterward famous Edmond O'Donovan, war correspondent of the Daily News, and who was unfortunately killed in the Soudan with Hicks Pasha. We practiced together the use of the rifle on Killiney Strand and among the Bray Hills. We examined the roads all round Dublin for distances of over thirty miles; together we built forts in one strategic position and erected barricades in another (in fancy), and we really attained a first-class knowledge of the approaches to the city. We sat up late at nights, he and his brother and I and more, casting bullets for the Enfield rifle, and varied the employment now and again by taking a turn at aerial architecture, and the castles we built, and the man- sions which we hung in the skies, were strong and beautiful, and there in those mansions of hope and castles of strength we lived from early in the sixties till late in the same decade — till March 5, 1867, when we followed him that terrible night to look for the officers of the Irish Direc- tory, who were to meet us at the village of Tallaght ; but when we got there all was confusion. There was no one there who could direct us to where we could find the Irish army, so our castles all fell about our ears ; three brave youths were shot that night at Tallaght ; one policeman died through fright, and the valiant police inspector (Burke) went mad from fear also. In the beginning of 1882 I was induced by this irrepressible gentle- man to again "attempt something for the poor old land." I had at all times looked on my friend as too sanguine as to success in the Irish cause. I do not mean too visionary, — simply over hopeful, — and now finding him again in the field, notwithstanding the failures of the past, PATRICK KINSELLA. Late railroad station master at Blackrock, County Dublin. Said to have been in charge of the Dublin Invincibles during the absence of " Number One," and left in sole control when the Invincible Executive vanished from the scene. RAID ON BLACKROCK RAILWAY STATION. 467 made me fear that he had not that profound wisdom I had at all times given him credit for. He was in the enjoyment of a good and success- ful business ; had a large and interesting family, good social standing, and in nearly all circumstances was happily situated. I would have dis- suaded him from the undertaking if I could, but, finding that impossible, I had only the alternative of deserting my patriotic friend in the most trying position of his life, or joining in the most terrible conspiracy which up to that time the cruelty of a conqueror had ever driven the conquered into. However, when he made me acquainted with his plans, and with the names and positions of those by whom he was commissioned, I took heart and joined in, and from that time till the end I did my best for him and for all. Since my arrival in the United States I have heard of many men who have had the unaccountable vanity or folly to pose as this gentleman. I have often asked myself if they would be equally anxious to take the same risks in Dublin. " Number One " was the commanding officer of the military Invincibles in Dublin City. I advisedly use the word military to distinguish them from the civic statesmen of the same organization — an organization spread all over Ireland, as the British Government knew well, and not confined to the metropolitan city, as some supposed. This move- ment sprang into existence immediately after the suppression of the Land League. It had at its head a number of gentlemen with great polit- ical influence and having command of large sums of money; otherwise it could not have developed so rapidly. These gentlemen were the spon- sors of the new organization, and they created and dictated its policy. Whatever praise or condemnation mankind may feel disposed to pass upon this policy is entirely, in the first instance, due to these statesmen, who authorized every action of the military Invincibles, who obeyed these statesmen as all soldiers obey their government. It was obviously not to the interest of the Castle officials to permit the knowledge to be circu- lated abroad that the Invincible movement was so widespread ; they wished the newspapers to believe that it was almost altogether confined to Dublin and consisted of a few men, the greater number of whom they had arrested. It was this knowledge of its power in the country which alarmed them and caused them to display such panic. The Dublin Invincibles knew that their organization was established all over Ireland, but they had no official contact with anyone outside the city. Whether those other districts had similar officers to " Number One " in command I do not know, as the principal occurrences and trials took place in Dublin. The members of this Invincible government have never been publicly known, but they were and are known to me, nor is it likely that their personality will ever be revealed. They proved themselves very cowardly when their men got into danger, and were very stupid in allowing so many to be wantonly sacrificed. We are not likely to learn any more about the mysterious executive which was behind " Number One," and which was very far behind him indeed. Some of these gentle- men are living quietly under the British flag and indorsing all it repre- sents, confident that their identity can never be discovered, deceiving others by their denials of complicity or sympathy with the Invincibles, as they deceived the brave fellows they slandered and betrayed by their neglect. After the departure of " Number One," I soon perceived that a panic spread through the ranks of this mysterious executive similar to what took place in Dublin Castle during the trials. In point of courage they were foemen worthy of each other's steel ; and if it were not for the brave and noble fellows that went down between them it would have mattered little to anyone. 468 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Since that time those men or their friends have at intervals considered it wisdom to assail in the most wanton manner the policy they were the authors of. Their slander of the dead and their abuse of the living have been most cowardly. As they knew full well, they could not be answered back, owing to what may be possibly a false sense of honor on the part of those who possess the secret ; secure in the knowledge that their identity has never been hinted at, which they consider — and prob- ably it is — a great victory ; to assail principles which with them should be sacred was their reward for this immunity. Not one of them has had the chivalry to publicly rebuke his friends for this vituperation. If these men had changed their policy at a certain period they should have so communicated with their executive officer, " Number One." He gave them ample time to do so. They have deceived and betrayed their own followers by their weakness and allowed their opponents to gain an easy victory. Their change of front from agitators to Invincibles, which was probably born of passion, was followed by vacillatory and cowardly con- duct. What they considered prudence and judgment was most ill timed. In their anxiety to preserve their own personal and family ties from what they — accepting the public cant — admitted by their conduct was a blemish, they, in so stamping their own conduct, did not consider other men's relations or prospects in life. If rhey really held these opinions they are to be despised, for they were not only cowards, but traitors to their own consciences all through. They not only lacked the courage but the dignity and truth of the military branch of their organ- ization. The men in Dublin, in acting up to their honest convictions, believed that all were animated with the same honorable motives. I am but an humble man and do not pretend to comprehend the ideas of the great. I hear a good deal said about policy and expediency by cowards who think it diplomacy to publicly lie. I thoroughly and heartily despise them. In my humble judgment this policy of hypocrisy is both dastardly and unmanly. Whenever I hear of a " truly great Irishman " (according to the bom- bastic hero worship of the time) denouncing and slandering the Invincibles and their plan of campaign I am tempted to put the question to myself, " Was this man another member of the mysterious Invincible govern- ment?" Probably he was. It is announced at this time that there is to be a London trial as a certain ex-member of the British Parlia- ment feels insulted at the London Times remarks. This individual, evidently anxious to drag himself into public notice, seeks a quarrel with this brutal London journal.* If this trial comes off, there will be oaths taken, and men will unblushingly assert before mankind not only what is not true, but the opposite to their cherished convictions. But to dismiss the subject of these smiling poltroons, whose existence must forever remain a living lie, I return to what I was about to say of " Number One." When Carey turned informer — which I positively knew four days before he was placed on the witness stand — the officials were much dis- appointed at the limited extent of his knowledge. One piece of what was considered valuable testimony the Castle people looked upon as most important. This was his description of the officer at the head of the Invincibles in Dublin. This man Carey said he knew very well both by appearance and from having personal relations with him. He stated that this officer controlled the whole organization in Dublin City. But who this mysterious chief was Carey could not tell. He described him as a gentlemanly person, whom he felt certain was or had been a military man. *The trial here spoken of was Frank Hugh O'Donnell's threatened action against the London Times. RAID ON BLACKROCK RAILWAY STATION. 469 Carey was under the impression that he was an Irishman serving in the army of some European power. He impressed this so persistently on the British official mind that the whole force of the Government machinery used in such secret service was put into action examining the records of the foreign Irish serving in the Continental armies. The few Invincibles in Dublin with whom he had personal relations knew him. by no other name than" Number One." Various and strange speculations started in Dublin Castle about this mysterious personage and who he might prove to be. All sorts of guesses were made ; several people whose personal appearance was very different were suspected. As soon as Carey's evi- dence came before the public the newspapers increased the number of in- dividuals who in their estimation might have been the owner of this peculiar nom de guerre, some mythical and some in the flesh. Every profession and country contributed their quota. Among the European public men spoken of was General McAdaras of the French Army. This Irishman, who earned distinction in the military service of his adopted nation, was by common consent supposed to be the much sought for Invincible offi- cer. It eventually became such a mystery that the general public began to pronounce "Number One " a myth and the creature of Carey's brain. The Castle people, who were at first in as great a state of mystification as the press and public, had discovered a solution of the mystery, but they preserved this secret. All this time the British journals were filled with absurd speculations and wild conjectures. On the Sunday immediately following the public appearance of Carey as an informer, the police in London entered the house of one of Mr. Parnell's friends, Mr. Byrne, who was then secretary for the National League in England. They discovered in an album in this gentleman's house a photograph which so nearly fitted Carey's description of the mysterious Invincible that they immediately secured it. But for the find- ing of this photograph "Number One" would have remained, like the Invincible executive, the greatest mystery of the nineteenth century. When this photograph was shown to Carey the next day in Dublin he at once recognized it as the picture of the gentleman whom he described in his evidence. The authorities soon learned who was the original of the photograph, and when they did so they were more puzzled still and began to doubt the correctness of Carey's identification. They were informed that this gentleman was a most loyal man, the very opposite to the person they had pictured. He was a member of Company I, Queen's Westminsters, one of the select London volunteer regiments. This regiment was commanded by the Duke of Westminster and was considered a very special London corps. When the new law courts in the Strand, London, were officially opened by the Queen in royal state the Queen's Westminsters were paid what was considered a distinguished honor by being permitted to take official part in the ceremonies of the day, and with the household troops formed part of her Majesty's guard of honor. This pageant took place early in December, 1882, seven months after the affair in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, and one month before the Dublin arrests. The only other volunteer regiment permitted to turn out on the occasion — so hedged in is the divinity of a British sovereign — was the Inns of Court, but as this regiment is exclusively composed of lawyers it had a special privilege. Early on the morning of this gala day nearly five hundred of the Queen's Westminsters in full uniform mustered at their armory near Buckingham Palace Gate. Colonel Busby, the com- manding officer, read the regiment a letter received from the Horse Guards limiting their guard of honor to one hundred selected men. The regiment was mustered in column, the colonel and Sergeant-Major Fowler walking along the line picking out the Sovereign's guard. One of the 47° THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. men chosen by the colonel for this post of honor was the original of the- photograph found in Mr. Byrne's house. As a member of the Queen's Westminsters that day marching with the regimental guard and band, saluting and being saluted by her Majesty's household troops, the Life and Horse Guards, was to be found the original of this portrait. As the " Queen's " marched through St. James' Park the recently returned heroes of Tel-el-Kebir saluted them. These gigantic warriors, mounted on magnificent horses, were that morning arrayed in their gorgeous and showy uniforms, which they left behind them when going soldiering in Egypt. There are few things more romantic in history : the Queen's guards saluting the captain of a body of Irish guerrilla soldiers engaged in a species of terrible warfare against what these Irishmen believed were their country's bitter enemies. The Dublin Castle people also learned that he was with his regiment at the Easter Monday review, and shared in the sham battle at Ports- mouth, and that he also attended the annual muster of the "Queen's" in Hyde Park. They learned he was in Scotland at that time, but visit- ing at various hotels in that country. The detectives found those who knew him incredulous when communicated with ; he was conservative and non-political in the society of his friends, who were business men and others of social standing. The colonel and officers of the regiment received the news from Ireland as too absurd. They would not believe it. In Company I, where he was best known, they were inclined to look upon it as a practical joke. Major Starkey, the captain of Company I, pooh-poohed it as a sensational canard. But what was still more astounding to the British Government was his intimate and friendly association with several of the officials in the Irish Office, London, and his frequent visits to the Government offices at Queen Anne's Gate. The officials who traveled with Mr. Forster and the other Irish Secretaries were personal friends of his. He was, they learned, actually in the Government Buildings, London, when Irish dis- patches were received. He was known to have entered that office on the 1 2th of July, in company with Mr. , the manager, and several other gentlemen, and, as the Government officials thought, to celebrate the day, he wore an orange lily in his coat. The subject turned upon the humor of some noble peer. Mr. expressed his regret that he had not had the pleasure of his company that morning in the House of Lords when the royal sanction was given to the Irish Crimes Act. These gentlemen thought their visitor was as enthusiastically British as they were themselves ; to suspect the loyalty of their friend never for a moment entered their heads. Those who boast of diplomacy should feel satisfied that it was carried out to its perfection in this instance. The Castle people easily located him in Jury's Hotel, Dublin, where he had been staying for some time previous to the 6th of May, and they learned that he left Dublin on the Thursday evening after the exciting event of the previous Saturday. But then, as a commercial traveler, he had been accustomed to spend his time in hotels for years, as his business required it. The Castle people felt certain they had a clew to his where- abouts, and that they would soon succeed in capturing him. Mr. Murphy, the Crown counsel, now a judge, said, on the final examination of the prisoners before the magistrates, that he would for certain have" Number One " to present to them in the dock by the following Saturday. One feature of his political career which made the British officials doubly anxious for this mysterious man's capture was his association with the Irish Parliamentary party. In the course of their investigations they learned that he was a constant visitor to the Land League headquarters RAID ON BLACKROCK RAILWAY STATION. 471 in Palace Chambers, Westminster, and took a prominent part in all the meetings and discussions which took place during the eventful winter of 1881. That he was considered by them of sufficient importance to be selected as one of the public speakers at the great demonstration held in Hyde Park, London, to protest against the arrest of Charles Stewart Parnell, by orders of the British Premier, Mr. Gladstone ; and that he actually took part in this demonstration and made a speech from the same carriage in Hyde Park as William Redmond, one of the Parliamentary leaders, who was his companion in the vehicle, forcibly convinced the British officials and Government of the close identity which existed be- tween this hostile Irish officer, the leader in the Phoenix Park tragedy, and the apostles, leaders, and lights of what is termed " legal and constitu- tional agitation." A large reward offered for his apprehension, and also for information as to his whereabouts, sharpened the wits and stimulated the energies of England's usually blundering police force. Much of the foregoing information of the movements of my friend I learned from himself on such occasions as he visited Dublin. Of the discovery of his picture I was afterward informed. When " Number One" was leaving, he put me in communication with some of the guiding stars of the constitutional agitation, men of ability certainly, but en- dowed with a very plentiful lack of physical and moral courage and manly honesty ; fit for any emergency until it arose, and then — why, Bob Acres has broken a mirror, every fragment whereof reflects back a Bob. When I waited on some of these great statesmen — whose names are as familiar on the lips of Irishmen as household words — for the transaction of business connected with the Invincible organization, they evinced the most indecent haste to get rid of me. If necessary supplies formed the occasion of my call, money was thrust into my hand uncounted and I was put out to do as I liked — put out without having a word of encouragement spoken to myself or one of inquiry for my friends in prison at the time. " Number One " had given me an address where, in case of emer- gency, I could correspond with him, using our secret code. These com- munications could only reach him through the agency of other people, and I at times knew nothing of his whereabouts. When these great chiefs of the agitators and Invincibles (what a com- bination of titles !) deserted me in Dublin and deserted the young men in prison, who looked to me as the only one in communication with those whose duty it was to help them, I sent a dispatch to " Number One," but it never reached him. After passing through the usual channels it was destroyed without reaching my friend. These heroic chiefs did not give me a hint on the occasion of my last interview that they were about to leave ; indeed they spoke not at all, only desired me to be careful of attracting observation on my departure. I had some expectation that these statesmen would have given me orders to communicate with some of the other Invincible bands in Dublin whose ranks had been untouched in the recent arrests, but they did not. I had expected on my first interview with these gentlemen, that a matter of supreme importance of which " Number One " had instructed me previous to his departure would have been the first to occupy their atten- tion, but I received no orders from them whatever. The departure of these agitators occurred two days before Mallon's raid on Blackrock. In no pleasant frame of mind at their desertion, and filled with sad thoughts of the poor boys in prison, and of my absent friend of whose whereabouts I knew nothing, I had scarcely recovered from the shock I received when shown his picture. Mallon asked me if I knew him. 47 2 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVISIBLES. •' Yes, intimately, for many years." " What was his business ? " "Commercial traveler." " For what house ? " " Not able to say." " When did you see him last ? " " About a month ago, I think, but am not certain." " Admit knowing him ? " " Certainly. What are you driving at ? but I suppose you know best." The clown was puzzled that I did not deny all knowledge of " Number One." If for any reason I had been stupid enough to do so, every man under me at the station could have contradicted me. By this time I was satisfied " Number One " was not captured, and my relief was so great that I was not only equal but superior to the occasion. At twelve o'clock I found myself in what Mr. Curley called "the star chamber," in the lower Castle yard, where he and the other victims had gone to the extent of denying each other to-day and admitting acquaintanceship to- morrow, for these men were there the preceding December for many days during the progress of 'a preliminary secret inquiry. After I had been sworn I was pointed out a chair, wherein I sat and awaited develop- ments. The room was small and a cheerful fire burned in the grate. Leaning against the mantelpiece on which stood the photograph of " Num- ber One," Curran posed in an easy attitude, smoking a cigar. His hair was black and his cheek bones unusually high, his chin and upper lip were close shaved, his side whiskers formed a black, impenetrable jungle. No tear of sensibility ever appeared to have dimmed the fire of his strong black eye, whose stern glance had so often during this misery-creating inquisition impressed others that it could read their thoughts, especially when its lying owner told them that their thoughts were known to him already, that their friends had revealed them, and that prevarication or denial would be useless; therefore make a clean breast of it and they would be safe. Thank God, no human eye or brain can read the secret thoughts of others. Each man is a world within himself. Mallon stood with folded arms, tall and good-looking, catlike, silky, suave, and bland, with a stereo- typed smile, which he put on to suit the occasion, but which through his overacting or want of acting became monotonous. He was between me and the door, within touch of my right shoulder. Curran was directly before me, and in a corner on my left front sat a good-looking youth at a desk taking notes. Curran undoubtedly conducted this infa- mous inquisition with considerable ability from a British standpoint, and upon his pale and somewhat cadaverous features could be read a self- consciousness of success together with a sneering contempt for the unfortunates with whom the situation brought him into daily contact. Scorn is, however, a more or less annoying feeling, and in my case Curran cast it off. In good language, well attuned to please the ear, he told me that, though he regretted the necessity that compelled him to have me brought before him, that regret was considerably mollified by his hope that I would depart from his presence a much happier man than I approached him; that before I should have taken my departure " I would have made a clean breast of it." He had known me from his schoolboy days in Kingstown during the time of his sainted mother and never-to-be- forgotten father, who so ably defended Spollon (Curran persuaded a jury of fools to aquit the foulest wretch that ever disgraced humanity), and carrying his memory back with sadness of mind and a softened heart to that loved old time, he had noticed me (most precocious schoolboy) as one destined to an honorable future. I was superior to all my fellows, RAID ON BLACKROCK RAILWAY STATION. 473 and for my many virtues was promoted step by step and now found myself loved and trusted alike by those above and beneath me and the general public, all of whom remarked me for my obliging disposition and courteous manners. He drew such a sweet picture of my goodness and simplicity as to make me wonder he did not ask me if I knew the nature of an oath. He concluded his opening observations by remarking that he believed I had no criminal knowledge of this terrible conspiracy, but that through my friendship for its leader that person made use of me to convey letters, keep parcels, etc., while all the time he (Curran) was willing to believe I had no conception of the dangerous nature of the business I was engaged in. Here I spoke for the first time since I had spoken to Mallon that morning, and curiously enough my own voice lent me courage, for I had been very much depressed : " And this harmless life you speak of had its course abruptly changed this morning to one which is likely to end in poverty and gloom by the appearance of between twenty and thirty police " " Not so many," hastily interrupted Mallon. I did not appear to heed the interruption, but continued to address Curran : " By the appearance of between twenty and thirty policemen, who were permitted to remain on the platform from 6.15 to 7.30 to be stared at by the passengers, with no leader and apparently without an object." Here there were some optical signals from right to left flank of the enemy. My first shot had told. I immediately fired another, and said, pointing to the photograph : " If that gentleman had been my guest, and this astonishing force had been sent to capture him, he had an hour to get off, as the private door was left unguarded." There was confusion in the enemy's ranks, and they retired to consult. I felt I had a weapon, which I determined, however, to use strictly on the defensive. They reappeared very soon, and the mild zephyr of Curran's opening observations had changed. I had whistled in the storm. Curran came to the attack boldly. There was a fury in his looks, fierce but well restrained. He lit another cigar and resumed a conversational attitude : "As I have remarked, I am willing to believe you have no criminal knowledge of this business, but even assuming such were possible, you may not have gone too far to retreat, and by answering my questions straight and truly you need not fear the future, even though your present situation should be imperiled. Make a clean breast of it and you will be looked after." I said : " I am here to answer your questions straight." Something in my tone caused Curran to give up smoking, for he bit the end off his cigar, retaining it in his mouth, and threw the lit portion of it in the fire. After two or three turns of the "quid" he said : "We have ways of knowing things here which render it worse than folly on the part of any person we may summon before us to deny directly or endeavor to do so by prevarication or evasion, for any such will, under the trying nature of the times, be visited by the severest punishment due to the grossest perjury." I said : " I fully understand you. I will answer without the slightest prevarication or evasion.'" My voice appeared again to disagree with his enjoyment in the matter of chewing, for, throwing the "quid" into the fire, he took another cigar. " You know this ' Number One ' ? " "Yes, very well." 474 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. " How long ? " " Since about the year 1857." " What business does he follow?" " That of commercial traveler." " For what house and where situated ?" " In London situated, name and business I know not." " Do you mean to tell me you don't know what business his firm carry on ? " "Yes ; when we meet we simply amuse ourselves by chatting of the past, not having any mutual interest in business." He inquired all about the past of " Number One," and I answered promptly and with few reservations. Still he appeared unhappy, for he said I was concealing all I could, but he would come at it. After a short pause he appeared to have come to the conclusion that the present cigar was unfit either to smoke or chew, for he threw it bodily into the fire, and turning his back upon it, while placing his hands behind him, he proceeded, as did Simon Tappertit with Dolly Varden, to " eye me over," with a view to conquest. After taking a mental inventory of my cover- ing from shoe to necktie he fixed his hard eye on mine, and informed me that if I thought I could throw dust in his eyes he was firmly convinced that any attempt of that sort on my part would be a failure. I assured him that it had not occurred to me to indulge in such a freak, and finally desired him to understand that I should confine myself to answering his questions, not having any information to impart. Now began the process by which Farrell and the other wretched informers were manufactured into Crown witnesses. I was told that my secrets were known to him (Curran) from sources which the Castle authorities alone knew, and that a knowledge of these secrets had come from my friends, and that any attempt on my part at concealment would be visited by the direst punishment, and that by making " a clean breast of it " (his common phrase) as my friends had done, I would deserve the esteem of a law- abiding people, and earn my restoration to freedom and respectability. Oh, most sapient, I have you now ! My friends know my serious secrets ! Verily, most wise, you are not a Daniel ! Let it not be thought that the tone or style of any of my replies was the outcome of bravado or defiance. My nature is opposed to all exhibition of either, and any such exhibition just now would be as silly as my Lord Mayor Sullivan's parade to trial in his robes. I was saddened at the impending fate of my friends, especially the trusting and brave young Brady, who loved my company so well and in whose society I was a boy again. I knew noth- ing of the position of " Number One," and I will confess I was fearful for myself ; but these feelings were accompanied by a good, wholesome savage anger. Curran fixed his hard eye on mine and said, more in a tone of asser- tion than inquiry : " You know Carey ? " " Yes, by sight " "What! " " I have just said by sight." " Oh ! And when and how did you come to know him by sight, pray ? " " On a Sunday about the beginning of last autumn I saw him with a party of his friends in a tavern at the end of the Vale of Clara, two miles from the Seven Churches." " And how did you come to see him there ? " " I was on my way to the Churches with Mr. of Blackrock, and we stopped in there for refreshments." RAID ON BLACKROCK RAILWAY STATION. 475 " Was it not on last Whit Monday that you were one of Carey's com- pany at the Churches ? " " Never was in his company at any time or place." " Did you not first become acquainted with Carey in the month of May, when you were sent to his house with letters by ' Number One ' ? " "No." "And how did you know Carey at the Churches if you had no fore- knowledge of him?" " He was pointed out to me by a friend as the man who had exposed some jobbery in the Dublin sewers, and as a person likely to become famous." " Did you ever see him at Blackrock ? " " I saw him passing through the station on one occasion." " Was it before you saw him at the Churches ? " It will be thought that this last question was silly — by no means ; it was put to confuse. So I answered him with half the shadow of a sneer : "As my first sight of him was at the Churches it naturally follows that it was after that." " What time was it ? " " I took no note." " Did he go there to meet ' Number One ' ? " " Can't say." " Did you follow him out and guide him to ' Number One ? ' " "No." " You are concealing the truth, and I will have it from you if I be obliged to put you on the table." Mallon here informed Curran that truth was in a well, and Curran said it was certainly not in some people, but from these very people he was determined to extract it, which observation prepared me to believe that Mallon was a man of very original ideas, and that Curran had not the logic which might be expected from his father's son. Through the questions which followed I discovered a change of front on the part of my enemy, and also that Carey had given him every information in his power, and which was considerable in my case, but which information he could not extract from me. He knew me to be the intimate of " Number One," and believed, like many others, that I was the repository of the secrets of the Invincibles ; therefore to be able to wring those secrets from me, and face me with them over my signature "on the table," would have been a triumph second only to the capture of "Number One " himself. In this attempt he was, to use an old phrase, " trying to make a silk purse out of a pig's ear." His change of front, however, was wise, being well calculated to confuse. He questioned me sharply about a Mr. Clancy, a great friend of Mr. Parnell and Mr. William O'Brien, and a member of the City Council. He was not made happy by my replies, for I actually knew nothing of the man, and Curran held to the belief I did. He asked me how often I had drank whisky with a priest in my office, and my simply truthful reply of " Never " left him still unhappy. He suddenly threw " Number One " at me again, then Clancy and the priest, and after a very short pause he shot Carey and Whit Monday at me again, and I said : " Did Whit Monday ever come so late as August ? Perhaps, but it never fell on Sunday." If I had betaken myself to the amusement of flinging dust in his eyes, notwithstanding his cautioning me not to, and having missed his eyes landed it on his poll, he could not have sent his left hand to his back hair in search of it with more energy than he did now ; then taking it back with equal haste, he struck it with the right, perhaps to rebuke it 476 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. for not finding the dust, and said : "By God, you will not find this a laughing matter ! " Both hands retired behind his back, where they embraced and made up their differences. " What were the nature and contents of that parcel which was left with you by a Mrs. Williams, and what became of it? if it be not a waste of time to ask you." Turning to Mallon he said : " No trace ? " " None," said Mallon, who appeared to be evidently in a deep study of his finger nails, after the manner of a fifth-rate actor recalling his part. The business was becoming warm and interesting to me. This parcel and Mrs. Williams amused me very much — all the more that I knew nothing about them. I had noted the defective search in the morning, and I was now furnished with the means of taking advantage of it. I said: " So there was a parcel also to be taken this morning ? It must not have been of much importance ; the search was not very exhaustive." This to Mallon, who left off reading his finger nails for a moment, and said the search was thorough. I said : " The locker op the left of the office as you enter was left untouched." " You can't know ; you were upstairs." I said : "My people had their eyes open." Another dash for "the table." After a moment's pause they retired ; when they returned Curran led off with : " Do you persist in denying your knowledge of Carey? " " I persist in asserting my total want of knowledge of the man." From this point to the end of the examination there appeared a falling off of bitterness on the part of Curran, who said coolly enough : " I believe you will stick to what you say." The following narrative in reply to his questions I make as short as I can : I became acquainted with Joseph Brady at Blackrock ; I had forgotten him till he reminded me of the day at Lara Bridge, where Mr. and I amused Carey's company without knowing it by some quaint remarks on things in general. I knew Daniel Curley through his having done some work for Mr. Meagher of Blackrock, a friend of mine. I first saw James Mullet at his own house on the occasion of my visit with Sergeant Doyle (who was wounded at Tel-el-Kebir in Egypt ; his brother was one of my railroad staff) to the Royal Barracks to visit the sergeants' mess and see the piece of plate which was presented to Sergeant Danvers by Trinity College for getting into a street row and coming out of it with a whole skin. James Mullet kept a quiet tavern, and we went in there. Mullet being an affable man, I formed his acquaintance, and so on through my examination. There was no shuffling or prevarication in my replies, which were promptly given. I was led by his questions through the principal figures of the time, whose acquaintance I admitted so readily, while explaining the simple natural events which led up to the acquaintance, that he had only to say I was a man of the most curious coincidences. That great gun "the table" was now silent, and after nearly four hours of sharp practice he sullenly gave it up. He had made no breach ; the silk purse was a failure ; the pig had saved its bacon. He said he would take no steps till the following Monday, giving me the interim to consider, and added, with an eleva- tion of his brows and in a wonders-will-never-cease sort of tone : " Upon my soul, you give a most extraordinary account of yourself." On Mon- day I was not put to the question. I was only met with the remark : " I suppose you hold to your evidence of Thursday ?" "Yes." I was 'very much surprised on being asked did I see "Number One" on Saturday RAID ON BLACKROCK RAILWAY STATION. 477 evening. " No." " He certainly went from Westland Row on a Kingstown train on Saturday evening." I said : " I wish I knew where he is and that he is safe," and I added : " What with Carey and his letters, Clancy, whom I don't know, Mrs. Williams and her parcel, the priest and his whisky, and now ' Number One ' on Saturday evening, you are being misled to an astonishing extent." I was let off ; but I thought I saw the end was not yet, nor was it. It was not until Fitzharris was put on his trial for conspiracy, he having been acquitted of the capital charge, that I was summoned to Green Street as a witness on behalf of her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen against my friends ! What was Curran's game ? I asked myself, and I repeated again, What ? Was it to put me on " the table " after all ? Why, so be it. I will be a dainty dish to set before the Queen. But what if he or his employers — for I cannot think he will advise the move himself — what if he or they just pop me up like Jack-in-the-box to be merely seen there and pull me down again before a question is put to me, thus by implication demonstrating me the informer without the possibility of refutation on my part until, perhaps, too late ? This was the most reasonable view I could take of the move at the moment, and I was actuated by it in my subsequent conduct. I was con- ducted to the Halston Street entrance of the famous Green Street court house and left standing in the center of a square hall or waiting room, each side of which was furnished with a long wooden bench or form, which were occupied by the friends and relatives, male and female, of the prisoners who were to be tried for conspiracy. Brady, Curley, and the other principals had been tried, and of course convicted. In the right- hand corner stood a door communicating with some other part of the building, which I noticed was being made frequent use of by the judges, counsel, and officials, and in the corner of the hall to the left was a door opening to the waiting room for court witnesses, and also a flight of steps leading to the public part of the court ; the Crown solicitor's (George Bolton) office was approached by the left-hand corner. As I stood there an audible whisper passed along the benches of sad and wistful faces which made me feel more nervous than could a constellation of legal luminaries, each armed with proof of damaging guilt against me. I was relieved — or I should say distracted — from this embarrassing feeling by the approach of a tall, dark, handsome man in the uniform of a superior officer of the police, who informed me non-officially that the day was fine for the season, and that his impression was it would continue so if the wind did not change to the butt of the clouds. After delivering himself of these weighty matters, to which I attempted to reply in terms equally brilliant, but failed, he suggested that I should go to the Crown witness room as being more convenient. I had observed that unless a person spoke very low his voice could be heard in any part of the hall, therefore I said in my ordinary tone that I had no business there, not being a Crown witness or witness of any kind. Then why was I brought there, might he ask ? Oh, yes, he might ask, but I could not an- swer, not knowing myself. I hoped, however, to be enlightened in the fullness of time. He had no doubt the Crown saw their way. I was sure that after my candor with them in the Castle they should have seen their way before now, but without annoying myself as to the state of the Crown's vision, I saw my way very clearly, and that acting the part of Crown witness was not before me. The wind had gone to the butt of the clouds, bringing the rain. He went through the right-hand corner, for shelter doubtless, and I saw him no more. Mallon and Curran passed out separately, but did not speak. After a short time a detective emerged from the right-hand door and told me a gentleman wished to speak to me. 478 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. I said I would speak to no one in private. I should be spoken to in that hall. He went and returned soon, saying quietly enough that it might be better I go in a moment. " I'll not till you force me." He dis- appeared, and I did not see him after. In about half an hour the man who came for me in the morning told me I was not wanted till the morrow. On the morrow and day following I attended in the hall, and on the evening of the third day Inspector Scully told me I was required no more. But Mr. George Bolton was inclined to take an interest in me, and after the lapse of about eight days from the Green Street business he came to Blackrock, but in the presence of all my people and others I refused to speak to him privately, as he desired. And so the matter dropped, leaving me the loser, for the props of the house wherein I lived were shaken. (Signed) Patrick Kinsella. CHAPTER XXXIV. (1883.) TRIAL AND DEATH OF THE CAPTURED INVINCIBLES — JOSEPH URADV's STOICISM IN THE DOCK EVOKES ADMIRATION. Green Street Court House, Dublin — A Regiment of Soldiers Billeted in Detachments around the Court House — Dublin Garrison Under Arms — Irish Feeling Bitterly Hostile to British Rule — The Black Caravan Escorted by a Troop of Dragoons — The Captured Invincibles Arrive — Greeted with a Ringing Irish Cheer by the Crowds Outside — Artificial Terrors of British Vengeance — Joseph Brady in the Dock — He is Utterly Alone — Deserted by his Friends — The Enemy Appoints him Counsel — Base Treason and Cowardice of Leaders — They had not Fled to any Foreign Land, but their Cowardly and Craven Spirits had Fled — Scene in the Court House — The Jury Arrive with the Verdict — " He Braced himself up Boldly, Stood there with Head Erect Facing the Court, as if he at least could never say Die " — Joseph Brady was not Overcome by the Verdict — "He Fell Back on that Tremendous Strength of Will" — " Stubborn Pride and Hatred " — Sentenced to Death — "There were Blood and Fire in the Beauty of your Character " — Sketch of Joseph Brady — Trial of Daniel Curley — Sentenced to Death — Sketch of Daniel Curley — " I Love my Country and am Ready to Suffer for her " — Michael Fagan's Trial — " He was an Irish Nationalist and would Die One " — Thomas Caffray Sentenced to Death — Timothy Kelly Sentenced to Death — Joseph Mullet Refuses to be Represented by Counsel — Does not Recog- nize the Legality of a Foreign Court of Justice — British Jurisdiction not Legal in Ireland — Sentenced to Penal Servitude for Life — Evidence of Respectability — Judge O'Brien Exclaims : " The Terrible Thing Connected with this Dreadful Conspiracy is that they are All Honorable and Respectable Men who are Indicted" — Whit Mon- day, 1883 — Ireland in Mourning — Dublin City in Grief — Churches Filled with Mourners — Shops with Closed Shutters and Mourning Emblems — British Soldiers Massed around Kilmainham Jail — Newspaper Men Refused Admittance — Crowds of People Gathered Outside — Joseph Brady Dies — The Black Flag — The Kneeling Weep- ing Crowd — "Loyal and Noble as the Idolized Emmet" — Friday, May 18 — Deaih of Daniel Curley — Crowds Outside — The Father and Father-in-law of the Dead Nationalist — Other Nationalists Die on the British Scaffold — The Red Earl and the Assisted Emigrants' Wail of Agony — The Death Cry of the Dying Gael. On Monday, April 9, 1883, the curtain arose in Green Street court house, Dublin, upon the mock ceremonial entitled the trial of the Invin- cibles. How many Irishmen in generations past have stood within that human shambles to leave it for the scaffold ? How many noble-hearted men have been done to death there in mock legal form by the myrmidons of the invading power, who through generations of bloodshed have usurped the government of Ireland? The enemy had made every pre- caution to guard against surprise. A regiment of soldiers was billeted in detachments in the houses surrounding the court house. If an in- vading army of French, Russian, or German troops was about to make a descent upon Dublin there could not be more serious preparations made to receive it, or more vigilance and caution used than the British made to meet any possible onslaught of the mysterious Invincibles. The court house was not only guarded on the outside, but inside this so- called temple of justice were crowds of armed police, detectives, and marines. Judge O'Brien — an ex-Home Ruler, save the mark ! — who was to preside at these trials was carefully guarded to and from the court. He entered with nervous trepidation, and seemed to feel like a man who was compelled against his will to lead a forlorn hope, and had the scaling of a fortress vomiting death before him, instead of the ordinary peaceful 479 4S0 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. duty of a judge about to administer justice from the bench. Fifty per- sons representing European, American, British, and Irish papers, after repeated careful scrutiny, were the principal, almost the only, portion of what is termed the public admitted inside the precincts of the court. Every regiment in Dublin was held ready for any armed resistance. Infantry, cavalry, and artillery were on the qui vive. The British foe was face to face with Irish feeling, bitterly hostile, and how far this was a matter of the usual sentiment, or the more practical opposition recently displayed, he could not tell, but was prepared for all possible emergencies. In the very trepidation so plainly shown at this time by Ireland's foe Irishmen should read the lesson taught by deeds, and cease this idle babble of fighting the enemy by words. Escorted by a troop of dragoons, and preceded by mounted police, comes the black caravan from Kilmainham jail. The clatter of the accoutrements and the glitter of drawn sabers look more like the escort of a prince or potentate than the careful guarding of five Invincibles. The doors of the van are unlocked, and out step in the midst of these armed British Joseph Brady, Daniel Curley, Thomas Caffray, Timothy Kelly, and John Fitzharris with the appearance and mien of spectators. They did not look like principals in the bloody drama that court house was about to witness. Not one of these men but knew he faced certain death, and yet they were the only light-hearted men there. A few days before, walking in the prison ring during recreation hour, Timothy Kelly, with the merry raillery of the noble boy's light heart, said jokingly to Joseph Brady that they had good necks for the rope; and they laughed and passed along that Irish badinage which might better suit a scene of festivity than the confines of a prison. Not all the artificial terrors of British vengeance could rob them of their gay Irish hearts. The crowd outside, principally composed of the enforced idlers with which the dearth of employment caused by foreign rule has deluged all Irish cities and towns, set up a ringing Irish cheer. It was the voice of sympathy which the Irish race held for its accused champions. Men who had been lukewarm and indifferent before began now to fully realize one fact, which was that these brave men, if actually the persons they were said to be, had risked their lives and brought themselves beneath the shadow of the gallows for the love of Ireland and hatred to her oppressors. These imprisoned men were born and reared near where they were soon to die, and knew full well what the shout of the populace outside meant : that they were with them in sympathy and shared their feelings against the British invader. The grand jury find true bills against Joseph Brady, and his trial is fixed for Wednesday ; by and by the grand jury return true bills against the other four. Wednesday morning comes, and Joseph Brady takes his stand within the dock. He is now alone, more utterly alone than even the absence of his comrades and former companions could make him feel. He is there without a friend or one kindly look of sympathy. The cheers of the outside crowd have died away, and the mock ceremonial, the certain sequel of which he knows so well, has commenced. Mr. McCune, his solicitor, has not deserted him, but otherwise he is utterly neglected. His enemy, the British, have to appoint counsel to defend him — a defense which he knows can be of no avail, but which his teachers taught him is one of the necessary ceremonies to be observed on such occasions, and the absence of all friends and means to employ counsel brings home to his manly spirit the bitter, humiliating feeling that he is utterly neglected. That the basest treason and cowardice rest somewhere he feels and knows, but cannot and does not know at whose door they lie. The counsel for the British makes his statement of the case. Mr. Porter's opening m^s&SNm JOSEPH BRADY. Died for Ireland, Whit Monday, May 14, 1883. TRIAL AND DEATH OF THE CAPTURED INVINCIBLES. 481 words he does not heed, but when he hears his enemy's lawyer speak thus he listens : This case should teach one lesson — that there could be no honor among members of such a society. The men who had instigated it and warmed it into life, the men who had supplied it with funds which encour-' aged it to carry on its designs, had fled to foreign lands. If there was any further proof needed of how conspirators deserted those who were leagued with them, it was furnished by the fact that the Crown had, even in this case, been compelled to provide the means for defending Brady from this terrible charge. Mr. Porter was wrong : the men had not fled to any foreign land. A few, very few, were compelled — not to glut British vengeance by their deaths — to come to America. But the men at the head of the movement had not fled, there was no need for them to do so. But their cowardly and craven spirits had fled, and selfishness had taken their place. Had they manhood, and the practical knowledge they should have possessed, they could have sent joy to Joseph Brady by the only defense practicable for Irishmen. There were plenty of brave men in Dublin only too eager to carry out some plan of attack upon the foe. Even while Mr. Porter was speaking they could have made Dublin ring with the Invincibles' answer — that they had not fled, but were still determined to do or die. Alas for Ireland, her leaders were cravens ! Joseph Brady, what must have been your feelings when you heard these words fall upon your ear, coming from your enemy, knowing he could so justly hurl reproach upon your friends, and truthfully charge them with black, foul desertion ? As we read it at this distance of time we stand aghast at this cowardly action, and know not what to say or think. You must have felt, brave boy, a pang your enemy could never wring from your proud heart, standing there facing certain death. Did you think that even the friends you loved and trusted had basely deserted you like the rest ? On Friday, April 13, 1883, Joseph Brady's so-called trial ended. An English writer who was present thus describes the scene : "There was a rustle and movement in the court as the jury rose from their seats and retired to consider their verdict. . . " From the door at the back of the gallery the foreman of the jury was seen descending, followed by his colleagues, to take his place in the accus- tomed seat. Without a moment's delay the judge was summoned and the prisoner was brought up from below. He may have known from the fact of the jury having returned that he was a doomed man ; yet he braced himself up boldly to meet the sentence, and stood there, with head erect, facing the court, as if he at least could never say die. " Very slowly the jury passed into their box, looking, every one of them, pale and burdened with the weight of the awful responsibility resting upon them. As their names were being called over Joe Brady took several long breaths and threw his head up and his chest out ; but that he too felt the moment an awful crisis was apparent from his restless shifting of position and the constant twitching of his face. Then came the solemn words, ' Are you agreed upon your verdict ? Do you find the prisoner Joseph Brady guilty or not guilty ?' In a scarcely audible voice the fore- man said, ' Guilty,' and the clerk of the Crown repeated it once more to make sure Joe Brady was not overcome by the verdict. The emotion he felt he managed to conceal as far as was possible for any man to do. He fell back upon that tremendous reserve of strength of will, resolution of purpose, and stubborn pride and hatred which evidently belong to him. . . 482 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. "The judge directed the clerk to ask the formal question of the pris- oner, whether he had any reason to allege why sentence of death should not be passed upon him. " Joe Brady's reply was characteristic of the man. ' I am not guilty ! ' ■he half hissed, half shouted out, with a strong Irish accent and with avoice husky with passion. ' I am not guilty of the charge ! ' he shouted again, and savagely denounced what he called paid informers ' who had sworn falsely against him.' Then he ceased. " The judge, leaning forward in his chair, proceeded to say that the verdict was a necessary and just one. Once again the dauntless occupant of the dock shouted out that he was not guilty, but the judge rejoined in solemn tones that he felt it his duty to state that he perfectly concurred in the justice of the verdict. He formally, amid profound silence, passed the last dread sentence. " As the warder summoned the prisoner to withdraw he turned to his counsel and said in a voice of cheerfulness : ' I thank you, Dr. Webb ; I thank you, Mr. Adams.' " Joseph Brady was sentenced to be hanged on Monday, May 14, 1883. Heroic youth ! you were one of the guardians of liberty. You gazed steadily upon its dazzling beams and felt that your soul could fly through the lightning of revolution to bring those white-winged messengers, Peace and Freedom, to your prostrate and stricken land. There were blood and fire in the beauty of your character to baptize and purify from slavery your nation suffering with torture and the approaching putrefac- tion of enforced decay. What a contrast your single-minded devotion, unblemished and stainless, is to that of the men who so cowardly deserted you! A miasma exhales from their crouching consciences which is still spreading over the unhappy island. Their souls are sunken. Joseph Brady standing in that Green Street dock — what a picture for Irishmen to dwell upon. He is asked the usual formula by the invader's hireling why sentence of death should not be passed upon him. There was a moment of inexpressible silence. You could have heard the flight of death. He stood there, nothing to expect, nothing to hope. He knew he was abandoned. Let them come or let them not come to him, those who denied him thrice and deserted him, it makes no difference now. He will die as becomes a man. He has faced the grim specter ere now, and he has braced his soul for the ordeal. O Ireland ! can any of your sons stoop so low as to be base enough, dastardly enough, to dare attempt to fasten a stain on the pure memory of this immortal patriot ? The Blackrock station master, who had the manhood to acknowledge personal friendship and intimacy with Joseph Brady at a time when to do so required strong moral courage, thus describes his young friend and a morning's ramble they had together : " I remember a day spent in Joseph Brady's company. The boy liked my society and I enjoyed his. No two youths ever started forth together for the enjoyment of a holiday half so light-hearted, jocose, and happy as did we that morning. Joseph Brady, as usual when on holiday rambles, was neatly dressed in a well-fitting black frock coat and gloves, and altogether he was ' a very pretty fellow.' The day was beautifully fine, and as we were being carried along by the base of Killiney hill, which overhangs the bay, I permitted my fancy to take wing along the brown hillside, to nestle among the Swiss cottages and brushwood which cover it ; and his fancy joining mine, both seemed to leave the shore, the hills, and gamboled as butterflies in sunbeams. On reaching Bray we walked down the esplanade and on to Bray Head. I felt in Brady's society that the youthful side of my TRIAL/ AND DEATH OF THE CAPTURED INVINCIBLES. 483 dual nature developed itself, and 'I dreamed I was a boy again.' Nay, I was a boy again, and as boys do not bother about politics we enjoyed that pleasant Wicklow ramble together, which comes back upon my memory with sadness and pleasure : sadness that one so young and having such noble traits of character, which grew upon me in his society, should be so sacrificed — pleasure that I can recall past happy hours. Joseph Brady was about twenty-two or twenty-three years old ; he stood about five feet ten inches in height, with dark brown hair and incipient mustache. His step was light, buoyant, and firm, his small and perfectly formed feet appearing to grasp the ground with the tenacity of the human hand. His mien was erect and graceful, giving him the appearance of a greater height than he possessed, while it neutralized or seemed to lessen his massive proportions — proportions in such perfect harmony that the youth stood before you as splendid a specimen of humanity as was ever seen in the flesh or represented in sculpture. He carried his head well but not stiffly thrown back, displaying a throat which for softness and the delicate beauty of nature's coloring rivaled that of many women. His well-shaped mouth was furnished with a per- fect set of white teeth, which glistened when he smiled that quiet smile which denotes and begets confidence, and his brown eyes were soft, expressive, and unfathomable." On Monday, April 16, Daniel Curley was placed in the dock. As in Mr. Brady's trial absent jurors were fined five hundred dollars each, but many men preferred paying this large sum sooner than occupy the jury box during these political trials. Of course these men were drawn from a special class, every one of them being either British, or pro-British, and consequently people who could afford to pay high fines. The same machinery which was employed in the previous trial was again set in motion with the same fatal result. Mr. Curley was as a matter of routine found guilty. Daniel Curley was a respectable master carpenter who executed small contracts in Dublin city and suburbs. It was in the carrying out of one of these that he got acquainted with the Blackrock station master, who was very courteous in his disposition and obliging to mechanics in keeping their tools in the station. Mr. Curley was a skilled mechanic and a very intelligent man, with a strong will power. As an Irish Nationalist he had given all the years of his yet young life to his country. He was a sincere and practical patriot. Mr. Kinsella thus describes him : " Daniel Curley was a man about thirty-two years, slightly built, but well formed, with dark curly hair, full beard and mustache, and of a retiring and quiet disposition. His face bore a thoughtful cast, which, however, became animated and pleasing when in friendly company, and its really handsome expression on such occasions became more enhanced than otherwise by its being slightly pitted with pockmarks." Daniel Curley was sentenced to be hanged on Friday, May 18, 1883. He addressed some remarks to the court before receiving his sentence, and in conclusion said he loved his country and was ready to suffer for her. As he left the dock he called out : " God save Ireland ! " On Thursday, April 19, Timothy Kelly, a young man not yet twenty-one years old, was put on his trial, but the jury disagreed. He was again put on trial the following Monday with the same result. This annoyed the British lawyers. Michael Fagan was put upon his trial Wednesday, April 25. He was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged on Monday, May 28. In the few words which he addressed the court he said he was a Fenian — in other words, an Irish revolutionist — and he would die one. Thomas Caff ray was induced to plead guilty, and was also sentenced to death. Patrick Delaney, who had by his conduct first been arrested, 4§4 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. and who since Carey's treason had been giving the British what informa- tion he possessed, came into the dock and made a statement which was evidently prepared for him by the Crown solicitor, Mr. Bolton. The judge went through the form of sentencing Delany to be hanged, but the red earl reprieved him as a reward for his services. Fitzharris, the cabman, was placed upon his trial for the capital offense, but acquitted. He was subsequently found guilty of conspiracy. Fitzharris, or, as he was sometimes called, " Skin-the-goat," was an humble, faithful, and loyal Irishman, a man who tried to practically serve Ireland, and one who was indeed a genuine worker in her cause. The youth Timothy Kelly was put on trial for the third time. This trial satisfied the British lust for Irish blood. The brave young boy was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged on June 9. He acted in the same manly, determined manner which characterized his friend Joseph Brady. Lawrence Hanlon was sentenced to penal servitude for life. He said, •on leaving the dock, in a fearless manner, " I will not be the last," mean- ing that as long as the British flag flew over Ireland there would continue conspiracies, killings, and hangings. Joseph Mullet, a young man of superior education and a very bright and patriotic Irishman, was placed in the dock. Mr. Mullet was no rela- tion of Mr. James Mullet, though some of the papers at the time said they were brothers. His patriotism and superior intelligence told him that it was mockery to call these ceremonials trials. He refused to acknowledge the British jurisdiction in Ireland, was found guilty, and sentenced to penal servitude for life. He told the court that there were men who would remember and avenge him. Let us hope for Ireland's sake that Mr. Joseph Mullet was not wrong in his opinion of his countrymen. During the trial of Mr. Timothy Kelly evidence for the defense was offered, including testimony as to character. O'Brien, the West British judge, interrupted the witness by exclaiming petulantly : " Respectable ! Highly respectable ! Of course he is respectable. The terrible thing connected with this dreadful conspiracy is that they are all honorable and respectable men who are indicted." This was an admission wrung from the instrument of British law as to the character of the men who were arraigned before him as Invincibles, and ought to be a sufficient answer to the reptile press of Britain that assailed these men with every imaginable vile epithet. The God-given spirit of patriotism could never animate the unworthy. Men who take their lives in their hands to dare and die for their native land are not molded out of common clay. On the day before his death Joseph Brady's mother visited her brave son to take her last farewell, to see him behind the prison bars of her country's destroyers, to bid him the final adieu before one of the foe- man's jailers. The lying slanders circulated by the usurper's detectives and hirelings against the character of these imprisoned Irishmen had horrified this Spartan Irish mother. The supposed eagerness of these men to supply the enemy with information that would lead to future captures and aid him in breaking up the Invincible organization, then supposed to be preparing for action in Dublin, caused her patriot soul to recoil with indignation at the vile slander. When final leave-taking came and she was taking her last look upon her heroic offspring, struggling with her grief, she cried out to him : " Joe, if you know anything don't tell it ; bring your secret to the grave." Joseph Brady was worthy such a mother ; Mrs. Brady deserved such a noble son. On Whit Monday, May 14, 1883, Ireland was in mourning. Dublin city and suburbs, wont to be so gay on this public holiday, wore a saddened, TRIAL AND DEATH OF THE CAPTURED INVINCIBLES. 485 somber look. The churches were filled with pious worshipers praying for the departing soul of a loyal and patriotic Irishman who was soon to follow in the footsteps of Robert Emmet and give up his young life on the British scaffold. The shops had their shutters up, an emblem of mourning ; the holiday was suspended ; grief took the place of merriment. Around Kilmainham prison were massed the red-coated soldiers of the foreigner, fearful that his vengeance might even then be snatched from his grasp. So frightened and anxious were the Briton's hirelings that the newspaper men were refused admittance. Immense crowds of people were gathered outside the jail — several thousand men and women whose hearts were wrung with agony at the thought of that young life so soon to be added to the long catalogue of murders which mark the prog- ress of the insolent invader in the fair land of holy Ireland. Joseph Brady, calm and self-possessed, walked inside the prison to the scaffold, reciting the prayers of a Christian man who hopes soon to meet his Maker. In a few minutes the bolt is drawn and another life has gone to roll up the record of Gladstone's infamous rule in Ireland. The black flag is raised aloft, and as the crowds of Irish people outside see that emblem of death they fall upon their knees and with a half-suppressed wail of anguish pray for a departing soul. Ireland, should you ever shake off the poisonous nightmare that now binds up your limbs and become a free nation, the hope of generations of your sons, remember the man who died on that Whit Monday morning that you might live; and, when you are erecting monuments for your glori- ous dead, remember Joseph Brady occupies no second place in the bead- roll of your heroes and martyrs. As loyal, true, and noble as your loved and idolized Robert Emmet was this new-slain young Irish soldier. Erect for him a monument beside the patriot of 1803, for the humble Irish soldier who offered up his life for holy Ireland was worthy comrade to the gifted orator. Both will be inseparably remembered by the great and good who honor virtue and patriotism. In the ages to come posterity will deal as justly by Joseph Brady as the present generation has by Robert Emmet ; and if the actions of the dead Brady are properly remembered by Irish- men there is indeed hope for our motherland, and the sacrifice of that Whit Monday morning in 1883 will have been glorious and permanent in its result. The succeeding Friday witnessed another scene of agony ; the crowds outside Kilmainham jail in prayer, two aged men are seen standing near the prison who strain their eyes toward the fatal flagstaff, they are the father and father-in-law of Daniel Curley, the dying Nationalist. With a thrill of horror they see the death signal. Another son of Ireland has fallen to satisfy the British glut of vengeance. " God be with you, Daniel Curley ! " was the cry outside the prison walls by the weeping, praying crowd, principally composed of women, which we re-echo from a sad heart. Michael Fagan met his death as became his manly, spotless life. Young Kelly asked to be allowed to spend his last hours in the cell from which his friend Joseph had departed to the scaffold, and from that for him hallowed dungeon the brave and noble boy walked to his death. They all died for Ireland. Had not the polluted foot of the invader dese- crated their country their lives would have been as peaceful as citizens of free nations who dwell beneath the shelter of their own national banners. A scene of still greater ruin and loss to Ireland was taking place this same week on the west coast of Ireland — Britain's peaceful destruction of the Irish race. Mr. Gladstone's eviction agent, the red earl, was per- sonally witnessing the departure of assisted emigrants from Belmullet, and 486 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. as the steamship Phoenician sailed away to the West there arose a loud wail of anguish from ship and shore. A few days later Spencer speeds to Galway on his errand of death from that western city. The fair and comely girl and the strong and stalwart youth are banished from their native land to disappear in the mixed peoples of the great republic, and as the British peer looks on at the destruction of the people, there comes upon the gale from the departing ship a bitter cry of agony which is re- echoed by the grief-stricken relatives on the shore. It is the death cry of the Irish Gael, the wail of the Celt at the British destroyer's annihilation of a grand old race. If Ireland's sons do not arouse from their Parlia- mentary stupor and take instant action the Irish will be soon wiped out of existence and the world will know them no more. What thinking man can compare the sadness of these hangings and shootings to the national death certain to ensue from this unceasing and enforced emigration ? Countrymen, if we are to die as a race, and leave but a tradition behind us as a people, let us not die by this slow decay, but as men worthy of our heroic sires. Let us rather die facing our country's foe in the death combat with our ruthless destroyer. Wailing is of no use ; ask the God of your fathers to strengthen your arms, pick up the weapon that has fallen from your dead patriots' hands, and strike the invader of your homes, the destroyer of your liberties. Sacred in the hand of Judith was the sword that took the life of Holo- fernes, sacred was the dagger which Harmodius encircled with roses, sacred was the dagger of Brutus, sacred the stiletto of the Sicilian who began the Vespers, sacred the arrow of Tell, sacred the knife in the hands of the prophet Moses that slew the Egyptian, and thrice sacred the steel blade in the hands of Joseph Brady around which the lightnings of justice wreathe in letters of fire the Mane, Tekel, Phares of foreign rule in holy Ireland. The tocsin with clarion sound rings out the watchword of an awakened nation, " Death to the assassins of our people ! the pollut- ers of our sacred soil ! " CHAPTER XXXV. (1883.) DYNAMITE WAR IN ENGLAND — EXECUTION OF JAMES CAREY — DEATH OF O'DONNELL. Seizure of Dynamite Factory in Birmingham — Panic in England — Business Upset — Arrest of the Home Secretary by his Own Police — Trade Paralyzed — England Suffering Coercion — James Carey a British White Elephant — New Zealand Report — The Cape — British Charges against Carey — His Description by One who Knew him — " Think of his Sufferings and his Ruin" — O'Donnell Leaves in the Kinfauns Castle — Carey Joins at Dartmouth — Scene at the City Hotel, Cape Town — Carey Gets Excited — Carey Changes for Natal — O'Donnell Follows in the Same Steamer — On Board the Melrose — July 2Q, at 3.45 P. M. — O'Donnell Shoots Carey — "O Maggie, I'm Shot ! " — O'Donnell Pursues Carey — The Execution Completed — Carey's Look of Horror — Carey Dies — Scene Described by an Eyewitness — O'Donnell Cheered by Irish- men as he Lands in Africa — O'Donnell's Examination — To be Sent Back to England — Carey's Funeral — Interred in the Jail Burying Ground — English Consternation at the News — Joy in Ireland — "Victory for the Invincibles " — British Government Astounded — Revolutionists Penetrate the Secrets of the British Executive — They Frustrate their Plans — News in America — O'Donnell Defense Fund — General Pryor Leaves for London — O'Donnell's Trial, Conviction, and Sentence — Deputation Wait on the President — Joseph Poole Sentenced to Death in Dublin — Parnell Banquet — Mr. Parnell Presented with Thirty-six Thousand Pounds — Cable of Joy Sent by the Parliamentary Party — Death of O'Donnell — He Did his Duty — Death of Poole. Shortly before the Invincibles' trials in Dublin all Britain was terrified at an explosion in Whitehall, Westminster, supposed to be caused by dynamite. They were still more intensely horrified and alarmed at discovering a nitroglycerine factory in Birmingham. It has been stated that the small explosion at Whitehall awoke the British to the knowledge of their dangerous position, exposed to these acts of war in their capital by their indefatigable and unrelenting Irish foe, which put all their sentinels instantly on the alert. It has been further stated that this explosion was premature and warned the enemy. A pistol shot saved him from the eighty-ton guns about to be trained upon his fortress ; the garrison was aroused from its dream of security by this ill-timed signal, and so saved London from what promised, to be a frightful catastrophe. Intense were the horror and detestation, and universal was the panic in England ; severe condemnation was expressed both publicly and privately. Many good, peaceable, well-meaning men, never caring and utterly and criminally heedless of the fearful infamies and cruelties that their Government (their own creation) carried ruthlessly and reck- lessly into other lands, more especially into Ireland, used an abusive term to describe their Irish foes. They styled them dynamite fiends. There is an oft-used proverb that curses, like young chickens, come home to roost. This vituperative slander, used by this robber nation to characterize Irishmen, truly and faithfully describes themselves. What scene in modern history could equal the brutal slaughter of the Basuto women and children in the African Koppie ? These British dynamite fiends have been the most ferocious and satanic in their career of blood and in their callous indifference to human suffering. The dynamite war in England created a panic while it lasted ; no Englishman was safe from arrest, the most peaceful-looking man, if he 487 488 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. happened to carry a black bag, was immediately pounced upon by the keen-scented British police ; and the consequence was that lawyers, bar- risters, and their clerks were put to the inconvenience of some hours' arrest and the necessity of giving positive proof of their identity. Com- mercial men were subject to the same annoyance. Hotels were emptied of pleasure-seeking strangers, who feared to remain in a city that was practically in a state of siege, fearing that possibly the buildings they sojourned in might be blown up over their heads. Underground railway travel became risky, and the mysterious dread of unseen danger unhinged society. Business was seriously injured, and had the dynamite war con- tinued in any steady manner, had the British dynamite fiend been attacked continually at home with his own weapon, England would have been suffering under a worse coercion law than she gave to Ireland : the latter had no manufactures or industries of importance to destroy — they were already wiped out of existence ; but Britain was differently placed, hence the greater commercial damage caused by this new, mysterious, and overshadowing war of destruction. Ireland's coercion was given back to her tyrant and invader — England. Possibly the " dynamiters " did not realize this. People who have not time or opportunity to study these questions will only speak of the actual destruction, which did not amount to much ; the moral panic, which was widespread, and the upheaval and paralysis of business, which had a very disastrous effect for so trifling a cause. The Home Secretary, Sir William Vernon Harcourt, was arrested at Dover on his landing from France. The police smiled with incredulity at this huge " dynamiter " announcing himself as the British Home Secre- tary. A temporary delay occurred before even the mighty Sir William was released by his own police force. The annoyance to British liberty was so great that members complained in the House of Commons. In reply to one of these questions Sir William V. Harcourt, in pleading the necessities of the times, stated the incident of his arrest as a palliative to other gentlemen who suffered similar inconveniences. Had a foreign fleet been anchored off Gravesend, and were its gunboats steaming up the Thames, this nation of shopkeepers could not possibly have been more frightened. Their pocket too felt it in the loss of trade. Pleasure-seekers had fled from the terror-stricken metropolis. Britain whined and abused and painted the horrible " dynamiter" in glaring cartoons. A man with this euphonic designation was depicted as a person of repulsive appearance, with a gorilla-shaped mouth. He was supposed to have a thirst for bloodshed, and his natural proclivities were the killing of women and children. The daily press spoke of this latter iniquity, but the same journals that recorded the death by dynamite of the many thousands of Basuto women and children have not, up to the present, been able to substantiate the case of a single death during the dynamite scare in Britain. Britain's cowardly screams for pity when she is struck by her foes, no matter what persecutions she has compelled them to endure, is most degrading to a nation that boasts of her bravery. After the Park tragedy she went howling over the world, and when she tor- tured the wretched Carey into becoming an informer she struck wildly in all directions. She begged France to surrender two Irishmen to her, Mr. Frank Byrne and Mr. John Walsh. Their complicity she took for granted, and although these gentlemen proved their whereabouts on the 6th of May, and that they had not been in Ireland for months before or since the tragedy, she tried to force the French Government to surrender them to her tender mercies. She knew they were enemies to her rule in their country, and that sufficed. At the time of this dynamite war she came to this country with all sorts of preposterous requests, asking PATRICK. O DONNELI.. Died for Ireland, December, 1883. DYNAMITE WAR IN ENGLAND. 489 this great nation, to whom she has always been bitterly hostile, and is to this day, to help her against her foes the Irish. The press here con- sidered it was well acquainted with these men termed " dynamiters." An article in the New York Herald voiced the feelings held by a great number of the American people then and now. This journal observed, speaking of the dynamiters: "We publish their utterances, and invite England to see what stuff these patriots are made of. But England refuses to see. She keeps up a wretched pother about men whose names are a jest for comic paragraphists here. Statesmen gravely recount in Parliament the terrible doings of fellows whose antics are an unfailing amusement to the American population, and this makes such men think themselves of great importance." The New York Herald was no doubt wondering at England's stupidity in taking an serieux the actions and words of the men whose utterances appear from time to time in the Herald and other papers. English statesmen, though they have a blundering police to serve them, are not so blind as to think the gentlemen whom the Herald alludes to are of serious injury to her. English statesmen know, albeit their strong language, that they have no more to do with the dynamite war against England than they have to do with an eclipse of the moon. Many of these men are no doubt sincere in their hatred of and wishes to hurt England, but they have neither the means nor the ability to fulfill their desires. Many Irish- men are inclined to think that the men who have carried on this war are to be found in the ranks of men who have been publicly denouncing it at the same time. They fancy by doing this they are taking a leaf from England's book, and practicing the same hypocrisy which she has been doing for generations toward Ireland. Had this dynamite war contin- ued, and these men by their actions given the lie to their words, no Irish patriot would have so much to blame them for ; but the very hypocrisy they were practicing undermined the public confidence, destroyed the work they had been engaged in, and, as all false teaching must, ended by bringing disaster and confusion to the cause. The American press was misled, the Irish people misled, but the English enemy in no way led astray. Many of these men whom the New York Herald assailed were quite will- ing to accept the title ; while the real leaders of the dynamite war, the educated and dignified representatives of a noble race, should by their advocacy of a principle to which they had committed the Irish National party have defended their action. This would have had an immense moral effect and elevated this subject to the proper position it should assume in the unhappy and strangled condition which Ireland finds herself in, trying to carry on the strife against her assassin. The American press, unknowingly writing upon these things, is left laboring under the impression that only a few men represent this dynamite policy, not thinking that the term dynamite fiend is only applicable to the assassins of the Basutos and the Irish, these slayers of women and babies, the English. The press still calls a small group of Irishmen by the above title, and then goes on to write up other Irishmen as believers in an opposite policy. If mankind loves the truth, and if the Irish cause is ever to be understood by liberty-loving American friends, it is time this misconcep- tion was stopped. The facts are the very opposite to what is so publicly taught. Irishmen themselves suffer severely for this. They are degrading what should be honored. Speaking with the immortal French republican we say : " Until the day when the great human concordat shall be con- cluded war, that at least which is the struggle of the hurrying future against the lingering past, may be necessary." What reproach can be brought against such war ? War becomes a shame, the sword becomes a dagger, only when it assassinates right, progress, reason, civilization, truth. 49° THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Then, civil war or foreign war, it is iniquitous; its name is crime. Outside of that holy thing justice, by what right does one form of war despise another ? By what right does the sword of Washington disown the pike of Camille Desmoulins, the Congreve hand-grenades of Robert Emmet, or the rifle of Peter O'Neill Crowley? By what right does the steel cruiser Vesuvius, armed with the powerful pneumatic gun and dis- charging the destructive dynamite shell of Zalinski, disown the smaller petard of William Mackey Lomasney ? Both represent nations: one great, powerful, and independent, which won that liberty by many a sanguinary struggle with the hirelings of George the Third. The prisons of New York were filled by her patriotic sons, doomed to the fetid atmosphere of the dungeon by English and renegade American Tories. The other, crushed, bleeding, but not vanquished, beseeching her sister nation for sympathy in the unequal struggle against the self-same tyrant nation, her gaping wounds eloquent in their mute appeal for a kindly word. What weapon that God's science can place in her manacled hands is she not entitled to use against her barbaric oppressor? Her war and her weapons are sacred. They are those of the great struggles of mankind in all ages. Leonidas against the foreigner, Timoleon against the tyrant — which is the greater? One is the defender, the other is the liberator. Shall we brand, without troubling ourselves with the object, every resort to arms in the interior of a city ? Thus mark with infamy Brutus, Marcel, Arnold of Blankenheim, Coligny, war of the thickets, war of the streets ? Why not ? It was the war Ambiorix fought against Rome, Artaveld against France, Marnix against Spain, Pelagius against the Moors, Emmet, Tone, and Fitzgerald against the British — all against the foreigner. Despotism violates the moral frontier as invasion violates the geographical frontier. To drive out the tyrant or to drive out the English is in either case to retake your territory. There comes an Jiour when protest no longer suffices. After philosophy there must be action. The strong hand finishes what the idea has planned. Prometheus Bound begins, Aristogeiton completes ; the Epcyclopedie enlightens souls, the 6th of May electrifies them. The multitude have a tendency to accept a master. Their mass deposits apathy. A mob easily totalizes itself into obedience. Men must be aroused, pushed, shocked by the very benefits of their deliver- ance, their eves wounded with the truth, light thrown in terrible hand- fuls. Whatever may be said as to the inertness of the Invincibles after the arrests of their comrades — as will be more fully written about — the rank and file were not to blame; they are to-day, as they have ever been, the foes of alien rule, and will continue to cherish the same hostile feeling toward the invader so long as the British flag flies in Ireland as an emblem of foreign conquest. This hostile feeling to foreigners will continue until what are darkly looming in the near future, emigration and poverty, depopulate the island. The police, detectives, and the machinery of alien rule had a white elephant on their hands in the person of James Carey. His protection was necessary to uphold British prestige. The English, no matter what their feelings toward Carey might be, knew that the duty of safely guarding him was imperative. All this time they were causing to be circulated every kind of imaginable slanders to try and disgrace revolutionary movements. They struck at the irrepressible Irish patriot through James Carey. It was noised through the press that Carey committed several murders and other crimes, which the Irish people, owing to the hatred with which he inspired them, were only too ready to believe, and they directed against his person their vengeful feelings instead of hurtling them on the DYNAMITE WAR IN ENGLAND. 49 l enemy. The death of his friends and comrades was left upon his head, and not where they rightly belonged — on that of the merciless in- vader. James Carey had been through life a thoroughly honorable man and a practical Irish Nationalist, and until he weakened in prison never did a dishonorable act. Had he been mated with a patriotic companion, his name to-day would not be stained by the cowardly treachery he fell into. Not a single spark of vengeance animated the breasts of the revolutionary court martial that sentenced him to death. A soldier who deserts to the enemy in time of war is always shot in the presence ■of his comrades, if captured, no matter how valiant or honorable his pre- vious career. It is absolutely necessary to enforce discipline, and in Ireland's case it was most important to show Irishmen that no precaution on the part of the enemy could guard so notorious a traitor from swift and certain punishment. One who knew James Carey well, and who suffered the loss of all he had in life at his hands, thus describes him : " When first I knew James Carey he was an earnest and an honest man — honest in his earnestness for the cause he had espoused. He was in fairly good circumstances, and with his business knowledge, compara- tive youth, and energy might have accumulated wealth had he not become an ' Invincible'; and the slanderous tale of his having joined the patriots with the intention of betraying them is only that of men who have ever used such cant to excuse their cowardice in refusing to join anything practical. In the triumph of right, no matter by whatever means achieved, none would have triumphed more than Carey ; none hated England and her West British dogs with a hatred more intense than he. In the name of the great God who knows all hearts, let us think only of his sufferings and his ruin, let us extend to his memory only silence and charity, leaving with meekness his sins to his Saviour. His age was about thirty-seven. He was of medium height, well, but not heavily, built; lithe and active, with a liberal supply of faded brown hair, full beard and mus- tache, the latter covering his side mouth as do the down-hanging lips of an English mastiff." The Government of England decided on shipping Carey off to Africa. He was not consulted, nor indeed did he know what land they considered best for his safe keeping. The secret of his destination was learned, but a report also came from well-informed sources that they had changed their mind and that New Zealand was to be his home. Men who belonged to Dublin would be useless for the mission of pursuing him, as they would be easily known. A man, still living, volunteered to go to New Zealand, and was sent on the first part of his journey when information came that Cape Town was Carey's destination. Patrick O'Donnell took passage in the Kinfauns Castle, seeing no Irishman in any way con- nected with Irish politics in London. The tracking of Mrs. Carey and her family was easy, but among the many reports spread by the detectives with a purpose was one that Carey would not leave England with his family. The other reports were dismissed by men who were accustomed to sift such news, but this information was considered probable, and the course considered best to be taken was to communicate with a certain resident then in South Africa, and trace Mrs. Carey to her final destination. Carey, as is known, joined the Kinfauns Castle at Dartmouth. What transpired on the voyage out leaves it apparent that although Carey and O'Donnell were gooc friends, Carey was ever on the alert, for a fearful danger haunted him He was never alone with any one man. On arriving at Cape Tovn Carey, accompanied by two fellow-passengers, one called Williams and .he other who had received the sobriquet of " Scotty," 49 2 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. went ashore. They entered the City Hotel, Waterkrant Street, for refreshments, when Carey commenced talking about Irish politics. He said the English were a people too base to live. If he had his way he would exterminate every one of them. " Ireland for the Irish, that's my motto." This nettled the Scotchman, so Scotty retorted, " What would you do with it ? Why, you would eat one another up." " Do you mean to say we are cannibals ? " shouted Carey in a violent passion, and his hand was on the throat of Scotty, who would have been choked but for Williams, who interfered. What Carey's object was in ventilating such opinions it is difficult to say ; perhaps he wanted to get on friendly terms with any Irishmen who would be in the colony ; but what is more probable they were his real feelings, which he could not repress. He himself and family changed at Cape Town to the Melrose, a vessel leaving for Natal and Durban. Patrick O'Donnell changed with him. O'Donnell paid the difference to go to Natal, Carey's destination. On Sunday, July 29, 1883, at about four o'clock in the afternoon, Carey and O'Donnell were together, this time alone. O'Donnell swiftly drew his revolver and shot Carey in the throat. When shot a fearful expres- sion crossed his face, and gurgling out, " O Maggie, I'm shot ! " he ran toward his wife's cabin, but was followed by O'Donnell, who shot him twice in the back. An eyewitness thus describes the scene : " I saw the last and fatal shot fired at Carey I was just thinking of having a sleep when the first shot was fired In common with the others I rushed to the spot just in time to see, to my intense astonishment, my friend O'Donnell following up and firing a last shot into the neck of my respectable and intelligent friend Mr. Power. I saw the latter [Carey] stagger and fall, while about the same moment O'Donnell was vigor- ously seized by several pair of hands, my own included, and made secure. For a moment I could not understand what had taken place ; but I shall never forget the look of wild horror and surprise which appeared on the face of the dying man as his wife and others bore him up." Carey was carried and placed upon a table in the cabin, where he expired. The Elizabeth Telegraph of August 4, 1883, thus describes Carey's funeral : " The interment of the remains of James Carey took place on Wednesday afternoon in the burial ground a few hundred yards in the rear of the north-end prison. The district surgeon, Dr. Ensor, was greatly distressed at the bare idea of 'the body being committed to the ground without any funeral service, and in consideration resolved to say a few words. The assistant magistrate, Mr. H. Halse, proceeded to the jail at three o'clock for the purpose of superintending the arrangements for sepulture. " Mr. Jones, the undertaker, arrived with the coffin at 3.45, and his assistant conveyed it to the mortuary. There lay the remains of James Carey ; the features appeared composed in death. The corpse was placed in the coffin, and the latter was conveyed to a vehicle outside, the dis- tance to the grave being nearly half a mile. Mrs. Carey and her children were in the jailer's quarters, and although efforts were made to dissuade her from following the remains of her deceased husband, she resolved on doing so, and with her baby and her son occupied the first cab, Dr. Ensor being in the second cab, and the assistant magistrate in the third cab. The cortege then slowly moved on to the grave, on the arriving at which the body was buried by the undertaker's men, eart. was thrown upon the coffin, and thus terminated the funeral obsequies 01 James Carey." In Dublin the unthinking element of the people burst into ecstasies of joy ; bonfires were burnt, and they seemed to thi, k it an occasion to- DYNAMITE WAR IN ENGLAND. 493 make glad over. At best his taking off was a melancholy duty, a sad necessity ; the source of all the trouble still remains — foreign rule. The British press in Ireland and in Britain was very much dis- composed at the news. It felt that the Irish Invincibles had scored a point in the sanguinary struggle, that all Britain's power could not save their instrument's life. The correspondent of the London Times, writing from Dublin, thus comments on the event : "It is doubtful whether the authorities could have fully realized the responsibility which rested upon them as to the protection of Carey and the grave consequences likely to follow from the swift and signal ven- geance which his enemies have been enabled to take. The feelings excited by the unfortunate event among all loyal people are bitter dis- appointment and irritation at the failure to insure his safety, and deep concern at the effect upon the country. There can be little doubt that his assassination will restore the prestige of the secret conspirators, who it will be said are able to penetrate the secrets of the executive and frustrate their best laid plans. " Without the help of informers it is impossible to detect and punish crime in a country where the spirit of the multitude is hostile to the executive, and it was of the utmost importance to show that those who gave information to the Crown could rely upon its power to protect them." How frankly this British scribe admits that alien rule in Ireland cannot be carried on without the help of informers. United Ireland observes : " Most persons will agree that Mr. Carey did not in the end make much by betraying his comrades. " Even his employers will scarcely deny that it were better for him now to have been lying in the prison yard . . . than to be shot like a dog on a foreign shore. To be slain within two short months of the execution of his comrades is a poor reward for the treacheries of Green Street. As the English papers declare, the fate of Carey must strikingly illustrate the powerlessness of the state to offer to persons of this class any adequate inducements to come forward with their testimony." Patrick O'Donnell was cheered on landing a prisoner in Africa after the execution of Carey. The marvelous Irish race, which covers the globe with its patriotic love for the land of their sires, was to be found on the dark continent, with the same revengeful feelings against British rule in Ireland. When will a master mind arise to weave into one united bond this glorious national sentiment, not to parley with England, but to strike her everywhere and anyhow, until she surrenders back to the chil- dren of the Gael their plundered birthright — independence ? Patrick O'Donnell was brought before a magistrate in Cape Town, but the British feared he would not be convicted in the colony. As a rule, the Colonial English are more liberal in their ideas than those who dwell in their native land, and the Irish and Dutch element, which might get upon the jury, was in full sympathy with Patrick O'Donnell. England was deter- mined that O'Donnell should die, and the gentle Gladstone ordered his removal to London, where he knew he would have no trouble in hang- ing him with all the ceremonial of a trial before' and. Patrick O'Donnell was sent to England under a strong guard. Every precaution was taken to prevent the faintest chance at rescue: he was. guarded by a British Colonial company of soldiers while at Cape Town, and was well guarded on board H. M. S. Athenian, in which vessel he was sent back a prisoner. Mr. Gladstone's Foreign Secretary, Lord Granville, communicated with the Portuguese Government, and they had a guard 494 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. at Madeira a place of call en route to England. Soldiers lined the beach so that none of the dreaded Invincibles could communicate with the ship. The native boatmen were ordered not to go within hailing distance of the steamer. Mrs. Carey and her family returned by the Garth Castle. The same precautions were taken in her case. The shore at Funchal was pa- trolled by the Portuguese soldiery in a similar manner. The British thought that the Irish, like themselves, made war on women. The Athe- nian, with Patrick O'Donnell on board, arrived in Plymouth Sound on September 17, 1883, and, carefully guarded, he was brought to London, and imprisoned in Milbank convict prison. He was brought up at Bow Street police court, on Tuesday, September 19, and remanded for a week. The most extraordinary precautions were taken to keep him in safe cus- tody ; but the Irish crowds flocked round the court to cheer his going in and coming out — these crowds which the agitators always speak of as English workingmen when they want to score an imaginary vic- tory. Mrs. Carey and her family arrived safely in the Garth Castle on September 24. Patrick O'Donnell was not left undefended like Joseph Brady and his comrades. Everything that money could do in the way of procuring able and skillful counsel for the defense was done. This was princi- pally due to Mr. Patrick Ford of the Irish World, an Irish-American gentleman who has done many noble and generous acts for Ireland and in her behalf. He opened in the columns of his paper an O'Donnell defense fund. Mr. Finnerty of Chicago also simultaneously started a similar fund. The money poured in unstintingly ; the generous, warm- hearted Irish-Americans, to whom Ireland is indebted for many and countless favors, gave to this defense fund unsparingly. Mr. Ford has never been enrolled in the revolutionary ranks, yet he has performed for Irish revolutionists many kindly and generous acts. The British enemy, both in Parliament and in their journals, always speak of him as a "dynamiter." Nationalists are often forced to smile at the stupid blunders Englishmen make when they discuss Irish affairs in any manner. Mr. Ford kindly came to the aid of the families of the dead " Invincibles " by collecting and distributing money to them, so very much needed and so opportune at the time. Most Irishmen will fully indorse the principle upon which Mr. Ford acted with respect to the men who pleaded guilty; an Irish Nationalist who acts in this manner stultifies his principles, and b) implication casts odium on his comrades, giving England a moral victc ry. This should be specially condemned as treason. But at the same time it should be remembered the strain that these men must have endured, and the terrible mental torture they all had to suffer. Knowing full well that their leaders outside had weakened and deserted them in a dastardly manner, under the circumstances all should pity the weakness which yielded to the temptation of a shorter term of imprisonment. It is to be regretted that their families, who had no share in this weakness, were not looked to. It is sincerely hoped that the Dublin Nationalists have long since seen to their wants and necessities. General Roger A. Pryor, a leading American lawyer, and a firm and devoted friend to the cause of Irish independence, was engaged by Mr. Patrick Ford and sent over to see what could be done for Patrick O'Donnell. The Irish patriot knew that he was remembered by the Irish race the world over. General Pryor's hands were tied by his London colleagues. They were lawyers to the tips of their fingers, and could only look at this trial from a purely legal standpoint. Mr. Charles Russell, Q. C, since Mr. Gladstone's Attorney-General, and Mr. A. M. Sullivan, a lifelong Provincialist, were engaged for the defense ; both able and gifted lawyers. Patrick O'Donnell's counsel feared the preju- DYNAMITE WAR IN ENGLAND. 495 dice which might be created in the minds of the English jury if General Pryor was permitted to plead for the defense, especially as his trial arose from what was simply an act of war against Britain ; for her prestige was struck down when Carey fell on board the Melrose. So that the principal reason for General Pryor's presence was lost. Had he been permitted to act as Irish Nationalists would wish, namely, to demand, as an act of courtesy, permission to defend an American citizen, the Gladstone Administration would have been compelled to have, by a refusal, placed on record a very discourteous precedent and have given a snub to the American bar. Or, if given permission to speak, General Pryor would have intelligently and sympathetically voiced the real feelings of Patrick O'Donnell's friends, and placed on record Irish- American opinion of the whole proceeding. As to prejudicing the jury,, that was already accomplished, both by Mr. Ford's public advocacy and General Pryor's presence. But after all is said, why take any part in these mummeries called trials? They really play into .the enemy's hands by the very fact of recognizing them as such by a defense. Patrick O'Donnell took his life in his hand. He executed on Carey's person the punishment due to treason, and being. unable to get a trial in Africa, as he expected, as a matter of course England would hang him. It is Irishmen's business not to waste their money on trials, but to carry on the war against the foe with redoubled vigor. The line of defense adopted by the lawyers was simply a diplomatic surrender to British interests, and was a weakening of the great prestige attached to O'Donnell's successful act, for this prestige enraged the British intensely. The O'Donnell lawyers tried to prove that Carey was killed by O'Donnell in a struggle, Carey having attempted the life of O'Donnell. If this defense was really true, then O'Donnell did nothing more than any man would do, namely, protect his own life, and there would be neither honor nor heroism about the matter, and England could not be blamed for being unable to guard Carey's life when he himself threw it away in a quarrel. The absurdity of this defense was too apparent to any intelligent man, for O'Donnell was not content with dis- abling his so-called opponent by firing one shot, but, with the unflinching resolution of the revolutionist, pursued the flying informer until he shot him dead. On Friday, November 30, 1883, at ten o'clock in the forenoon, the trial of Patrick O'Donnell commenced at the Old Bailey, London. Judge George Denman presided, and the Crown was represented by the Attor- ney-General, Sir Henry James, Messrs. Poland and Wright. In addition to the two able lawyers already mentioned, the prisoner had present on his behalf Mr. Mclnerney from Dublin, and General Roger A. Pryor from New York. Mr. Guy was the solicitor for the defense. Patrick O'Donnell, well guarded, was brought into court. He stood erect and boldly defiant, in all his natural dignity and his splendid physique, for the Donegal peasant was a man six feet in stature. The trial closed on Saturday evening. The jury, who appeared to give the case great atten- tion, came back to court three times to get fresh instructions from the judge. It is claimed that the last time the jury returned the judge's remarks were partisan and hostile to the prisoner, and decidedly unbe- coming the so-called purity of the ermine, but Irishmen have reason to know that this robe, as far as Irish political trials are concerned, is of a very inky blackness indeed. Most of the leading judges and lawyers of the American bar, in published interviews, condemned in strong language this Judge Denman's concluding words as very unjust and unfair, and highly unbecoming in a judge. But Irish Nationalists cannot see any- thing in these political trials but what is in perfect keeping with the 496 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. peculiar war waging between the invaded Irish and their invaders, the British. When the jury retired for the last time General Pryor said to O'Donnell, " I fear they will find you guilty this time " ; to which O'Donnell responded, " 1 don't care a blank " ; and when the jury recorded their verdict he was the most unconcerned man in court. The brave soldier knew from the first his fate, and braced himself to endure it as became a Christian and an Irish patriot. General Pryor, afterward discussing this trial, said that he considered O'Donnell even a greater hero than Emmet, for one had all the advantages which a classic education and cultivated mind can bring to ennoble man in the hour of suffering, but O'Donnell was an untutored, unlettered Irish peasant ; yet he bore himself with the unassuming dignity which he displayed through the trial, a worthy representative of the holiest cause which man in all ages has ever offered up his life for — freedom for his native land. O'Donnell was determined to tell the judge in open court that he was an Irish Nationalist and was ready to die for his principles. He felt he was deprived unjustly of the right of speaking which the formula gives to a dying man. The British do not like these declarations of principles from the dock. They know that the propaganda from such a rostrum of Irish national doctrines has a very potent effect on the unconquerable Irish race. O'Donnell, enraged at being deliberately and cunningly deprived of the right of speech, shouted as he left the dock : " Three cheers for old Ireland ! Good-by, United States ! To hell with the British and the British Crown ! " He was sentenced to be hanged on Monday, December 10, 1883. Great exertions were made by Irish-Americans to try and get Patrick O'Donnell reprieved. On December 8 a deputation consisting of the following members of Congress waited on the President to induce the Executive to interfere : Messrs. Cox and Robinson (New York), Morri- son, Springer, and Finnerty (Illinois), Lefevre and Foran (Ohio), Murphy (Iowa), Mabury (Michigan), Lamb (Indiana), McAdoo (New Jersey), Collins (Massachusetts), and O'Neil and Burns (Missouri). President Arthur cabled to the American Minister, Mr. Low. About this time Mr. Hewitt, a member of Congress for New York, introduced and passed a motion in favor of the Executive taking action in the O'Donnell case, he being an American citizen. It has been said by good authority that Mr. Hewitt afterward waited on the British Minister in Washington, Mr. West, informing that gentleman there was no serious meaning in the resolution. England evidently thought so, for her Government declined to interfere. The Chicago Citizen thus comments on the O'Donnell case : "The result of the O'Donnell trial will be to make party violence henceforth reign supreme in Irish politics. The conviction of O'Donnell has ended forever in the Irish mind all hope of even ordinary justice from Englishmen. We will never again raise a cent to defend any Irishman before a British court, and never assist or advocate contributions unless for the purpose of striking terror into England. . . O'Donnell will doubtless hang, but the Irish race will not fail to avenge him. England shows no mercy ; let Ireland no longer show any." Mr. Finnerty has always taken a manly stand in Irish national politics. He is one of the few public men in America who has always had the courage of his convictions. The whole of this proceeding — this deputa- tion and attempt to save O'Donnell's life — while it was very noble as an act of mercy, fully reveals how imperfectly educated in Irish matters are the great mass of the Irish people here. Is it reasonable to expect that England would permit the man who so lowered her prestige in Ireland and before the world to escape the scaffold ? Some people see nothing in this bloody struggle on England's side to complain of» DYNAMITE WAR IN ENGLAND. 497 If Irishmen are so silly as to think they can make war on England with impunity — and O'Donnell's act was a deliberate act of war — they are not of the material freemen spring from. Mr. Finnerty's paper tells us that O'Donnell's conviction has ended forever in the Irish mind all hope of even ordinary justice from Englishmen. A Nationalist would hope it has ; it is nearly time that these farces called trials of revolutionists were not participated in by Irishmen. If a lawyer of eminence is engaged to defend them, is this man not one of the enemy's men play- ing a part ? He is trying to save his client at the expense of the cause which his client has been identified with. The gentlemen who defended O'Donnell in trying to save his life were compelled to play into the British Government's hands, and many Irishmen were doing the very same. After Carey's death it was of the utmost importance for the British Government to impress, especially upon the Irish race, the fact that O'Donnell was not an emissary of any Irish revolutionary move- ment, and there is no doubt it has succeeded with a great many. All O'Donnell's friends were aiding it in trying" to recover this lost prestige. Numbers of Irishmen in America were unconsciously helping England's diplomacy in the course they were pursuing. Which is the life of the Irish nation or the life of a man the greater victory ? There was no chance for Patrick O'Donnell once England removed him from Africa. Until he arrived in England he knew it, for no doubt it had been impressed upon his mind. But when he reached England and found the number of legal gentlemen engaged to defend him, more especially the American lawyer, it is only natural that a new hope was temporarily implanted in his breast. It is right that men like O'Donnell should be impressed with the knowledge that they are not forgotten. This is most important, but it can be done without going through the hollow farce of defending a man who is captured by the enemy upon whose prestige and interests he is making war. By all means Nationalists will say with Mr. Finnerty, On with the war; they will not call it revenge, but rescue — not the rescue of a man or any number of men, but a nation. The alpha and omega of the whole quarrel, the cause which brought these men into danger and must bring others, is the fixed determination of the Irish nation to be free and independent. Irishmen waste their substance and their time defending Irish patriots captured by the foe as if they were were civil criminals guilty of an offense against society; and in trying to find some loophole in the enemy's laws to get one of their friends free, they sacrifice the principle which brought him into the toils. If the freedom of their imprisoned brothers is the one great aim in the national struggle, why commence the fight at all ? Then these men would not be in the toils. Irish Nationalists recognize that the men who were trying to get a respite for O'Donnell were the sincere lovers of Ireland and the true manhood of their race in America. Their devotion and ability in the service of Ire- land no one could for a moment question, but it is feared that they do not grasp the situation. So long as England flies her flag over Irish soil, so long must Irishmen expect at her hand what they call injustice, but which some people will not term-by any such phrase — it was simply the rough brute justice of war. She hangs Irishmen, and they remain supine. Instead of all this trouble, petitioning and complaining about O'Donnell's sentence, had Irishmen taken a lesson from their enemy in the same rough, brutal justice of war and sent some English spirits to accompany O'Donnell to the happy hunting grounds, they would be doing their duty as Irish soldiers fighting their country's enemy; and until they learn to strike! strike ! and never cease striking ! their enemy will despise their absurd attempts to right her either in her own courts, on the rostrum, or the political forum, unless the lessons preached in the dock of the first and on 498 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. the public platforms are to teach their countrymen that the sword of the revolutionist — that and that alone — can be their dying nation's salvation and only hope. Patrick O'Donnell was visited by his brother from the Donegal Mountains and by his wife from America. His brother Daniel could only speak the foreigner's tongue very imperfectly, so they conversed in their native language. As the English jailers did not understand the Irish tongue, they were able to converse on subjects that would not be permitted to an English-speaking prisoner. It is strange what an influence English literature has in misleading the world about Ire- land and Irishmen. Upon a recent occasion an Irishman had some business to transact with a prominent Russian, who, strange to say, learned for the first time that the Irish and English languages are totally distinct and dissimilar. And notwithstanding the laws which Britain made to destroy their language as well as their nationality, there are to-day parts of Ireland where the people do not understand a single word of English, and a visitor would require an interpreter if he did not under- stand the Irish language. Joyce, whose innocent life was taken during Gladstone's bloody regime in Ireland, did not understand a single word of the language he was tried in and found guilty of what he had no con- nection with whatever, and hanged in spite of every protestation from even West-British Irishmen to the merciless Liberal Government who withheld the fiat of mercy. Patrick O'Donnell was attended by Father Fleming in his spiritual exercises. He was most cheerful and resigned to his doom. He said to the good priest the 'day before his death : "I am quite ready to meet my fate. I have done my duty." Brother Irishmen, you who are left here for some wise purpose, let us hope, can you say, like the brave O'Donnell, that you are doing your duty? It is feared not. Let these men's deaths be a lesson to teach you what you are remiss in. On Monday morning, December 10, Patrick O'Donnell met his death. There was a crowd in the street looking for the black flag, the signal of death, but there were few Irish there. A London street was no place for them. They were praying for a dying brother and their dying nation. Opposite to the place of execution was his brother, Daniel O'Donnell, who gazed with tear-blinded eyes on the flagstaff that was to tell him his noble brother was no more. A few minutes and the dread signal was visible. The Donegal Irishman was utterly alone in the foreign capital, the metropolis of the people who have been killing his race for genera- tions. His heart tried to find consolation in his dead brother's senti- ments. He had done his duty. The next day Joseph Poole was hanged in Dublin for another political offense. Truly the "Grand Old Man" was keeping up his " battues of hangings," as William O'Brien termed them. Lord Mayor T. D. Sullivan recently (1887) proposed that Ireland should build a monument to Mr. Gladstone, and that it should be erected in Dublin. He convened a meeting in the Mansion House for that purpose, which meeting did not come off. By all means erect this statue, illustrious poet and agitator. Mr. Gladstone is your present leader. Let the site of this monument be in front of the Green Street court house, that bloody shambles where his officials sentenced to death so many noble Irishmen who were your countrymen before you crossed the portals of the British Commons, where you left your nationality. Place around the pedestal the names of his Irish victims, the Bellmullet women and the Ballina boys and the long list of Irish hanged. If you do this crimson roll justice he will have indeed a noble monument. It will tower far above Nelson's Pillar, and DYNAMITE WAR IN ENGLAND. 499 will remain a goodly ornament to greet the eyes of his Irish Parliamentary following, who were once Irish patriots, or supposed to be. While Joseph Poole was lingering out his dying hours in Kilmainham jail, and Patrick O'Donnell was awaiting the coming day of doom, the Pro- vincialists chose this as a fitting time for revelry. They held a banquet to present a munificent sum of money to Mr. Parnell. Among the gentlemen who held high carnival this week of death can be read the names of Lord Mayor Dawson, who presided, Messrs. Davitt, • Sullivan, Sexton, O'Brien, Biggar, Gray, O'Connor, and Healy, and several other Irish Provincialists, and of course the guest of the evening, Mr. Charles S. Parnell. Lord Mayor Dawson made one of his usual graceful and telling speeches, and presented Mr. Parnell with a check for the trifling sum of ^38,000 ($190,000), a slight token of regard from the grateful Irish people for all the benefits (?) he had conferred upon them. Mr. Parnell, stimulated by the gratitude of his countrymen, made a most energetic speech. He told his hearers that Ireland was held in bondage by 30,000 soldiers and 15,000 police, which as yet were the slight obstacles to perfect freedom. He was succeeded by that great orator and self-sacrificing man upon whom the mantle of Lord Edward and Wolfe Tone has fallen, Ireland's beloved Mr. Michael Davitt, who responded to the toast " Ireland a nation," and painted in glow- ing language and beautiful imagery the splendid and magnificent career of Ireland a nation. The trifling obstacle of the 30,000 soldiers and 15,000 police did not count ; they were no sort of opposition in his path to freedom. Other speeches and songs followed, and the wine-cup encircled the Rotunda Hall. The revelry was at its height. They felt indeed that Ireland was " great, glorious, and free, first flower of the earth and first gem of the sea," and there is no doubt if these lines are repeated often enough, as a Buddhist does his prayers, they will serve as an invaluable and unfailing recipe to free nations with. The old-fashioned wicked way of making war is exploded, and these sesthetic changelings have indeed a respectable and sovereign remedy. Their hearts had expanded with the good things before them, and so they called on the world to rejoice with them. The following cable message was sent by the Lord Mayor of Dublin to the president of the National League at Chicago : " Twelve hundred Nationalists [?] in meeting here in honor of Parnell greet America and send thanks for her sympathy. Dawson." And the brainy and brilliant Irish-American to whom the message was sent replied as follows : " Irish-America salutes Ireland, re-echoes her cheers for Parnell, and will never cease struggling with her for liberty until it is achieved. " Alexander Sullivan." What a lot of fustian and sensational claptrap the whole thing reads to any practical man! The Lord Mayor thanks his Irish-American friend for this country's sympathy. They deserve sympathy, and need it, to hold a banquet near the halls of death ; to cheer while two Irish Nationalists were sleeping in the enemy's prisons, each in a condemned cell. It was thought at the time that Irish-America was striving to get Patrick O'Donnell reprieved. Some wicked men who said they represented Irish- America waited on the President with that object. These Irish-Ameri- cans were re-echoing no cheers for Parnell, but were in deep sympathy with O'Donnell, and the struggles for liberty mentioned in Mr. Sullivan's 500 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. cablegram have been certainly carried out by sending well-filled purses to these changelings, which has been repeated again and again with over- flowing generosity. And the changelings are having Ireland freed by banquets and cheers, and repeating these successful formulas about the emerald gem. The great Spanish republican statesman, Senor Castelar, spoke thus of the execution of Carey : " No one is ignorant that the killing of Cavendish would never have been discovered but for the infamous denunciation brought by one Carey, who from accomplice and accused became Crown witness or accuser, or paid accuser. Such treason brought to the scaffold various patriots who are to-day adored as saints and martyrs by the simple faith of a people determined to recover their country's ancient independence. And if the people adore as saints those martyrs, imagine how they must abhor the denouncer. " All England failed to protect Carey from the execution of the verdict of the Irish nation. " On the morning when the criminal was least prepared the execu- tioner shot him dead — an exceptional punishment of an exceptional crime. . . " A race of such determination we must admit is invincible." Irishmen may vainly search the European press for any great states- man's approval of the Parnell banquet, and, unless the mutual admiration cabled across the water, there was none. The great statesmen of Europe, who are generally familiar with the inside and unknown diplomacy of European international politics, have long since estimated the full value of the agitation movement, with its banquets and its high-sounding, mean- ingless phrases, such as the recent "compound vengeance" threatened against England for the imprisonment of a prominent Irishman for the term of three months, and Mr. T. D. Sullivan's speech to the tenant farmers and laborers in Mayo, when he commenced with the high- sounding phrase, " Infantry and cavalry of Mayo." There are some Irishmen who think that this amiable gentleman would be paralyzed with fear if the " infantry and cavalry " had any more powerful weapons than blackthorns. He would be afraid they might commit " crime and out- rage," and if so he would expose himself to more serious punishment than two months in prison. Penal servitude and the scaffold may be very noble sentiments to write songs about. " High upon the gallows tree " may do very well as a martial chorus in a banquet hall, but it is quite another thing to face the cold reality of its presence on the scaffold. Patrick O'Donnell was about to face it with true manhood, and the class of Irish- men to which he belongs, are, in the words of Senor Castelar, invincible. But those changelings and weak Provincialists who heartlessly banqueted during the week of mourning preceding the death of these patriots are not the manner of men who will ever deliver their nation from foreign bondage. It is true ; and, alas ! it is true they are deceiving themselves, and are deluding the Irish people into the belief that their folly will be successful. Let Ireland remember the dying words of Patrick O'Donnell : *'I have done my duty." CHAPTER XXXVI. (1884-85.) DEFEAT OF THE GLADSTONE COERCION GOVERNMENT — IRISH PROVINCIAL- ISTS* JUBILEE OVER THE DEFEAT OF GLADSTONE AND SPENCER " SUBORNERS OF RED-HANDED MURDER." The Dublin Scandals — "A Deeper Depth" — Libel Actions against William O'Brien — Exposure of Bolton, the Crown Solicitor — County Inspector French — Manufacturer of Perjurers — " Pleasant Particulars " — " Official Compounders of Felony " — " Inhab- itants of Sodom Respectable Compared with Spencer's Castle Gang of Scoundrels " — Mr. Parnell's Speech on Coercion — Exposure of Gladstone's Crimes Act — Persons Out after Sunset Arrested — Witnesses Examined Privately — Sent to Prison for an Indefinite Term — The Times on Parnell's Speech — The Atmosphere of the House — "The Stern and Silent Rebuke" — The Dublin Freeman Denounces Gladstone — " His Inaccurate Forecaste of the Future" — The Budget — Defeat of Gladstone's Government — The Irish Thirty-five — Great Rejoicings in Ireland — Rejoicings among Irish-Americans — It was a Famous Victory — " The Red Earl's Run" — "So Much for Buckingham " — " Burying the Proof of his Victims' Innocence in their Graves" — T. D. Sullivan, M. P., Denounces Gladstone and Spencer — The Tory Government — The Provincialists Hail the Tories with Joy — T. P. O'Connor's Views — Home Rule from the Tories — Its Passage through the Lords Assured — United Ireland on the Tories — " The Tories, Ireland's Natural Allies " — " The Irish Question is Settled " — Carnarvon and Parnell — Tory Promise of Home Rule — Parnell's Delusion — United Ireland on Gladstone — "Baiting the Trap" — Mr. Davitt and Mr. O'Brien Differ — O'Brien on the "Nobler Version" — "The Pure Young Man" — Davitt's Indigna- tion — Mr. Davitt and Mr. Finnerty — "Fraternization of Peoples" — Mr. Davitt Visits Rome — Tour to the Holy Land — Tory Promises — Banquet to Lord Spencer — John Bright's Speech — Banquet to Mr. Parnell — " It is Only a Question of How Muck Self-Government" — " I am Afraid we Cannot Call the English Masters in Ire- land " — " Can we Hurt England ? " In the early spring of 1884 United Ireland exposed an unspeak- able scandal attached to the British employees of Dublin Castle. The persons implicated in these unnatural orgies were the principal offi- cials engaged in getting up the Crown cases against the Irishmen who were recently hanged and sent to penal dungeons. The charges brought against these officials by Mr. William O'Brien's unearthing these infamous scandals ought to convince all fair-minded men what fearful wretches were the instruments of British torture in Ireland. George Bolton, the Crown and Treasury solicitor, who had the piecemealing and manufacturing of the testimony given at these mock trials, and who had the preparation of the briefs which instructed the prosecuting counsel on behalf of the Crown, was accused by United Ireland of being, in addition to his con- nection with these terrible scandals, both a forger and a thief; having embezzled certain funds committed to his care and having forged a will in his own favor. James Ellis French, county inspector of constabu- lary and chief of the country detective service, who had the management of the perjurers who gave evidence against Hynes, Joyce, and the various ■other men arrested, outside of the Dublin prisoners, was also implicated in these infamous scandals. The head of the post office service in Ireland, an Englishman named Gustavus C. Cornwall, and a numerous retinue of Castle people, were also included. We cannot pollute these pages by more than alluding to these serious charges, which were substantiated in spite •of all the influence which the British executive used in trying to screen 501 5°2 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. their instruments. Both Gladstone and Spencer refused to believe these heinous offenses took place. George Bolton, Gustavus C. Cornwall, and J. E. French all instituted actions for libel, demanding damages from Mr. William O'Brien for what they termed his false charges made against them. The first action, that of James Ellis French, after several postponements owing to the absence of the plaintiff, who had not courage to follow up his suit, was withdrawn by French's solicitors. The United Ireland published a scathing article entitled "A Deeper Depth," accompanied by a cartoon depicting Earl Spencer and Mr. Trevelyan scourging Bolton, French, and Cornwall; underneath was printed the motto, "Flogging them to fight." The United Ireland in the course of its remarks observed: "Earl Spencer by fair means compels the foulest scoundrels in the Castle service, under pain of losing their salaries, to crush the obnoxious paper by the legal battering ram of forty thousand pounds' damages." These lines, quoted from the leading organ of the Provincialists, prove at a glance how little these men seem to see the situation; the real situation of Ireland appears to be as far removed from their vision as is the planet Saturn, and yet these men are the guides, philosophers, and friends of the people at home. This paper, which has been most unstinting in its exposure of the bloody regime of Spencer in Ireland, and which plainly and emphatically denounced in the strongest language his brutal and despotic acts, yet refuses to see that Ireland is governed by a foreign despotism that works its own will and pleasure in the country. The writer, Mr. William O'Brien or someone expressing his views, still clings to the delusion that Ireland is constitutionally governed. Mr. O'Brien seems strangely blinded to the real facts, and still stumbles on under the extraordinary idea that his paper and himself are in a measure pro- tected by British constitutional guarantees — guarantees which only exist in the imagination of himself and his colleagues. The events and every- day occurrences of Mr. Gladstone's then term of office, and which have been continued since by the Tories, should be proof to any thinking mind that in Ireland these guarantees are an absolute fallacy. If United Ireland was in any way "obnoxious" to the powers that be Lord Spencer or Mr. Trevelyan would not need any "legal battering ram" to squelch it. All they would have to do would be to issue a proclamation and suppress and seize the paper as they did a short time previous, an action which cost the Parnellites a considerable sum of money in trying to secretly print and circulate the paper. They succeeded at a great financial loss; what with the seizure at Dover of the French printed issue and other losses, it would have taken a large yearly income to keep it going. No change in the government of Ireland had taken place that would stay Lord Spencer from the former acts of the same administration, if it suited his policy. Mr. O'Brien and his friends make a serious blunder when they ventilate such absurd statements, and thus spread broadcast the false teaching which is deceiving the Irish race at home and in other countries. The real reasons why United Ireland and kindred journals are permitted is that they are very serviceable to English rule, and act as a buffer, misleading the people, let us hope unintentionally — keeping their eyes fixed on an ignis fatuus to which they give the patriotic name of "Home Rule" ; and they are also a buffer between the real patriots and the British enemy. It was to do this duty for England that Mr. Parnell was requested by Mr. Gladstone to resume his position as Irish national leader and continue in public life. It was this necessity to have a safety valve to blow off the intense Irish hatred of foreign rule which animated that DEFEAT OF THE GLADSTONE COERCION GOVERNMENT. 503 skillful chess player, the Liberal British Minister, and it was the knowledge that the Minister held no such terrible views of his (Mr. Parnell's) associa- tion with what is termed in English parlance "crime and outrage" that induced Mr. Parnell to forego his original intention when he visited his quondam friend and companion, the illustrious (?) Captain O'Shea. So that it is not at all likely that Earl Spencer interfered; neither did his confede- rate in the Irish government whom the agitators gave the euphonic title of ""Pinch of back hunger Trevelyan," but who to-day occupies the sanctum sanctorum of the "Home Rule" chamber. The necessities of these Castle officials' position, salaries, and other considerations compelled them to try and show fight, until they found that Mr. O'Brien was acting from positive information supplied to him by one of the police officers thoroughly •cognizant of the infamy of his surroundings. Earl Spencer and his master Mr. Gladstone threw all the official shield they could about some of these men, for state reasons only. They did not wish to discredit their •administration by prosecuting these infamous tools which brought so many patriotic Irishmen to the gallows, and did not wish to be the agents of exposing the iniquitous conduct of these vile instruments of theirs. They knew that any attack coming from United Ireland would not be credited in influential circles, and it made no difference among the Irish people, who were being gradually brought to that state of mind by its teachings suitable for British routine to destroy them peacefully without any extra excitement. Irishmen, if they give this subject proper thought, will realize how unconsciously the agitators were playing the British game by their protes- tations against unconstitutional methods where no constitution exists. The only means by which the invader could be. injured were condemned by men who carry with them a certain amount of weight because of their so-called national proclivities. Some of these men no doubt are influenced by admirable though mistaken motives. The British found it necessary to aid their instruments, so the Castle machinery was set in motion, and a convenient packed jury of Castle followers were procured to try the libel suit against Mr. O'Brien. But even these jurors, in the face of the over- whelming testimony, did not think it right to give substantial damages to Cornwall. Still their verdict for nominal damages mulcted Mr. O'Brien with legal expenses, which included both Cornwall's and his own. What a ■satire on so-called British justice in Ireland ! In this case Mr. O'Brien had no alternative but to appear in court; he had a principle to defend, to prove that the serious charges made in United Ireland were substantial facts, all of which he did without one flaw or break. Of course his case was pre- judged by the packed jury, and so he had to accept the financial loss as best he could. However, the generous Irish people came to his rescue under the impression it was sustaining Irish freedom in some measure. They started one of these perennial defense funds, which recouped the Irish National Publishing Co., leaving a handsome margin of two thousand pounds. Mr. O'Brien, unlike some of his associates^ is most self-denying in financial matters. He would not retain any of this money for his own use; he gave one thousand pounds to some deserving purpose as he con- sidered it, and gave one thousand pounds to a Provincialist lawyer, who is one of Ireland's new saviors, and defender in chief in the British •courts for the Parnellites and the League. Who would not be an Irish Provincial lawyer spouting mock nationality which will never draw ■severe punishment from the enemy, when such nice fat fees are to be had now and then? During the whole of this agitation, from the inception of the "crusade of shame" to the present hour, there has been a lawsuit or prosecution going on continually ; who so proper to earn money by •defending these as Home Rule lawyers — which accounts for so many 504 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. of the Irish members of the British Parliament seeking a call to the English bar in Ireland, and adding an additional binding link to that which already holds them in the service of the British Crown. The expose of the Castle officials could not be altogether passed over. British rule in Ireland had to assume a virtue if it had it not. The blind worshipers of everything British could not allow it to be stated that their private lives were not as pure as the Irish whom they were crushing. Criminal proceed- ings were instituted against the Castle gang. French was conveniently proven to be a lunatic, some received imprisonment, one man penal servitude, but many through the packed juries disagreeing (none were proven not guilty) were relegated into retirement, and the Liberal rulers commenced anew their sanctimonious rule of Castle conspiracy against Ireland. Those who now peruse United Ireland can see in every number the way it writes up the English alliance of Gladstone, Spencer & Co., and will be able to refresh their memory by the windmill politics which Mr. O'Brien teaches Irishmen who read this organ. Writing on these Dublin scandals United Ireland had the following editorials. March 1, 1884, under the heading of "Pleasant Particulars": "We have just had the satisfac- tion of furnishing Lord Spencer's esteemed detective director James Ellis French with the particulars demanded by that official as ordered by his allies of the Court of Queen's Bench. . . A copy is also at the disposal of Lord Spencer whenever he chooses to call for it at this office, and in the interests of public decency it would perhaps be as well if his Excellency would no longer feign ignorance of the class of ruffians retained by him on the plunder of the tax-payers. In our opinion the inhabitants of Sodom were respectable members of society compared with some of the scoundrels employed by her Most Gracious Majesty to govern Ireland from Dublin Castle. Let Lord Spencer turn to the affidavits and say whether the public, who regard the Castle as a den of tyranny, will not henceforth be justified in deeming it a sink of iniquity as well. Why, if he be not in league with French, does his Excellency not compel the wretch to press forward his prosecution against us? Whose fault is this? . . Surely, however, the Lord Lieutenant will not tolerate that the case of French v. O'Brien should sink out of sight as a dropped order. We now challenge him, with all and sundry other of French's bottle holders, to pick up their man and send him to us if they dare." In the issue of May 24, 1884, under the heading of "Official Compounders of Felony, " it says: "Mr. Trevelyan has now confessed that Colonel Bruce and himself, and doubtless Earl Spencer, inquired as to French's abominations and had ample prima facie evidence that the charges against him were true, but determined to observe a benevolent neutrality toward the gentleman because (at their instigation) he had brought an action for libel against this journal. Was there ever an admis- sion that so completely identified the Irish Government as accessories after the fact to a nameless crime?" The editorials from United Ireland ought to be convincing proof that there is no genuine and steadfast nationality in agitators who are swayed by every breath of wind that stirs up British politics. Think of the man who penned these articles associating and in alliance with Lord Spencer and Mr. Trevelyan, against whom, no doubt truthfully, he brought this infamous and horrible charge. Think of men who call themselves Nationalists sitting down to dinner with Lord Spencer, against whom they brought such horrid accusations. It is simply monstrous. The credulity of the Irish people in believing any set of men can be sincere Irish patriots who practice such inconsistencies is, to say the least, astounding. Mr. Parnell exposes Mr. Gladstone's coercion and then creates him his chief, and he is hailed as Ireland's deliverer. DEFEAT OF THE GLADSTONE COERCION GOVERNMENT. 505 In the debate on Gladstone's Coercion Bill Mr. Parnell, speaking in the British Parliament, said: Public opinion in this country generally seemed to forget that it was an act of the most drastic severity that had ever been passed against Ireland. The Right Honorable gentleman the Chief Secretary [Mr. Trevelyan] said "No, no!" but if they compared the pro- visions of the Crimes Act with the provisions of other coercion acts, they would find the former were more sweeping and numerous than those of any Crimes Act that had been passed. They had power under the Crimes Act to establish a special commission of judges for trial without jury for certain offenses, power for trial by special juries selected from the county and city panels, with unlimited right of the Crown to order jury- men to stand aside and giving unlimited right of challenge — a power which has resulted in the selection of juries for the trial of the gravest offenses from the very class who were smarting in pocket, in prestige, and in reputation from the result of the Land League agitation and from the result of the legislation of the Government, and who were unable' to approach the consideration of those grave political and agrarian cases which were brought before them with that judicial form of mind which it was imperatively necessary for jurors to have. They had provisions in the Crimes Act for the appointment of tribunals of summary jurisdiction, and. intimidation was defined in such a way as to render it impossible for a speaker to address any meeting without breaking the law unless he had a lawyer by his side to tell him what to say (Hear). Power was given to the police to arrest persons after sunset, which, as he should show, had been very extensively used. Power was also given to arrest strangers, to seize newspapers, and to make searches by day or night. There was power given to the justices to summon witnesses, and to examine t/iem privately, and to commit them to prison without trial for an indefinite term. The jury to try Francis Hynes were almost exclusively composed of persons drawn from the class of the Castle tradesmen, or persons depend- ing upon the aristocracy for their livelihood, or persons on terms of friendly intimacy and companionship with Lord Spencer and the Castle officials. What an expose 1 'of the Grand Old Man's rule in Ireland. This was the change which Irishmen hailed when Forster resigned; and which, Heaven help the race! they also cheered as a victory. This descrip- tion of Mr. Gladstone's Crimes Act is accurate and ought to show up the hypocrisy of this amiable Englishman when for personal ambition and party purposes he chose to denounce a less drastic — but yet infamous — Crimes Act introduced by his English political opponents, the Tories. What a shuttlecock Ireland permits herself to be made by this brace of tyrants, the Liberals and Tories of Britain. For any removal of these tyrannies Mr. Parnell was exposing he might as well have been address- ing the waves on the seashore. He would find the angry inflowing tide of oppression as unchanging in its order as Canute found the sea when he wished to teach his courtiers a lesson. Mr. Parnell was addressing a foreign legislature, and appealing to the public opinion of a foreign and hostile people, whose interests and opinions were and are antagonistic to the well-being of the Irish race. What should be strongly condemned in all these agitators, who have stirred up Irish wrath only to compel it to remain quiescent as to action, is that they profess to be content with the exposure of these wrongs, and think such exposure of itself sufficient. But to practically try and remove them by deeds they, like the dog in the manger, will neither do them- 506 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. selves nor, if possible, allow their countrymen to do. So practically they are doing England's work while abusing her, teaching Irishmen that exposure and abuse are the needed weapons, coupled with a vague imple- ment of warfare called public opinion. They are wasting the national treasury in their impossible, and for any nation to adopt impracticable, course. Ireland alone among the nations has ever tried to combat their enemy by the use of that enemy's laws. In any other country a group of men who would attempt such a thing as trying to free their land by argu- ing with the foreign invader would be scouted out of public life, and laughed at as a set of drivelers by their own countrymen. The effect of the atmosphere of the British Parliament on Irishmen has been repeatedly mentioned before. Even the British people and press notice this. The London Times thus comments on Mr. Parnell's speech: "Nevertheless even Mr. Parnell could not altogether escape from the influence of the usual atmosphere of the House. "The stern and silent rebuke of his reception so far daunted him that, as the Attorney-General for Ireland remarked, he did not venture to recite to the House the more scandalous and offensive parts of the amendment he had placed upon the paper." Mr. Gladstone in a public utterance tried to excuse himself for the state of Ireland, and as a matter of course attached all blame to his pre- decessors the Tories. He was too busily engaged in the affairs of the Bulgarians to think of the Irish. This practically was his own confession. He, good, angelic man, the great patriarch Cadsby Gladstone, whose venerable locks wave round features that look so benevolent now in Irish eyes — he of course was not to blame ; it was those wicked, cruel Tories. The Dublin Freeman, Mr. Gladstone's great Irish admirer, commenting upon this speech of the English Minister's, felt compelled to condemn and reprove its dear friend "Achilles," and thus criticises him: "Mr. Gladstone's description of Lord Salisbury's interpretation of former Liberal declarations is strictly and literally applicable to the Premier's own recapitulation of recent Irish history. That recapitulation is a pure and perfect work of the fertile imagination of the Premier. So inaccurate and so absolutely untrue a statement of facts, which should be fresh in the memory of every man pretending to a smattering of political knowledge, we never yet knew made by a responsible statesman speaking on a great political occasion. It is simply amazing that in order to catch a passing cheer Mr. Gladstone could have brought himself to make such recklessly inaccurate assertions, which he ought to have known would not have been allowed to pass unchallenged for one single day. It was a humiliating confession for the Premier gratuitously to make that, at the time he was assailing the position of Lord Beaconsfield and seeking to supplant him he, the statesman of all others who was supposed to have made the Irish question his own, was so engrossed with the Bulgarian atrocities, so anxious to secure the eviction, bag and baggage, from Europe of the unspeakable Turk, that he did not know — we quote his own words — 'the severity of the crisis that was already swelling upon the horizon in Ireland, and that shortly after rushed upon us like a flood.' Mr. Gladstone is no more accurate in his forecast of the future than in his retrospect of the immediate past. His prophecies with regard to the National party need not seriously disquiet them. " Those who witnessed the strained and eager anxiety with which, on more than one critical occasion within the last twelve months, he watched to see into which lobby the little phalanx of Irish members would walk, will be inclined to think that his indifference to an occasional overturning of a ministry, not to say the dissolution of Parliament, is a trifle overdrawn." DEFEAT OF THE GLADSTONE COERCION GOVERNMENT. 507 The Freeman, even in its condemnation of the British Premier, must preach to the Irish people the eternal doctrine of looking to the Prime Minister of the British enemy in Ireland as the Moses who was destined to lead the Irish nation out of the house of bondage. Why should the chief of Ireland's invaders and destroyers be the person who should be expected " to be the statesman of all others who was supposed to have made the Irish question his own " ? Are Irishmen so incapable and crushed as a people that they need a British Minister to make their question his own ? He of all others whose race and nation have been persecuting the Irish for seven long centuries ! He who then held full despotic power which he was using with every engine of tyranny to oppress them — yea, •at the very hour this article was written — and this Dublin newspaper, sup- posed to be National, seeks the camp of their foe and reproaches their chief for not acting up to their expectations and making Ireland's troubles caused by his people his own. Such a monstrous expectation! Why, to do so, he would be a renegade and traitor to his own nation. It is the very life-blood of their commercial and political existence that Ireland be held in bondage and not permitted the free use of her limbs, and no British statesman, unless at the point of the sword — as Washington compelled them here — will ever surrender to Ireland the control of her own affairs. Gladstone never offered to do so, neither will he nor any other British Minis- ter dream of such a thing unless under the dread alternative already spoken of. Oh, Ireland ! Ireland ! how steeped in the sink of degradation these scribes and agitators would keep you ! That it is not from among your own people or race your deliverer must spring, but in the very camp of your bitter enemy ! From the ranks of your foeman your chief, forsooth, must come. What has this Englishman, Gladstone, done that he should be so spoken of ? He has never passed one single measure — not one — that has given to the Irish people the slightest control over their national life. Not one law has ever been framed that has in the slightest manner stayed the dry rot which is hastening that suffering nation to decay and death. Any assertions to the contrary, in the words of the Freeman, are 4 ' recklessly inaccurate assertions" which cannot be sustained. This look- ing to England for help has been Ireland's curse and her abasement. You have no hope, Irishmen, but in being able to compel the unspeakable Briton to leave your island bag and baggage. This British Minister Glad- stone has been even to these Irish agitators hypocritical ; in the words of the Psalmist: " He hath put forth his hands against such as be at peace with him ; he hath broken his covenant ; the words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart ; his words were softer than oil, yet, were they drawn swords." As the Irish people are now hoping (1887) with an anxious hope for the return of the "grand old man" to power, so at this time, mid- summer, 1885, they were eagerly praying for the downfall of him whom they then termed "Judas Gladstone." Such has been the effect of legal and moral agitation upon the people that they appear to eagerly welcome a new tyrant, so as to rid themselves of the despot in office. And yet there is no real, but an imaginary change which takes place in Ireland. The selfsame destructive rule of the foreigner flows on as unchang- ing as the rivers rush to the sea. The much prayed for opportunity came to the Irish Parliamentary party. Certain provisions in Mr. Gladstone's budget were disapproved of by a large section of his own countrymen, and on Monday, June 8, 1885, the Liberal Government was defeated. The vote for the second reading of the Budget Bill was 252 against 264, leaving the ministry in the minority by 12 votes. The thirty-five Irish Parliamentary votes were recorded against Mr. Glad- stone's administration. Great was the joy in the Irish Parliamentary 508 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. ranks, and which not only spread over Ireland, but wherever Irishmen dwelt. Here in America, their countrymen were as enthusiastic as they were at home. Had British rule in Ireland been blotted out of existence, there could scarcely have been more joy expressed than there was at the downfall of the minister who to-day is their idol and their chief. Strange effect of false political teaching on a truly national and patriotic race ! The Irish Provincial journals at home and here in America were brim- ful of enthusiasm and delight at what all called a great Irish victory. Here was positive proof of the potency of Parliamentary warfare, where a most powerful British Ministry was struck down by the Irish vote. Had the Irish members voted with Mr. Gladstone, he would have had a majority of fifty-eight, or had they refrained from voting altogether the Ministry would have had a majority of twenty-three votes more than sufficient to keep them in power. And this was a clear demonstration of what a great factor in serving the Irish national cause and compelling ministers to listen to Ireland's demands was the Irish Parliamentary party under the leadership of Mr. Parnell. Thus reasoned the agitators ; and on the strength of this great victory for Ireland, they began to draw rosy pictures of Ireland's future, all to be won by legal and moral agita- tion. They never stopped to think that had the 62 followers of Mr. Gladstone who absented themselves, and the 8 who voted against his budget scheme, voted with their party, " the Grand Old Man " would have had a majority of 68, in spite of their 35 votes recorded against him. These 70 dissatisfied British Liberals did not count. It was all the great victory of the Irish 35. Neither did they in their exultation take into consideration the 229 British Tories who voted with them. No, the whole honors rested on their Parliamentary shoulders. It was no lessen- ing in any way to their great victory. There had been a new franchise bill enacted, and Lord Salisbury and Mr. Gladstone had settled a com- promise scheme of Parliamentary seat redistribution which was passed into law, and necessitated a dissolution of Parliament in the autumn, to be followed by a general election. This fact made not the slightest difference, and they exclaimed, like the Iron Duke, when years after the battle he revisited the field of Waterloo, " It was a famous victory," and as Mr. Gladstone could not have been defeated at the time without their voting against him or absenting themselves from the division, we will, after mentioning these slight drawbacks, most ungrudgingly accord to them the laurels of victory. And after joining in the universal shout of joy, we will ask in a natural manner, Gentlemen, where are the fruits of your triumph? They are not visible, neither can they be imagined. These Parliamentary contests have been ever barren of results to Ireland, and this particular Irish victory was no exception to the general rule. The joy in Ireland was fanned into a blaze of enthusiasm by the Provincial press. United Ireland published one of its famous cartoons in brilliant colors. It depicted Lord Spencer running swiftly away, pursued by the shades of his murdered victims, who, clothed in graveyard cerements, pointed before them with outstretched arms and bony fingers. There was a villainous scowl on the Lord Deputy's face, and the fiery red of his hair and whiskers added to the ferocity of the countenance depicted by the artist. Around his neck was coiled a hangman's rope, and in his hand he carried a satchel on which was labeled " Crimes Act." Under- neath was the legend " The Red Earl's Run." The editorial which accompanied this celebrated picture was in no manner less emphatic in its condemnation of the Liberal regime of blood in Ireland, and had the characteristic title : " So Much for Buckingham." The editorial observed : " Earl Spencer has gone the way of Mr. Forster and Mr. Trevelyan. He came in and went out with the Crimes DEFEAT OF THE GLADSTONE COERCION GOVERNMENT. $°9 Act. He staked his all upon cowing Irish spirit, and strangling Irish organization with that bloody instrument. He stopped at nothing, not at secret torture, not at subsidizing red-handed murderers, not at knighting jury packers, not at police quarterings, blood taxes, the bludgeoning of peaceful meetings, the clapping of handcuffs and convict jackets on mem- bers of Parliament, mayors, and editors, not at wholesale batches of hangings and transportations by hook or crook, not at burying the proofs of his victims' 1 innocence in their graves." No language used by revolutionists to characterize the regime of Gladstone's second agent in Ireland can be found stronger than this used in Mr. William O'Brien's paper, the leading organ of the Irish agitators, and which is a truthful resume of that atrocious time. And to-day Irishmen are told to look for the salvation of their country from the men who procured " wholesale batches of hangings." What short memories have these agitators ! The writer in United Ireland, the mouthpiece of the Irish party, speaks the plain truth when he states : " Earl Spencer came in and went out with the Crimes Act." But how can the agitators reconcile this state- ment with the opening lines of a certain proclamation posted in Dublin, •two days after the " Red Earl " landed in Ireland, signed by some of the leaders of the Irish Parliamentary party, which began thus: " On the eve of what seemed a bright future for our country " ? Was the coming of this English Lord Deputy "the bright future " which these men hailed ? Was this Earl Spencer the promise and fulfillment of " bright hopes " which they taught the whole Irish race to shout for as a great victory ? Read again the terrible charge these men's official organ brings against Lord Spencer : He " stopped not at burying the proofs of his victims' inno- cence in their graves.'" And this man, Earl Spencer, was the Apostle of the great Irish victory gained by the departure of Forster, and whom they themselves charge with greater crimes than even the man called " Buckshot Forster " committed. Since this powerful article was written, accompanied by its cartoon called the "Red Earl's Run," the sentiments of which were also endorsed by the other Irish journals, two of the most honored of these Irish members dined with Lord Spencer. Did they feel as they touched his hand that it was stained with the blood of his innocent victims ? Did they shudder when they sat at the table with the man whom their official organ called by implica- tion such a terrible name ? * On Tuesday, June 16, 1885, the Dublin National League held its usual meeting nine days after the defeat of Mr. Gladstone. Mr. T. D. Sullivan of the Dublin Nation (the author of many stirring and spirited ballads) was in the chair. The defeat of the brutal Liberal Minister was a subject of great congratulation among the leading National agitators ; it was hailed as a victory for Ireland, as the next advent to power of this very same brutal coercionist will be regarded as another omen of victory. What monstrous delusions and deceits are practiced upon the credulous * Since this history was written, the march of events has shown the Provincialist leaders to have fallen away from their early hostility to British rule. Mr. Wm. O'Brien, who speaks in such scathing language of Mr. Gladstone's Irish Lord Lieutenant, Earl Spencer, in the above editorial, thus addresses himself to a Birmingham audience, March 17, 1888 : " My memory does remind and does rebuke me for having said harsh things, much more harsh and cruel things than were ever said of Mr. Bright, of another great Englishman — Earl Spencer (loud cheers). And Earl Spencer has taken the noblest ven- geance that ever fell to the lot of man (cheers). For my part I have never cringed to mortal man (cheers) . . . but I tell you candidly from what I have seen of Earl Spencer, from what I have known of Earl Spencer's career since he quitted Ireland, I would black the boots OF such A man (cheers) — and I would think it no dishonor (cheers)." Compare this language not only with the article " So much for Buckingham," but with. J> to THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Irish masses to keep them from uniting upon the only course left a bleed- ing nation. Mr. Sullivan, in the course of his remarks, used the following words, speaking of the foreign ministers sent to govern Ireland : " They came here one after another for the purpose of suppressing the spirit of the Irish people and destroying the nationality of the country, and they had to go away beaten and defeated men while Irishmen lived and flourished. On no occasion had the people better reason to rejoice than they had to-day, for two reasons. One was that hardly ever had a more bitter and determined enemy of this country come to it and left it than was about to leave it in the person of Earl Spencer ; and hardly ever did an Irish meeting assemble on an occasion of this sort with brighter prospects before it, as far as the rights and liberties of the Irish people were concerned, than were before them to-day." See how this agitator hugs the delusion to his soul that the enemy's Viceroy was leaving the country beaten, when he knew that another would succeed him. What is it to Irishmen whether their chains are called Liberal or Tory ? They gall the same and clang just, as loud in the ears of slaves. Foreign rule is a hideous crime toward Ireland, no matter which wing of the assassins orders the slaughter. Spencer was not leaving Ireland beaten ; he had left behind a rosary of corpses for this pious* agitator to pray around, as his brother agitator, Mr. O'Brien, puts it, burying the proofs of his victims' innocence in their graves. Note how he tells his credulous hearers that Ireland's prospects were never brighter. What are the prospects this would-be patriot speaks of as bringing hope of brightness to Irishmen's rights and liberties? The coming of Lord Carnarvon and Hart Dyke, two Tories, to replace Lord Spencer and Trevelyan. What an insulting prophecy — what a falsehood, whether believed in by its utterer or not, to tell to the Irish people that the coming of Carnarvon was an occasion for rejoicing, the Englishman who deluded Mr. Parnell with the hypocritical promise of Home Rule ! And when Irishmen remember that this same Mr. T. D. Sullivan, who denounced Spencer as the most bitter and determined enemy of Ireland, actually took his bloodstained hand and sat down to dinner with him, Irishmen should stand aghast with horror. Heaven, where are thy thunderbolts to hurl upon these men — renegades to nationality and honor, who would try and drag their suffering motherland into the abyss of degradation and infamy ! Who take the criminal's hands, shutting their eyes upon the crime ; who eat with assassins, as they themselves, accused this Englishman of being ! And yet would slander the memories of the purest patriots that ever died 'neath God's glorious sunlight for the redemption of their nation from foreign slavery ! The effect of the vote in the budget was the resignation of the Liberal Premier and the formation of a Tory Ministry under the leadership of Lord Salisbury. Thus, after five years of the most tyrannic system of govern- ment known in Ireland during the present century, fell the Liberal Mr. Gladstone from power. Is it because of the greatness of his cruelties any of the various editorials during the Castle scandals, where Earl Spencer is accused of screening the most infamous of social criminals, and what can thinking minds conclude when they also know that this man, Mr. Wm. O'Brien, is not only a prominent leader of the Provincialists, but an idol of a certain class of Irishmen, who are carried away by public passion, and not by public judgment, when they make heroes out of such very trashy cfey. Mr. O'Brien has not informed mankind what remarkable virtues Earl Spencer has displayed that the secret torturer and suborner of red-handed murderers, as Mr. O'Brien styled him in 1885, should be deserving of such lavish praise, that Mr. O'Brien in 1888 would consider it an honor to be this once secret torturer's shoe-black. Ireland ! Ire- land ! to what depths of degradation are these weathercock Provincialists seeking to -drag you down! — December, 1888. DEFEAT OF THE GLADSTONE COERCION GOVERNMENT. 511 during these five years of horrible persecution, that the Irish agitators- to-day style him the " Grand Old Man " ? To most people's idea, there is something iniquitous in the grandeur of a Minister whose taskmaster in Ireland buries his victims out of sight to destroy the proofs of their innocence. The Tories are scarcely more than in office when fresh hope springs -up anew in the breasts of the Provincialists. Their papers informed the Irish public that there was every probability and possibility that the Tories would give Ireland " Home Rule." That accomplished Londoner (as he recently styled himself) and British Parliamentarian, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, in an article published in a leading American review, demonstrates to his own satisfaction, and to the satisfaction of his readers, excellent reasons why " Home Rule " should and must come from a Conservative government ; and the most powerful argument, and the most convincing to those who believe in legal agitation, was the state- ment he made that a Tory government alone could expect to carrv such a measure successfully through the House of Lords. Other articles appeared on this subject. United Ireland, writing on the situation, immediately after the resumption of power by the Tories, in its issue of June 19, 1885, speaks thus : " Circumstances plus the Irish party, however, make it practically impossible to carry a coercion bill, even if they introduce it, and the result probably would bean estrangement between them and the Orange faction here, of which the Irish party should not be slow to take advan- tage. Once the English Conservatives throw over the landlord party, the Irish question is settled. The Radicals will give the rack-renters no assistance, and after the dissolution they would simply be a little knot of half a score of malcontents unworthy even to be called a rump. In the Upper House alone they would constitute any difficulty, and even there it would be easy to reduce them to impotence. If, therefore, either now or after the general election, Conservatism cuts off its Orange tail, the prospect of an amicable arrangement between the two countries would be infinitely improved. " The English landlords have hitherto been led by a supposed com- munity of interest to stand by their Irish brethren. But we live in the days of the democracy, and the center of power has been stripped even from the whilom aristocratic party, from the drawing room to the work- shop ; they must suit their policy to the necessities of the hour. " On religious and educational grounds, the views of the majority of the Irish people approach much nearer to the English Church party than they do to the Radicals, and as all outrages would come to an end once the landlords evacuated, there is no reason in principle why as large, or larger, measure of self-government should not be granted by the Tories as by the Whigs. Its passage would be immediately facilitated if brought in by the Conservatives. " A Liberal opposition could not obstruct it as their opponents could. The Lords, of course, in which Lord Salisbury has a large majority, would follow his lead. On the whole, it seems to us possible that, if the Tories are now wise, they may, in spite of the extended franchise, capture almost a sufficiency of English and Scotch electors at the dissolution by a generous Irish policy, and that with the help of this country a majority might be secured. "It is probable, however, that some time must elapse before the views of Lord Randolph Churchill, influential as he now will be, can permeate his colleagues on the Irish question ; while of course the landlord party will work heaven and earth against him. The bait is tempting, but will- English Conservatives be hooked by it? The alternative put before them is intended to frighten them into the acceptance of the offer, it is said. 512 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. The road is clear before them, and it remains to be seen whether they will be so foolish as to diverge from it in order to be slaughtered at leisure in an ambuscade by the combined Irish and Radical forces." Mr. Gladstone, shortly before his defeat, had intended to renew the worst features of the expiring Crimes Bill ; this was well known and afterward publicly stated by several ex-ministers. The Tories, in the face of an approaching dissolution and general election, could not dream of doing anything so rash as to introduce such a measure while the possi- bilities of six years' lease of power were trembling in the balance. So they were compelled, in spite of their .real inclinations, to forego that pleasure until after the election ; hence Mr. Gladstone's Bill was allowed to expire. Anyone who will carefully read over this article of Utiited Ireland cannot but smile at the political prescience of the writer in the face of recent occurrences. They will remember that this article was penned by a man thoroughly familiar with Parliamentary warfare, who knew all its intricacies, and was well posted in the tactics and relative strength of British parties. Whatever writers may accuse the Irish party of, they must one and all admit that in Parliamentary knowledge they are accom- plished and able men. But it is this very familiarity with British parties on party questions which blinds them to the real situation ; they are so much accustomed to see all issues solved by a combination in Parliament that they are convinced they can solve this " Home Rule " question in a similar manner. They cannot see, such is the influence of their sur- roundings, that this international issue is not solvable at the ballot-box ; that the interests of the two nations are directly antagonistic, and no combination of Parliamentary parties can reconcile such gigantic interests, in which the life of one nation is involved and the supremacy of another on the Western Coast of Europe. As well might Spain decree by a vote in her Cortes that Gibraltar must be restored to her as Ireland to dream that her deputies could ever effect such a change peacefully as that the votes of her members will compel any combination of British parties to give Ireland over to her own people to make laws and govern her as the colonies of this scattered empire govern themselves. In the whole of this article in United Irela?id there is not a single mention of trade, manufactures, or commerce. The old cry of the land and that worn-out bugbear the landlord seems to be the only change which self-government is to bring to Ireland, even if obtained. There is one extraordinary passage in this article which clearly illustrates the confusion of mind these able men seem to have on this Home Rule question, for whenever they approach this subject one would think that the British Parliament not only changed their Irish souls, but robbed them of their intellects. What do the writers in United Ireland mean by " as large or larger measure of self-government " to be given Ireland by these rival enemies of theirs, the Tories and Whigs ? Self-government means exactly what it states. A people either govern themselves or they do not. There can be no lesser or greater in the question. Do the Provincialists mean that a portion of " Home Rule " can be given to Ireland and yet be live self-government ? Would they be satisfied, like one of the claimant mothers before Solomon, to take half the child, thereby destroying its life by the severance of the executioner's sword ? It is feared that they have some such wicked dream. Why do they not see, or are they blinded, that the mutilated corpse would have no animation ? There has been a growing fear among Irish Nationalists that some of these men contemplate this foul treason to their country, or what is the meaning of getting freedom by installments ? The British minister who conjures up in his fancy that the Irish question would be even temporarily settled by such a bleeding fragment makes a great mis- DEFEAT OF THE GLADSTONE COERCION GOVERNMENT. 513 take. The changelings, with their apparent power and prestige, would be powerless despite all their promises. Once the Irish people become cognizant of the fact, the great heart of the Irish race beats true to the core to their motherland, and although many have been deluded into trying Parliamentary agitation, they certainly mean no less a crown of nationhood for their country than do their physical force brothers. The belief entertained by the United Ireland writer as to Lord Randolph Churchill being in favor of " Home Rule" is another proof, if needed, what flimsy foundations they try to build the Temple of Liberty upon. This article was soon after answered by an interview being brought about between Mr. Parnell and Lord Carnarvon, the Tory Lord Lieuten- ant of Ireland, at the latter's suggestion and wish. The Tories wished to get the Parnellite support by giving vague and empty promises in return. So the British earl commenced a conversation on " Home Rule " with Mr. Parnell, without exactly compromising his colleagues — with whose sanction and approval, no doubt, the interview was permitted — and asked Mr. Parnell the leading question to a British statesman, if Ireland got " Home Rule," would she, like Canada, protect her manu- facturers against England ! Mr. Parnell supposed she would, and Lord Carnarvon replied that he thought there would be some trouble over this. However, the interview passed off very pleasantly. Mr. Parnell, although he could not place his hand upon any definite or tangible promise, yet came away fully satisfied that the Tories would give Ireland "Home Rule." In fact, it was almost already a Cabinet question, and this delusion so filled the soul of Mr. Parnell that it pervaded every speech he delivered during the general election. The Liberals were of course made aware of this interview, and commenced making overtures to their late foes, the Parnellites. It was a case of Codlin and Short between Ireland's rival tyrants, with no sincerity in the promises of either. United Ireland had an article on the Gladstone overtures entitled "Baiting the Trap." It stated: "Never could we have believed the Gladstone Government could have stooped to the acts which they are now attempting in order to curry favor once more with the Irish people." What strange political jugglery has taken place since; how different this Irish newspaper speaks to-day of this Liberal statesman, who remains the same coercionist in heart, and must as a British Minister. Mr.,Davitt at this period had a tiff with United Ireland. He had written a smart and petulant letter to that paper in reply to some com- ments of its on his letter to a Sheffield Radical club declining an offer made by it to represent an English borough in Parliament. In his refusal to accept the nomination he stated that he did not think that all the best men in politics should be sent to Parliament. The natural infer- ence to any intelligent reader would be that Mr. Davitt considered him- self included in the ranks of the best men in politics, which displayed a proper appreciation of himself, and no doubt in ability as a speaker and earnestness in agitation Mr. Davitt was right in placing himself on the pedestal labeled " Best " ; but not wishing to be uncourteous to the Englishmen of Sheffield, he sent a letter to United Irland stating that his real reason for declining the nomination for a seat in Parliament was his decided objection to take the oath of allegiance to the British Crown. United Irelatid got nasty over this letter from Mr. Davitt, its editor and proprietors being duly sworn members of Parliament. And it may be remarked en passant that this oath-taking is a matter for each gentleman's own conscience. Mr. Davitt being one of "our pure patriots," as the term is used, was perfectly justified in satisfying himself as to how far the taking of this oath might stain his original purity. In the course of 514 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. United Ireland's remarks on Mr. Davitt's letter it went on to say that "since Mr. Davitt's declaration in a letter published in May, 1882, that 'a nobler vision ' had dawned upon his views, many persons supposed that he had waived his objections to take the oath." The writer in United Ireland appeared to have the inclination to hum over the couplet from " Patience " : Oh, what a very, very pure young man This pure young man must be. Mr. Davitt was indignant with the writer in United Ireland recalling his letter of the " nobler vision," and retorted by saying that his noble visions did not contemplate oaths of loyalty to Ireland's enemy, but from his point of view more effective methods of bringing down the enemy's twin strongholds — landlordism and Castle rule. The letter concludes thus : " Had you not in your ill-tempered and unfair article of last week broached this subject I should not trouble you with any letter upon it, but when you deliberately and maliciously try to place me in a false position before the country, and not for the first time, you shall not be permitted to do it again with impunity." Irish Nationalists are very much afraid that their pure and noble countryman displays a slight flavor of losing his temper with his friend Mr. William O'Brien ; what the dreadful punishment he alludes to when he states that his friend will not again be permitted to misrepresent him with impunity may be they cannot imagine — possibly the same destructive weapons with which he means to attack the twin strongholds. Irishmen have a vivid recollection of reading a certain speech delivered by their pure and noble compatriot since at Chicago, in which he very plainly pointed out that the most " effective method of bringing down the twin strongholds" was by talk, and disclaiming all the naughty, wicked things which Mr. Finnerty spoke of. So that there was really no difference between his views and Mr. O'Brien's, and it is supposed that they have made friends long ago. The " nobler vision " alluded to by Mr. O'Brien was a letter written by Mr. Davitt on his release in May, 1882. Here is an extract: "If in the hot blood of early manhood, smarting under the cruelties and indignities perpetrated in Ireland, I saw appeal to force the only means of succoring her, upon my graver thoughts, in the bitter soli- tude of a felon's cell, a nobler vision appeared, a dream of the enfranchise- ment and fraternization of the peoples, and of the conquering of hate by justice." None but a truly pure and noble spirit could breathe these lofty sentiments. What a wholesome moral lesson it should have taught those incorrigibles who carried the same National sentiments they first learned in the hot blood of their youth and early manhood into their maturer years, even until their heads were tinged with the winter's rime. If they could but see what this dream of the "fraternization of the peoples" has done for the dreamer, how prosperity and success has crowned his nobler visions ! As he rose up, step by step, the golden hill of fortune how he must have pitied the deluded comrades of his early years, who lingered in the vale of sorrow below, and to whom no graver or nobler thoughts came in their solitude. Then as his intellect developed more and more by the clear, bracing atmosphere of the loftier regions he had reached, fortune redoubled her-smiles, and the "fraternization of the peoples" grew with more sublimity, and still loftier and nobler sentiments animated his being. 'Twas then that he conceived the idea of a visit to_ the Holy Land. What a splendid field for the philanthropic sentiment 6f "frater- nization" had he here before him, the glorious achievement of uniting the human family in one brotherhood of peoples. In his wanderings before visiting Jerusalem he could make a happy blend of the democra- DEFEAT OF THE GLADSTONE COERCION GOVERNMENT. 515 cies of France, Germany, Russia, Turkey, Spain, Egypt, and any lands he chose to visit to fulfill his " nobler vision," including all the various tribes around the early home of Christianity. For as this noble vision is based on ignoring the national differences and the conflicting interests of the Irish and British working classes, would it not be well to spread this "fraternization" all over? On his way to Bethlehem Mr. Davitt visited Rome, with the pious and dutiful object of paying his respects to the Holy Father, but, strange to say, the Pope declined the interview. Mr. Davitt's modesty must have kept from his Holiness the knowledge that he of the "nobler visions," one of the "best men " in Irish politics, was craving an interview. As yet the world has heard nothing further of the success of this Eastern journey. Irishmen may feel certain that Mr. Davitt daily waxes stronger in love and "fraternization"; perhaps the time will soon come when hate will be conquered by justice and by love, and when these twin strongholds spoken of by Mr. Davitt — " landlordism and Castle rule" — will melt away beneath the fervor of his "nobler visions" and the love born of "the fraternization of peoples." On July 17, 1885, a very interesting debate took place in the House in the presence of Ireland's beloved friend the new Tory Ministry. Mr. Parnell rose to call attention to the maladministration of the criminal law in Ireland, and more especially of certain provisions of the Crimes Prevention Act during the viceroyalty of Earl Spencer, whereby persons had in some cases been condemned to death and executed, and in others sentenced to penal servitude for life or for long terms of years, which sentences were then in operation, and to move that in the opinion of the House it is the duty of the Government to institute strict inquiry into the evidence and convictions in the Maamtrasna, Barbavilla, Crossma- glen, and Castleisland cases, the case of the brothers Delahunty, and generally all cases in which witnesses examined in the trials now declared that they committed perjury, or in which proof of the innocence of the accused is tendered by credible persons, and such inquiries with a view to the full discovery of truth and the relief of innocent persons should be held in the manner most favorable to the reception of all available evidence. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House under the new Administration, in reply said : "... Not only are the gentlemen opposite perfectly competent to defend themselves, but I must say very frankly that there is very much in the Irish policy of the late Government which, though in the absence of complete information I do not venture to condemn, I should be very sorry to make ?nyself responsible for. (Irish cheers.) . . . " In my opinion Lord Spencer and his colleagues made many mistakes, but I am convinced that in all his action the whole of his colleagues shared equal responsibility." In the light of the present Tory r/gime of coercion how ironical these remarks read, and yet the agitators are either allied to one or other of these British parties, both of which share alike the infamy of foreign rule in Ireland. On July 24 a banquet was given by the Liberal party to Lord Spencer to indorse his policy, which included the hanging of innocent men, as alluded to by Mr. Parnell in his speech. All the elite of Whigdom were present at this great political dinner. Mr. John Bright, in a truly English republican and Radical tone taking part in a debate in the House, said : " Who are Earl Spencer's assailants ? They are to be found in some of the conductors of the Irish press and in some of those who profess to be representatives of Ireland, and who sit in that character in the House of Commons. Now these 516 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. men — I speak of those who have brought these hideous charges against Lord Spencer — I say that they are disloyal to the Crown, and that they are directly hostile to Great Britain. " They have, so far as they could do it, obstructed all legislation which was intended to discover or prevent and punish crime. Throughout these years, ever since the late Government was formed or nearly so, there has been nothing done in the direction of discovering crime or of convicting or punishing crime which has not been directly and persistently obstructed by these men, who profess to be the friends of Ireland, and who have been the most virulent assailants of Lord Spencer." Exactly, Mr. Bright. These Irish gentlemen should be disloyal, as you term it, to the Crown ; they owe that Crown exactly the same allegiance as they do the imperial diadem of the Mikado of Japan. Unfortunately for Ireland, whatever latent feeling of this kind these Irishmen had has dis- appeared in your Parliament. You complain, good Quaker friend, of Irish- men's hostility to Great Britain. What a marvelous discovery ! It is the insufferable, unbearable insolence and impudence of your people coming into that country to rob and murder them, good man of peace, which is the source of all this trouble. Take your army, your police hirelings, and your other infamous minions out of Ireland, cease bludgeoning, shooting, and stabbing Irish women and children — in one word, takeyourself, unspeakable Briton, out of the island, bag and baggage, and Irishmen will cease all hostility to you and yours. You can go your ways in peace for aught they care. But if you will continue your career of murder and plunder, so help them God of justice and of battles, they will retaliate if they can ; and if the people would stop trying to reason with you, and deliver one united blow or series of blows, you might find the possession of their country a more inconvenient prize. At a banquet given to Mr. Parnell in Dublin, August 24, of that year, in the course of his speech the Irish leader said : " We have always got before us that we were sent from this country not to remain long in Westminster (cheers), but to remember that it is for us to look upon our presence there as a voluntary one and to regard our future, our legislative future, as belonging to our own native country of Ireland. (Loud cheers.) . . . " It is not surely a question of self-government for Ireland, it is only a question of how much of this self-government they will be able to cheat us out of. (" Hear, hear ! ") It is not now a question of whether the Irish people shall decide their own destinies and their own futures which — I was going to say our English masters, but I am afraid we cannot call them masters in Ireland — it is a question with them as to how far the day, what they consider the evil day, shall be deferred. . . " / therefore feel assured that the next Irish party will be the last in the English and the first in the restored Irish Parliament. (Loud cheers.)" What a pity to see such a noble wreck, the better part of his nature stolen away, and left bereft of intellect and of judgment. It is a sad, sad case to hear such arrant folly from a man once so much thought of. United Ireland, in a very extraordinary editorial published on September 19, 1885, styled : " flan we Hurt England ? " comments on the physical aspect of a struggle between Ireland and her foe in that peculiar manner which belongs to agitators. Mr. Chamberlain had used in one of his speeches the brute force majority between Britain and Ireland. Here are given one or two extracts from the Provincial organ : " In the sense of smashing her army and navy, indubitably no. Under present conditions the day on which England can get us to draw out our forces in battle array and pull a trigger is our last. " We were nine millions, and England has bled us down to four. DEFEAT OF THE GLADSTONE COERCION GOVERNMENT. 517 " A man may very easily lose his life in importing a rifle. He will assuredly lose his liberty if he keep it anywhere that it won't rot. " We expect to find his [Chamberlain's] cruel taunt as to the helpless- ness of four millions as against thirty-four quoted with jubilee in the organs of the dynamiters as a complete vindication of their recipe for making up for want of numbers by strength of gun cotton. " Nor are murderous clubs of maniacs or smoldering civil war by any means the only physical discomforts that would attend English rule over a thoroughly exasperated Ireland. England's right hand would be tied up from war with France or Russia or the United States. It is not as in the days when the Franco-Dutch armament waited in the Texel for a favoring wind till Tone's heart was sick, or when Hoche's ill-starred fleet was blown out of Bantry Bay like a fleet of cockleshells. Any of these powers could defy the winds and evade the world-scattered English fleet and fling five or ten thousand veteran troops with supplies of rifles, cannon, and officers upon any given point of the Irish coast. And while an Irish rising with scythes and cudgels may seem the best joke in the world to Mr. Chamberlain, a French army in possession of Limerick with all the hot-blooded youth of the country flocking thither to shoulder its hundred thousand French rifles and learn its French drill, coincidently with an Irish conflagration throughout Durham and Lancashire, and an Irish irruption among the palaces and banking houses of London City, would not furnish nearly so cheerful a merriment to a Warrington audience. " Nor is the physical arm the only arm of the four millions. Mr. Parnell has not fired a shot in anger these five years past ;• yet will any- body pretend that English rule conducted under the same conditions it has had to wince under for the past five years could long be endurable to English rulers ? Either Mr. Forster or Earl Spencer would have slept sounder if there had been pitched battles to fight every other day than they slept when they had nothing else to face but criticism in Parliament and passive resistance in Ireland. Will English statesman ever accept such a hell upon earth as a settled form of government ? " There would be a general fiscal revolt. " Then there is the contingency to which we alluded last week : the possibility of a great national boycotting decree against English com- mercial travelers; the boycotting of every English official, soldier, and policeman in the island ; the boycotting, if needs be, of every steamer, ship, or cockboat carrying on intercourse between the two islands ; for while all these things would involve a good deal of red ruin and the breaking up of laws, will anybody say they are beyond the power of a people ready to face any sea of weltering trouble provided that Mr. Chamberlain shows them that English domination in this island cannot otherwise be overthrown?" The writer in United Ireland, whatever abilities he may have as to the intricacies of internal or party politics, there can be little doubt he would be a most unsuitable person to plan a military campaign. His estimation of the physical resources of the island will for the present be passed by. The extraordinary boycotting campaign which he speaks of here as a means of hurting England is only equaled by the astounding information he appears to require from Mr. Chamberlain or somebody, Can English supremacy in Ireland be overthrown without hurting Eng- land ? Both the boycotting war and the information necessary to com- 5lS THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. mence it are proof positive that these men are incapable of realizing the giant task they've set before them. Think of boycotting the armed forces of the enemy. Why, it is the delusion of an imbecile ! Recently some people in Ireland boycotted the police, refusing to sell them certain sup- plies they needed. What was the result ? Why, the armed men took by force what they required, scattered the sellers and their wares, beat some and arrested others. What punishment would these Provincial writers advocate to use against those wicked Constabulary who would not permit themselves to be boycotted to carry out United Ireland Vpet theory ? They probably would advise a public meeting to protest against these armed police not recog-. nizing this ostracism, or else an action in the enemy's courts to recover financial damages for the goods destroyed and the injury done to the cause by those police not accepting the boycott. What can reasoning beings say to men who try to practice and teach such lunacies, and who cling with the fanaticism of an obi man to his fetich to that which they term " constitutional agitation," and whose mandates they think the enemy or his armed myrmidons must respect? These great statesmen who would appear to require Mr. Chamberlain or some other enlightened Briton to convince them that English domination in Ireland is main- tained by force, and also need further information to assure them that it will need force to overthrow it. In this article they unscrupulously assail the Irishmen who would advocate and try to use this necessary force, which proves that these men lack the capacity to either lead or advise on national issues. What a Solomon this writer is when he makes the public statement that " the day when England can get us to draw out our forces in battle array and puU a trigger is our last ; " and a little lower down he informs his readers of the sad fact that "we were nine millions, and England has bled us down to four." Will this Provincial leader inform his country- men where in history can he find the carnage of revolution, insurrection, or massacre to destroy five millions of people in forty years? Not even if he added together the bloodshed of Attila and the sanguinary wars of Napoleon could he find so terrible a record of human slaughter. Ireland alone of all the nations would find in revolution a means of saving her people. This must appear a strange reason for insurrection in the Green Isle, but if there were no other reasons, and even slender chances of success, the drain on the population, Britain's eager and brutal necessity, would be stayed by coming out in the open and fighting the foe in some manner. She could not possibly slaughter as much in the ferocity of war as she is poisoning and destroying under the present hellish system she calls peace. She is hastening with her work of destruction, and is hopefully looking forward to the time that she can fulfill the prophecy of her vile organ the Times, " When a Celt will be as scarce in Ireland as the red Indian on the island of Manhattan." The moral assistance this writer gives Britain in denouncing Irish Nationalists, whom he terms both dynamiters and clubs des enrages, is a novel way to hurt England. The latter title, club of maniacs, he insultingly bestows on the brave patriots who were enrolled in the Invin- cible organization. The writer, in his condemnation of the party of action, uses this infamous, slanderous, and false language against the Irish Invincibles : " They were only finally smashed because they failed to remember that refusing to open their lips in the Castle star chamber only involved a week's imprisonment." The small-souled creature who can conceive that Irishmen such as those who were capable of making the world ring with a daring, desperate act, an act of war against the foe for the pure DEFEAT OF THE GLADSTONE COERCION GOVERNMENT. 519 love of their native land, could possibly be terrified by the threat of one week's imprisonment sufficiently illustrates the reasonings of this intelli- gent scribe, who, having the medium of a largely circulated Irish paper at his command, uses it for belittling, if he can, these men— men whom England then and now calculate upon — and their action in the possibili- ties of any future struggle, while she would brush aside the silly inanities of such people as the writer of this editorial. It will be remembered that this newspaper was the organ of the movement that created the Invin- cibles. The brutal hypocrisy of thus assailing their own colleagues was infamous. As an apology for mentioning "dynamiters" and " clubs des em-age's" in the editorial with the title " Can we Hurt England ?"— for their assist- ance, according to his conclusions, would be but of trifling importance — the writer observes : " We recall these things, not that we do not shrink from such mad and sanguinary conspiracies with at least as genuine horror as Mr. Chamberlain does," but what makes this condemnation in the eyes of Irish Invincibles the more damnable is the great possibility that the writer holds the very contrary opinions, and that such Irishmen will call these foul attacks " diplomacy." Note the pretended lack of knowledge dis- played by this cowardly writer. No matter by whom written it is helping England. Even if this article had been penned by such con- sistent "legal agitators" as Mr. T. P. O'Connor, Mr. Justin McCarthy, or the late Mr. A. M. Sullivan, it cannot lessen the grave injury such articles do the cause of Ireland, coming from men who pose as Nation- alists. This article called " Can we Hurt England ?" has the decided effect of hurting Ireland, and must have done some injury to her cause, circulating widely among the Irish people, many of them men of poor education and inability to grasp the situation, such as the masses of the toilers are in all nations. Men may call it "good policy," and keeping the enemy in the dark, but its proper name is foul treason to the sacred cause of country. The slave cowering beneath the whip of the taskmaster cannot express his real opinions, or the lash would fall upon his shoulders in the shape of penal servitude and his property become confiscated to the foe. But he can at least preserve a dignified silence. He should not share in the delu- sion that it is " diplomacy " to slander the memory of Ireland's heroic dead, and try to filch away the reputation of men who to-day suffer in England's dungeons under the charge of being both " dynamiters " and "Invin- cibles," while he and le Societe des Imbeciles risk three or six months in jail and come out with noisy acclamations because, forsooth, they are martyrs and heroes to the campaign of talk. Robert Emmet's dying request that no man should write his epitaph was addressed to the mock Nationalists of his time and such as this writer in United Ireland of to-day. Speaking to such moral cowards* he said: " For as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them." What the dying Emmet asked the world should be asked for the memory of men surrounded by the rotten- ness of all the calumny and slander of this age. But these Provincialists will not permit this silence. In trumpet tones they are slandering the memory of these martyred patriots, and at the same time are in criminal alliance with the enemy's radical faction that took these men's lives. The world looks on and sees a false issue placed before mankind for its judgment, which is an attempt to fasten a stain upon the Irish nation. Let the truth, then, in the same trumpet tones go before the just and liberty-loving peoples. The enemy's Government is in full possession of all the needful information it requires, and it is against their interest that these fact's should see the light of day. In the 5 20 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. language of Senor Castelar, it is their great anxiety that these patriots and martyrs should be slandered by their own countrymen, and their action condemned in the high court of public opinion. The present writer will state this case before that great tribunal, satisfied that the noble and thinking of mankind will indorse the motives and principles which actuated the brave and patriotic sons of an ancient race under the most hellish and brutal of persecutions. CHAPTER XXXVII, (1881, 1882, and 1883.) INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE IRISH NATIONAL INVIN- CIBLES — THE LONDON " TIMES" ARTICLES, " PARNELLISM AND CRIME." Britain's Interest to Destroy every Germ of Irish Hostility — Entrapping the Provincialists to Condemn the Invincible Organization — The Invincible Movement — " History Relates but does not Inform against " — " We shall give no Names, but we shall Paint Reality " — " What we Relate we can Say that we Saw " — The Enemy Striking Madly and Wildly — Arrest of Parnell and the Leaders — Formation of the Irish National Invincibles by the Irish Government of National Defense — Invincibles Created, Enrolled, and Invested with Authority by the Irish Nation — Thousands of Men Organ- ized — Spread of the Movement over the Entire Country — Created and Organized by the Government of the Irish National League — Its Authority the Legal Power Covenanted to the Parliamentary Movement by the Irish People — The Invincibles and the League Practically one and the same Organization — " It is Seldom Wrong to Speak the Truth Plainly " — Licentious Action of Gladstone and Forster — Arbitrary and Wanton Arrests — The Mask of Peace Torn off — Bayonets, Buckshot, and Dungeons Hold Sway — " Suppression " of the Chiefs of the Enemy's Murder Bureau Decided on — Meeting of the Government of National Defense in a French Town — Programme of Action Decided on — Guerrilla Warfare Ordered — The Invincible Organization Con- fined to Ireland — Its Spread over Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connaught — Forster Guarded by Armed Men in London — The Enemy on the Alert — Full of Vague Suspi- cions — Forster and the Invincible Meeting in the House of Commons Passageway — Alarm of Forster — Hurrying of the Guards — The Enemy ever Watchful — Armed cap- h-pie to Prevent Surprise — An Officer to take Command of the Invincibles in Dublin appointed by the Directory — The local Dublin Council — Forster's Drive to Dublin Castle — Scene Along the Quays — Invincibles on the Alert — Forster's Carriage Followed by the Invincible Vehicle — Men Drawn up along the Drive — The Omitted Signal — Failure of the Attack — Forster Hurriedly Leaves for London — His Return to Dublin — Scene at Westland Row — Forster's Drive to Dublin Castle — The Invincible Vehicle in Front — The Barricade on the Quay — Forster's Carriage Stopped — Escorted by Three Ladies — Swoop of the Invincibles Stopped by Authority — The Secretary's Car- riage Drives on — The Kilmainham Treaty — Astonishment and Surprise of the Invin- cibles — Forster Leaving Dublin — Drenching Rain, Scene in the Streets — Muster of Invincibles along Great Brunswick Street — Forster's Carriage Reaches Westland Row — The Secretary Does not Come — Charge of Invincibles into the Railway Station — Forster not in the Train — The Midnight Guard — Invincible Vehicle — Forster's Ruse — Invincible Officer's Dispatch to his Government — Peremptory Reply, Go on with the Work — Order to Concentrate in the Phoenix Park — March of a Troop of British Hussars — To Meet Again on the Morrow — Night of the 5th of May in Dublin — Anxiety of the Invincible Commander — News Reaches the Invincibles of the Ballina Massacre — Invincibles' Horror at the British Murder of Irish Boys — The Morning of the 6th of May — Arrival of a new Foreign Governor — Arrival of a New Chief of the Murder Bureau — His Official Responsibility for Last Night's Murders — The Gathering in the Park — Mustering of Armed Invincibles — Determination to Succeed — Expecting to be Hemmed inside a Circle of Death — The arrival of the Hussars Looked for — The Armed Constabulary's probable Arrival on the Scene — Skirmishers Posted — Invincibles Ready for a Fight if Necessary — Polo Match in the Phoenix Park — The Enemy's Armed Guards Scattered about — The Invincible Skirmish Line — Possible Bloody Encounter and Combat to the Death — The British Chiefs of the Murder Bureau Meet — The Invincibles Come up — The Gleam of the Uplifted Steel — Panic of the British Guards — They Quickly Scatter and Disappear — Fright of a British Cavalry Officer — The Invincibles Outgeneral the Foe — A Walk past the Constabulary Barracks — The Park Gates not Closed — Blunders of the Enemy — Invincible Conference of May 7 — Indignation of the Dublin Invincibles at the Parnellite Proclamation — Moral Assistance to the Enemy — Treason to the Men in the Gap — Dispatch from the Invincible Executive — The Officer in Command of the Dublin Invincibles Arrives at Headquarters — One of the Invincible Directory Calls on Him — "Suppression" of a Local Tyrant at Castle Taylor, Ardrahan — His British Cavalry Guard Slain — The In- vincible Government order a Truce — Weakness and Irresolution — Parliamentarians' 521 522 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Policy of Prudence — Organizing Fresh Bands of Invincibles in Dublin — Arrests by the Enemy — A Lady Messenger Sent to Dublin — British Hangings Horrify the Invincible Government — Their Hands are Forced by the Enemy — Order for Hostilities to be Resumed — Preparations for Active Operations in Dublin — Arms Seized by the Enemy in Carey's Loft — James Carey Removed from Active Service in the Invincible Ranks — Carey loyal but Indiscreet — The Dublin Commander and the Local Officers — Conferences — British Officials wear Bullet-proof Shirts — Ostentatiously Guarded by Armed Men — Fresh Arms for the Invincibles — Invincible Captain Carrying Arms- to Dublin Travels with a British Colonel — Dublin Filled with Royal Marines — British on Guard against their Unseen Invincible Foes — The Red Earl's Ride — His Escort Half a Troop of Cavalry — The Invincible Commander's Plan to Attack the Earl and his Guard of Cavalry — Shells Urgently Required — Strong Force of Con- stabulary Guard Judge Lawson's Country House — The Two Invincibles Recon- noiter — Lawson's Constabulary Guard Invite them to Dine — The Invincibles Receive all the Information Necessary Unasked — Constabulary Sergeant Shows Invincible Lieutenant over the Ground — Sergeant Completely Unconscious who his Guests are — Lawson's City Guard — Invincibles Concentrate at Stephen's Green, Dublin — Waiting for Judge Lawson — "Will he Come?" — Expected Fight with his Armed Guard — No News — Delany's Blunder — His Excitement — His Capture by Lawson's Guard — No News at Stephen's Green — The Waiting Invincibles Retire — First News of Delany's Blunder and Capture — Panic among the Enemy — Fright of Leading British Officials — Delany's Blunder Saves Lawson — Vigilance Com- mittee of the I. R. B. Shooting Affray in Abbey Street — The Invincible Command- er's Surprise — Invincibles not Engaged — Planned Attack on Two of the Leading Jurors of the Murdered Francis Hynes — Attack on Juror Field — Westland Row Patrolled by Invincibles — The Expected Juror out of the City — Panic among the British 'Supporters in Dublin — Fresh Rewards Offered by Dublin Castle — Invin- cibles' Necessity for Powerful Explosives — Demand for Bullet-proof Shirts by Irish Traitors — The Enemy's Lord Governor Doubly Guarded — Arrests for Examination in Dublin — All Suspected Nationalists Arraigned — Secret Star Chamber Investiga- tion in Dublin Castle — Carey and Kavanagh Refuse to give any Information — Both Prove Loyal at this Epoch — Ten Thousand Pounds no Temptation — Threats Fail to Shake Them — The Dublin Invincible Commander's Demand for Shells — His Urgent Request to the Executive — The Star Chamber Fails — The Enemy's Gold has no Seek- ers — Invincibles not to be Bribed — John Bull's Dilemma — Spencer's Determination to Arrest all Suspects — Training Hired Perjurers to become Familiar with the Appearance of Certain Suspected Men — British Determination to Hang in any Event — Policy of Endeavoring to Strike Terror Decided on by the Enemy — Dublin Filled with Marines and Spies — The Enemy Striking in the Dark — The Dublin Commander's Efforts to Procure the Shells — Timid Parliamentary Politicians Strangle their own Active Movement — Invincible Action Suffers — The Dublin Com- mander's Visit to one of the Leading Members of the Executive — Demand for Shells Made Urgent — Messenger from Dublin to Headquarters — The Invincible Officers Specially Request their Leader on the Scene — His Last Journey to Dublin — Conference — Preparations for the Attack on Spencer and the Cavalry Guard — The Last Meeting — The Last Farewell — Midnight Swoop of the Enemy — The British Strike Haphazard — The Enemy's Swoop Enrages Dublin Invinci- bles — New Bands await Orders to strike Spencer and his Guards — The Dublin Commander's Journey to Meet Executive — Procrastination — Nervous Caution if not Fright — The Statesman's Message — Promises of Support — Base Surrender of the Invincible Executive — The Dublin Men Cowardly Abandoned — Parliamen- tary Tactics Triumphant — All Dreams of Hostility Pass away from the Parlia- mentary Invincibles. The hour has come when the history of the Irish National Invincible organization must be written. The slanders and false issues spread broad- cast by the foreign usurpers in Ireland, and their " murder organ," the London Times, must be answered. The venomous attacks on Irish Nationalists by the organ of the Dublin Castle assassination conspiracy have been not only acquiesced in by the Provincialist leaders, but some of these men have unhappily aided the Times by joining that hostile journal in its vile attempt to fasten crime upon the Invincibles, and through them upon the Irish nation. These attacks can only be characterized as cow- ardly, for the Provincialists knew well that they could not be answered back, while one shred of hope was left them in the pursuit of their Home Rule policy, or what they have impressed upon the Irish masses as such. But at last there comes a glimmer of light, when the Truth can proclaim INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 523 itself, and dispel by its pure rays the murky clouds that have darkened Irish intellects. Several of the Provincialists have been honored by an accusation — or charge, as it is termed — brought against them by the Dublin Castle con- spirators' organ. They have been accused by this London newspaper of association with the heroic bands of Irish patriots that covered the green island in the years 1881-82-83. Mankind has been grossly deceived from the date of the incident in the Phoenix Park as to the nature of the Irish National movement, which caused the " turning down " of the chiefs of the enemy's assassination bureau on that memorable May evening to the present time. First by the panic which caused some of the Provincialist leaders to issue a misleading proclamation, which was apparently put forth by these weak-nerved men in fear of personal attack, and since by the action of the Provincialists in reply to the London Times. Not satisfied with denying their alliance with the patriots, they wantonly assailed the characters of these men. These Parnellites denied that they were associated with crim- inals and assassins, as they foully called the Invincibles, thereby staining their country's name with crime. Not only was this a further recognition of the invader's right to rule them, but they were words of foul treason against their suffering motherland. At the time they uttered these words they were and are to this hour (December, 1887) in criminal alliance with British assassins — men whom the Parnellists themselves so characterized ; men whose hands are red with the blood of the women stabbed and shot in Belmullet, and of the children brutally massacred in Ballina ; men who sent innocent victims to the scaffold by the deliberate perjury of bribed and manufactured testimony ; men whose reign of blood and despotism in Ireland was denounced in no measured language by these Provincialists who are now in alliance with those they then so justly condemned. From William O'Brien's leading article " The Bloody Assize," to his famous cartoon and article " The Departure of the Red Earl," nothing could be more scathing, more bitter, and denunciatory than his description of this conspirator against Ireland's freedom, who is now his friend ; nothing could be more sweeping than the epithets hurled upon these Gladstonian ministers by the " legal agita- tors," men in whose honor they now ask the Irish race to sing hallelujahs ; praising these self-same Liberal ministers, whom they then accused of "Burying their victims out of sight." Such is the slavish and debasing state to which " legal agitation " has reduced these agitators. At this date they wear their chains with pride, and are trying to make their 'countrymen become like themselves, willing slaves of the invader. These public slanders on the Irish name must be answered. As no other appears willing to mount the breach the present writer, an humble actor in these scenes, will attempt this thorny task. It is not alone a sacred duty to do so now — it is more ! it is an imperative one ! The events which we are about to relate belong to that dramatic and living reality which the historian would neglect for lack of material, or else write the false and slanderous statements purposely circulated by the British enemy, who has the ear of the world. But in them are to be found the life, the palpitation, the quivering of Irish patriotism and self-sacrifice. Small incidents in the history of Ireland some will say : but these are the foliage of great events, the forerunner of successful revolution. The epoch known as the Invincible period abounds in many such small incidents. The so-called judicial investigations of the enemy ; these illegal and mock trials in Dublin, for other reasons than history did not reveal anything but superficial and misleading knowledge. For a time even the enemy's gov- ernment did not get to the bottom of the movement. Perhaps they have 524 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. not yet got to the bottom of everything. But they know sufficient, both Tory and Radical Ministers, Salisbury, Gladstone, Balfour, and Spencer, to serve the interests of their own country and to try to sap the source of Irish patriotism by pretended ignorance and misleading tactics, the further to deceive the too credulous Irish people. Each of these hostile parties plays before mankind its allotted part in the great drama. On one side we find an affected condemnation of Mr. Parnell and his colleagues, and on the other a simulated horror and indignation at the Times' charges. But both parties are equally determined to uproot and if possible destroy all active hostility against their rule in Ireland, by stamping with shame, disgrace, and if possible contempt, all exertions on the part of Irish patriots — men who would bring force of any kind, even irregular weapons of war, to harass and in some measure destroy the enemy whose brutal career of extermination is so rapidly decimating their country. Both these British parties are playing a skillful and well thought out movement, by entrapping the Irish Provincialists to most effectively aid their purpose, and so enlist the sympathy of warm-hearted, impulsive, and unthinking Irishmen to unconsciously abet their rule by condemning the action of the only Irish enemies they fear — those men who, by small endeavors to destroy their country's foe, are trying to guide and spur the Irish nation on the path to revolution. By making this issue appear before the world as a case of slander by that venomous London paper, the Times, against the once universally loved Charles Stewart Parnell the enemy hopes to reap the benefit of these so-called charges, by bring- ing the Irish mind round to the condition which will result in the unani- mous condemnation of the Invincibles as criminals — a position already publicly assumed by the Provincialist movement. Revelations of prominent Irishmen being actually implicated in the creation of this hostile organization the invaders fear would give such movements tone and prestige in the eyes of some Irishmen, and of man- kind generally, that would be most injurious to British interests. These interests imperatively demand that all such knowledge should be sup- pressed. It would interfere with their purpose, it might seriously mar their great necessity, the eradication of every germ of national life in the Irish heart, and the turning of the sturdy sentiment of nationality into a puny and meek Provincialism. It is for these British foes of Ireland, Tory and Radical alike, a vital necessity to crush out the seeds of active hos- tility to their power in the island, which, after all their long reign of terror, might again develop and blaze up into a war for national independence. They know their weakness as a military power, the paucity of their army, the great strain their various conquests make upon their military effectiveness, and if Ireland is not kept quiet by the deadly Provincial opiate, which they hope will lull her until the population becomes less than two millions, she might give them serious trouble, and bring on for them a dreaded war, which would reveal the rottenness of their power and might presage the downfall of their ill-gotten empire. From hneutes might spring insurrection, and once the torch had set ablaze the inflammable materials, which generations of horrible persecu- tion have made ready for the hands of the daring revolutionary leader, who could say — who could positively assert where the conflagration would stop ? And then the possibility that some among the many enemies of Britain in Europe, urged on by interested motives, might come to the aid of the battling Irish as France, liberty-loving France, helped the American revolutionists. All these possible eventualities British statesmen foresee, and so they cunningly contrive to bring about such a state of things that the Irish people will assist their diplomacy ; the horror and condemnation of the INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 525 Times is part of this deep laid scheme. In their chivalry, coming to the rescue of Mr. Parnell, the Irish Provincialists are unconsciously preaching a strange doctrine to their fellow countrymen. In effect they say that it is crime to slay a British invader, but it is highly honorable to be allied to the murderers of Ellen McDonagh, Patrick Melody, Mary Deane, Francis Hynes, Myles Joyce, and the numerous victims of British crime during Mr. Gladstone's rule of blood and tyranny, 1880 to 1885. Few of these Irish Provincialists but would stand back aghast if they saw the conclusions mankind and history must draw from their misled action. We shall therefore bring to light among the known and published cir- cumstances some things which have never been publicly known ; acts, or rather, premeditated deeds, which were, alas for Ireland ! destroyed in the womb. Over this heroism of daring oblivion has passed, and over some of these patriots death. Most of the actors in these scenes have disappeared ; many have merged into the silent stream of national life that flows on quietly under the invader's rule. Some others in Ireland to-day listen with bitterness and cynicism to the mountain of falsehood the enemy has built up, helped by certain Provincialists, men who seem to have betrayed their country to the foe. Others, again, are enduring the horrors of dungeons, toils, and chains, where not one ray of light can penetrate. It is perhaps as well it is so ; if these noble-hearted, though humble, men could learn how their honor has been assailed, their motives aspersed, the dignity of their country dragged into the mire with such foul treachery, the deepest and blackest turpitude known in history, their load of torture would be doubled by this agony of falsehood. Could they hear this heaven-sent minister, Mr. Gladstone, denounce the Tories for herding political prisoners with ordinary criminals, what would they think of his wretched hypocrisy, they themselves living proofs of his own similar action ? Or perhaps the Liberal leader means that political prisoners are those only who talk for their nation's freedom, not the men who would dare to strike for its independence. Some few of these men have gone into exile, and not the less bitter has been their lot ; calumny and ingratitude have been their perse- cutors. Others, and these the most fortunate, met a patriot's death on the scaf- fold, but the immortal spirit of liberty still lives on, whether in the breast of the exile or the prisoner in the dungeon or the ex-Invincible waiting in his native land. And so these actors have disappeared. They have remained silent ; but what we shall relate we can say that we saw. We shall give no names, for history relates and does not inform against, but we shall paint reality. From the nature of the subject of which we are writing, we shall show an episode, one side, and that certainly the least known, of the eventful 6th of May, 1882, in the Phoenix Park, Dublin ; but we shall do it in such a way that the reader may catch a glimpse under the gloomy veil which we are about to lift of the real countenance of that historic tragedy. When Mr. Gladstone violated all his promises made to Ireland — promises just as fulsome in their hope and sweetness as he is making to-day — when he outraged the liberty, supposed to exist, of the British Commons, to suppress Irish debate, and on the following evening turned the Irish members out of the House, he sounded the death knell of con- tinued "legal agitation," or alliance with those who advocated it, so far as the Irish Nationalists in Britain and in Ireland could at that time influence 526 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. this feeling. He did more ; he sent a quiver of rage and a thirst for retaliation into the Provincialists' ranks — a feeling that for the time was more extreme, and led to more extreme results, than any ever entertained by the Nationalists up to that period. They were angered and outraged at Mr. Gladstone's renewed violation of his promises — promises which they had kept, up to this, before the eyes of their countrymen, the Nationalists, if ever any of them hinted at physical force. Froude, in condemning Mr. Gladstone for these promises, said : " Mr. Gladstone began with an acknowledgment for which he has been violently blamed, that the Clerkenwell explosion had enabled him to deal with the Irish problem. // is seldom rvrong to speak the truth plainly. " Ireland, he told us, was to be governed henceforth by Irish ideas — Irish ideas in the only form in which they could force themselves upon the legislature were the ideas of those who most hated England. Who defied the law as it stood and enforced their own rival laws with knife and bullet." Exactly, Mr. Froude ; your last remarks as here quoted express the feelings with which every patriotic Irish Nationalist looks upon the issue between these two islands. The legislature you speak of has neither legal right nor authority to make any laws for Ireland, any more than it has for France. Ireland never surrendered her independence, and never at any time gave your British Parliament the right to legislate for her ; conse- quently it is a piece of gratuitous presumption, impertinence, and usurpa- tion for this London legislature of your countrymen to make laws and expect them to be binding in Ireland. They are illegal edicts, which are obeyed at the point of the bayonet. You defy justice and legality, and enforce your laws with knife, bullet, buckshot, perjured witnesses, mock trials, juries selected from rebels and traitors to Ireland, who are packed to record a sentence already decreed in Dublin Castle, and you murder your victim by the assistance of a rebel to Ireland, who wears a wig and is called a Judge, but who is a traitor to his nation, and a hireling who has sold himself to a foreign government for gold ; honor and distinction to him are the badge of treason which he wears before mankind. Ireland has never been legally under British rule, has never been legally a part of the British Empire, and the pirate flag of so-called conquest flies there because of the force which her robber invaders use. Consequently the natives of the island have every God-given right ever enjoyed by a people to use both knife and bullet, and every implement that a brave people can use to kill, maim, and destroy those barbarous invaders, who have been carry- ing on for centuries a cruel war of extermination in Ireland, which war goes on, unceasing, to this day. Mr. Froude, it is seldom wrong, as you have said, to speak the truth plainly, and this is the answer Ireland would give you, if moral cowardice of the leaders or false policy, in addition to the serfdom of British chains, had not closed the lips of the people. These — these are the real senti- ments of the great mass of the Irish race ! But Mr. Gladstone does not believe with Mr. Froude in speaking the truth plainly. He believes in deceptive promises, which deceive the Irish people for a time, but are certain to bring a reaction when they remain unfulfilled, as they did at this period of Ireland's history. The passing of Mr. Gladstone's Coercion Act was the signal to fill the prisons with every Irishman that this benevolent statesman's minions in Ireland chose to suspect of loyalty to their country. Merchants and men of probity and position were crammed into jail — no mockery of a trial even, or offense charged ; no accusation or accusers. The invader was on the warpath, and his despotic edicts were obeyed. Among the earliest INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 527 arrest was that of the gentle, but at this period uncompromising, John Dillon. The rebel press in Dublin, the Daily Express, Irish Times, and Evening Mail, were delighted. These organs of Irish treason, who were politically allied to the British Tories, and who invariably found fault with Mr. Gladstone, now applauded his firmness. He was the hero of the hour — the Grand Old Man, who had crushed out what they termed sedition. Ireland appeared, bound hand and foot, ready for the slaughter. The loyal Irish of all shades of opinion, Nationalist and Provincialist alike, saw that a crisis was approaching. Gladstone's dastardly arrest of Mr. Dillon and Mr. Davitt enraged the most timid Provincialist. The blows that were struck by the enemy, in quick succession, made all feel that Ireland should answer back in some practical manner. The Provincialists said that to allow this state of things to continue would be disgracing the Irish character for manliness, and destructive of the best interests of the country ; that if a war of independence was not for the moment feasible, at least a war of retaliation should be at once entered upon. At this time all eyes were turned on Mr. Parnell. The hour had come ! had Ireland found the man ? Did the warrior blood of gallant old Iron- sides course through the veins of his grandson ? Had Ireland found in him her Wolfe Tone or her Washington ? Or did the blood of the descend- ant of a member of the Yeoman's Parliament predominate in the Parnell of our day ? Had he the instinct of those settlers, who talked mock nationality after their cold-blooded massacre of the '98 patriots ? Which — which characteristic held sway in this then foremost Irishman ? Would Charles Stewart Parnell show in this crisis of his country's fate the unflinch- ing resolution, heroism, and desperate daring of his brave grandsire Com- modore Stewart ? Mr. Parnell's visit to Paris, after his insulting expulsion from the British Commons, was watched with expectancy. At this time vague rumors began to circulate through Irish national circles of an approaching struggle with the foe. The Provincialists were bitterly hostile to Mr. Gladstone and his government, and if vituperative language was a key to their inten- tions, and to what they were prepared to do against their cruel and tyran- nical enemy, these men were fast becoming far more extreme than the Nationalists, whose cardinal doctrine had always been physical force. Mr. Parnell's visits to these two great and patriotic Frenchmen, the illustrious and revered Victor Hugo, and the liberty-loving and pro- nounced revolutionist Henri Rochefort, convinced the Nationalists in Ireland that something serious was meditated. All parties knew that there was no alternative left Mr. Parnell ; he must either fight or accept willing slavery and so basely surrender. There was no Irishman who for a moment dreamt that surrender was once thought of by Charles Stewart Parnell, so universally was he beloved and respected by the Irish patriots at this period. That he had determined on fight of some kind the Irish people were satisfied, but of what nature the new war of retaliation should be, or in what manner it would develop itself, they were willing to leave in the hands of the men whose duty it was to meet this emergency, forced on the Irish nation by the enemy. They were confident in the wisdom of Mr. Parnell and his associates, believing in their courage and in their indomit- able determination to face the foe unflinchingly. Ireland was ready to support them to victory or death. Mr. Parnell's letter to the Land League Council in Dublin did not in the slightest manner undeceive the masses of the people ; they looked upon this dispatch as a ruse de guerre, they were satisfied it meant to convey to 528 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. the people the opposite information and belief to what it appeared to express, for all knew they had a wily foe to deal with. The emphatic tone of the letter staggered some few men, but even these could not believe but that the grandson of old Ironsides would be equal to the occasion. The cowardly surrender expressed in the letter they attributed to the new system of diplomacy then unfortunately taught the Irish people. That Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues knew that they were arousing hostility into an active shape against them in Ireland there can be no question. Their actjon was taken with the full knowledge of this fact in view. In the summer of this coercion year (1881) the British Ministers sent round a circular to the Constabulary officers in Ireland, asking each to forward his written opinion, if the people in his district were organized and prepared to take the field. Mr. Gladstone's denunciation of Mr. Parnell at Leeds, and his appeal there to all British parties to unite in combined hostility to Ireland and the League, was a finishing stroke to peaceful counsels. This bitter attack, coming from the benevolent Mr. Gladstone, removed the last remnant of hope from the breast of the wavering Irish Provincialists. What had been in embryo for some time — the determination to event- ually take active steps against the hostility of the enemy's unmitigated tyranny — was at once adopted, and the organization of the Irish Invincibles sprang into being. This new organization was the inner circle of the peaceful Land League, which the invader was striking at with merciless blows. This new and defensive power, to their eternal honor, was the creation of the Parnellite Irish Government. So unceasing now was the tyranny of the enemy, so deaf to all appeals of reason, that every man saw that it was useless to attempt to solve the issues between the islands of Britain and Ireland peacefully. The invader would hear of nothing but absolute and degrading surrender, so brutal and licentious was the action of Mr. Gladstone and his despotic lieutenant Forster. The wanton arrests, the arbitrary and despotic conduct of the British officials, was too much even for the most peaceful ; human endurance had broken down, the Provincialists were now fully determined to far outstep the previous action of the Nationalists and make Britain feel that Ireland was yet to be conquered. It must be distinctly understood that the creation of this new and im- portant Irish organization, or rather the transferring of the braver and more determined members of the Land League into the National Invin- cibles, was not the work of subordinates in the Parnellite ranks. It was the action of those who governed the movement — men the very highest intellectually and authoritatively — and to whom were delegated the legiti- mate control and responsibility of meeting every exigency forced upon them by the exasperated enemy. In a word, the Invincibles sprang into existence by order of The Parnellite Government of Ireland, Elected by the Irish Nation.* It will be recollected that, as has been written in an earlier chapter, * In the face of the events which have occupied public attention since this book was written, and the acted lie which the Parnellites in the concrete presented to the enemy's tribunal, — a tribunal appointed by a foreign government without legal authority to inquire into the manner a neighboring nation chose to make war, — these Provincialists, who collect- ively admitted they were loyal slaves to British rule in their country, indignantly repu- diated all association with the " suppression " in the Phoenix Park or knowledge of the military Parnellites who carried out that historic incident. In the face of this repudiation and the statement written above, and probable contra- diction from men who think their connection cannot be proven, and others who possibly had none, we state most emphatically that facts, as narrated in this volume, are known to the writer personally, and can be substantiated by plenty of living witnesses, which will bring INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 529 many of the Parnellites — members of the British Parliament and others of the party — sought safety from the chance of arrest by leaving Ireland. But this possibly proper and prudent course ought not to have so terror- ized them that their voices should be silent in the National councils at this crisis. To their shame be it recorded, they completely absented them- selves from all direction of affairs. True, these men were of secondary rank in the party, but then they were men of sufficient prominence to set a good example by their presence to help on whatever policy was decided on. Some one or two leading men were altogether absent from the scene, and too far away to take any part in the conduct of affairs, but the crisis was far too keen for these men to have remained away if they were as patriotic as their countrymen thought. But every one of these men who were absent from the post of duty equally share the responsibility of the events which ensued, and are morally and legally bound to the action of their government in beginning a war of reprisals against the British foe in Ireland, and the creation of the Irish National Invincibles. Well and ably was the Parnellite government assisted by the men whom they sent to spread the new organization. Every one of these brave men were prominent Parnellite officials. In every province of Ireland the Invincible movement was spread by these patriotic Irishmen, who traveled under great difficulties, exposed to arbitrary arrest by the enemy's minions, who were at this period watchful and alert. His hirelings and spies were scattered broadcast over the land. But no dangers could intimidate these brave Parnellite organizers. They enrolled the manhood of the League in the new movement. Irish blood was up, and the people were ready to obey the Parnellite government in any undertaking. They felt satisfied that their leaders would adopt no policy but that which was honorable and necessary to meet the vicissitudes and necessities of the hour. It was decided by the Parnellite government, which was also with two exceptions the executive of the Invincibles, that there was no alterna- tive but to meet the assassin rule of Britain by force. The enemy had trampled on his own constitution and torn into shreds the last strip of mock legality under which Ireland was supposed to be governed. A species of guerrilla warfare was determined on (it was the Future making its appearance on the scene) to meet the relentless attacks of the invader. Britain's position in Ireland, they held, was that of the burglar who had broken into the nation's home to rob and waylay the residents. Assassi- nation and misery followed in his train. The chief of Ireland's ravagers, the men from whose bureaus sped the orders of bloodshed and destruction, so ruthlessly carried out by their armed hirelings, were termed by the enemy the " Chief Secretary," and " Under Secretary of State." It was resolved by the earliest council held by the Executive of the Invincibles, that these ferocious offices should be kept vacant by the continued "sup- pression" of their holders. This order was not leveled at any particular or especial occupant of these bloodstained posts of the foe, but all and every succeeding foreign invader who came to occupy these " suppressed " this association lamentably close to the core of highest and supreme responsibility and to the very seat and center of actual power and authority. There are good men who may possibly blame this expose" 'of the truth, where they can- not shame it. In the words of Washington, speaking of the criticism he expected on the then newly created Constitution — a diversity of opinions and inclinations on the subject had been expected by him — said he : ' v The various passions and motives by which men are influenced are concomitants of fallibility and ingrafted into our nature." This book shall not be published until events are ripe for its appearance, even to the most infatuated believer in arguing the enemy out of our country. It will be understood that the use of the word Parnellite in this footnote, and wherever it occurs in this book, means the united Parliamentary party, the McCarthyites and Parnellites of to-day. By this name they were written and spoken of up to the division in 1889. 53° THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. bureaus ; and as soon as a newcomer planted his foot on Irish soil, invested by the illegal and alien administration with the authority of either of these offices, to perpetuate Britain's rule of spoliation, he should be at once sup- pressed in mercy to the Irish nation. Also that every satrap of Britain, carrying on and conducting her war of extermination in any part of the island, should be summarily removed from the scene of devastation. For " Britain in Ireland is as a beast exceeding terrible ; his feet and claws are of iron, and the rest he stamps upon with his feet." The Irishmen who promulgated these orders had the legal right to issue t/iem. This authority was conferred upon them by the Irish nation. Ireland was at this time in the throes of agony, suffering under the regime of two of the worst enemies that ever controlled these bureaus of slaughter — W. E. Forster and Thomas Burke. These men wielded the despotic anthority granted them by the enemy's Parliament, and most brutally and recklessly did they use it. It was ordered by the Irish Ad- ministration that these murder bureaus should be as soon as possible made vacant ; that this foreign murder conspiracy against the Irish nation's life should be deprived of its chiefs. So long as the office of the enemy's Governor General, or Lord Lieutenant, remained a mere representative position, the occupier of it would remain unnoticed, but the moment he assumed executive duties and assisted in the murder of the Irish people, this office should be also made vacant. This law was adopted irrespective of the individuals who assumed these offices of the enemy. Once the scarlet robe of Ireland's assassin was assumed by any man he became Ireland's destroyer, and was com- pelled by the nature of his office to enforce the brutal policy of the invader and all the horrors that followed in its train. The Irish nation did not war with individuals, but was determined to suppress these death-dealing systems established by their unscrupulous foe. Rightly or wrongly the National Irish Government did not think the time ripe for an open appeal to arms. But it was hoped that what was needed for a successful insurrection might be supplied by these guerrilla attacks, which might eventually lead up to a war for independence. It must have been seen by the Invincible Administration that in the suppressing of any of the enemy's chiefs a combat of some sort would probably ensue, but from the blood of brave men dying for their country they knew that fresh champions would spring twenty-fold to take the place of the slain. These combats it was expected would arise owing to the watchful- ness and vigilance of the foe, who guarded every possible place with armed men. It may be said by men who live in free and happy self-governed nations, enjoying peace and blessings under their country's flag, that this policy of the Invincible Government was very terrible. Nothing that Ireland could possibly do could be equal to the atrocities perpetrated on her by her foreign foe. By rapine and bloodshed he fastened himself on the soil of Ireland, and by bloodshed and oppression he maintains his hold. It is revolting to every manly sense of justice that the Invincible movement has not always been established in Ireland by her down-trodden people. Ireland must go through a bloody agony before she can throw off the monster that has fastened on her vitals. To write anything further in extenuation or explanation of this truly needful policy would appear as if apologizing or palliating what was both sacred, just, and truly lawful ; for Ireland never surrendered to any for- eign nation the right to make her laws. Irishmen in seeking to conciliate INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 531 prejudiced and hostile views apologize and explain too much ; this pen shall try to not repeat it. Although the I. R. B. organization remained intact, going on with its fancied preparations to take the field against Britain, several of its lead- ing spirits in Dublin joined the new movement. Among those who joined the ranks of the Invincibles were some of the officers in the I. R. B. ; but as an organization it remained a distinct movement. Mistaking as the I. R. B. did the new policy, and believing that it was merely an attack on landlords, or other acts which took place during the land struggle, the I. R. B. Executive were officially opposed to it. And yet the moral cowards who belonged to the Parnellites have since tried to fasten upon the I. R. B. movement what they in their craven spirits meant to be odium, all the heroism, self-sacrifice, and valor of the military Invincibles. Their own patriotism in creating the Invinci- bles they shrank from, when action was once taken and the first step in the sanguinary drama completed. But for the Parnellites there would have been no Invincibles ; all the glory of that short-lived struggle rests on the brave men who took the field, all the disgrace and degradation on the statesmen who deserted and slandered them. The Dublin Invincibles were almost altogether composed of I. R. B. men, either from members already enrolled, or ex-members equally brave, patriotic, and self-sacrificing. In the country districts the Invincibles were principally composed of Provincialists, members of the suppressed Land League. The daring spirits of all parties embraced most eagerly the active policy forced upon them by the enemy, and which promised for their country the only possible solution at this acute crisis. When the brave organizers who were officially sent out by the Irish Executive to build up this new movement had returned to headquarters, the organization still progressed ; the enrolled men in Ireland spread it among their patriotic brethren. Of these devoted Irishmen, the advanced guard of the new movement, this history has nothing further to record. The man who organized Dublin was a veteran Nationalist, who, if circumstances permitted, would have remained to fight the men enrolled there. He did stay in Dublin for a while seeking results, but these were more difficult of accomplish- ment than those not engaged would think. He was removed from Dublin by orders and thenceforth took no active part in the organization, and so does not appear in this history. Among the brave organizers of the Invincibles in the country districts was a true and tried Irish Nationalist, although a prominent Parnellite ; to this man great credit must be given for his splendid endeavors to build up the movement in the provinces ; he did this under the very eyes of the enemy, while Forster's tyranny was felt in every village and cabin in Ireland. It was through no fault of his that the country Invincibles did not make a redder record, and by so doing further paralyze the foe. He was recalled from Ireland at a very early stage of the movement. Some of his colleagues accused him of indis- cretions ; those were probably only greater deeds of daring than they would do. Human nature is not perfect, and Irish patriots should look with kindly eyes on each other, and more hostile glances at the common enemy. One thing can be written of this brave country organizer, that if his judg- ment was not always perfect, his patriotism had not a single flaw; he believed in but one course, one pathway to freedom — he believed that like all struggling nationalities Ireland's duty was to smite her foe when and how she could. This brave Irishman had no connection whatever with the Phoenix Park incident, although it has been so mentioned, excepting so far as he, like all of the Invincibles, was a party to the policy of which it was the 532 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. active exponent. From the enemy's standpoint of course such men are held responsible, and on that question Irish Nationalists take no issue ; but if the invader wants to know whom to indict for that blow struck at his official destroyers, he must indict the Irish nation. The enemy may squirm and wriggle how he may over this fact, which he knows, but dare not admit : the Irish nation is responsible for the glory, or the crime, whichever they now mean to call it. But the true pulse of the nation rejects the infamy of the latter term. The facts about that memorable event will be given in this history. This brave country organizer was abroad when the news of the Park event came on him with joyful surprise through the public press. The Invincibles might be likened to the forlorn hope of a storming party, where every man ran constant danger of instant death ; they could only be recruited from the best and bravest of the Irish race. They were not numerically great, as compared with the I. R. B., but what they lacked in numbers they made up in efficiency. The material of which the organi- zation was composed, the morale and discipline that pervaded its ranks, were invaluable to Ireland, if properly handled and sustained by a firm and courageous executive. It was indeed an army of lions. It were well for the Green Isle if those who governed it displayed more leonine courage. This organization did not exist outside of Ireland. The Administra- tion, for some motives of policy never known to the Invincibles, did not permit its spread to the United States. Hence Irish-Americans were com- pletely taken by surprise when the 6th of May incident was cabled over the Atlantic, which want of knowledge produced a peculiar attitude in some Irishmen in this country. One of Britain's stock arguments and charges made against Irish Nationalists for the past two generations has been that all physical force movements directed against her rule in Ireland are of foreign origin, as the natives so love her rule they would never dream of revolting against it, but that these foreigners compel them. This absurd statement the invader never applied to the Invincibles — a physical force movement, the policy of which, if put into practice, was not the mildest form of assailing the unscrupulous foe, and the revival of which they fear. This movement was composed of native born Irishmen in Ireland, and they know that its principles to-day are espoused by the great mass of the devoted sons of that nation. From this want of knowledge of the new organization in other coun- tries, a rumor was industriously spread abroad that this movement was hostile to the leaders of the suppressed Land League and the principles of Mr. Parnell. Possibly the idea which Mr. Parnell expressed on board the Scythia when interviewed on his voyage to the United States, namely : that Ire- land needed two organizations, one secret and the other public, was in the minds of the Invincible Administration when it permitted this false state- ment to be circulated. All thinking Irishmen will agree with Mr. Parnell as to the necessity of two such organizations, but they should be both national and true to Ireland. It should not be considered the duty of the public movement to denounce the active work of the secret one, especially if both movements had one and the same executive. To call this policy of falsehood and duplicity good statesmanship, calculated to deceive the enemy, is too infamous for any honorable man to admit. The criticisms and condemnation of the Invincible movement by peo- ple who knew nothing of its origin or the circumstances which created it, show what a fearful influence tending to the destruction of all healthy INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 533 Irish national life is controlled by the pernicious teaching of British literature. Irishmen who agree in this condemnation seldom think of the dark stain on Irish morals placed there by the public teaching of the Provincialists, that "the end justifies the means "; that it is right to compound a felony by trying to come to terms with the invader. British rule in Ireland in any shape or form is a felony, and as such is one of the most infamous and heinous of moral crimes ; a band of bur- glars have burst into Ireland's mansion and gorged themselves with plunder of every kind, and when they fear that their booty is endangered they never for an instant hesitate to add assassination to their numerous crimes. From O'Connell's time to this day the Provincialists have been asso- ciating with foreign criminals, doing evil that good may result. Perhaps they would explain their conduct as Louis Napoleon did for shooting down the French people on the Parisian boulevards : "Je suis sorti de la le'galite pour rentrir dans le droit." Irish Provincialists try to convince themselves that it is expedient to attempt to compromise with the foreign banditti, and by recognizing their right to carry on centuries of pillage and murder, receive back for Ireland some share of the captured booty. But vain and useless have been all their endeavors, even though they publicly stain themselves with the crime of compounding felony — the felon will not restore the smallest moiety of his plunder. He still continues and will continue, unless destroyed by force, to debauch and destroy his victims. All attempts at this period to bring about a peaceful solution (which was rank folly to try) were stopped by Mr. Gladstone, who forced the Provincialists into more desperate and daring channels. Men of the compromise school talk of educating the enemy's popula- tion with good results for Ireland. Repeating the truism, Knowledge is power, and as expressed by a great American : "Of course knowledge is power, we all know that ; but mere knowl- edge is not power, it is simple possibility." " Action is power, and its highest manifestation is action with knowledge. 'Tis not the man nor the nation who knows most, but the one who does best, that wins." With the determination of taking instant action against the British, the Invincible movement was created, but it is one thing to decree a cer- tain policy and another and totally different thing to put that policy into practical shape, and demonstrate, by accomplished deeds, the wisdom of the council chamber. Had open insurrection been decided on, it might have been easier commenced than what might seem a simpler programme. The Invincible organization was now established in Ireland, spreading over Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connaught, with an organized authority behind it, which, as its history progresses, will be seen to gradu- ally melt away, leaving the devoted men in the gap exposed not alone to almost certain death, but what has been to the individual men, as it has been to the Irish nation, a base and cowardly attempt to fasten crime upon the prostrate and bleeding land, an attempt to stain their honor and the honor of Ireland by the unscrupulous foe — but, O God of Truth and Justice, by whom has he been aided and supported in these villainous calumnies ? British interests and lust of conquest compel the leaders of that country to minimize all actual hostility to her rule in Ireland. She tries at all times, through the multitudinous ramifications of her literature, to repre- sent Ireland before mankind as a part of the British Kingdom, and in all her official documents she uses this expression as if 'twere an established fact. She ignores the geographical position of the island, and would, if 534 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. she could, alter the work of the Creator. She speaks of the Irish nation as she does of Scotland, the northern part of the island of Britain, and tries to confuse mankind as to the actual status of Ireland by the parrot cry, England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales; thus dividing the island of Britain into three distinct provinces and making the island of Ireland appear as a fourth. But Ireland, in spite of all these British assertions, remains, as she came from the hands of the Creator, a distinct nation. She has her own four provinces as Britain has three. Britain's three provinces constitute what they call the United Kingdom, of which United Kingdom Ireland forms NO part, neither geographically, nor racially, only as the chained prisoner is united to his dungeon. These two islands are in a continued state of the most horrible warfare. The blows dealt by the British invader are incessant ; they are answered back by prostrate Ireland only in a sporadic and intermittent manner. Circumstances have so far favored the invader that resistance of a physical nature has not been permanent. But although Irish arms are sheathed by false teaching or removed by the enemy, fresh weapons are procured and the nation strikes again to show the world she is not conquered. The Punic wars of the Romans and Carthaginians pale into insignificance before the endurance and length of this war of seven centuries. But the island of Ireland is yet to be conquered. She stands before mankind determined to be mistress of her own destinies. She is bleeding from every pore ; many of the bravest of her warrior sons dead on the scaffold, in the enemy's dungeons, or in exile. But still the fight goes on. Irish patriots may be again and again blotted out in blood, but Irish nationality never. It still lives on ; its source of life is as uncontrollable as the decrees of the great Creator of all nations. At this time in Ireland there were several small country organizations that sprang into existence in each locality, by the pressure of the times and the atrocities of some tyrant of the neighborhood. The small bodies of persecuted men have borne various appellations — Whiteboys, Moon- lighters, and such names. These bodies are the irregular soldiers of the Irish nation. They are the guerrillas that sometimes portend the pres- ence of an army in preparation. They are Ireland's Francs-tirezirs. They disappear and arise as the enemy applies the screw of torture, or as it suits his policy for the moment to ease the agony. While they are representa- tive of the hostility of the Irish nation to the foreign invader, they have no representative mandate for their existence but Irish sympathy in their success as opposed to the enemy ; but very often this hatred of theirs through ignorance is led into wrong channels, and vengeance has often been wreaked on their own unhappy countrymen who, by poverty and the degradation of slavery, violate these men's local combinations. This condition of things is the direct creation of the bloodstained invader.* With these movements, British ministers, British interests, and British public opinion have tried to class the Invincibles. Their published account of the movement as to-day given to the world, and which they wish should go into the domain of history, is that of a small, irregular band of desperate men in Dublin City, under the control and guidance of * It is twelve months since this was written, and at this date, December, 1888, the enemy, by his present proceedings in London, further corroborates the writer's statement, by a fresh attempt to confound the irregular Irish guerrillas and their local land troubles with the Invincible organization. The exhibition in the London law courts of bailiffs and tenants, against whom rural combinations, having no other remedy, were compelled to take action, showed the wretched instruments of foreign plunder, and their grasping sordidness, the direct result of the enforced poverty created by Britain's rule in the country. This is a further attempt by the unscrupulous enemy to mislead and confound mankind as to the real issue between the Irish and British nations. Interspersed with these victims of British tyranny are to be found the usual accompaniments of all Irish investigation in the enemy's INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 535 the unfortunate James Carey, a man who was only for a short time a sub- officer of the organization.* These irregular country movements had no affiliation whatever with the Invincible organization, nor were they in any manner subject to the con- trol of any central authority but their own local leaders. The Invincible organization was militant Ireland, the nation prepared to smite the foe. It held a higher mandate for its existence than any recent Irish movement at its birth. It was created by lawful and organized authority ; its principles and its laws were those given to- it by its Parnellite creators, who were the legal government of the Irish nation. As long as the cry Vox populi, vox Dei is believed in by mankind, the- Invincible organization must remain on record as the answer of the Irish nation to the suppression of the Land League. There were, no doubt, many men in the Parnellite ranks in 1881 who would have opposed, if consulted, the formation of any such organization,, but they were not among the active and patriotic section. But even in. the fulfillment of their own programme, if they had any during this epoch of blood and agony, by their abject cowardice and fright they effaced themselves from all participation or assistance in the direction of Irish affairs. These men, who were puny weaklings in the crisis, became blatant and vituperative when all danger was past. Some few of the brainier and more patriotic of the Parnellite leaders and members of the government received severe private criticism from some of these men who, from their well-known patriotism and devotion to Ireland, were suspected by these timid and nerveless Provincialists as the authors of this war of reprisals. There is no doubt that this section of the Parnellites are sincere believers in Ireland's destiny to be a province of the British Empire ; these people talk of British murders in Ireland as a necessity forced upon the invaders by Irish resistance, and appear to think that any blow struck by their own oppressed country is a crime, and possibly, in this narrow and unpatriotic spirit, they may be sincere in their denunciation of the Invin- cibles in Dublin, as they are sincere slaves and British flunkies. But this does not remove from their shoulders one iota of the respon- sibility attending the creation of this active movement ; if they had authority at headquarters they should have been there to give the Pro- vincialist organization their services. But to say in the face of facts around them, of circumstances that could not have been hidden from the most stupid, if they had not absolute information they must have had more than a shrewd suspicion that the Irish Invincibles and their own movement was the Land League in a more active form. If this is not so, these men must have less than the ordinary perception belonging to natural intelligence. This history cannot be too emphatic in stating that the Parnellism of courts, namely perjurers, wretched creatures who would sell their souls for gold. The illustrated London papers are filled each week with caricature portraits of these unfortu- nate people, brought to desperation by tyranny. The condition of these peasants is the direct offspring of British rule, which aims at changing the manly and intelligent Irish Celt, if possible, by abject poverty and relentless cruelties, into an ignorant savage, further pursued by this cold-blooded and sneering exhibition, exposing for ridicule and abhorrence the production and result of their own infamous and degrading system, the most hellish ever conceived by demons. * This prevailing opinion of the small number of men enrolled in the ranks of the Invincibles is further indorsed by Sir Charles Russell, M. P., in his speech before the London Commission, when he computes that organization as a body of thirty men. This speech of the great British Radical corroborates the writer's opinions as to the anxiety of both wings of the enemy to represent this hostile movement not only as criminal but contemptible. 53 6 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. that epoch and the Invincibles were one and the same in actual fact ; the policy of this active movement, its authority, its armament (such as it was) sprung from the organized ranks of " legal agitation." These men, who now so wantonly denounce the Invincibles (thereby aiding the enemy in crushing out all manly resistance to his rule), if not members, some of them most certainly must have known or suspected the source from which it sprung. If its policy, as these moral cowards state, was damnable, then the men who created it and stood afar from contact or risk, unlike the brave workers, must be classified by the same title. If the foul and villainous name of assassins is applicable to the manly and patriotic Irish soldiers who suppressed the enemy's secretaries, chiefs of the Castle conspirators, whose official hands were freshly red with the blood of the children massacred in Ballina the very day before ; if this black name of degradation is applicable to these self-sacrificing Irishmen who slew the enemy's chieftains, how much more could it be applied and with thundering emphasis to those among the very highest of the Pro- vincialists, from out of whose ranks the Invincible organization sprang into being ! The actions and principles of the Invincibles were either right or wrong; there can be no medium term. If wrong, it should never have been created and the name of Ireland stained with crime ; its creators by their own showing then are criminals ; if right, it should be manfully upheld in the face of day, and no man should blush to own affiliation ; on the con- trary, he should be proud to say, and proud to leave it as an honored inheritance to his children — " I was an Invincible."* But these weak-nerved Provincialists are heaping slime upon their own names by these vile slanders. Circumstances and expediency — using these coward apologies — might compel silence, but no personal danger or politi- cal exigencies can explain away these denunciations or the black and damning stain they would fasten on the name of Ireland. The present writer upholds the action of those then patriotic Provincialists, who when the hour struck, bravely stepped from the ranks of that delusive folly *' legal agitation " and called into being a movement to destroy the foe ; to wipe out of existence some of the vampires battening on the heart of their bleeding and prostrate country. Posterity will honor the action of these men, and in after ages the names of those who are now slandered -will be enrolled on the list of Ireland's pure and devoted patriots. Nine- tenths of the Irish race to-day, at home and abroad, indorse the lesson taught Britain by the " suppression " of her secretaries ; and if Ireland ^strikes another blow, the public opinion of mankind will go with the weak sbut gallant nation whose vitality is immortal. So horrified and maddened were all Irishmen, and especially several of the Provincialist leaders, at the brutal conduct of Gladstone's Chief Secre- tary in Ireland — his callous outrage of every Irish feeling — that a short time before the creation of the Invincible organization one of the leaders of the Provincialists, Y , then and now a Parnellite memoer of the enemy s Parliament, volunteered to sacrifice his life by going to Ireland and publicly suppressing Forster ; he was overruled by those of his colleagues to whom he made the proposition ; from this came the policy afterward adopted by the new movement. This then brave and gallant gentleman, * Since this was written one of these gentlemen has had the courage of his convictions. In the city of Troy, N. Y., during the American political campaign of 1888, an Irishman, and a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, addressing a public meeting, openly avowed his sympathy with the Irish Invincible movement. He there publicly declared that not only had he been a member of that organization, but that he was the purchaser of the irregular weapons of warfare used by the Invincibles in the Phcenix Park, Dublin. Owing to the prevarication and timidity, if not moral cowardice, on the part of the leaders of the movement, this public announcement of his created a profound impression on his hearers. INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 537 who volunteered to undertake this mission, remains to this day one of the leaders of the Provincialist organization.* In writing of the few scenes of action taken by the Invincibles in Dublin, it will be impossible to do so without appearing to give undue importance to one or two central figures. The present writer would rather not have this task, but owing to the slanders and stigmas sought to be fastened on a great principle and a heroic policy, he feels it is a sacred trust and an imperative duty to his mangled motherland that the true record of a short incident — but a most determined and desperate one — during Britain's war of extermination should be truthfully and plainly recorded ; so that Irishmen who may feel the necessity of some similar movement to try to grapple with th« hideous monster who is strangling their beloved country, should not have their minds poisoned by the enemy's lying and distorted statements, and the villainous conclusions which his press, led off by the London murder organ, would instill into their patriotic minds. The Invincible Administration held a final council of war in a small foreign town, and commissioned three men to take charge of the conduct of affairs. These high officials were to consult with other members of the Executive from time to time, as circumstances and convenience would permit, one of the trio having ready access to these gentlemen, as his Provincial duties brought them together. Two of the gentlemen appointed to conduct active operations were not Provincialists ; they were the only men not agitators in the Administration. The rest of the Executive were high officials of the Parnellite Irish Gover?iment. One of these non-agitators was a man who had a reputation for desperate valor, but soon disappeared from the scene. He went on a mission to Ireland with the object of visiting the various Invincible bands over the four provinces of that nation, but did not proceed further on his journey than Dublin. There he saw the sub-officers in charge of the Dublin organization, after which he returned to the city which shall be designated here as headquarters. His subsequent duties were of a consultative nature. This gentleman will be designated as J . The other non-Provincialist was a brave and gallant gentleman. He was a man of superior attainments. This valiant soldier's services were unfortunately lost to the movement by illness at a very early stage in its career. The third member of the trio in charge at headquarters might be called the mouthpiece of the Executive. He was subsequently their medium of communication in great measure with the man who afterward took charge of active work in Dublin, but who at this period was not a member of the organization. This third member of the trio was in the confidence of all the leaders and of the Administration. He occupied a * Since this book was written the Provincialists have split into two factions. One section continue to follow the leadership of Mr. Parnell, and the other and larger part of the Parliamentary party have chosen Mr. McCarthy for their leader. With the acted falsehood which haunts these movements, trying to reform foreign rule in Ireland, the last mentioned faction call themselves Nationalists. They do not mean British Nationalists, as their avowed policy shows them to be. But to further deceive the patriotic, impulsive, and unthinking masses of the Irish people, these men, openly and really organized to per- petuate foreign rule in Ireland and to continue the flag of the invader in the island as the emblem of that foreign rule — these men have the audacity to come before the world with the unblushing falsehood of calling themselves Irish Nationalists. The party spoken of in this book as Parnellite means the whole united Provincial movement as it was at the epoch written abouf. The Invincible written about here as a member of the enemy's Parliament, is now a prominent member of the McCarthyite faction, and still writes M. P. after his name. 53 8 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. very responsible position, and will frequently appear in the course of this history ; for intelligent following of events he will be named Q . Q was a gentleman who had been in earlier years a member of the National ranks, but when he espoused Provincialism (so far as official connection went) his colleagues deposed him. This was an error, if they meant by this that his sentiments had changed. He remained in heart an ardent Nationalist and an unflinching advocate of stern measures against Ireland's enemy. The important affairs placed unreservedly in his hands by the Executive of the Invincibles proved their confidence in Q as a man deserving of much trust. Had he been a dishonorable man he had the power of doing serious harm, which would have led to disastrous con- sequences. But, although fully deserving the confidence reposed in him, loyal and patriotic to Ireland, he was totally unsuited for so responsible a position. Under the direct supervision of the able men composing the Executive he would have been invaluable, but left at times with uncon- trolled authority, he had not the natural resources to be equal to the demand made upon his intelligence and judgment. He was a persevering organizer, for although he did not leave the town where headquarters was situated, he enrolled in the ranks of the Invincibles a number of good men. Of these, and one of his earliest recruits, was a patriotic gentleman of polished and courtly manners and decidedly handsome exterior, who will be named R . Q and J , acting under instructions from the Executive, con- sulted together, and decided on getting R to purchase certain articles to send to Dublin. This mission was executed faithfully, but were it not that R knew that the exigencies of the time compelled his country to use these as irregular weapons of war, there was nothing unusual in these purchases, as they were such as professional gentlemen require to get from time to time. True, the number was more than a single purchaser would at any one time buy, which R — r — explained by saying he was going to the colonies. This incident, we have been informed, has been given to the world by this gentleman himself. With the exception of looking after the Provincialist organ on one occasion, R did no other duties for the organization. And this fact shows the want of judgment at Invin- cible headquarters, for R was a man of considerable ability and would have been able to have given the cause very valuable services. The Parnellite newspaper United Ireland had been seized by the enemy's police in Dublin; the invader was determined, so far as he had the power, to suppress every public expression of Irish opinion. This official Provin- cial journal was printed and published surreptitiously, and on the occasion when R went to look after the arrival of a large parcel of one issue, the enemy, on the qui vive, had made a swoop and captured the newspapers, which made his journey abortive. R remained at headquarters for a few weeks after making the aforesaid purchases, during which time he enrolled two men into the In- vincible ranks. He was then sent to a foreign resort. He spent in this European retreat several months, living quietly at a hotel. During his stay at this foreign hotel, Q complained very bitterly of R 's indiscretion in corresponding with him and others, but it is not to be sup- posed that this was R 's fault ; he was neglected in his retreat and compelled to write these letters. Some time after the Park incident a high official of the Executive sent the gentleman who organized part of Ireland already mentioned, with certain orders to R , who immediately left for the New World. Why R was not in the first instance sent out of Europe, instead of being kept for months idle in a European resort, or why he was sent away at all for the mere making of these purchases, and not retained INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 539 for some valuable active work, is one of the unexplained peculiar acts of the statesmen belonging to the Invincible Administration. Another melodramatic act was the extraordinary manner in which R 's purchases were sent to Dublin. With the exception of two articles retained by Q , those weapons were speedily forwarded to that city. The peculiarity of the sending of these^ weapons to Dublin caused a great deal of uneasiness, dissatisfaction, and want of confidence among certain leading Invincibles in that city. A lady was Chosen as messenger ; there was no necessity whatever for this ; the parcel could be easily brought into that city by the proper person to carry such articles — a man. There was nothing very extraordinary or unusual for a man carrying out so sim- ple a transaction. It however reflects the highest credit for bravery, devo- tion, and patriotism on the lady, but it also shows poor judgment on the part of whoever suggested such a messenger. Unless the enemy was in possession of specific information, travelers entering Ireland were not searched. And if the enemy was in possession of any knowledge concerning her errand, the lady would suffer in their hands the same vengeance as a man. The only guarantee of bringing into Dublin safely any article which the Castle conspirators had prohibited, would be the secrecy of the transa< Uon, not the sex of the messenger. If the invader's myrmidons were in possession of any information, this devoted Irishwoman would suffer at their hands the same outrages as they would have dealt to one of the opposite sex. Think, then, of the fearful risk this brave lady ran, and the terrible consequences to which she was exposed ! It was cruel and unmanly to send a lady with such articles, and it was poor judgment on the part of some of the leaders. Ladies are very often invaluable emissaries in revolutionary times ; but carrying weapons, unless under special cases of exceptional urgency — which did not arise here — is not part of those duties ; as well ask ladies to use the weapons. This matter has been given to the world before, in part, as a something which added luster to this phase of Ireland's struggle against the foreigner's murder conspiracy. It proved the devotion to country of a brave Irish- woman, and at the same time displayed paucity of brains in those who ordered it. As this book is written for Irish Nationalists to read, it is important as a lesson to show where the great deficiency has always been in Ireland's struggle: the absence through moral cowardice of the brainy men at the council chamber. It is very far from the writer's wish to criti- cise or be severe on those who endeavored to serve their land at this crisis. Ireland owes these patriotic men a deep debt of gratitude. Q and J were giving their best services in the cause ; it is a pity that that curse to Irish struggles, called Prudence- -which is often more per- sonal \han National — kept other and far abler men from supervising and controlling affairs in person. The members of the Parnellite Irish National Government should have seen that the momentous issue, which by their order Ireland was committed to, should be carried out with the greatest wisdom that matured judgments could bring to the nation's service. J , who was a man of great dash and bravery, far more suited for the field than the council, was, it is said, an important factor in influencing the Parnellite Administration to change their policy to one of action against the foe, and it is very probable that the title given the new move- ment was of his creation. But although this may be true, the Parnellite member of the British Parliament, as already mentioned, had made his offer of personal sacrifice to suppress the then much hated chief of the Dublin Castle murder bureau before J 's arrival on the scene. J had one or two friends among the leading Parnellites, and his offer of service was no doubt the last straw that turned the wavering balance. 54° THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Soon after the delivery of the parcel sent by the lady, J visited Dublin, and had one or two interviews with the local council in that city. His intrepidity or valor had no opportunity to be placed on record. There was some expressed dissatisfaction at this among his Parnellite colleagues on his return, but the present writer thinks unjustly. Whatever may be said of this gallant gentleman's judgment, his valor or daring is unques- tioned. About this time a man who will be called K was enrolled in the Invincible organization. He had a short time previous become acquainted with Q and R , and sharing the same Irish sentiments in this crisis a bond of sympathy and companionship ripened very rapidly. At one of these meetings Q and R approached K , and asked him to join the new movement, giving him a shadowy outline of its nature. They both knew K was a firm believer in Irish national independence, and from his expressed sentiments during their short acquaintance and from his antecedents, they considered he would make an available recruit. K , from his early association with the I. R. B. and mixing among Nationalists and Provincialists, felt satisfied that the party of action had some new movement in preparation, which would speedily develop itself, but was completely astounded and surprised to learn the source from which this new attack was to spring on the enemy. To be approached by a prominent and trusted Parnellite official to join an active movement of the most extreme kind, in the very chamber where Parliamentary members sat to consult and arrange " legal and constitu- tional agitation," staggered and astonished K . He felt at the moment as if a veil had fallen from his eyes, and that the policy of shaming the invader out of Ireland was only a huge sham ; that physical resistance to tyranny was the undercurrent of this gigantic movement. A strange whirl of emotions and thoughts was flying through his brain undreamt of by his friends present. When he collected his thoughts he asked his querists if the gallant soldier (already spoken of as one of the trio appointed by the Irish Government to conduct affairs, and whom we will call F ) had any knowledge of the new National organization ? He was told that F was already enrolled in its ranks. K told his friends that he would give the subject his most serious consideration, and appointed the following day to meet them with his answer in the same Parnellite chamber where this interview took place. After parting with his companions K began to speculate on the unlooked for, undreamt of news which he had just heard. Could it be possible, he asked himself, that the Parnellite movement, which he and his brother Nationalists looked on as political folly, had been all the time a secret National movement ? If so, this accounted for the extraordinary conduct of the Irish-American National leaders in supporting Mr. Parnell, which was an unexplained puzzle to the men in the gap. On a little reflection he dismissed this idea and concluded that the acute crisis had forced the Parnellite government to take action in spite of themselves, but still he naturally wondered at the very extreme policy adopted. Again he thought, could it be that Q , although a Parnellite official, was acting without the knowledge of the Parliamentary Administration ? But on reflection he felt satisfied this was impossible ; the intercourse K had had at this time with the Parnellites convinced him that those in legal control and power must have given their sanction and authority or Q would never dare to broach so bold a policy in the sanctum of their chambers. With these conflicting thoughts rushing through his mind, K sought his old National friend F . F and K had been friends for twenty years. They had been associated in revolutionary projects and some events which promised INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 541 serious results during the '65 and '67 epochs. F , as already men- tioned, was a man of ripened experience and judgment, and K had every confidence in his patriotism and good sense, and sought him for information and advice as to joining the new National movement. He told F of the interview in the Parnellite chambers and of the conflict- ing and extraordinary emotions which it called up. F , who, as he then learned, was a member of the new Invincible Administration, gave K a full and detailed history of the National undertaking, which was the creation of those who held the Irish reins of office with the full sanction and voice of the Irish race. Everything told K at that interview was in the fullness of time corroborated by the course of events, the history of which is given in these pages. F impressed upon his friend the necessity of locking in his own breast at that period the full and exhaustive statement of Irish affairs placed before him, and especially of leaving Q under the impression he knew no more than any ordi- nary recruit to the National ranks. K attended next day to keep his appointment at the Parnellite chambers, where R , who was deputed by Q , initiated and enrolled him a soldier of Ireland's Invincibles. There in the Parnellite Parlia- mentary chamber, the temple of " legal agitation," K received and accepted (not for the first time) the obligation of an Irish revolutionary soldier. When this initiation had concluded R left the chamber, and Q entering told the newly enrolled disciple that he wished him to initiate a new member, mentioning X , a gentleman with whom K had a slight acquaintance. After the revelation given him by F nothing now astonished him, or otherwise he would have indeed wondered at the new recruit. X was a gentleman of social standing, good means, and highly honorable reputation, a prominent Parnellite, and to the outer world a firm believer in " moral suasion." In the same Parliamentary chamber where he himself was initiated K repeated the ceremony to the new recruit. This newly enrolled Invincible was a gentleman of superior social position, a man of education, and undoubtedly a sincere and faithful Irishman. At this time of writing (1887) X , like many an ex-Invincible, is a Parnellite ?netnber of the British Parlia- ment* A short time after these initiations R left for the continent (Europe) as already stated, and so dropped out of the Invincible move- ment, through no wish of his own, as he does out of this history. Through the arrest of one of the Invincibles in Dublin by the enemy's chief, Forster — who caused the haphazard arrests under the vague charge of a suspect — K was sent to Dublin. This Irishman imprisoned by the Castle conspirators was a brave, im- pulsive, and dashing Nationalist ; he had been associated with patriotic movements all his life. His scorn of the enemy's myrmidons was openly expressed, and there were few people who knew him that were not aware of his sentiments. K 's duty in Dublin during this visit was the filling of the office on the local council left vacant by the recent arrest, which he did by the promotion of one of the noblest patriots to whom suffering Ireland has ever given birth ; a loyal young hero who sealed his devotion to his motherland by the sacrifice of his young life. On K— — 's return to headquarters he made an official report of affairs in Dublin and had a series of interviews with his friend on the Directory. * And it also may be written that he is at this date (1891) a McCarthyite member of the British Parliament. 542 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. In discussing the aspect of the cause, the Directory decided that some man should be sent to take supreme control of the organization in Dublin, and hold the responsible direction of whatever operations the patriots could take against the invaders. Although a number of volunteers could be easily procured to take this post of honor and danger, the difficulty was to get a man whose business habits and surroundings would leave him free to move without drawing on him suspicion from some of the hydra- headed claws of the monster that ravaged Ireland. At the meeting of the Directory F said that he knew an Invinci- ble, a revolutionary comrade of former days, who, he was sure, would serve his country at this crisis, and whose business was of that nature which would permit him to move freely through Ireland without a shadow of suspicion from the foe. But there were important reasons why he felt disinclined to mention this subject to his friend, or ask him to accept so dangerous a position. The Directory overruled F 's hesitation, and the proposition was put to K . He accepted the responsibility on condition of receiving full control of operations, in no way hampered by either council or Direc- tory, and that the Administration would promise to give him loyal and stanch support in all undertakings. Q conveyed to him officially and F privately that all his demands would receive due attention and prompt support from the Invincible Executive. A few weeks after K *s appointment to take command of the Dublin Invincibles F was seized with a dangerous illness, and on his convalescence he went abroad to a foreign watering place to recruit his health, and at this critical time Ireland was deprived of the services of this gallant gentleman and valiant soldier. All this time the enemy's war of extermination went on ; every day the prisons received some fresh victims. The hideous devil fish that polluted Ireland by his presence was putting forth every one of his monster tentacles to suppress and crush out the smallest spark of national life. The mas- sacre of the Irish women in Belmullet was followed up by the incarcera- tion of Irish ladies, and every day brought with it some new outrage to irritate and madden the already enraged Irish heart. A spark would have set Ireland in a blaze of revolution, but the leaders suppressed these smoldering fires, believing it would be insanity to attempt open warfare. Yet the enemy was depopulating the country quicker and with vaster destruction, himself escaping all the time unscathed, than if he were using cannon and musketry on the ranks of revolution. The British foe was thoroughly on the alert, no precaution was omitted ; he was not to be taken by surprise. Forsterwas carefully guarded by armed men ; this was done as quietly as possible, so as not to alarm the public mind. The enemy had a vague suspicion some attack was meditated by the Irish ; but of the nature of this, or what was the strength of the national movement in Ireland, was all speculation. Some British alarmists exaggerated this in the eyes of the enemy's government. This class was principally composed of Irish rebels and traitors, Orangemen, landlords, and that slavish crowd, who are as ferocious as they are cowardly, like the pillars of the settlers' Parliament in College Green, the sanguinary and brutal yeomen of '98. Others laughed to scorn the idea that the Irish worm would turn ; they believed slavery was so inoculated into the Irish soul that there might be " legal " protestations and a few country outrages on each other, but an attack on any sanctified British official, or a " rising," as some hinted at, would be to confer on Irishmen a character for daring in their own cause that these men considered preposterous. They ought, but for British stupidity, to be strengthened in these opinions by the number of threaten- ing letters sent Mr. Forster, the offspring of puny minds filled with folly INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 543 and ignorance ; men who commit these absurdities have no intention of following up their threats. A trumpery package containing some kind of explosive was included in the mail of this hated British despot. The action of those blundering people seriously alarmed the object of these fierce menaces, and the enemy was armed cap-a-pie to meet all assaults. The care taken of Forster even when in his own country was very little relaxed. An incident that corroborated this occurred to K a short time before he assumed command in Dublin. On one night he was a visitor to the gallery of the British Commons, a place he occasionally went to when he had leisure and opportunity. Upon this occasion he was anxious to meet one of the members of Parliament then in the House, and leaving at a late hour, when the debate was growing tedious, he walked up and down before the building from Westminster Hall to the members' entrance. Standing gazing at that magnificent poem in stone, the old and historic hall, he was accosted by an elderly gentleman, who, he was after- ward told by the policeman on duty, was the London Times reporter in the House of Commons. This gentleman was apparently a great ad- mirer of ancient and mediaeval architecture. He spoke with an air and tone of a cognoscenti as he compared the differences between the modern buildings, the Houses of Parliament and the ancient Hall of Westminster ; he rambled on in a pleasing style about York Minster and other ancient English Cathedrals, a subject which he evidently studied with much in- terest. As soon as this gentleman had exhausted the subject to his own satisfaction he entered the House. Then K walked down to the members' entrance nearer the river ; he had proceeded a few paces up that narrow passage when he came face to face with W. E. Forster ; as soon as the British secretary saw the stranger advancing toward him (which must have been a usual event, else why should K be per- mitted to enter ?) his whole manner denoted fright and nervous excite- ment ; his face grew instantly pale, as if he was about to swoon ; he hurriedly and in a twitching manner placed the dispatch box he _ was carrying before him to shield his person (conscience makes cowards of us all). All this nervous excitement was observed by K , who, as he passed by, rapidly turned upon his heel and followed Forster, im- pelled by motives of curiosity to see how the adventure would end. The idea how easily this tyrant could at that very moment be shot flashed like lightning through K 's brain. But K had no such mission ; his business to the House that evening was of a totally different nature ; he had no weapon on his person, even if he felt inclined to lay low the merciless despot who was trying to destroy his country, and who has a no less brutal successor to-day (1887) in Ireland. As Forster emerged from the passage into the open air, followed at a little distance by K , who overheard the Chief Secretary speak a few hurried harsh words to the policeman on duty, although he did not catch the words, K felt certain that their import was in some way relative to himself. In an instant Forster was surrounded by several men in civilian clothes, who seemed to spring out of all sorts of corners ; these men K took to be Forster's London guard, but this night they did not display unusual vigilance. K related this adventure to some prominent Provincialists. It was convincing proof that, whatever doubts were in the mind of the enemy's government, their Irish Chief Secretary was alarmed for his own personal safety. As soon as K had arranged some private business matters, his ostensible reasons for visiting Dublin, he assumed command of the Invincibles in that city. He this time had to bring with him an official 544 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. document, his commission from his government, which when read f(Jr the local council was speedily destroyed.* The Invincibles with whom K at first came into immediate asso- ciation were the Dublin Council. This council was composed of four men, each of whom controlled a number of sub-officers, and these again had under their immediate command the rank and file of the organiza- tion in the Irish metropolis. The new office created in Dublin by the Executive removed from this council all executive duties, so far as any decisions in the direction of active work which had hitherto been under their control were concerned. This responsibility was now deposited with the new officer, who had sole charge of the direction and guidance of all plans, the carrying out of which was left to his own judgment. But as all details of any attack upon the enemy should be intrusted to the patriotic men who composed this council, and who had to transmit all orders to their sub-officers, which again had to be conveyed to the Invincible soldiers, the principal advan- tage in this change was that the unity in all plans of assault now centered in a single authority, and also the knowledge that the Invincible govern- ment was directly represented by the presence of their new officer, which gave additional strength and esprit du corps to the Dublin organization. This feeling animated the whole movement irrespective of the merits of the man sent to take charge, for they felt confident that the Executive was working with them by its representative, and that all responsibility for further failures, should these be repeated, would rest upon other shoulders. The officers that composed this council will be designated as L , M , O , and the fourth was the unfortunate James Carey. The late chairman of this council was the " suspect " arrested by the enemy, N . The first duty of this council was to organize themselves, and although their new captain superseded the former duties of the chairman, it was necessary to appoint a successor to the Invincible whom the foe had in his toils. Of the four men composing this council M was a man of more force of character, and more proficient in revolutionary knowledge than his colleagues. He was a respectable mechanic, and used to the control of men. He was also an officer in the I. R. B., and a stanch and active Irish Nationalist from his earliest years. Although a man of but moderate education, he was possessed of sound judgment and knew not the name of fear. He has since died on the scaffold for Ireland. * All correspondence which was necessary during the Invincible epoch was destroyed as soon as read. The greatest care was of course taken to have the smallest possible written orders or instructions issued ; most of these passed between the officer in command and his government. The hedging round with every secrecy possible, even of those engaged in this active movement from each other, was considered an important matter of discipline. And yet, when the London Times sprung the Pigott forgeries upon the world, a panic existed in the Parnellite ranks, and a terrible fear, born of the nerveless craven natures of many of those men, took possession of them. They imagined that some real information was behind the Pigott forgeries, and like all such crouching dispositions, began to suspect some of the men who had risked their lives for Ireland in trying to carry out the former Parnellite policy of being at this time in collusion with the enemy's mur- der organ. In their fright they knew not whom to suspect, but one or two of the living whom they had by implication more vilely wronged, they fastened their foul, unmanly suspi- cions upon. In the moment of panic and agony Mr. Patrick Egan, an honored Irish patriot, came to their aid, and by his help they unearthed the Times source of information ; then they felt relieved and could put a bold front before the world with lighter hearts. Not one Invincible, not even the humblest, would for all the gold in the Bank of England stand beside the brutal assassin journal that was trying to defame their bleeding country, although they looked with equal loathing and scorn on the cruel policy of falsehood and slander pursued by the once respected Parnellites. The writer has this knowledge of the stale of the Parnellite mind from the mouth of one of the highest and most trusted of the party. , INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 545 L was a very young man, one of those god-like specimens of man- hood, created by a wise Providence, and endowed with supernatural gifts to aid in the salvation of a down-trodden people. He was destined to be the advanced apostle, who was to bear the beacon light, to point to the narrow path of travail by which his bleeding motherland would emerge, newly born, in the sunlight of freedom. K on a previous visit had appointed him to succeed the imprisoned N upon the council. He died a martyr's death ; posterity and an independent Ireland will revere his memory. O was an earnest, sincere, and patriotic Irishman, an enthusiast, but o*ne who never flinched when the order for duty came. He was a thorough Celt in the buoyancy of his disposition, but more subject to out- side influence and the power of a stronger intellect than either L or M . K was perfectly satisfied that the brave comrades whom he found in that council would be always ready to do or dare anything that mortal men could do for their manacled nation. He told them to select from among themselves the officer whom they wished to preside over them, more especially as this was now a subordinate office. The result by ballot was two votes for M and two votes for O . K was com- pelled to exercise his authority and appoint a chairman. He placed O in the vacant office. His personal predilection was in favor of M ; but as there was a local feeling apparent in one member against this man, and as the appointment was almost immaterial, he chose O to remove the faintest feeling that might mar harmony among the men with whom he would have to work out serious duties for Ireland. O was an ex-I. R. B. man and a personal friend of Q , the only man on the Dublin council who had ever met that brave Parnellite official. In discussing the best and most suitable place to attack the chief of the enemy's murder bureau, opinions were divergent. After hearing the suggestions offered by the men, who were familiar with every part of the city, K decided he would drive over the ground and reconnoiter before coming to a decision. He did so and selected a part of the Dublin quays near the Park where the street narrowed, the houses in that section being built nearer the river. It was observed that when the enemy's chief drove abroad (at this time his movements became very irregular) that an additional force of police, spies, and detectives were placed along his route of travel ; all these the Irish learned were on the alert, armed, and prepared for resistance. It was necessary that the patriot force should be equal to that of the enemy. Armed Invincibles in sufficient number were posted to guard all resistance from the foe. These men were in the immediate vicinity of the premeditated attack. The "suppression " of this chief of the foreign murder bureau could be more easily carried out by the deliberate and almost certain death of the man or men engaged ; but this was positively forbidden by the Par- nellite Government, who, in their morbid belief in secrecy, hoped that the men engaged would successfully get away by acting together, or if not share all the same dangers equally, which will explain the careful plan- ning necessary to accomplish results, under the peculiar circumstances of the time, with a numerous armed and watchful foe ever on the alert. The movements of the enemy were very uncertain, and information of his intended goings and comings was always unreliable. Incorrect reports were spread abroad for purposes of deception. But one morning the Invincibles had news which was considered reliable, that the enemy would leave the Chief Secretary's lodge about eleven o'clock, and driving down the quays visit the Castle for the transaction of some of his infamous duties. 546 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. The number of Invincibles considered necessary were concentrated in the neighborhood of the scene where the attack was expected to take place, and a few men were posted within sight of each other to give the signal of the appearance of Forster and pass the news to their comrades. A vehicle was ordered to drive after the enemy's carriage when the Invincible on duty near the Secretary's lodge was certain by personal observation that the chief of the British murder gang occupied a seat in the carriage. The man appointed to see that the enemy's chief left the lodge was the unfortunate James Carey. Carey's instructions were to ride down the quay, sitting alongside the driver in the wake of Forster's carriage, giving the signal to the first Invincible sentry, whose duty it was to take lip the signal and pass it along the line. Carey, driving on the box seat, was instructed to see that these orders were obeyed. At a meeting of the four Invincible officers, held the night previous to the meditated attack, Carey begged of K , who presided, to remove him from the dangerous position he would occupy on the box seat of the vehicle following the enemy's carriage. He pleaded his large family as a reason for making this — for an Invincible — extraordinary request. L and M exchanged glances. Carey suffered in their estimation, and K felt satisfied that he was a man of very weak nerves. There was no alternative but to grant his request, for to place a man with such physical infirmities in the position intended might endanger the success of the undertaking. The driver of the vehicle (who was an Invincible) with a comrade were to give the first sentinel the signal as soon as Carey saw Forster leave in his carriage. This order was to be conveyed to these men promptly. On the morning of this expected attack K left his abode to make some business calls. These visits were in the neighborhood of the Park. The driver he usually employed was a man, so far as K knew, in no way identified with Irish national affairs. He was a jovial fellow with a good honest face. He had a fast horse, of which he was proud. K felt satisfied that not one carman in a hundred in Dublin City but would have proved loyal to him if any necessity arose. At this time the sentiment in favor of Irish manufactures was at its zenith, and a new factory to manu- facture woolen goods about to be started had its offices on the Liffey side of Park Gate Street a little above Kingsbridge. K made a busi- ness visit to this office, timing himself so that his call Avould be completed, and that he would find himself disengaged to arrive on the scene in the wake of the vehicle that followed the British Chief's carriage, but he was detained by the manager's conversation a minute or two longer than he wished. How important minutes are often in the solution of great events ! When K mounted on the outside car and told the driver to proceed quickly down the Quay, he could see before him Forster's carriage, speeding rapidly, followed at some distance by the Invincible vehicle. K 's car- man drove at a rapid pace to try and overtake the swiftly moving carriage. Every second K was expecting to hear the sound of firing and the beginning of the attack ; but to his astonishment the carriage passed the place appointed, and nothing unusual occurred. The sentry, whose duty it was* to signal the main body that the approaching carriage was the enemy's, was leaning against the Quay wall, expecting to see Carey on the vehicle coming down the road, and to receive from him the signal. He took no notice of the signalman on the opposite side of the road, who incorrectly thought that the signal was taken up. There was a number of idlers near, and the sentries could not tell but that they were Invincibles. These lookers on leaned over the Quay walls, unconscious of the possibility of danger. The signalman who failed was incorrectly instructed; he should have been made to repeat the order back again, to INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 547 make certain it was intelligible. He was rebuked by his officer for the error, which was only his in part. When K 's car came up he hurriedly took in the situation : two policemen and a sergeant were talking together at the corner of the bridge close by, and possibly among the many loiterers grouped about were some of the enemy's armed guards ; but had the signal been properly taken up Forster would have been " suppressed "; he who destroyed the people by bayonet, dungeon, and buckshot would have perished by the bullet. That night Forster left for Kingstown, sleeping on board the mail steamer (for the old tyrant was in a perpetual and restless condition of fright) and left for London next morning. The Invincible officers were much annoyed at the misadventures of the day and the temporary departure of the enemy's chief from Dublin, who got off again unscathed. K gave the Dublin Council certain instruc- tions ; parting, he left the city for a time. The orders he gave the Invincible Officers were relative to a morning attack on their enemy when he arrived to re-commence his mission of blood. A short time after Forster made a hurried visit to Dublin. K , who had received positive information of his approaching departure that night, sent a telegram to the Dublin officer ; but although the men were in the neighborhood of Westland Row at an early morning hour to await the arrival of the train, by another chapter of accidents the enemy escaped. During K 's stay in Dublin he enrolled in the Invincible ranks two revolutionary friends. These men were both invaluable additions to the National ranks. One of them, from the nature of his business and sur- roundings, could at a crisis render loyal service to Ireland ; the other as an active worker could be useful in communicating with the Invincible officers in case of emergency. On K 's return to Dublin he removed Carey from any consultative position on the Council ; his action in con- nection with the recent mishap and the desertion of two of his men, who left Ireland in fright over the recent failure, decided K in taking this step. Although this was done for the perfection of discipline, Carey's loyalty to Ireland was unquestioned. There was no man who had any right for a moment to suspect this^fter his record, and this was true at that time and long after. Carey remained a worker ; all knowledge of the details of future movements was kept from him thenceforth. L , M , and K discussed these when together. Carey obeyed his instructions faithfully, care being taken that nothing of a nature requiring desperate courage was intrusted to him. Q 's friend O , who had been up to this chairman of the council, K felt compelled to remove, and M was placed in his position. There was nothing to be said of O 's courage or devotion to Ireland ; he was and is a sincere patriot, but a foolish indiscretion, which in a less serious movement might be con- sidered trifling, necessitated the appointing of another officer. O and Carey remained nominal members of the council, but all consultative duties were transacted when they were not present. One of the new members, P , was at this juncture placed upon the council. K felt satisfied that with such intelligent assistance as L , M , and P could bring to the cause, this Dublin visit would carry out the policy of the organization. The same information was received by the patriots that the enemy's chief would leave for the Castle on his mission of blood as on the morning of the omitted signals. This time arrangements were made which in all human probability would be successful. K was told by his officers that the Invincibles were enraged at the number of failures, and would be sure to give a good account of themselves that morning. K arranged this time to be on the scene before the beginning of hostilities. He left 548 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. his abode that morning, expecting a sanguinary fight on the quay. A mer- chant who has his office and store not far from the scene of the ex- pected encounter K knew very well. They had become acquainted in Cork. He paid this merchant an ostensible business visit, intending to remain until the approaching enemy was in sight. Surveying the scene, he saw the usual idlers and police on the bridge and others scattered in the neighborhood ; he concluded there would be a sharp fight before the incident closed. But enslaved peoples require to be educated in scenes of strife and bloodshed to become the advanced guard to freedom ; street fights are the forerunners of revolution. The suppressing of the brutal tyrant Forster, and the teaching of the Irish people a lesson by his death, seemed on the brink of completion. As K walked up to where the men were posted, the Invincible vehicle, which had made a detour from the Park, came rattling along the Quay, this time, as ordered, in front of the enemy's carriage. The British invader's equipage came thundering after in dashing style. As it drew nearer, K caught a glimpse of female garments ; there were ladies in the carriage with Forster. A short time previous to this a band of Irish guerrillas in the country had attacked a brutal landlord. The village tyrant escaped, and his sister-in-law Mrs. Smythe, who was by his side, vvas accidentally shot dead. No one deplored this lady's death more than the Irishmen engaged. The British press took up the howl of rage and slander, and with its million-fold sources of poisoning the ears of mankind, spread broadcast the cry that the Irish savages were murdering the ladies of Ireland. How few of those who read this piece of British news — which was cabled over the world — ever heard of the bloodstained scoundrels who pursued the women of Belmullet, stabbing and shooting them, as the poor creatures fled before Forster's armed brutes, who deliberately tried to murder them. Mrs. Smythe was killed by accident, but Forster's savages stabbed with positive and plain orders to carry out the intentions of their chief, by a premeditated massacre, inflicting on these Irishwomen wounds and death. It flashed upon K 's mind that the scene where Mrs. Smythe lost her life might be repeated here ; not a second was to be lost. The Invincible vehicle suddenly stopped, barring the passage of the enemy's carriage, the coachman hurriedly reined in his horses, and the enemy was brought to a standstill. Close by stood L , one of the bravest and most heroic of the Invincibles. An order from K , and the young officer promptly stepped from the pathway. Another instant of time, and as sure as the sun was in the heavens, the life of Ireland's tyrant was blotted out ; for a number of desperate men, brave sons of an outraged nation, were about to swoop down upon him and wipe out a small portion of the debt of mas- sacre and persecution. Their hands were stayed by authority ; they knew that their young leader was controlled by some outside orders, the mystery of which strengthened the bonds of discipline. An ejaculation and expletive of annoyance came from the enemy's coachman, little dreaming how near he was to a scene of bloodshed. The Invincible vehicle at a signal was driven rapidly away, and the Secretary's carriage drove on its route ; the whole incident was so rapid that before any of the enemy's armed guardians came on the scene the whole affair was over. This event confirmed K in the belief that any attack made by the Invincibles would be finished before the sluggish foe would arouse to the nature of his danger. No similar opportunity came again to the Invincibles. The Kilmain- ham treaty followed quickly, which somewhat puzzled the Nationalists as to its real meaning, as Mr. Parnell was held in high esteem at this epoch. During the rapid march of events, the enemy was watched as usual. At INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 549 length news reached the Invincibles that he was leaving for London. There was no suspicion whatever of his resignation. Arrangements were made for the last time, and Brunswick Street, Dublin, was lined with armed Invincibles. Early on this day Forster and his son were seen to enter a bank by one of the Irish scouts. This scout unfortunately left to inform the Invincible officer in charge of the whereabouts of the oft- sought enemy. But in doing this Forster got off unnoticed. Forster stole away from Dublin Castle early in the afternoon ; from what was learned of his movements afterward, stole away is the term applicable. He was, no doubt, seriously alarmed, while trying to preserve an appear- ance of outward calm. He knew what no one in Dublin then did, that that was his last day of holding his dangerous and cruel office. He was well aware that he had so outraged the Irish nation, under the orders of his chief, Mr. Gladstone, that no man, woman, or child in Ireland but would have received with joy the news of his death. He drove to Kingstown instead of going by train, and dined in one of the Yacht Clubs. The Royal Irish, it is believed, entertained the British tyrant before his departure. The Invincibles, unaware of his having left Dublin, were filled with enraged and bitter feelings at their many failures ; they were now anxious to give him a parting shot. As K , accompanied by a friend, ap- proached Westland Row, he saw the men concentrating near St. Mark's Church at the end of Brunswick Street. On the way to the station K met the officer in command, who was superintending details. He stopped to talk with him a moment, the brave fellow told him that everything was right, that they would stop the enemy's carriage, as ordered, near the corner of Brunswick Street and St. Mark's Church. In a few minutes after, the enemy's carriage, preceded by one of the Invincibles driving rapidly, came along. Forster's family, the officer in? charge was told, were in the carriage, but not himself. This message of disappointment was followed by instant orders to concentrate at Westland Row ; the order was promptly obeyed. At the Railroad Terminus dis- cipline for a moment was broken ; several of the Invincibles, in the excite- ment of Forster's escaping again, rushed up on the railroad platform and ran along the carriages, looking for their foe. Had the British tyrant been there he would have been shot, even if the man who did it was to be instantly killed. After the London mail train left, K had a con- sultation with M ; a few men as sentinels were ordered to be left in the neighborhood, and after supper the rest were to take up their post at nine o'clock. The fact of Forster's family leaving convinced the Invin- cibles he would depart early in the morning, and, as his habit had been for some time back, would leave for Kingstown by a late train, and sleep on board the mail steamer. It was a miserable wet night and the men sought shelter in one or two places, posting sentinels outside, who were relieved in turn. K had heard a rumor that Forster had left and was anxiously looking out to see some of the Invincible officers, to learn if there could be truth in the report. At the corner of College Place on Brunswick Street he met the officer he was seeking, and told him of the current rumor. The brave fellow would not believe it true, but he could not be spared from his post to seek for any verification. One of the Invincible's vehicles, the driver of which was a stanch and manly though humble patriot, and James Carey were stationed at the Castle gate to watch the departure of Forster, who they were certain, from information they had received, was engaged on business inside before his departure. K walked up Dame Street to the Castle and saw Carey standing outside a tavern door a little above the express office nearly opposite the Castle, and near him the cardriver. 55° THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Carey was smoking a cigar and when he saw K he enthused a little ; he said that from what he was told Forster was inside the Castle and would soon leave, and that the rumor of his departure was purposely cir- culated by the enemy. But the time came when the British Secretary must depart, as the last train for Kingstown was 11.45 p - M - The Invin- cibles after their long hours on duty were compelled to leave for their homes, all their perseverance and self-sacrifice of no avail — so far not a blow struck. The next morning brought the astounding news of Forster's resig- nation, of an apparent change of front made by the enemy. This, coupled with the release of Mr. Parnell and the other prisoners, was a skillful diplomatic move on the part of the British Minister, Mr. Glad- stone ; for while he did not surrender one iota of his authority, he influenced many of the credulous Irish Provincialists to believe there was some improvement for the better in the enemy's cruel rule. These people so eagerly catch at any imaginary straw of consolation in the drowning state of the Irish nation ! The position K found himself placed in by the apparent compro- mise with the enemy was one of great responsibility. He was surprised that the Parnellite Administration had made no attempt to communicate with him, and that if their Irish policy had altered they had sent him no dispatch to that effect. Could it be possible that this apparent sur- render was but a ruse to deceive the enemy ? At this time he was in com- plete ignorance of the inner history of the Kilmainham treaty. He felt compelled to communicate with the Executive at once and learn the actual state of affairs from themselves, for if at this crisis he returned to head- quarters, the morale of the men would be seriously affected. The long period in which they were trying to come upon the trail of the enemy's ex- chief in Ireland with no results had exasperated them ; the unsuccessful •attempts to suppress this murderous tyrant had imbued them with feelings ■of personal bitterness. With many of them the hatred against the man had grown stronger than that against the death-dealing official of the detested invader. K , knowing the men he had to control, — their desperate unyielding front to the foe, and how they would laugh to scorn (and rightly too) the idea that their unrelenting enemy, Gladstone, meant any serious surrender to Ireland by this new move, — properly concluded that orders to prepare for instant action should be given the men. If the Invincible Directory were a party to this apparent disgraceful surrender, then upon their shoulders should rest the responsibility of any disruption in the ranks of the Dublin Invincibles and any irregular course that might ensue. He had no business whatever with any of the intricate details of statesmanship. His was the plain duty of the soldier to try and destroy the murderous foe. The Invincible Administration in the original instructions conveyed to K ordered that the chiefs of the invaders who directed in Ireland the oppression and slaughter of her people should be suppressed. Tie Under Secretary up to this time was not attacked, as the office of his chief was to be first vacated by the "suppression" of the despot who lately held that post. When K was invested by the Administration with the command of the Dublin Invincibles, he had legal authority from the Executive to carry out this policy in full. The time had now come when he should issue such orders, and leave to the Invincible Government the responsibility of confirming or countermanding all action. But though he made up his mind as to the orders he would give the men, he was determined that no action would be taken until he heard from the Invincible Government. He was satisfied to believe that wisdom controlled their councils, and, no matter what were his own personal predilections, that these men, hav- INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 551 ing every advantage and knowledge of the position, would do what was best for Ireland under the circumstances. That Wednesday evening K saw M , the officer who was chief of the Dublin council, and gave him orders to have the men ready by Friday to suppress the Under Secretary. It required all K 's authority to compel this man to relinquish the idea of following Forster to England. The Dublin men were enraged at the old tyrant escaping after all their toil, and many of them were prepared to give their lives for his. K pointed out to this Dublin officer that Ireland did not war with individ- uals, that Forster was politically dead, so far as their country was con- cerned, and to do him any harm now would be criminal. That for the present they would occupy their attention by vacating the office of the enemy's Under Secretary, and as soon as a successor to Forster was ap- pointed by the British Executive, the very day he landed on his blood- stained mission, they should try and make this office also vacant by the suppression of the new invader. This was the creed of the Invincibles, " war to the knife." K ordered that the weapon immortalized by Palafox should be used instead of revolvers. The enemy assassinated the Irish people by bayonets as well as gunshot wounds. As Mr. Parnell expressed it in his famous Wexford speech, Mr. Gladstone had supplied his Bashi-Bazouks with sharpened weapons of the newest pattern to use on the people. The officer who was in com- mand of the military Parnellites felt that Ireland's answer should be the grim reply — cold steel. He then sent a dispatch to the Invincible Direc- tory, asking them to send instructions at once. Did the public change of front alter their course ; what was he to do ; was he to return or continue their present policy ? Telling them that he had given certain orders, but that before executing these he awaited their answer back, he conveyed no information whatever as to his plans ; these did not belong to their province. In him was vested the authority to intelligently carry these out, which with his brave and heroic comrades he tried to do. What he wished to learn from the Parnellite statesmen of the movement, was, if there were any truth in the statements published in the newspapers as to a surrender ; or was Ireland's policy to continue unchanging, and her answer to the invader still to remain those words of the Spanish nationalist — " war to the knife." Whatever orders they should send him he was pre- pared to obey, doing his duty as a soldier by either attacking or retiring at their discretion. Such in substance was the contents of this important dispatch, sent under cover to an official of the Parnellites, by whom it would be given to Q and delivered to the proper authorities. The Parnellite who received this dispatch from Dublin remains to this day in the ranks of "legal agitation." K ■ naturally expected that whatever decision the Irish authorities came to, as to the future policy of the nation, it would be unanimous ; he never dreamed for an instant that he would hear subsequent cowardly denunciation. Although he well knew there were a great number of weak men, mere politicians, in the Parnellite ranks, he concluded that these men purposely or nervously stood aside, and permitted the bolder and more manly spirits to control affairs. The panic which seized these politicians when the enemy began to strike might be over, but this dis- play of fright proved that they were incapable of taking the helm during any crisis. It was only natural to think that these men would leave the ranks of the Parnellites if they suspected an active policy was adopted by those controlling " legal agitation." But having already voluntarily vacated their posts of duty, through personal dread of consequences, it was scarcely to be expected that the return of these poltroons, when the enemy appeared to grow more complacent, would influence the Invincible Execu- 552 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. tive ; especially as these runaways had only an indirect affiliation with the patriot organizations. Friday morning brought to K the anxiously looked for dispatch from the Executive. The active policy was still to continue; nothing was in any way changed. The Directory was astonished at the inaction of the men in Dublin (if these good statesmen had had a little practical knowledge of this inaction!). K was instructed to remain upon the ground and on no account to leave Dublin, as they would understand his presence there meant action. P was present as K received and read this dispatch. It was news that pleased them both, as a change of policy was feared. They concluded that there was a skillful game of political deception being played by the statesmen of the British and Irish nations. But now that K 's authority was confirmed and a load of grave responsibility removed from his mind, he went cheerfully to carry out the attack already sketched out with M , who v/aited K 's presence to sanction action. K concluded that the forthcoming action would strengthen the hands of the Parnellite Administration and not allow Ireland to lapse into a weak and delusive policy, such as the runaway Provincialists, if they got the upper hand, would again restore. It will be remembered that one of the charges made against the actors in the Phcenix Park incident was, that that event was the irresponsible act of a small body of men without authority, and also it was stated that extremists — as the Irish Nationalists are called by some — were enraged at the Irish peaceful victory (?) won by "legal agitation." This was a deliberate lie purposely put in circulation by timorous and frightened men, who ktiew differently j the facts are recorded here, and it will be seen that this falsehood had no foundation whatever. K , the responsible offi- cer in charge, received the sanction and orders of the then Irish Parnellite Administration before striking a blow. This Executive, as already stated, was composed of responsible men of judgment and authority. If all of these were not present to in person give their sanction to the dispatch sent K in Dublin, they were represented by whoever they deputed this authority to ; they cannot, even if so inclined, shift the responsibility on to the brave Dublin soldiers, who, like the military of any nation, were carry- ing on the war declared by their statesmen. In Ireland's case the war was declared by the invader seven centuries ago. Ireland, although crushed and bleeding and at times apparently annihilated, never sur- rendered. Every generation carried on the struggle, from the invasion to the flight of the earls, on to the siege of Limerick, and the rapparee guerrilla warfare, thence to the war for independence carried on by the brave soldiers of '98, on to Emmet's time, thence to '48 and the Fenian or I. R. B. times down to the days of the Invincibles. Ireland's bloody struggle with her enemy can only cease by the destruction of the Irish race or the creation of an Irish Republic. Even if K did not communicate with his government, but after the departure and resignation of Forster he proceeded therewith to carry out his full original instructions, they were # the responsible authority under which he and the Dublin patriots were acting. They knew he was on the ground in furtherance of the National policy. If this policy had changed {which it did not then) a dispatch from these Parnellite statesmen would have made the 6th of May an impossibility. To their undying honor, they sent, at this crisis, to their commanding officer in Dublin the patriotic dispatch mentioned. Hence let it be emphatically expressed here that the honor of this tragic event rests on the statesmanship of the Parnellite movement, no matter how many of these men of the weak and timid section now attempt to slander and vilify the brave INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 553 Irish soldiers who obeyed official orders, and who have written in Irish history a page that brightens this black epoch of British savagery. When K arrived at the Phoenix Park he met the Invincible officer in charge of the entrance gate ; the men were reconnoitering to try and learn something of the Under Secretary's movements. K told him that unless the undertaking could come off at once, it was better to post- pone it until the following day ; that a new chief of the invaders' " murder conspiracy " was coming, whom it would be their duty to suppress. He then left instructions with M to attend with his colleague at an assigned rendezvous, where they would decide on the plan of campaign for the following day. In the meantime K entered the Park, saw the other officers, and instructed them to dismiss their men. That evening L and M met K at the appointed rendez- vous ; the arrangements deemed necessary for the following day's attack were discussed and all emergencies which might arise, should they be successful in coming on the enemy, were provided for, in so far as they could provide for these possible countermoves. The Invincibles were eager to wipe out their past misadventures and were in a perfect state of discipline. Both the officers assured K that he could rely on every man facing the enemy unflinchingly, if necessary ; and that they might be shot down in the Phoenix Park, but that they would neither fly nor sur- render. If forced by a superior attack of the enemy, it was decided to make it a life or death struggle. Early that day, while the Invincible officer and K were engaged in conversation at the Park gate, a troop of Hussars of the enemy's passed by. K observed these mounted troops, and said to the officer that these soldiers might possibly be on the scene in the event of an open fight in the Park, as they were quartered not far off. The brave Irish patriot replied, " If we had hand-grenades we could easily scatter these uniformed boys ; however, even armed as we are, we will give a good account of these British cavalry if such encounter should arise." The coming of the new chief of the enemy's murder bureau gave rise to a possible hope that he could be found after his arrival without interfering with the other plans. Full final details were being concluded when P arrived on the scene. He brought some news of the enemy's movements, which he was able to procure from a special channel ; he also came with dreadful news, which he learned from the same source — news which quickened the blood in the veins of his hearers. It was the account of the horrible massacre that took place in Ballina that day ; the brutal enemy had imbrued his hands in the blood of Irish children — several little Irish boys had been mortally wounded ; that the British myrmidons fired a volley of buckshot into the ranks of the children, and then merci- lessly stabbed all they could overtake, that one little fellow dropped dead in his father's presence. As P told of this atrocious crime — this satur- nalia of blood — L , the young Invincible, pressed his hands and knit his brows, looking his officer earnestly in the face. K , as if this silent glance was a question, answered back, "This new invader heralds his arrival in our country by the bloodshed of our children. He inaugurates his assumption of office by a bloody massacre and promises to be as brutal a monster as his predecessor. He is as responsible for this savage deed of blood as if he directly ordered the assassinations, and, with God's help, Ireland will make him accountable for this deed of slaughter ; our country demands we make no further errors or delays, but strike ! This newcomer has willingly volunteered to accept the post of Ireland's chief murderer, from the chief of a government that has no legal existence in this nation. We must, as becomes our manhood, and as soldiers of Ireland, see that this hideous deed of blood is answered back by the 554 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. destruction of the responsible tyrant, whose official hands are already stained with our children's gore. This is our duty before he is many days in our land, if by any chance we fail to-morrow." The Invincible chief was hopeful of the morrow, but so many morrows had brought disappointment ; what if the coming day brought them death ? They parted ; M was to meet K at a certain rendezvous the following day at an early hour in the afternoon. The Dublin men were gay and cheerful, but K was moody and sad when parting upon this memorable night. The morning of May 6 dawned with softness and beauty. It was a day quite suitable for a pageant, for nature wore her holiday robes. Irish traitors rejoiced at the arrival of a new foreign tyrant, and some of these rebels tried to raise a faint cheer when the murderer of the Ballina boys, the new chief of the assassination machine that perpetrated the massacre, passed by in his carriage. But although the populace generally had not heard of this fresh crime of the invaders, indignant faces greeted the occupant of the carriage whenever he was pointed out. Shortly after the procession passed by, K received some vital information from the enemy's ranks. He sought a messenger, and the only available one for the purpose was James Carey. It will be remembered that Carey's timidity before danger and his impulsive manner, lacking steadiness of purpose, made him utterly unsuited to hold any position of authority ; hence his removal from any knowledge of details or being in any way consulted. The brave Irishman M , then in charge of the local council, always mistrusted Carey's suitability for any post of either danger or importance ; he had known him for many years. He did not for some time convey this doubt to K , but when circumstances made this fact apparent the Invincible captain approved of K 's orders that Carey in future should not be made acquainted with any movements except what- ever his own share of action would be. But no one had any reason to question Carey's loyalty ; hence K sought him as a messenger whom he of course could trust implicitly. Calling at Carey's house K discovered they were all from home. On his return toward Westland Row he met Mrs. Carey, who knew K was a friend of her husband. She had some children with her and stopped K , asking him if he wanted Mr. Carey. He told her he called to see him on business, but it would wait. As history since has been written K 's not finding Carey for his messenger that morning deprived that unfortunate man of some information about the Park " suppression," which he died without knowing. K saw the Dublin chief officer in person a short time after and con- veyed to him the morning's message and more important news he had received later, which from the source it came cannot be given here, but its results were seen. As K held no personal communication with the men, all his orders and instructions passed through the mouth of their own local officers. The enemy all this time never relaxed his vigilance ; the cry of wolf, so often called out, may have had its result in wearing off anxiety, and in so far this vigilance was mere routine, but among the lookers on at the Polo match that day in the Park were scattered some of the enemy's armed myrmidons in plain clothes, ready to kill and, what was more dangerous, sound the alarm. The new chief of the British murder society had scarcely more than arrived in Dublin Castle to attend the mummeries attached to the installa- tion of a new usurping Governor General of Ireland to represent his sovereign, when he was made aware that he should be guarded as his pre- decessor was. The person who conveyed this information to him was INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 555 the permanent official, the Under Secretary of the bureau of assassination. This official was stained with many crimes committed against Ireland ; he was a rebel and renegade in the employ of her foe ; and yet his black offenses were venal compared to that of this newcomer, his chief. For this man held rank in his own island of Britain and had enough of wealth and honors gained in the service of his own nation to satisfy reasonable ambition — a luxurious home and all the advantages which caste and fortune could shower on him. And yet he accepted a position as chief of a gang of invaders, who were destroying the people of a neighboring nation, perpetrating atrocities as brutal in their results on the Irish people as the savage Turks did in Bulgaria. For Ireland is suffering under as barbarous a system of foreign laws as the skill and cruelty of a demon could invent. This new chief of these savage destroyers of Ireland came to that country, deliberately leaving his own home to continue this alien assassin rule and enforce it to the best of his ability. From the hour he put his bloodstained foot upon the island it was the sacred duty of Irishmen to suppress him, and every succeeding assassin chief who came on a similar errand of blood. It is not only their sacred duty, but it should become a religion of this outraged, bleeding nation. The enemy, although in a vague manner expecting some kind of physi- cal opposition, for which he was armed at all possible points, never thought for a moment that the Irish would or could conceive so daring a thought as to attack the invaders' chieftains in broad daylight and in so public a part of Dublin as the Phoenix Park. But the foe did not know the heroism and determination of the sacred band of Irishmen, those noble- souled patriots, who came to their country's rescue as she lay prostrate and bleeding under the many stabs dealt by these ferocious foreign banditti, who were then and are still preying on her vitals. The Invincible chiefs never for a moment lost sight of the probability amounting almost to a certainty of an alarm being given, which would arouse the enemy's garrison and change the whole complexion of the attack. But this in all human probability could not occur before the chiefs of the British murder gang were destroyed ; in thus accomplishing their purpose the victory would rest with the Irish. They knew that the closing of the Park gates would more than probably follow any noisy com- motion, which would be also the signal for the Constabulary barracks, which was near by, to pour forth re-enforcements of armed men. This probable circle of death hemming them in they came prepared to face if fate so willed it. In that ring of death those devoted Irishmen stood ready for all possible emergencies. These men were as truly Ireland's sacred band, as worthy the title as the heroic Greek patriots facing their brutal tyrants the Turks at Ardrachan. Among these Irish patriots was one weak man, but that day he was loyal to his native land ; it must be said in favor of this unfortunate individual that he tried to combat with his constitutional infirmity, but it was plain to all who saw his movements, engaging in con- versation with every passing acquaintance, that he had a hard struggle with himself. As soon as his mission was over he was sent away ; this was before the commencement of the attack. To meet the event of the enemy dispatching mounted men to pursue the four members of the band detailed to suppress the chiefs of the foe, — two or three horsemen were the most they could instantaneously muster, — men were appointed by the Invincible officers to speedily unhorse these mounted messengers, as the safe departure of the four men on the car which awaited them, and their successful escape, was to be considered a most important sequel to the " suppression " of the secretaries. Every precaution that human ingenuity could devise was taken, so that there should be no blunder. That these chiefs of the enemy's murder 55 6 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. bureau should be slain was of paramount importance, even if the sacred band perished, and every member should be left bleeding in the greensward or roadway near that Phoenix monument. This could not be accomplished, their leader knew well, without numbers of the foe biting the dust, for the Invincibles were prepared to sell their lives dearly. Had the foe succeeded in sounding the alarm, and had the enemy appeared in force, which he undoubtedly would have done in response, possibly the Invincibles would have developed a more deadly skirmish line than the invaders' forces would have expected to meet. Had an alarm been sounded that May evening, the Phoenix Park would have been the arena of a bloody encounter. There is no doubt but that it would have been a scene of courage and heroism in a stand-up fight not wit- nessed in Ireland since '98, for the sacred band would have fought to the death while one cartridge remained in an Irish soldier's pouch. What quiet valor and manly courage, undreamtof even by the possessors, do stir- ring events and tragic incidents in the life of nations develop and reveal in their patriot sons ! That the necessity of a combat would not be forced upon them was the anxious care of those guiding Ireland's soldiers ; for the great victory of a swift and mysterious blow was a hundred-fold more important to the Irish nation than what the angry exchange of shots could possibly bring, no matter with what intrepidity sustained by Ireland's devoted soldiers. The sacred band went into the Park that afternoon with the impres- sion — which was more strongly shared by the leaders — that they could not possibly hope to expect such swift and rapid success to reward their efforts as actually came to pass ; they went there expecting that the "sup- pression " of the secretaries would almost certainly bring on a combat to the death. The newly arrived chief of the British assassination bureau in Ireland met his confederate, the Under Secretary, in the Phoenix Park by appoint- ment, and not by accident as supposed. The subject of their open air con- ference was Forster's dangerous position, which the new invader received with incredulity. The Under Secretary spoke of the necessity of increas- ing the vigilance and the number of the official guards. Some of these guards, careless and not expecting any attack, were to be seen idly loiter- ing about. The two confederates were discussing this subject of Forster's danger when the Invincibles came up. There are giant epochs in the history of nations when the events of a short period of time stand out in . bold relief, carved by the hands of Titans on the imperishable records of a nation's sufferings. One of these supreme moments had come to Ireland ! Held aloft by the strong arm of a pure-souled and stainless patriot was the steel of the avenger. From his eyes flashed the lightnings of Heaven ! There stood, typified in the person of one living mortal, the swooping vengeance of centuries of wrong. He looked, as he stood there, as if one of the giant sons of the embrace of angels once more walked the earth — the Herculean form of the noble youth ready to strike the inhuman foe. For in that foe was concentrated the long chain of persecution and atrocious cruelties of the most fiendish nature — fraud, perfidy, and assassination ! As the glorious orb, the idol of early nature, sank toward the bosom of the West, there shot forth fiery rays across the horizon, as if the sun in sympathy had dipped into a bath of blood and fire ; one of his spears of gold leaped forth with a weird bright gleam of saffron that glistened and flashed for a second around the uplifted blade ere it swiftly sheathed itself in the invader of the land, the emissary of slaughter. The hearts of those present stand still for a moment, as if their pulsa- INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 557 tions had ceased, and fingers are mechanically pressed upon the concealed weapons each man bears upon his person. Every ear is straining for the shout of rage from the scattered foe, or a signal gun sure to be re- echoed by the rattle of small-arms. But it passed away, no alarms are sounded. The secretaries are stretched upon the ground. Ireland has struck her assailant and invader back again. In the persons of their chieftains the foe is slain. The four Invincibles mount the car, and they are driving off, when the Irish Paladin who struck the first blow leaves the side of his more youthful yet gallant comrade, and steps again upon the ground. As if in protest against remaining concealed, his revolver has sprung upon the sod. The young man coolly stoops down and picks u^ his weapon, and resuming his place on the car the vehicle quickly dis- appears. The Irish leaders, before whose eyes like rays of lightning flashed this historic vision, as they gazed upon this tragic scene, remembered the chain of horror with which these invaders had tried to strangle their country. They recalled the winter when Chichester and Sir Richard Moryson, returning from an expedition against the Irish patriot Bryan MacArt, saw a horrible spectacle — three children, the eldest not above ten years old, all eating and gnawing with their teeth the entrails of their dead mother, on whose flesh they had fed for twenty days past. Oh, horror of horrors ! Can the human imagination conceive such a ghastly sight as this ? It was the work of a British assassin chieftain, Mountjoy, one of the predecessors in horrors of this Cavendish, whom on the thresh- old of fresh crimes outraged Ireland had just slain. Yesterday — only yesterday these horrors were repeated in Ballina, where helpless and innocent children were left weltering in their blood by the hirelings of these foreign brutes. There is no hereafter for a nation; her wrongdoing must be punished here. Ireland seeks an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. The rapid incident had closed successfully, and no alarm from the foe. The Irish soldiers were unexpectedly aided by the cowardice and panic of the enemy. Among those who completely lost their heads was a British cavalry officer. The enemy's guards shrank away paralyzed at the sudden and mysterious attack, and when they recovered their reason after the fright with which they were struck down, they were no doubt ashamed to admit their panic. It was of the highest importance to British prestige in Ireland, and elsewhere, not to admit this terror of their armed instruments. The neglect of their infamous duty, this haunting fear which caused them to make a stampede, had to be overlooked. They dared not admit that they were completely outgeneraled by the Irish, for British tyrants affect to despise Ireland's hostility. The consciences of these cruel monsters, when their bravery is put to the test, strike terror to their souls ; they know their many crimes, and are found to have but the courage of the mounte- bank or the bravo in the hour of emergency. K was in a reverie as the incident was closing, when he was aroused by the action of one of the sacred band near. He became con- scious ; he was the possessor of a fierce, strange joy; an emotion never to be forgotten pervaded his whole being. Not one man belonging to that sacred band had the smallest personal feeling toward the slain foe. Their souls were filled with the purity and patriotism of their acts. They recog- nized the important truth that they were humble instruments in the hands of Providence, to punish in some measure the many sacrilegious crimes committed by the arrogant invaders on their bleeding country. When the incident was over, every order wa,s faithfully obeyed as at first. The sacred band might be said to have melted into the ground, so instantaneously did they disappear. 55 8 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. There was neither accident, error, nor mistake by the Irish in the Park that day. The action throughout the whole movement was cool, deliber- ate, and effective. The Invincibles on the ground were in a perfect state of discipline, and under complete control. While the unhappy Carey was waiting to carry out his duty, the satisfactory recognition of the enemy's Under Secretary, the chief was carefully looked after as an event of greater importance. The " suppression " of the new chief of the British murder bureau was of the highest necessity and significance at this crisis. It was a thousand times greater in its result and its magnitude to Ireland than that of suppressing the Under Secretary alone, although the Irish people Had a great personal hatred for the latter, and had not time to become pos- sessed of that feeling toward the new invader. To those who look upon the great political significance of these events it was the suppression of the chief that was the victory of this incident, and which gave to the whole affair such grave importance in the eyes of European statesmen. The finger of Providence could be seen guiding and protecting the patriots during the whole period of action. He had raised up these humble men to be his instruments in punishing the overweening arrogance and barbarous cruelty of Britain toward the neighboring island. No human skill and foresight could of itself bring that sacred band into that public Park, within a stone's throw of hundreds of armed men, and bring them out not only unscathed but unsuspected. In a city filled with eight thousand armed foes in the service of the invader, these inspired patriots struck down the chiefs of the atrocious conspiracy against the life of their suffer- ing nation. The Great Creator gave wisdom to the leaders and strength and courage to the sacred band, and with humility and reverence this supernatural aid was felt by all. Especially was this made manifest to those who bore the great responsibility of this immortal page in Irish history. From the delivery of the order to take action down to the smallest detail in the closing scene of this great event nothing but Divine Help could have borne them through the ordeal, illuminating their minds with intelligence and foresight, and strengthening their resolution with holy and sacred motives, that justice in its simple purity demanded the wiping out of these tyrants. Ireland would have been greatly benefited by this blow struck her cruel invader, but that a great many of her leading statesmen relapsed into crime. The path of righteousness was departed from, and they sank into the slough of felony. They re-commenced an attempt to com- promise the pure and holy cause of Ireland with the blackened, gore- covered criminals who were continuing the foul felony of pillagers and invaders of the nation. The sacred religion preached with such solem- nity on the 6th of May was departed from ; the Heavenly rays of patriot- ism shone upon them and they refused to see it — they shut their eyes to the sanctified and glorious vision. The letters of fire flashed before them telling them that " Through the baptism of blood alone can Ireland succeed in shaking off the clutch of the devil fish that is dragging her down to that monster's cavern of destruction," but they heeded not the inspiration ; they lost the pure faith that had been vouchsafed to them, they denounced the sacred band, they ignored all their previous warlike determination and heroism. To-day they wallow in the mire of this denunciation, compelled to swallow what filth and dirt they are offered to try to escape the smallest suspicion from the Liberal assassins of the Irish nation, their present British criminal associates ; they are loaded with the virus and excres- cence of their own denunciations, and shiver with fright lest their country's foes, now their allies, should suspect that they were ever honored with the inspiration of the pure truths of patriotism. INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 559 The enemy's " murder organ " has induced them to denounce the sacred religion preached by the instruments of Wise Providence on that memorable 6th of May. This vile organ of the enemy's murder con- spiracy compelled them by its false and lying information to become its accomplice and associate in heaping calumny on those Titans of liberty who made history in the Phoenix Park. In repelling the Times assertions, which that journal had no genuine information to sustain, these fallen comrades of British tyrants surpassed the Times in their slander of these pure patriots — these men who were raised up by inspiration to come to their country's rescue in one of the black and bitter hours forced upon unhappy Ireland by the present British allies of these fallen statesmen. No wonder that the sanctified scene in the Park bore no fruit to pros- trate Ireland. The darkened face of an angry God was turned upon these Parnellites who denounced the light given to them, and who deserted the patriots in their hour of agony and suffering. The panic of the enemy in Dublin has been alluded to in another part of this history; they feared armed insurrection over the island, they knew not what to expect after the death of the secretaries, until Messrs. Parnell, Dillon, and Davitt came to their rescue, by issuing a proc- lamation, which saved British diplomacy, and reconciled them by the hope that Ireland did not really want her freedom from their rule, but only a mockery of such under the British flag. Ireland's assassins were called by this proclamation illustrious strangers, deserving of hospitality. These able statesmen omitted to banquet Mr. Balfour after Mitchelstown. How inhospitable to this other illustrious stranger ! The great anxiety of the robbers' rule in Ireland compelled Mr. Glad- stone to exude all his oily benevolence on some of the leading Parnellites ; he learned that he had made a mistake, that he had arrested the wrong men ; that indiscriminate coercion was bad policy for Britain. But while he tried to wear a smile of amiability to the Provincialists he was forging fresh chains for their country. He saw his mistake in suppressing the " Land League," in that from this act came to life the Invincibles he had appointed to power, — or what is equivalent to it, advised Mr. Parnell to resume the leadership of the public Irish movement, — and henceforth the Irish people, whom these men had hoodwinked, were to be led peacefully in the interests of British rule in Ireland. Mr. Gladstone withdrew his edict and permitted the creation of another delusive Will-o'-the-Wisp to lead the Irish people away from the only path to freedom. This new folly bore the high sounding title The National League. It is doing its duty well, helping the British Radical enemy to further enslave and degrade the Irish people, while his brother Britons the Tories are shipping them from the island in thousands. The news from Dublin on Sunday morning, May 7, astounded the world. It was at once understood by European statesmen ; it conveyed to them the immortal truth that Irish nationality still lived, though clouded by agitation for a time. It brought Ireland to the foreground as a possible factor in any war with Britain. Immediately prior to this event Ireland appeared before the liberty-loving peoples as a country that had lost its nationality and was only agitating for bread; a dis- contented province whining over its sores and begging for more alms and impossible benefits to come from British land legislation, including a local provincial parliament under the tyrant shadow of the British crown. But all at once, giantlike, she sprung from the grave. This deed in the Phoenix Park was the act of a brave people, who determined to have no compromise with the enemy. Their cry was " liberty or death!" They 560 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. demanded the departure of their foreign tyrants or else they were deter- mined on speedy and instant "suppression." It was a daring act, the advance courier of a war for independence. Every liberty-loving news- paper in Europe applauded the Irish. They were advised to go on with the war they had inaugurated and never surrender until Britain pulled down her flag from their nation. They were told they would not be unassisted in the struggle, that they would not be left to fight it out alone. The foreign monarchical journals in alliance with Britain were com- pelled to admit that this tragic incident was full of grave importance to Great Britain ; that that nation had found a new and more destructive foe to destroy her rule in Ireland ; that the act itself and its surround- ings heralded new and more desperate tactics than anything recorded in the annals of modern Irish history. To the public teachers and leaders of Irish thought it may be said that this heroic event came to its own and its own received it not. Leading Irishmen over the world secretly rejoiced, applauding heartily in private circles, and speaking with joyful delight over what they called glorious news from Ireland ; at the same time many commenced denounc- ing what they treasured in their souls. Led away by a false diplomacy, they so puzzled the Irish masses that they knew not what to think. If these liberty-loving European journals were but translated and given to the Irish people to read, what a world of good to Irish freedom would ensue ! But hearing nothing expressed publicly but condemnation, they were at first confused. By and by an inkling of the real meaning of these denunciations was revealed to them, and many of the people were persuaded that the proper way to serve Ireland was by denouncing the actions of her patriots and condemning truth and upholding falsehood. This unreal and insincere condemnation created in the native American mind and in the mind of all free peoples the false opinion that Irish patriots did not approve of the Phoenix Park " suppression," when the very contrary was the case. Not only did it receive approval in the highest and most cultured circles of Irish-American patriots, but an in- dorsement and a hearty sanction that was unmistakable. But the false policy — called diplomacy — of public denunciation was continued by men who applauded in their own circles. Britain's work of slander was helped by these mistaken men. A cloud of black prejudice was created — which was born of that hypocritical and cowardly proclamation, some of which is falling back crushingly on the Parnellites, who first in a moment of panic and driveling fright started the calumny against the brave military Parnellites who carried out implicitly their instructions and policy. Oh ! that Ireland had a truly national literature to sweep aside the ava- lanche of lies and distorted information, poisoned at its source, with which the British drown the intelligence of mankind ! One gleam, one little gleam of light in the black darkness of falsehood — something to evolve out of chaos the truth to crush this mountain of deception and slander ! How eagerly, and with what avidity, the Irish race would seek to quench their thirst, if such a pure fountain of knowledge was within their reach ! When the news reached the Invincible Executive they were astounded and surprised at the speedy result. They did not expect such perfect success coming so close on previous failures. They knew nothing of K 's plans or the manner by which the Dublin men were to carry out their orders. K had been absent from headquarters for some time, and he was the channel through which news from Dublin reached them. Q was in bed when a friend startled him with the news he was overjoyed to hear of the results in Dublin. The night before J was complaining to him of the inaction in that city. J and Q met on Monday INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 561 night when each had read the reports of the public press. It was related by prominent Parnellites of J , that he wished to get the names of the four men on the car, so that he could present each with a gold medal. If this story is true, this valiant gentleman evidently had a strange element of fancy in his composition. Think of four men wearing in Dublin city gold medals for an act of war against the foe, under the nose of his officials and the tyranny that lived under his flag ! J left on a visit to one or two of the leading Parnellites, his colleagues on the Directory. For some mysterious reason he then disappeared, and the Invincible movement knew him no more, as he left for distant lands and so leaves this history. The only two members of the Invincible Execu- tive not Provincialists had ceased to be members, one by voluntary and unexplained departure, the other by an unfortunate illness. The Directory made no attempt to communicate with K , which he expected they would do on receipt of the news through the public press. He was compelled on Tuesday to open communication with the Parnel- lites. The day after the suppression, Sunday, K and the captain and lieutenant of the sacred band met. They were mutually gratified to see each other ; an electric shock of pleasure tingled through the veins of K as he grasped the hand of his heroic lieutenant, and the brave cap- tain of the sacred band. It was decided at this council that all conversation in connection with the incident had closed, and should be forbidden among the men ; that all mention of the names of the four men who drove off, by those who knew them, would be considered treason to the cause if spoken by any Invincible. The two members of the council who had ceased to be summoned for consultation, but who were otherwise very properly con- sidered as valuable and patriotic men, were to attend a conference that Sunday afternoon. It was decided and ordered that they receive no more knowledge of the previous night's thrilling episode than that which they already possessed. This conference was to convey general orders to the sacred band, to be transmitted by the council through their sub-officers to the Invincible soldiers, impressing upon them the necessity for the most rigid silence on recent events, and for each man to quietly resume his normal peaceful duties for the present. K , after this council, visited Carey, who was delighted to greet him and was in ecstacies over the previous evening's success. K instructed him to attend at a certain house that afternoon, there to meet his three comrades and confer upon future arrangements. Carey was unaware of K 's conference with the officers of the sacred band. It was simply unnecessary information. The Council was held that afternoon and the necessary orders promul- gated. The Dublin Invincibles were surprised and amazed when on Monday morning the walls of the Irish metropolis were placarded with the Parnellite proclamation giving their moral support and basely tender- ing their allegiance to the enemy. The men were incensed and indignant to see these proclamations posted up alongside Spencer's offering ^10,000 ($50,000) for their capture. When K saw this infamous and treasonable proclamation he was astounded, following so quickly after the dispatch sent him from the agent of the Parnellite Government, authorizing action, and received as already related the previous Friday. Was this hypocrisy, or was it the outcome of dissensions among the statesmen guiding the Irish nation ? He was inclined to think it was the former, spurred on by nervous fear of personal consequences. No matter what the motives were that prompted this action, he felt that in the face of sympathizing Europe it was bad policy, and would tend to make Irish nationality contemptible in the eyes of the manlier races, who were watching the struggle with anxiety for Irish success. 562 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. The Times, which unceasingly slanders Irish patriots, and vulture-like screams for Irish blood, justifies resistance to oppressive rule in the case of the Italians. It writes : "The destiny of a nation ought to be deter- mined not by the opinions of other nations, but by the opinion of the nation itself. To decide whether they are well governed or not, or rather whether the degree of extortion, corruption, and cruelty to which they are subject is sufficient to justify armed resistance, not for those who, being exempt from its oppression, feel a sentimental or theological interest in its continuance." This is a description of Ireland under the hated rule of the British, and fully indorses from the mouth of the enemy the position of the Invincibles. It is the Times' justification for the 6th of May, which was the offspring of " extortion, corruption, and cruelty" practiced by each successive Chief Secretary, and which is a part of the system— an integral position of alien dominion in Ireland. On Thursday K heard from the Invincible Administration. Some- thing serious he feared might possibly happen through a careless mistake of their agent which K did his best to remedy. He had reasons to think it likely that through this error the suspicions of the enemy might be aroused against himself. In the event of such an emergency he thought it best not to again see the Invincible officers previous to his departure from Ireland, as he could not be certain his movements were not now watched. He did not wish to cause any unnecessary or what might be unfounded alarm by communicating the reason for these suspicions. He decided in communicating with them through his friend P , sending his confirmation of previous instructions. He left Dublin on Thursday night after a prolonged stay in that city, during which he had very serious duties and important missions to carry out. Shortly after his arriving in the city where headquarters was located, he promptly dispatched a confidential messenger to Q , informing that gentleman of his return and telling his friend that as soon as he would think it prudent to come and see him. K knew that this message would be conveyed to the Directory, telling them of his safe arrival in town. On Saturday morning Q called, and when he saw K his whole face denoted admiration and enthusiasm ; holding out both hands he exclaimed : " My God, I envy you ! " In return K was truly glad to meet his friend once again. Q had a number of things to relate, and several interesting matters about prominent Invincibles and prominent Provincialists. Some of these sketches K had been made acquainted with by his old friend F ; of this Q was unaware. Q also informed his friend that he had a very satisfactory and cordial message from G , a leading and very influential member of the Invincible Government. K then informed his visitor of the serious mistake made in com- municating with him, and of the prompt necessity of at once sending a message to the officer in command at Dublin. K immediately com- municated with his friend P , giving that officer certain duties to carry out, which he had told him of before leaving. Q W as so overjoyed at the Dublin success that he was unusually enthusiastic. He said that K should be placed on the Directory ; but this was a question for superior authority.* The two friends left * The brave, energe.tic, and truly patriotic Irishman and prominent Parnellite official written of here as Q has received the scantiest courtesy, coupled with the vilest insinuations from the prominent Parnellites who took part in the recent farce called the " Times' Special Tribunal," or some such title. His faithfulness to these men, and his INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 563 together to pay some visits. K was rather reluctant, but at length consented. The first place they visited was the Parnellite chamber of " legal agitation." In a few days news was brought K which he heard with regret. It was a government order that for the present all action against the British enemy should cease. The administration had decided to give the invaders of Ireland a breathing spell, to declare a truce until the new officials of the invader became especially hostile. K received these orders in silence. He was thunderstruck at their gross stupidity ; it was in direct violation of the Invincible constitution as he understood it. Ire- land's war of defense, as an answer to her enemy's brutal war of exter- mination, should never cease once it had been inaugurated, until the foe drew off his bloodhounds. The same arrogant enemy oppressed their bleeding nation and would continue to try and more securely manacle her, and crush her dawning spirit of resistance. There was nothing further said about placing K on the Directory. Probably with the new spirit displayed by the Administration they thought he might advocate a more sanguinary policy than in their then frame of mind they were inclined to sanction. From this time forth, gradually and almost unconsciously (a type of dying Ireland), the Executive seemed to melt away. It was plain to K that weak influences from both the outside and inside were sapping the energy of the noble patriots, who conceived and carried out the God-like idea of inaugurating and persisting in carrying on a desperate hand to hand struggle with the butchers of the Irish nation. During this period K from time to time met many prominent Provincialists, but nothing of import came from these casual interviews. The Invincible organization in Ulster, Munster, and Connaught was more directly under the supervision of G , one of the ablest members of the Invincible Government. But as it made no record of any moment it was feared something was wrong. Clifford Lloyd still reveled in uncontrolled tyranny, but there might be many reasons why this foreign persecutor escaped unscathed. At length there came news that a local tyrant and one of the enemy's cavalry soldiers, who was one of this village tyrant's guard, were shot at a place called Castle Taylor, Ardrahan, near Gort, Co. Galway. This " sup- pression " took place on Thursday, June 8. The man slain was Walter M. Bourke ; he had been in the enemy's service in another country where British tyranny rides roughshod over the natives. India is an excellent school to turn out village despots, a country ruled by a single autocrat sent out from Britain. Mr. Bourke, after spending some years in Cal- cutta, returned to Ireland and commenced a system of slave-driving and evicting which brought upon him the bitter feelings of the country round. Not content with his local tyrannies, he insulted the Irish nation, and challenged the people to resistance. He evidently despised the people and had a contempt for their courage. He went abroad displaying arms on his person, and carried a double-barreled gun. This walking arsenal entered Claremorris church to attend mass, with this ponderous weapon in his arms. On his entering the people rose and left the building. But Bourke reckoned without his host. Acting under orders, the Invincibles determined that they would attack him and his military escort. On this devotion even at the risk of his life to carrying out their programme, has met with the foulest and most base ingratitude. A small circumstance, brought to light by a certain very prominent man during his evidence, showed the smallness, the littleness of soul possessed by this creature. To what loathsomeness can constitutional agitation, followed up by contact and intimacy with ex-British coercers and criminals, pollute the minds, and distort the intellects of these men ! 564 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Thursday morning, accompanied by one of the military troopers belong- ing to his guard, Corporal Albert Wallace of the British Royal Dragoons, himself and his escort were shot down by the Invincibles. The whole neighborhood felt that a deadly foe to human liberty had been "sup- pressed." The enemy's Castle Administration issued a proclamation and offered ^1000 reward, but British gold as usual was powerless to pur- chase a traitor from the Invincible ranks. Owing to the number of irreg- ular organizations that British tyranny in Ireland creates, it was not known at headquarters, when first the news was published, whether or not this was the work of the national organization. But a dispatch from G informed the Invincibles at headquarters that the men in the west were awake and active. All were greatly pleased that the country Invin- cibles were displaying energy. It was late in June when K had business of a private nature in Dublin. He was very uneasy at his long absence from that city, and anxious to meet his brave comrades. He knew that they must have many strange conjectures as to the reason of his long silence. Owing to the error made in communicating with him on May n he could not with prudence see any of the officers, until he felt sure the enemy was not on the alert. P carried his farewell messages. On his arrival in Dublin he saw both the first and second officers of the Invincibles ; they met like friends of twenty years' acquaintance. How close does mutual danger and the common cause of country knit the bonds of friendship ! The captain of the sacred band told K that he was wondering at his long silence, thinking that he had gone abroad. He felt certain that his not communicating with them was part of the Executive policy. M had been anxious to get some news of K , so he applied to P , who had no news and requested his inquirer not to be uneasy. He told K of calling and visiting a prominent Provincialist whom he had known as an I. R. B. man, and from the drift of the conversation and the information he gave him of the men, it was plain to K that the bonds of discipline needed a little tightening. The cause of all this was the grave error committed by the Executive in declaring this extraordinary truce, and also leaving the men unvisited. Irishmen who are prominent in national movements and occupy responsible posts should be very careful that they neglect no duty. When those who are at the head of a great patriotic movement weaken in any way or relax their vigilance, the officers of a lesser rank are liable to fall into the same error. Feeling themselves neglected they may lose that respect without which discipline cannot be enforced in Irish patriots ; this must be spontaneous. K felt the possible need, in case of an emergency, to have in Dublin another independent organization of Invincibles to aid the sacred band, should occasion require it ; Dublin at that time was an excellent field for recruiting. The Phoenix Park " suppression " inspirited many men ; among these were several of K 's old-time revolutionary friends of Fenian days, men who had stood aside from Irish business for years. They were eager to join a practical movement that meant active service against the enemy, and in a feasible manner serve their suffering country. These new recruits enrolled by K were all Nationalists, and the most valu- able men for work of an active and dangerous nature. He gave two of these authority to enroll recruits among their revolutionary friends, thus forming the nucleus of two additional bands, which he purposed keeping distinct from the men who had been already engaged. The sacred band were now veterans, true and tried men. The leaders of the new bands in process of formation were men in a INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 565 walk of life superior to the average revolutionary recruit, and combining education and intelligence of a high order with daring and patriotism, which would make these newly enrolled men invaluable soldiers to the Irish cause. During this visit K met the officers of the sacred band together. Nothing of importance took place. Toward the end of the following month, July, a number of Irishmen were arrested by the enemy as suspects. This was supposed to be in consequence of the execution of an I. R. B. traitor named Kenny. Among the men arrested were some Invincibles. The Administration seemed at this time very fearful that the enemy might discover some traces of the Phoenix Park affair, and were alarmed at some of the arrests. Q called on K in a very anxious manner ; he had been speaking to some of the Executive the day before, and they decided that a lady messenger should visit Dublin ; K was positively forbidden to go himself. A lady volunteered and carried out her mission successfully, and as K conjectured, there was no cause for the Executive's fright. In the early days of August Q visited Dublin, partly on a pleasure trip, and to be present at the unveiling of the O'Connell monument. He got the necessary instructions from K and paid a friendly visit to some of the Dublin Invincibles. Unfortunately he was known as a Par- nellite official, and the visit gave rise to unnecessary talk. It even reached the prison where some of the men were confined. Q , who was a sterling patriot, had no purpose but a friendly one, but several of the Executive did not approve of it. A kind of ghostly terror seemed to haunt these men over every trifle. After Q 's return from Dublin he paid an important visit to two prominent Parnellites, members of the Invincible Directory. They were very pleased to see him ; he gave them all the details he was acquainted with in relation to the 6th of May. Q was presented by these gentlemen with some handsome gifts as a testimonial of approval for the success of the Park incident. Among these was a beautiful photographic album, which played an important part later in giving the enemy information as to the personality of a prominent Invincible. He was also presented- with gifts for the noble and courageous lady who carried the weapons to Dublin, including some pretty trinkets for the recent lady emissary. The enemy's Lord Lieutenant in Ireland at this time, as a Cabinet Minister, was performing those duties usually transacted in the Chief Secretary's office. The then Chief Secretary, Trevelyan, was only partially in charge of his bureau. Spencer in a great measure controlled the Castle murder conspiracy. The assassination of Irishmen by the mock legal machine became worse daily. The brutal murder of Francis Hynes appalled the community ; the public perjury of infamous wretches who swore to order for British gold was so flagrant that even the most moderate Provincialist felt outraged. This naked despotism aroused the Invincible Government to a sense of its duty, and they threw off for a time the lethargy which enwrapped them since the 6th of May. They ordered the re-commencement of hostilities. K , when about to resume his command in Dublin, was grievously dis- appointed at the orders given to him. The duties were not of the impor- tance that the crisis demanded. It was evident that timidity still ruled in their councils. However, K was glad for the success of the cause that hostilities were about to reopen, and that the government of legiti- mate self-defense was about to answer the Castle murder conspiracy by striking at one of the conspirators. He hoped that by action the 566 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. stronger men in the Invincible Executive would find their hands strengthened and so be able to force the issue to a further advanced step. The Parnellites, through their Dublin organ, were abusing Spencer in every possible key. Yet the Invincible commander could get no authority from the Invincible Parnellite Executive to strike at the head of this tyranny. The suppressing of one of the minor tyrants was work unworthy of the cause, but obedience is the first duty of a soldier. The murder of Francis Hynes was followed by other judicial crimes. The Kilmainham treaty brought to Ireland only those unhappy results after the great claim of victory. As well might one attempt to guarantee the safety of the lamb from the jaws of the tiger as to expect that any combination or treaty could prevail on Britain to change her nature, and abide by any compact which, with her usual perfidy toward Ireland, she had previously determined to violate in all its parts. Irishmen should never make treaties with any British parties, either Gladstone's or Salis- bury's ; their perfidy toward Ireland is proverbial. Irish patriots should be prepared to descend to the tomb with arms in their hands, as becomes men resolved to combat for the freedom of their nation ; to overthrow the baneful and oppressive foreign yoke, and liberate their country. In doing this they will have performed a sacred duty, called for no less by the obligations of religion than the progress of civilization. Ireland has no alternative between victory and extermination. At the close of September K left for Dublin to resume command of the Invincibles, and with orders from the Invincible Government to commence certain active operations. His first visit in that city was to P , who informed the young lieutenant of the sacred band, now its leader, that K was in town. They met next day ; the pleasure was mutual. They had a long con- ference together, and in the following evening K arranged to meet the temporarily appointed council at the new rendezvous. Although K 's appearance was known to these three men, it was their first personal meeting. That night he formed the acquaintance of as noble a specimen of young Irish patriotism as lived in the sacred band. This brave young man carried himself with dignity in the enemy's dock and to- day for his patriotic service to his country he toils in the dungeons of her merciless invader. The instructions given K by the Directory were matters by no means of the first importance. The young lieutenant received his orders to make preliminary arrangements to see about having them promptly obeyed. The British having their new coercion machine in energetic operation, the old " Suspect" Act expired at the end of September, and all those Irishmen who had not passed through the mockery of a trial, who were merely suspects, were set free. Among those released were im- prisoned Invincibles. Those who had been members of the Council, K arranged to see separately, and in different localities, for although K was free from the smallest shade of suspicion on the part of the enemy, his being seen in the company of any of these men, who were likely to be under espionage, might hamper his future movements. The first of these he saw was M . This noble fellow had many things to say of the events that had transpired since their last meeting. He spoke of a serious indiscretion which was committed by one of the rank and file, and commented on Carey's conduct in creating a stupid scene when arrested in Grafton Street, all of which gave K food for reflection and much annoyance of mind, not with this patriotic man for the statements which his duty compelled him to relate, but that these things should be. The next day K met James Carey. This man, who was always glad to meet him, was as enthusiastic as usual. Carey then told him of INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 567 the missing arms that must have been seized by the enemy. This was not news to K , both Q and he had heard it through the enemy's indiscreet boasting of having discovered in the person of a Dublin mechanic the leader of the Park affair, and which position the foe wished to assign to Carey all through. K then told Carey that while his obligations to the Invincibles would continue as long as that organization was in existence, for the present he would relieve him from all duty. This was necessary, not only for his own safety, but what was of paramount importance, the cause of the country and the welfare of the patriotic movement carrying on war against the foe. At any time he wished to see K for any purpose he could do so by communicating with the lieutenent of the sacred band. Carey promised obedience, but looked very sad and unhappy when he heard this order. He bade K good-by, and went off in the direction ordered. They never exchanged a word from that day. K met Carey in Dublin on two occasions some time afterward, but discipline at all times kept any of the men from speak- ing to him at these chance meetings. K , although feeling it necessary from a sense of duty to suspend Carey, had not the faintest suspicion of his loyalty, and very justly so, for Carey was as faithful to Ireland up to his arrest and long after as the most patriotic of her sons. There was a public reward of $50,000 offered by the foe, which had not the slightest influence on any of these true-hearted Irishmen. Let us think with pity and regret of the sad fate of this unhappy man, and feel more determined and bitter to endeavor to overthrow the accursed rule that makes such fallen weakness and perfidy in once good and true men possible. K left Dublin to acquaint the Directory of the serious indiscre- tion committed by one of the men as told him by the captain. This was- variously commented on at headquarters. Y , the member of the Directory who previous to the foundation of the Invincibles volunteered to shoot Forster, appeared to look upon this as a matter of course. It is the cardinal doctrine of the teachings which produce Provincialists that in all revolutionary bodies traitors are to be found, and Y , although a sound Irishman and a member of the Invincible Directory, was and is to this day (1887) a prominent Parnellite member of the enemy s Parliament. The rflatter was referred to a gentleman who was the most influential and powerful of the men belonging to the Invincible Government. Had every member of that Administration his pure patriotism, determination, and courage, the tragic and melancholy fiasco which closed the movement would not have occurred. But he and his confreres were hampered and weighted by wavering colleagues, and also by powerful outside influences which destroyed their native resolution ; for it must be remembered they were also prominent and influential Provincialists, one of them a prominent and leading member of the enemy's Parliament, which must have sometimes clashed with his duty to the Invincibles. In giving the true history of this patriotic Irish organization and refuting its slanderers and Ireland's, — for the honor of the movement is wedded to that of the nation whose authorities created it, — the present writer wishes to speak of these patriots with the deepest and most profound respect. In a few days a message came from G and H , stating that if on legal investigation the offense charged against the Invincible was proved, he should be executed ; there was no possible alternative. This order was given to K personally by a gentleman he had never met previously. He had often heard of him as an able and prominent Parnellite, and a patriotic Irishman. ■ It was their first and last meeting as Invincibles. Q , whom K always saw and reported to when returning from Dublin, approved the order. On these matters this patriotic Irishman was right. $68 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. K returned to Dublin with a sad feeling ; to smite the foe was to him a sacred religion, but this mission of examining into treason was most painful. He summoned a council on his arrival in Ireland's metropolis, and entered into an investigation of the charges against the Invincible soldier. It was discovered on examination that a mistake was made ; the man was completely exonerated, to K 's relief and the gratification of all concerned. It must be written here that in the ranks of the Invincibles there was not one man to betray it to the enemy. No British gold could corrupt one of these incorruptible and faithful men. Through the weak- ness of their Parnellite Executive came the weakness of some of those arrested. Had the Invincible Government consisted of strong men, and all as daring as the sacred band, modern Irish history would have been altered. The Dublin officer N , who originally presided at the council and who was in prison for some time, was one of the recently released men. Except through one interview before his assuming command of the Dublin Invincibles, K had no personal knowledge of this man. His daring and bravery had always been the theme of the captain of the sacred band, who was a fast friend of his. The younglieutenant of the band told K that this man N was much hurt at being left aside completely. It was evident that N did not understand the reason for this, and as he was a good and patriotic man, who should not be allowed to feel he was neglected, K told the lieutenant that he would meet him, appointing the time and place. N and K met as arranged. . N had a number of complaints and suggestions for K 's ear ; he dwelt with bitterness and sarcasm (using as much of the latter as he could master) on the sending of a lady to Dublin with weapons to the men, and appeared to fear that some dangerous gossip would arise from the use of female messengers. K assured him that if every man in the ranks was as secretive and patriotic as the lady who had carried the arms to the Invincibles they would be as silent as the sphinx; he further gratified N "by telling him that as long as the Invincible Government continued him (K ) in command of the revolutionary soldiers in Dublin, that any weapons required to carry on the struggle against the invader should be brought into Dublin by himself. N was anxious for active wo/k, which K promised him soon, but for the present he would have to remain in the ranks. K also made an appointment to meet the released Invin- cible O , who was a warm-hearted, impulsive, but patriotic Irishman. He was at all times ready to sacrifice his life in the cause of his mother- land. K met him with great pleasure; he told him that for the present the necessities of the situation would compel him to stand aside, that for some time he could take no part with the Invincibles, as the enemy had him a marked man. He knew how to communicate with him, K , when he needed to do so. After a little time, when the foe was baffled, he would be placed on active service again. The latter hope cheered this brave fellow, who felt stricken at the order and looked grieved. He obeyed cheerfully, and kindly asked K to come and see him. K pointed out the impossibility of any social intercourse between men engaged in such desperate enterprises as theirs. They parted and have never met each other since. During this time P had received instructions to assist the young lieutenant of the Invincibles in getting a thorough knowledge of the tyrant whose suppression was ordered by the Directory. P was invaluable in this kind of work ; his coolness and means of getting infor- mation were of great assistance. The officers of the sacred band heard from several sources that the prominent officials of the enemy, who were at that time openly and osten- INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 569 tatiously guarded by a number of armed men, also wore bullet-proof shirts as an additional precaution against their unseen foe. This revolutionary war had now assumed a semi-open appearance of defense as well as assault on the part of the British army. They knew their Irish foe was looking for a chink in their armor to pierce it. And like a blinded giant they did not know where to strike. L told K that they might need a more powerful weapon than those that they were armed with, and wished K to procure a few for any special attack on those of the enemy who wore shirts of mail. K left Dublin at once to procure these. When he reached headquarters he communicated as usual with Q , and told him what was required in Dublin. As it was not considered prudent for K to make these purchases personally, Q sent for a gentleman, one of the official staff of the Parnellites engaged in legal agitation, but who was also an Invincible, to buy the needed weapons. This man was one who would have been a splendid soldier for active work, a man of superior intelligence, and having the courage of his race ; but unfortunately he was too well known to the enemy, who, as a proof of their disappro- bation, some time before imprisoned him. He procured a number of the most powerful revolvers of large calibre that could be purchased. The Irish soldiers in Dublin had an ample supply of ammunition to suit the weapons, so that there was no necessity to procure cartridges. Q retained two of these weapons ; the remainder K brought in his valise to Dublin, traveling, "strange to say, with a genial, gentlemanly man en route there, who was a colonel in the enemy's army posted in the west of Ireland. This good gentleman would have been very much sur- prised if he had learned that an officer of the Irish foe was the compagnon du voyage he was so affable to. K entered Dublin perfectly safe with the arms, although the enemy was especially watchful at this period, and had imported a number of Royal Marines to do police duty in that city. This was corroboration, if such was needed, of the unnecessary sending of a lady in the first instance with weapons. These revolvers were taken out of K 's valise and packed in good sized satchels, and given by him to P to deliver at the new place of meeting of the local council. K attended the following evening, showing the Invincible officers a slight peculiarity in the mechanism. P , who was superintending several matters in connection with the coming " suppression," made a report to K of all the details. A strong mutual friendship and respect had sprung up between P and the two officers L and M . One morning P and K paid a visit to the Dublin exhibition as it was about to be closed. K had no social intercourse with the Dublin Invincibles, P , who was a personal friend, excepted. They had no knowledge whatever as to who he was, nor did they seek to learn it. This morning when these two men reached the top of Sackville, now O'Connell Street, near the Rotunda, they met the British Lord Lieutenant, followed by his escort, a half troop of the enemy's cavalry. He had evidently come from the Viceregal Lodge and was riding down Rutland Square to Sackville Street, en route to the Castle. The Red Earl was in front of the main body of his escort, two troopers a little in advance of him, and an officer riding at each side. At this time the despotism of this man of blood had horrified all Ireland. The open employment of hired ruffians, who, by perjured evidence and the packing of twelve rebels as jurymen, gave an apparent legal pretext for hanging men in no way implicated in what they were accused of, had startled the community. " The Bloody Assize," so historically named by United Ireland, had come and gone. Mr. Wm. O'Brien was afterward by Spencer's orders prosecuted for writing this scathing article denounc- ing his infamous rule. Nothing could be stronger proof to K 's mind 57© THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. of the weakness and vacillation of the Invincible Directory than the fact that up to that moment he had received no orders to assail this tyrant, who was more deliberate in his path of blood as expressed in United Ireland than Forster. He made but few raids on the Irish members, yet some of them had tasted the sweetness of this invader's plank-bed. K felt satisfied that G and others were indirectly overruled by powerful influences working against them, and that timid men had carried their wretched policy of indecision into the government of the Invincibles. Many of those waverers at that time would secretly rejoice at the tyrant's death, but allowed " I dare not" wait upon " I will." As Spencer and his escort rode by it flashed upon K 's mind that the road from Phibsborough, before approaching the Rotunda, would be an admirable position of attack. The route chosen by the enemy's chieftain was fed by numerous arteries of side streets, where the men could concentrate without any unusual notice. Any assault for the present in the Phcenix Park was an utter impossibility. A concentration of a strong force of men ready at a given signal to assail the foe from both sides of his route would at first paralyze the British troopers by the unexpected and sudden assault. As Spencer was to be made the principal feature of the fight it was reasonable to suppose the enemy's chieftain would be slain in the first attack. The fight with the troopers would of course follow, but there the advantage ought to be with the sacred band and their Invincible supports. A body of daring, desperate men, armed with revolvers against the troopers' sabers, which by instinct and surprise they must have used, and Ireland's defenders would have the advantage in the struggle. These soldiers of the enemy were principally boys, who if their officers were put hors-de-combat would prob- ably make a stampede. That such an attack meant death to the greater part of the sacred band K knew well, but what a glorious death ! Most of these men knew that they could scarcely expect to survive the dangers through which their duty exposed them. K never left for Dublin but he was compelled to feel that there were serious chances he would never return. Familiarity with danger never breeds a contempt for it, but it unconsciously grows to be such a companion that one forgets the personal risks in seeking results. In a patriot whose soul is pervaded with the knowledge that he is engaged in a sacred and holy enterprise, a religion, a worship of the purity and grandeur of the great cause of Country, fills his soul with lofty motives, with a stoicism and determination that smiles at death and only longs for triumph. What signified the sacrifice of the whole sacred band compared with the victory of Ireland ! The supreme effort to crush out in blood and carnage her tyrant murderer's life, and this in broad daylight in the center of the city ! Think of the blow that it would deal at the invader's heart! Again, as on the 6th of May, crowning Ireland's patriotic soldiers with fresh laurels, once more striking down British supremacy from their land. And think of the immortal lessons of freedom such an attack would bring to the nation ; the sight of cold steel, and blood smoking hot, would inspire the people and contradict the coward teachings of weak Provin- cialists ! What if the bodies of the sacred band filled up the trench that guards the ramparts of freedom, were there not more men to mount this bloody breastwork, and keep on the glorious struggle ? Thank God, there are to-day and always in Ireland thousands of men at all times ready. If some pioneers but only lead the way on into the gap of slaugh- ter, in spite of the so-called constitutional teaching, gaining freedom by installments and all the boshy rot foisted on the people under the sacred name of nationality, Irishmen are not cowards. This attack on the passing tyrant K felt a fierce longing for as INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 57 1 the cavalcade passed by. What if even all the brave fellows and himself were killed? "The blood of men fighting for freedom is never shed in vain — the earth will not cover it ; from the ground it cries aloud and the avenger knoweth his day and his hour. It is through this bloody travail and by virtue of this baptism of fire, and only so. that nations ever spring forth, great, generous and free." When the Red Earl and his troopers had passed by, K communi- cated his thoughts to P , who espoused his plan warmly. He said he could see no insurmountable obstacle in suppressing the foreign despot by a bold attack, which would paralyze his escort, as was witnessed when Miss Anna Parnell caught his bridle reins one morning in Westmoreland Street, and stopped him to plead mercy for the houseless, which his coun- try's accursed rule had sent on the wayside. Let the Invincibles but bravely assault, and with loaded arms blot out the tyrant's life, come what may to them once success was achieved. That evening K saw the captain and lieutenant of the sacred band, and told them of his resolve to attack Spencer and his escort. These officers received the news with fierce joy ; the face of the brave young lieutenant glowed with delight, and his eyes sparkled. This tyrant and his red-coated escort were foes that they felt were worthy of their steel. The captain thought that they could not make the opening of their attack so effective and paralyzing by firearms alone ; hand-grenades or Orsini bombs, he considered, would create such havoc and disaster in the enemy's ranks that it would be half the victory. A sadden attack by armed men to follow the explosion and quick as lightning the invader's force would be slain or dispersed. K saw the full force of the picture drawn, the panic and confusion that would permeate the ranks of the invader as one or two outside cars drove rapidly by, like war chariots sweeping along death and destruction to the foe. Seated on the side next the enemy could be placed Invincible soldiers, who at the moment of con- tact would fling into the centre of Spencer's British Guard these deadly missiles. K knew there was one serious drawback with shells in the hands of untrained men, and that was the danger of premature explosion. The Invincibles had been asking for these bombs since K first took com- mand in Dublin, and although he made their request known at head- quarters, backed up by his own urgent wish that they be sent to Dublin for emergencies, the Executive through either neglect or disapproval took no notice of these many demands. But now that an event of the first im- portance to Ireland, the striking down red-handed the foreign tyrant who was aiming at the Irish nation's life, seemed to hinge for its success on the procuring of shells, K determined he would strain every energy to supply the sacred band with these destructive missiles. A short time previous to this meeting with the Red Earl's cavalcade Q came to Dublin to attend the funeral of a relative. He communi- cated with K . Nothing of importance occurred ; it was a mere friendly visit, but K availed himself of the opportunity of making Q and P acquainted, as the former so wished, P and the young lieutenant of the Invincibles discovered that Lawson, the Castle conspirator, whose suppression was ordered by the Executive, was not only well guarded in the city, but also had a large force of Constabulary concentrated near his country residence acting as a mili- tary guard every night. These men patrolled the grounds and guarded every possible avenue of attack. It is one of the romantic sides of this Invincible war that all this information the young lieutenant of the sacred band succeeded in gettmg from the sergeant in charge of Law- 572 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. son's guard, through the help of P , who personally knew the sergeants, and, as if by accident, visited the police barracks, where himself and his friend were received most hospitably, and were invited to stop over for dinner. It was during this meal that for purposes of gossip this news was given to P and the Invincible officer. After dinner they were brought round the grounds and shown the position and the vigilance necessary to protect Lawson. The Constabulary officers of course never dreamt that their visitors were Invincibles, and had not the faintest suspicion they were giving unasked the very information P and L , the officer of the sacred band, went there to get. Lawson's life would not be worth the force necessary to attack him at his country residence, and so K decided that the city was the proper place to make the assault. News came that Lawson was to dine on a certain Saturday night at a so-called legal dinner in Henrietta Street. It was decided that he should be attacked on Stephen's Green with his armed escort of seven men. During the interval that elapsed since K 's visit in June, the work of organizing other Invincibles went on in Dublin. One of these bands had grown into a respectable size, almost as numerous as the sacred band, having its sub-officers and their men under distinct control. The other of these new Invincible organizations was not so numerous, but it contained men very eager for active work, who urged their officer to offer their services to help any premeditated attack upon the foe. The night for attacking Lawson came, and K told the officer of this small band of Invincibles to select four of his best men and come with them to the rendezvous, well armed and ready to obey orders, which they would receive on the ground. The captain and lieutenant of the sacred band were made aware of the presence of this new force, which information pleased them very much. These officers were ordered to keep their existence a secret. One of the sentinels was posted to signal the departure of Lawson from his residence, which signal he was to pass to another ; each alternate sentry keeping the Judge and his armed escort in sight. The first sentinel was seized with a species of lunacy and took it upon himself to shoot the Castle conspirator ; he did more, for he disarranged the previous plans by sending away two Invincible sentries, whom he met en route and who were under the impression the excited sentinel had received fresh orders. So stupid and blundering was this man, that he worked him- self into a state of strong excitement, and in attempting to shoot Lawson he was overpowered and captured by the Castle tyrant's guard. His action that night in all human probability saved Lawson's life. This man had no idea, not the faintest, of playing the Invincibles false, but he was filled with the vanity that he could slay Lawson single handed, and thought the opportunity too favorable to be lost. This he could have done if he was a cool-headed man, but he would be captured red- handed, which was, if possible, to be avoided according to Invincible laws, and which necessitated the risk of many lives, instead of the certainty of losing one. Another stupid error he made was that of taking the enemy's guard to be Invincible soldiers, for these men were then too numerous to be known to each other, and they were, as already mentioned, under the command of sub-officers, each as a separate unit in organ- ization. This last blunder caused him to fall an easy prey into the hands of the enemy. Meanwhile the main body of the Invincibles were patrolling the place decided on for the attack ; as time passed, bringing no news, they grew anxious ; a scout was dispatched, who reported on his return that the sentinels had left and that some man entered the Kildare Street Club to INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 573 try and shoot Lawson, and was captured. This was the first incorrect report, and several others were purposely spread abroad by the enemy. The men were dismissed ; something was wrong, but what it was was then unknown. The officers received orders to investigate the cause of this mishap. K was to see L the following evening with his report. As soon as they learned who the enemy had arrested, that night two of the Invincible officers drove up to the house of a relative of the captured man ; from this house they speedily removed what Invincible arms it contained. They had not gone many minutes when the enemy's forces made a descent, but they discovered nothing, and had to depart unrewarded. The next morning, Sunday, K , who was anxious to learn who the captured man was, left at an early hour for the house where the enemy made his raid. All knowledge of this raid was unknown to the Invinci- ble commander, and could not be conveyed to him, for with the excep- tion of P , none of the officers of the sacred band knew where to communicate with him. The Invincible officer whom he came to see was from home, but K was told he would return soon. He thought it best to wait. Hours passed by in painful suspense. K was about to leave when a young Invincible soldier came with a letter to the absent officer. K tore it open ; it was a note from L asking the officer to meet him at a cer- tain place within an hour. K immediately left for this rendezvous, where he heard all the details of the catastrophe. The officers were very much concerned when they heard at what house K had been during the forenoon, as they informed him the enemy had posted spies and marines to watch the house. This arrest proved of vast importance to the enemy later on. This blunder and disobedience of the Invincible sentry, and to which he himself fell a victim, decided K that for the present they would not repeat any attacks on Lawson ; to succeed after this blunder would be to lose more men than K wished to risk on this subordinate action. He gave the next order from the Directory to strike at two of the rebels' jurors of the murdered Francis Hynes. This new order pleased N , for the brave fellow, who was utterly reckless of his life, was anxious to attack these hated jurors. As the matter was of small importance in the opinion of K , he wished to have it finished before beginning the grand assault on Spencer, which he knew would ring over the world as a bold act of Irishmen against their foe. K decided that no more attempts should be made on Saturday. Monday was selected for the attack, He ordered cold steel to be used, but as all the weapons similar to those used before had been destroyed, by order of the Administration (the cowardice of the Executive — the stupidity of these would-be brilliant statesmen, was hampering the brave soldiers in Dublin) they were compelled to use inferior weapons, which they tried to utilize for the occasion. K wished he had the two handsomely cased weapons that were in Q c s armory at headquarters. On the Saturday evening before the assault of these murderous jurors, K was startled at the news of a shooting affray in Abbey Street, Dub- lin. He could not understand it ; surely the bonds of discipline could not have suddenly broken loose, and the men taken action on their own account. He sent for P ,and learned the particulars of this fray. A certain circle of the I. R. B., without any instructions from the central authority, formed itself into a vigilance committee. Their purpose was to commence against the enemy a war similar to what some organization, unknown to them, had been trying to carry out. They had scarcely more than organized, when through some fatuity — either through lack of judgment or the vile effects of the enemy's teach- 574 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. ing — these brave but unthinking men began to look into their own ranks for a traitor. They had no efficient leader, and the bonds of discipline hung upon them very lightly. They decided on suspecting one of their number of treason, and their first warlike attempt was to go out and searcli for him to shoot him. They were followed from the rendezvous where they met to the corner of Abbey and Sackville streets by some armed detectives of the enemy, as their actions were very open and very remarkable. These .hirelings of the invader are as a rule braggarts, and cowards in the face of danger. The vigilance men, seeing they were followed, impulsively drew their revolvers and opened fire on the foe, which was responded to at long range by the detectives. This exchange of shots was quickly followed by a hand-to-hand encounter between a detective and a vigilante. The detective (Constable Cox) while struggling with the vigilante was shot dead by a fellow constable, who aimed at the Irishman but shot his comrade by accident. This mishap on the enemy's part occurred through the nervous timidity of their man, who, like many of his comrades, was afraid to cross the street. Meanwhile another strug- gle was taking place between another detective and a vigilante. The enemy's instrument, seeing that the man he grappled with was armed, piteously begged of him not to shoot. The vigilante, when he got into this fight, which he should have avoided, might have pulled the trigger on his foe and so got away. He was tender-hearted, and so acceded to the other's appeal. Instead of shooting he tried by physical strength to shake off his enemy. A sergeant of rifles passing by at this moment and seeing the two men grappling, drew his sword and went to the aid of the detec- tive, who was loudly calling for help and proclaiming himself an officer of the law. When Sergeant Dan vers of the Rifles led the way, the other detectives on the opposite side gathered courage and crossed over, and the vigilante was captured. Then followed a peculiar incident. As the pris- oner was being brought away in a cab, the comrade whom he and his friend went out to shoot for fancied treason, and who of course knew nothing of this, came upon the scene and made an attempt to rescue the prisoner from his captors, but failed in the attempt, and he too was made a captive by the foe. The Invincible organization had nothing to do with this affray. But when it is considered that all these men were respectable mechanics, most of them men with families, who led good lives and looked with horror on crime and criminals, it is a sad reflection on the terrible evil of foreign rule in Ireland. That portion of the Dublin community who supply the enemy with magistrates and police officers, and who are linked in bonds of treason with the savage invader — these people, like the Tories of New York in Revolutionary days, magnified this petty street brawl into a British victory. Sergeant Danvers of the Rifles was made the hero of the hour, and a hand- some piece of silver plate was presented to the victorious soldier, the hero of this king-making victory. Accompanying this testimonial for bravery he received the substantial gift of a well-filled purse. The inscription on the piece of plate spoke of the virtues, patriotism, and the wonderful and extraordinary courage of this valiant soldier, who in so marvelous a manner drew his sword and with unflinching intrepidity went to the rescue of a detective struggling in the grasp of a ruffian rebel Irishman, while the comrades of this detective were shivering on the opposite pave- ment, fearing to take part in the encounter. This brave and undaunted British soldier, regardless of life, charged into the very jaws of death in defense of the British flag and its law and its order. Such like rodo- montade and fustian filled Monday morning's papers. On Tuesday morning these rebel sheets in the invader's interest had occasion to howl, for on Monday night the Invincibles made their pre- INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 575 arranged attack. One of the rebel jurymen escaped by the accidence of his sudden departure on business from Dublin. The other who took part in Francis Hynes' murder was successfully struck down, but saved his life partly by feigning death, and more especially by the fact that the weapon was not suited for the work. It had been arranged for moral effect to strike down both jurymen simultaneously. The enemy was alarmed ; another panic took place this time ; it extended to the bench and the rebel caste from which this class of jurymen were selected. Bullet-proof shirts were greatly in demand and Spencer's escort was for a time doubled. K , having completed what could be done of the minor assaults ordered by the Directory, prepared to return to headquarters and endeavor to procure the now important shells. A short time before the jurymen's attack, K "had reason to deplore the scarcity of explosive ammunition in the Invincible arsenal. This arose partly from neglect and partly from the timidity of the Directory in not having Dublin well stocked with various kinds of war munitions at the founding of the organization. There was plenty of money in the treasury to supply all the materials of war needed, and there were plenty of brave men to bring them into Dublin. As soon as action was taken by the Invincibles in Ireland's capital, there was greater difficulty in bringing these in, and also greater difficulty in procuring them, but not of an insur- mountable nature. One of these chances came to K , which, like fortune's tide, if taken at the flood would have commanded great success. Through the absence of proper war materials, K was unable to avail himself of this lucky stroke of fortune which fell to his lot. Had he the necessary munitions, he would have been able to strike a blow at British invasion of his country that would have horrified the foe and startled mankind. But like many another favoring gale, Ireland was not able to reap the benefit of this unexpected and great opportunity. On leaving Dublin, P was left in general superintendence of affairs, and was to communicate with K if there was any necessity. The captain of the sacred band was told to take no action until K 's return. K wished to learn what the Directory intended to do. At this time the enemy commenced to redouble his vigilance. Dublin was literally filled with marines, spies, and detectives, and all the paraphernalia of his robber rule. Ireland's assassins were seriously frightened. It was not so much the nature of the assaults made by their mysterious opponents as their rapid delivery and the disappearance of their foe that struck terror to the heart of the Briton. What was John Bull to do ? Spencer was determined to have another " Bloody Assize " and offer up some Dublin men to the shades of the dead secretaries. It made little matter to the enemy whether these were the actual men engaged or not. He had his tribunal of slaughter ready, and could with the aid of hired perjurers commence the work of death. Shortly after K 's departure from Dublin he learned that the enemy had made his first move, and that several Dublin men were tem- porarily arrested and brought before the secret star chamber in Dublin Castle, and there examined against themselves under the new Crimes Bill Mr. Gladstone, which upset the British theory that no man is compelled to criminate himself. This secret star chamber, on the contrary, tried to compel every man before it, by what it considered the most awful threats, to criminate himself and to criminate each other, but the principal success the enemy had was in training a corps of perjurers into familiarity with the men's appearance, impressing on these abandoned wretches the personality of every man who passed before them. To what degraded help must the foreign usurpers stoop for the purpose of trying to preserve the fruits of their robbery ! The enemy made a curious group of arrests, 576 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. I. R. B. men, Provincialists, and Invincibles ; they were simply feeling their way, and were groping in the dark until after they had made the midnight raid the following January, when by slow degrees the light came to them bit by bit. The Castle examinations gave K a great deal of anxiety, which was shared in by Q . K for the fiftieth time spoke of the great necessity of procuring shells and other explosives for Dublin. He did not particularize to Q what he specially needed them for, but urged that they be procured. But Q could do nothing to assist in this matter, but through no fault of his own, for this patriotic Irishman was most energetic, doing all that was in his power to aid K and the brave Dublin men. The exigencies of his position tied him down ; the whole Invincible movement had to carry on its back that old-man-of- the-sea Provincialism, which was strangling its life out. In this emergency F , the brave soldier who had been on the Direc- tory, had returned to headquarters. He had somewhat recovered from his serious illness, and was convalescent. K made a special private call upon him. F was a man K loved as a brother. To an excel- lent understanding and ripened experience he added the pure and ster- ling principles of Irish nationality. There could not be imagined a more perfect harmony or stronger identity of sentiment than existed between those two Irishmen. K opened his mind freely to F . This time it was his turn to deposit important confidence in the breast of his friend. He spoke of the attack on Spencer which was contemplated, subject to the sanction of the Invincible Government. F approved cordially in the necessity of striking down the enemy during his sanguinary career in Ireland — his riding rough shod over the people. With respect to the shells he said : " I think I could without much difficulty procure them for you, as soon as you or I receive the necessary authority. Owing to illness and other causes my association with the movement appears to be cut off. You are carrying on this business in' a subaltern manner, and although Q is the official agent of the Executive he is so harrassed by Parnellite Parliamentary duties he cannot devote the time required; besides, as you he say, has been asked for these shells and cannet procure them. This brave and noble fellow is hampered and surrounded with many cares, and is at present scarcely a free agent. There are, I suspect, internal struggles going on in certain governing circles which do not bode good to Ireland. Until you are prepared for action and have procured authority from the Government, keep this special attack a secret even from our friends. G and H are the two men of greatest power both in the Parnellite ranks and in our inner circle the Invincibles. You know H very well ; I am aware of this. G and you know of one another. First see these men and procure the shells or authority to get them yourself. Once you are ready lay before them your plan of action and receive authority for your proposed attack. Q , who is affec- tionately attached to you and is very anxious about the dangers you are exposed to, will be saved any additional care in a matter he is at present powerless to help. You can use your own judgment in giving him infor- mation of your intentions." K thanked F for his proffer of assistance, told him he would see the gentlemen spoken of, and if he found he was not properly supported he would at once resign his position after communicating with his men. The year was drawing to a close and K was much grieved at the reports from Dublin. One morning he was surprised to hear that P had come to town. He came with a special message from the Invincible officers ; they had reason to fear that the wife of the imprisoned Invin- INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 577 cible was giving information (that she should never have possessed) to the enemy. This was an awkward dilemma and one that could not be faced in the ordinary way. P was sent back with word to the officers that the matter would receive prompt attention, but for them to make certain if possible that this report was true. Q , who was very ill at this time, left his bed to see P , and they all coincided that certain measures proposed by P would temporarily meet the exigency. P returned to Dublin with his instructions. K felt it was time to act. The Executive appeared to have abrogated their duties and to have left the whole strain of the crisis on Q , who, being ill, could do nothing. K left on a journey to try and find F and consult with him in this emergency. But F had left the town suffering under a relapse of his illness. Thinking over the grave condition of affairs during his long railway jour- ney, K evolved out of his thoughts what he concluded would be the only satisfactory thing to do : to send this woman and all the relatives out of the country, making a liberal provision for them when leaving. He reached headquarters and saw his sick friend, who agreed with K as to the departure of these people. The next day a dispatch came from P urging K 's return to Dublin, telling him his presence on the scene was absolutely necessary to give the men confidence. It was very evident from this message that matters were not satisfactory in that city. The question was, what did the enemy know ? Q feared that his friend might be seized by the foe, who possibly was preparing to make a swoop. Q suggested that K should visit Ireland by another route, and going as far as Dundalk communicate there with P . This advice was rejected by K ; if the enemy had any idea of a swoop Dublin was the place which demanded his presence, there his duty lay ; he decided on leaving for that city. He sent a message to P to have the two Invincible officers and N ready to meet him at a certain place on his arrival. The day of his departure he heard of F 's return to headquarters ; he immediately called on him. F looked upon the position as a very grave one. He said: " The enemy will paralyze your attack by a rapid series of arrests. I fear you are too late for any fighting, but your duty now is at the front with your men." And in part- ing he looked K earnestly in the face as he said, " Good-by, you are sure never to return ; this will be your last departure ; you have no other alternative but to go. Good-by, old fellow, we will not meet again." K had a similar farewell greeting from Q : there was a sad look in his eyes as he bade his friend a silent adieu. K 's friends did not give him much cheer, but he tried to look upon the affair in the best light ; he had grown accustomed to these dangerous journeys. Soon after his arrival he saw the three Invincible officers ; their gloomy idea of the state of things had passed away, they felt cheerful, and were satisfied the enemy was on the wrong trail. These men were perfectly satisfied to take their chances of almost certain death while making an assault upon their country's enemy, but being captured and imprisoned and going through the ordeal of one of his mock trials was a species of congealed horror they wished if possible to avoid. K decided in any case to send away the family on which suspicion had lingered. He intrusted this mission to the young lieutenant, as their consent was necessary before they could do anything in that direction. It was possible there was something in the air and that the enemy was only biding his time to strike. The organization through the wavering policy of their Govern- ment had done nothing since the Phoenix Park incident that would aid the advance of a spirited policy among the Irish people. The attack on Spencer must come off at once even without shells, as every day's delay 578 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. played into the hands of the enemy. Better, as F expressed it, that the brave fellows should be shot in a fight than to rot in dungeons of the enemy, with all their attendant leprous evils. K determined to lose no time, but to at once see this most promiyent member of the Invinci- ble Government and make a last earnest effort to get what the men set such value by. K saw this eminent Irish statesman. They had a long and protracted interview, but the Invincible officer left fully satisfied he could be supplied with the required shells. He returned to Dublin determined to bring matters to an issue with the enemy, for he feared the capture of his brave comrades, the leaders of the "sacred band." He called to see the captain of one of the new bands of Invincibles, now grown strong in numbers. He asked that officer if he could with confidence promise the active service of himself and his command for daring and dangerous work in an emergency. He said that while there was no absolute need for alarm it was always possible for the enemy to make a raid and capture some of the men who had been actively engaged against him ; in this event officers of value might be imprisoned and communications so destroyed that the enemy by a raid of this kind would gain a victory in delaying any attack about to be made upon him. This Invincible captain replied, "I have every confidence in you because we know one another ; come to me with an order and I will guarantee to have the men ready at twenty-four hours' notice. As to the risks, we did not join this movement without calculating these, but I would prefer that myself and all my comrades were killed doing something worthy of Irishmen, like the Park affair, than to be miserably captured in a weak attempt. As to treason, I don't fear it ; there is not much of that, thank God, among us. If any of the brave fellows who performed that noble deed are taken by the cursed British enemy, we will revenge them or share their fate ; let us have but proper orders and intelligent advice." This in substance was K 's conversation with this patriotic Irishman. The miserable fiasco that followed the weakness, if not worse, displayed by the Invincible Directory so utterly disgusted him that the prestige gained by the Park incident was completely swept away. He has probably to-day joined that vast body of Irishmen who unfortu- ately grow despairing over repeated failures. K could give this man no information whatever as to the nature of the work he wished performed. For it was necessary to keep the proposed attack on Spencer absolutely secret. If the sacred band had the shells there need be no delay, but on with the work at once ; they might fail in defeating the foe, but K concluded that the suppression of the enemy's chief would surely succeed, and//w/.- that would be victory. A meeting was arranged by P , who was so completely free from suspicion by the enemy that his services were invaluable at this period. The brave captain and lieutenant of the sacred band met K by the agency of P , who was present on what was a memorable night. The captain of the Invincibles and K had a long conference to- gether. The officer expressed his confidence that all fear of a swoop by the enemy was over, and he imparted to K some of his own hopeful feeling. His companion, who stood with P some distance off, as this was an open air conference, had received the consent of the family he was commissioned to send away, and the captain was glad that they were leaving the country. He had also the gratifying news that he had procured from the south of Ireland a package of explosives that would be of value to them in future work. K told him he was hopeful of getting the shells within a week. He would leave Dublin the following night and return with these missiles, but if they could not be got they must try and make the best fight they were able with the INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 579 weapons they had. It was a disgrace to Ireland, and more especially the Invincibles, to permit this tyrant to go on with his persecution and destruc- tion ; that his suppression was an imperative necessity to show the world that the true spirit which struck down tyranny last May still lived on. The captain was prepared to go to work at once, but preferred waiting to try and get the shells ; in the meantime he wanted to do something else with the new explosives he had now in his possession. K told him while what he suggested was good work, all minor matters must wait until after the supreme effort ; that is, if any of the band should survive to attack them once more. Though K said this with a smile he fully realized the bloody issue of the attack, but he felt it worth a thousand deaths to strike down this Red Earl at the head of his redcoats. It would ring out the death knell of British rule, and spur the manhood of Ireland to action against the remorseless invaders. The young lieutenant, the brave youth who struck down the chief of the British murder society, now came forward. He had on a thick over- coat and looked the picture of godlike manhood. There was a quiet and earnest smile in his eyes as he approached K , who grasped his brawny manly hand with true affection, for he felt that he was talking to a noble patriot who would shed his last drop of blood for Ireland. He told K the details of his mission as to sending away the family, and then broached other subjects. He was eager for the attack on Spencer, and hoped that K would succeed in getting them the shells, but in any event he advised the attack. There was plenty of men, he said, to destroy the British tyrant and his guard ; he had been out several times reconnoitering the Red Earl's route and ride to the castle, and felt satisfied that the attack would be a grand success. The time came to say good-by. K was to leave Dublin the following night, and return with or without the shells to deliver the assault upon the foe. That on that night there was no reason for any feeling but satisfaction that the enemy was baffled (which he was so far as to the possession of actual knowledge) K had every reason to think; still he could not shake off a sadness which came over him. P accom- panied K as they parted from the two Invincibles. TV was a last fare- well j they were destined never to meet again. .These noble-hearted patriots were captured by the enemy the following night, and have since died for Ireland on the scaffold — that implement of death in Ireland supposed to be a death of ignominy and disgrace, as another scaffold was in Jerusalem. In Ireland this brutal implement of execution has been sanctified. Around it is the aureole of martyrdom, for upon that tree man died for his fellow- man. They may bury the mortal casket in quicklime within the precincts of the prison, but they cannot inter the immortal doctrines for which their lives have been offered up — they cannot destroy their memories, which will remain for all time a holy light burning in the sacred fane of liberty and be forever inextinguishable. Death on the enemy's gibbet in Ireland has become for Irish patriots a death of honor. It has been robbed of its degradation by the sacrifice of heroes. It has become ennobled by the pure spirits of the patriot dead who gave up their lives for their people and their suffering motherland. The scaffold, which received the parting sighs of the pure-souled brothers Sheares, Robert Emmet, Joseph Brady, Daniel ■Curley, and a legion of sainted patriots, has been watered and consecrated by the blood of the sanctified who died for their kindred and their homes. When K left his brave comrades that January evening, he did not, nor did the men, anticipate the rapid action of the enemy. They knew dangers surrounded them at all times, the air was thick with rumors and forebodings, but their familiarity with these gave them no special cause for anxiety. On the contrary this night they were satisfied that what they feared had passed away. K had shared with them many 580 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. . dangers and many anxieties, they had many meetings and partings and the bonds of friendship were knit closer than comrades in less serious undertakings. As he walked away from them that night the Invincible leader recalled the parting on the eve of the 6th of May ; that evening they were gay and he was sad. None of them knew what the morrow would bring ; all were prepared and ready for any emergency which the sacred duty due their motherland demanded. The men expected that wounds and a red grave possibly awaited many, but they were cheerful even unto death. As K parted with them they were in a pleasant mood; he was in a grave one ; he thought of certain lines he had learned in boyhood and how applicable they were to the situation : " Brave comrades ! Well have you chosen to die ! For, in my mind, The grave is better than o'erburthened life ; — Better the quick release of glorious wounds, Than the eternal taunts of galling tongues ; — Better, in manhood's muscle and high blood, To leap the gulf, than totter to its edge In poverty, dull pain, and base decay. . A last farewell ! When next we meet, we'll have no time to look. How parting clouds a soldier's countenance ! Few as we are, we'll rouse them with a peal That shall shake Britain ! " The peal not only reverberated over Britain, but its echoes could be heard over Europe. But fate so ordained it that neither wounds nor death fell to the Irish soldiers' lot that 6th of May — their success was greater than the most sanguine could have hoped for. Some since have met a patriot's death, but they who died for the salvation of their country and country- men have had their memories foully slandered. How often have some of the living writhed 'neath the cruel damning slander from such a source, and felt the quick release of glorious wounds would be better than the eternal taunts of galling venomous tongues ! Those who to-day suffer in Britain's dungeons, subject to every degradation for life, are forgotten by the people for whom they suffer. The night that K was leaving Dublin, while he was yet on the waters several of his comrades were captured by the enemy ; of this he knew nothing. K saw Q next day and informed him of his visit to the Irish statesman, telling him that he was compelled to try and get the shells the men so frequently asked for. The news of the arrests came upon them both with surprise. Q appeared to treat this as one of the enemy's many blunders. But K felt in his heart that the foe had stolen a march upon him. He had no alternative but await results ; news from the statesman about the shells was of vital importance. The time passed in feverish anxiety to those who were interested in the new phase the struggle had assumed. Q fre- quently saw K , and with friendly words tried to make him feel hopeful. A week elapsed and the second examination came off, which showed the determination of the enemy for revenge. K wondered what the Invincible Executive was doing ; was G preparing a blow of retalia- tion ? Another week and a message came from the Executive ordering K to communicate with them through Q as heretofore. K felt outraged at the pusillanimity that dictated it, but said nothing. He silently acquiesced, as Q told him that some active work would be at once taken up. He said that G would see that all things were looked after, and that there was no reason for anxiety. Next day Q came with great anxiety and friendship in his face to say that the Executive requested K to leave for America. A promi- INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 581 nent Parnellite near to the highest in that organization had learned that the enemy was on the lookout for K , and urged his instant departure. This looked very possible, but not probable, and, as it was learned a long time after, this gentleman was needlessly alarmed, but of course his inten- tions were very friendly. This gentleman, Z , is another of the Par- nellite members of Parliament at this date, 1887.* K had waited outwardly in a patient mood, expecting to hear from the Executive daily ; discipline kept him most obedient to the powers which he had recognized as his Government. But this continued timidity and perpetual cry of prudence, at a crisis when so many of his brave comrades were in the enemy's prisons, fretted his soul, and the request to leave was the last drop of water in his cup of pain. He could not in any way reproach Q , who was a brave and manly fellow, but those men behind him who held themselves so prominent before the Irish race and the whole civilized world. He told Q that he would not leave for America ; he did not believe there was any need ; that to desert his gallant friends at this crisis would be the blackest and foulest treason, and with a burst of indignation demanded an interview with G at once. He said to Q if he was in the enemy's power he knew his gallant friends would risk their lives again and again before they would desert him ; it would be the basest cowardice to leave them in this hour of agony. Q was deeply impressed with K 's state of mind, and told him he would convey to G the demand for an interview made by K . G complied to this request and arranged that they were to meet in a certain city some few hundred miles' journey from where they were then located. Q had to journey a similar distance. They were to meet in this town and hold a conference to decide on what action they should take to meet the enemy's raid, and to devise the most effective measures in this emergency. K thought out the position as best he could. He saw clearly the enemy meant to kill off a certain number of the men they had captured with or without truthful information, or, as- they termed it, evidence. The Invincible soldiers could not rescue their comrades. To do this meant a general insurrection, and the capture of Dublin from the enemy. But they could go on with the war, and so serve Ireland and avenge the brave patriots incarcerated. They could also see that the families of the imprisoned men were placed beyond reach of want, and that the prisoners held by the enemy should know that they were not deserted, and that everything that was possible in the exigencies of the hour should be done, regardless of what sacrifice of lives was necessary to strike down the foe. K decided on communicating to G the names and addresses of the two Invincible captains in Dublin, and to place before this member of the government his plans to meet the crisis. At this time K had a very high opinion of the unswerving determination and unflinching courage of this illustrious statesman. A certain message which he would give him would be the open sesame to these Dublin men's confidence, and the public reputation and well-known patriotism of this prominent Irishman would suffice to confirm it. These Invincible captains, armed with legal authority to act in their country's interest, would at once summon their bands to action. If G could procure the shells for the assault, it would be of great importance, but if * A division has now taken place in the Irish Parliamentary party. The name Par- nellite, which was formerly used to designate all the followers in and outside the enemy's Parliament, has not the same significance. Messrs. McCarthy, O'Brien, Dillon, Healy & Co. , were all then recognized as Parnellites. The gentleman who is spoken of here as Z , is still a Parnellite member of the London Parliament, remaining under the banner of Mr. Parnell (1891). 582 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. not procured promptly they must attack with their present arms. P— — could muster a large number of the sacred band, for a number of the sub-officers were unknown to the foe, and these men would enter a blazing volcano to strike down the enemy, so incensed were they at his brutal, bloody rule. Whether this attack on Spencer would or would not bring on a revolution in Ireland or a rising in the capital — a spontaneous insurrection such as that of '98 was problematical. An organ- ized one K knew to be impossible ; it would be certain to result in the death of the red-handed tyrant, and would be Ireland's reply to the " Bloody Assize " charges made against Spencer by the leading Parnellite newspaper. In this open, manly course, and in bloodshed alone was Ireland's salva- tion ; the only hope of that stricken nation lay in acts of war, and in familiarizing her people with repeated attacks, constantly smiting the foe, for in the words of Holy Writ to redress her wrongs she must be told " that thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies and the tongue of thy dogs in the same." This crisis would test these statesmen's ability which F had so expatiated on in that famous interview with K . The latter indeed at that time held a very high opinion of the superior ability of the sterling patriot, G , and felt every confidence that he would insist that his colleagues should come to the front in this crisis, which was the time to test these men's souls. A train of fierce and bitter thoughts was K 's companion during that memorable railroad journey. He built high hopes on the coming interview. If this Irish statesman had the ability and courage which his friends considered he had, this was the crisis, the supreme moment, the ordeal placed before him by the enemy, to try his soul. G he knew could appoint a man of superior intelligence to succeed him (K ) in command at Dublin. He had the power to place a brave officer to take charge, whose first duty would be to strike the foe now in the hour of his apparent triumph. This would indeed be an Invincible vi«tory of some value. By orders Q was not to travel with K , but was to meet him at the end of the journey, in the town in which they were to go into council together as to the best plan to be adopted in the present crisis. When K reached his destination he called as directed at the house of a prominent Parnellite in that town. K had known of him by reputation as a stanch and patriotic Irishman. He learned there that the gentleman he looked for had been some short time previous at this house but had left; his return in a short time was expected. Q was also in town, but would return soon. K left his card to inform his friend that he had arrived. K made several calls but heard no news of the absent men; jhe walked that town weary and in company with his own sad thoughts. Evening came and with it Q , who invited K to walk out with him. And as they walked through the streets of the town Q told his friend that G had returned, but the enemy's spies were watching him so closely he did not consider it prudent to see K . Q then went on to tell him that G had positive information that the enemy was on the lookout for his (K 's) capture, and that he must leave at once for France or some other foreign country, as his presence under the British flag was dangerous. A tornado of indignation swept over K 's soul, and in his anguish of spirit he cursed the infernal prudence of these damned Provincialists, these puny dabblers at revolution, and in his rage would have wished a wind of perdition to have swept them away. This day's work was indeed the Invincibles' Waterloo! This hellish prudence, was it by this that the chiefs of the enemy's murder society was smitten to the earth in the Phoenix Park ? Oh, spirit of the illustrious dead ! See INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 583 what milksops and cowards your descendants are, even among the most prominent leaders, the men who occupy the highest places! He groaned and gnashed his teeth when he realized his own impotence. If G 's story was true as to the extent of the enemy's information, it would be madness for him to go to Dublin, and yet he felt this madness must be. . How could he like a coward desert his brave friends? Q was walking by his side during the wild rage that swept over K 's mind. He knew by the expression of his face and his muttered exple- tives that he felt a storm of indignation at having come this long journey to be so grossly outraged with this cowardly plea of spies of the enemy. Q asked him what he proposed to do. " I will leave at once for Dublin," said K with bitterness, " and endeavor to repair this evil at no matter what consequences." " This would be a foolhardy mission," replied Q ; " you will not only be mad in attempting to go there, but you will give the enemy a cheap triumph by your capture and certain death. You will also violate instructions and disobey orders." K felt the full force of Q 's words, and he was in complete ignorance of what the enemy actually knew. Then his capture would not only be considered an important one by the foe, but would deprive him of doing anything in the crisis, and besides might be the medium of tracing up unknown men. He listened more calmly to Q , who continued: " G will go him- self to Dublin and will personally superintend all the important duties necessary in that city. He will at once see P ; you can put them in communication, and rely upon it everything that can be done under the circumstances he will do." This news of G taking an active part in the Invincible work reconciled K in a measure, but he could not put aside the sore disap- pointment he felt. K decided that in communicating with P he would make that brave and intelligent officer understand through their secret code that active work alone must be their only hope. Pettifogging lawyers and mock legal defense of the imprisoned men was wretched and driveling nonsense. One blow from a blade of cold steel was worth all the arguments the whole Bar could use, but Irishmen are astray on this question, — owing to their false teaching, — by taking part in these so-called legal mummeries, admitting London law and recognizing its existence in their country. But not so P . K could see plainly that there was no hope for the imprisoned men by any possible attempt at rescue, for this to be successful would mean the complete destruction of the enemy's power in that city. But the cause for which they were about to suffer could be kept alive if a fight could be brought on by attacking Spencer and his armed escort, and even if the streets of Dublin were drenched in blood, make the enemy feel the avenging strokes of the Invincibles. There would be hope for Ireland in this, and the brave Irish soldiers would be cheered to the grave by the ringing blows of their friends. K 's whole hope of success was now centred in G . He felt satisfied that if he went earnestly to work no better man could be selected to control the issue in this grave emergency. Q sent over to P the cased steel weapons he had, and the messenger who brought these put G and P in communication. G having arrived in that city he assumed control. P had but two interviews with G , who probably never dreamt of fight, and might possibly look on it as madness, for it appears he was also possessed of this Heaven-sent prudence. It must be said of this statesman and also of H that they were the most powerful men of the movement, but they were weighted down by former colleagues now turned to partial foes. The poison of Provincialism had destroyed them. Their 584 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. dream of active opposition had passed away; it was to many but a temporary fever, but 'twas a fever that brought death and chains to those who were earnest and espoused the National cause from the loftiest of motives. But the victory gained on the 6th of May was worth all these deaths to Ireland; the lesson it has taught will sink deep into the young mind of growing Irishmen when the real facts are placed before them. G not meeting K , for which that memorable journey was undertaken, knew nothing of what K wished him to do, and cannot be held responsible for the failure, only so far as he was really answerable in not meeting K as prearranged. G displayed bravery and single-minded courage alone among his colleagues in going to Dublin at that moment of emergency. Looking at this from a Provincialist stand- point it might be called reckless and desperate daring. P , who knew of the proposed attack on Spencer, hesitated to mention the matter to G until he had grown more intimate with him ! He knew nothing whatever of K 's visit about the shells, and was not at that time acquainted with what knowledge G possessed on the matter, and from the superior position of the gentleman in the public movement he felt satisfied that the order for work of that nature should come from him. The business which was transacted between G and P was solely in the interest of the imprisoned men. G displayed great anxiety for his personal safety at this crisis and frequently assured P that he had every confidence in his fidelity and his honor. It is very possible that this statesman was more anxious about the Provincialist movement than the consequences to himself. This movement having assumed a false and dastardly position by the proclamation denouncing the 6th of May "suppression," the capture of G by the enemy might open up the most astounding facts and extraordinary compli- cations. His arrest might also reveal the actual value of the Parnellite proclamation and what it really was — the most infamous and traitor- ous document known to history. When P called to see G the third morning as arranged, he was told he was out of town for a few days. The fact was G was ordered away from Dublin by his colleagues, but as this was urgent, why did not another gentleman take his place, if not to fight the enemy (for prudence might step in here) at least to look after the brave fellows who were incarcerated by the foe in furtherance of the national policy once so heroically put forth by these then patriotic Irishmen. Where was that Irish Cid Y , the gentleman who in the inception of the movement so bravely volunteered to slay Forster; where was he at this juncture? History fails to record any action of his. There may be circumstances in his case that could easily explain this away, but nothing can explain away the absolute and com- plete neglect of these Irishmen entombed in the prison of the foe for the manly and heroic protest delivered in the Phoenix Park against the invaders who were making their country a huge charnel house. When G was ordered away no successor was sent; the crouching consciences of this fading Invincible Government were satisfied to leave their men to die neglected. P was left utterly and completely alone; his communica- tions were cut off. The Invincible Directory threw up the sponge, and the brave manhood imprisoned was left to feel they were deserted. O God, what base ingratitude! what infamous cowardice! What can a nation expect from the manhood of such statesmen? Many among them may plead sound and valid reasons why they could not help their im- prisoned men in their agony, speaking as Provincialists imbued with that prominent virtue called prudence. But even as Provincialists, even as men outside of Nationalist circles, was there no manhood in these men, no common bond of country that would prompt them from their well INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 585 filled treasury to send an open subscription, if not a secret one, to show Ireland that national ingratitude had not gone so far as to leave these imprisoned men's families unprovided for after all the promises made them? To what baseness has this foul and criminal doctrine of association with these British felons and assassins of Ireland brought these once patriotic Irishmen! The intimate association with the murderers of the Irish people has reduced these men so low, to such a pitiable conditoin of leprosy, that the poorest beggar might pity them. Carey's treason left K one of two courses, either to leave for the United States or stay and give the enemy the opportunity of capturing him. This, after all the noise they made about his association with the Invinci- bles, they would have trumpeted as a victory. And there is no doubt that they would have given him the post of honor on the scaffold. Several of the Invincible statesmen they tried to capture ; the hideous monster that is preying on Ireland gnashed his teeth with rage, that his lust of blood could not be satisfied. The republics of France and the United States refused to admit that the "suppression " of the secretaries was criminal, and the British tyrant was reluctantly compelled to forego the object of his desires, to get those patriotic Irishmen in his blood-stained clutches. The treason of Carey, by which the enemy hoped to reap such a rich har- vest of blood, was barren in its results ; not one Irishman in addition was arrested, although the British bloodhounds were on the scent. The men already entombed in the invaders' dungeons were certain to die, even if this unfortunate man had not stained his soul with the crime of rebellion and treachery to his native land. The Provincialists were silent, and although they felt that public opinion was with the imprisoned patriots, yet none of them had the moral courage to express a single word of sympathy, or in any manner to espouse the cause of men whom they in their secret souls felt a strong affection for. It was the repetition of the scene after Gethsemane. They denied them thrice, and since with oaths and protestations they have publicly denied that they knew not the men ; the time has not yet come when, like Peter, they will repent and going into the garden weep bitterly. Peremptory orders were now sent to K to leave for the European Continent. The Directory said that it was all-important he should not remain within reach of the enemy. K obeyed his orders ; he began to feel more satisfied ; he thought that everything which wisdom and courage could do to face the emergency two such men as G and P would do for Ireland. He left P a channel through which he could communicate with him ; some letters were sent, but as K had left they were destroyed ; others of these reached him in the New World. The Invincible Government had permitted themselves to be almost effaced from the control of the movement and a senseless and stupid panic pervaded their ranks. One self-sacrificing noble fellow, by great personal -exertion, acting under the instructions of the highest authority, endeav- ored to get every suspected person and his surroundings out of the enemy's clutch. In so far as this can be called a victory the highest authority and his close personal friend found that their labors were crowned with success. K had some valuable weapons deposited in a leathern hand-bag, and when he left headquarters this satchel was taken by a lady and deposited for safe keeping with a Provincialist friend. But prudence, that wonderful gift, which attached itself so closely to these Heaven-sent leaders, came to the rescue, and what the lady saved from possible capture was thrown into the river of that town by the gentleman who was deputed by one in high authority to get the sus- pected people away. This gentleman is also at this date (1891) another of the Parnellite Members of Parliament. It must be written of this man 586 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. * that for some unaccountable reason his services were not used earlier. The present writer would place him in the foreground of Ireland's earnest and patriotic sons, but the poison of Provincialism and hero worship has sapped his being. And a man who had the zeal and bravery of a Lord Edward is content to be allied with a group of men who were whining for some of the crumbs for Ireland that falls from her destroyers' legislative table. P tried to raise a public subscription to help the families of the imprisoned men and so enable these crouching cowards to come to the front with at least some of their wealth, which they could send secretly. He got a subscription from a friend and sent it to one of the Provincial organs. This paper relegated the notice to an obscure corner of one of its columns, and in small type, as if fearful to display the smallest sym- pathy, even the most remote, to the heroic men who were about to die for Ireland, while a number of crawling cowards whose souls were so sunken as not only to neglect their colleagues, but to refuse them even secret help, bore emblazoned before the world the name of patriots, and were receiving at that very time large sums collected from the hard work- ing Irish-American toilers, who through mistaken generosity were continu- ing to supply these unhappy fallen Provincialists with well filled purses. P 's attempt to raise a public subscription failed. The Provin- cialists by their actions were assisting the enemy in trying to poison the minds of the citizens against the prisoners and their principles. The Irish Nationalists scattered over the island believed that the public subscription was a ruse, and that the men were well looked after. They could not believe such desertion possible. The scene of mourning in Dublin that memorable Whit-Monday, 1883, and the crowds outside Kilmainham, con- vinced the Provincial leaders that the pulsation of the nation's heart beat in unison with her heroic defenders. The Provincialists did not upbraid or reproach at that time; they at least preserved the dignity of silence. Men who despaired of Ireland under their public teaching hoped against hope that they would retrace their steps and advocate action. On K 's arrival in America he learnt the complete disaster of the cause in Dublin. The hope was implanted in his breast that G , aided by P , would bring the other Invincible bands upon the scene, and make Ireland reverberate with their blows, to show mankind that the arrests of the patriots was answered by their comrades in a grand attack on Spencer and his guard, which would end in that tyrant's death. But all, alas! was fright, desertion, and disgrace. How he tried to remedy this and blot out of life the ensanguined foe, who had imbrued his hands in the blood of his comrades even at the almost certain sacrifice of his own ; how he was strangled by the damned system of red tape and jeal- ousy that is choking, if it has not choked, Irish movements; how he vainly tried, forms no part of this history. The masters of cant hold the fort and are to-day leading the Irish people to their certain destruction. But Ireland is awakening from her stupor already; there are signs of life upon the horizon. She will then begin to realize how noble and faithful unto death were her pure-souled Invincible soldiers, who sacri- ficed all that she might be free of her tyrants. Brave sons of a once gallant race! Daniel Curley, with the cool- headedness that reveals strength, with the determination of a Paladin, when Forster resigned his post as chief British assassin in Ireland, how you felt enraged that he escaped the punishment due his great crimes! How nobly you volunteered to follow him to his lair and give up your life to strike the tyrant down, but yielded to authority when told that Forster was politically dead as a foe; that Ireland might hear his waspish tongue but never more wear his galling chains. That another chief of the murder bureau would invade our sacred soil, and Ireland would again be in her legitimate position of self-defense. The hour to strike was near! INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 587 Joseph Brady, with the heroism and daring of a Leonidas, filled with Spartan courage and self sacrifice, your simple, manly character has left its writing in indelible characters upon the page of your country's history! Timothy Kelly, young and enthusiastic, who smiled at grave words, but performed daring acts, filled with ardor and daring, a boy in years, a veteran in courage! Michael Fagan, indefatigable, faithful, and unswerving to death in the nation's glorious cause! Turning from these patriots who sanctified the scaffold, and piercing into the gloom of the enemy's dungeon, there toils on in torture the aged Fitzharris, humble, humorous, with the natural wit of a brilliant race, but heroic! A Titan in the strength of his resolution, steadfast and practical in his loyalty to his land! And you, O Joseph Mullet! who braved with manly fortitude the criminals' minion whom they termed a judge, in the invaders' court you boldly from the dock enunciated your love of mother land and hurled defiance in the assassin's face! In that dungeon's gloom there are others, suffering sons of the Green Isle, that may survive the torture. To be praised by this pen would very probably inflict upon them the further torture of exile. They were Paladins all ! exhausted in strength but not in heart ! Other men and other times may do them justice, but that these unborn freemen may read the truth, one of the living — himself an exile — pens these lines. Those who believe this Irish national question can be settled peace- fully — which is an utter impossibility — will point to these losses as a lesson against Revolutionary movements. Men who strike the foe must expect to be struck back again; no sensible man of the party of action complains of this. The enemy is committing more havoc against the Irish race, as has already been pointed out, during these so-called peaceful movements, than he could accomplish in twice the period by the bloodiest revolution were his cannon pouring grape and cannister. There exists no such record of destruction in the bloodiest wars or most horrible revolutions that ever cursed mankind. Nothing can be found in history like the steady, unceasing destruction of fifty thousand souls yearly. The few patriots of the party of action killed by the enemy, and including those imprisoned and ruined, — the last not the least feature in the struggle, — are infinitesimal beside this huge peaceful (?) destruction. If Ireland intends to put into practice the lessons learned by recent results she must remember that it is not enough to reform abuses; habits must be changed. She must not rest satisfied in changing the order of things physically, but she must do so entirely in the ideal. Do not let her say with the French Revolutionist, The windmill is gone, but the wind is there yet. Those who follow the immoral cause of Parliamentary agitation are worse enemies to Ireland than even the rebel Orangemen; the one Ireland is prepared for as a foe, the other in false disguise goes into the sanctity of the national chamber only to corrupt it. Let Irishmen remember there are three things which cannot be compromised without bringing a lasting stain : A man with his honor, a woman with her virtue, or a nation with its independence ; if Irishmen will remember this, th^y will not commit the fearful fault of recognizing the foreign invader's government but as the slave recognizes his chains. Ireland has no need of politics; they are her curse. Let us not be misunderstood ; we do not confound what are called "political opinions" with the grand aspirations after liberty. With that sublime and democratic national faith, the complete independence of Ire- land, rests the very foundation of our patriotic efforts. But this is not to be found in that den of iniquity for Ireland — her destroyer's legislative halls, where Ireland's delegates go only to be branded as renegades to the pure national faith. 588 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. The time will come soon when Ireland must call into existence the Invincibles or some kindred movement, or else be decimated as a people at home. Irish national feeling should invite respect and deep reflec- tion. The Invincible organization has passed away, but Irish hatred of Britain and British rule does not spring up and die out with one move- ment, neither does it die in one generation. It has survived disasters and defeat, but with the continuance of the gigantic emigration the hour is near for either victory or death. In the early part of this year (1887) the organ of the "British murder society" — the London Times — published a series of articles which, in the language of this expounder of assassination literature, was termed, "Par- nellism and Crime." The special object of these articles was to prove that Mr. Parnell and the Irish Parliamentary party — or a great number of them — were identified with the Invincible organization. The enemy's organ wished the world to believe that Mr. Parnell and his following were practical Irish patriots who were hostile to death against foreign rule in their native land. This accusation of being animated with the self-same devotion to Ireland as filled the patriotic souls of Tone, Fitzgerald, and Emmet, Mr. Parnell and his followers indignantly denied; they wished the Irish people to understand that they are loyal West-British subjects of the British throne, who are trying to reform certain abuses in the Western part of the kingdom, and that to call them Irish Nationalists or in sym- pathy with such criminals is an outrage on their good name. It has been so far a wordy duel of charge and counter-charge, with the use of very extravagant and brutal language toward Irish patriots in the British murder society's organ. This language we take from this journal and apply it where it properly belongs. In describing the invaders of Ireland in this history it is in many instances done in their own expressions. What most seriously concerns Irishmen who reflect on the nature of the Times warfare (and more especially men who are prepared to make sacrifices for the purpose of liberating their nation from the foreigner's chains) is this continued moral support given to the enemy — the strong public political alliance tendered to Ireland's foe by men who were not supposed at one time to be actuated by any such feeling. Every speaker on the supposed Irish side in the enemy's house repelled with seeming horror the bare suspicion of being even associated with those of their countrymen who proved practical Nationalists by suppressing the British assassins that invaded Ireland. They gave every moral comfort they could to the enemy by using stronger language than he or his murder organ could use in slandering and outraging the memory of the noble patriots who died on the scaffold for their enslaved nation, and by denouncing the Irishmen now suffering in the enemy's dungeons. What treason and infamy! From every side of that chamber where laws are made to more firmly rivet the shackles which bind the limbs of Ireland, was heard the voice of foul abuse and calumny leveled against the daring Irish soldiers who by deeds would set the captive free. But no British voice equaled the contumely and infamy sought to be hurled against the honor and manhood of Irish patriotism, than those efforts made by the Irish party in that House to repel the charge that they were leagued with these Irish patriots. The deep and damning disgrace of this exhibition was that many of these Irishmen did not, could not believe the foul slander they were uttering. Mr. Sexton, the silver-tongued orator of a nation of orators, is wor- shiped by Irishmen in proportion to the beauty and elegance of his diction, but while good speaking is pleasing to the ear and charming to the senses, it has no more influence to free nations without deeds, than the entrancing singing of Guiglini or Mario could have freed Italy, without the action of her brave sons and the weapons they so valorously INNER HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION. 589 wielded. But these very deeds this silver-tongued orator was condemn- ing in no stinted manner in the legislative halls of his country's assas- sins. In one of these debates which took place upon these Times' articles, called " Parnellism and Crime," every Irish speaker in that chamber tried to outdo his predecessor in condemnation of the Irish Invincibles. Mr. Sexton said: "Does anyone need to go beyond the title of the article — 'Parnellism and Crime'? The article asserts there is an association between a body of members of this House and breakers of the criminal law of the country. The very title constitutes a breach of privilege." Very fitly and in proper terms did Mr. Sexton describe himself and those men, his colleagues, who were once Irish patriots — or posed as such before their people — when he called them "a body of members of this House." They were more British than the British in insulting the dead and imprisoned Irish Nationalists in that chamber. The criminal laws of those British assassins of Irish liberty carry neither obedience nor respect to Irishmen, but the very reverse. It was by breaking British criminal law and every British law that the Americans and the Boers threw off British supremacy in their countries. The duty of Irishmen to their bleeding nation demands the suppression of every invader who comes to Ireland from British "murder councils," to set his bloody work afoot in that prostrate and enslaved country. To do this, Irishmen must in effect tear up and trample 'neath their feet the criminal law and all the edicts of the enemy, which have no legal authority in Ireland but the force which the thug uses in strangling his victims. It is in alliance with the British in the moral assassination of their nation that these Irishmen are found in this remarkable debate. But when the Irish leader arose in that House — that House from which with howls of execration himself and his followers were hurled forth a few years before; that House which hailed with cheers the arrest of his friends and enacted penal laws again and again to further bind and lash his country; that House which gave power to the British Minister to use what tyrannies he liked in prostrate Ireland, and by whose sanction he, the leader, and his most daring followers were wantonly thrown into prison, when the British cheered with joy Gladstone's announcement of his arrest, Irish hearts thrilled with indignation and Irish arms felt the hour had come to strike — when he, Charles Stewart Parnell, arose to take part in this hideous debate, and when the burning, blistering, slanderous words came hissing from his lips in the Senate of his country's foe, when he, standing in the presence of Ireland's enemies, stigmatized the men who died for Ireland as assassins, then an agonized thrill of horror went pulsing through the Nation's frame as she stood bleeding beneath the blows dealt her by her moral assassins in that chamber; but when she saw the uplifted steel of Charles Stewart Parnell, Ireland covered her face with her robe, and falling prostrate at the base of Liberty's statue, cried out with the dying Caesar, "£t tu, Brute T The enemy's vituperation and misrepresentation of the Invincibles is only natural, and what Irishmen should expect from such an unscrupu- lous and brutal foe, but this policy of public dishonesty and suppression of their real sentiments, this lack of moral courage taught the Irish people by the Provincialists is degrading them before mankind. The great masses obey because educated men in whom they have confidence teach them it is good policy and most perfect diplomacy to publicly lie, and to denounce the most cherished aspirations of their inmost souls. How often unthinkingly and from custom, not weighing the value of their words, are Irishmen heard to exclaim in the language of the enemy "Rebel Cork," or "Rebel Wexford," and the " 'Murders in the Phceryx Park." As Mirabeau has said, "words are things." Treason and murder are foul crimes — almost the foulest man can 59° THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. commit. But the men of Cork or of Wexford or any part of Ireland who are meant by these heedless expressions are not stained with the sin of rebellion, but are heroic, noble, and loyal Irishmen, faithful and true to the land that gave them birth, owing no allegiance to her cruel destroyer, as Ireland has never been wholly conquered. The only debt due to the foe is that of the most extreme and determined hostility — hostility even unto death. Neither was the "suppressing" of these blood-stained foreign officials in broad daylight in the open public park of Ireland's metropolis "a crime or murder" ; it was an act of war forced upon the Irish by her foreign assassins. Two great and powerful governments, those of France and the United States, held that this act was not crime; but an "act of war." It has been truthfully said that there are men who frantically appeal to heaven and earth against the killing of two of Britain's chief officers employed in the assassination of the Irish race, and none of these will express a single word of indignation against the murder of a tuhole people. The agitation to settle this grievance is not only grievous nonsense,, but it is fast becoming a greater injury to Irish national life than even Orangeism, for it is insidiously straining every nerve to bring the Irish people into the camp of their wily foe, William Ewart Gladstone. It is trying to keep them in a state of torpor while the British foe continues to decimate the race, which the enemy is doing with all speed. The emigra- tion this year (1887) has been frightful. The agitation cannot point to one single practical gain after all their meetings and childish resolutions. Cannot Irishmen learn a lesson from their foes? During the Italian struggle for independence, when, unlike Ireland with her enemy, Italians were striving to drive away and destroy the Austrian invader, the London Times, in one of its many editorials at that time on this subject, said: "It is quite time that the struggling nationalities should understand that free men have no sympathy with men who do nothing but howl and shriek in their fetters. Liberty is a serious game, to be played out, as the Greek told the Persian, with knives and hatchets, and not with drawled epigrams and soft petitions!" The In- vincibles believed with the Greek that Irish freedom could only be won by knives and hatchets; those who love to howl and shriek in their fetters have denounced them as destroyers of their country and criminals. Let liberty-loving mankind decide between them ; Irish patriots have no fear of the verdict or the judgment of posterity. While a single British regiment remains west of St. George's Channel or the Irish Sea, not only Irish independence or self-government, but the most moderate form of Home Rule is impossible. Howling and shriek- ing will not win anything. Full and complete independence can be pro- cured by the same means which could bring to Ireland that moderate Home Rule now asked for and falsely and hypocritically promised by a pledge-breaking Liberal chief of one of the enemy's factions, but which will not be given by the invaders' government of either factions. They will never surrender to either public meetings, "drawling epigrams, or soft petitions." Hatchets and knives, or what they are the symbols of, must fight out the issue to a victorious conclusion or else national death. Liberty! Magical word, which has begotten so much misfortune, prosperity, virtue, and crime! Sacred word, which fills with enthusiasm generous souls, which will always be the idol of whoever values honor and dignity. In the sacred name of Liberty, countrymen, stand erect in your manhood and cease to howl with rage or shriek with impotence! Close up your ranks and unite in action. One determined effort all along the line and we will witness the glorious sight of a living Ireland springing from the tomb. CHAPTER XXXVIII. (1885-86.) GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1885 AND 1886. GLADSTONE'S FOREIGN RULE BILL. Irish Victories — County Conventions — Nominations of Members — European Statesmen and Ireland — Parnell's Speech in Mayo, November 5, 1885 — Opposition to Philip Callan in Louth — Solemn Promises of Parnell — Home Rule Certain before Two Years — Home Rule Manifesto — Gladstone and the Liberals Denounced — Parnell's Great Liverpool Speech — Bitter Denunciations of Gladstone — Parnell Accuses Gladstone of Wanting to Cheat Ireland out of Home Rule — Parnell will only Accept the Fullest and Completest Control — Result of General Election, 1885 — Return of Eighty-six Home Rulers — Glad- stone's Victory in England — Eighty-three Majority in Defiance of the Irish Votes — Parnell in Power — No Government can Stand without his Help — Parnellites could Never Have a more Favorable Position — The Tory Government Announce Coercion — Defeat of the Tories on an English Question — The Grand Old Man once more in Power — Mr. Gladstone's Review of the Situation — Leeds Mercury on Gladstone's Possible Home Rule Bill — No Interference with British Manufactures— Another Irish Famine — Secessions from the Liberal Cabinet — April 8, 1886 — Scenes Inside the House of Commons — Gladstone's Home Rule — Great Speech of the Premier — A Responsible Irish Ministry Promised — Trevelyan's Opposition — Parnell's Speech — Churchill's Speech — The First Order — Parnell's Cable to America — Bill Satisfactory — Irish Enthusiasm — Public Meeting Thanks Gladstone — Great Irish Demonstrations in Support of the Measure — Letter from an Austrian on the Vienna Parliament — Opinions of the Press on the Bill — Gladstone's Definition of Local Patriotism — Irish Nationality — Pure and Unselfish Love of Country — Great Mass Meeting in Boston — Mayor O'Brien Cables Resolution to Gladstone — English Premier's Reply — April 16, 18S6, First appearance of Gladstone's Home Rule Bill — The Bill in extenso — A Crippled Legislature — Shorn of All Law-ma' ing Powers — Mere Passage of Local Bye-Laws — Gladstone's Public Lie — Irish Government a Despotism — No Irish Responsible Ministers — Autocratic Castle Government — Facsimile of Indian Government — Free from the Control of all Parliaments — Irish Parliament with no Power to Make Laws for Trade, Manufactures, or the Land — Britain Holds the Public Purse — Gladstone's Bill — Concentration of Foreign Rule — Irish Revenue — Power of the Lord Lieutenant to Pass Coercion without Parliament — One Man Power — An Additional Tax on the Irish People — Powerlessness of the Parnellites if the Bill Passed — Summary of Glad- stone's Foreign Rule Bill — Not an Irish Chamber — The Coercion Laws — Dublin Parliament and Men of '98 — Debate on the Second Reading — Goschen's Speech — Parnell Indorses the Bill — Rejection of the Bill — Gladstone's New Coercion Bill — Passed into Law — Irish Evictions under Gladstone's Rule — Total for Gladstone's Short Term 10,248 — Election of 1886 — British Workingmen Vote against Home Rule — Great Majority for Anti-Home Rulers — English Boroughs — Hostilities of Horny- handed Sons of Labor — Washington Rejects Home Rule — " Nothing Short of Inde- pendence can Possibly do." The Parliament, which had been elected with such hope for Ireland in the spring of 1880, was dissolved. The promise of great things, for which the Provincialist organs greeted the Premiership of Mr. Gladstone and the Chief Secretaryship of Mr. Forster, had failed. The same jour- nals which hailed Mr. Forster's advent with good omen sent a howl of execration on his departing footsteps ; his coming and his departure were both Irish victories, and Mr. Gladstone's defeat was another Irish victory. It will be remembered how hopefully Mr. Parnell wrote of the general election of 1880 in his letter to the Chicago Daily News. He stated : ■" It is incorrect to suppose that Liberals are rendered independent of the Irish Members . . . should the Liberals refuse to concede to our just demands they can be very promptly reduced to order . . . The Irish 59i 592 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. party know what they want, and are determined to have it rendered impossi- ble that the most powerful Ministry can withstand t/ie/n." The Tower of Babel was nothing near the height these men have built up a tower of delusion to mock the Irish race with. When the sitting was peremptorily closed, and when the thirty-five members were ignominiously expelled the House, where was the power to reduce the Ministry to prompt obedience ? When Gladstone reached the Coercion Act, why did they not make it practically impossible for him to do so ? Will Irishmen ever learn the lesson that this agitation should have long since taught them, that they might as well attack the strong Fort- ress of Metz with bonbons as to dream of the folly of shaming England or talking her into giving them over the management of their own affairs. The Tory Government was hailed with delight as the benefactor which allowed coercion to disappear. The Irish, in acknowledging it, were a little more moderate in their expressions of joy, and acted with more commendable prudence than they did a little later on. County conven- tions were held to appoint candidates for Parliament. In nearly every case Mr. Parnell dictated the nomination. There can be no fault found with this. If Parliamentary tactics had anything in them, Mr. Parnell was most likely to know the men he wanted. This history does not purpose going into any detailed statement of this comparatively recent election. It was remarkable in one respect only : that since the legislative union with Britain it was the first time that Ireland had a franchise whereby she could publicly place on record her detestation of foreign rule. The world — that is that portion of European and American civilization which takes any passing interest in those things — knows well the actual state of Irish feeling. What meant the insurrections of 1798, 1803 ? The '48, '65 and '67 movements — had they not some part in educating the public mind as to Ireland's real sentiments ? This general election merely indorsed what everyone knew : that the overwhelming majority of Irishmen claim the right to govern . reland, the right to make their own laws in Ireland, by Irishmen for Irishmen. The statesmen of Europe, men who move large armies and who have made a study of international questions ; such men as Bismarck, Giers, Kalnoky, Schouvaloff, Ignatieff, and scores of others know the real issue between Ireland and Britain. They are keen watchers of every incident on the European chessboard. When such small places as Greece, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, or Bulgaria come within the sphere of their operations, how much more important Ireland, that is larger than any three of these united ! If Irishmen would cease their mock " Constitutional " programme, material help might come to them in the clash of European nationalities ; but they must show the nations they mean to help themselves by deeds and sacrifices, not by talk and bombast. This general election, claimed as a victory by the Irish Provincialists, was quite in keeping with this oft-repeated childish cry ; it was simply the expression of national will for self-government. These eighty-five repre- sentatives were to be either the recipients of the national demand, or else of national humiliation. The election of these Irish delegates was termed victory. Nay, that of each particular one was supposed to be occasion for national delight. During this election, the Irish Parliamentary party were as bitter against Mr. Gladstone and the Liberals as to-day they are their much obliged and faithful servants. Mr. Parnell, speaking in Mayo, November 3, 1885, said: "Speaking for myself, and I believe for the people of Ireland and all my colleagues, I have to declare we will never accept any- thing but the full and complete right to arrange our own affairs and to GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1885 AND 1886. 593 make our land a nation, and to secure for Ireland, free from outside control, the right to direct her own course among the peoples of the earth." These words are the true doctrines of Irish nationality, but they can only be accomplished in spite of the enemy, never with his voluntary con- sent. The speaker, true to his irresolute character, directly contradicted this speech by his subsequent conduct in Parliament. Mr. Parnell very properly opposed Mr. Callan in Louth. This election was an exciting one owing to the Callan faction offering great opposition. It was during this election that Mr. Parnell, November 3, 1885, made his famous public promise. His words were : " Men of Ireland, so sure as the sun shines in the heavens to-morrow morning, so certainly shall Ireland have Home Rule before two years." It is past two years since these memorable words were spoken, and Ireland is to-day in bondage, her deputies insulted and dragged off to prison, and the certain Home Rule as far off as when O'Connell promised it over forty years ago ; and it will forever be a myth until Irishmen are determined to attack the foe who withhold it. The new redistribution of seats enabled the Home Rulers to success- fully contest one of the Liverpool Parliamentary divisions. Mr. T. P. O'Connor, an admirable strategist and a firm believer in Parliamentary warfare, is a thorough West Briton, but that he is an honest Provincialist who believes Ireland's destiny is to be perpetually wound up in the British Empire and British interests, there is no doubt. It is the fault of the people who call such anti-Irishmen patriots. Mr. O'Connor is a humorous, able speaker and a most accomplished writer. He was selected as the proper man to stand in the Home Rule interest for Liverpool. The following manifesto was issued by the Parliamentary party. " The Liberal party are making an appeal to the confidence of the electors at the general election of 1885, as at the general election of 1880, on false pretenses. In 1880 the Liberal party promised peace, and it afterward made unjust war. " To Ireland, more than any other country, it bound itself by most solemn pledges, and these it most flagrantly violated. It denounced coercion and. it practiced a system of corecion more brutal than that of any previous Administration, Liberal or Tory. Under this system juries were packed with a shamelessness unprecedented even in Liberal Administra- tions, and innocent men zvere hanged or sent to the living death of penal servitude ; twelve hundred men were imprisoned without trial ; ladies were convicted under an obsolete Act directed against the degraded of their sex, and for a period every utterance of the popular press and of the popular meeting was as completely suppressed as if Ireland was Poland and the Administration of England a Russian autocracy. The representatives of Liberalism in Ireland were men like Mr. Forster and Lord Spencer, who have left more hateful memories in Ireland than any statesmen of the century. The last declaration of Mr. Gladstone was that he intended to renew the very worst clauses of the Coercion Act of 1882." The Irish Home Rule party then spoke truth, but they are speaking the very reverse to-day. The statesman whom they denounced for his intention to renew the very worst clauses of the Coercion Act, they hailed a few months after as their deliverer. They made this Englishman their leader, which position he still occupies. Speaking of Gladstone's Adminis- tration in Ireland as an autocracy, every British Government is and has been the same. The present Tory Government is practicing acts of despotism ; and if the Liberals under Mr. Gladstone were returned they would, of course, continue the same despotism. Dividing British rule into parties is Ireland's unfortunate weakness, no such thing exists. Foreign rule is 594 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. foreign rule under Gladstone, Salisbury, or any other Briton. Mr. Parnell, addressing the Liverpool electors at this time, also makes a vio- lent but yet just attack upon Gladstone's Irish government. The mon- strous inconsistency of this man and his followers, in praising the same Gladstone to-day, is humiliating to Irishmen. What aggravates the situa- tion is the degrading manner in which he has led so many of the Irish race to follow in his footsteps. Mr. Parnell, in addressing the Irish electors of Liverpool Exchange Division in the Concert Hall, and afterward in the open air in front of St. George's Hall, said : " That manifesto recom- mends the Irish electors everywhere to vote for the Conservative candidate against either the Liberals or the Radicals [loud cheers]. I fully and cor- dially approve of every word of that recommendation, and recognize in your faithful adherence to the terms of that recommendation the only safety for Ireland and her people. We considered the matter long and carefully, and it was absolutely impossible for us, in the face of facts and of past occur- rences and future probabilities, to give you any other recommendation. " Let me remind you of the reasons which weighed upon us in coming to this decision. We had on the one hand the fact that Ireland during the last five years has been scourged in an unexampled fashion by the leaders of the Liberal party [Hear, hear, and a voice " Bad luck to them"]. For some two years under the first Coercion Act no man's liberty in Ireland was safe. I and a thousand other respectable men in Ireland were imprisoned without trial [" Shame"] and while we were there, when our mouths were shut and we were unable to defend ourselves, our characters were taken away in Parliament by the leaders of the Liberal party [hooting] but they did not stop at the imprisonment of men. They even ventured upon imprisoning ladies ["Shame"]. At onetime a hundred cells had been prepared in a prison in Dublin for the reception of the ladies of Ireland, who were carrying on the work — the national work — of the Land League during the imprisonment of the men. " Immediately before the expiration of this act they pressed Parlia- ment for further powers. " They got the Crimes Act. . . Many persons were arrested, received the mockery of a trial and were condemned to death. Many other inno- cent persons [a voice, " Miles Joyce"] were condemned to penal servitude, and are still suffering that [" Shame " and a voice, " We will have them out"],* and when the present Government agreed to an inquiry into the misdeeds of their predecessors what was the action of the Liberal party ? They rose up and attempted to intimidate Lord Carnarvon from carrying out his duty as a Christian and as a ruler of the country. They attempted to double-lock the doors upon these innocent persons, and at the very moment we succeeded in hurling the late Government from power [loud and prolonged cheering] by what I can only regard as a dispensation of Provi- dence or fortune so happy for Irelatid in its results f — at that very moment, * During Mr. Gladstone's six months of power, when these Parnellites were in league with him, as they are to this date, and when he posed before the world as a Home Rule chieftain, these men, who were imprisoned on false and perjured testimony, were retained in penal dungeons, not one man released, although Mr. Gladstone by his signature could have liberated them all. And there is no record that the Parnellites ever demanded the freedom of these suffering captives. \ Mr. Parnell terms the overthrow of Mr. Gladstone a dispensation of Providence, and at this date he would hail his restoration to power as another and similar dispensation. How Irishmen can be led by these political charlatans is past human comprehension. Of course the Irish-West-Britisher would say that Mr. Gladstone has changed. We challenge these men to point to one single action, during his short-lived term of power, to corroborate this reckless and untrue statement. We ignore the hypocritical cant of this Englishman's words, which has always misrepresented his conduct. GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1885 AND 1886. 595 fellow-countrymen, they were planning among themselves how they could best renew the worst features of the Coercion Act — the jury-packing clauses and the intimidation clauses. " It is no longer a question of whether we can get Home Rule or the right of ruling ourselves; the question is, how much of it they will be able to cheat us out of. [A voice, " They won't cheat you out of much, that's one consolation."] [Laughter.] Mr. Gladstone [hooting and hisses] has plainly intimated that if he succeeds in getting into power with a dig majority, he will try and cheat us out of a good deal of it, but nothing in the world would induce me to accept on behalf of the Irish people anything but the fullest and co7npletest control over our own affairs [loud cheers]. I believe that a halting and inefficient measure would be fatal to the interests of both England and Ireland. It would leave room for further agitation. Eng- land would be continually embroiled in our own disputes over there." How often have Mr. Parnell and all such men, men devoid of courage or resolution, been condemned out of their own mouth ? The result of the general election of 1885 was : Liberals 333, Tories 250, Irish 86, Independent 1. This showed a Liberal majority of 83, not counting the Irish votes, and this Liberal majority was gained in spite of the direct opposition of the Irish vote, although this vote went as the Parnellites directed. What silly statements Irish leaders make in trying to convince their countrymen that the vote in England is an important factor in deciding elections ; a vote that must be necessarily small numerically, and no matter how organized — and it is believed that its organization was, humanly speaking, as perfect as it could be during this election — it can only turn the scale when British parties are fairly equal. The Irish in Britain are some of the best of their race, brave, resolute, and determined, but useless, like the men at home at present. This agitation has them in the torpid sleep of desue- tude. A brainy leader would find these men invaluable, but ?wt for voting. The positions of parties were most favorable for Mr. Parnell. The leaders of legal agitation never before dreamed of such a position — eighty- six votes of a solid united party, every man pledged to vote with the majority ! What ecstasies of joy would Mr. Butt have felt if he had had such a determined and united following ? what great things would he not do? Surely, if ever agitation can be successful, it is now ! Mr. Parnell cannot be boasting. It is only a question of the measure of Home Rule, he tells his countrymen ; the rest is all but an accomplished fact. The Tories and the Irish, united, left Mr. Gladstone in a minority of three. This enormous Liberal vote came from Britain; not one Liberal was elected in Ireland ; so that the much spoken of English workingman, according to these returns, voted for Mr. Gladstone even when the Irish democrats apposed him ; for this campaign of 1885 was fought out to the bitter end in direct hostility to the Liberals. Every engine the Irish party could use was used against Mr. Gladstone and his following, and yet he received this large majority ; but when Mr. Gladstone appealed to the British workingman on another issue, one year later, there was an opposite result. The Tories would be in the minority, if the Parnellites changed sides, by 109 votes. So that the Irish Parliamentary party could not possibly hope for a more favorable position — it would indeed be impossible — than that which they now enjoyed. If this story, told the Irish people by the three great leaders of the doctrine of arguing England out of Ireland, O'Connell, Butt, and Parnell, have even a shadow of power to show, this was surely the time. Mr. Parnell was in the saddle, neither British party could hold power without his vote ; he is on the summit of the 596 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. fortress, and cannot only sweep the foe in front, but take them by flank and reverse fire. If this victory is possible, surely now it can be gained. Alas, for generations of folly and untold wealth spent in its pursuit ! It was utterly and completely impossible ; such a means to free a nation never came into the brains of any practical, sensible people. Men who take to this course simply want public life, ambition and promotion, honors and wealth. They are members of the British Parliam'ent and by virtue of that office servants of the British sovereign ; to style such men Irish Nationalists as Ireland's patriots of '98, and other men since, who have dared the dungeon and the halter for their native land, is to trail the noble title of patriot in the gutter of British party politics. Will- ingly or unwillingly they must become the allies of one or other of the enemy's political parties, and die either disappointed men, or else respectable, quiet going West-Britons. The new Parliament assembled at Westminster. Mr. Parnell and his eighty-five followers took their seats in the confidence of strength and near approach to power. In their sanguine mood, victory was in sight, it was within their grasp, they had but to snatch it and the field was won. Mr. T. P. O'Connor, speaking at a reception at that time, said in glow- ing language, "After seven long centuries of struggle, with various suc- cess, how proud we feel knowing that we live in the time when victory has been achieved, and that we are alive to witness the day when Ireland takes her place among the nations of the earth." " Gone forever was coercion," said Mr. Parnell, " and gone forever the time when the Briton was our master." If Ireland ever sees the time these gentlemen spoke of, it will be when the red flag of Britain goes down before the blows of a battling nation ; when Ireland defeats Britain in the field ; then and not till then will Ireland receive self-government. If cowardly teachings and more cowardly examples — for braggadocio and blustering over three or six months in jail are not the bravery that freeth nations — relegate this time to the Greek Kalends, independence for Ireland is postponed to the same indefinite period. The Tory Government, whom Mr. Parnell had been in alliance with against the Radicals, and who held before his eager gaze the tempting bait of Home Rule, met the new Parliament, which opened on Friday, January 21, 1886. They had scarcely more than permitted the new Legislature to assemble when their Irish policy was announced ; and through their mouthpiece, Sir Michael Hicks Beach, they informed the House of Commons that they proposed to bring in an Irish Coercion Bill, and a Bill to suppress the Irish National League. Great was the rage and indignation of the Parnellites. What a descent from the moun- tain top of hope, from which they gazed on Home Rule ! What were they to say to their countrymen, whom they had inflated with the same confi- dence which animated them ? To be insulted and flouted by a minority ministry to which they had given every possible aid and comfort during the recent general election ; a ministry that had held out such delusive promises, now so rudely dispelled the rosy dream which they and their people so foolishly indulged in. It was really too much to endure. And yet this treachery on the part of the Tories failed to teach them the old lesson, that British parties are the same in their government of Ireland. A few nights after the Tories were defeated on an English measure and compelled to resign. Once again Mr. Gladstone resumed the reins of power, and all was expectation as to what course the old Liberal leader would take. If he refused the Irish Home Rule, then indeed they were driven to despair ; that Mr. Gladstone foresaw the possibilities of intro- ducing some measure with the title of Home Rule attached, is evident GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1885 AND 1886. 597 from his previous careful utterances. Mr. Justin McCarthy informed the public that Mr. Gladstone had been a convert to Home Rule for eight years. If Mr. McCarthy means self-government for Ireland, that con- version is yet to take place. In 1881, in the London Guildhall, when Mr. Gladstone announced the arrest of Mr. Parnell in the melodramatic manner already recorded, it will be remembered he used these words : " It is not even on any point connected with what is popularly known as Home Rule, and which may be understood in any one of a hundred senses, some of them perfectly acceptable and even desirable, and others of them mischie- vous and revolutionary." These words, spoken by the English Premier at a time when he was imprisoning the Irish leader, the advocate of Home Rule, plainly tell us what was running through the mind of this aged statesman. Mr. Gladstone's definition of Home Rule was evidently " one of the hundred senses most desirable" to Englishmen, but most undesirable to Ireland. Genuine self-government for Ireland would be, in the Grand Old Man's imagination, both " mischievous and revolutionary." The Leeds Mercury, which seemed to understand the aged Liberal in Decem- ber, 1885, before the Tories were defeated, thus speaks on this subject : " Mr. Gladstone's plan for a Parliament in Ireland to deal with purely local affairs. The proposal is subject to very large limitations. "Duties of a protective nature shall not be imposed on British goods i» Ireland." The very key to the situation is foreshadowed, here. Ireland's great interest is manufactures. England's great interest is that Ireland con- tinue deprived of these rival industries. So long as Ireland can be made a "dumping" ground for English wares, manufactures in Ireland are an impossibility. Ireland needs a Legislature to make her own laws, and to legislate for every internal interest. Irish industries for her people, towers giantlike above the rest. This Leeds paper, speaking of a possible forthcoming Bill, declares it to be shorn of the one great need for Ireland — the means of giving employment to her people. Mr. Gladstone's return to power was almost simultaneous with the breaking out of a famine in certain parts of the West of Ireland. Eng- land's slow poison, starvation in Ireland, now and then becomes a serious epidemic, which is an inconvenience to Britain, as she prefers the Irish to die in the normal, regular course. Another famine fund was started in America six years previous. Mr. Parnell had assured the world this was to be the last begging box that should be sent round to feed the hungry Irish. Mr. Patrick Ford generously started a famine fund in the Irish World, which Mr. Davitt undertook to distribute. Mr. Gladstone saw that if he refused to entertain Home Rule Britain's great ally and protector in the government of Ireland, "legal agitation," would be irremediably ruined. The crisis was too acute for any minister, with British interests at heart, to attempt anything so open as hostility to Ireland's demand. He knew that Ireland was saved to England by the agitation of O'Connell, Butt, and Parnell, which drew away the attention of the Irish Nationalists from the only true remedy which has ever been applied since the beginning of the world's history — namely, Force — to free a nation from an alien conqueror. He knew that this agitation had corrupted and poisoned the minds of a great number of the Irish people in Ireland, and strange to say more especially in America ; and " legal agitation," which was legal nonsense, had come to be a respectable means of freeing Ireland, and was looked upon as the only just and moral remedy which the Irish should use as Christian people. He saw the effect of this agitation in the immense sums of money which came from America, all to be spent in the payment of orators and their traveling expenses. These expenses were incurred in teaching the Irish 59 s THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. people what they knew practically already, that British rule was a monstrous grievance, and that by the imposing display of cheering and shouting masses, flaunting of banners, and the inspiriting influence of national music, Ireland would be liberated. This agitation created in Ireland political gala days, and men who passed as patriots came forth to tell them that all these great gatherings were victories, and their speeches would wind up by passing resolutions that the " Landlords must go," and that u Ireland must be free from the center to the sea," all of which had as much effect on Irish freedom as on the motion of the planets. Then, in the evening, the orators would be banqueted ; some local patriot would air his eloquence over the good things before him ; a man who would not risk his finger, or the loss of any position he held, for Ire- land ; but if he could talk hopefully of the prospects of the country they were all helping to ruin, he was cheered by the convivial and happy company. Outside the people were probably burning tar barrels and congratulating themselves on the approach of Ireland's long looked for demand of Home Rule. All this time the emigrant ship kept bearing away the people to other lands, the workhouse was filled with paupers, people were existing in a state of semi-starvation, while all this folly and squandering of Irish-American money went on. Which money, if the good people of the United States had poured it into New York Harbor, would have produced less harmful results for suffering Ireland. Irish- Americans, however, would subscribe their hundreds of thousands of dollars to aid Ireland by talk, and yet would not subscribe for the only practical way international issues could ever, or have ever been solved. The fruits of the agitation and the generations of British slavery had taught them that Ireland, their own land, was powerless — which was false — and that Britain, their foe, was all-powerful, and yet they who abused this foe more even than men who believed in fighting her, thought they could win from her magnanimity what they could not wrest as a right. Some of these things passed through the mind of Mr. Gladstone ; he knew he would drive Ireland into the arms of men who believe that " hurting Eng- land " was Ireland's only remedy. Not a very wonderful belief, the nations of the earth would say ; it is only Irish folly that has ever thought other- wise. Mr. Gladstone, himself, admitted that, had all Ireland risen as Wexford and Wicklow did in '98, Britain could not have retained her foothold in the island. And if ever Ireland is completely subjugated and the ancient race banished from her soil, some future British statesman will say, " Ireland could never have been conquered but for 'legal agitation? which kept the minds of the Irish on a ' delusive folly ' while we were banishing the race we could never suppress or destroy on the battlefield." Mr. Gladstone had to encounter, in his promise to give Ireland Home Rule, English prejudice and English hostility. English interests he could easily appease, for he was determined to make no concealment whatever, that he would not allow the Irish people to create manufactures or build up industries. He knew the Irish people were so much engaged in agri- culture that they were ignorant of their greatest weakness — lack of employment for the people — as they were also ignorant of their great physical strength as against Britain. But British prejudice against any seeming Irish autonomy he knew was a powerful factor against him ; and he also had to be careful not to offend the Parnellites, who held the greater portion of the Irish people in the hollow of their hand. He did not at that time know how far he could venture with these men, and had to feel his way carefully, for one false step he thought would precipitate them into the arms of the revolutionists. In this Mr. Gladstone found very soon he was wrong. These men, particularly the leading spirits, had so convinced themselves, and afterward the great masses of their GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1885 AND 1886. 599 countrymen, that Home Rule was near, that the action of the Tories shook Mr. Parnell and his lieutenants from the pinnacle of hope almost to the depths of despair. They saw before them, if Mr. Gladstone did not come to their rescue, a speedy dethronement from all the honors, emolu- ments, and advantages they enjoyed as leaders of the Irish people, and which entailed very little risk in return, or else, the choice of continuing their leadership as physical force revolutionists. If Mr. Gladstone refused to entertain Home Rule, as the Tories did, the Opposition would of course support them. The Irish people would not submit to carry on the "splen- did nonsense " of agitation further. Irish-Americans could use their money for the purchase of rifles and other weapons of destruction, and great as was Mr. Parnell's power, he knew he could not hold it, if the cup of hope, which he so recently held to Ireland's lips, was dashed to the ground by the course of events. Mr. Parnell and the greater portion of his party, who controlled the league, knew they had neither the courage nor self-sacrifice necessary to lead a revolutionary movement. They had practical proof that they tvere deficient in the stamina of real patriots, such as Wolfe Tone, George Washington, Robert Emmet, or Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and that they only possessed sufficient courage to die for Ireland in a song, or in a speech before cheering and admiring auditors. They remembered vividly the feelings they experienced when the Park tragedy sprung upon them, when, without a moment's reflection, animated with the most cowardly terror, they issued a proclamation, reckless of whom or what they were assailing ; in their abject fright they were not masters of themselves. Consequently, if Mr. Gladstone did not come to their aid, they had no alternative but to step down and out from their pedestal of wealth and power, or else join their countrymen in preparing to fight Britain. This meant facing real u dungeons, toils, and chains," and not the martyrdom of three or six months imprisonment, to come out freemen, with honors easily earned. This was the position of the two leaders, Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Par- nell ; both were anxious to keep down strife, and both feared the effect of a refusal of Home Rule on the minds of men who were prepared to make any and every sacrifice for Ireland ; both knew that the great masses of the Irish people at home and abroad were sound on the question, no matter how misled they might have been by interested and weak leaders. Mr. Parnell knew very well that his following in the House was not the stuff from which to manufacture revolutionary soldiers. They were mere Parliamentarians ; weak, both physically and morally, on this issue. There were among them, it is true, many who had been good men — but they were corrupted by their surroundings ; but the great majority had no such patriotic courage as animated the men who fought at Lexington, Bunker Hill, Vinegar Hill, and Arklow. It is one thing to quote these men's heroic deeds, but another thing to put these deeds into practice. Mr. Gladstone had then before him a difficult task : to preserve Ireland to Britain by inducing Irishmen'to continue their agitation, and not turn their thoughts to what might prove too powerful and dangerous for Brit- ain to crush — Irish revolution — when it is remembered that Britain could not destroy by her arms anything approaching the dreadful destruction of peace. The lesson taught by the Boers had given him serious disquiet, and the complications which he feared would arise among strong Euro- pean powers, added to the wealth and power of the exiled Irish, convinced this able and far-seeing statesman that some measure with the name of Home Rule was necessary to accomplish his purpose. Had he known how far he could have ventured with the Parnellites he would have had less trouble ; but this he was unaware of ; each party was afraid of the 600 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. other. Mr. Gladstone had not the faintest idea of giving Irishmen any control of their own affairs ; what he tried to do was to create a shadowy Parliament and government altogether under British control. But to do this to please the Parnellites, he knew it should have some outward semblance of reality, no matter how hollow it was inside ; but in investing his measure with this outward semblance he invoked hostile British prejudice even in his own Cabinet, and although he was giving Ireland less than Chamberlain proposed, as to material advantages in local affairs, which in neither case could have affected Irish national wealth, Mr. Gladstone's Bill bore all the trappings of mock sovereignty. He knew the sentimental side of the Irish character, and that the name of anything called a Parliament sitting in College Green would fill them with joy and enthusiasm, although it bore the same relations to a real Legislature as a stage fight does to a real battle, and that the results of victory, when all was over, would be the same for Ireland. He saw that the Irish were delighted when their Dublin Municipal Council changed the city flag to the national colors, degrading the immortal green of the nation to the mere emblem of a municipality. Britain hopes always to see the Irish banner the flag of a corporate town, but never the standard of a free and inde- pendent nation. Changing Sackville Street to O'Connell, and conferring the freedom of a city, the capital of an enslaved nation, all these toys and gewgaws pleased a certain section of the Irish people — why not give them another toy ? Open the murderous Yeomen's Parliament House in Col- lege Green, and let them have mock Home Rule ! But in trying to conciliate Ireland, by giving her a toy dressed up as self-government, he offended the prejudices and susceptibilities of the sentimental side of John Bull. He could not convince several members of his Cabinet that this yielding to Irish aspirations, did not in principle seem a violation of the supposed Union between these hostile nations, even although he gave away no material advantage and surrendered no control whatever. After several secessions from his Cabinet, which delighted the Irish, for why should English Radicals of such prominence as Hartington, Trevelyan, Bright, Chamberlain, and Sir Henry James leave the Cabinet ? — If Irishmen reflected more on the situation, they would soon see that the Radicals are more hostile to Home Rule than -even the Tories, for they are nervous of the question of trade and manu- factures — the long expected Home Rule Bill was announced finally to be introduced on April 8, 1886. On Thursday evening, April 8, 1886, all the elite of the clubs and drawing rooms of Belgravia and Mayfair, the diplomatic and representative world of fashion in London, all who could procure seats or standing room, were crowded into the Commons chamber of England to hear Mr. Gladstone's speech asking leave to introduce a Bill termed Home Rule for Ireland, and which measure the great 'Commoner was to explain to the country. Royalty was represented by the Prince of Wales and his son, Prince Albert Victor, two probable occupants of the British throne. Irish hearts and hopes were centered round that chamber in Westminster. Dear old land of the Gael ! after the long night of centuries during which your sons so heroically died for you — as they are dying and struggling in this generation — they have been imprisoned, outlawed, and exiled for your freedom, yet notwith- standing this devotion of your sons to your emerald shore, where their heart's deep love is centered in you, their mother ; must their brothers at home be still taught the slave's doctrine, to look to the capital of the Sassanach invader for that freedom which brave men in all ages have won by their own right arms. As Mr. Gladstone rose the House was hushed in silence, every ear in that densely packed chamber was strained to catch each tone of his GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1885 AND 1886. 601 musical voice, and drink in every word that fell from the lips of that aged statesman, as Mr. John Dillon truly styled him, the " master of misconception" ; and he stamped upon his name with ineffaceable letters this title, by the marvelous manner he introduced a measure which more firmly riveted the foreigners' chains upon Irish limbs, and which he, with the audacity and effrontery of custom, called Home Rule. Mr. Gladstone spoke for over four hours, and during that time he skillfully wove a net so intricate that it has apparently enmeshed the intellects of the greater number of the human race, who have since discussed this so-called Home Rule from many standpoints, but none that we are aware of from the actual position, and that position was and will forever remain in discussing this Bill — the non-existence of the smallest particle of Home Rule in Mr. Gladstone's Bill so called, and a strong measure of coercion veiled under the clause which created the new Irish Executive. Mr. Gladstone entranced, stupefied, and set wondering his hearers by his marvelous power of language, his wizardlike jugglery of phrases, his creation of some hypothetical castle, only to demolish it in the sweeping tornado of his sentences. Now he proved to Englishmen what a grand benefit his Bill would bring to them, and then turning to the Parnellites, he showed them what a great future their country would enjoy, under the beneficent blessings his Bill would bring to them. He even had the astounding audacity to tell Irishmen it would confer upon them greater and more glorious results than if the war for independence in '98 of immortal memory had been crowned with success, and not, as it was, smothered in blood by his brutal countrymen, the foreign settler's yeomen, and their no less brutal hirelings, the Hessians. This man's stupendous ability appeared to paralyze them ; first this great magician marched through his subject ; then trotted, galloped, and finally charged. In the grand melee of his sentences his hearers were lost in astonishment. They knew his meaning must have been superbly magnificent, but 'twas so. hidden in the brilliant cloud of verbiage, which cantered, galloped, and charged unceasingly by, that this rested only in their fancy. It was the master mind of misconception drugging his Irish hearers. Numbers thronged to St. Stephen's to witness the stately spectacle of those marshaled sentences, and to admire how like a cloud of skirmishers they either concealed or scattered facts ; the eye and ear were dazed at the musical rhythm of their delivery. It was the genius of the master of language, the successor of a long line of great orators. To see and hear this aged statesman crowds of representative men and beautiful women, titled personages, soldiers of fame and men of letters, thronged to West- minster. The importance of the subject was lost sight of in the eminence of the expounder. But for Ireland, the importance of the subject was her life or death. Pauline Deschapelles did not linger with more devo- tion on the honeyed words of the Prince of Como, describing his palace amid eternal summer, than did Erin hang upon the words of that aged Briton. But the palace of the prince was not more a creation of Claude Melnotte's poetic imagination than was Home Rule for Erin a vision of ideality which that wondrous wizard, William Ewart Gladstone, conjured up to try and appease Irish discontent without in any way satisfying it by a single substantial concession. When Mr. Gladstone left general principles and began to state the provisions of the bill in detail, there must have been great anxiety among his hearers. To the astonishment of"those Irishmen present — Parnellite Members of Parliament and visitors, who expected that after the impas- sioned exordium just delivered the forthcoming bill would contain t>02 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. some great and genuine material concessions which would benefit their country — Mr. Gladstone distinctly told them that the promised Irish Parliament would have no power whatever over Irish tariffs or Irish trade. In the language of this master of misconception he thus explains the absence of the keystone from his promised arch called Home Rule : "There are exceptions of what I may call practical necessity for ordinary purposes. The first of these is the law of trade and navigation. I assume that as to trade and navigation at large it would be a great calamity to Ireland to be separated from Great Britain." How this giant intellect must have despised the puny minds he was addre.ssing both before and around him, especially the men whom Ire- land had delegated to demand self-government, when, after an opening address of almost unexampled advocacy of Ireland's cause by a British statesman, after perorations filled with such brilliant promise, he could continue the same speech by boldly advocating the unbroken robbery of Ireland by the uninterrupted deprivation of her commercial independence. What concealed irony must have been in Mr. Gladstone's mind when he in such keen and satiric language unblushingly told the Parnellites that Home Rule in its vital point would be, if granted to Ireland, a great calamity. It will be remembered that a short time previous they had heard him announce that the success of the Irish war of independence in T798 could not convey to that country greater blessings than he was about to offer her, and now they listened to his deliberate declaration that the corner stone of Irish prosperity — the control of her trade and her tariff — will continue to remain under the control and at the disposal of a foreign nation. But although Mr. Gladstone, by this " exception of practical necessity" left his Bill worthless, so far as Irish prosperity could be promoted by its provisions, was there not enough of Home Rule left to strengthen the hands of the Irish people at home — some modicum of potver by which the complete demand would be by and by wrung from the British ? A plau- sible pretext for fresh constitutional agitation, or additional power to renew the struggle in another place. It is this delusive cry of gaining freedom by installments which the Provincialists use to the Nationalists to induce them to join their ranks. The orator continued, using very momentous language : " My next duty is to state what the powers of the proposed legislative body would be. The capital article of that legislative body will be that it should have the control of the executive government of Ireland 2& well as of legislative business." " The problem of responsible government has been solved for us in our colonies. [Cheers.] It works very well there, and in perhaps a dozen cases, in different quarters of the globe, it works to our perfect satisfaction. " As I have already said, the Administrative power by a respo?isible government would pass under our proposals with the legislative power. Then, sir, the legislative body would be subject to the provisions of the Act in the first place as to its own composition." There is no equivocation here ; it conveys to everyone who understands the English language a plain statement that the bill would create a respon- sible Irish Ministry. There was naturally great joy in the Irish heart ; here was a most important " stepping stone" to self-government conceded, for who could or would be so ungfacious as to doubt the sincerity of this eminent convert to Irish Home Rule ! When Mr. Parnell arose to take part in this important debate, there GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1885 AND 1886. 603 must have been great anxiety in the Ministerial ranks. Had the wizard tongue of the Grand Old Man persuaded the Irish representatives that their best policy was to accept the Bill, even shorn, as it was, of any material benefits ? They had not long to wait. Mr. Parnell's usual cold delivery was this evening changed to effusive compliments, warmly and lavishly bestowed on the British Premier. The cool, careful statesman, who was wont to carefully weigh every promised measure coming from a British Minister, seemed only too eager to grasp at the seeming points of advantage and hug this promised measure with delight. Himself and his followers were straining for some solid and substantial success to show the Irish people, after the many years of agitation supported by generous remittances from the American Irish, this visionary promised measure must not only be accepted, but magnified in importance before mankind, especially in America where their great financial support came from, and from whence they hoped an impetus would be given to unloose the generous American purse to replenish the Provincialist treasury. Mr. Parnell paid his chief, the British Premier, every possible compliment. He said : " He has drafted this Bill, he has explained it to the House, in a speech of extraordinary eloquence. To Ireland I sup- pose — to none of the sons of Ireland — at any time has there ever been given the genius and talent of the Right Honorable gentleman — certainly nothing approaching it in these days. 11 But there are undoubtedly great faults and blots on the measure. " He has seen his officers leaving his side one by one, and drawing their swords as the Right Honorable Member for the Border Burghs [Mr. Trevelyan] did to-night against him. And he has, I suppose, to shape his measure to meet the tremendous opposition which has been evolved. But there are several points which it will be our duty, when the measure reaches the committee stage, to oppose very strongly, and to press for other serious modification and amendment. " There is another point to which I wish to allude — namely, with regard to vote by order. As explained by the Right Honorable gentleman the first order, selected by a fancy franchise, is given the right of hanging up any Bill for three years. I understand the words of the Right Honorable gen- tleman to be these — 'Three years or until there is a dissolution, which- ever is the longer.' I think that that would indicate three years as the minimum of time during which they could hang up a Bill, and, if a disso- lution did not take place before three years, the Bill would be hung up for a still longer period. I should be glad if I were mistaken on this point ; it is possible that I may be ; but in any case, whatever the period might be, it would be absolutely in the power of the first order, in which, from the nature of the case, the popular party in Ireland couhd not obtain many repre- sentatives to hang up any measure they pleased, and so to bring the proceedings of the Legislature to a deadlock." Mr. Parnell criticises the organization of the so-called Irish Parliament, which was a stupendous insult and will be written about later. How eagerly the Irish Parliamentary leader apologises for the deficiencies of the promised measure on the plea that Mr. Gladstone had encountered tre- mendous opposition in framing the Bill. But the principal and vital defi- ciency in the measure, which Mr. Gladstone so deliberately told the House when he in effect said the proposed Legislature would have no authority whatever — no power conceded to it to develop and create Irish manufactures, this capital and supreme right, of which the British would still deprive the Irish people — was completely ignored by Mr. Parnell. 604 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. The man who publicly stated so many times during tht recent general election that " We would never accept anything but the full and complete right to arrange our own affairs and to make our land a nation, and to se- cure for Ireland, free from outside control, the right to direct her own course among the peoples of the earth," he is now willing to accept a measure which cannot bring to Ireland the smallest prosperity. Under its provisions no possible increase can come to the national wealth ; that much is defi- nitely settled. Whether it will bring increase to national power depends upon the fulfillment of the Premier's plighted words publicly expressed before the world from the rostrum of the British Commons. Mr. Parnell speaks of altering the measure in committee. If great principles could be inserted at the committee stage, then any coercion measure could be accepted on the second reading, on the plea that the Irish would so change it in committee that it would emerge a measure creating Ireland an independent nation. But Mr. Parnell was not talking to the members of that House when he spoke of changes in the measure in committee ; he was speaking to the great outside world that does not understand the details of such questions, and more especially the great Irish-American public who are completely ignorant of the routine of British law-making. The Parnellites cabled to America and Australia the joyful news that the Bill was a perfectly satisfactory measure, and, lacking a few unimportant details, could be accepted as a satisfactory settlement of the Irish question. Public sentiment and public passion pervaded the Irish masses the world over — alas ! there was no public opinion based on reasoning judgment — every city and state rose up to honor the Grand Old Man ; congratula- tions which exhausted all the adjectives in the English language were cabled to Messrs. Gladstone and Parnell, complimenting the British states- men and the Irish Parliamentary leader upon the wondrous good things they were about to give to sorrowing Ireland. Subscriptions flowed with unstinted generosity from these warm-hearted donors ; Amer- icans of other races vied with Irishmen both in the liberality of their gifts and the enthusiasm of their praise. In Ireland the same encomiums were heaped upon the Bill, the Irish race all over the world was intoxicated with great joy. The Parnellites had been successful beyond their expectations. No one for a moment stopped to criticise the source of the universal delight ; the Irish leaders' description was accepted, without the smallest reservation, as a great truth, that the British Prime Minister had introduced a genuine Home Rule Bill, which was certain, eventually, to become law. To the names of Gladstone and Parnell was added the name of the illustrious and immortal Robert Emmet ; some few thinking Irishmen shuddered at the blasphemy, but the mercurial Celt was, for the time, drunk with the excitement of the news told to him by the Parnellites as a glorious success. The debate was resumed in the British Parliament on the Monday fol- lowing, by Lord Randolph Churchill, who said : " I would draw the attention of the House to the proposed composition of the new Irish Par- liament. It is proposed by the Prime Minister that the new Irish Parlia- ment shall be composed of two orders of members elected by different constituencies. I have taken a great deal of trouble since Thursday night to consult the highest authorities I could get access to, and I believe I am right in saying that, if you search ancient and modern history through and through, you will find no precedent in the records of constitutional government for such a proposal as is now made to the House of Commons. " It is a remarkable thing, and one well worthy of the Radical party GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1885 AND 1886. 605 below the gangway, that the leader of the great Liberal party . . . should at this time propose, for the constitution of a representative assembly, so reactionary and so discarded a machinery as property qualification." Mr. Gladstone, in his speech introducing Home Rule, mentioned, that while Hungary enjoyed her own Parliament, the Parliament of the Empire sat in Vienna to make Imperial laws. An Austrian gentle- man published the following in reply : "It is not a fact that at Vienna sits the Parliament of the Empire. In Vienna sit the ' Oesterreichischer Reichsrath,' id est, the Austrian Parliament, which represents only a part of the Empire, viz., all those parts of the monarchy which do not belong to the crown of St. Stephen. A Parliament of the Empire — that is to say of the entire Hapsburg monarchy — does not exist. The population of Austria proper was, and is still, larger than the population of Hungary. The last figures are for Austria, 22,144,244 inhabitants ; for Hungary, 15,725,710 inhabitants." This Austrian gentleman's letter may be supplemented by saying that we pointed out before in this volume, there is no such thing as an Imperial Parliament in the British Empire. A Parliament of the entire Guelph monarchy does not and never did exist, and yet English, Ameri- can, and European writers will continue to call the London Parliament Imperial, while it is simply British. Mr. Gladstone, the master juggler of words, had described his Bill which he called Home Rule for Ireland. It would be impossible for any Irishman of national experience, and who knew the character of the Eng- lish statesman, to attempt to pass any just criticism on the measure until the actual Bill itself was in his hands. That the legislative body had grave defects, both as to composition and powers, was very apparent, but whether these were such as to destroy its usefulness altogether, or only to impair them, was also a question to be decided when Irishmen had the Bill before them. One thing was placed beyond yea or nay, so far as Mr. Gladstone 's words could place it. It was stated publicly in the House of Commons, it went from the portals of that chamber to the world from the lips of William Ewart Gladstone, England's Prime Minister, that Ireland was to receive a responsible Ministry ; an Irish Constitutional Govern- ment such as Britain enjoys ; such as the Dominion of Canada or the self-government colonies 'enjoy. Good men would reprove any scoffer or doubter, who would have the courage to say that this great British Minister could make so public a statement, and afterward permit it to be proved a falsehood. The same is said to this date, should any doubters question Mr. Gladstone's sincerity in the many public promises he is so lavishly making to Ireland. These rebukes come from good men, who have had neither opportunity nor leisure, even if they had the capacity to study the actual issues between Britain and Ireland, and the strong and binding interests which must forever forbid any British statesman giving to Ireland what her Parliamentary representatives demand — as well ask a British Minister to establish an Irish Republic. All over the United States public meetings were called to indorse the Bill, and congratulate the great Liberal English Minister. It is one of Ireland's losses that her exiled sons, who are so devoted to her, do not understand the intricacies, shifting diplomacy, and backsliding of British Ministers, in their dealings with Irish politics. Honest and straightforward themselves, they gauge other men by their own generous, truthful natures, and how could they be expected to doubt so plain a state- ment from the lips of a man so eminent as Mr. Gladstone ? 606 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. The British Premier, among other Irish criticisms and compliments delivered in the course of his famous speech, speaks thus of the strength of Irish National feeling : " I hold there is such a thing as local patriotism ; the Scotch nationality is as strict as ever it was, and should the occasion arise — which I believe it never can — it will be as ready to assert itself as in the days of Bannockburn. I do not believe that local patriotism is an evil. I believe it is stronger in Ireland even than in Scotland. Englishmen are eminently English, Scotchmen are profoundly Scotch, and, if I read Irish history aright, misfortune and calamity have wedded her sons to her soil. The Irishman is more profoundly Irish, but it does not follow that, because his local patriotism is keen, he is in- capable of imperial patriotism." It is difficult for any Irishman to tell, when Mr. Gladstone speaks, whether his words are the real sentiments of his heart and his judgment, or a brilliant jugglery of language, to try and convince his opponents of a certain set of ideas to suit his own arguments for the time being ; but Irishmen know that the feeling, of which Mr. Gladstone was then the mouthpiece, is very largely shared by his British fellow-countrymen on Irish national sentiment. Mr. Gladstone is quite correct when he informs his countrymen that Irishmen have been possessed of strong local senti- ment, and this local sentiment, or, as Mr. Gladstone terms it, patriotism, has been sometimes too strong for the healthier feeling of nationality. But time and education have done a great deal, if not altogether to eradi- cate, at least to keep in proper subjection to the grander love of common country this local patriotism, and the old differences as to imaginary superiority between Connaughtmen and Leinstermen, and between Ulster- men and Munstermen, have almost altogether disappeared. In Ireland, there is scarce a vestige of it to-day, except when spoken of in playful badinage. Here, in the United States, strange to say, it has not alto- gether died out, although even here it is fading fast. But its remaining so long in its adopted country is easily explained, when it is recollected what an influx of uneducated Irishmen came like a torrent to this country, during the great '48 exodus. This ignorance and poverty were the direct outcome of the British invaders' accursed system. These men, filled with all their early prejudices, settled near each other, and this local Irish sentiment is found to-day in certain parts of this great conti- nent peopled by Irish from some one locality at home. The county organizations which exist here are a relic of this sentiment, but, unlike the sentiments of their founders, they now inculcate a healthy fraternity between all Irishmen. Irishmen have also had their Bannockburns, and, although these internal battles are further back in history, tradition has preserved them among our people, where no written history can be found, but like their British neighbors, while possessing all the pride of local characteristics and affections for the county or province of their birth, they are, above all and before all, Irishmen. They know no north, no south, no east, no west. What matter that at different shrines We pray unto one God — What matter that at differenttimes Our fathers won this sod ? In fortune and in name we're bound By stronger links than steel ; And neither can be safe nor sound But in the other's weal. But this sentiment of nationality bears no such local significance as Mr. Gladstone alludes to. It is true that the Englishman remains English, and the Welshman Welsh, and the Scotchman Scotch, all bear- GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1885 AND 1886. 607 ing what Mr. Gladstone terms local patriotism. But there is a stronger common band which unites them. They are all Britons ; they are all the sons of one seagirt island, Britain. They are all bound in one common union of interest and government ; the laws are made to suit their neces- sities, their wishes, and their aspirations. They are freemen, who shape their own destiny. The flag which flutters over them is an emblem of their sons' heroic deeds and is the banner of their island home, so full of grand memories which thrill their souls and make them proud that they are Britons. For them their national drawbacks are national virtues, their path of conquest and of bloodshed and plunder they look upon as a career of glory. Their Irish hangings or blowing Indian sepoys from before their guns, and their many acts of rapine and slaughter, they look upon as a fitting punishment for those who resist their usurped authority and reject their control. The Irish have no share in their sentiments, any more than the Spaniard or the Frenchman. Their local love, like rivers to the sea, flows into the ocean of natural affection which they cherish for their beloved motherland. Green Erin of the streams, their hopes and joys are inter- minably bound up in her future. As their lives and memories have been in her past, no stranger could measure or gauge the depth of this illimit- able love for their suffering country, a love that broadens and intensifies with her sufferings and her sorrows. In the same proportion it increases their bitter hatred for her persecutor and oppressor. Thus there flows a dark stream of hate side by side with this pure rivulet of love. They can sacrifice the dearest human ties for their suffering nation — father, mother, brother, sister, and those best affections that can bind the human heart — home, wife, and children. How many of the people, even of the present generation, have left home to face apparent certain death, and some there have been who will never return again. Their widowed wives and orphan babes will never in this world meet their loving gaze ; men whose memories must be enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen, whose very deaths must remain unrecorded, owing to the fancied exigencies of the situation. How many other homes have been wrecked and every misfortune that can fall on fallen fortunes, clings around them through the pure, unselfish love of native land. But the one grand consolation cheers on the patriots in their poverty and misfortunes : they can say with the dead O'Donnell, facing the British halter, " They have done their duty." How can a Briton understand this love of country in Irishmen, or their deep-seated hatred of her invader ? a feeling they imbibe with their mother's milk, and the first lesson they learn as lisping babes in the hanging, shooting, slaying, or imprisonment of some of their people by the ruthless Saxon. These traditions can never be eradicated while the Briton's flag floats as an emblem of conquest over their country. This love of Ireland, which fills up the Irishman's being is a feeling as difficult of comprehension to a Briton as is the conception of Paradise to ordinary mortality. Their patriotism is national, not local, as Mr. Gladstone expressed it ; they have no common tie of either sentiment or interest with the Englishman, Welshman, or Scotchman. Their interests and British interests run in opposite directions. Their traditions, history, and racial proclivi- ties have no common bond of union and never could. Even if Ireland were a self-governed island, and enjoying all the liberties possessed by Canada, they could never feel that sentiment toward the British flag which the Canadian of British origin feels for the British empire. It is better to speak the truth upon this subject ; while Irishmen would remain faithful to any national compact they should enter into as a people, they could never have that imperial patriotism Mr. Glad- 608 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. stone speaks of. It is not in the nature of things this could ever be. They would always secretly pine for their own national banner, which alone can inspire their love, their sentiment, and devotion. They have the same union with the Briton as the other members of the European family, Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, yes, and even less— for they remember. If British statesmen could free their minds of this delusion which they cherish, it would be well, perhaps, for both peoples. Their misfortunes and their tyrannies have taught Irish people to play the hypo- crite ; in fact, they are compelled to do so, for a genuine expression of Irish sentiment is treason by British law, and liable to such punishment ; hence, British people, unless those who think, do not understand Irish- men. But on their side the British masses, who are completely ignorant of their history or the reasons for the poverty-stricken and wretched con- dition of the harvestmen who visit their shores annually, hate Irishmen with an increasing hatred, consider every gross stupidity and blunder which their writers choose to attribute to them as the offspring of an inferior and degraded nationality. The educated and traveled Irish- man, when he meets British merchants or tourists abroad, is very fre- quently taken for an Englishman out of compliment to his culture and knowledge, and when the error is corrected the supercilious Briton makes the amende, acknowledging the fact by an implied insult to the Irishman's country and race. One of the remarkable facts attached to the public enthusiasm over Mr. Gladstone's Bill for Irish Home Rule, was this, that during all those public meetings and cordial thanks and congratulations, they were applauding a myth, for there was actually no Bill whatever in existence. Led astray by the Parnellite indorsement these public meetings were held almost spontaneously, and the premature approval and hearty indorsement of resolutions were all too previous, as the measure approved of might and possibly might not, when presented, be the same Bill which Mr. Gladstone described in the British Commons some days before. On April 16, after receiving thousands of thanks, kindly and grateful expressions from over-enthusiastic Irishmen and Irish-Americans, the Liberal Premier gives the Bill to the world. There was not the smallest criticism attempted ; the current of praise had become a torrent, and the man or men, who would stop to point out grave defects, would be swept along in the tornado as a venturesome sculler who had the temerity to approach too near the Niagara cataract would be dashed into fragments by the rush of the giant waters. The increasing and unstinted praise it received from its numerous admirers was deafening, the roar of the mighty waterfall could not more effectively efface the tones of the human voice than did public sentiment in Ireland and the United States drown the smallest attempt at criticism. The Bill is given here in full as presented by the British Premier to Parliament. THE HOME RULE BILL. Gladstone's measure of autonomy for Ireland — the full text. A Bill to Amend the Provision for the Future Government of Ireland. Be it enacted by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, and by and with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows : LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY. I. On and after the appointed day there shall be established in Ireland a Legislature, consisting of her Majesty the Queen and an Irish Legislative Body. GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1885 AND 1886. 609 II. With the exceptions and subject to the restrictions in this Act mentioned, it shall be lawful for her Majesty the Queen, and with the advice of the Irish Legislative Body, to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of Ireland, and by any such law to alter and repeal any law in Ireland. III. The Legislature of Ireland should not make laws relating to the following matters, or any of them : (1) The status or dignity of the Crown, or the succession to the Crown or a Regency. (2) The making of peace or war. (3) The army, navy, militia, volunteers, or other military or naval forces, for the defense of the realm. (4) Treaties and other relations with foreign States or the relations between the various parts of her Majesty's dominions. (5) Dignities or titles of honor. (6) Prize or booty of war. (7) Offenses against the law of nations, or offenses committed in violation of any treaty made or hereafter to be made between her Majesty and any foreign State ; or offenses committed on the high seas. (8) Treason, alienation, or naturalization. (9) Trade, navigation, or quarantine. (10) The postal and telegraph service, except as hereafter in this act mentioned with respect to the transmission of letters and telegrams in Ireland. (11) Beacons, light-houses, or sea marks. (12) The coinage, the value of foreign money ; or legal tender, or weights and meas- ures ; or (13) Copyright, patent rights, or other exclusive rights, to the use or profits of any works or inventions. Any law made in contravention of this section shall be void. IV. The Irish Legislature shall not make any law — (1) Respecting the establishment or endowment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ; or (2) Imposing any disability or conferring any privilege on account of religious belief ; or (3) Abrogating or derogating from the right to establish or maintain any place of denominational education, or any denominational institution of charity ; or (4) Prejudicially affecting the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending the religious instruction at that school ; or (5) Impairing without either the leave of her Majesty in Council first obtained, on an. address presented by the Legislative Body of Ireland, or the consent of the Corporation interested, the rights, property, or privileges of any existing Corporation incorporated by- Royal Charter or Local and General Act of Parliament ; or (6) Imposing or relating to duties of Customs and duties of Excise as defined by this Act or either of such duties, or affecting any Act relating to such duties or either of them ; or (7) Affecting this Act, except in so far as it is declared to be alterable by the Irish Legislature. V. Her Majesty the Queen shall have the same prerogative with respect to summon- ing, proroguing, and dissolving the Irish Legislative Body as her Majesty has with respect to summoning, proroguing, and dissolving the Imperial Parliament. VI. The Irish Legislative Body, whenever summoned, may have continuance for five years, and no longer ; to be reckoned from the day on which any such Legislative Body is appointed to meet. EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY. VII. (1) The Executive Government of Ireland shall continue vested in her Majesty, and shall be carried on by the Lord Lieutenant on behalf of her Majesty, with the aid of such officers and such councils as to her Majesty may from time to time seem fit. (2) Subject to any instructions which may from time to time be given by her Majesty, the Lord Lieutenant shall give or withhold the assent of her Majesty to bills passed by the Irish Legislative Body, and shall exercise the prerogatives of her Majesty in respect of the summoning, proroguing, and dissolving of the Irish Legislative Body, and any prerogatives the exercise of which may be delegated to him by her Majesty. VIII. Her Majesty may, by order in Council, from time to time place under the con- trol of the Irish Government, for the purposes of that Government, any such lands and buildings in Ireland as may be vested in or held in trust for her Majesty. CONSTITUTION OF THE LEGISLATIVE BODY. IX. (1) The Irish Legislative Body shall consist of a. first and second order. (2) The two orders shall deliberate together, and shall vote together, except that if any question arises in relation to legislation, or to the standing orders or rules of procedure, or to any other matter in that behalf in this Act specified, and such question is to be decided by vote, each order shall, if a majority of the members present of either order demand a separate vote, give their votes in like manner as if they were separate Legislative Oio THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Bodies, and if the result of the voting of the two orders does not agree the question shall be resolved in the negative. X. The first order of the Irish Legislative Body shall consist of one hundred and three members, of whom seventy-five shall be elective members and twenty-eight peerage members. (i) Each elective member shall at the date of his election, and during his period of membership, be bona fide possessed of property, which (a) if real, or partly real and partly personal, yields two hundred pounds a year or upwards, fee of all charges ; or (/;) if per- sonal, yields the same income, or is of the capital value of four thousand pounds or upwards, free of all charges. (2) For the purposes of electing the elective members of the first order of the Legis- lative Body, Ireland shall be divided into the electoral districts specified in the first schedule to this Act, and each such district shall return the number of members in that behalf specified in that schedule. (3) The elective members shall be elected by the registered electors of each electoral district, and for that purpose a register of electors shall be made annually. (4) An elector in each electoral district shall be qualified as follows : That is to say, he shall be of full age, and not subject to any legal incapacity, and shall have been during the twelve months next preceding the 20th day of July in any year, the owner or occupier of some land or tenement within the district of a net annual value of £2$ or upwards. (5) The term of office of an elective member shall be ten years. (6) In every fifth year, 37 or 38 of the elective members, as the case requires, shall retire from office, and their places shall be filled by election. The members to retire shall be those who have been members for the longest time without re-election. (7) The offices of the peerage members shall be filled as follows, that is to say : (a) Each of the Irish peers who on the appointed day is one of the 2S Irish Represent- ative Peers, shall, on giving his written assent to the Lord Lieutenant, become a peerage member of the first order of the Irish Legislative Body ; and, if at any time within 30 years after the appointed day, any such peer vacates his office by death or resignation, the vacancy shall be filled by the election to that office by the Irish peers of one of their number in the manner heretofore in use respecting the election of Irish Representative Peers, subject to adaptation, as provided by this Act ; and if the vacancy is not so filled within the proper time it shall be filled by the election of an elective member, (b) If any of the 28 peers aforesaid does not, within one month after the appointed day, give such assent to be a peerage member of the first order, the vacancy so created shall be filled up as if he had assented and vacated his office by resignation. (8) A peerage member shall be entitled to hold office during his life, or until the expira- tion of thirty years from the appointed day, whichever period is the shortest. At the expiration of such thirty years the offices of all the peerage members shall be vacated as if they were dead, and their places shall be filled by elective members, qualified and elected in manner provided by this Act with respect to elective members of the first order, and such elective members may be distributed by the Irish Legislature among the electoral districts, so, however, that care should be taken to give additional members to the most populous places. (9) The offices of members of the first order shall not be vacated by the dissolution of the Legislative Body. (10) The provisions in the second schedule to this Act relating to the members of the first order of the Legislative Body shall be of the same force as if they were enacted in the body of this Act. XL (1) Subject, as in this section hereafter mentioned, the second order of the Legis- tive Body shall consist of 204 members. (2) The members of the second order shall be chosen by the existing constituencies of Ireland, two by each constituency, with the exception of the City of Cork, which shall be divided into two divisions in manner set forth in the third schedule of this Act, and two members shall be chosen by each of such divisions. (3) Any person who, on the appointed day, is a member representing an existing Irish constituency in the House of Commons shall, on giving his written assent to the Lord Lieutenant, become a member of the second order of the Irish Legislative Body as if he had been elected by the constituency which he was representing in the House of Commons. Each of the members for the City of Cork on the said day may elect for which of the divi- sions of that city he wishes to be deemed to have been elected. (4) If any member does not give such written assent within one month after the appointed day, his place shall be filled by election in the same manner and at the same time as if he had assented and vacated his office by death. (5) If the same person is elected to both orders he shall, within seven days after the meeting of the Legislative Body, or if the body is sitting at the time of the election, within seven days after the election, declare in which order he will serve, and his member- ship of the other order shall be void, and be filled by a fresh election. (6) Notwithstanding anything in this Act, it shall be lawful for the Legislature of Ireland at any time to pass an Act enabling the Royal University of Ireland to return not GENERAL ELFCTIONS OF 1885 AND 1886. 611 more than two members to the second order of the Irish Legislative Body, in addition to the number of members above mentioned. Notwithstanding anything in this Act, it shall be lawful for the Irish Legislature, after the first dissolution of the Legislative Body which occurs, to alter the constitution or elec- tion of the second order of that body, due regard being had in the distribution of members to the population of the constituencies, provided that no alteration shall be made in the number of such order. FINANCE. XII. (1) For the purpose of providing for the public service of Ireland, the Irish Legislature may impose taxes other than duties of customs or excise, as defined by this Act, ivhich duties shall continue to be imposed and levied, and under the direction of the Imperial Parliament only. (2) On and after the appointed day there shall be an Irish Consolidated Fund separate from the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom. (3) All taxes imposed by the Legislature of Ireland and all other public revenues under the control of the Government of Ireland shall, subject to any provisions touching the disposal thereof contained in any Act passed in the present session respecting the sale and purchase of land in Ireland, be paid into the Irish Consolidated Fund, and be appro- priated to the public service of Ireland according to law. XIII. (1) Subject to the provisions for the reduction of cessor thereof in this section mentioned, there shall be made on the part of Ireland to the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom the following annual contributions in every financial year, that is to say — (a) The sum of one million four hundred and sixty-six thousand pounds on account of the interest on and management of the Irish share of the National Debt, (b) The sum of one million six hundred and sixty-six thousand pounds on account of the expenditure on the army and navy of the United Kingdom, (c) The sum of one hundred and ten thou- sand pounds on acconnt of the Imperial civil expenditure of the United Kingdom. (d) The sum of one million pounds on account of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police. (2) During the period of thirty years from this section taking effect, the said annual contributions shall not be increased, but may be reduced, or cease, as hereinafter men- tioned. After the expiration of the said thirty years the said contributions shall, save as otherwise provided by this section, continue until altered in manner provided by this section with respect to the alteration of this Act. (3) The Irish share of the national debt shall be reckoned at forty-eight million pounds bank annuities, and there shall be paid in every financial year on behalf of Ireland to the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt, an annual sum of three hundred and sixty thousand pounds, and the permanent annual charge for the National Debt on the consolidated fund of the United Kingdom shall be reduced by that amount, and the said annual sum shall be applied by the said commissioners as a Sinking Fund for the redemption of the National Debt ; and the Irish share of the National Debt shall be reduced by the amount of the National Debt so redeemed ; and the said annual contribution on account of the interest on and management of the Irish share of the National Debt shall from time to time be reduced by a sum equal to the interest upon the amount of the National Debt from time to time so redeemed, but the last mentioned sum shall be paid annually to the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt in addition to the above-mentioned annual Sinking Fund, and shall be so paid and be applied as if it were part of that Sinking Fund. (4) As soon as an amount of the National Debt equal to the said Irish share thereof has been redeemed under the provisions of this section, the said annual contribution on account of the interest on and management of the Irish share of the National Debt, and the said annual sum for a Sinking Fund shall cease. (5) If it appears to her Majesty that the expenditure in respect of the army and navy of the United Kingdom, or in respect of Imperial civil expenditure of the United King- dom for any financial year has been less than fifteen times the amount of the contribution above-named on account of the same matter, a sum equal to one-fifteenth part of the diminution shall be deducted from the current annual contribution for the same matter. (6) The sum paid from time to time by the Commissioners of her Majesty's Woods and Forests and Land Revenues to the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom on account of the hereditary revenues of the Crown in Ireland shall be credited to the Irish Government and go in reduction of the said annual contribution payable on account of the Imperial civil expenditure of the United Kingdom, but shall not be taken into account in calculating whether such diminution as above mentioned has or has not taken place in such expenditure. (7) If it appears to her Majesty that the expenditure in respect of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police for any financial year has been less than the contribution above named, on account of such Constabulary and Police, the current contribution shall be diminished by the amount of such difference. (S) This section shall take effect from and after the 31st day of March, 1887. 612 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLE*. XIV. (i) On and after such day as the Treasury may direct, all moneys from time to time collected in Ireland on account of the duties of Customs or the duties of Excise, as defined by this Act,shall under such regulations as the Treasury from time to time may make, be carried to a separate account (in this Act referred to as the Customs and Excise account), and applied in the payment of the following sums in priority, as mentioned in this section, that is to say : First, of such sum as is from time to time directed by the Treasury in respect to the costs, charges, and expenses, and incident to the collection and manage- ment of the said duties in Ireland, not exceeding four per cent, of the amount collected there. Secondly, of the annual contributions required by this Act to be made to the Con- solidated Fund of the United Kingdom. Thirdly, of the annual sums required by this Act to be paid to the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt. Fourthly, of all sums by this Act declared to be payable out of the moneys carried to the Customs and Excise account. Fifthly, of all sums due to the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom for interest or Sinking Fund in respect to any loans made by the issue of bank annuities or otherwise to the Government of Ireland under any Act passed in the present session relating to the purchase and sale of land in Jrehind, so far as csuch sums are not defrayed out of the moneys received under such Act. (2) So much of the moneys carried to a separate account under this section as the Treasury consider are not, and are not likely to be, required to meet the above mentioned payments, shall from time to time be paid over and applied as part of the public revenues under the control of the Irish Government. XV. (1) There shall be charged on the Irish Consolidated Fund in priority as men- tioned in this section — First, such portion of the sums' directed by this Act to be paid out of the moneys carried out to the Customs and Excise account in priority to any payment for the public revenues of Ireland as those moneys are insufficient to pay. Secondly, all sums due in respect of any debt incurred by the Government of Ireland, whether for inter- est, management, or Sinking Fund. Thirdly, all sums which at the passing of this Act are charged on the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom in respect of Irish services other than the salary of the Lord Lieutenant. Fourthly, the salaries of all Judges of the Supreme Court of Judicature, or other superior court in Ireland, or of any county or other like court, who are appointed after the passing of this Act, and the pensions of such Judges. Fifthly, any other sums charged by this Act on the Irish Consolidated Fund. (2) It shall be the duty of the Legislature of Ireland to impose all such taxes, duties, or imposts as will raise a sufficient revenue to meet all sums charged for the time being on the Irish Consolidated Fund. XVI. Until all charges which are payable out of the Church property in Ireland and are guaranteed by the Treasury have been fully paid, the Irish Land Commission shall continue as heretofore to exist, with such commissioners and officers receiving such salaries as the Treasury may from time to time appoint, and to administer the Church property and apply the income and other moneys receivable therefrom, and so much of the salaries of such commissioners and officers and expenses of the office as is not paid out of the Church property shall be paid out of moneys carried to the Customs and Excise account under this act, and, if those moneys are insufficient, out of the Consolidated Fund of Ire- land ; and if not so paid shall be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament as follows : (a) All charges on the Church property, for which a guarantee has been given by the Treasury before the passing of this Act, shall, so far as they are not paid out of such prop- erty, be paid out of the moneys carried to the Customs and Excise account under this act ; and if such moneys are insufficient, the Consolidated Fund of Ireland, without prejudice, nevertheless, to the guarantee of the Treasury. {b) All charges on the Church property for which no guarantee has been given by the Treasury before the passing of this Act shall be charged on the Consolidated Fund of Ire- land, but shall not be guaranteed by the Treasury, nor charged on the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom. (2) Subject to any existing charges on the Church property, such property shall belong to the Irish Government, and any portion of the annual revenue thereof which the Treas- ury, on the application of the Irish Government, certify at the end of any financial year not to be required for meeting charges shall be paid over and applied as part of the public ' revenues under the control of the Irish Government. (3) As soon as all charges on the property guaranteed by the Treasury have been paid, such property may be managed and administered and subject to existing charges thereon disposed of, and the income of proceeds thereof applied in such manner as the Irish Legis- ature may from time to time direct. (4) " Church property " in this section means all property accruing under the Irish Church Act, 1869, and transferred to the Irish Land Commission by the Irish Church Act Amendment, 1881. XVII. (1) All sums due for principal or interest to the Public Works Loan Commis- sioners or to the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland in respect of existing loans advanced on any security on Ireland shall, on and after the appointed day, be due to the Government of Ireland instead of the Commissioners ; and such body of persons as the Government of Ireland may appoint for the purpose shall have all the powers of the said GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1885 AND 1886. 613 Commissioners, or their secretary, for enforcing payment of such sums, and all securities for such sums, given to such Commissioners or their secretary, shall have effect as if the said body were therein substituted for those Commissioners or their secretary. (2) For the repayment of the said loans to the Consolidated Fund of the United King- dom the Irish Government shall pay annually into that Fund by half-yearly payments on the first day of January and the first day of July, or on such other days as may be agreed on, such installments of the principal of the said loans as will discharge all the loans within thirty years from the appointed day, and shall also pay interest half yearly on so much of the said principal as from time to time remains unpaid at the rate of three per cent, per annum ; and such installments of principal and interest shall be paid out of the moneys carried to the Customs and Excise accounts under this Act ; and if those are insufficient, out of the Consolidated Fund of Ireland. XVIII. If her Majesty declares that a state of war exists, and is pleased to signify such declaration to the Irish Legislative Body by speech or message, it shall be lawful for the Irish Legislature to appropriate a further sum out of the Consolidated Fund of Ireland in aid of the army or navy, or other measures which her Majesty may take for the prosecu- tion of the war and defense of the realm, and to provide and raise money for such purpose ; and all moneys so provided and raised, whether by loan, taxation, or otherwise, shall be paid into the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom. XIX. (1) It shall not be lawful for the Irish Legislative Body to adopt or pass any vote, resolution, address, or bill for the raising or appropriating for any purpose of any part of the public revenue of Ireland, or of any tax, duty, or impost, except in pursuance of a recommendation from her Majesty, signified through the Lord Lieutenant in the session in which such vote, resolution, address or bill is proposed. (2) Notwithstanding that the Irish Legislature is prohibited by this act from making laws relating to certain subjects, that Legislature may, with the assent of her Majesty in Council first obtained, appropriate any part of the Irish public revenue, or any tax, duty, or impost imposed by such Legislature, for the purpose of or in conjunction with such subjects. XX. (1) On and after the appointed day the Exchequer Division of the High Court of Justice shall continue to be a Court of Exchequer for Revenue purposes under this Act, and whenever any vacancy occurs in the office of any Judge of such Exchequer Division his successor shall be appointed by her Majesty, on the joint recommendation of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. (2) The Judges of such Exchequer Division appointed after the passing of this Act shall be removable only by her Majesty on address from the two Houses of the Imperial Parliament, and shall receive the same salaries and pensions as those payable at the passing of this Act to the existing Judges of Division unless, with the assent of her Majesty in Coun- cil first obtained, the Irish Legislature alters such salaries or pensions ; and such salaries and pensions shall be paid out of the moneys carried to the Customs and Excise account, in pursuance of this Act ; and if the same are insufficient, shall be paid out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom. (3) An alteration of any rules relating to the procedure in such legal proceedings as are mentioned in this section shall not be made except with the approval of the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain ; and the sittings of the Exchequer Division and the Judges thereof shall be regulated with the like approval. (4) All legal proceedings instituted in Ireland by or against the Commissioners or any officers of Customs or Excise or the Treasury shall, if so required by any party to such proceedings, be heard and determined before the Judges of such Exchequer Division or some one of them ; and any appeal from the decision in any such legal proceeding, if by a Judge, shall lie to the said Division, and if by the Exchequer Division, shall lie to the House of Lords, and not to any other tribunal ; and if it is made to appear to such Judges, or any of them, that any decree or judgment in any such proceeding as aforesaid has not been duly enforced by the sheriff or other officer whose duty it is to enforce the same, such Judges or Judge shall appoint some officer to enforce such judgment or decree ; and it shall be the duty of such officer to take proper steps to enforce the same, and for that pur- pose such officer and all persons employed by him shall be entitled to the same immuni- ties, power, and privileges as are by law conferred on a sheriff and his officers. (5) All sums recovered in respect of duties of Customs and Excise, or under any Act relating thereto, or by an officer of Customs or Excise, shall, notwithstanding anything in any other act, be paid to the Treasury and carried to Customs and Excise under this Act. POLICE. XXI. The following regulations shall be made with respect to the police in Ireland : (a) The Dublin Metropolitan Police shall continue to be subject, as heretofore, to the control of the Lord Lieutenant, as representing her Majesty, for a period of two years from the passing of this Act, and thereafter until any alteration is made by Act of the Legislature of Ireland ; but such Act shall provide for the proper saving of all their exist- ing interests, whether as regards pay, pensions, superannuation allowances, or otherwise. (/') The Royal Irish Constabulary shall, while that force subsists, continue and be 6l4 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. subject, as heretofore, to the control of the Lord Lieutenant as representative of her Majesty. (c) The Irish Legislature may provide for the establishment and maintenance of a police force in counties and boroughs in Ireland under the control of local authorities ; and arrangement may be made between the Treasury and the Irish Government for the estab- lishment and maintenance of police reserves. SUPPLEMENTAL PROVISIONS. POWERS OF HER MAJESTY. XXII. On and after the appointed day there shall be reserved to her Majesty the power of erecting forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other buildings for military or naval purposes, the power of taking waste land, and on making due compensation, for any other land for the purpose of erecting such forts, magazines, and for other military or naval purposes for the defense of the realm. XXIII. If a bill or any provision of a bill is lost by disagreement between the two orders of the Legislative Body, and after a period ending with a dissolution of the Legis- lative Body, or the period of three years, whichever period is longest, such bill, or a bill containing the said provision, is again considered by the Legislative Body, and such bill or provision is adopted by the second order and negatived by the first order, the same shall be submitted to the whole Legislative Body, both bodies of which shall vote together on the bill or provision, and the same shall be adopted or rejected according to the decision of the majority of the members so voting together. XXIV. On and after the day appointed Ireland shall cease, except in the event here- after in this Act mentioned, to return representative peers to the House of Lords, or mem- bers to the House of Commons ; and the persons who, on the said day, are such repre- sentative peers and members shall cease as such to be members of the House of Lords and House of Commons respectively. DECISION OF CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS. XXV. Questions arising as to the powers conferred on the Legislature of Ireland, under this Act, shall be determined as follows : (a) If any such question arises on any bill passed by the Legislative Body the Lord Lieutenant may refer such question to her Majesty in Council. (/') If in the course of any action or other legal proceeding such question arises on any Act of the Irish Legislature, any party to such action or other legal proceeding may, subject to the rules in this section mentioned, appeal from a decision on such question to her Majesty in Council, (c) If any such question arises otherwise than as aforesaid on any Act of the Irish Legislature, the Lord Lieutenant or one of her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State may refer such question to her Majesty in Council, (d) Any ques- tion referred or appeal brought under this section to her Majesty in Council shall be referred for the consideration of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, (e) The decision of her Majesty in Council on any question referred or appeal brought under this section shall be final ; and a bill which may be so decided to be or contain a provision in excess of the powets of the Irish Legislature shall not be assented to by the Lord Lieutenant, and a provision of any Act which is so decided to be in excess of the powers of the Irish Legis- lature shall be void. (/) There shall be added to the Judicial Committee when sitting for the purpose of considering questions under this section such members of her Majesty's Privy Council being or having been Irish Judges as to her Majesty may seem meet. {g) Her Majesty may by order in Council from time to time make rules as to the cases, and mode in which, and the conditions under which, in pursuance of this section, ques- tions may be referred and appeals brought to her Majesty in Council, and as to the con- sideration thereof by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ; and any rules so made shall be of the same force as if they were enacted in this Act. (h) An appeal shall not lie to the House of Lords in respect of any question in respect of which an appeal can be had to her Majesty in Council in pursuance of this section. THE LORD LIEUTENANT. XXVI. (i) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any Act of Parlia- ment, every subject of her Majesty shall be eligible to hold and enjoy the office of Lord Lieutenant in Ireland without reference to his religious belief. (2) The salary of the Lord Lieutenant shall continue to be charged on the Consoli- dated Fund of the United Kingdom, and the expenses of his household and establishment shall continue to be defrayed out of moneys to be provided by Parliament. (3) All existing powers vested by Act of Parliament or otherwise in the Chief Secretary for Ireland may, if no such officer is appointed, be exercised by the Lord Lieutenant until other provision is made by Act of the Irish Legislature. (4) The Legislature of Ireland shall not pass any Act relating to the office or functions of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1885 AND 1886. 615 JUDGES AND CIVIL SERVANTS. XXVII. A Judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature or other Superior Court of Ireland, or of any County court, or other court with a like jurisdiction in Ireland, appointed after the passing of this Act, shall not be removed from his office except in pursuance of an address to her Majesty from both orders of the Legislative Body, voting separately, nor shall his salary be diminished or right to pension altered during his continuance in office. XXVIII. (1) All persons who, at the passing of this Act, are Judges of the Supreme Court of Judicature, or County Court Judges, or hold any other judicial position in Ire- land, shall, if they are removable at present on address to her Majesty of both Houses of Parliament, continue to be removable only upon such address from both Houses of the Imperial Parliament ; and if removable in any other manner shall continue to be remov- able in any other manner as heretofore ; and such persons, and also all persons at the pass- ing of this Act in the permanent Civil Service of the Crown in Ireland, whose salaries are charged on the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, shall continue to hold office and to be entitled to the same salaries, pensions, and superannuation allowances as hereto- fore ; and to be liable to the same or analogous duties as heretofore ; and the salaries of such persons shall be paid out of the moneys carried out of the Customs and Excise account under this Act, or if these moneys are insufficient, out of the Irish Consolidated Fund ; and if the same are not so paid, shall continue charged on the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom. (2) If any of the said persons retire from office with the approbation of her Majesty before he has completed the period of service entitling him to a pension, it shall be lawful for her Majesty, if she thinks fit, to grant to that person such pension, not exceeding the pension to which he would have been entitled if he had completed the said period of service, as to her Majesty seems meet. XXIX. (1) All persons not above provided for, and at the passing of this Act serving in Ireland in the permanent Civil Service of the Crown, shall continue to hold their offices and receive the same salaries and be entitled to the same gratuities and superannuation allowances as heretofore, and shall be liable to perform the same duties as heretofore, or duties of similar rank ; but any of such persons shall be entitled at the expiration of two years after the passing of this Act to retire from office, and at any time, if required by the Irish Government, shall retire from office, and on such retirement shall be entitled to receive such payment as the Treasury may award to him, in accordance with the provisions contained in the 4th Schedule to this Act. (2) The amount of such payment shall be paid to him out of the moneys carried to the Customs and Excise account under this Act, or if those moneys are insufficient, out of the Irish Consolidated Fund, and so far as the same are not so paid shall be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament. (3) The Pensions Commutation Act, 1871, shall apply to persons who, having retired, from office, are entitled to any annual payment under this section in like manner as if they had retired in consequence of the abolition of their offices. (4) This section shall not apply to persons who are retained in the service of the Imperial Government. XXX. Where before the passing of this Act any pension or superannuation allow- ance has been granted to any person on account of service as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature of Ireland, or of any consolidated court, or as a County Court Judge, or in any other judicial position, or on account of service in the permanent Civil Ser- vice of the Crown in Ireland, otherwise than in some office, the holder of which is after the passing of this Act retained in the service of the Imperial Government, such pension or allowance, whether payable out of the Consolidated Fund or out of moneys provided by Parliament, shall continue to be paid to such person, and shall be so paid out of the moneys carried to the Customs and Excise account under this Act, or if such moneys are insufficient, out of the Irish Consolidated Fund, and so far as the same is not so paid shall be paid as heretofore out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom or moneys provided by Parliament. XXXI. The provisions contained in the 5th Schedule to this Act relating to the mode in which arrangements are to be made for setting in motion the Irish Legislative Body and Government, and for the transfer to the Irish Government of the powers and duties to be transferred to them under this Act, or for otherwise bringing this Act into operation, shall be of the same effect as if they were enacted in the body of this Act. MISCELLANEOUS. XXXII. Whenever an Act of the Legislature of Ireland has provided for carrying on the postal and telegraphic service with respect to the transmission of letters and telegrams in Ireland, and the Post Office and other savings banks in Ireland for protecting the officers then in such service, and the existing depositors in such Post Office Savings Banks, the Treasury shall make arrangements for the transfer of the said service and banks in 616 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. accordance with the said Act, and shall give public notice of the transfer and shall pay all depositors in such Post Office Savings Banks who request payment within six months after the date fixed for such transfer, and after the expiration of such six months the said depositors shall cease to have any claim against the Postmaster-General or the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, but shall have the like claim against the Consolidated Fund of Ireland, and the Treasury shall cause to be transferred in accordance with the said Act securities representing the sums due to the said depositors in Post Office Savings Banks and the securities held for other savings banks. XXXIII. Save as otherwise provided by the Irish Legislature, (a) the existing law relating to the Exchequer and the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom shall apply to the Irish Exchequer and Consolidated Fund, and an officer shall from time to time be appointed by the Lord Lieutenant to fill the office of Comptroller-General of the receipts and issue of her Majesty's Exchequer and Auditor-General of public accounts so far as respects Ireland ; and (b) accounts of the Irish Consolidated Fund shall be audited as appropriation accounts in the manner provided in the Exchequer and Audit Department Act, 1866, by or under the direction of the holder of such office. XXXIV. (1) The privileges, immunities, and powers to be held, enjoyed, and exer- cised by the Irish Legislative Body and the members thereof shall be such as are from time to time defined by Act of the Irish Legislature, but so that the same shall never exceed those at the passing of this Act held, enjoyed, and exercised by the House of Commons and by the members thereof. (2) Subject as in this Act mentioned, all existing laws and customs relating to the members of the House of Commons and their election, including the enactments respect- ing the questioning of elections, corrupt and illegal practices, and registration of electors, shall, so far as applicable, extend to elective members, the first order, and to members of the second of the Irish Legislative Body, provided that : (a) The law relating to the offices of profit enumerated in Schedule H to the Repre- sentation of the People Act, 1867, shall apply to such offices of profit in the Government of Ireland not exceeding ten. as the Legislature of Ireland may from time to time direct. (/') After the first dissolution of the Legislative Body the Legislature of Ireland may, subject to the restriction in this Act mentioned, alter the laws and customs in this section mentioned. XXXV. (1) The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland may make the regulations for the following purposes : (a) The summoning of the Legislative Body and the election of a Speaker, and such adaptation to the proceedings of the Legislative Body of the procedure of the House of Commons as appears to him expedient for facilitating the conduct of business by that body on their first meeting. (b) The adaptation of any law relating to the election of representative peers. (c) The adaptation of any laws and customs relating to the House of Commons or the members of the second order of the Legislative Body ; and (d) The mode of signifying their assent or election under this Act by representative peers or Irish members of the House of Commons as regards becoming members of the Irish Legislative Body in pursuance of this Act. (2) Any regulation so made shall, in so far as they concern the procedure of the Legislative Body, be subject to alteration by standing orders of that body, and so far as they concern other matters, be subject to alteration by the Legislature of Ireland, but shall, until alteration, have the same effect as if they were inserted in this Act. XXXVI. Save as in this Act provided with respect to matters to be decided by her Majesty in Council, nothing in this Act shall affect the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords in respect of actions and suits in Ireland, or the jurisdiction of the House of Lords to determine the claims to Irish peerages. XXXVII. Save as herein expressly provided, all matters in relation to which it is not competent for the Irish Legislative Body to make or repeal laws shall remain and be within the exclusive authority of the Imperial Parliament, save as aforesaid, whose power and authority in relation thereto shall in no wise be diminished or restrained by anything herein contained. XXXVIII. (1) Except as otherwise provided by this Act, all existing laws in force in Ireland, and all existing courts of civil and criminal jurisdiction, and all existing legal commissions, powers, and authorities, and all existing officers, judicial, administrative, and ministerial, and all existing taxes, licenses, and other duties, fees, and other receipts in Ire- land shall continue as if this Act had not been passed, subject nevertheless to be repealed, abolished, or altered in the manner and to the extent provided by this Act ; provided that subject to the provisions of this Act such taxes, duties, fees, and other receipts shall after the appointed day form part of the public revenues of Ireland. (2) The Commissioners of Inland Revenue, and the Commissioners 0/ Customs, and the officers of such Commissioners respectively shall have the same powers in relation to any articles subject to any duty of Excise or Customs manufactured, imported, kept for sale, or sold, and any premises where the same may be, and to any machinery, apparatus , vessels, Utensils, or conveyance used in connection therewith, or the removal thereof, and in rela- GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1885 AND 1886. 617 tion to the person manufacturing, importing, keeping for sale, selling, or having the custody or possession of the same, as they would have had if this Act had not been passed, XXXIX. (1) On and after the appointed day this Act should not, except such pro- visions thereof as are declared to be alterable by the Legislature of Ireland, be altered except (a) By Act of the Imperial Parliament, and with the consent of the Irish Legislative Body testified by an address to her Majesty ; or (b) by an Act of the Imperial Parliament for the passing of which there should be summoned to th; House of Lords the peerage members of the first order of the Irish Legislative Body, and if there are no such members, then twenty-eight Irish representative peers elected by the Irish peers in manner heretofore in use, subject to adaptation, as provided by this Act. And there shall be summoned to the House of Commons such one of the members of each constituency, or, in case of a consti- tuency returning four members, such two of those members, as the Legislative Body of Ireland may select, and such peers and members shall respectively be deemed for the purpose of passing any such Act to be members of the said Houses of Parliament respectively. (2) For the purpose of this section it shall be lawful for her Majesty, by order in Council, to make such provisions for summoning the said peers of Ireland to the House of Lords, and the said members from Ireland to the House of Commons, as to her Majesty may seem necessary or proper ; and any provisions contained in such order in Council shall have the same effect as if they had been enacted by Parliament. XL. In this Act the expression " the appointed day" shall mean such day after the thirty-first day of March, in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven, as may be determined by order of her Majesty in Council. The expression " Lord Lieutenant " includes the Lord Justices or any other chief governor or governors of Ireland for the time being. The expression "her Majesty the Queen," or " her Majesty," or "the Queen," includes the heirs and successors of her Majesty the Queen. The expression " Treasuiy " means the Commissioners of her Majesty's Treasury. The expression " treaty" includes any convention or arrangement. The expression "existing" means existing at the passing of this Act. The expression "existing constituency" means any county or borough, or division of a county or borough, or a university returning at the passing of this Act a member or members to serve in Parliament. The expression " duties of Excise " does not include a duty received in respect of any license whether for the sale of intoxicating liquors or otherwise. The expression "financial year" means the twelve months ending on the thirty-first day of March. XLI. This Act may be cited for all purposes as the Irish Government Act, 1886. Few among the most ardent supporters of the Bill cared to read it over ; its provisions were almost altogether unknown, as if they were immaterial. Strange to say that not only the Parliamentary Parnellites but other public men took it for granted it was a Home Rule Bill, with- out in any way studying the details of this most important measure for the future of their country. Tory hostility was the red rag that blinded their judgment by provoking their passions. The stupidity of the British Tories is proverbial. For once Ireland has reason to feel thankful for the inane bigotry of this stupid party. Editors of public journals in the United States wrote leading arti- cles praising Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill. As for the Parnellite organ, United Ireland, to say it was in spasmodic ecstacies of delight is to faintly describe the heroics of this remarkable Irish journal. All the Provincialist newspapers over the country were unstinted in their praise ; and if we lived in the days when heathen mythology was religion, Mr. Gladstone would have been deified, and enthroned in Olympus, like the Roman Emperors of old among the nation's gods. One eminent American newspaper, friendly disposed toward Irish aspirations as it understood them, and indeed as Irishmen publicly permit them to be taught, commented on the Bill from time to time with approval. In one of its editorials it stated that the forthcoming Irish Administration would have the self-same power and authority in Ireland which British Ministries enjoy in Great Britain. Imaginary Cabinets were printed in British and Irish papers, in all of which Mr. Parnell and his ablest lieutenants were appointed to power in the promised Irish Ministry. But to corroborate all these brilliant pictures, turning to the official 618 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. document offered to British lawmakers by the Cabinet of Mr. Gladstone as taken verbatim from the Bill, we read the provisions for the creation of this Irish Executive. "executive authority. " VII. (i) The Executive government of Ireland shall continue vested in Her Majesty, and shall be carried on by the Lord Lieutenant on behalf of Her Majesty, with the aid of such officers and such councils as to Her Majesty may from time to time seem fit. " (2) Subject to any instructions which may from time to time be given, to Her Majesty, the Lord Lieutenant shall give or withold the assent of Her Majesty to bills passed by the Irish legislative body, and shall exer- cise the prerogatives of Her Majesty. "VIII. Her Majesty may by order in Council from time to time place under the control of the Irish Government for the purposes of the govern- ment any such land and buildings in Ireland as may be vested in or held in trust for Her Majesty." This is the only part of the Bill which defines the powers of the Execu- tive or Irish Government, on this important question. The rest of the- Bill is necessarily silent. This should corroborate Mr. Gladstone's speech describing this measure as the capital article creating an Irish responsible Ministry. What is the meaning of this ? It only means that Mr. Gladstone's- Home Rule Bill was a Coercion Bill. It means that the promised Irish Ministry resolve themselves into an irresponsible despot controlled alone by the elastic authority (so far as Irish interests are concerned) of the British Sovereign's Privy Council. This autocrat could, in as many minutes as it would take him to affix his signature, suspend the Habeas Corpus Act or proclaim martial law if he judged it necessary for the preservation of British power in Ireland ; free from all Parliamentary control whatever, for although he could prorogue the Irish Parliament at will, that body had no power — not the least — over his actions. And this man, Lord Lieutenant and Irish Government all in one, is Mr. Gladstone's idea of Home Rule, to quote his own words, perfectly acceptable and even desirable. Some writer has stated it is better to be good than great. In the face of Mr. Gladstone's extraordinary and unmerited popularity it does- not seem so. The public promise of a responsible ministry is not fulfilled in the four corners of this Bill. There is nothing surprising in the leader of the Holland deputation telling Mr. John Dillon that Mr. Glad- stone's conduct to the Boers was the blackest treachery known to history. Mr. Gladstone repeats himself to the Irish ; for no less a term can. faintly characterize the foul turpitude of this soft-spoken minister. The legislative powers given to the Irish Parliament were an insult to the Irish race. The whole measure can only be described as it is in the title to this chapter, A Foreign Rule Bill, a measure to more firmly rivet British shackles on Irish limbs. Men appeared so fascinated and stupe- fied by the treacherous charm of this Bill, that they freely presented them- selves to receive the foreigners' gyves. The Dublin Parliament not only would be deprived of all control over trade and navigation, but also over that much spoken of grievance, Irish land, and also the public purse. It was given the power of levying taxes, but in the same clause the British or Imperial taxes levied in Ire- land were removed from its legislative power. It had not the power to disburse or control one penny. So many were the exceptions of practical necessity, in the words of the master of skillful misrepresentation who created the Bill, that it might be asked what laws could this mock Parlia- ment pass ? GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1885 AND 18S6. 619 But the stupendous and crowning insult of all was the organization of the legislature, wherein the pro-British or Landlord and Orange rabid foes of Ireland would sit in the same chamber as the followers of Mr. Parnell. These hostile classes are termed in the Bill the First Order ; these gentlemen held a three-years veto power over every action of the legislature. Think of this power given to such men as Major Saunderson, Rev. Mr. Kane, Mr. Johnston of Ballykilbeg, and political firebrands of that school ! It is difficult to believe that it was not intended to make Irish Assemblies ridiculous before the world. A bear garden would be a haven of peace compared to the scenes that would occur in that powerless legislature. All the government patronage would lie in the hands of the irrespon- sible autocrat sarcastically termed the " Irish Government." Every office that drew any emoluments from the public treasury was in his gift. He was the lord and master of Ireland's destinies. The legislature could not appoint a Speaker without the consent of the First Order. To further illustrate their helplessness, it may be realized that if the landlords chose to repeat the horrors of Glenbeigh and Bodyke, this mock Parliament was not only powerless to introduce any measure of an agrarian nature, but could not even pass a vote of sympathy, but that it was liable to be vetoed by the First Order for three years. In this respect they had not even the power possessed at present by the Dublin Corporation. Thomas Davis, the great Irish patriot and founder in great part of the Young Ireland movement, seems to have had the gift of prophecy. In 1843, in one of his admirable Irish essays, he seemed to foreshadow such a proposition coming to Ireland, called self-government. The dead patriot, writing on this subject, said : " A mockery of Irish independence is not what we want. The bauble of a powerless Parliament does not lure us. We are not children. The office of supplying England with recruits, arti- sans, and corn under the benign interposition of an Irish grand jury shall not be our destiny. By our deep conviction — by the power of mind over the people we say no ! " We are true to our color, ' the green,' and true to our watch-word, 'Ireland for the Irish.' We want to win Ireland and keep it. If we win it, we will not lose it nor give it away to a bribing, a bullying, or a flatter- ing Minister." But what position will the Parnellites occupy in Irish estimation, when the noise of the present excitement has died away, and mankind can calmly see the situation ? Men, who have the audacity to style themselves Irish Nationalists, who speak of Emmet and Davis as if they held these dead patriots' godlike sentiments on independent Ireland. Some of these Irish followers of ex-Coercer Gladstone go to the grave to insult the memories of Ireland's sanctified martyrs, when they tell us that if Emmet or Davis were living they would be found their associates. To even repeat it appears an outrage on the glorious and pure-souled dead. If there were no other reasons for Irishmen to condemn these false agitations, which corrupt and destroy well-meaning men and turn them into renegades and traitors, the conduct of the Irish followers of this Whig Minister should be sufficient condemnation of all such pernicious movements. They not only accepted this insulting Bill, which would more closely fasten British chains around Irish manhood, but they act- ually had the bold effrontery to say that it would be a final settlement of the seven-centuries struggle for Irish freedom. One of Mr. Parnell's close friends said during the debate : " If the Irish people might be allowed 620 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. to speak for themselves through their representatives he might say they were quite satisfied with the Bill and regarded it as a final settlement of the question." What foul, black, and unnatural treason ! For the first time since the Norman invasion Britain could claim a legal right to Ireland, sanctioned by the votes of her delegates freely elected, if this infamous Foreign Rule Bill had become law. A final settlement of the question it would have indeed been, for Ireland would have required no other measure of law from her invader. Even as it is, the poison which this " legal agitation " has impregnated into the nation has her sick unto death. Justin McCarthy on May 2, 1886, one month before the second reading of the bill, said : " My forecast, then, is this — Mr. Gladstone's measure will not pass this session, will not pass any session, in its present shape. But all the same, Mr. Gladstone has already carried Home Rule. No Parliament will ever again attempt to carry on the imperial business until it has settled the Home Rule question." Irish Parliamentarians are not too difficult to please ; unfortunately for Ireland their prophecies do not always come true. In the course of this de- bate Mr. Parnell, who seemed eager to accept this fraudulent measure, was twitted about a passage in a Cincinnati speech ; the exact words were found and cabled over next day. These were the sentiments then expressed : " Not one of us will be satisfied until we have destroyed the last link which keeps Ireland bound to England." Mr. Goschen, an ex-Liberal, but who has gone over altogether to the Tories, delivered this speech previous to the division on the bill ; he said : " It has been shown that the British Parliament is not inclined to con- sider Mr. Parnell its dictator. [Loud cheers.] During the recess I heard one, now a Minister of the Crown, say he was certain that Mr. Parnell would be dictator in the coming session. I think that Mr. Parnell's fol- lowers will now acknowledge that there are limits whereat they see many who are prepared to grant some legislative autonomy to Ireland would draw the line. The House will remember the first reading of this bill and will recall the Right Honorable Chief Secretary for Ireland's repeated allusions to certain dark subterranean forces. We do not fear so much thereof now. They have withdrawn to a great extent, though not entirely from the light. The curtain has been dropped over those terrible times and tragedies which have scarcely faded from our memories. The alarmed Home Secretary of the Premier's last government is now able to reappear as Chancellor of the Exchequer with great jocularity and light-heartedness to make merry over what he calls the melodramatic turns. " I wonder whether this began on the day when he first pinned on his arm over the Ministerial uniform the Home Rule badge of the Parnellites to wear. [Loud Opposition cheers.] We know that a truce has been pro- claimed and that a part of the dark subterranean forces has been told off to terrify British public opinion. They are simply holding their hands, though. The devil is still working in some parts of Ireland." [Cheers.] Mr. Parnell followed Mr. Goschen, and his speech reads with strange interest after studying Mr. Gladstone's bill. "We have had this measure accepted by a?l leaders in every section of national feeling in Ireland ; also outside of Ireland, in America, and in every country where Irish people are found. [Cheers.] We have not heard a single voice raised against the bill by an Irishman. [Cheers, and cries of " Oh ! "] Certainly not by any Irishman of the National party. " Even the terrible Irish World, a newspaper which has not been on GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 18S5 AND 1886. 621 my side for the last five or six years, says that the Irish race at home and abroad has signified its willingness to accept the terms of peace offered by Mr. Gladstone. [Cheers.] " I say that as far as the Irish people can accept this bill they have accepted it without any reserve as a measure which may be considered the final settlement of this great question." The more one plunges into the maze that these Provincialists would lead Ireland through, fresh and startling surprises beset our path. Here is a man of education and ability who cannot possibly have any love for England. He has succeeded up to the present in deceiving the Irish people ; he has actually mesmerized them. Whatever devilish power this British Parliament gives to Irishmen it not only destroys them, soul and intellect, by its wizard influence, but it makes them the terrible medium of casting a soporific influence over their race. This young man started out in the morning of public life with high hopes thrown around him ; he had energy and ability, and what appeared an unconquerable determination never to yield or surrender to Britain unless on his own terms — absolute self-government for Ireland. And now he has thrown away his gage of war, surrenders all his public vows, for a foreign bill which can only bring coercion and chains to Ireland. He beseeches the Britons in that chamber to vote the second reading in the most abject and whining terms on the strength of his promise that this bill would be accepted by the Irish people as a final settlement of the outstanding quarrel of seven centuries. Think of his own words uttered a short time previous ; think of these sentences in his Liverpool speech, where he distinctly states: "I believe a halting and inefficient measure would be fatal to the interests of both England and Ireland " ; and a little before this sentence he informs us that " nothing in the world would induce him to accept on behalf of the Irish people anything but the fullest and com- pletest control over our own affairs." And with these words almost hot upon his lips he publicly makes this statement in Parliament on the second reading of a measure falsely labeled Home Rule, a measure which he had not the courage to criticise. Irishmen will note that from the day Mr. Gladstone produced his bill until the present hour not one of these so-called public leaders dared come before the world to point out a single blessing or benefit its provisions would confer upon Ireland. They have been challenged to defend their conduct, which must be characterized as treason to the cause of Ireland, by not denouncing and exposing this insulting measure of the British Premier. Whatever differences of opinion there may exist in the minds of the moderate Irish Provincialists as to the proper methods by which self-government can be procured, upon this bill there can be no differences ; it is printed here in its entirety ; and within living recollection of Irish dealings with Britain, or any authorities that can be read, no one can cite an instance of any- thing with so misleading a title. Within the four corners of this bill there is not one concession or surrender of control to the Irish people. On the contrary, as pointed out, it conserves and concentrates foreign control in the person of a single despot. What motives induced the stupid and bigoted Tories and their allies the " Unionists " to reject this measure we know not. But the people have not fallen so low in intelligence that the stupid blunders of a stupid party form sufficient guide to point the path which they should take on their road to freedom. The bill was rejected by 30 votes in a rather full House, 311 voting for the measure and 340 against ; 94 Radicals, filled with short-sighted prejudice, changed sides, deserting their leader and voting with the Tories — anything to strike down the Irish. It appears that both sides fought this battle out filled with narrow-minded bigotry of each other, 622 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. and that the merits of the bill, or the details of the bill, guided neither party. For Ireland's honor it was a fortunate escape. It is said that the superior beings who look down upon this world pity the silly struggles and strivings which mortals engage in for either a worthless object or some momentary pleasure. It needed no superior spirit to have viewed the earnestness, passions, and exertions of the various groups in that Commons chamber in London to have shrugged his shoulders with a sense of degradation and shame that these are the great leaders of thought ; what a small petty thing is such humanity at its best, and if it is so in the green wood what must it be in the dry ? The Government, confident that they could succeed by an appeal to the country, determined to dissolve Parliament and have another general election on the merits of the question. But before doing so they had certain necessary measures to pass into law. It came to pass during this short-lived Gladstone administration that a famine was raging in certain districts in Ireland. Mr. Davitt, acting as the almoner of the generous Irish- American and American public, was distributing these alms, as already stated. In the interesting letters forwarded to the Irish World by Mr. Davitt he points out what a lowering and degrading effect this alms- giving has upon the Irish people. The small farmer class, whose normal condition is semi-poverty and bare subsistence, in many cases sought and procured a portion of these American alms, thereby in many cases de- priving the absolutely famine stricken of their portion. What a dreadful curse poverty is upon any people ; this almsgiving, which is a dreadful and painful necessity, has a tendency to make paupers of the people. At this time there were numerous evictions, aided by the armed forces of the British Crown. Mr. Davitt witnessed some of these, and in one of his letters exclaimed, as if wrung from the bitter anguish of his heart, that these evictions were taking place under a Gladstone Home Rule Government and with a John Morley for Irish Chief Secretary. But it was so ; the work of depopulating the country never ceases. No change in the British Ministry can affect this drain. And the old cry of the London Times in '48 can be slightly altered to suit the present condition of Ireland. The Celts are going with a vengeance. Before Mr. Gladstone dissolved Parliament his Irish Coercion Bill became law. The ideal Gladstone, as recently depicted, is the very opposite to the real man. On May 20 the " Peace Preservation " (Ireland) Act was read a second time ; it was the renewal of the Arms Bill, which deprived the Irish people (or was supposed to do so as far as British law could be enforced) of having or knowing the use of arms. This Government, which posed before the world as a " Home Rule" administration, and which received the full Irish vote, all the Parnellites joining its ranks, introduced and passed into law a coercion measure, with which they would not dare insult Britain. And yet this Ministry and their Parnellite allies had the audacity to tell Irishmen they were going to give them the government of their country. This bill permitted the police in Ireland under British rule to enter the home of any Irishman they chose at any hour to search for arms. During the short term of six months that this " Home Rule " Ministry governed Ireland Mr. John Morley aided the landlords with the forces of the Crown to tear down the humble homes and dismantle the roof-trees of 10,848 people, who were evicted during the period that Lord Aberdeen was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. So corrupt has been the teaching of the people that the Dublin trades turned out to escort off this evictor of near 11,000 people, and Irish Americans received him at dinner and receptions when he came to this country. Parliament was dissolved shortly after the passing of the GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1885 AND 1886. 623 Irish Coercion Bill, and the Home Rule issue was put to the English people. In Ireland of course the elections were about the same, but in Eng- land it was to be learned by a fair and honest test the truth or falsehood of the statements so persistently made by Irish leaders of the sympathy of the English working classes with Irish aspirations. A most silly and injurious doctrine to spread among Irishmen ; as well tell the Alsatian workingman that the German artisan is in favor of his being restored to France. Even this would be more probable, for there are no such clashing interests as exist between the British and Irish workingman. Mr. Gladstone termed the election an issue between the classes and the masses : there could be no such issue between two nations. Had Ireland a manufacturing class they would be hostile to the British manufacturing class, but as she has not, they want to create them from the Irish people. There are men who dream of a noble ideal called the millennium — but the Great Creator has made mankind different in race, language, and ideas, and until the doctrine of nationalities is swept away this universal cry of the masses and classes will be always Utopian when applied to the peoples of different nations. When applied in Britain under a British Government, or if applied in Ireland under an Irish republic, there would be some meaning, although there might be questionable judgment, in the cry. The nobles of different nation- alities, the aristocrats of Europe, have no such common interests. They meet in the social circle with the pleasure of cultivated, traveled intel- lects. Still they rush to war on each other for the common bond of nation- ality which unites themselves and the wage earners of their nation. Side by side, shoulder to shoulder, up to the cannon's mouth they march together, aristocrat and democrat, for the honor of their flag and the glory of their fatherland. The English election of 1886 ought to be an instructive lesson to Irishmen who are carried away with this idea of English workingmen's sym- pathy. That there are many sincere and ardent believers in honest Irish Home Rule among Englishmen is not to be questioned, but they do not amount to any number of sufficient importance to affect the issue and never possibly can. Irishmen who have had ample opportunities of study- ing this question in Radical clubs where their nationality was not dreamt of understand this fully. The electors who voted apparently in favor of Irish Home Rule really voted for their idol Gladstone, whom nothing could shake in their estimation :' it was simply blind, unreasoning devo- tion, such as animates the masses of most peoples. If Mr. Gladstone veered round and denounced Home Rule under the influence of some other motive they would vote for him all the same. Look at the election returns of the previous year, where Mr. Gladstone and the Irish were directly hostile, and yet Britain rolled up the immense majority of 83 in his favor in spite of all the powers of the highly and perfectly organized Irish vote. The results of the general election of 1886 were as follows : Conservatives, 316 ; Unionists, 77 ; Liberals, 191 ; Parnellites, 86. These figures show a falling off of sixty-five votes in the united poll- ing of the Liberal party from the previous election, and their union with the Irish lost them these English workingmen's votes, which they received when directly opposed to the Irish workingman. But then the Unionists were and are more bitterly hostile to Irish " Home Rule " than even the Tories ; so that their votes count in here as the record of the same senti- ment ; which makes a total of 142 workingmen's constituencies (that is, as Liberal constituencies are counted by the Irish Provincialist agitators) who changed sides on the Irish Home Rule question, for no other issue disturbed the British mind : nearly one-half of Mr. Gladstone's following 624 THE I RI SH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. deserted him. And these Irish Provincialists boast about the English democracy, because, forsooth, 191 constituencies remained faithful to their idol the " Grand Old Man." The mischief these men are doing in Ireland is incalculable when they preach to the people, who have no other sources of information, this misleading theory of the English democracy. A writer during this election speaks of the workingman's vote thus : " The workingmen of Finsbury, St. Pancras, Tower Hill, Southwark, Preston, Clapham, Fulham, Dudley, Mile End, and Chester, all work- ingmen's constituencies, voted against Irish Home Rule. The last- named place, Chester, is the more remarkable because at the last general election their votes were 3000 for Gladstone and only 66 against. Dudley is one of the instructive incidents of the election, a town of Worcestershire, with a population of 100,000. Mr. H. S. Sheridan has been its member for thirty years, less some months. Last November, as a Liberal, he polled over 6000 votes, and was elected by a majority exceeding 1000. This week he stood as a Gladstonian Home Ruler ; his vote was cut down to 4500, and his Conservative opponent of last year, Mr. Brooke Robinson, beat him by 1930 majority. And yet Dudley is not inhabited by dukes or earls, nor even by rich and idle commoners living on their money. It is a community of artisans work- ing in iron. They make nails, chain, cables, grates, and there are glass factories as well. Not much chance for classes here, one would think, and yet a Liberal majority of 1156 has been converted into a Conserva- tive majority of 1930. Will Mr. Gladstone explain ? " Or will he explain West Ham ? This nottoo euphonious name covers the metropolitan constituencies West Ham North and West Ham South, and they may be called a felicitous example of the political nomenclature adopted in the Redistribution Bill. West Ham is well described as a huge colony of workingmen, in which the classes are represented by little more than the clergymen who labor among them. Last November the borough was altogether Liberal — sent two Liberals into the House of Commons by good majorities. It now turns round and sends two Conser- vatives. Mr. Cook, who won it as a Liberal by 719, is beaten as a Home Ruler by 727. Mr Leicester, who won it as a Liberal by 1000, loses it as a Home Ruler by 306, and Mr. Leicester is himself one of those horny- handed sons of toil in whose name he and Mr. Joseph Arch jointly appealed to other horny-handed sons of toil — the phrase is theirs, not mine — to vote down Lord Salisbury." Another writer speaks thus of this general election : " The contest in England, in which we see the Radical vote has been transferred to its enemy the Tory, is not reassuring, and it will not be easily forgotten that for the first time since the passing of the Reform Act of '32 Birmingham, the pulse of the caucus and the Mecca of Radi- calism, has returned a Tory rather than support Gladstone's moderate measure of justice to Ireland. Your British Radicalism, that section of it which we always thought the truest and best, and which has Mr. Chamberlain as its god and master, is as hollow a mockery as anything that exists between Land's End and John o' Groat's. " I am here tempted to quote ad rem from a private letter which I received last night from a prominent member of the Irish party who has been stumping England for the Ministerialists. ' From what I have seen it is evident we shall lose this time. I have been told that many of the Liberals who declare themselves against Gladstone now say they will sup- port a Unionist, on the ground that the Home Rule question has been sprung too suddenly on the country. Still those who oppose the Grand Old Man for this reason now express their belief that Home Rule is inev- itable and declare they will support Gladstone next time. Wonderful are GENERAL ELECTIONS OF 1885 AND 1886. 625 the ways of the Saxon ! I have always hated them pretty well, but never with the same intensity as I do to-day. The more I see of them and the better I know them the less favorably I regard them. ■ Those for us as well as our opponents are a bad lot. Again, one of the ablest and most influential members of the Protestant Home Rule Association said in conversation the other evening that while he hoped he was an earnest and disinterested Nationalist, he vowed he had been driven into active politics by his unadulterated hate of the average Englishman. He has traveled a good deal, and he says in no part of the world where he met an Eng- lishman has he not been compelled by the offensive allusions he heard to Ireland and the Irish people to defend himself and his countrymen as if they were a nation of cutthroats and thugs." It is the experience of every traveled Irishman, even here in the United States, that the Englishman is grossly offensive and aggressive in his attacks upon the Irish people. Can Irishmen ever be united by any federal tie or link of the Crown to this hostile race ? Never ! They will never consent to give Ireland a separate autonomy peacefully. Let Irishmen, then, bend all their energies toward the great goal of national independence. What George Washington said of a federal tie between these United States and Britain when such a subject was broached during the Revolutionary War is applicable to Ireland, an ancient nation, and comes with tenfold the weight of argument : " Nothing short of independence, it appears to me, can possibly do. A peace on other terms would, if I may be allowed the expression.be a peace of war. The injuries we have received from the British nation were so unprovoked, and have been so great and so many, that they can never be forgotten. Besides the feuds, the jealousies, the animosities that would ever attend a union with them, besides the importance of the advantages which we should derive from an unrestricted commerce, our fidelity as a people, our gratitude, our character as men, are opposed to a coalition with them as subjects." CHAPTER XXXIX. (1886-87.) BALFOURISM AND CRIME TORY COERCION REGIME — MITCHELSTOWN MURDERS — CONCLUSION. Irish Agitators Try to Cheer their Countrymen — Justin McCarthy — No Coercion — Liberal Banquet to Parnell — Parnell's Speech — " Out of Gratitude to the Liberals Irishmen Cease to Commit Crime " — Evictions — Bodyke — Arrest of Women and Boys — Coolgreany Victims — Effect of " Rational Resistance " — Irish Peasants Attacked with Emergency Hatchets — Their Weapons Limewater and Stirabout — Disgraceful and Cowardly Teachings — Reduction of Rent Misleading — Greater Reduction in Price of Produce — Eviction Statistics : Before the Land League Era — Since its Creation — Ireland's Pressing Need — Industries — Britain as a Great Power — Her Small Army — Her Braggadocio — The Saturday Review on Britain's Weakness — Irish Members not to go to Parliament — Journal de St. Petersbourgs Article on Russia and Ireland — Mattathias to the Maccabees — Judas Maccabee — Gird Yourselves and be Valiant Men — Mitchelstown Murders — Scene before the Platform — Charge of the Constabulary — Retreat for Arms — Opening Fire from the Barracks — The Murdered Men — Irish Peasant Steeps his Handkerchief in the Blood of his Murdered Countrymen — Hatred to English Rule — Lessons from these British Murders — Propagandism of Nationality and Active Work — Conclusion. The result of the general election was the return of the Tories to power. This time with a distinct mandate given by the British working- man : " Hold Ireland by force ! Coerce her as you will. We the democ- racy of Britain indorse your proceedings by our votes ! " The people of England are undoubtedly responsible for Irish mis- government, and Ireland's war is with the people of England. They created the present coercion government and its predecessors. By their votes they repeat the words used eighteen centuries ago. Speaking to the Irish they exclaim : " Their blood be upon our heads a?id upon our children." It is for Irishmen to reflect upon the nature of this sanguinary determina- tion of these foreign usurpers in Ireland. The murder at Youghal, the murders at Mitchelstown and all the recent horrors, are the result directly of the recent election in England. It is the English masses who created Irish tyrants ; with them rest the guilt and responsibility. They were asked to let Ireland go in peace. But by their votes they fiercely answered : No ! Coerce these Irish ! The Provincialists, many of them interested in the continuance of their public movement, feared their countrymen would become disheartened and might begin to think for themselves and question the wisdom of this legal and moral agitation. They were busy trying to cheer the drooping spirits of the faint-hearted, and particularly impressed upon them that there would be no coercion. Not that this bugbear amounts to anything ; Ireland's normal condition is the infamous coercion of foreign rule. Mr. Justin McCarthy speaking on this theme at that time said : " People in their drawing rooms talk of coercion, but people in Cabinet councils know better than to talk or think of anything of the kind. A great majority of the Liberal secessionists are pledged as deeply against coercion as the Gladstonians, or, for the matter of that, as the Nationalists themselves. A Salisbury Ministry would be pitched out at once if they tried 626 BALFOURISM AND CRIME. 627 any policy of coercion in Ire/and. They will not try anything of the kind. They will endeavor to tide over the next session with some sort of land scheme, and if they remain in office until the following season they will by that time have educated the party, and go in for Home Rule." With what an assumed air of knowledge do these Provincialists try to prophesy and mislead their duped, deceived, and betrayed countrymen. How ridiculous and contemptible are their attempts to forecast the future. There is the vice-president of the agitators telling his people that the Tories will not — nay, more — dare not, or they would be "pitched out" bring in coercion, and his prophecy has been realized in a permanent coercion act ; that they will go in for Home Rule, and the British answered him by the blood of Mitchelstown. And yet, in the face of all these facts giving the lie to their statements, a portion of the Irish infatuated masses cheer and idolize these mockers at Irish aspirations. The people are taught false doctrine, and the truth — God's pure and sacred truth — is kept, from them. There is a conspiracy among these bogus Nationalists to misrepresent and stifle the words of true patriotism that they may not reach the people. How can Irishmen expect more noble actions than these prophecies forecast ? You cannot expect the owl to have the grand sweep and piercing vision of the eagle. The jackal has not the majesty or dignity of the lion. What have these miserable politicians to do with the grand and sublime patriotism that aspires to national independence? Grovelers in the mire of the enemy's political squabbles and party politics, their eyes cannot pierce the vaporous blackness that enshrouds them in its inky pall. They cannot soar to the mountain cliffs of Patriotism, where the pure air of Liberty is breathed by the immortals who dare all for fatherland. They are incapable of feeling the spirit of self-sacrificing patriotism that belongs to the golden age of history. The blade that slew Mincovitti or the sword of Har- modius would set their craven spirits as panic stricken as did the steel of the Phoenix Park. Who would place these men near such godlike man- hood as Leonidas, William Tell, Kosciusko, George Washington, Arnold von Winkelried, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Robert Emmet, or the immortal Irishman Theobald Wolfe Tone, a man who dared for Ireland what this galaxy of immortal patriots did for the sacred name of country and Liberty ? To dare the risks, to face the terrific odds, to unceasingly battle with the foe as did these deathless patriots, is undreamt of by these •dwellers among British politicians in the very nest of tyranny, associates and wordy disputers with the assassins of their race. They tell their duped people, whom they have deceived by falsehood and illusive hopes, that Ireland's robbers will do for her what the heroes of history did for the sacred fire of Liberty which they kept burning until it was quenched in their life blood, or until Victory blessed their banners. What an ■excuse for dastard cowardism ! They unceasingly prate of British inter- nal politics and the chances of an English election, while wailing, sorrow, and eviction stalk over their own island. Think of these poor dead women in Geashill, dead of starvation, and then think of all the sums sent these men from this country ; if they did not know of these women's needs in time they should have. Where was the peaceful organization at the dreadful approach of these famine deaths ? Talking inane gabble which they call nationality. What is it to the plundered Irish which of the enemy's robber bands is in power ? whether their foreign assassins are styled Tories or Liberals or Unionists ? They are alike in infamy, alike in their trail of blood over the island. They are the same invading British who came to the Green Isle to destroy its beauty and to perpe- trate murder and arson over the fair face of the land. Who can distin- guish them ? Their hands are red with the blood of the people, their 628 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. garments have the stench of butchery, and the atmosphere is reeking with the horrors of their vile presence. Morley or Balfour, Churchill or Chamberlain, Gladstone or Salisbury, they are all alike ministers of the most hideous system of massacre and plunder that has desecrated God's eartli since sin first stained man's purity. The Tories finished the short session of 1886 without asking for any additional powers of coercion for Ireland. These so-called laws are a part of that vile hypocrisy which Ireland's destroyers practice. They have absolute power with or without these measures, and hirelings drunk with blood, to carry out the most infamous atrocity on the people, and courts that mock justice with the brutalities they practice under the name of what they term law. In the session of 1887 they passed a per7nanejit coercion law with provisions enough in the bill to enmesh in its villainous seines the Irishman who would breathe a hostile breath against the rule of the British banditti. And these are the fruits of this mountain of folly and delusion, which has led the people astray from the path of freedom trodden by other enslaved nations — this crime of trying to compromise with felons which commenced with O'Connell and now lives in decrepi- tude under Parnell. Its laurels are a permanent act of coercion for these inspectors of the robbers' law to bow down to, or else to shriek and howl against. The British Liberals gave a banquet in honor of the Irish party's having merged into their ranks ; they received with honors the man who now desecrates the name of Charles Stewart Parnell. The English drank the health of their sovereign, joined in the toast by their Irish guest. Did Charles Stewart Parnell see gouts of blood in the wine when he raised to his lips the glass in honor of that throne which rests on the skulls of its murdered victims, as written by his noble-hearted dead sister in her exquisite poem on the Belmullet massacre? Did her bones rattle in the cerements of the grave when the man who bears her brother's name sat down to partake of the hospitality of Ellen McDonagh's assassins ? The British, always eager to welcome Irish renegades to their ranks, drank with honors and profuse compliments the health of their new adherent. Did there glimmer on the walls of that banquet hall words spoken in loyal and patriotic Wexford, where Ireland's '98 war for inde- pendence had birth : " Englishmen may speak a kind word of me when I am dead " ? The man who misrepresented the speaker of these words in Wexford arose to respond to his new allies' toast. And quite in keeping with his associates and change of front, he grossly insulted his country- men in his speech. During the course of his remarks he used these words : " The diminution of crime showed the gratitude of the Irish toward the Liberals." In the name of an outraged, deceived, and betrayed nation, for what did Ireland's sons owe gratitude to these Liberals ? Was it for making the land ring with the shrieks of the wounded and the dying ? Was it for massacre and persecution ? Was it for manufacturing the most demoniac perjury ever created by demons ? Was it for murder- ing Irishmen by the gibbet ? All these crimes Mr. Parnell accused them off. Was it for Morley's eleven thousand victims of eviction ? Was it for these Liberals' Coercion Act disarming his people that this man spoke of Irish gratitude, or did he mean the contemptuous and audacious insult hurled in the face of Ireland when Mr. Gladstone gave to the world a bill to more firmly chain Ireland in British manacles, called out of derision Home Rule ? He who bore an honored name, which its present wearer is burying in the dregs of degradation, told these British persecu- tors of Ireland that Irishmen were criminals, and that they stopped their crimes out of gratitude to them. BALFOURISM AND CRIME. 629 The evictions of 1 886 continued through the winter. The British fiends reveled in the luxury of wanton cruelties. To the evictions in Glenbeigh were superadded the horrors of burning cabins. The unhappy people saw the fire lap around the blazing roof-trees of their humble homes, and the glare of the conflagration lit up the valley, and reflected from the steel points of the bayonets raised aloft in the hands of Britain's butchers, ready to drink in the life gore of fresh victims at the slightest show of opposition. Where, then, was Ireland's manhood clothed in the justice of her cause, and the god-given sacred duty of self-defense, to smite the fountain of infamy that caused these crimes? Not to strike the mere hirelings alone, but the brain that conceived and permitted this deviltry — to slay him as the pure-souled patriots struck down Britain's robber chief- tain in the Phoenix Park. Alas for Irish freedom and Irish manhood ! those who would dare all for their suffering motherland were compelled to remain inert while the wave of folly and false teaching was passing over their agonized land. True, there were Provincialists at these evictions who presented flowers and consoling words to the unhappy victims — flowers and kind words to a dying people — but no words calling on them to suppress, to destroy, these assassins, and drive them as other reptiles were driven from the island. They bade them be of cheer, for soon their hopes would be realized and smiling peace would dawn upon this war-stricken nation. Who were they that were supposed to bring this blessed peace ? They were the men whose hands were dripping with the blood of the Belmullet and Ballina massacres, the butchers of women and helpless children, the suborners of perjury, the kidnappers of delicate women, the men who buried their vic- tims out of sight that they would not rise up in bloody witness against them, the merciless, hypocritical, and brutal Liberal assassins of England. Oh, land of mountain, stream, and valley, clothed with the verdure and beauty of God's glorious garments, how often have your pure rills been stained with the blood of your children, your grassy slopes and towering mountain sides bathed in the heart current of your dying sons. And here in the clear light of day, under the canopy of heaven, with the glorious sun smiling down upon this stricken yet beautiful island, men harangue the people in the very face of the evictor, and deceive their bleeding country- men with the false promise that another nest of foreign assassins will bring consolation to the bosom of an afflicted nation. The horrors of Glenbeigh were succeeded by the cruelties and agonies of Bodyke. Under the teachings and guidance of these agitators the people were instructed to barricade their cabins and build fences and dig intrenchments to offer what they called " rational resistance " to the enemy's evictors. What were the weapons these poor people were advised to use against the armed foe ? They attempted opposition by flinging cans of " boiling water mixed with lime, oatmeal, and other dele- terious substances," as charged against some prisoners captured by the enemy. Who were these prisoners ? Thirty women and little girls, eleven old men and boys. God help our people ! Has this delusive agita- tion reduced them to the humiliation of women and girls trying to fight the armed minions of Britain ? Take this scene from the Coolgreany evictions, one of the many scenes where the invader carried war and extermination among an unarmed (and by the agitators a disarmed) people : " The garrison consisted of six men — Pat Grennell, the owner, Thomas and Joe Grennell, his brothers, and John O'Neil, a blacksmith who suffered eviction himself on a previous occasion, Thomas Boulger, and Peter Gibson. " The Emergency Men descended one by one through the aperture 630 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. in the roof. They had axes in their hands, and the cry arose from the startled people, ' They have hatchets ! they have hatchets ! ' A moment of suspense followed and a few police with difficulty climbed on the roof. Before they were able to enter the house one of the garrison, Peter Gib- son, was thrust forth bleeding from the face. Tom Boulger after a fierce struggle with these desperadoes into whose hands he had fallen was also ejected through the narrow hole. He was besmeared with blood, the result of the struggle which took place in the darkness inside, where the Emergency Men must have seriously beaten the occupants. Thomas Grennell was thrust out next. He also bore the marks of the brutal violence of his assailants. The blood poured from a wound in the head. His face was deadly pale, and on being lifted down from the roof he fainted in the arms of the policeman. The unfortunate man was dragged in this condition through the branches of the fallen trees." This disgraceful scene is called offering " rational resistance " to eviction. The Provincialist leader who proposed this absurd and wicked course lacked sound judgment ; he was in search of the sen- sational and not the practical. Why did not this Provincialist and ex- Nationalist take his place inside one of these cabins and share with those unarmed peasants the dangers of an encounter with the enemy's armed Emergency Men ? Had these Irishmen been properly and intelli- gently instructed, if they were to offer serious resistance, they would have armed themselves with rifles and revolvers and actually defended their cabins against attack, or else they should have given up peaceful posses- sion. No sane man can call the opposition offered anything but con- temptible. It is degrading and disgracing to the country to see the easy manner these people are evicted, who are supposed to be prepared for a struggle. He who advised these proceedings was making Ireland a pitiful exhibition before Europe. What have been the results of this crusade of shame, this legal and peaceful means of procuring self-government for Ireland ? The whole Irish race was at first carried away by the enthusiasm evoked by fiery and eloquent speeches and physical opposition in the British Parliament. Irish Nationalists of every shade of thought have helped this movement to the best of their ability. Many Irishmen who years since saw the fallacy of the agitation, and also saw its weakness — which was visible to every European student of international politics — remained silent, hoping against hope that Parnell's vision would not remain clouded by a false theory. When the British insulted the Irish members by turning them out of the chamber it was accepting the depth of degradation both personal and national to return to that House. Were they equal to the crisis which they helped to create and which was forced on them by the British they would never again cross the threshold of that assembly, but would have told their countrymen that all attempts to appeal to British justice were hope- less ; that Irishmen had but one course before them, either to take other action or disappear from the island. This was expected to be the advice Parnell would send from France instead of advising perseverance in a folly, excusable in a young man with no political training, but not in Mr. Parnell at that time, who must have seen there was no peaceful solution of the deadlock of conflicting interests. Like Patrick Henry and the signers of the Declaration of Independence, they should have told their countrymen they were prepared to make every sacrifice for Irish self- government. But when the die was cast and Ireland precipitated into the struggle treason grew rampant in the ranks of her statesmen and the gallant men in the gap were left unaided. When the brains and intelligence of Ire- land's manhood should have been at the service of the glorious struggle BALFOURISM AND CRIME. 631 these men inaugurated, they retreated panic-stricken ; it was desertion and cowardly neglect on their part, the blackest perfidy known in history. Secure in the belief that their treason to Ireland would never see the light of day, they were not content with this cowardly desertion, but themselves and their friends joined the enemy in a campaign of foul, black slander. This atrocious lie that the Land League and the Invin- cibles were not one and the same movement stalks abroad at this time of writing. Since the Provincialists started the Land League Ireland has lost 550,000 in population. Had Britain slaughtered 1000 of these in fight or in any kind of physical resistance to her rule, or even 100, would not these Provincialists complain of the ruin the Nationalists were bringing on the country ? All the while English rule is rapidly clearing the people away the whole movement from the foundation of the Land League to the present hour has not improved even the condition of the farming class. There may be of course a few exceptions here and there, but the great masses of the agrarian community have been great sufferers. The reduction of rents in Ireland is most misleading. Recently the Marquis of Ely visited his property in the county Wexford and accepted fifty per cent, reduc- tion off his rents. This reads like a great boon to his tenants, but when one comes to examine the cases it is discovered that even with the fifty per cent, reduction the farmer is at a loss. The farm produce has fallen fifty per cent, in value, consequently the farmer after paying his landlord the rent reduced by one-half finds the balance he has left also reduced by one-half. What, then, must be the condition of the farming commu- nity where the landlords will only reduce the rents by fifteen or twenty- five per cent. ? There people must be in a state of hopeless pauperism. But this rent reduction is not due to any influence the League as an organization has been able to bring to bear upon the landlords as a class. It is the great fall in prices which has made these rents impossible of collection ; the landlords see this and are compelled to accept the inevi- table. Nothing can more clearly demonstrate the hollow and mocking claims which the League leaders have made from time to time when telling the world of the various means by which they hoped to keep the people fixed in the soil,* but they have been powerless and could not succeed. Words are poor arguments against the evictors* bayonets, hot water and lime are the sublimity of ridicule — ridicule which they are heaping upon the Irish cause by their sensational attempts at " rational resistance " while all this silly clap-trap of victories and the near approach of Home Rule is being taught the Irish people. The destroyer of the Irish race at home — and that destruction means their effacement as a dis- tinct people from the face of the earth — has gone on unceasingly in his peaceful havoc, causing more material loss to Ireland in the bone and sinew of a nation's wealth — her people — than could the most sanguinary war that mankind has been ever cursed with. The following are the statis- tics of evictions for nine years previous to the Land League, and eight years and six months since its creation. The reduction in agricultural values in a great measure increased land litigation, but the League, powerless to save, by its petty irritation of the landlord tyrants helped to swell the number of evictions. * In England where there was no agitation on this agrarian question the rents of farms were voluntarily reduced by the landlords. Greater reductions were given than all this noisy and misleading movement led by Irish Provincialists, backed up by hundreds of thousands of dollars sent by their exiled kindred, could claim to have accomplished. 632 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. EVICTIONS EVICTIONS For nine years before the Land League. Since the Land League s creation. 1869 . . . 1,741 1878 . . . 4,679 1870 .... 2,616 1879 .... 6,239 1871 . . . 2,357 1880 . . . 10,457 1872 .... 2,476 1881 .... 17,341 1873 . . . 3,078 1882 . . . 26,836 1874 .... 2,571 1883 .... 17-855 1875 . . . 3,323 1884 . . . 27,025 1876 .... 2,550 1885 .... 15,428 1877 . . . 2,177 1st half year 1886 . . . 10,848 22,889 129,708 We could only procure statistics for the first half year of 1886. This was during the mild Home Rule government of Mr. Gladstone, Lord Aberdeen, and Mr. John Morley. A very pretty showing for these saviors of the people. It will be noticed that in the year 1882, when the League was four years established and one year after Mr. Gladstone's Land Bill which was to root the people in the soil, the evictions amount to the enormous number of near 27,000, 4000 more than the total evictions for the nine years previous to the creation of this powerful organization — powerful in the splendid nonsense of large meetings and strong language — the National Land League. The sincerity and earnestness of the men who founded the League we do not question, but they either lacked ability or fell off in sincerity when in 1881, after proving the utter fallacy of solving this question by further meetings and speeches, they advised the Irish people to continue this nonsense further and to broaden and deepen the agitation, whatever that meant. It is apparent to any student of the Irish question who understands British interests that the public leaders of the Irish people did not understand or appear to understand that the evils under which the farmer struggled were not confined to pernicious land laws. The absence of industries crowded the people on the land, and no change in these land laws alone could remedy this grievance. Think of a whole people agitating for the removal of the landlords when the fact remains that over 300,000 tenant farmers in Ireland could not obtain a decent •livelihood if they were even presented without one penny repayment with the fee simple of their small farms. Had they, as in self-governed Britain, various industries to give them employment, by which means they could •earn food, clothing, and comfortable homes for their families, the land evils would affect the owners more than the tillers, as in England, where numbers of farms are left in the hands of the landlords, the farmer finding other pursuits more profitable than land cultivation. Had the Irish people these industries they could leave their miserable patches upon which they have been starving as serfs for generations, and there would be no need to emigrate or even to migrate, for various manufactures would spring up over the land under the fostering care of native government. The magnificent resources of Ireland now lying idle, the immense water power which nature has given her, whatever mineral wealth that lies buried in her bosom, all would receive its full development, for like an enchanter's wand passing over the land would be the magic impetus given to that beautiful island if in the full posses- sion of her sons. Her harbors, which dot the coast of Europe's most western island, would be the natural channels through which precious freights requiring speed in transmission would be dispatched to and from the New World. Trade direct with their kindred in the United States, with France, Spain, Italy, Russia, and Eastern parts would fill her capa- BALFOURISM AND CRIME. 033 cious harbors with a merchant navy, Irish ships would be freighted with merchandise now carried in British vessels. The ring of the anvil and the hum of the loom with the whirr of machinery would be heard over the land. Ships now built on the Clyde in North Britain, or in Hull and other British towns, would grow up under industrious Irish hands by the Lagan, the Foyle, the Lee, the Liffey, the Slaney, and the Shan- non. Then Ireland could be made the happy home of twenty millions of people, and only a small percentage would emigrate. The bold and adventurous would become hardy seamen in Irish ships bearing the Irish flag in the peaceful pursuits of commerce, or if necessary defend its honor and protect its interests with the valor of generations of brave sires. This glowing picture is not impossible of realization. Less than two million of people accomplished it in this country. True, France came to their aid, but it was French interests which prompted the succor to destroy a common foe. Nations that try to help themselves will always find friends if this self-help is intelligently carried out by the great majority of the people. There were Tories in America, there are Orange- men in Ireland, and we must add to these agitators, and if objectors and weak drivelers say that distance and immense territory helped the Americans, what of Belgium, little Belgium on the European chess- board, who placarded the dead walls of Brussels with this famous August programme — it was during fete week : Monday, Fireworks ! Tuesday, Illuminations ! Wednesday, Revolution ! and in the theater " Muette de Portici " commenced on that 24th of August the revolution which did not cease until Belgium became an independent nation. And yet Belgium is but one-third the size of Ireland. Ireland is nearly as large as Switzer- land, Holland, and Belgium together ; she has a magnificent coast line and everything that Nature could endow a country with to make a great and grand nation. The united population of these three independent nation- alities is 13,096,042. And look at the miserable condition foreign rule aided by agitation — unquestionably aided, for without this distracting folly Irishmen would resort to manlier and more practical measures — has brought this grand Celtic nation. Ireland's present population is less than five millions, which is dying out at the average rate of fifty thousand annually. Courage, Irishmen ! There is no such word in the lexicon of nations deter- mined to be free as/ail. Ireland is enslaved because Irishmen deserve it and permit it. America, Italy, Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria, or Belgium did not gain their liberties by the silly mummeries Irishmen are practicing to-day. Debating and dividing ! debating and dividing ! ad nauseam in the Legis- lature of their enemies, the very people who are oppressing them, coercing them, and destroying their wealth and liberties, with whom they are carry- ing on the egregious folly of reasoning with. Irishmen have for some time past been taking part in British party struggles which cannot in the slightest manner affect their country ; they might as well go to France or Germany or Russia and espouse the cause of the democracies of these countries. It may be noble and philanthropic, but what can be said of men who go to the enemy's country to relieve suffering humanity while they leave their own nation in a state of destitution and neglect ? The great mass of the British democrats are hostile to Irish self-government ; it would be most injurious to their trade interests to be otherwise. The circumstances of the case forever forbade any real union between these two peoples ; increase of Irish industries, trade, and commerce is a pro- portionate loss to the British people whether they are democrats or Tories. A revolution to bring about a change of government in Britain might be of advantage to Ireland if she had wise and capable leaders to avail themselves of the opportunities offered by this temporary chaos, but 634 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. of no use whatever if these men who now lead hold by the opinions and actions of to-day. They would rise and fall with the revolution. If successful Ireland would be still chained to a hostile republic, who on some plea of federation would enact Ireland's essential laws and make all the goods consumed as at present. Ireland's share would be as now emigration and the workhouse. Her tyrants would be English plutocrats and the moneyocracy of a plethoric shopkeeping people. Do Irishmen remember how Mr. Gladstone kept his promises pledged before the world, as his present promises are as publicly made ? He came to power in 1SS0, and, in the language of Mr. Parnell, imprisoned 1200- men without trial, and even ladies were imprisoned. To further quote Mr. Parnell, he even hanged innocent men on perjured testimony, although his agent in Ireland was made acquainted with this fact. Other men are suffering in penal dungeons on the same perjured testimony. These are the words of Mr. Parnell speaking of a man who deceived Ireland before, who foully deceived the Boers. As Mr. Dillon expressed it, all the time he was detaining the Holland deputation with false promises in London he was hurrying out veteran regiments from India to put down the Boers with bloodshed. As the Hollander said to Mr. Dillon,, whose words Mr. Dillon quoted in Dublin : " It was the blackest treach- ery ever practiced." Mr. O'Brien said when the five years of Mr. Glad- stone's government expired that he buried his innocent victims out of sight. Either Mr. Dillon, Mr. O'Brien, and Mr. Parnell spoke false then or they are betraying their country to-day. Let the agitators who blindly worship these men — men once patriotic — elect at which period these leaders were false to Irish self-government. In which time was Mr. Parnell misleading his countrymen — when he was addressing the Liver- pool electors in November, 1885, and told the Irishmen of Liverpool, and through the press the Irish race everywhere, that he fully indorsed the Home Rule manifesto denouncing Mr. Gladstone, and that if he (Mr. Gladstone) was returned to power he would try and cheat them out of as much Home Rule as he could, or when he spoke so fulsomely of the same Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons who had introduced a Home Rule Bill that was one gigantic cheat, and which Mr. Parnell there styled a final settlement of the Irish question ? Whichever decision Irish- men come to must be derogatory to the consistency and patriotism of the Irish leader. No man can reconcile these contradictory speeches, that delivered in the Liverpool Exchange and that spoken in the British Com- mons. The full text of the bill is printed in this book, and it challenges intelligent contradiction when it terms, in the words used by Mr. Parnell in Liverpool, that bill a cheat. After the Tories came to power, elected, as stated, by the English democracy, the agitators started what they called a war against the land- lords, which they called " the Plan of Campaign." The latest statistics that can be procured of the evictions in Ireland are for the quarter ending June, 1887. The "plan" is spoken of with unctuous praise by the organs of the agitators, whose weekly issues are accompanied by car- toons depicting the defeat of the landlords and the triumph of the Irish peasant, always pictured as having a comfortable, happy, and well- to-do appearance. Pat according to these cartoons is always victorious, and in most of these works of art he is helped by a sturdy English artisan. This " plan," which cannot be honestly characterized as anything but "sublime bosh," was commenced in the winter of 1886-87. To read the victories of this plan of campaign in the Dublin Freeman, Nation, and United Ireland it would be reasonable to expect that at least the farming community were recovering from their troubles and were becoming in a measure prosperous. What do these statistics tell ? That the evictions for BALFOURISM AND CRIME. 635 April, May, and June, 1887, while these journals were claiming victories* were : Ulster, 2194 Leinster, 1246 Connaught, ........... . 2240 Munster, 33 11 Nine thousand people were evicted in three months of Messrs. O'Brien and Dillon's " plan of campaign." During this period the Pro- vincialist organs were claiming victory for this so-called " plan," claim- ing victory while the enemy's crowbar brigade was tearing down the roof-trees of the people, and sending on the roadside 9000 homeless sufferers. All this time the Provincialist orators on public platforms were calling on farmers and artisans to support their "plan," which would defeat the landlords, promising the people that when the Liberals would come back to power the Irish land grievance would be finally and satisfactorily settled. Was there ever in the history of the world a nation so basely deceived ? These evictions are rather a rough reply to these gentlemen's claim of victory. During these three months there were evicted nearly 1000 more people than for the three years previous to the League. During the years 1875, 1876, and 1877 the total number evicted was 8050. What can any reasonable man call this so-called power- ful agitation but the most monstrous delusion that ever was sent to destroy a people ? Ireland's only hope under the ringing blows now dealt her by the Tory wing of the British foe is instant action, and if the Irish people do not soon arouse themselves from the torpid condition they are in, and apparent ignorance of the great loss of population that is drain- ing away their country's life blood, they will be in a powerless condition to resist the assaults of the Liberal wing of her enemies (who, serpent- like, are now deceiving her by false promises) when they come to power. There is ruin and desolation over the land ; the reductions in the rent do not meet the necessities of the case, else why these evictions? whole dis- tricts of the country are being depopulated by the Emergency Men of the destroyer, all the time the citizens of Dublin are called to cheer and shout for victories. What a change from centuries back ere the invader polluted the Irish shore. The clime indeed is a clime to praise, The clime is Erin's, the green and bland, And this is the time, these be the days, Of Cahal Mor of the wine-red hand. Alas for Ireland, they are the days of the great popular agitator Mr. Parnell, when the enemy is sweeping her people from their humble homes. In the days of Cahal Mor, as described by the poet, plenty and happiness smiled upon the land. The clime remains still a clime to praise, but a weak and emasculated people occupy the Erin of Cahal Mor's days. Ireland needs the voice of the propagandist urgently to teach her people the true road to freedom, that action and not shouting in multitudes is necessary to save the remnant of the race at home. There is but one path, one true path, to native government — that which was trodden by William Tell and George Washington. Mr. Gladstone in a speech delivered in the early part of this year (1887) contends that though Ireland formerly gained concessions from England through fear (what an admission !), any attempt for Ireland to repeat her former tactics would be like warring against Heaven now. 636 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. England's strength as compared to Ireland is as ten to one. He would rather rely, he said, upon England's innate sense of justice. England's innate sense of justice ! When did she ever display it to any nation she considered weaker ? She has been the bully and braggart of Europe since Waterloo. But for her allies in the Crimea she would have been destroyed ; the last fight in that peninsula was a British defeat, the attack on the Redan. She blustered before Europe and urged little Denmark into the unequal struggle with Austria and Prussia, only to desert her at the eleventh hour. She played the coward at that time in the face of Europe. This was in the days of her great minister Lord Palmerston. She bullied Russia in 1887, and tried to win victories by bluster, and surrendered everything she claimed to Count Schouvaloff when that Russian statesman came to London to demand the real pur- port of the Salisbury circular after the peace of San Stefano. This secret treaty she made with Russia, and a copy of which was purloined and published in the Globe of London, did not abash her Ministers ; they went to Berlin and at the conference of the European plenipotentiaries went through the farce of opposing clauses in the treaty already signed away to Russia, and then returned to England with the cant phrase, " Peace with honor." This is the powerful nation that Mr. Gladstone threatens Ireland with in his comparison of her strength to Ireland's. If Irishmen were true to themselves and prepared for other emergencies than talk Mr. Gladstone need not boast ; the Boers were only eighty thousand people, and they^beat her in three pitched battles. Insurgent Ireland if armed would be no mean foe for this bragging Briton. The odds in numbers would not be on the side of the British. While every Irishman, or nearly all in such a crisis, would take the field, Britain could only depend on her regular forces. Civilian John Bull would permit the army and militia to do the fighting in Ireland, he would attend to his business of money getting. Ireland had proof of this before when England was pushed hard for men in the Crimean and Indian mutiny days. She could only get raw boys to volun- teer, tempted by the increased bounties. John Bull is more fond of fighting battles over a tavern fire than in the field. He pays an army to do his fighting, and he thinks that is enough. But Nationalists do not at this moment advocate such a campaign ; war can be made in many ways. If Ireland is ever to be freed this course can alone save her. Britain will never consent to give Ireland Home Rule peacefully. There is not the smallest trace of light upon the political horizon that such will ever come. On the contrary, there are vital reasons why England will never consent until she is beaten to her knees. Debating and dividing in Parliament will not do this. The Saturday Review in an interesting article, speaking of the country's weakness in the event of war owing to the necessity of England receiv- ing her food supplies from abroad, observes : " With one considerable fleet engaged in bombarding an enemy's ports, and another busy in protecting our coasts against even the possi- bility of invasion, and a third cruising in Indian or Colonial waters, how many ships could be spared for the yet more essential work of convoying grain ships from America ? It may be answered that this, as being the most essential function which the fleet would have to discharge, would be, so to say, a first charge on our naval resources. Then which of the other three are to be neglected ? Are we to forego what might conceivably be the only means open to us of crippling our adversary or to leave our own coast undefended ? Or if neither of these duties are neglected, which of the Colonies is it that is to be left a prey to the sudden descent of some daring commander ? What is needed if the supply of the country is BALFOURISM AND CRIME. 637 to be really secure in time of war is our navy strong enough to spare all the ships that are wanted for the protection of the grain ships without unduly weakening any one of the three other fleets, that will have each its work marked out for it. Can this or anything like it be said of the English Navy. No ! " This article speaks very forcibly of one of England's very weak points in the event of war, but there is another, and that is her gigantic commerce, Her argosies are in every sea, laden with the world's wealth ; these in immense numbers must fall a prey to any enterprising European nation at war with her who could command the services of daring and skillful commanders. Irish recruits could be had in plenty to re-enforce England's enemy in manning privateers in return for other assistance to enable the nation to shake off British rule. The united navies of Europe could not protect Britain's immense mercantile marine, scattered as it is in every sea in all parts of the globe. So that England's greatness as a commercial nation would be her weakness in the event of that dreadful scourge war. The war insurances on her merchandise upon the ocean would be enormous ; this source alone would cripple and bankrupt her merchants. But how would Ireland find herself in the event of war if she continues in her present course of petitioning England and playing that huge farce called " legal agitation " ? British Ministers would bribe, flatter, and promise, always on the brink of performing these, but find- ing ready excuses in the exigencies of the situation, an explanation which would be accepted by the men who could plead an excuse for Mr. Glad- stone's insulting Home Rule Bill. The war would be over and peace made. Ireland in the meanwhile would be living on empty promises, which would quickly turn to frowns when British danger had passed away. To open negotiations with Eng- land's enemy by the representatives of an open political movement seek- ing reforms, and admitting they were subjects of the British Crown and members of the British Parliament, would be the height of absurdity if attempted by men who so repeatedly discountenance insurrectionary propaganda ; they would be sure to meet with a rebuff. Not even the unaccredited agents of Britain's enemy would attempt the preliminaries of an alliance with such moral and physical cowards. In one word, Ireland must sweep away every vestige of British Parlia- mentary agitation before the roots of nationality can thrive in her soil. She must away with this weak, puling cry called " Home Rule," which her foe will never peacefully grant her, and go in boldly for national independence and the destruction and suppression of her robber assassins should they continue to imbrue their hands in the people's blood. Ireland needs propaganda and national public agitation, that is, agitation to educate the public mind to strike the foe, and teach her people that through the fire of sacrifice they must pass before the virgin gold independence, purified by the furnace of suffering, can be their happy lot. They are enduring more agonies to-day than could be inflicted by either a guerrilla war against the invader or an open insurrection in the field, and a tenfold greater drain upon the national life. The delegation which Ireland now sends to the enemy's Parlia- ment should be called home, and a national committee formed, one public and another secret. The constituencies have now the power to see that the nation is not misrepresented in the alien assembly by not being represented there at all. Irishmen have no business in that assembly of their nation's assassins; by their very presence there they in a measure recognize the infamous robber rule they suffer under. Keep the Parliamentary phalanx together, but let them be men whose 63S THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. aim is the establishment of an independent nation. Should any of the present group still retain their original fealty to their motherland, they could continue as elected delegates to stay in Ireland. This refusal of Ireland to be represented in the British Commons would give the nation a locus standi at once in the European national complica- tions. That this be made effective, let every member be pledged or oath bound to remain at home and not go to the foreigner's assembly. If any man violates this oath or pledge let him meet a traitors fate. There would be no waste of Ireland's resources in agitation, no need to pay members — they could remain at home at their pursuits. If the foe declared the members' seats vacant who refused to sit, re-elect them. If they declared them ineligible for re-election, then elect others, workingmen or mechanics — any honest patriot would do. Ireland needs no more men who require to study the intricacies, filth, and political debauchery of British Parliamentary life. With the present franchise — while it exists — Ireland can retain hold of the representation* — only for the purpose of not being misrepresented — in spite of any British edict. No more false Nationalists could enter the British chamber; any member who went there would be stamped before the world as a reactionary or representative of the rebel Orangemen or landlord traitors. He dare not speak in the name of Ireland ; his words would carry no weight before armed Europe, the only public opinion Irishmen should solicit. More than their good wishes should be asked, and in every way possible material aid should be looked for at all seasons and at every possible emergency to help the patriots at home to throw off the foreigner's galling chains. Spread the light secretly and publicly among the people, not the ques- tion of the farmers' rent, but the full and perfect freedom of the nation. Also on with the sacred war ! Let the government of national defense be reorganized ! strike the foe unceasingly ! let him feel the arm of the nation he would fain destroy even in the very heart of his own citadel, in every town that has sent forth an invading assassin to slay the Irish- people ! In teaching the young men the manly lessons of nationality, or rather in guiding their minds how to use the inborn love of country which ani- mates them, let there be no such false teaching as that the pen is mightier than the sword. But rather tell them that the pen inculcates those lessons of freedom which compel men to take up the sword to establish their right to enjoy human happiness and the complete control of the destinies of their nation free from foreign bondage or interference ; that the sword of the tyrant can be shattered by the teachings of the pen, but not until they whom the pen has taught meet force by force, and strike off the shackles which bind them. How often have men of weak nerves and no courage misquoted the lines, " The pen is mightier than the sword " ! The words which Lytton puts into the mouth of Cardinal Richelieu have more extended meaning ; the lines are : " Beneath the 7'ule of men entirely great the pen is mightier than the sword." How different does the meaning of the great cardinal appear from that of those who garble a quotation from his lines. The entirely great can more effectually govern by the pen, which in their hands is mightier than the sword, but Lord Lytton expressed no such absurd dictum as to say that to free a nation the pen was mightier than the sword. Both are necessary ; the pen must teach and propagate healthy national doctrines, but the sword must smite or the teachings could bring forth no fruit. If Irishmen do not take some action, and at once, they are lost ; there is no other hope for them as a people under the sun. BALFOURISM AND CRIME. 639 The following pregnant article appeared in the Russian organ the St. Petersbourg Gazette. It will be remembered that no article on foreign alliances or any subject touching the military policy of the empire could be written or published without official sanction, which makes this article of more interest to patriotic Irishmen : " Like all European states Russia has been the enemy of every other country and may be so again ; but she has only two enemies with whom she will inevitably have to enter into a struggle for life or death. They are Germany and England. The conflict between the Slavs and the Germans is a historical and unavoidable necessity. As to the coming struggle with England, Russia should prepare herself by a rapprochement with Ireland. The United States of America were not able to gain their freedom without foreign help. And the liberation of Ireland is only a question of time. Whether the result will be the autonomy or the com- plete independence of Ireland, England will in either case be completely paralyzed as regards her action abroad. It is therefore undoubtedly the direct interest of Russia that Ireland should be victorious in the struggle in which she is at present engaged." The news has reached us that Russia has bridged the Oxus ; Russia is moving her troops to outflank the British until she thinks the hour has come for the war for empire in the East. Russia will not help Ireland unless Irishmen show a disposition to help themselves, and so be a useful ally. They can do something against their foe as a retaliation for the evictions and banishment of the people. This of course means the men at home. They and they alone can carry out successfully any enterprise ; they are wrong if they expect any material help from even their own banished kindred unless they themselves do their duty. Irishmen in America have been drained of immense sums of money for agitation and they are in no mood to contribute much at present. The men in the gap should not depend too much on outside assistance. It is feared that this power is much exaggerated at home. While there are thousands of patriotic men in these States who have been good and true men at home, they soon learn other duties in America. If the men in the gap do their duty they will not be neglected from many sources, but it is to them the scattered Irish race look for the expulsion of the ancient enemy. Work can best be done by those residing on the scene. Let them remember that, as Washington Irving expresses it, "the natural principle of war is to do the most harm to our enemy with the least harm to ourselves, and this of course is to be effected by stratagem." Men who have no courage and who are not prepared to face the risks of a struggle, and yet keep up the incessant cry of Tory persecutions, tell us that they are satisfied with their course, i. e., this silly agitation. But if they "knew a better that they could pursue with honor to themselves they would embrace it." This apology is but the explana- tion of a slave, who was born and will die Britain's serf ; as Shakspere expressed it : " The arms are fair when the intent of bearing them is just." Men talk of evictions and do not seem to realize what a terrible train of suffering follows in their wake, the workhouse and the famine death- bed. John Mitchel in describing the slow decay and fever of »one of these deaths so frequent in unhappy Ireland concludes thus: "Oh! Pity and Terror ! what a tragedy is here — deeper, darker than any bloody tragedy ever enacted under the sun with all its dripping daggers and sceptered palls. Who will compare the fate of men burned at the stake or cut down in battle, men of high hearts and the pride of life in their veins, and an eye to look up to heaven or to defy their slayer to his face — who will compare it with this?" To face this horrible famine death John Morley sent the Crown forces to evict 10,848 of those unhappy 640 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. people, whose roof-trees were torn down and they sent homeless on the wayside. Oh, monstrous cruelty ! and then to hear his hypocrite words. Such has been the effect of this infamous teaching by the agitators that Irishmen turned out with bands and banners to cheer this Englishman's copartner in crime, Lord Aberdeen. Has Ireland not drunk enough of British treachery that she must escort off her murderers with tokens of esteem ? If the British spat upon them they could not further degrade them than these men have. Nothing baser or more humiliating has darkened the pages of Irish history than this parade of the Dublin trades to -escort off a representative of Ireland's invader, the deputy of a brigand government. There is no doubt the people were deceived, the Provincialist press kept back the truth ; the writers in these papers have so eaten dirt by this English alliance that they have deceived themselves and deceived the people. But there will be a day of reckoning. When Gladstone, returned to power, introduces another mock Home Rule Bill the people will not so easily be deceived by another cheat. Irishmen should remember English treachery from the death of Owen Roe down to Mr. Gladstone's bill, remember the centuries of false promises. Bear witness, blood-stained Mullaghmast And Smerwick's crimson tide, Limerick, by your treaty stone Proclaim it far and wide, That he who trusts in British faith And has not been betrayed Must always keep his stalwart hand Clasped on his ready blade. Ireland is to-day as the country of the Maccabees when the aged Mattathias spoke of his brave sons, as recorded in Holy Writ : " Woe is me, wherefore was I born to see the ruin of my people, and the ruin of the holy city [holy Ireland], and to dwell there when it is even in the hands of the enemies ? " Ireland's answer should be as the words of Judas Maccabees to his brethren : "And Judas said, Gird yourselves and be valiant men and be ready against the morning that you may fight with those nations that are assembled against us to destroy us and our sanctuary. " For it is better to die in battle than to see the evils of our nation and of the holies." Is not this monster called British Government in Ireland a malefactor ? It has assassinated the law, it has brutally murdered the people, it is a hideous usurper destroying the Irish nation. This monster puts out its huge tentacles in every direction to crush and smother all resistance to its infamous appetites. Can its unhappy victims feel or reason with sound judgment while stupefied beneath the fetid odors this monster exhales around ? Alas, no ! These malodorous and poisonous vapors deaden and infatuate ; their effects are visible in this humiliating and degrading thing called " legal agitation." These unhappy victims of the poisonous fumes of slavery and persecution wear the very monster's livery that they seek to in p^rt destroy. Listen to the words which a British Minister — one of the hypocritical brood this monster spawns forth to crush unhappy Ireland — uses in speaking of alien rule in that island : " It is a system which is founded on the bayonets of 30,000 soldiers encamped permanently in a hostile country. It is a system as completely bureaucratic as that with which Russia governs Poland, or as that which was common in Venice under the Austrian rule. An Irishman at this moment cannot move a step, he cannot lift a finger in any parochial, municipal, or educational work, with- BALFOURISM AND CRIME. 641 out being confronted, interfered with, controlled by an English official appointed by a foreign government and without the shadow or shade of representative authority" Who was this monster who thus for the selfish purposes of British party politics took the scalpel knife and exposed his nation's infamies in Ireland, and who would also use that weapon to cut prostrate Ireland's throat just as readily if he could or if it suited the exigencies of his political surroundings ? Was it Gladstone or Morley ? No ! both these British hypocrites have also deceived Ireland by express- ing condemnation of their country's rule when it suited their purpose so to speak. Was it Balfour? No! his time to plead for suffering Ireland and to condemn Morley, Gladstone, or some other coercer is yet to come. The man who delivered the speech of which this on Ireland was part is Joseph Chamberlain. Ten days after the government of which he was a member was defeated he spoke those words ; they were spoken in Hollo- way, London, June 18, 1885. Fresh from crime, fresh from the murder of the Irish people, a partner in all the monstrous iniquities of the Ministry he belonged to, as if in mockery he condemns the system he himself helped to administer. What is the condemnation of sin by Satan compared to this British deviltry, practiced with such fell power on deceived Irishmen by these incarnate fiends, the ex-Ministers of British brutality ? To-day Morley, Gladstone, Spencer, and Aberdeen pose as Ireland's friends ; in a little while it may be Balfour, Salisbury, and Goschen, as it was on this occasion Joseph Chamberlain. They are all feelers of this huge devilfish British rule in foreign nations. See how they murder the Dacoits in Burmah and lay waste the country, boasting like the burglars they are of the great booty they captured — the lacs of rupees, the immense plunder of diamonds, rubies, and other precious stones. They term the proceeds of their theft of portable property loot, and their land robberies confiscation. They are preparing for another burglary in Venezuela, and if they think they can attempt it with impunity this huge devilfish will put forward one of his tentacles and grasp the plunder and crush the victims who own it to death. Irish-Americans, is it to support the mockery of agitation or com- promise with this monster that you send your hard-earned money to be spent in what was folly but what has become crime ? Away with this supine thing called " legal agitation," this ally of one of the tentacles of this devil- fish. Let Ireland have intelligent and patriotic agitation. Nail your colors to the mast — Ireland's national independence, as complete a sever- ance from political connection with Britain as the Infinite created geo- graphically, that independence which Washington won on many a hard- fought field. Publicly proclaim these doctines, Irish-Americans, on this free soil won by heroes' blood ; the truth need not hide its head with shame or persecution. Teach and preach Irish nationhood and the men in the gap will do their duty. Irishmen at home, do not deny the faith that is in you. Your invader cannot wreak more vengeance on you than he is doing at present under false issues. The Tory monster who controls British power at this time of writing continued the assassin rule of horrors at a recent meeting in Mitchels- town. Mr. T. P. Gill, M. P., a leading Provincialist, thus describes this scene : " Dean McCarthy had just begun his opening remarks when I noticed the body of police advance at a quick pace upon the meeting and press their way roughly in. It appeared subsequently that they had a govern- ment reporter in their midst. This movement caused great excitement among the people. Several men faced round, turning their backs upon 642 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. the platform. Things looked threatening when Mr. Dillon began to speak. " It was just then the police made a new movement. They crushed their way still further into the dense crowd and began hammering the horses with their batons. The horses plunged and kicked and the people faced about again. A man was struck with a baton and he struck back with his stick. Somebody threw a stone ; in a second the police formed and charged. There was one moment of panic in the crowd, when it swung back on the wagonette, but only a moment. Like a flash those nearest the police rallied, and infuriated at this wanton and unprovoked attack, fell upon them with their blackthorns. There were a few seconds of brisk fighting, when the police turned and fled in the wildest confusion, rolling over each other in their efforts to escape. Several of their helmets tum- bled off, which the people seized and tore to shreds or kicked before them like footballs. They disappeared around the corner in a shower of stones. " We on the wagonette turned our attention to getting the ladies into the priest's house, which was at the back of our improvised platform. While we were doing so we heard a volley of musketry from the street up which the police had fled and in which their barracks were situated. Then another ; then another. Mr. Dillon rushed down the square and up the street toward the barracks. The police were firing out of the win- dow of the second story. One man fell dead at the foot of the square, another with a bullet through the roof of his skull lay in his blood against the wall. Mr. Mandeville, the solicitor. who was to defend Mr. O'Brien, had the flesh torn from his temples. Many others were wounded. Mr. Dillon rushed into the barracks. There he found the commander of the police raging like a maniac and calling on the men to come out and fire volleys up and down the street, an order which Mr. Dillon, holding the officer in the hall by main force, prevented him from executing. " I went to the police barracks to interview the magistrate in command. Mr. Dillon had been unable to prevail upon him to withdraw the excited constabulary, who were by this time drawn up in a double line across the street where they had been firing. . . " We found the resident magistrate, a young man white with excitement. The sleeve of his tweed coat was smudged with blood, and he held in his hand a stout stick which he shook nervously while he spoke. The corpse of one of the murdered men had been dragged off the roadway and lay right across the threshold of the barracks door in a pool of clotted blood. A police officer coming in stepped over it. " As I returned to the square I found a tall young fellow dipping his handkerchief in the blood of the man who was first shot. He put the handkerchief to his heart and said to me : ' 1 am going to keep this for- ever as a pledge of ?nortal hate against English rule.' " We drop the curtain on the action of this history at this scene of blood. Irishmen should, like the Tipperary peasant, remember the brutal deeds of the invader, and think of the blood-stained handkerchief of Mitchelstown — think of it to nerve their arms, think of it to make weapons of every tool they have in their workshops, think of it to make bullets of their leaden gutters, to secrete powder, to secrete arms, to use every engine of destruction that human ingenuity can devise to slay the murderous invaders of their country. But never can this physical oppo- sition — the only opposition to a foreign invader that enslaved mankind ever attempted who seriously sought freedom — never can it become effec- BALFOURISM AND CRIME. 643 tual until the last remnant of this folly called constitutional agitation is sivept from the land. It has been sapping the patriotism of the country only to destroy it. Let the line be drawn hafd and fast. Whip these poltroons who tell you that you are powerless before Britain out of the national ranks, men who degrade you by their cowardly teaching. If you cannot strike, then you are unworthy of your freedom. Britain is destroying you while you are inert and listing to these dribbling inanities. Drive these renegades out of the temple of Liberty who after all the cruel experience of these later years would have your dying people hug that slimy, slippery delusion " legal agitation." Its very name is a foul insult to justice and the acceptance of a hideous crime, clothing the robberies and assassina- tions of the invader with the garments of legality, smirching the ermine of justice with blood. The party of action has kept too long in the background ; let it now resume the reins of government. The people are tired of this hol- low, mouthing Provincialism. Let the Nationalists now come boldly for- ward and assert themselves, not by irregular acts of isolated warfare, the futile and unavailing efforts of a few scattered skirmishers, but let Ire- land speak by the concentrated and united work of a nation of brave men — men who look to the salvation of their country by the deliberate sacrifice of their lives if success demands this holocaust on the altar of their country. Like Winkelried, some brave patriots must take the invader's spears within their breasts to open a pathway for their brothers to assail him. Men of action, you must also use propaganda to expose and destroy the pernicious poison now circulating in Irish blood, and to remove the false and lying doctrine now clouding Irish intellects through years of false teaching. To voice the truth, to stamp upon it the impress of brave deeds, that is your sacred and solemn duty at this momentous hour. He who further crouches behind that crime called " legal agitation " is a moral coward and a slave. He who believes in his nation's right to her independence and yet continues to temporize over a petition to Ireland's brutal destroyer for a provincial assembly is a traitor. That petition of self-abasement and degradation has been repeatedly answered by the most gifted and the most skillfully hostile enemy of Irish freedom, Wm. Ewart Gladstone, in his insulting bill which would confer further despo- tism and more chains. He who believes in Ireland's right to the unfettered control of her destiny, and yet would mislead his countrymen by clinging outwardly to a false and criminal programme which would barter his nation's honor with the foe, let him and such as him live in history with Benedict Arnold and other infamous men who have betrayed their trust. He who in secret professes pure national doctrines, but yet lacks the moral courage to uphold them in the light of day, belongs not to a people capable of gaining or maintaining liberty. He who trifles and tempo- rizes with the nation's right, and who abuses his countrymen's intelligence by preaching to them of self-government by installments, is like the butcher who distributes in parcels the carcase that he first kills. They would slay the national life. They would make infamous the national honor. Upon such renegade heads be anathema. Brothers in Ireland, agitate and spread the light, the glorious sun- burst of complete independence. Brothers of the propaganda, that is your duty. And also you, O Party of Action ! do not belie your name longer ; arouse and awake to the dangers of your beloved nation. You can strike, yet remain concealed from the invader. You must harass him unceas- ingly. When necessary change your hiding place, but yet always fight him. Be always before him, but never beneath his hand. Although remaining concealed, show him, make him feel, you have not left the field. 644 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. As your comrades fall, as fall some must, either in the field of combat or on the scaffold of the foe, remember that they are honorable deaths alike suffered in this holy and sacred war. Fill up the gaps at once ; the emi- grant ship can spare you numerous recruits. What you lack in numbers make up in daring. In this plan of campaign lies your country's salvation, in the other — the nation's death. Take, then, at once the initiative. Oh, my brothers, on the sacred soil of our motherland recommence the combat. There will be help soon to fan the tiny flame your hands must light into a huge conflagration, which will destroy the monster that has preyed on our people for centuries. 'Tis now no time for wisdom or debates ; To your own hands are trusted all your fates ; And better far in one decisive strife One day should end our labor or our life Than keep this mourning isle, these fruitful lands, Still press'd and press'd by such inglorious hands. Behold, ye warriors, and exert your powers ; Death is the worst, a fate which all must try, And for our gallant country 'tis a bliss to die. The gallant man, though slain in fight he be, Yet leaves his nation safe, his children free, Entails a debt on all the grateful state ; His own brave friends shall glory in his fate, His wife live honored, all his race succeed, And late posterity enjoy the deed. ADDENDUM. IRELAND AT THE CLOSE OF 1893. The years are passing, and since this work was written many men who figure in its pages have passed away — friend and foe: Charles Stewart Parnell and Wm. H. Forster, Joseph Gillis Biggar and Captain King Harman, and many others who have been prominent on the stage of Irish history. But "How is little Ireland and how does she stand?" The answer can be summarized by saying: "A foreign flag still floats over Dublin Castle, and the red-coated soldiery of the invader are still in occupation of the island." The Tory ministers have vanished and their Whig oppo- nents are now in power. The fierce and wolfish Tory who would crush out every spark of nationality in coercion, has been succeeded by the slimy Whig-serpent who breathes over the land the noxious vapors that stupefy and confuse; and the people, drugged with his effective poison, appear not to know where to direct their movements or to whom to look for guidance. What have been the effects of this much talked-of coercion on the Irish nation? Have the Tories added in any manner to the normal destruction of foreign rule? Again, what have been the blessings of all these so-called concessions, these land bills which were fought against so bitterly by the House of Lords? What benefit to Ireland is the disestablishment of the Irish Episcopalian Church, which aroused for a time the cry "Away with the House of Lords!" followed by Orange threats of insurrection in Ireland? The answer to both these questions is the continued condition of unend- ing decay in the Irish nation which proves — proves with the stern logic of actual facts — that neither coercion nor concession can alter the condition of a nation under the rule of the foreigner. While one vestige of alien rule remains in Ireland this decadence and degradation must con- tinue. The country is now under the sway of that political Chadband, Wm. Ewart Gladstone, who with unctious piety, as he turneth up his eyes with fervor, saith to the Irish "for what Home Rule you do receive be unto me thankful." And while this man, whose hypocrisy is so great that he even deceives himself, talks of liberty for Ireland, he retains in his prisons the confreres of the Provincialists, who are now his allies in trying to eradicate every vestige of nationality from the Irish people. Jospeh Mullet is at this date, December, 1893, in a dungeon of the enemy. He and his comrades, at a single word from this Briton, W. E. Gladstone, could be restored to the outer world; but his mouthpiece, Mr. Asquith, tells the Irish race that he (Mullet) and his imprisoned colleagues will not be released. The same denial applies to all the Irish political prisoners, Dr. Gallagher, John Daly, and their friends. Mr. Gladstone rants about his love for Ireland, and to prove it has taken into the British Whig camp the former Land League leaders, whose movement created the secret Land League — the Invincibles. The Irish Provincialists, having deserted and slandered their comrades who took action by order of the Land League Executive, are rewarded by a close alliance with this prince of hypocrites, the British Premier. But for their former friends, the Invincibles, he has continued dungeons, toils, 645 646 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. and chains. Charles Stewart Parnell and John Dillon truly described him: "As the most unrivaled of coercers," and the "master of mis- representation." Take this Liberal chieftain's "Irish Government Bill" of 1893, popu- larly called a Home Rule Bill. This measure is an English bull, for it is called "Home Rule" because it does not contain one particle of Home Rule within its four corners. By the proposed Assembly legislation for Irish trade, navigation and commerce are absolutely forbidden. The effect of this prohibition would be to deprive Ireland of the corner stone of a nation's prosperity. In addition to this important prohibition, the right to control Irish finance and Irish land was to be withheld from the Irish legislature ; with a promise undoubtedly as false as all British promises to Ireland — that it would be restored to the Dublin Assembly in some years to come. Had this wretched measure, falsely called "Home Rule," passed into British law, it would be found to have no more power to arrest Irish decadence than the many previous bills which passed through the House of Lords after weeks of angry and violent contention. Foreign rule cannot be reformed by a local Assembly in Dublin ; the overpowering influence of foreign interests — interests antagonistic to Irish prosperity — forbid it. There has never been a solution to the infamous outrage of foreign usurpation of a nation's right to rule but that of abso- lute and complete independence. Some writers, who know a little of this Irish question, tell us that Ireland could not stand alone; that she would be conquered by some other nation if freed from British rule. How then, does Holland, Bel- gium^ and Switzerland remain independent? Ireland is as large as these three nations combined. Because of the rival jealousies of the great powers, they will say: "It is these very jealousies and rival interests called the 'balance of power in Europe' which permit Britain herself to remain in the possession of so much colonial territory." Her physical power compared to theirs is simply contemptible. In a very short time an Irish republic could turn out an army superior to the boasted nation's. The Whig premier is an eloquent juggler in the use of words; he has. invested his Home Rule Bill with a false sentiment by the glamour which his utterances have cast around it, and thus succeeded in deceiving both friends and foes. The stupid and intolerant Tory and his instrument, the fanatic and bigoted Orangeman, both of whom have aided the "master of misrepre- sentation," aided him unwittingly in his endeavor to hoodwink the Irish people into accepting a powerless Assembly in Dublin in return for their stolen independence. He tried to induce the Irish to freely accept this enemy's flag and thereby strengthen the British empire. It has been said and will be repeated: "Why this hostility of the Tories, Unionists, so- called, and Orangemen, if this bill be worthless?" Will Irishmen remember that the self-same hostility has been displayed by these stupid partisans to every measure that appeared in any manner an apparent concession to Ireland, or Irish sentiment? Not one of these measures, notwithstanding the great opposition of Tories, Lords, and Orangemen, and heralded with all the drums and trumpets of the Provincialists as great victories, have been of the smallest, the most infinitesimal, benefit to Ireland. Poverty, eviction, and emigration have not been in any man- ner arrested; the unceasing decadence goes steadily on. How far Mr. Gladstone deceives himself it is impossible to know; for it is questionable if this aged statesman knows himself. He speaks of this deceptive and shadowy bill as if it contained all the glorious freedom won at Yorktown. When placed even beside the Colonial legislatures of Canada or Australia it is a mockery. In Leeds Townhall, in 1881, Mr. IRELAND AT THE CLOSE OF 1893. 647 Gladstone spoke in glowing terms of his Land Bill and all the blessings it was to confer upon Ireland ; possibly he believed this himself. To main- tain his position he quoted the extravagant eulogies of Sir Charles Gavan Duffy as given in an earlier chapter. The succeeding year, when Ire- land had fifteen months' experience of the blessings of this Land Bill, over twenty-two thousand people were evicted, more than the total for ten years preceding the League; and yet this bill, according to Mr. Glad- stone and his Irish admirers, was to confer unheard-of blessings upon the Irish farming community. Other so-called land concessions have followed this, but evictions continue and funds are needed to-day to feed the houseless victims of these land laws. If this Home Rule Bill should ever become a part of the Briton's legislature for Ireland, there is nothing in the womb of time more certain but that it would, like every preceding British measure, become entirely inoperative. This it must become of necessity; emigration, poverty, and decay would only be hastened by the disappointment arising from its powerlessness. The Chambers would gabble, while the nation was dying. The Briton would sneer at Irishmen's incapacity for self-government, while all the actual power still remained in the hands of the foreigner. Possibly the offices of British rule in Ireland, now held by Orange sympathizers, might be and probably would be transferred to the Provin- cialists ; Britain has always rewarded recreants. But Ireland would find that these new officials would continue as steadfastly British as are the present holders. The Provincialists would of course hail their acceptance of these offices as the advent to power of Irish authority and they would like their chief, the "great master of misrepresentation," try and deceive the people into the belief that Ireland had her own government. The public mind would become more and more distracted and Britain's mis- sion, the removal of the Irish Celt from Ireland, would go on amid the ■clanging of angry tongues, and noisy and fruitless discussion. The nations would begin to believe that the British slanders were true and that Ireland could not govern. Having got what they accepted as Home Rule, they would be in continued poverty and ruin. Irishmen must remember that no British law, neither coercion nor so-called concession, can alter the inevitable decay of the Irish nation while it remains an appendage of a foreign crown. Slightly altering the Orange threat in 1870, after the church disestablishment, the cardinal doctrine of Irish nation- ality and Ireland's only hope for prosperity and happiness is to kick the foreign sovereign's crown into the Irish Sea. Any struggle for impossible reform is vain and criminal — criminal because it is helping the enemy to firmer fasten the chains of foreign conquest upon the nation, keeping the people stupefied and pursuing a phantom while the enemy proceeds with his quiet destruction of the Irish race. The cry which now agitates the Provincialists is the destruction of the House of Lords. The great "master of misrepresentation" has touched upon this in his recent address in Edinburgh (September, 1893). But he is, as usual, careful in his manner of alluding to this question. He wishes to infuse some hope into the Irish people that this obstacle can be removed. All this rant is utter folly. The House of Lords is as firmly set in the British Constitution as the Crown itself. Nothing short of revolu- tion can remove these twin pillars of Britain's present regime. The Gladstonian press, Irish, British, and American, tells us that the Lords, by throwing out the Home Rule Bill, opposed the will of the people. Nonsense! the Lords, on the contrary, affirmed the will and vote ■of the people — the English people, whose opinions and wishes the Peers alone recognize. It is by the aid of Irish Provincialists' votes that Mr. Gladstone came to power. The British verdict is opposed to his Home 648 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. Rule Bill, and there is little doubt that at the next general election he will be overwhelmingly defeated on this so-called home rule issue. Newspapers and speakers, comparing the present attitude of the House of Lords to that of the reform period in 1832, compare two subjects- totally dissimilar. The Reform Bill of 1832 was an English question, the question which confronts the Peers in 1893 is an Irish issue purely, and which they call dismemberment of the empire, as the Austrian s termed the Italian claim to Lombardy and Venice, or the Turks to the Greek demand for autonomy and independence. Irish-Americans and Americans who study this subject have no means of knowing the immense- vote of English workingmen that has been recorded against home rule in the elections of 1886 and 1892. It is all folly and humbug to call this a question between classes and masses. The English people, who belong, to both of these great divisions, are divided upon this question. A minority support Mr. Gladstone, through party fealty, not for any love they bear Ireland or the Irish. And the great majority are arrayed against this measure, absurd as it may be to call it a Home Rule Bill. Backed up by the House of Lords, it looks very likely as if the English majority will have their way. Mr. Gladstone will retire the bill to a shelf and try and placate the Irish Whigs with honeyed promises of its. resurrection. Before closing this addendum the writer would wish to draw attention to the present attitude of the British Whig enemy, now in power. A gigantic movement is on foot to denationalize the Irish people and to draw into the vortex every organ of Irish opinion, favorable to the Mephis- tophelian doctrines of this would-be British savior of Ireland. It has unfortunately been in some measure successful, and the editors of many Irish-American papers have adopted this wily Briton's apparent views, which are to remove all landmarks between the Irish and British people. The real endeavor is to strengthen the tottering British empire by turn- ing the hostile Irish people into its supporters; and most particularly the Irish-American section, which the wily Briton has good reason to dread. This is endeavored to be accomplished by the illusory promises of these hypocritical Whig leaders; not one material blessing, not even, the smallest prosperity can they give to Ireland. They are full well aware that no laws they can pass will alter the condition of this British dependency, Ireland, so long as it remains beneath the blighting and destructive power of the British Crown. To Irish independence they are equally as hostile as their Tory brothers. This gigantic endeavor to make- Irishmen Britons, by at first making them kindly disposed to the Glad- stonians, is made manifest in the career of Lord Aberdeen and his amiable countess. This lady's patronage of Irish industries and other kindly actions is but part of a huge network set to catch the trusting and impulsive Irish Celt. The crowning of this edifice has been intrusted to Mr. Blake, an Irish- Canadian, now member of the enemy's London Parliament. The sancti- monious "master of misrepresentation" has intrusted this Whig statesman with a letter to be read on Irish day at the Chicago World's Fair. This letter is dated September 2, 1893, and must have been sent to Mr. Blake near one month previous. Its object is to try and instill into the Irish- American mind the love this British Premier holds for them, at the self- same time keeping some of their brothers in British prisons. We quote a passage from this letter. "You are about to address Americans, who in all ranks and in all parts of their magnificent country have shown an active and almost universal sympathy with Ireland; and especially Irish- Americans, through whose energies and inexhaustible affection for Ireland has been effected the most remarkable oceanic migration ever known in IRELAND AT THE CLOSE OF 1893. 649 the history of the world." How genuine to the unsophisticated, and even the cultured American, or Irish-American, are these expressions of kindly interest; how marvelously must this man deceive himself if this whole letter was not written for a purpose ! Who, but this remarkable Briton, could term the gigantic drain of Ireland's health, the bone and sinew of her people, as the offspring of the energies and inexhaustible affection of the Irish-Americans, when the direct cause is the brutal foreign laws — laws now administered by this sanctimonious Briton who endeavors to deceive mankind. It is the curse of foreign rule in Ireland which has left no employment for the people that they must either die or emigrate. Had this aged Briton, ever in his long life, witnessed the departure of these people from their homes, he might have witnessed a scene unparalelled in any country — the sobs and shrieks of aged parents, the parting between mother and child, sister and brother, the dying wail of the expatriated Gael. A parting in many cases as heartrending as a scene by an open grave. The last fond look on their beloved home and country, so loved by the Irish Celt, that it is tearing his heartstrings asunder to be compelled to part from the early associations of childhood. Note the words applied by the great "master of misrepresentation" to the dreadful exodus of the Irish race from Ireland — "Oceanic migra- tion." As well might the Turkish chieftains have termed the Bulgarian massacres as the "heavenly migration" of the Bulgarian people. But the Briton has become more successful than the Turk. The Oriental could not slaughter in such hordes as the Occidental destroys and exiles by his cursed laws and cruelties. The passing into law of this measure which Mr. Gladstone and his followers so cunningly tell us would give the Irish people full control over their domestic affairs, would find a people wholly disarmed so far as British law can be enforced to effect it, and also under a perpetual Tory coercion law which remains still unrepealed upon the British statute book, and which this promised Dublin legislature would be powerless to either repeal or alter. British soldiers and police would still remain authorized to enter any house in Ireland on the plea of searching for concealed arms. Ireland, under what is insultingly termed Home Rule, would continue manacled by the laws of a foreign people. The Dublin Chambers would have no power whatever over this question of disarmament, as it is one of the many so-called Imperial questions which the "master of misrepresentation" withheld from the legislative power of the Dublin Chambers. The last disarming act, it will be remembered, was passed by this wily Whig chief- tain when he last posed as a Home Rule minister in 1886. There is no badge of conquest more insulting, there is none that voices in stronger language the usurpation of a foreign nation, than this disarm- ing of a people. This insulting and degrading badge of servility would remain fastened upon the Irish nation while that country was supposed to have had self-government conferred upon her by the voluntary action of her invader and destroyer the British. But why pursue this mockery, called home rule; further, not all the eloquence of "misrepresentation" nor all the panegyrics of this marvelous British Minister on Ireland, can alter facts. No amount of glamour can make falsehood truth. The Irish people cordially indorse the words of Mr. Blake at the Chicago Fair when he had finished reading the British Premier's letter, "Godspeed the day when the Irish will govern Ireland." When that time comes, as come it will if the Irish people are true to themselves, Mr. Gladstone or no other British Premier will have any more authority in Ireland than they have to-day in France or Germany. But to realize this, the Irish people must take prompt and instant action. There is 650 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. one great phase of this Irish question which agitators, orators, and writers appear either to purposely avoid or to completely overlook. That is the terrific exodus of the Irish people from their native land. This goes on unceasingly, no matter what party is in power in the enemy's country, or what policies or agitations occupy either the Irish or British mind. This enormous drain on the population should awaken Irish intellects from the stupor or fanaticism which induces them to pursue this ever disappearing phantom called home rule. This fearful destruction of a people — for they are practically destroyed in so far as their own country is concerned. The delusion of the Celts returning with a vengeance is only another dream of the agitators. In the event of a foreign war a small percentage of the present generation would likely do so; or an American war, which would enlist all of the race here as Americans, if not as Irishmen. But no self-respecting people will cling to this delusion. It is from Ireland that the great blow to the enemy must come, helped of course by a respectable contingent of Irishmen in other lands. But that contingent is not strengthened but weakened by emigration. Hold fast to your country if possible. Every Irishman who can stay at home and does not is a deserter from his nation. We know how difficult, and in some cases impossible this is to accomplish. Which is proof beyond yea or nay, that these so-called Gladstonian concessions have conceded nothing. The Irish Celt would never fly from his country if he could possibly stay there. The returns of the Irish Register General for the quarter ending June 30, 1893, gives the following figures: Irish Births for three months ending June 30, 1893, .... 28,301 Irish Deaths for three months ending June 30, 1893, . . . 20,306 Gain in the population by births over deaths, .... 7,955 In the same period the loss by emigration was, .... 23,879 Total loss to the nation for three months ending June 30, 1893, 15,884 This exodus is for the last three months ending June 30, 1893, of the benign rule of Gladstone the Home Ruler. These appalling figures stand forth in letters of living fire to draw the attention of the people, and more especially Irishmen, to the infamous destruction of their race in Ireland by the rule of the foreigner. It is a sad and terrible corroboration of the arguments used by the writer throughout this work. As this Addendum goes to press, a Dublin newspaper comes to hand, The Irish Weekly Independent, of January 27, 1894; in its columns there is an expose of Dublin Castle rule under the sway of Gladstone and Mor- ley, Ireland's hypocritical friends. This extract will speak for itself: REVELATIONS! — THE SECRET INQUIRY IN THE CASTLE — HOW JOHN MORLEY'S SERVANTS HUNT UP CRIME — THE REVIVAL OF A REIGN OF TERROR. In view of the rumors which have been circulated as to the methods employed by the Castle under the government of Mr. John Morley, to make a case against the men Nolan and Mearna, who were charged with the Cardiff Lane murder, a representative of this journal obtained an interview with Mr. Fred. Allan, who was chairman of the committee got up for their defense. Nolan and Mearna were first brought up as wit- nesses under the secret inquiry, and the Crown officials, failing to extract evidence from them which might serve their purpose, are charged by public rumor with having used threats of a character as audacious as they were shameful. Then these two men were arrested and charged with the IRELAND AT THE CLOSE OF 1893. 651 offense, and the result proved that the Crown was unable to make even a firiina facie case against them. The ways of Dublin Castle are not often exposed to the public; but in these cases they have been brought to light, owing to the courage of many of the witnesses who were summoned again and again, and detained in the Castle without any shadow of legal authority. Mr. Allan has obtained statements from those witnesses as to the manner in which they were treated, and it will be seen from some of them that an attempt was made by some, at least, of the Castle officials to procure evidence by means that are an outrage upon justice. In the darkest days of our land means more infamous were never employed to bring men to the gallows; and it is appalling to find that they can be used now under a government that pretends that its mission is to do justice to Ireland. The following are the details of the interview: "Will you kindly tell me, Mr. Allan, how the Defense Committee came to be formed?" "Certainly. Two days after Walter Sheridan was arrested some of his friends came to me and asked me if I would aid them in getting up a defense fund, as they had the strongest reasons for believing that the box of detonators had been purposely 'planted' on him. A small meeting was called, the committee formed, and a number of collecting cards issued. The committee had scarcely started on its work when the arrests of John Nolan and John Mearna added greatly to the responsibilities, of which addition it has since been happily relieved." "Our editor has suggested to me that you and some other members ■of the Defense Committee could give the public some information as to the working of the secret inquiry in Dublin Castle?" "Whatever information I can give you I shall give with pleasure. That is, so far as the attempts to work up a case against Nolan and Mearna went. Of course, you understand that while the Sheridan case is sub jit dice it would be unfair for me to say anything." "Of course, I understand that, Mr. Allan. But am I not right in thinking that the secret inquiry was held chiefly in connection with the charge against Nolan and Mearna." "You are perfectly right. The government could only hold a secret inquiry under the Explosives Act. They pinned the Cardiff Lane mystery on the abortive explosion at Aldborough Barracks, and their usual pro- cedure was to summon a witness to an inquiry into the attempted explo- sion on Saturday, November 25, and then not to ask him a single question about that affair. "But was this legal?" "My dear sir," said Mr. Allan smiling, "you have yet to learn that Dublin Castle officials think they can make their own laws or strain exist- ing ones to suit their objects. The Tory Government, at least, had the candor to hold its secret inquiries under the Coercion Act. Mr. John Morley and the other Liberal Ministers reject the Coercion Act with well- assumed scorn, but hold their secret courts for the manufacture of evidence just the same, and illegally stretch an entirely different Act to cover their shameful proceedings — another sign of the union of hearts." "And their methods of dealing with witnesses at the inquiry?" "Open bullying, cajolery, and even attempted bribery." "They do not seem to have been particularly successful on this occasion?" "No; quite the contrary. Thanks chiefly to the honesty and determi- nation of the men and women who were brought up to the inquiry, and thanks also, to some extent, to their own wretched procedure in the case against Nolan and Mearna." 652 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. "What do you mean by that?" "I mean that the usual Castle method was followed. Instead of mak- ing an unbiased inquiry into the facts of the case with open minds, and then making their charge against the person or persons who were impli- cated by the facts, they seized upon two men whom they professed to consider troublesome Nationalists, and having done this, used the most extraordinary efforts to make the evidence fit round these men." "In Mr. O'Shaughnessy's eloquent speech during the hearing of the charge against Nolan and Mearna, he stated that a shocking threat had been leveled at one of the men. Is it fair to ask what this was?" "Well, I can only give you the statement of John Nolan, as it was made first to myself and afterward, in precisely the same words, to his counsel. He stated that when he was first brought up to the Castle, he was questioned privately and with much sharpness by a certain high Crown official, who, he said, appeared to be greatly excited, and suddenly turning on him, said, 'Nolan, I'll hang you if I can!' to which Nolan said he replied that 'if it were done it would be by foul means, for be could not do it by fair.' The means used were certainly not fair, either within the law or without it. But the story of the threat had the effect of putting the Defense Committee on its mettle, and within three or four days of the formal charging of Nolan and Mearna every man who had seen them on the day and evening that Reid was shot had been inter- viewed, and their statements taken down in writing. These informal depositions had been placed before Mr. Mclnerney, the energetic coun- sel for the defense, and were, I believe, the principal cause of his constant statements that the Crown could have no case against the men." "Unless they made one?" "Well, they did their best not alone to make one, but to destroy the defense of the men. For instance, several prominent Nationalists had come to us to state that they saw the two men in a well-known club on the north side of the city from before seven until eight o'clock on the night Reid was shot, Some of these gentlemen were summoned again and again to the Castle, and strenuous efforts made to twist and strain their statements in every possible manner to weaken the evidence. As the inquiry went on, however, the Crown lawyers began to find that the case for the defense of Nolan and Mearna was of a character which could not be broken down, and, as their own hope of making up a case against the men became weaker from day to day, they finally gave in." "Then, in one sense, Mr. Allan, the inquiry was a benefit to the men?" "Well, I can hardly admit that. The men would never have been charged at all had the Crown officials not had before them the hope of (as Mr. Mclnerney happily put it) training up a witness or two in the gymnastic institution in Dublin Castle. They thought it was absolutely necessary that a victim should be made, and in effect directed the police to find one Naturally the police did their best to procure what was so urgently required by their employers. For the blame of the whole shame- less proceedings, we must look behind the police and detectives, behind Mr. John Mullen or Mr. Home, R. M. It requires very little discern- ment, indeed, to see that these gentlemen were merely carrying out the instructions of those above them. It would be but common justice, how- ever, if I add that from all such comment on the Crown officials we of the Defense Committee make a decided exception of Mr. Sergeant Dodd, who throughout the whole case displayed that fairness which is strongly charac- teristic of him." "It has been stated more than once that men who were brought up for examination at the inquiry were detained in the Castle. Is this true?" IRELAND AT THE CLOSE OF 1893. 653. "It is, unfortunately, too true. One young fellow, a clerk in a Dub- lin brewery, was brought up and detained, with the result that he was most unjustly dismissed from his situation. In another case a man earn- ing a daily wage on the quay was kept in for three days, and not a penny compensation offered to him. Several other minor cases of this illegal detention occurred, the palpable inferences being that efforts were made to force the witnesses to give evidence useful to the Crown lawyers. In other cases, again, the witnesses were brought up day after day and worried in that wearying, dispiriting manner in which the Castle people seem to be past masters, with the view of inducing them to give evidence in support of the Crown case, whether they could honestly do so or not. Look, for instance, at the case of Mrs. Thomson, the landlady of the house in which Mearna lodged. As you will doubtless remember, she was called to give what the Crown lawyers are pleased to term 'evidence,' while as a matter of fact it was intended to call Mrs. Thomson for the defense, to go over the very points put in evidence by the Crown. At the very time that Reid had called, looking for Mearna, both Nolan and Mearna were up looking for re-employment in the place where they for- merly worked. The Crown, in the course of its secret inquiry, appears- to have ascertained this, and at once set to work to revise its scheme. Mrs. Thomson was brought up again and again and cajoled, coaxed, and bullied to admit that Reid had called a second time at the house later than 5.30. In plain language, the Crown endeavored to bully her into- swearing to evidence which she knew to be false. To such an extent was this carried that she was twice sent home in a cab from the Castle in a hysterical state, scarcely knowing what she was doing, and with but a very faint idea indeed of what she had said on her oath. On one of these occasions a letter was sent after her by the Castle authorities, apologizing. for what they were pleased to term a misunderstanding. On Friday, the 29th December, Mrs. Thomson was summoned to the Castle at half-past nine in the morning. She went up, and was detained there for a couple of hours. Then she was brought out to the Castle yard and put into a cab. She asked the detective who came with her where he was bringing her to, and he replied, 'just over to the Attorney General. He wants to ask you a couple of questions.' She was brought into a building which she did not recognize at the time, and left in a room by herself for about another hour. Then, without a moment's warning, she was ushered through another door straight into the Police Court, and pushed roughly into the witness-box; and the first intimation that she had that she was being called as a Crown witness was when Sergeant Dodd rose and asked her name and address. It is difficult to explain this gross deception on the part of the authorities, except as a careful plan to confuse the witness, and to endeavor to force her into admitting the false evidence that she had refused to swear to at the inquiry. Needless to say that the discreditable- plan entirely failed; for the evidence given by Mrs. Thomson would have been shown to be entirely favorable to the accused had the case ever come to trial." "Was Mrs. Thomson troubled after that day?" "Not openly. But insidious stories were spread that she was a willing Crown witness ; and even on one occasion a threatening letter was sent to her, about which hangs a curious coincidence." "What is that?" "Well, the same week an official notice from Exchange Court was sent to the same address, and both documents were placed in my hands. I was so much struck by the similarity in their appearance that I had a careful examination and test made of them by an expert. His report to- me was that the paper and envelope used for the threatening letter and 654 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. that used for the official Castle inquiry notice were precisely the same; and further, that so far as he could judge, the ink used was of exactly the same kind and quality. I make no comment on this, but merely state the interesting facts." Mr. Allan thereupon produced the two documents for the inspection of our representative, who was at once struck by the great similarity, in many points, between them. ' 'Well, now, Mr. Allan, you hinted that the Defense Committee had considered records of the proceedings at the recent secret inquiry. Could you favor me with one or two examples?" "I could certainly furnish you with a greater quantity of copy of that kind than you would care to publish," replied Mr. Allan; and our repre- sentative fully believed him, as he saw him producing an immense pile of documents. "There was scarcely a witness examined whose name and an idea of whose evidence we did not get either directly from himself or from his immediate friends. For obvious reasons, however, I would pre- fer not to go into the evidence for the defense, a considerable portion of which was sworn to before the Castle inquiry. Many people who were perfectly willing and able to come forward and give evidence in defense of two young Irishmen whose lives were at stake, would have an objection to the publication of their names as matters of mere curiosity. When, however, you told me the other day that you would like to interview me on this subject, I made it my business to see some of the people from the district around Cardiff Lane who had been summoned, and to get from them permission to publish a plain statement of their unpleasant experi- ences of the Castle and Castle people. My reasons for selecting that particular district in particular is: (1) That the police naturally directed a great amount of attention to it; but also (2) that a report was spread through the city, as we firmly believe by police agents, that the Crown had got as many willing witnesses as they required from that part of Dublin. The plain fact being that the greatest temptations were held out and as frequently resisted by these humble folk — whom I know well to be among the hardest worked, most honest, and at the same time most thoroughly national people in Dublin — I mean the people of the vast coal quay and gas works district of our city." "Here," continued Mr. Allan, "I'll give you one or two statements, taken down by myself, which will show you what little ground there was for this libelous rumor. I give them to you much in the witnesses' own words. "I take the first statement of Miss Jane Porteous, a pleasing-looking young lady of about eighteen years of age, the daughter of a respectable North of Ireland man, living close to Cardiff Lane: "Miss Porteous states that she was brought up to the Castle inquiry some days after the night Reid was shot, and was sworn by Mr. Home, who stated that her name had been mentioned to him as one of the people who had been about Cardiff Lane on the night of the 27th November, and that he wished to ask her some questions as to her movements that evening. In reply to the question put to her she stated that she called for a friend of hers, Miss Annie Robinson, shortly after seven o'clock on that evening, and they walked down Cardiff Lane together. She was asked again and again if she saw a woman, Mrs. Hanlon, standing at her doorway. She said they did not notice. Asked did she see anyone in the lane, she replied that they noticed two men, like workingmen, but they did not pay any attention to them. Over and over again she was pressed for a description of the men, although she had already sworn that they had taken no notice of them, and could not possibly identify them in any way. She was spoken to very roughly, and was told that they were IRELAND AT THE CLOSE OF 1893. 655; quite certain she had seen the men who shot Reid, and that it would be better for herself if she spoke out; and they added that nothing spoken in the Castle would ever be known down at the quay. She still held to her statement that she could not identify the men, as she did not pay any attention to them, and to the other points she had spoken about, and Mr. Home said he was convinced she and Miss Robinson were two perjurers, and that he would give them a month's imprisonment each if they did not speak out. He also asked her did she say anything to her mother about the two men, and although she said she did not, pressed her over and over again to admit that she had. He finally sent her out of the room in charge of a detective, and she thought she was being sent to jail for a month as he had threatened her, but she was released the same evening. She was ill for two days owing to the treatment she had undergone. While she was in the Castle she was told that if she spoke the truth she would be recompensed. "Miss Annie Robinson, to whom Miss Porteous refers in her state- ment, gave practically the same record of the proceedings at the inquiry as her friend, Miss Porteous. She also was pressed very hard to say she had seen Mrs. Hanlon at her door in Cardiff Lane, and Mr. Mallon said she (Miss Robinson) could not have gone down Cardiff Lane without see- ing Mrs. Hanlon and a man named Walsh speaking to her. They also pressed her very hard to say that she saw a man named Laurence Keeffe in the lane, although she told them again and again she had not, and Mr. Mallon said that she must speak out — that she could not live near the quay without knowing Keeffe, and that she must have seen him in the lane. They said that they would give her a month's imprisonment if she did not tell them what they were aware she knew. She was brought up twice, and on the first occasion was kept in for over four hours. "Bernard Meleady, who lives close to the place where Reid was shot, states that he was brought up to the inquiry and pressed hard to give evidence. He was at home before seven o'clock, and, having to go on to work early in the morning, went to bed, and heard nothing about the occurrence till the following morning. He told them this at the Castle, but they professed to disbelieve him, and said that he must have heard something of the murder. They pressed him to answer other questions, but he said he could not, and finally they let him go. "Mrs. Nolan, who keeps a little shop close to Cardiff Lane, was brought up and asked if any men had bought matches from her on the night of the 27th November. She said she believed several had, but that she could not recognize any of them, as she paid no particular attention to them. They pressed her very hard for a description of the men who- had called, and very unfairly delayed her a long time at the Castle, although she told them she had to shut up her shop to go up to the inquiry. "Laurence Keeffe, of Harmony Row, was brought up to the Castle a couple of times, and on one occasion was detained for two days and nights, during which he was questioned several times. He stated that he was up and down to the quays through Cardiff Lane three or four times between six and eight o'clock on the evening of the 27th, but that he did not notice anything particular going on, until, near eight o'clock, he heard of the occurrence and saw the crowds about. They threatened him with a statement that they had evidence against himself, and that he had better speak out and tell all he knew if he wanted to save himself. He also was told by one of the detectives that he would be made comfortable if he would tell them about the men whom he must have seen in Cardiff Lane. He said he knew nothing, and after keeping him in the Castle from Wed- nesday to Friday he was released. During his detention in the Castle he '656 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. {Keeffe) was told, as an inducement to him to give information, that the man who first put the Castle 'on the track of the Phoenix Park murderers' was still walking about Dublin an independent man. He was also told t>y one of the detectives that it was one of the men then in custody who should have been hanged for the Seville place murder, and not Joe Poole; and that they were determined to have him this time. Two offers of money were made to him during the time he was in custody. "Mrs. Mary Hanlon, of Queen's Square, states that the following is a summary of the evidence given by her at the inquiry, and of her experi- ence thereat: She was standing at her back gate, which opens into Cardiff Lane, shortly after seven o'clock on the night of the 27th November, when a man named Walsh came up and asked if her husband was in. She said she expected him in every moment, and asked Walsh in to wait for him. They chatted at the gate for a moment, and were speaking of the men on sea, for the wind was blowing very hard, when Walsh remarked, 'Here are three seamen coming up,' She looked up the lane and saw three men coming, and as they passed her she said, 'They are not sailors,' at which one of the men turned round and she saw his face. He made some remark, apparently to her, but she did not catch what he said. She did not pay any attention to the men with him. As the men passed, Walsh went in with her to wait for her husband, and a short time after, on going to the door, she heard that a man had shot himself down the lane. Walsh and she went out to the crowd that had gathered in the lane, and while standing there she heard it remarked that the man wore a soft cap and an overcoat. 'Oh,' she said, 'that is like the man who passed our gate just now.' Immediately she was grasped by a policeman, who asked her for an explanation of what she had said, and she was then brought off to the hospital with Walsh and some others. She saw the body of a man lying in the hospital, and they were asked if they recog- nized him. Walsh went over and lifted the cover off his face, and remarked that that was the man who had made the remark to her when passing the gate. She said it was. The police asked her to describe the other two men, but she said she could not, as she had paid no particular attention to them. She said, however, she believed that she never saw the men before. She was brought up to the Castle at twelve o'clock that night, and pressed hard to give some description of the men, but again she said she could not do so. During the week she was brought up again, and they told her that they had it from friends of hers that she knew Mearna well, and pressed her to state that he was one of the men she saw with Reid; but she said she did not recognize either of the men with Reid. Some days afterward she was brought up to Kilmainham prison, and the two men Nolan and Mearna, whom she afterward saw in the Police Courts, were marched up and down before a window at which she was placed, and she was asked if she could identify them as the men she saw with Reid. She said, however, that they did not look at all like them. She said to the detective who went up with her that it was not honest to put two men out in the yard by themselves, and to ask her to identify them, instead of placing them among others. She said, too, that she thought Nolan and Mearna looked far older than the style of the men she saw in Cardiff Lane with Reid. 'Oh,' said the detective who was with her (she believed his name was Brien), 'we must shave them and brush them up before you see them again.' She was brought up again to the Castle a few days after that, and once more pressed to 'speak out,' and hints were given to her that she would be made comfortable if she would help on the case. On the day before the men were acquitted, a detective whom she did not know, but whom she saw in the Castle and in the court, called at her house and said he wanted to say a few words to her about IRELAND AT THE CLOSE OF 1893. 657 this case. He said she was a young woman beginning the world, and she would be a foolish woman if she did not better herself by helping them on with the case. Her husband then came in to his dinner, and the detective dropped the subject, but introduced it again after a couple of minutes' conversation with her husband, and said to them: 'Both of you would get any acknowledgment you like if you make this case.' He then went out, but apparently waited about, because he came to the door again immediately after her husband, Jack Hanlon, went back to work, and again brought up the subject to her. 'Now, Mrs. Hanlon,' he said, 'you know you saw Mearna in the lane with Reid. Come, now, will you not take a comfortable sum of money and speak out; we will ship you to any part of the world you like if you don't wish to stay here. You need not be afraid to name a sum up to one thousand pounds if you make the case for us.' Mrs. Hanlon replied that she 'would not take the place of the Queen on the throne and do a thing like that.' Jack Hanlon, her hus- band, was brought up to the Castle that evening, and kept in till nine o'clock. He told her that he was pressed hard to induce his wife to 'speak out,' and promises were held out that 'they'd both be made com- fortable for life if they'd do so.' Some days before that Mr. Mallon and two detectives called at her house during the evening and brought her down to her back gate. Mr. Mallon stopped inside the gate in the posi- tion in which she said she was standing when Reid and the two other men passed, while one of the detectives went outside and walked down the lane past the gate. She heard them saying among themselves that noth- ing could be seen distinctly, and that it was quite possible she could not recognize anyone passing unless he turned toward her. Even after that, however, she was pressed to say she recognized Mearna. On the morning of the 12th inst. she was brought up to the Castle, and from there to the police court, and while there a couple of the detectives came to her, and said they hoped she would help them to 'make the case.' She replied sharply that she had told them the truth, and that she neither could nor would say any more. They went out then, and a short time afterward Nolan and Mearna were brought in and discharged. On the Tuesday after they were discharged, two of the detectives went down to Mrs. Hanlon 's house and asked her if she had got a good view of the men in the court on the previous Friday. She said she had. 'Now, Mrs. Hanlon,' said one of them, 'were not those the two men you saw going down the lane with Reid?' 'No,' replied Mrs. Hanlon, 'I am sure those were not the men.' That was the last interview she had with any of them. "John Hanlon, of Queen's Square, husband of the Mrs. Hanlon whose statement is given above, states that he was brought up to the Castle twice, the second occasion being the night before the men were acquitted, and the first about a week previous. On the first occasion he saw Mr. Molloy, who said that he had become informed that he (Hanlon) was intimidating his wife, and preventing her from speaking the truth. He denied that, and challenged them to produce his wife and ask her. They threatened to arrest him for intimidation if he did not mind himself. On the Wednesday previous to the acquittal he went home to his dinner, and found a detective there talking to his wife. He (the detective) spoke to them of the poorness of their rooms, and told them that if they would only help the Crown with this case, they would be made comfortable for life. On the following evening he was summoned to the Castle and went up about five o'clock. He saw a high official whom he knew and two whom he knew to be detectives. He was again accused of intimidating his wife, and urged to make her speak. 'Can't you get her to speak out?' said one of the detectives. 'Look here, Hanlon,' said the other, who was the man who had been in his house at dinner time the previous day. 658 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. 'Look here, Hanlon; don't let five hundred pounds stop you; there will be five hundred pounds here in the morning at ten o'clock for you if you'll help us.' He replied that so far as he knew his wife had spoken the truth, and he would not ask her to do anything else. After a short time he was sent away. "Of the many other witnesses brought up to the inquiry it may be mentioned that a Mrs. Thomas and a Mrs. McCoy, who both lived close to the place where Reid was shot, were examined. Their evidence was interesting in so far as both of them deposed to hearing the shots, but as neither of them would swear to seeing any man in the lane their state- ments were not considered valuable." "Have you anything further to add, Mr. Allan?" - "Well, nothing that I think I should give you for present publication. The report of offers of Castle money are widespread, and I could give you more statements of that character, but it is a serious subject to touch upon, and I prefer to leave it at what I have given you. I feel it is neces- sary to vindicate the characters of the poor hard-working honest people round the coal quay and gas works, and give public testimony to the honesty and courage of women like Mrs. Hanlon. People talk glibly enough of the pretended care with which Crown witnesses are procured in such cases as these in Ireland; but I feel satisfied that in no other country but Ireland would humble working people like the Hanlons resist such temptations as were offered to them." "Has the Defense Committee been interfered with by the police in its work?" "As a committee, no. But almost every member of it was annoyed a good deal. One member, for instance, had to change his lodgings owing to the severity of the supervision; another was threatened with loss of his situation for the same cause; the house of a third was visited and ran- sacked, and so on. Mr. James Boland, you may remember, was pulled out of a train when on his way to Mountrath on his business by detectives, who said they were instructed to prevent his leaving town, yet there never was even a pretense that there was the slightest charge against him." "As to yourself, Mr. Allan. I understand you had your share of annoyance also?" "Well, I had my share. A pretty strict supervision was kept on me all the time I was working up the defense, and in the beginning people coming into my house were even stopped and questioned. I had a couple of domiciliary visits from the police also, and I was summoned to the inquiry a couple of times to answer some questions in connection with the club visited by Nolan and Mearna on the night of the 27th November, of the committee of which I am a member. I don't complain of this; but what I do think I have a right to complain of is, that reports were con- stantly spread by the police among my personal friends that my 'arrest might be hourly expected,' with a view, I presume, to make me give up the defense of these men. I was surprised to find Mr. Mallon descend- ing to this kind of warfare, although he knew perfectly well there was not the smallest truth in the 'friendly (?) hint.' A far more malicious story was spread about me by, I believe, some of the law agents of the Crown, to the effect that when I was in custody myself some nine years ago on a charge of treason felony, I made an agreement with the Castle. It was a most villainous statement to make, for nearly every one of my old per- sonal friends is aware that just before I was arrested at that time I had secured a pretty lucrative journalistic position in England, and that the Castle people became aware of this, and that when the case against Mr. P. N. Fitzgerald broke down, they sent an offer to my solicitor to release me if I'd agree to live out of Ireland for two years; and that my answer IRELAND AT THE CLOSE OF 1893. , 659 to the proposal was to throw up the position in England. I never heard another word about this proposal till the other day; for, indeed, when I was released on bail, the case being too weak to go on with, the late Mr. E. Dvvyer Gray kindly reinstated me in my old position in the Freeman office, and I have lived in Dublin ever since. "Could the spreading of such a scandalous invention have any other object than to shake confidence in you in the minds of people who may be disposed to come forward with evidence for the defense of those men?" "I see no other reason for it. But the whole affair is hardly calcu- lated to fill one with affection or respect for Dublin Castle or its officials. However, you will excuse me for taking up time with a personal matter. I would not have done so but that Mr. Harrington, M. P., ran across the lie the other day at the Four Courts and sent me a friendly word of advice to expose it at the first opportunity, and as it is a good specimen of the average Dublin Castle methods, which honest men have only to see exposed when they will be filled with dislike and contempt for the whole mode of procedure and perhaps endeavor to thwart it as much as lies in their power — this is why I give you the incident." "The secret inquiry is still going on, is it not?" "It is. The Crown is apparently determined to magnify into a state trial the miserable result of a drunken spree in the Sheridan case; but I believe the public will back up the Defense Committee sufficiently, and will continue to do so until a proper defense is provided in this case also." This description of star chamber practices in Dublin is a repetition of the examination of Mr. Kinsella, the Blackrock station master, in an early chapter of this book. In what manner has British rule in Ireland changed by the defeat of the Tories in the election of 1892? Here is an account of the self-same infamies of Gladstone and the Red Earl prac- ticed in 1882-83, repeated in 1893, by Gladstone and Morley. Where — where is the proof of any change in foreign rule in Ireland? It is an insult to our intelligence to say that this damnable crime, the rule of the Briton in Ireland, could be reformed. No matter what party or minister is in power it is alike tyrannically cruel and destructive. Bribes, threats, every species of terror and infamy practiced on the people; men kept in prison for days, without the shadow of a charge preferred against them; their employers afraid to restore them to their positions, for fear that they too would become suspected of disloyalty to the foreigner; even women arrested; every species of hellish coercion used; large sums offered to bribe and cajole the people to become perjurers! Is it any wonder that sometimes weak men fall under the dreadful mental tortures applied by that foreign murder conspiracy that usurps the government of Ireland in Dublin Castle? The Mallon spoken of in the Dublin Inde- pendent is the same police agent of the enemy who figures in another part of this history. The system which creates these tools of iniquity in Ireland demands fawning, lying, and sycophantic instruments to deceive and entrap fresh victims to do the infamous service of their masters, the foreign conspirators in Dublin. And all this infamy is practiced under the British Administration of Ireland's canting friend, Win. E. Gladstone. If there are any two names among British ministers that will stand out more prominently for Irish posterity to condemn and speak of with honest loathing, these names will be Gladstone and Morley; for both men have by deceptive promises induced numbers of the Irish people to believe in the sincerity of their friendship, and by their actions, as here described, proved more cruel than their open and undisguised enemies, the Tories. The years between the writing of this book and its closing Addendum 660 THE IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLES. has seen a great change come over the Irish-American people on the Irish question. The false and illusory dream created by the Provincialists, that a compromise between the Briton and the Irish could be arranged under the banner of home rule has almost entirely passed. Some few men of wealth who would be Whigs in the old country, and some few others who have interested motives, try to keep alive the flicker of this bastard nationality with the meaningless name, home rule. The work of a few zealous men in Irish circles has borne fruit; the folly of agitation to solve this usurpation of the invader in Ireland is fully realized among the patriotic exiles and their children. To more effectively preach this true love of the old land, an organ of propaganda has commenced its career with the uncompromising name of The Irish Republic ; this news- paper is under the management of a wealthy business man in New York City, Mr. William Lyman, who is well known in Ireland and wherever Irish Nationalists dwell, as the treasurer of the "Irish National League," under its new regime in the United States. The editor of The Irish Republic is Charles O'Connor McLaughlin, a graduate of the college of St. Jarleths, Tuam. Previous to his arrival in the States he was on the Dublin Freeman, and had great opportunities for studying the Irish Parlia- mentary policy in the country, where, as a newspaper man he was sent to write up evictions, meetings, and other phases of Irish life during the agitation. More recently he was one of the staff of T. P. O'Connor's London newspaper. He has had an intimate acquaintance with the mem- bers of the Irish Parliamentary party, and fully realizes the folly of their programme. Under his able guidance The Irish Republic will preach the true and only propaganda for subject peoples. If this book does the smallest good, or contributes in any manner to stem the disastrous tide which leads to emigration, by arousing Irishmen to a sense of their duty to work, and preach the only true doctrine for subject peoples — the complete removal of foreign rule from their country — the writer will feel that he has not worked in vain. If Irishmen will stand up erect and cease to sit at the feet of any British Minister; in their united and properly directed strength, and in face of the decaying and rotting physical power of the enemy, the close of this century, near as is that period, will see Ireland added to the nations of the earth, a sovereign member of the world's family of nations. And the close of the nineteenth century will witness the uprising of the ancient Celtic race when the epitaph of that young hero-martyr, Robert Emmet, will have been written by an intelligent and valiant people. THE END. THE Irish National Invincibles AND THEIR TIMES THREE DECADES OF STRUGGLE AGAINST THE FOREIGN CONSPIRATORS IN DUBLIN CASTLE rHE PARLIAMENTARY PROVINCIAUSTS' AGITATION TO REFORM FOREIGN RULE, FROM ISAAC BUTT'S MOVEMENT IN 1870 TO GLADSTONE'S BILL IN 1886. THE IRISH NATIONALISTS' PREPARATIONS TO TAKE THE FIELD AGAINST THE INVADER'S FORCES IN 1865, 1866, AND 1867. GUERRILLA WARFARE OF THE IRISH NATION IN 1882, 1883, AND 1884 WITH AN ADDENDUM IRELAND AT THE CLOSE OF 1893 HY P. J. P. TYNAN ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK IRISH NATIONAL INVINCIBLE PUBLISHING CO. 1894