I 
 
 J 
 
Metropolitan Hotel, 
 New York City, May, 28, 1866. 
 
 Mr. G. W. C arleton, Publisher : 
 
 Dear Sir : — The book entitled "James 
 Stephens and the Fenian Brother- 
 hood," published by you, is deserving the 
 attention of all Irishmen in America. 
 
 While sonic of it's statements are in- 
 correct, the writer has treated his subject 
 as creditably as could be cxpccicd in the 
 present state of Ireland, and the unfortu- 
 nate dissensions among her sons in Ame- 
 rica. 
 
 Trusting that it may meet with the 
 siicccss it deserves, and that it may tend 
 tn unite my countrymen in their efforts 
 for the redemption of onr dear native 
 land, 
 
 I am yours truly, 
 
 4 
 
J ames otephens, 
 
 CHIEF ORGANIZER OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC. 
 
 EMBRACING AN ACCOUNT OP THE ORIGIN AND 
 PROGRESS OF THE 
 
 FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 
 
 BEING A 
 
 SEMI-BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OP JAMES STEPHENS, WITH THE 
 STORY OP HIS ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT ; ALSO HIS 
 ESCAPE PROM THE BRITISH AUTHORITIES 
 
 j** ■' "»*^ 
 
 
 NEW YORK ! 
 
 Carleton, Publisher, 413 Broadway, 
 
 M DCCC LSVI. 
 

 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by 
 
 GEO. W. CARLETON, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
 Southern District of New York. 
 
 The New York Printing Company, 
 
 81, 83, and 85 Centre Street, 
 
 New York. 
 

 PREFACE. 
 
 A " Biography of James Stephens" cannot yet 
 be written, for his life has not yet terminated, and 
 his work is not accomplished. ISTor can the " His- 
 tory of Fenianism" be indited while the freedom 
 of Ireland from British rule is an unaccomplished 
 fact. He who shall write the one, must neces- 
 sarily indite the other. At the present time, a 
 brief sketch of the work performed by the one, 
 and the progress made by the other, may serve 
 to throw some light upon the condition of Ireland 
 and assist in her redemption. 
 
 There will, doubtless, be found some inaccura- 
 cies in this little book, but the material points of 
 which it treats are substantially correct. In the 
 absence of any official records to which to refer, 
 the author has been compelled to rely mainly 
 upon oral statements, and the current newspaper 
 reports of the day for his facts. By condensing, 
 
TV PREFACE. 
 
 sifting, and collating these, lie has striven to 
 write as near the truth as possible. 
 
 There are some faults of omission as well as 
 commission in this narrative. "While there are 
 yet a hundred thousand Irishmen in their native 
 land, who have been identified with the recent 
 revolutionary movement there, it would be man- 
 ifestly improper to relate the facts which would 
 compromise them and subject them to penalties 
 provided by English law. 
 
 Conscientiously using the material within his 
 reach, the author has endeavored to deal fairly 
 with all parties interested. That his efforts may 
 contribute towards developing among Irishmen 
 in America a pure and holy sympathy for their 
 unfortunate country, and serve to persuade them 
 to more united efforts, is his most fervent wish. 
 
 New York, May 28th, 1866. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IRELAND — HER GRIEVANCES AND HER PROTESTS. 
 
 The few pages which are to introduce a brief 
 sketch of the life of the latest Irish conspirator, and 
 the story of the organization of which he is the 
 head and heart, are addressed less to Irishmen, than 
 to those whose idea of Irish grievances is indefinite 
 — to those who, with but a vague knowledge of 
 either the country or her wrongs, and an imperfect 
 one of her people, yet leap at the wish to set her 
 free of English rule, more from an intuitive know- 
 ledge that freedom is her right, than from conclu- 
 sions forced upon them by familiarity with her 
 history. And to that other class, by individual 
 members of which the question is often asked, 
 " But what has Ireland to complain of now ? is she 
 not an integral portion of the British empire, duly 
 represented in its government, and sharing in its 
 influence and progress ? " To these it ought to be 
 enough to say, " read Irish history ;" more than 
 enough to say, " you cannot get these two nations 
 to work sntoothly together ; fire and ice are scarcely 
 less congenial ; centuries of experimenting have 
 failed to discover the affinities ; centuries of subjec- 
 tion and efforts at amalgamation have failed to 
 break down the barriers dividing them." The Eng- 
 
6 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 lish and the Irish people remain this day as dis- 
 tinct in each characteristic feature as any two 
 nationalities in existence. The Irish have within 
 themselves all the elements of independence, all the 
 elements of becoming a useful if not a powerful 
 member of the family of nations. It can be no 
 longer doubted that it is the wish of this people to 
 be independent ; they struggle for it, and are discon- 
 tented failing to secure it. What American can 
 withhold his respect for that discontent ? Freedom 
 is this people's right, and this alone ought to be 
 argument enough for the wisdom of their dis- 
 content. 
 
 If a people through successive generations fail to 
 appreciate the beneficence of a government which, 
 in the first instance, was forced upon them, and 
 ever since sustained by brute force only, opposed to 
 their solemn and reiterated protest, and in defiance 
 of repeated outbreak (whether all this be a result 
 of their ingratitude, their obstinacy, or their want 
 of appreciation of the blessings of such obtrusive 
 friendship, it matters little) ; it must be accepted as 
 evidence of the want of that integrity of parts so 
 necessary to the peace and prosperity of a nation as 
 a whole. 
 
 To all students of Irish history, it is known that 
 there is no chapter there unmarked by protest in 
 some shape or other against English rule ; not a few 
 of them written in the blood of the malcontents ; in 
 fact, the only history that Ireland has to show for 
 centuries is the story of her successive protests 
 against what she takes the liberty to call the usurpa- 
 tion of her government by English rulers. Let us 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERHO OB. 7 
 
 sketch in a sentence or two the story of these 
 protests. 
 
 With the presence of Strongbow on Irish soil 
 began the struggle between the English and Irish 
 people, lashed into fury at times, with periods of 
 calm intervening, for over four hundred years. Then 
 came the conquest of the gentle Mountjoy, who 
 boasted that he gave to his no more tender- 
 hearted mistress " a country of carcasses and ashes." 
 A period of churchyard silence here succeeds, but a 
 resurrection follows it, and the tongue which is 
 spoken is still the language of the Celt. Elizabeth 
 gave place to James, and James to Charles. Charles 
 gave his head to Cromwell. The English people 
 were under the iron heel of the Dictator, but the 
 Irish, the resuscitated Irish, were in rebellion ! Again 
 the spoiler was upon them. This time the work of 
 devastation was complete ; fire and sword had sway 
 unlimited ; lands were laid waste ; homesteads pil- 
 laged, and, in the name of God, the followers of 
 Cromwell possessed themselves of Irish maids, and 
 lands and gold, and made her rich soil richer 
 still with the blood of her slaughtered sons. This 
 time she is not only dead but buried. Before, like 
 the son of the widow of Nam, she had arisen from 
 the bed of death. This time she is entombed. But 
 even from out the grave, dug by the swords of mer- 
 ciless soldiery, she once more emerges ; the stone is 
 rolled away for her resurrection, and she stands again 
 to battle for her nationality. She protests once more 
 against England's rule and England's king, and fights 
 with a broken sword against William of Nassau and 
 his hireling soldiery. This time she is not beaten, 
 
8 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 but she capitulates, and the treaty of Limerick is 
 signed. For the right to worship God after the fashion 
 of their fathers, the Irish laid down their arms. 
 With or without arms they still protest. The 
 father who succumbed begat sons to whom he left 
 the legacy of his hate. The English, no more faith- 
 ful then than they are now, and the record of their 
 truthfulness is fresh upon our memories, taking advan- 
 tage of the first symptoms of another protest, broke 
 through the sworn-to treaty, and enacted through 
 their tools in the so-called Irish Parliament the ac- 
 cursed penal laws, the prominent features of which 
 may be written as follows : 
 
 Catholics were excluded from every profession 
 except the medical, and from all official stations 
 without exception. 
 
 Catholic children could only be educated by Pro- 
 testant teachers at home, and it was highly penal to 
 send them abroad for education. 
 
 Catholics were forbidden to exercise trade or 
 commerce in any corporate town. 
 
 Catholics were legally disqualified to hold leases 
 of land for a longer tenure than thirty-one years, 
 and also disqualified to inherit the lands of Protest- 
 ant relatives. 
 
 A Catholic could not legally possess a horse of 
 greater value than five pounds, and any true Protest- 
 ant meeting a Catholic with a horse worth fifty or 
 sixty pounds, might lay down the legal price of five, 
 unhorse the idolater, and ride away. 
 
 A Catholic child, turning Protestant, could sue 
 its parents for maintenance, to be determined by a 
 Protestant Court of Chancery. 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERIIO OB. 9 
 
 A Catholic's eldest son turning Protestant re- 
 duced his father to a tenant-for-life, the reversion to 
 the convert. 
 
 A Catholic priest could not celebrate mass under 
 severe penalties ; but he who recanted was seeured 
 a stipend by law. 
 
 That this code wrought long and well is a well- 
 known story. This monster, begotten on Irish soil, 
 a lineal descendant of the Reformation, a child of 
 the " glorious revolution," did its work bravely. As 
 Burke says of it : " It was a machine of wise and 
 deliberate contrivance, as well fitted for the oppres- 
 sion, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, 
 and the debasement in them of human nature itself, 
 as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of 
 man." 
 
 It did its work bravely indeed. Hear how the 
 seventeenth century ended : 
 
 " The manufacture of wool into cloth had been totally destroyed 
 by law. Acts of the British and Irish Parliament (the latter being 
 wholly subject to the former) prohibited the export of woollen 
 cloth from Ireland to any country whatsoever except to England 
 and Wales. The exception was delusive, because duties amount- 
 ing to a prohibition prevented the Irish cloth from entering Eng- 
 land or Wales. Before that time Ireland had a good trade in 
 woollen drapery with foreign countries, and undersold the Eng- 
 lish Therefore the British Parliament addressed King William, 
 urging him to suppress the traffic. The House of Lords used this 
 language : ' Wherefore we most humbly beseech your most sacred 
 Majesty that your Majesty would be pleased, in the most public 
 and effectual way that may be, to declare to all your subjects in 
 Ireland that the growth and increase of the woollen manufactures 
 there hath long been and will be ever looked upon with great 
 jealousy by all your subjects of this kingdom, and if not timely re- 
 medied may occasion very strict laws totally to prohibit it and 
 suppress the same.' King William, the Deliverer, replied that be 
 would do his utmost to ruin his Irish subjects. ' He would do all 
 that in him lay to discourage the woollen manufactures of Ireland;' 
 and he was as good as his word. 
 
 1* 
 
10 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 Now, for a hundred years, Catholic Ireland is 
 gagged ; but she still protests against British mis- 
 rule with the Protestant tongues of Swift, and Lucas, 
 and Molyneux. It was not necessary for the mother 
 to be Catholic that hate for England might mingle 
 with that mother's milk ; it was only necessary for 
 her to be Irish. English cupidity, and the monopo- 
 lies born of it, did their work ; the country was im- 
 poverished ; the people were swept to their graves 
 by the thousand. No coroner's jury tells the story 
 of their dying, but it is written in a language as in- 
 delible as the stars — " starvation." 
 
 The century drew near its close ; a generation had 
 passed away without a sign. The Protestant element 
 w r as a strong one now, but it was Irish Protestant. 
 The thunders of Napoleon's cannon were echoed by 
 the cliffs of Dover — England was in danger. Pro- 
 testant Ireland was appealed to, and she answered 
 with eighty thousand bayonets. The Frenchmen 
 did not come, and the bayonets were no longer 
 needed. But in the meantime, " England's difficulty 
 was Ireland's opportunity." The star of the unhappy 
 land rose above the horizon for an hour. Backed by 
 these eighty thousand bayonets, an independent par- 
 liament made laws in College Green, and for a space 
 she gloried in her ancient title of the " Sovereign 
 Kingdom of Ireland." Then upon Irish cannon was 
 the motto, " Free trade or else" — that free trade 
 meaning the right of the Irish people to regulate 
 their commerce as best suited Irish, not English, in- 
 terests ; the right to levy duties for the support of 
 an Irish, not an English, government. 
 
 For eighteen years the Irish people rejoiced in 
 
FENIAN BR OTHEREO OD. 11 
 
 an independent government, obeyed the laws 
 which emanated from the Parliament at Dublin, 
 and prospered under the protection of its paternal 
 care. Manufactories sprang up again. The pro- 
 verbially discontented Irish gave respectable evi- 
 dences of a love of industry and of the good 
 things purchased by its exercise. The agricultural 
 produce of the country found a home market in 
 exchange for native manufactures. Fat cattle ceased 
 to crowd the ships for English shores, and broadcloth 
 ceased to be a heavy inward freight. The public 
 revenues were expended at home. Dublin grew beau- 
 tiful in public buildings, this day her pride and shame. 
 Landlords began to stay at home and spend their 
 rentals there. The beautiful city on the Liffey was 
 sufficient attraction for the most fastidious, when 
 she bore the prestige of independence. 
 
 But could this state of things last ? Could Eng- 
 land afford to lose so good a customer for her manu- 
 factures, so good a market wherein to buy her 
 beloved beef ? Could she afford to permit a rival 
 shopkeeper at her very door, who, a short time 
 before, had been her customer, but now threat- 
 ened to share even her foreign trade, if not, from 
 peculiar facilities of manufactures, drive her com- 
 pletely out of the markets where she had hitherto 
 held monopoly? Of course not. The rival shop- 
 keeper must be crushed, not by honest competi- 
 tion ; no, that would be a tedious and uncertain pro- 
 cess ; but by any and every means her innate selfish- 
 ness could devise by which to effect her object. With 
 eighty thousand muskets to protect her neighbor's 
 trade, she dare not attempt to drive her from the 
 
12 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 market. No, but she would kill her with kindness. 
 Every concession was made ; all that Ireland asked 
 was given ; England was for the first time her true 
 and tender-hearted sister. Now the time was 
 come when the peaceful relations of the world, 
 and especially of these two loving sisters, asked 
 for the disbanding of this great army of Irish 
 volunteers. The English standing army was suf- 
 ficient for protection of the " Sister Islands." The 
 confiding Irish believed the story, and the volun- 
 teers were disbanded. This was the initiatory step 
 to the "Act of Union." But the proposed union 
 was unpalatable to the people. Even a corrupt 
 Parliament, which might be cleansed some day, in 
 Dublin, was better than a sixth of the representa- 
 tion in the London one. The scheme, however, 
 which began with the disbanding of the volunteers 
 could not end there; the union must be accom- 
 plished. The premature rising of '98 was brought 
 about. By what villanies generated and how 
 fomented is but too well known, as is the story of 
 the sacrifice which left its blood-stain upon many a 
 threshold. England had conquered once again ; 
 terrorism was rampant ; public meetings were dis- 
 persed by the soldiery; the national press was 
 bribed ; a muzzled and a hireling one lied its utmost ; 
 the Irish Parliament was packed with English 
 instruments, and by corruption and intimidation 
 the Act of Union was carried.* 
 
 The twenty years which followed were twenty 
 
 * For the modus operandi by which this Act was brought to a 
 successful issue, read the black list appended to Sir Jonah Bar- 
 rington's "Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation." 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHO OD. 13 
 
 years of prostration of spirit, of lingering death to 
 manufacture, of concentration of all power in Eng- 
 land, and of an exodus from Ireland of that wealth 
 which, expended at home, had given stimulus to 
 trade and confidence to the people. Gloom and 
 poverty settled down upon the land, till 1817 found 
 the people again dying of starvation. Many of the 
 inhabitants of the Western and North-western 
 coasts dragged out a miserable existence on sea- 
 weed, and to thousands potatoes were a luxury; 
 the people died by wholesale of famine-fever, not 
 in the poorer districts only, but in the best counties 
 in the country. During this famine and that of 
 1822, and the intervening years, most strange to 
 stay, the English peasant throve and fattened ; there 
 was no fever cloud to fling its shadow over his 
 happy fields; English looms were busy and her 
 artisans were fed. 
 
 What ! had Providence stricken Irish fields with 
 barrenness in condemnation of her near-sighted- 
 ness ? Had it cursed her with famine for her folly ? 
 No; strange to say, there was neither murrain 
 among the cattle nor a blight upon the wheat, 
 but the poor of the towns were unemployed ; there 
 was food, but not the means to buy it. English 
 looms were musical, Irish looms were rotten with 
 disuse. The petty manufactures had followed the 
 greater ones, and shops were closed, for the custom- 
 ers had gone, and the money with them, to the 
 theatres of power and place in England. No, there 
 was no dearth of food ; a loaf might be had for six- 
 pence, as in preceding years, but there was no six- 
 pence to buy withal. In 1817 there were exported 
 
14 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 to England from Ireland over 700,000 quarters of 
 grain alone, and vast herds of cattle; and in 1822, 
 over one million quarters of grain. Did the money- 
 come back to Ireland for all this ? Oh, no ; it stayed 
 in England to pay the rent, or followed to the Con- 
 tinent the landlords who had forsaken their homes, 
 and entrusted the paternal cares of their estates to 
 the management of their agents and their tenants 
 to their mercy. On the debate in the House of 
 Commons in 1822, William Cobbett, an honest 
 Englishman, writes in this fashion : — 
 
 " Money, it seems, is wanted in Ireland. Now people do not 
 eat money. No ; but the money will buy them something to eat. 
 What ! the food is there then, pray observe this, reader, pray ob- 
 serve this, and let the parties get out of the concern if they can. 
 The food is there, but those who have it in their possession will 
 not give it without the money. And we know that the food is 
 there; for since this famine has been declared in Parliament, 
 thousands of quarters of corn have been imported every week from 
 Ireland to England." 
 
 The records of this time alone are so accursed 
 that could Irishmen forget the tyrannies of six hun- 
 dred years preceding, their hopes of vengeance dare 
 not perish whilst this one memory remains. Starva- 
 tion in the midst of plenty. Persecuted thus in body, 
 as they had been in spirit for centuries ; famished in 
 the midst of fruitful fields, and their souls restrict- 
 ed under penalty to orthodox devotion, did they 
 drop upon their knees and cry peccavi ? prostrate 
 themselves and place their necks within the English 
 halter? Oh no! they had not done protesting yet* 
 
 Then was the birth-time, among the moderate 
 and the cowardly, of the Catholic Relief Agitation, 
 and amongst the more earnest, because most suffer- 
 ing, of Ribbonism and the Society of the Whiteboys. 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERHO OD. \ 5 
 
 Catholic emancipation was conceded to the former 
 in 1829; and this concession to the manes of their 
 fathers, who tasted the first rigors of the penal laws, 
 and of the hunted priests who died by them, satis- 
 fied for a time the sick at heart, but failed to bring 
 a soothing balm to the bulk of the people, in whom 
 the music of their church bells, heard for the first 
 time in centuries, could not drown for ever the dy- 
 ing groans of the massacred and the famished that 
 filled up the space between. 
 
 It is known the part which O'Connell took in the 
 agitation which led to the emancipation of the 
 Catholics, as it is known the hold which from that time 
 he bad upon the affections of the Irish people. A peri- 
 od of rest now follows, or, what was worse, of peace- 
 ful agitation. The Precursor Society was followed 
 by that organization, having O'Connell for its leader, 
 and for its object the repeal of the "Act of Union." 
 How O'Connell manoeuvred the passions of the Irish 
 people, and how he in turn was manoeuvred and be- 
 praised by that people's enemies, whose game he 
 played, is a painful story within the memories of 
 most of us. But there came a time when the people's 
 heart grew sick with the hope deferred, for the 
 " Repeal" which had been promised them as the 
 fruit of each incoming session of Parliament grew no 
 more certain as the years went by, but the ruin of 
 the country grew more certain daily. The monster 
 meetings of 1843, in the might of their mora* 
 strength, had failed to intimidate the English 
 Government, and O'Connell was afraid (whether 
 for himself or for the people, God knows) to use the 
 power he held to awake that physical force which 
 
16 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 he might have controlled at will, and, as his country- 
 men then and now believe, directed to success. 
 
 But the paternal government was in action during 
 all this time, in its own way, for Irish amelioration. 
 Laws had been enacted disfranchising the holders of 
 petty freeholds ; their votes no longer available to 
 their landlords, they were swept from their misera- 
 ble homesteads by the thousand. To make eject- 
 ment in every shape of easy execution, laws un- 
 known to the English Common Law were made and 
 put in force, resulting in the desired consolidation of 
 farms, and in the pauperism of the ejected. In 1846 
 the famine came, and the country was ripe for it ; 
 ripe for the harvest of death, and the reaper, Hea- 
 ven knows, had a busy time of it. The story of 
 that horror, the Irish famine, is as well known in 
 America as it is in Ireland. A famine which swept 
 into untimely graves a million people. A famine in a 
 land from which had been exported the year before 
 over $80,000,000 worth of produce to England; 
 and in one day of the self-same year, 184V, shipped 
 for the London market over eleven thousand quar- 
 ters of wheat. From Newry alone, within five days, 
 in the end of September, there sailed eleven ships 
 for England laden with grain, exclusive of two large 
 steamers, which sailed four times a week, laden with 
 cattle, eggs, and butter. From Drogheda, that same 
 week, were shipped 1,200 cows, 3,500 sheep and 
 swine, 2,000 quarters of grain, 211 tons of flour and 
 meal, butter, eggs, and lard. From Waterford, in 
 the same week, 250 tons of flour, 1,100 sheep and 
 pigs, 308 head of cattle, 5,400 barrels of wheat and oats, 
 7,700 firkins of butter, and 2,000 flitches of bacon ; 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERHO OD. 17 
 
 and all the while the cry for bread arose on every acre. 
 Parents, mad with hunger, struggled with their fa- 
 mished children for the morsel of food which charity 
 or chance had brought them. Hundreds died upon 
 their hearthstones without a cry. In many places, 
 including entire villages, the living were too weak 
 to bury their brethren who had died from hunger. 
 On the island of Innisbofin, off the coast of Galway, 
 may be seen this day, among the ruins of an old 
 chapel there, and lying in a corner, a pile of human 
 bones, the skeletons of those who were carried to 
 that consecrated spot by the poor old priest of the 
 island. There were not men enough on the island 
 who were able to give burial to the dead. Along 
 the coast of Conemara, the people lived for many 
 months exclusively on seaweed and such fish as they 
 were able to obtain. And so it was on the coasts 
 of Donegal and Antrim. Even in prosperous Bel- 
 fast, men and women quarrelled along the quays for 
 the particles of grain — drippings from the bags of 
 the cargoes of corn being delivered. In one au- 
 thenticated instance, an infant was found seeking 
 sustenance from the breast of its mother, who had 
 died of hunger, and alone. 
 
 Starvation was checked by the munificent charity 
 of America, and by the generous contributions of 
 other nations. Still the people were swept off by 
 tens of thousands by starvation in the midst of plenty, 
 whilst those who were able, fled to America, aided in 
 that effort by the instrumentality of their relatives 
 here, or by the sale of the few acres which they 
 owned, or of their lease, if they were fortunate 
 enough to have one. 
 
18 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 Those who remained, starving or approaching beg- 
 gary or starvation, still solemnly protested. The 
 cry for independence, as a cure for all their ills, rose 
 loud and long above the shrieks of famine. The 
 bubble of peaceful agitation burst about O'ConnelPs 
 ears, and out of the ashes of the party agitating for 
 Repeal sprang the " Irish Confederation." O'Connell 
 died. The French Revolution burst upon startled 
 Europe. The down-trodden nations of the world 
 dreamed that the star of their redemption had arisen. 
 The people of Ireland looked for a new Redeemer 
 from the east! Revolutionary clubs were formed 
 in every town and hamlet. The young men of 
 Ireland, irrespective of creed, or the difference of 
 opinion as to the means to accomplish their country's 
 freedom, which they had hitherto indulged in, shook 
 hands as brothers and prepared themselves for the 
 coming conflict. Arras were purchased in con- 
 siderable numbers, and smithies were busy night and 
 day in the manufacture of pike-heads. Treason was 
 taught openly in the speeches of Meagher, O'Brien, 
 Martin, Traitor McGee, Mitchel and a host of others, 
 and in the pages of The United Irishmen and The Na- 
 tion. The peaceful Protestant north was armed to 
 the teeth, guns and pikes were hidden among the 
 brick-fields near the manufacturing towns and in hay- 
 ricks throughout the country. The people were 
 ripe and ready once again. Then came the counter- 
 action of the government — the arming of the Orange 
 lodges ; the industrious spread of the story, through 
 a paid press, that the purpose of the confederates was 
 that of the communists of France — subversion of 
 all order and religion. Regiments poured in from 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHO OD. 1 9 
 
 England ; artillery was paraded through the streets of 
 Dublin. An act was passed by a large majority 
 providing "that any one who should levy war 
 against the Queen, or endeavor to deprive her of 
 her title, or by open or advised speaking, printing, 
 cr publishing, incite others to the same, should be 
 deemed guilty of felony and transported." 
 
 Then followed the arrest of O'Brien, Meagher, 
 and Mitch el, on a charge of sedition. Unable to 
 find a jury sufficiently venal for their purpose, the 
 prisoners were discharged. Mitchel was again 
 arrested, prosecuted under the new act, and, with a 
 new packed jury, was convicted and sentenced to 
 transportation. The day on which Mitchel was to 
 be taken from his prison, in Dublin, to undergo his 
 sentence of transportation, was to have been that for 
 a general outbreak. But this was in May ; the crops 
 were in the fields, not in the haggards ; and a rising, 
 it was deemed by many, ought only to be made in 
 the harvest-time, when the people could find sus- 
 tenance on the field ; in the food within their reach. 
 The leaders of the party, therefore, advised the wait- 
 ing to the harvest-time. They waited ; but the 
 delay was fatal. Taken at that hour when the true 
 pulse of Ireland beat steadily ; when the police were 
 rebellious to the heart's core, and not an Irish soldier 
 in the country who was not ready to turn his bay- 
 onet towards an English breast, the country would 
 have burst into a flame, and Ireland would have 
 profited by the best chance she had had for freedom 
 in centuries. Whatever the result, that was her one 
 great chance — she allowed it to pass her by. 
 
 Troops were poured in in additional numbers ; 
 
20 JAMES STEPHENS. . 
 
 newspapers were suppressed ; martial law was pro- 
 claimed ; diligent search was made for arms in 
 every direction ; weapons were placed in the hands of 
 northern loyalists. Conservative flax-spinners and 
 manufacturers pledged their workmen against secret 
 societies. The appliances to put out the fire were 
 manifold and successful ; for, when the harvest came, 
 came with it the miserable failure at an outbreak, 
 and, following it, the arrest and banishment of many 
 of the leaders. So ended the protest of '48. 
 
 " Now, surely," said the critics, who had written 
 up this drama and spoken in terms of praise or blame 
 of the actors therein, as their pay or spirit moved 
 them ; " now, surely, these Irish will wind up their 
 national performance with this last act, the last 
 scene of which is sufficiently tragical for a respecta- 
 ble denouement." "Surely," cried the English 
 taskmasters, "these whipped hounds will howl to 
 kennel and obey the lash." " Surely," said the 
 peaceful priests, "good people, you must see that 
 God is not with you in all this thing ; be peaceful, 
 be contented. Have you not a college where your 
 priests are taught some Latin, and learn to swear 
 allegiance with the vow of celibacy? Have you 
 not a National school system where, with a little 
 fighting on our part, but a few of you are perverted, 
 and the rest but gradually Anglicised ? What, if 
 you persist in being a virtuous and prolific race, 
 have you not the privilege to take your surplus 
 selves to America, and your blessed pastor with you ? 
 God bless us all ! it might be worse. There was a 
 time when it was worse. I tell you, there was a 
 time when they would have shot me for saying mass, 
 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERHO OB. o i 
 
 or for shriving the soul of a dying sinner ; now I can 
 say mass in the broad daylight, and you can kneel 
 before me till my blessing, to reach you all, has to 
 pass out through the open door, for you are too poor to 
 build a house for God and yourselves and me, God 
 help you. But this is a wonderful change, my chil- 
 dren. Bless God, starve a little, and be contented." 
 
 For a time it looked as if the critics were in 
 the right ; the curtain seemed indeed to have fallen 
 on the last act of the Irish revolutionary drama. 
 Wily diplomatists in England and the representa- 
 tives of English rule, and the recipients of English 
 bribes in Ireland, the Castle Hacks in Dublin, and 
 the city shopkeepers who scrambled for viceregal 
 pence, and the Orangemen of the north, and the 
 Irish gentlemen, with English names and English 
 proclivities, who had invested capital in spinning- 
 mills and looms and bleach-mills on the banks 
 of the Lagan and the Bann, all these rubbed to- 
 gether their exultant palms and thanked Heaven 
 (no they didn't, they never thought of Heaven), and 
 congratulated each other at the death and burial of 
 Old Ireland and of Young Ireland just consummated. 
 
 Now suppose we rested here, has not proof 
 enough been given of incompatibility of temper as be- 
 tween this English and this Irish people to ask the 
 world's verdict for divorce ? Whom God hath not 
 put together man may break asunder. What need 
 to write grievances, which even the few Conserva- 
 tives in Ireland complain of, to show the inj ustice of 
 the one contracting party ? But let us see if there 
 remained not some cause of discontent for even 
 those who loved not revolution, and ignored the 
 
22 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 proposition that their country was compelled to a 
 relationship with another, which she hated, and who 
 reciprocated the emotion. Yes, even these quarrelled 
 at a state of things which had led to the loss by Ire- 
 land of her position as a manufacturing country, and 
 to her absolute dependence on England for manu- 
 factures in exchange for her agricultural produce — 
 and at the subjection of the people to a landlord 
 class, of English descent and English affiliation 
 whose first and last duty was the exercise of a per- 
 petual drainage upon their tenantry, that they might 
 spend the proceeds in that country of their affection 
 (the rental estimated as paid to absentee landlords 
 being about thirty millions of dollars annually), and 
 that, as a matter of necessity, paid in the produce of 
 the soil — and at the existence of a State Church, 
 sustained by the presence of British bayonets (pol- 
 ished and kept in point by Irish taxes), only for the 
 especial comfort of English clergymen, the younger 
 sons of English aristocrats, or older ones, who, from 
 deficiency in mental gifts, were supposed to be fit- 
 ted for nothing better, and thrown into the well 
 feathered bosom of the Church in Ireland — and at 
 the collection and absorption of the revenues of Ire- 
 land by English officials, who, having amassed for- 
 tunes amidst Irish poverty, retired for their enjoy- 
 ment to their native island, or their expedition to 
 the Continent, giving place to others of their kin- 
 dred to begin and end in doing likewise — and 
 at the presence in the country of from twenty 
 to fifty thousand British soldiers, a militia at the 
 beck and call of the English Government, a 
 police force of ten thousand men supposed to be 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERHO OB. 23 
 
 loyal also, and supported by an over-burdened and 
 impoverished people — and, to sum up, at the state of 
 things to which all this gave rise, which, while they 
 had no hand in it, in fact ignored it altogether, was 
 a state of things these peace-preserving, patient, 
 peaceful, conservative people did not like ; we mean 
 that state of feeling all around them which was fos- 
 tered in secret societies, and which any day again 
 might develop itself in outbreak and rebellion ; in 
 fact, a state of terrorism which they feared had as- 
 sumed a chronic character, and which, alas! (said 
 they) was ruinous to all projects for the develop- 
 ment and industrial progress of the country. So 
 those who were most content had, at least, all these 
 things to complain of. 
 
 For a time it looked as if the priests were right, 
 and that the people thought so. Submission to the 
 powers that be, was a doctrine easy to preach and 
 of easy practice, and the rendering unto Caesar of 
 the things that are Caesar's was easy too, for there 
 was but little to give him now, and he was kind 
 enough to come and take it. 
 
 Well, it is now eighteen years since the protest of 
 '48 ; what has been going on since then ? Since then 
 the happy Irish people have been flying from a 
 country for which they have given some evidences 
 of their affection, as if their God had left it ; per- 
 haps He has, and they have set out upon a pilgrim- 
 age to find Him. 
 
 The population of Ireland in 1846 numbered nine 
 million souls ; to-day it is estimated at four millions 
 five hundred thousand. Of these, three millions 
 have found a home in America ; for the balance, and 
 
24 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 the natural increase unaccounted for, ask Ireland's 
 guardians, and the Poor Law guardians, and the 
 graveyards without walls (they are too wide for 
 that), in Skull, and Skibbereen, and Connemara, and 
 the ditches at whose side the starving wretches lay 
 down and died in Donegal. 
 
 Whole villages have disappeared; homesteads 
 which had stood for a hundred years or more have 
 fallen in the south and west in every parish, and 
 stone fences have been piled up from their ruins to 
 keep in herds of sheep for the English market as of 
 old, but tended this time by English or Scotch shep- 
 herds, and owned by English farmers. The whole 
 agricultural portion of the country is becoming as 
 rapidly Anglicised as the best diplomacy of England 
 can effect for her this wished-for change. 
 
 America is now the hope of most of the peasantry ; 
 their only wish to rake out the dead ashes on their 
 hearth-stones, leave the widow's and the orphan's and 
 the exile's curse for the incoming tenant, and follow 
 the star of their new destiny to the West. 
 
 And those behind, and who must remain behind, 
 what of them ? Those without the paltry means to 
 pay their own and their wives' and children's passage, 
 without friends on this side to give them help ? 
 What of those who take things as they come — good 
 and bad — and make the best of them ? What of 
 those, and they are many, who would rather starve, 
 or fight and die in Ireland, than live in Eden, if that 
 Eden were unbounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the 
 west, and on the east by the Irish Sea ? What of those 
 during these eighteen years, from '48 to '66 ? Are 
 they beaten to the ground at last ? Do they accept 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERHO OD. 25 
 
 this state of things without a murmur ? Did the 
 last demonstration of discontent die a miserable death 
 at Ballingarry? Did their last hope for Irish re- 
 demption pass away with the exiled confederates ? 
 Not so, by the immortal and rebellious memories of 
 Fitzgerald, of Emmet, and of Tone ! Not so, by 
 the memories of the men of Forty-eight ! As faith- 
 ful as the shamrock to the soil is the seed of revolution! 
 There is still another protest; and its history is 
 found in the following pages, linked with the name 
 of Stephens. Whatever may be the immediate for- 
 tunes of the organization in which this protest has 
 taken shape, whatever its trials and its sacrifices, and 
 however long delayed the consummation of its pur- 
 pose, let us hope that this indeed will be the last 
 protest of the Irish people against English rule. 
 Let us hope that out of the misunderstandings and 
 divisions which have unfortunately arisen among 
 Irishmen in America, a perfect union may be born, 
 no less strong on account of their brief estrange- 
 ment ; and that plans of concerted action with their 
 fellow-countrymen at home may be matured and 
 brought to issue. The presence among Irishmen in 
 America, who, however differing in opinion, have a 
 common object in view, of the man whose whole life 
 is one of sacrifice to his love of country, ought to 
 smooth away all difficulties, and reunite in one com- 
 mon brotherhood all patriotic Irishmen of whatever 
 creed or complexion of opinion. It is as difficult to see 
 how uniformity of action is to be arrived at except 
 through the instrumentality of this man, as it is to 
 entertain the shadow of a hope for the immediate 
 delivery of Ireland without union. 
 2 
 
26 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 Irishmen in Ireland — those in prison there (some 
 of them doomed to a long life's exile), those who, 
 although not yet within the greedy grasp of English 
 law, are surrounded by the snares of the spoiler, and 
 those who wait with patient, hopeful hearts and 
 ready arms the signal for united action — all look for- 
 ward for their own and their country's salvation to 
 the cooperation of their countrymen in America, with 
 their envoy and chief, James Stephens. 
 
 

 JAMES STEPHENS — FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY CARJAL. PARIS. 
 
JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 HIS BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION. 
 
 James Stephens was born in the beautiful 
 city of Kilkenny, Ireland, in the year 1824. His 
 father was a man of considerable intelligence, who, 
 in addition to his yearly income for services rendered 
 as clerk, was possessed of some small property. At 
 a very early age, James manifested an unusual 
 thirst for knowledge, and notably a wonderful 
 aptitude for mathematics. His father took delight 
 in affording him every opportunity for study. He 
 required but little assistance from teachers, his 
 active and inquiring mind readily seizing upon and 
 comprehending the ideas laid down in the works of 
 his favorite authors. From the age of sixteen to 
 twenty-two he was leading the life of a recluse, 
 going into society scarcely at all, forming but few 
 acquaintances, and living solely with his books. He 
 became thoroughly familiar with English literature, 
 and also acquired great proficiency in the liberal 
 sciences. His early love for mathematics had 
 been amply encouraged, and he finally resolved to 
 study Civil Engineering, and adopt that as his pro- 
 fession. He readily obtained a position upon the 
 Waterford and Limerick Railway, where his genius 
 and skill soon won for him considerable distinction. 
 
2S JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 It was about this time that Smith O'Brien be- 
 came prominent as a revolutionary agitator. The 
 English Government had become more arrogant 
 and oppressive than ever, and Irishmen believed 
 that the proper time had arrived to strike for Ire- 
 land's freedom. The early education of Mr. Ste- 
 phens, together with his extensive reading, had 
 tended to make him a thorough Republican at 
 heart. His sympathies were all enlisted in favor of 
 his suffering country, but his extreme youth had 
 hitherto prevented him from taking any active part 
 in the agitation then progressing. The revolution- 
 ary spirit of his countrymen was catered to by 
 factious leaders, and there were divisions and dis- 
 sensions in the ranks of the patriots. Mr. Stephens 
 watched all movements with anxiety and apprehen- 
 sion, holding as yet aloof from all parties, and sanc- 
 tioning the policy of neither ; yet resolved to act 
 when the proper time should arrive. 
 
 In 1848, Smith O'Brien's policy led to open hos- 
 tilities, and Mr. Stephens hastened to join his gal- 
 lant band. The means whereby he was introduced 
 to that unfortunate patriot were peculiar. 
 
 Mr. Patrick Donohue, from Dublin, while visiting- 
 Kilkenny, conducted himself in such a manner as 
 to induce certain club-men to believe that he was 
 neither more nor less than a British spy. He was 
 accordingly seized and subjected to a rigid exami- 
 nation. Being unable to give a satisfactory account 
 of himself, it was resolved to send him direct to 
 Smith O'Brien under guard. The person selected 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 29 
 
 as custodian of the suspected individual was James 
 Stephens. He accordingly started for Cashel with 
 his prisoner, and after much difficulty and many 
 adventures, delivered him to the Revolutionary 
 Chief in person. O'Brien was pleased with this 
 exhibition of vigilance and zeal, and became speed- 
 ily interested in Mr. Stephens. Finding in him a 
 zealous patriot, an intelligent counsellor, and a 
 thorough gentleman, he immediately attached him 
 to his person as an aide-de-camp. The more severely 
 the young man was tested, and the greater the re- 
 sponsibility cast upon him, the brighter shone his 
 ability and his genius. 
 
 At the Widow McCormick's house, where the 
 most serious outbreak of the '48 rebellion occurred, 
 Mr. Stephens played a most conspicuous part, and 
 from that day became a recognised leader of the 
 people. On one occasion, during those momentous 
 days of '48, at Killenaule, he, at the head of a few 
 brave men, successfully defended a barricade against 
 a troop of English horse, repelling their charge most 
 gallantly. 
 
 It has been often reported, and is generally be- 
 lieved, that Mr. Stephens was wounded at the en- 
 gagement at the Widow McCormick's house. This 
 is a mistake. The rebels being defeated at this point, 
 and scattered to the four winds, their leaders sought 
 safety in a retired spot a short distance from the 
 scene of the day's action. It was at this latter place 
 where, after the reverses which had overtaken them, 
 Smith O'Brien and his chief advisers assembled. 
 They were now surrounded completely by the 
 British soldiers, and there seemed little doubt that 
 
30 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 they would all be taken prisoners at daylight next 
 morning. Here were Smith O'Brien, Michael 
 Doheny, John O'Mahony, Bellew McManus, James 
 Stephens, and a few other brave patriots whose 
 names are dear to all Irishmen. A council of war 
 was held to decide what was next to be done. The 
 cause of Ireland had met with a deadly blow — the 
 premature rising of a small handful of half-starved, 
 unarmed peasantry, had ended in their complete 
 rout, and consequent discouragement. The leaders 
 appreciated the situation, and this council was to 
 determine what should be their future line of con- 
 duct. By remaining together they would be sure to 
 fall into the hands of their enemies, while by separat- 
 ing there seemed a possibility of their escape. 
 
 After consultation, all but two of these brave 
 men decided that it was useless to pursue the 
 outbreak further at this time, but that a few 
 weeks must be allowed to pass by for the har- 
 vesting of the crops before further demonstrations 
 should be made. The two who dissented from 
 this policy were Terence McManus and James Ste- 
 phens. They believed in action then and there, and 
 volunteered to remain to the last with their chief, 
 Smith O'Brien. The others determined to return to 
 their several homes, and there keep alive the revolu- 
 tionary spirit. 
 
 The parting of these leaders, as each went his way 
 endeavoring to escape the eye of the British police, 
 was very affecting. None expected to survive the 
 dangers by which they were surrounded, and the 
 "farewell" stuck in the throats of most of them. 
 Mr. Stephens found himself the object of the kindest 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERHO OB. 3 1 
 
 solicitude on the part of all, on account of his youth 
 and the prominent and somewhat reckless part he 
 had played. O'Mahony, particularly, displayed 
 great interest in him, and gave him directions where 
 to meet him again, and what route to pursue. 
 
 THE FIGHT, AND WOUNDING OF MR. STEPHENS. 
 
 Thus they parted; Smith O'Brien, McManus, and 
 Stephens remaining where they were, the others 
 departing by different roads. Mr. Stephens shortly 
 learned that a body of police were on the road ap- 
 proaching the house. He being provided with a 
 horse, persuaded O'Brien to mount ; then taking 
 from his head the plain cap he wore, exchanged it for 
 the gaudy green and gold one worn by his chief, and 
 entreated him to make sure his safety by flight. 
 O'Brien took the advice of his devoted Aide, and 
 bidding him good-by, hastened off. 
 
 Mr. Stephens then turned his own steps towards the 
 approaching police. Falling in with ten or twelve 
 fugitive rebels who had been defeated in the pre- 
 vious skirmish, he prevailed upon them to make a 
 stand against the coming posse. He felt assured 
 that if, even at that late hour, a small victory could 
 be obtained, thousands would flock to his standard, 
 and the rising would become general throughout 
 the land. 
 
 The "peelers" advanced upon the rebels and 
 were received with a volley from the few old muskets 
 which they possessed. The pursuing body returned 
 the fire, killing and wounding several of the patriots. 
 Those who remained uninjured immediately scat- 
 tered. Mr. Stephens was among the wounded. He 
 
32 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 had received one bullet through the fleshy part of 
 the right thigh, and another had inflicted a contu- 
 sion upon the left hip, which caused him great pain. 
 Seeing his comrades flying in every direction, .he 
 attempted to get over a ditch, when he was saluted 
 with another volley from the police, several bullets 
 passing through his clothes. He fell as if killed, and 
 the police passed on thinking him dead, and so they 
 reported to their officers and the populace. After 
 having bandaged his wound and made sure that it 
 was safe for him to venture forth once more, the 
 wounded leader started across the fields for a neigh- 
 boring town. On his way he encountered a peasant, 
 with whom he exchanged clothes to prevent detection. 
 
 FLIGHT OF STEPHENS, AND HIS VISIT TO HIS LADY-LOVE. 
 
 A little touch of romance saved him from being 
 captured and sharing the fate of O'Brien, McManus, 
 and others of his comrades. While following his 
 profession, he had encountered in Tipperary a young 
 lady whose bright eyes had made sad havoc with the 
 heart of the youthful patriot. Now, wounded, 
 weary, disheartened, and an outlaw, he resolved once 
 more to seek his lady-love, and receive from her one 
 fond adieu before seeking O'Mahony and his fellow- 
 conspirators in their retirement. He knew the 
 dangers he would encounter by the way; for the 
 British soldiers and police were searching every 
 nook and corner, and dragging to prison the unfor- 
 tunate participants in the events of the past few 
 weeks. But bright eyes lured him on, and he knew 
 a hearty welcome awaited him in that distant town. 
 And did he not have a beautiful precedent in the 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERHO OD. 33 
 
 course pursued by one whose sorrowful history had 
 ever been full of interest to him — the noble Robert 
 Emmet, who, refusing to go on board the ship which 
 was waiting to take him to sea until he should say 
 good-by to the girl of his heart, was captured while 
 receiving her last embrace, and was led away to 
 prison and the scaffold ? Having this bright example 
 before his eyes, young Stephens set out upon his 
 journey to Tipperary, having hired a cart to trans- 
 port him. At one little town through which he 
 passed on the same day he found the streets full of 
 excited citizens. They had heard of the fight at the 
 Widow McCormick's, and rumor having given the 
 victory to the rebels, the people were anxious to join 
 their brothers in the field. At their head was the 
 parish priest, urging them to return to their homes 
 and remain quiet. Mr. Stephens listened to the 
 reverend speaker a few moments, and then approach- 
 ing him, demanded the privilege of speaking to the 
 crowd. The priest refused to listen to him, but de- 
 nounced him as a spy. Thereupon the excitement 
 became intense, and the denounced individual was 
 in danger of being torn to pieces. At this critical 
 moment a young man in the crowd recognised Mr. 
 Stephens, and throwing himself in front of him, com- 
 pelled the mob to listen to what he had to say. A 
 few words sufficed to inform them of all that had 
 occurred at the Widow McCormick's, whereupon a 
 revulsion of feeling came over the crowd, and he 
 was as near being killed by their kindness as he had 
 been before by their pikes and scythes. The young 
 rebel was carried in triumph through the streets, and 
 finally sent on his way to Tipperary rejoicing. 
 2* 
 
34 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 After many adventures and several narrow escapes 
 from falling into the clutches of the vigilant police, 
 Mr. Stephens reached the house of his lady-love. 
 Here he passed three delightful days, receiving that 
 kind nursing and watchful care which his wounded 
 condition rendered necessary. But few visitors were 
 allowed to approach the house, and nearly all those 
 who were accorded that privilege were young ladies, 
 whose sympathy for the wounded rebel would doubt- 
 less have kept him confined for weeks longer, had 
 not his place of concealment become suspected. An 
 Irish magistrate, whose meddling curiosity was of 
 the Paul Pry order, having ascertained that a 
 fugitive rebel was in his vicinity, set inquiries on 
 foot which rendered the place too hot for the young 
 and romantic enthusiast. He accordingly bade an 
 affectionate farewell to the pride of his heart, and 
 started once more upon his wanderings. Departing 
 from his comfortable quarters, where youth and 
 beauty had ministered to his wants, he slept that 
 night in the open air beside a hedge, with a stone 
 for a pillow. 
 
 From this time he shaped his way according to 
 the directions given him by John O'Mahony, and 
 soon joined that gentleman and Michael Doheny in 
 their retired retreat. The report that Stephens was 
 killed at the fight at Widow McCormick's house w as 
 generally believed, his friends doing their utmost to 
 gain credence for it. His father aided in circulating 
 the report, and even went so far as to get up a mock 
 funeral for the unfortunate lad, and buried an empty 
 coffin with all the honors. A little later Mr. Ste- 
 phens had the pleasure of reading in the London 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 35 
 
 Times, a full report of his own funeral, written on 
 the spot, " by our own correspondent.'' 
 
 His rumored death contributed much towards his 
 escape from Tipperary, and finally from his native 
 land. He nevertheless was compelled to use extreme 
 caution in all his movements, and on more than one 
 occasion was all his ingenuity called into requisition 
 to enable him to escape the clutches of government 
 officials. Arriving at the home of O'Mahony, he 
 found it surrounded by the police. In company with 
 that gentleman, however, he succeeded in evading 
 their vigilance, and the two outlaws made their way 
 to a small cabin on the mountain side, near Carrick- 
 on-Suir, where they found Michael Doheny quietly 
 awaiting intelligence of his friends. This patriot had 
 also encountered many wild adventures during the 
 few weeks just gone by, which have been given to 
 the world in a book written by himself. 
 
 THE THREE OUTLAWS — STEPHENS, O'MAHONY, AND 
 DOHENY. 
 
 On the morning following the events detailed 
 above, the three conspirators — James Stephens, 
 O'Mahony, and Doheny — for the heads of two of 
 whom the British Government had offered a large 
 reward— crossed the Suir before daybreak, and 
 made their way to the Comeragh Mountains. 
 
 Here they spent several days, not daring to ven- 
 ture forth, or attempt to hold communication with 
 their friends. A few trusted peasants alone knew 
 of their retreat, and from these they derived their 
 subsistence and their knowledge of passing events. 
 While here, and living thus, outlaws in their native 
 
36 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 land, their footsteps dogged by emissaries of a 
 government they loathed, these men resolved to 
 devote their lives to the liberation of Ireland and 
 the overthrow of the power of England. The re- 
 volutionary spirit of their countrymen was crushed 
 out for the present, and the poor enslaved people 
 had returned to the old ways, discouraged and 
 demoralized. British rulers and British landlords 
 were becoming every day more exacting and over- 
 bearing, but mismanagement, defeat, imprisonment, 
 and famine, had so disheartened the people that no 
 hope could be entertained of another rising at that 
 time. A few years more must elapse, and new 
 leaders, with more practical and more advanced 
 ideas, must arise to inspire confidence in the hearts 
 of the people. They must be organized. In the 
 last days they had shown the proper spirit, but there 
 had been no organization, and the people, when 
 called to action, came forth as a mob, which could 
 neither be used nor controlled. This must be reme- 
 died ; the entire nation must be united in. one mass 
 of thoroughly drilled soldiers, before there could be 
 any hope of a successful revolution. This was the 
 feeling of Mr. Stephens as he and his companion 
 pursued their lonely wanderings on Comeragh 
 Mountains, and he resolved to bide his time. But 
 that such organization should be made, and another 
 blow for Irish freedom struck, he not only firmly 
 resolved, but to the accomplishment of that purpose 
 henceforth devoted his life and his fortunes. 
 
 Great difficulty was experienced by Doheny and 
 Stephens in their attempts to leave Ireland. So 
 determined was the British government to secure 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERHO OB. 3 7 
 
 the arrest of all who had been engaged in the late 
 revolt, that patrols of soldiery and police were scour- 
 ing road and field in their efforts to capture fugi- 
 tives. Not a house, barn, or hay-rick in that portion 
 of the country escaped search from the officers of 
 the law. It finally became necessary for their own 
 safety, that Doheny and Stephens should separate, 
 and each in his own way endeavor to escape from 
 their native land. They accordingly did so, and 
 taking different routes, each strove to reach some 
 Irish seaport town. After having encountered many 
 adventures and hairbreadth escapes, Mr. Stephens 
 reached Cork, without having assumed any disguise. 
 By a strange coincidence, which did not end here, 
 Doheny arrived on the same day, disguised as a 
 hog-drover. Each, unknown to the other, engaged 
 passage for England ; they sailed on different schoon- 
 ers ; left the harbor on the same day ; arrived in Eng- 
 land on the same day, and finally entered France on 
 the same day, at different ports ; neither, during all 
 the time occupied in performing this journey, knew 
 aught of the whereabouts or fate of the other, and 
 it was not until nearly a month had elapsed after 
 their arrival in Paris that they came in contact. Here, 
 the resolves made upon the mountain w T ere renew- 
 ed, and each, in his own way, devoted himself to the 
 accomplishment of the great object they had in view. 
 In an account of their trials and tribulations, which 
 Avas afterwards published by Doheny in a volume 
 (The Felon's Track), that distinguished rebel thus 
 speaks of Stephens and the way he bore himself 
 under the trying circumstances to which both were 
 so long exposed : 
 
38 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 " My comrade, who had no life to lose hut his own, and who 
 of that was recklessly prodigal, provided he could dispose of it 
 to good account, stepped blithely along and uttered no complaint, 
 although he left behind him traces marked with blood. His ter- 
 rible indifference soon restored my self-possession, and we found 
 shelter for the night. * * * * His imperturbable equani- 
 mity and ever-daring hope had sustained me in moments of per- 
 plexity and alarm, when no other resource could have availed. 
 During the whole time which we spent, as it were, in the shadow 
 of the gibbet, his courage never faltered and his temper never 
 once ruffled." — Extracts from "Felon's Track." 
 
 While Doheny amused himself in writing ballads 
 on such scraps of paper as chanced in his way, 
 Stephens enlivened the tedious hours of their 
 involuntary wanderings with song and jest. His 
 spirits were high, and his fund of humor never 
 exhausted. 
 
 MR. STEPHENS IN" PARIS. 
 
 Mr. Stephens' hunger for knowledge had never 
 been satiated, and knowing full well that he 
 had much to acquire to fit himself to be a suc- 
 cessful leader of a popular revolution, he imme- 
 diately on his arrival in Paris again returned to his 
 books. Shutting himself up in his own quiet room, 
 he pursued his studies unremittingly, ignoring so- 
 ciety almost entirely, and forming only such ac- 
 quaintances as would contribute to the fulfilment of 
 his plans. He was often cramped for even the 
 necessaries of life, but by means of occasional ser- 
 vices rendered to literary and professional friends, he 
 obtained sufficient for his actual needs. For more 
 than seven weary years did he remain in Paris, and 
 nearly the whole of that time was devoted to his 
 studies and in attendance upon lectures on the natu- 
 ral sciences, philology, and literature. He became 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 39 
 
 distinguished as a linguist, being able to read readily 
 in sixteen different languages. During the latter 
 portion of his residence in Paris, he had contributed 
 to the daily and weekly journals, his articles excit- 
 ing much comment and admiration in the literary 
 world. He also translated Charles Dickens' " Mar- 
 tin Chuzzlewit " into French, and had it published 
 in that language. This added much to his literary 
 fame, and contributed not a little to his purse. It 
 has often been stated that during these seven years 
 in Paris, Mr. Stephens became identified with secret 
 political societies, whose object was the overthrow 
 of the French government. This assertion is not 
 true. While he lost no opportunity of familiarizing 
 himself with the revolutionary leaders, and the prin- 
 ciples and ideas which they advanced, he never was 
 initiated into any of the secret societies. He was 
 too much occupied with thoughts of his own un- 
 happy country and in schemes for her delivery from 
 the British yoke to become involved in the affairs 
 of his neighbors. 
 
 STEPHENS SAILS FOR ENGLAND. 
 
 Early in 1857 he, believing the hour propitious 
 for the commencement of those plans which he had 
 been so long maturing, set out for England. His 
 ideas of organization at this time were more com- 
 prehensive than ever before or since, and contem- 
 plated not only the liberation of his own native land, 
 but the complete overthrow of British rule wher- 
 ever found. To this end he proposed beginning 
 his labors in London by the establishment of a daily 
 newspaper opposed to the government, and repub- 
 
40 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 lican in its views. He also sought to establish secret 
 societies among Englishmen and Irishmen in Eng- 
 land, to imbue their minds with republican ideas, 
 and finally, to so spread the societies and the ideas 
 that they should result in the overthrow of the Bri- 
 tish government at home and in all her provinces, 
 and in the establishment of republican forms of go- 
 vernment. After a short stay in London, however, 
 Mr. Stephens' health became so bad that he was 
 obliged to return to his native land, and abandon 
 his plans. His severe study in Paris had made sad 
 inroads upon his constitution. His medical advisers 
 informed him that nothing but a speedy return to 
 Ireland would save his life. Reluctantly he aban- 
 doned the field which had promised so fair a har- 
 vest, and in a short time again pressed the sod of 
 his beloved isle. 
 
 HE GOES ONCE MORE TO IRELAND. 
 
 He allowed himself but a short time for rest, 
 however. His was not a spirit to remain in idleness. 
 His countrymen were being oppressed, impoverished, 
 and driven by thousands from the land of their 
 birth to seek the protecting shelter and the homes 
 and liberty afforded them upon the soil of America. 
 Positions of trust and emolument were offered him 
 by those who feared his genius and his revolutionary 
 spirit. They thought by tempting offers of pecuniary 
 assistance to win him from the purpose he had 
 espoused under such trying circumstances. All these 
 attempts were persistently set aside by him, and 
 he resolved to ascertain for himself, by personal 
 observation, the state of the country and the 
 
FENIAN BR OTHER.HO OD. 41 
 
 sentiments of the people. Provided simply with 
 his knapsack and staff, he started out npon this 
 tour, nor did he return again until every town 
 and every hamlet in the whole of Ireland had 
 been visited. Alone and on foot he travelled 
 from one extreme of the Island to the other, talking 
 with the farmer, the peasant, and the laborer — 
 sleeping in their cabins, and partaking of their 
 poor and scanty fare. Their grievances were related 
 and sympathized with ; the farmer told how the 
 landlord oppressed him, and how he took from him 
 the last cent he could earn to pay the rent of a bit 
 of bog and a leaky cabin, and how he was some- 
 times turned out of even that wretched home 
 because he couldn't make enough from the soil 
 to pay that rent. The laborer told of hard work 
 and scanty pay. All complained of the rise of rents 
 and the exorbitant taxes they were forced to pay 
 to support a church and clergy they did not believe 
 in. He found the old spirit of revolution still 
 alive in their breasts; it slumbered, but was not 
 dead. They were ready to strike for their freedom 
 if only the proper leaders could be found, and the 
 proper organization effected. 
 
 HIS TRAVELS IN IRELAND. 
 
 Mr. Stephens' travels afoot occupied him one 
 year, during which time he traversed three thousand 
 five hundred miles, and conversed with thousands 
 of people— the bone and sinew of the land— under 
 their own roof-trees. This journey rendered him 
 more familiar with the condition of Ireland and the 
 true sentiments of his countrymen than was any 
 
42 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 other person in the land. He returned fully satisfied 
 that the time was ripening for the blow for freedom 
 to be struck, and he resolved to prepare for it. 
 
 It was after this tour through the country that he 
 first laid the foundation for the society which is now 
 known as the Fenian Brotherhood. At that time 
 he gave it no name whatever, but strove to render 
 the organization so secret that the Government 
 should obtain no clue even to its existence. The 
 days of '48 had taught him that no revolutionary 
 movement in Ireland could be successful unless the 
 people were thoroughly organized, and each man 
 sworn, by a solemn oath, to obey the orders of his 
 leaders. In the days of John Mitchel and Smith 
 O'Brien there were political societies, but no oath 
 bound the members together. The consequence 
 was, that a single priest could scatter a crowd of 
 thousands simply with his denunciations. The peo- 
 ple had to be educated to make a distinction be- 
 tween the priest in his capacity of religious instruc- 
 tor and the same individual as a politician. This 
 was one of the objects of the society established by 
 Mr. Stephens. The people recognised that their 
 clergy were opposed to any attempt by battle being 
 made to secure the liberties of the people. They 
 must be taught that all due respect would be paid 
 to them as priests, but that when they lent the dig- 
 nity of their office to serve political ends, they put 
 off the sanctity of the robe, and became as other 
 citizens, and were to be treated as such. This les- 
 son has since been well learned by Irishmen at home 
 and abroad; and to-day the Fenian Brotherhood, 
 which has been denounced by the clergy far and 
 
FENIAN BR OTRERHO OD. 43 
 
 wide, embraces within its ranks two-thirds of the 
 Irishmen of the world. Mr. Stephens established 
 several of these societies, the members being sworn 
 not only to watch over the interests of Ireland, but 
 to take up arms for her whenever called upon so 
 to do. 
 
 At Skibbereen there was a political and literary 
 association known as the " Phoenix Society." Most 
 of the members of this society were enrolled by Mr. 
 Stephens, but retained their original organization, 
 designation, and outward seeming as a club, for 
 the purpose of misleading the government in case 
 its suspicions were aroused. A British spy, how- 
 ever, joined their order, and having mastered some of 
 theit secrets, informed upon them. Many were ar- 
 rested, and one conviction followed. The trials 
 attendant upon the arrest of the Phoenix men creat- 
 ed great excitement in the land. These patriots 
 were called u Phoenix men " at the time of the pro- 
 secution, and for a long time the name attached it- 
 self to Mr. Stephens' secret organization, and it 
 even became familiar in America. 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF LIBEEATIVE SOCIETIES IN AME- 
 ^ RICA. 
 
 In December, 1858, letters were brought to Ste- 
 phens from Michael Doheny and other friends then 
 in America, stating that their efforts to establish secret 
 societies had been successful, and that an order was in 
 existence here with the object of eventually afford- 
 ing relief to Ireland. These gentlemen desired him 
 to undertake a similar organization at home, pro- 
 mising him such assistance from this side the ocean 
 
44 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 as might be deemed necessary. The experience 
 gained by him during his pedestrian tour, and the 
 favor which his embryo societies had met with, con- 
 vinced him that the plan was feasible, and he so in- 
 formed his American friends. He undertook to 
 organize and enroll ten thousand fighting men in the 
 space of three months, on the condition that he 
 should have the supreme control of the revolution- 
 ary movement, and that the American auxiliaries 
 should furnish him funds with which to meet the 
 necessary expenses of such an undertaking. The 
 first of these conditions Mr. Stephens insisted upon 
 most strenuously. He was on the field where the 
 action was to take place ; he was to assume the re- 
 sponsibility of the movement; he was the chief con- 
 spirator, whose life would surely be forfeited if he 
 fell into the hands of the British government. As- 
 suming thus the responsibility and the risk, he de- 
 manded that his action should not be hampered by 
 the dictation of men whose absence from the scene 
 placed them in a position where they were incapa- 
 ble of judging of the necessities of the hour. His 
 connexion with the movement in '48, and his sub- 
 sequent studies and experience, had taught him that 
 any conspiracy in Ireland looking to the establish- 
 ment of a republican form of government, must not 
 only be as secret as it could be made, to evade the 
 eye of British officials, but must be governed and 
 directed by one controlling mind. 
 
 His friends in America conceded this point, and 
 while recognising him as the head and front of the 
 revolutionary movement, promised to use every 
 exertion to secure the cooperation of their country- 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERHO OB. 45 
 
 men here. Under these circumstances Mr. Ste- 
 phens commenced his labor of organization. The 
 societies already formed were visited and induced 
 to extend their fields of labor ; new societies were 
 formed where none had previously existed, and the 
 souls of Irishmen were once more filled with hopes 
 of freedom. They responded nobly to the call of 
 their beloved chief, entering into the societies with 
 the full determination to take up arms in defence of 
 their rights whenever called upon so to do. 
 
 SUCCESS OF THE NEW SOCIETIES. 
 
 In seven months Mr. Stephens had organized an 
 army of thirty thousand loyal souls, who were 
 sworn soldiers of the Irish Republic. So quiet and 
 systematic had been his labors, that notwithstand- 
 ing the fact that British spies swarmed in every 
 town, the Government could obtain but little infor- 
 mation regarding the organization. That secret 
 political societies were in existence, was now well 
 known, but their extent could never be ascertained ; 
 and England knew comparatively nothing of the 
 formidable conspiracy going on under her very eyes. 
 
 From St. Patrick's day, the 17th of March, 1858, 
 till the end of September following, Mr. Stephens 
 devoted every hour to the task of perfecting this 
 organization, and giving to it a military character. 
 
 FAILURE OF AMERICAN SUPPLIES. 
 
 His friends had promised to furnish him from 
 America from £80 to £100 per month to enable him 
 to complete his work ; but the spring months passed 
 
46 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 and July came without bringing with it the remit- 
 tances from across the ocean. Less than £100 in 
 all was received by Mr. Stephens from the time he 
 commenced the work of organization to the 1st of 
 July, 1858. Meantime he had used in the work all 
 the funds he had received or could raise upon his 
 personal credit, and he was forced to behold the 
 work of his hands about to be destroyed for the 
 lack of that support which had been so confidently 
 promised him. In this emergency he sent a trusted 
 friend to America to consult with O'Mahony and 
 Doheny, who were the representatives of .the Irish 
 movement in that country. These gentlemen were 
 surprised to learn the extent of Mr. Stephens' or- 
 ganization, but could show no corresponding labor 
 performed here. They, however, renewed their 
 assurances of cooperation, but finally sent the agent 
 back nearly as empty-handed as he came. 
 
 The result of this mission was exceedingly disap- 
 pointing to Mr. Stephens and his co-laborers at 
 home, but they were in nowise disheartened. An- 
 other long term of anxious waiting for the fulfil- 
 ment of their dream of liberty must elapse, the 
 impetuous ardor of their followers must be controlled, 
 and they be taught that lesson of patience which 
 their leader had been conning for ten weary years. 
 
 STEPHENS GOES TO AMERICA. 
 
 It was at length determined that Mr. Stephens 
 should visit America, and for a brief period employ 
 upon that soil the talent for organizing which had 
 made him so powerful at home. Accordingly, in 
 September, 1858, he landed in Xew York, and for 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERROOD. 47 
 
 the first time set foot upon those shores, where so 
 many of his countrymen had found homes and for- 
 tunes. He was met by O'Mahony and Doheny, who 
 extended to their old comrade a welcome as hearty 
 as it was sincere. The young patriot was disap- 
 pointed at the little progress his friends had made in 
 laying before his countrymen the true state of Ireland. 
 These two men, so brave in action, so teady to lead 
 their squadrons in the field, who never flinched when 
 death stared them in the face, who laughed defiantly 
 when the British government fixed a price upon 
 their heads, were found unequal to the task of eli- 
 citing that sympathy for their enslaved countrymen 
 which Irish hearts, wherever found, are so willing to 
 pour out in substantial form, when properly ap- 
 proached. 
 
 Mr. Stephens met many warm and influential 
 friends of the cause in New York, but these gave so 
 gloomy an account of matters here as to almost de- 
 ter him from further efforts. But he felt the respon- 
 sibility which rested upon him, and knew that thou- 
 sands of anxious hearts at home were beating in 
 unison with his, and that thousands of good and 
 true men looked to him as their leader, and were 
 watching his every movement with anxious eyes. 
 He resolved, in spite of all opposition which was 
 in his way, to commence and carry to success an 
 organization here similar to the one in Ireland. 
 O'Mahony, Doheny, Michael Corcoran, and a few 
 other prominent and patriotic individuals seconded his 
 efforts, and the movement was commenced ; the late 
 Brig.-General Michael Corcoran being the first man 
 sworn in on this side of the Atlantic. But already 
 
48 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 nearly four month's of precious time had elapsed 
 since his arrival in America — time consumed in vain 
 efforts of others to do what he had contemplated — 
 and his countrymen were clamorous for his return 
 to Ireland. Having at length gained the consent of 
 his friends here to proceed in his own way, he started 
 upon a tour through the States, leaving the organi- 
 zation in "New York in the hands of his friends. 
 His efforts met with success everywhere. Being a 
 plain-spoken, energetic, and convincing speaker, he 
 was listened to attentively, and his counsels fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 The societies which he established were secret in 
 their nature, and while they contemplated the liber- 
 ation of their native land from British tyranny, the 
 means he proposed to accomplish that end were diffe- 
 rent from those contemplated by the home organiza- 
 tions. There, every member was a soldier ; here, each 
 member was a contributor to the support and equip- 
 ment of those soldiers. Mr. Stephens devoted 
 only one month to this effort, and at the end of 
 that time had established societies in many of the 
 principal towns in the United States. Having 
 received their assurances of hearty cooperation, 
 and having raised some means, he returned to New 
 York, preparatory to embarking for his native 
 land. 
 
 HE IS RECOGNISED AS THE REVOLUTIONARY CHIEF. 
 
 While waiting in New York, the delegates of 
 the societies he had organized drew up a document 
 conferring upon him the sole control of the Irish 
 revolutionary movement, and recognising him as 
 
FENIAN BR OTHEREO OD. 49 
 
 the head of all Irish organizations throughout the 
 world. Not alone in Ireland and America had the 
 spirit of revolution taken root, but the sons of 
 Erin in England, Australia, South America, and, in 
 short, all over the globe, had become alive to the 
 necessities of the hour, and were prepared to play 
 their allotted roles in the coming hour of peril. 
 All united in recognising Mr. Stephens as their 
 leader, and to him intrusted the control of the 
 cause so sacred to them. Knowing full well the 
 responsibility thus put upon him, he boldly accepted 
 the trust, confident of his ability to accomplish 
 much, and to at least develop the power and strength 
 of his people. 
 
 With this feeling, and under these circumstances, 
 he returned to Europe, his arrival being the signal 
 for renewed hope throughout the land. 
 
 STEPHENS AGAIN IN PARIS. 
 
 Not caring to return to his native land until he 
 had the means of accomplishing his work ready to 
 his hand, he again proceeded to Paris, where he 
 spent two weary years waiting for that assistance 
 which never came. Meantime, he was in constant 
 communication with the Societies on both sides of 
 the Atlantic, urging the one to renewed efforts in 
 behalf of their oppressed country, and to the other 
 holding out hopes of coming succor. But the di- 
 rectors of Fenian affairs in America did not make 
 that exertion among their countrymen which the 
 emergency required, and the organization which 
 had promised so much became paralysed and dead 
 to all intents and purposes. The cry went up, " Why 
 3 
 
50 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 do not the Irishmen at home do something for them- 
 selves ? " from men who should have known that 
 Irishmen at home were shackled hand and foot with 
 British fetters, and could make no movement for 
 their relief until their more fortunate brothers in 
 foreign lands furnished them the means of breaking 
 their bonds. For this they prayed, and this had 
 been promised. Those men who asked why Ireland 
 consented to remain in fetters, never asked them- 
 selves, " Where is the assistance we promised? Where 
 the guns, the bayonets, and other munitions of war 
 we were to furnish ? " They preferred to quietly 
 fold their hands and complain that others did not 
 do that which they themselves had stipulated to ac- 
 complish. 
 
 The entire sum of money sent to Mr. Stephens 
 from America during the first six years following 
 his efforts in 1858 did not exceed £1,500. Had it 
 not been that Irishmen at home, from their own piti- 
 ful savings, contributed ten times that amount, 
 the revolutionary spirit could not have been kept 
 alive one single year — it would have died a natural 
 death from want of encouragement. 
 
 During all the years which have passed since Mr. 
 Stephens devoted his life io the cause of Ireland, he 
 has never, up to the present time, applied to his own 
 use one dollar of the amount contributed to secure 
 the freedom of his native land. Not only has he 
 refused to defray his own expenses from the public 
 funds, but he has contributed thereto from his own 
 slender means until £8,000 have been swept away 
 from his private purse, leaving him greatly in debt 
 to a few kind personal friends, whose confidence in 
 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 51 
 
 the individual could never be shaken, whatever they 
 might think of the cause he had espoused. 
 
 The indifference of Irishmen in America having 
 for the time destroyed all hope of securing Ireland's 
 independence, Mr. Stephens returned to Dublin and 
 quietly awaited the course of events. Never for 
 one moment, since the days of O'Brien and Mitchel, 
 has he doubted the practicability of the undertaking 
 when the proper moment should arrive. He had 
 seen one or two opportunities for a revolutionary 
 movement in Ireland, when England was in trouble 
 elsewhere, pass unimproved because the Irish people 
 were not organized. He had determined that this 
 should not occur again, and that when the occasion 
 for another rising came, his countrymen should at 
 least be prepared to avail themselves of it. He there- 
 fore worked night and day in perfecting what then 
 had no name, but what is now known as the Fenian 
 Brotherhood. He had at this time established so- 
 cieties all through the land, but they were not suf- 
 ficiently advanced to suit him. He accordingly 
 visited them all, worked with them, added to their 
 numbers, and watched them drilling as soldiers. 
 
 f 
 
 PECULIARITIES OF THE FENIAN ORGANIZATION. 
 
 The organization was a military one, somewhat 
 peculiar in its formation. First, in each district a 
 good and trusty man was selected by Mr. Stephens 
 to act as an organizer. This individual was called a 
 " Centre," his military rank being similar in power 
 and duties to our colonel. This Centre then organ- 
 ized " Circles," each Circle comprising from 50 to 
 150 good and reliable men, who were presided over 
 
52 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 by captains. These, however, instead of being recog- 
 nised by their military titles, were designated " A's" 
 and " B's", the captains having authority to appoint 
 sergeants, corporals, etc. It was provided that if 
 the Centre was captured, the senior captain should 
 immediately take his place, his vacancy being filled 
 by the one below him, and so on throughout the 
 whole society. Whatever office became vacant, for 
 any reason, the next officer in rank below immedi- 
 ately took the place. By this means the Circles were 
 never without a Centre, and when arrests were made 
 of the leading men, it was found that the machinery 
 was in nowise clogged. The Circles had their regu- 
 lar meetings and their military drills at stated in- 
 tervals. A large number of the Fenians belonged 
 to the militia, and were only too eager to avail 
 themselves of the opportunity to instruct their bro- 
 thers in the manual of arms. Indeed, so completely 
 Fenianized did the militia of Ireland become that the 
 British Government at length prohibited their drill- 
 ing at all, and would scarcely allow them to assem- 
 ble on the usual holidays. 
 
 DEATH OF TEKENCE BELLEW MCMANUS. 
 
 In 1862, an event occurred calculated to convince 
 every one that the representations which Mr. Ste- 
 phens had made regarding the strength of the Fe- 
 nians in Ireland were in no way exaggerated. This 
 ^event was the arrival at Cork of the remains of that 
 noble patriot, Terence Bellew McManus. It will 
 be remembered that McManus was one of those 
 devoted men who remained stedfastly with Smith 
 O'Brien in '48 to the very last. He was eventually 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 53 
 
 captured, while attempting to leave the country, 
 and after suffering a long and tedious imprisonment, 
 was brought to trial. The evidence against him 
 was conclusive, and. he was sentenced to be " hanged, 
 drawn, and quartered," in accordance with the hu- 
 mane provisions of English law. This sentence was 
 commuted, however, and he was doomed to spend 
 the remainder of his days in penal servitude. While 
 undergoing this imprisonment in Australia, frequent 
 attempts were made by friends at home to induce 
 the British Government to pardon him and the other 
 patriots who were then pining in the penal settle- 
 ments. McManus, however, sted lastly refused to 
 consent to his name being used for any such pur- 
 pose ; he intended, if he could escape, to repeat his 
 attempts to overthrow the British Government, and 
 he would not place himself under any obligations to 
 a power he hated, by accepting from it a pardon. 
 He eventually escaped, and made his way to San 
 Francisco, where he engaged in business. His name 
 was always revered by his countrymen, not only for 
 his unflinching bravery in the hour of danger, but 
 for his undying hatred of the oppressors of his race, 
 and his stubborn rejection of all overtures for pardon. 
 In 1862, he died in that city, and his many friends 
 decided upon sending his remains for interment to 
 that Green Isle for which he had suffered so much. 
 
 When the body reached New York, his country- 
 men flocked in thousands to pay to it their last 
 tribute of respect ; and notwithstanding the fact that 
 Archbishop Hughes had forbidden the members of 
 the Catholic Church to participate in any demon- 
 stration on the occasion, the funeral cortege was 
 
54 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 one of the largest ever seen in New York. Thence 
 the body, accompanied by a suitable escort, was 
 conveyed to Cork. Up to this time, there had been 
 very little known about the Fenian Brotherhood ; 
 and as the friends of Ireland abroad doubted its 
 strength, Mr. Stephens consented that its members 
 should contribute their share in paying fitting tri- 
 bute to the illustrious dead. On the day of the 
 arrival of the body in Cork, that city was filled with 
 Fenians, who had been called thither by their chief. 
 When the funeral escort came on shore with their 
 dead leader, the body was received by a committee 
 of distinguished gentlemen, and conveyed to a suit- 
 able place, where it lay in state for eight days and 
 was visited by thousands. At the end of that 
 time, the remains were sent to Dublin, and eight 
 thousand Fenians formed in procession and accom- 
 panied them to the depot. Sixty thousand more 
 lined the sidewalks, remaining reverently uncovered 
 as the last earthly remains of him they loved so well 
 were carried past. 
 
 There was a continuous grand ovation all along 
 the line of road over which the remains of this re- 
 vered patriot passed from Cork to Dublin. At every 
 station Fenians had congregated, and the occasion 
 was one of the deepest solemnity throughout the 
 land. When the obsequies were celebrated in Dub- 
 lin, one hundred and fifty thousand participated in 
 the demonstration, thirty thousand of whom joined 
 in the procession. From these demonstrations the 
 fact became at once apparent to the English Govern- 
 ment as well as to the friends of Ireland at home and 
 abroad, that there existed in the Green Isle an organ- 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 55 
 
 ization of sufficient strength to shake the power of 
 England, if so inclined. 
 
 It had been thought by some Irishmen in this 
 country that the arrival of the remains of McManus 
 in Ireland would be a favorable opportunity for ano- 
 ther revolutionary attempt. They accordingly sailed 
 for their native land at the same time, and imme- 
 diately commenced agitating for a rising. In some 
 localities they found many followers, and had hopes 
 of being successful. Indeed, even Fenians who were 
 bound to Mr. Stephens had become impatient of 
 delay, and were willing to unite in any movement 
 which promised even the shadow of success. But 
 their chief knew that the hour had not arrived ; the 
 spirit of the people might be ripe for revolution, but 
 they had neither arms nor means to prosecute it to 
 a successful issue. He accordingly communicated 
 to the Centres of his Circles that no outbreak would 
 be allowed at that time, and the attempt of the 
 American patriots was frustrated. At several places, 
 however, Fenians had congregated in large numbers, 
 ready and willing to do anything, expecting that the 
 word for action to begin would be given. At one 
 place upwards of a thousand stalwart Fenians had 
 collected at the depot, awaiting the arrival of the 
 train which was bearing the remains of McManus. 
 They had been informed that when the train arrived 
 there would be work to do, and they were prepared 
 to undertake anything. One of the foremost, acting 
 as spokesman for the rest, sought out Mr. Stephens, 
 and inquired what was to be done. He directed 
 them to form in line quietly, and then having gained 
 a position where he could be heard, and in a voice 
 
56 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 which once heard is to be obeyed, shouted to them, 
 " To your knees, men ! to your knees, every one ! " 
 Instantly every knee was bent, and every head 
 reverently uncovered. In this attitude they re- 
 mained, murmuring heartfelt prayers, until the train 
 bearing the corpse of their hero had passed. Quietly 
 then they dispersed to their several homes, content 
 to pay the tribute of a tear to the memory of the 
 dead patriot, and to obey the commands of their 
 living chief. 
 
 STRENGTH OP THE FENIANS IN IRELAND. 
 
 At this time, out of a population of 5,000,000 
 people, 50,000 could be relied on to shoulder their 
 muskets and take the field against British oppres- 
 sion. 
 
 The amount of labor required to perfect this or- 
 ganization can only be appreciated by those who 
 have had some experience in organizing revolu- 
 tionary movements. But at the head stood Mr. 
 Stephens, steadily guiding the Brotherhood in all 
 its affairs, and so perfecting the organization that 
 when the moment arrived for them to strike for 
 freedom, the British government should find, instead 
 of the undisciplined mob which had before been so 
 easily put down, an army of veterans, capable of 
 establishing their rights at the point of the bayonet. 
 He was personally known to but a few of the more 
 prominent Centres, yet his name was held in such 
 reverence by the masses that it was never allowed 
 to pass their lips for fear they might betray him. 
 He was spoken of as " the captain," and to say to 
 them that "the captain" wanted this or that done 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERHO OD. 57 
 
 was to secure its prompt performance. Even the 
 Centres themselves whispered his name only when 
 barred doors shut out all possibility of its being 
 heard by watchful spies. Notwithstanding Mr. 
 Stephens was known to so few of the members of 
 the Brotherhood he was familiar with them all. 
 Under different names and disguises, he visited 
 every Circle frequently, often addressing them with 
 encouraging words from "the captain" or superin- 
 tending their drills. 
 
 THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE— FATE OP THE MEMBERS. 
 
 Several of the best and most intelligent men were 
 selected by him as a Council of Advisors, to whom 
 were submitted all questions of importance and whose 
 opinions guided the actions of their Chief. The sub- 
 sequent fate of three of the members of this council is 
 well known. John O'Leary, Charles Kickham, and 
 Thomas Clark Luby, gentlemen connected with The 
 Irish People newspaper, were arrested on suspicion 
 of being connected with a revolutionary conspiracy. 
 An agent of John O'Mahony's having been sent to 
 Ireland with despatches, was unfortunate enough to 
 lose them. The documents fell into the hands of the 
 British Government, and the arrest of hundreds of 
 patriots followed. The investigations resulting from 
 this unfortunate affair showed O'Leary, Kickham, 
 and Clark to be identified with the conspirators, and 
 their conviction followed without delay. They are 
 now (June, 1866) serving out a sentence of twenty 
 years' confinement at Pentonville prison, near Lon- 
 don. 
 
 3* 
 
58 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 ANOTHER AGENT SENT TO AMERICA. 
 
 The vigilance of the police now rendered necessary 
 an increased expenditure of funds in behalf of the 
 Brotherhood. The treasury was exhausted, and the 
 few moneyed friends of the cause had already been 
 taxed to their last dollar. He had to assume the 
 entire responsibility of weathering the storm which 
 hung over the organization, acting at once as its 
 financier and chief director. 
 
 In this emergency, he again sent to America a 
 true friend of the cause to ask once more for that 
 assistance which had been so often promised. This 
 agent soon reached New York city, where he was 
 met with glowing accounts of the progress of the 
 Brotherhood all over the country. He, however, 
 made a tour through the States, visiting many of the 
 large cities, and addressing large assemblies of his 
 countrymen. He thought everything looked favor- 
 able, more favorable than had been represented ; but 
 he was deceived. Machinations were immediately 
 set on foot to counterbalance the favorable impres- 
 sions he had made in the country by those who were 
 loath to see any Fenian contributions leave the 
 country. The mission of this agent was a failure. 
 
 Again was Mr. Stephens disappointed, but not 
 disheartened. Difficulties beset his path on all sides, 
 but his undaunted spirit never for a moment quailed 
 before them. Fertile in resources, his mind no 
 sooner realized the failure of one project, than an- 
 other was suggested. Means to carry on his revolu- 
 tionary enterprise must be obtained. Could he at 
 this time, or at any subsequent period, have obtained 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 59 
 
 the privilege of appealing directly to the masses at 
 home with that freedom which is allowed in this 
 country, he could easily have derived from his 
 poverty-stricken countrymen the sums required to 
 prosecute his plans for their liberation. But mass- 
 meetings, which in this country are the means of 
 direct personal appeal, were denied to him; and that 
 mighty engine of Republicanism — the Press — was 
 closed against him. He resolved, therefore, upon 
 attempting the establishment of a newspaper in the 
 interests of the Brotherhood, which should not only 
 be instrumental in enlightening his people upon the 
 subject so dear to their hearts, but should at the 
 same time be made a source of revenue to their 
 depleted Treasury. 
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF THE " IRISH PEOPLE." 
 
 Accordingly, in 1863, he, by appeals made to the 
 various circles in Ireland, succeeded in raising a suf- 
 ficient sum to commence the publication of The 
 Irish People. It freely discussed all matters touch- 
 ing the welfare of Ireland, and was devoted to the 
 dissemination of Republican ideas. The paper was 
 well edited, there being engaged upon its editorial 
 staff several able and accomplished journalists ; while 
 its corps of contributors numbered in its ranks some 
 of the most brilliant writers of the Irish race. Ten 
 thousand copies of the first number were printed, 
 and so great was the demand for it that the edition 
 was speedily exhausted. The second and third 
 numbers met with similar success, and it bade fair 
 to meet all the expectations of its founder. But 
 with the third number came trouble. Its tone was 
 
GO JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 offensive to British tastes, and the government 
 objected to its progressive views. It was denounced 
 as seditious in its tendency and revolutionary in its 
 teachings. Its circulation was opposed by the 
 government and the clergy ; and the opposition to it 
 was sufficient to prevent its yielding that pecuniary 
 profit which had been anticipated. On the contrary, 
 for a portion of its existence, it was an expense to 
 its founder, and he was called upon to contribute 
 largely to its support from his private means. It 
 survived, however, until 1865, when the finding of the 
 documents lost by O'Mahony's agent showed it to 
 be identified with the revolutionary party, where- 
 upon the government seized upon and confiscated 
 its presses and material. 
 
 THE CHICAGO CONVENTION" AND FAIR. 
 
 In the winter of 1863 and 1864, the American 
 Fenians began to take some very decided steps ; and 
 a Convention was held at Chicago, Illinois, for the 
 purpose of consulting in regard to the prospects of 
 Ireland, and attempting to hit upon some plan of 
 action which should lead to a more extended and 
 practical form of sympathy being adopted by the 
 Brotherhood throughout the United States. This 
 Convention was attended by delegates from all parts 
 of the country, but more particularly from the 
 Western States. It was in those States that the 
 greatest strength of the Brotherhood was mani- 
 fested at that time. Many schemes were proposed, 
 some of which were destined to exercise a very 
 strong influence over the future action of the 
 American Brotherhood. Personal ambition on the 
 
FENIAN BRO THERE OB. Q 1 
 
 part of several of the leaders had already manifested 
 itself, and the struggle for power was here com- 
 menced. It was at this Convention that the idea 
 of rendering the American Brotherhood independ- 
 ent of the organization in Ireland was first publicly 
 broached. This Brotherhood had heretofore been 
 considered auxiliary to the home society, and had 
 recognised James Stephens as the head of the wide- 
 spread movements for the liberation of Ireland. 
 At the Chicago Convention it was contemplated to 
 reverse the order of things, giving the American 
 Brotherhood the supremacy, with power to dictate 
 what should be the policy pursued by the people at 
 home. In accordance with this idea, John O'Ma- 
 hony was chosen President of the Brotherhood, and 
 a Central Council chosen, which was to advise with 
 the President on all affairs of importance. This 
 was a direct blow aimed at Mr. Stephens and his 
 Irish organization, the result of which was to give 
 birth to all the unfortunate if not fatal dissensions 
 which followed. 
 
 It had been determined to hold a grand Fair at 
 Chicago, Illinois, for the benefit of the Brotherhood. 
 Previous to the opening of the Fair, Mr. Henry 
 Clarence McCarty was sent to Ireland, ostensibly 
 for the purpose of procuring articles for exhibition 
 and sale at the Fair. He was cordially received by 
 Mr. Stephens and his friends, who seconded his 
 efforts in every possible way. The office of The 
 Irish People was made a depository for articles in- 
 tended for this purpose, and the columns of the 
 paper devoted to the advocacy of the scheme. 
 
62 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 STEPHENS' SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA. 
 
 The great object of McCarty's trip was, however, 
 to induce Stephens to visit America for the good of 
 the cause, and especially that he might save the or- 
 ganization from threatened dissolution. He yield- 
 ed to the representations made, and, as before stated, 
 arrived in New York in the latter part of March, 
 1864. 
 
 After a few days spent with his friends, Mr. Ste- 
 phens proceeded to Chicago, where he arrived the 
 second day of the Fair. He was greeted with the 
 greatest enthusiasm by the masses, but beneath the 
 apparent cordiality of the more prominent Fenians 
 there lurked a feeling of chagrin at Jris presence. It 
 is not our purpose to go into all the petty intrigues 
 which were here developed ; we will pass them by 
 with the simple statement, that they were nume- 
 rous, some of them dangerous, and that they bore the 
 most bitter fruits at a subsequent period. The Fair 
 was a great success in spite of (or rather because 
 of) the opposition to it, offered by the clergy of 
 this country. The priests had objected to it from 
 the first, and entreated their congregations to dis- 
 countenance it entirely, threatening them in the 
 most serious manner for any participation in it. The 
 people, however, refused to be dictated to in this 
 manner, and nearly 50,000 persons were present. 
 It was here that Mr. Stephens learned, with feelings 
 of regret and astonishment, that the American Bro- 
 therhood numbered only about 10,000 members, when 
 he had been led to believe their numbers exceeded 
 50,000. He had in Ireland, where to be a Fenian 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 63 
 
 was to be a conspirator, 60,000 active members of the 
 organization, and he had hoped America would fur- 
 nish at least an equal number. This statement 
 was exceedingly discouraging to him, yet, upon 
 certain assurances being made he promised that if 
 England went to war that year on the Danish ques- 
 tion, as was anticipated, the blow for Irish freedom 
 should be struck on Irish soil before another year 
 began. But if England should not go to war that 
 year, he promised that the fight in Ireland should 
 commence in 1865 at the farthest. This promise 
 was a conditional one, dependent for its fulfilment 
 upon assurances made him that the help required 
 should be promptly furnished. 
 
 After the Fair was concluded, Mr. Stephens, sad- 
 dened and somewhat discouraged at the prospect 
 presented to him there, started upon, an organizing 
 tour through the West. He met with good success, 
 and the encouragement given him in various cities 
 served to remove from his mind the doubts engen- 
 dered at Chicago. 
 
 STEPHEN'S ONCE MORE IN IRELAND. 
 
 He returned to Ireland in August, 1864, having 
 realized £3,000 by his American trip ; three times 
 this amount had been assured him as an inducement 
 to get him to come. 
 
 On arriving in Cork harbor, he found the country 
 in a fearful state of excitement in consequence of 
 the difficulties which were then in existence be- 
 tween the Orangemen and the Catholics. Several 
 outbreaks of a serious nature had occurred, men 
 had been killed on both sides, and it was feared 
 
64 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 that these demonstrations were but the forerunners 
 of an open revolt. Mr. Stephens hastened to 
 Dublin, to the great relief of his friends, and at 1 
 once resuming the leadership of the organization, 
 prevented the Fenians taking any part in the 
 troubles. He found the organization deeply in 
 debt, and was compelled to at once expend nearly 
 every dollar he had brought back from America to 
 liquidate claims which had accumulated during his 
 absence. 
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR ACTION. 
 
 The Danish question was still a mooted one in 
 Europe, and Mr. Stephens exerted all his energies 
 in preparing Ireland for the commencement of 
 hostilities in case England should be drawn into a 
 war with any other power. Believing that " Eng- 
 land's difficulty was Ireland's opportunity," he made 
 every preparation calculated to secure the success 
 of the contemplated revolution. But disappoint- 
 ment awaited him ; no European war occurred, 
 and, what was still worse, no help came from 
 America. Instead of the money and munitions of 
 war which had been so lavishly promised, all the 
 assistance received from America by him to the 
 end of January, 1804, was the paltry sum of 
 £394. 
 
 In January, 1865, another Convention of the 
 Brotherhood in America was held at Cincinnati, 
 and to them Mr. Stephens appealed by letter for 
 the fulfilment of the promises made to enable him 
 to begin the fight in that year. He asked that 
 for the first three months of that year he should 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 65 
 
 be furnished £1,000, the same amount for the month 
 of April, and for May, June, July and August, 
 £2,500 per month. He represented that this assist- 
 ance would enable his countrymen at home to take 
 the field before the winter months arrived. His 
 arrangements at that time were such that with the \ 
 sums mentioned he could have introduced into 
 Ireland all the war material required. This was 
 promised him, and the first instalments sent over ; 
 but subsequently the remittances became irregular, 
 and soon ceased entirely, before one-quarter of 
 the amount promised had been transmitted. 
 
 MOKE DELEGATES SENT TO IRELAND. 
 
 In July of that year (1865), instead of sending 
 the assistance promised, two delegates were sent 
 to Ireland by the Brotherhood in America, for 
 the purpose of inspecting the work of Mr. Stephens, 
 and ascertaining whether a revolution was practica- 
 ble. Mr. P. J. Meehan and P. W. Dunn were the 
 gentlemen selected for this purpose, the former 
 bearing the credentials of both from John O'Mahony. 
 They sought out Mr. Stephens, made known the 
 object of their visit, and were afforded every 
 opportunity for fulfilling their mission. They soon 
 expressed themselves entirely satisfied with the 
 organization, and again assured Mr. Stephens that 
 he should receive from America all the assistance 
 that had been promised. It was at this time 
 that it was agreed that the issue of Bonds of 
 the Irish Republic should be entered upon imme- 
 diately upon the return of Mr. Meehan to New 
 Yo:k, and he promised to start in eight days. 
 
66 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 These eight days were to be employed by Messrs. 
 Meehan and Dunn in visiting some of their friends. 
 At the expiration of fifteen days Mr. Stephens 
 received letters from each of them, posted in 
 different parts of Ireland, requesting him to send to 
 them, through the post-office, the names of numerous 
 Centres of Circles, expressing their desire to visit 
 those organizations. Mr. Stephens, very indignant 
 at such request, at once summoned them to Dublin, 
 to confer about matters of vital importance. He 
 received no answers to these summonses, and several 
 days elapsed before Mr. Dunn returned. Mr. 
 Meehan continued not only absent but silent. 
 
 SUSPICIONS OF TREACHERY. 
 
 The visit of Messrs. Meehan and Dunn to Ireland 
 was the most unfortunate blow the revolutionary 
 cause in Ireland had received in many a day. They 
 had been provided with important documents — im- 
 portant only as they would, if captured, be found 
 criminatory in their nature — and with funds for the 
 use of the conspirators, which were in the custody 
 of Mr. Meehan. 
 
 That gentleman, on the first day of his arrival, 
 by some means lost everything in his possession 
 belonging to, and giving information about the 
 Brotherhood. The documents at once found their 
 way into the hands of British police officials, and 
 were the immediate cause of the wholesale arrests of 
 Fenian leaders and sympathizers which have since 
 been made. 
 
 For months previously British detectives, spies, in- 
 formers, police, soldiery, and officials of every kind, 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHO OD. fi 7 
 
 had been endeavoring in vain to find out just what 
 the documents lost by Mr. Meehan told them, 
 viz. the prime movers of the Fenian organiza- 
 tion. 
 
 These documents were simply the letter of John 
 O'Mahony, endorsing Messrs. Meehan and Dunn, 
 addressed to " James Stephens, Central Executive of 
 the Irish Republic," and a draft for the sum of £500 
 drawn in favor of a respectable Irishman. This was 
 the link, so long sought by the government, showing 
 the direct connection between the revolutionary 
 element in Ireland and the Fenian Brotherhood in 
 America, and also giving endorsements to the sworn 
 statements of Nagle, which statements otherwise, 
 owing to the character of the man, would have been 
 useless. 
 
 SEIZURE OF 
 
 Knowing James Stephens to be identified with 
 The Irish People newspaper, on the night of the 15th 
 of September the office of that paper was seized by 
 the police, and its types and presses taken possession 
 of by the government officials. At the same time a 
 posse of police surrounded the house of one of its edi- 
 tors, Thomas Clark Luby, and patiently waited for the 
 appearance of that gentleman. Two messengers, who 
 were dispatched to him from The Irish People office 
 during the night, were seized by the vigilant officers. 
 Finally they entered Mr. Luby's house and seized 
 that gentleman and a large lot of documents relating 
 to the Brotherhood. These papers being calculated 
 to implicate many people in the conspiracy, had been 
 previously kept in a place of safety together with 
 
68 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 many private papers belonging to Mr. Luby. Antici- 
 pating just what had occurred, the seizure of The 
 Irish People office, and the search of his own resi- 
 dence, Mr. Luby had brought the papers to his home 
 for the purpose of destroying such as could be 
 spared, selecting out his private documents and 
 concealing the remainder where they could not 
 possibly be found. It was while thus engaged 
 that he was arrested. The papers thus found, 
 placed in the hands of the police the names of 
 many brave men who were connected with the Fe- 
 nian organization, and led to their immediate arrest. 
 But the first positive clue which the government 
 obtained upon which to base an arrest was that 
 furnished by the documents lost by Mr. Meehan. 
 Without that the fatal discovery of the papers at 
 Mr. Luby's could never have been made. It was 
 freely admitted by British officials that all the 
 information previously received by them had not 
 been of a criminating nature, and the Attorney- 
 General stated officially that without the Meehan 
 documents no arrests could have been made. 
 
 The events immediately following the seizure of 
 The Irish People office are of such recent date as 
 not to require repetition here. How hundreds of 
 brave and loyal Irishmen were seized and thrown 
 into prison on suspicion of being Fenians ; how 
 Americans in Ireland were also suspected, arrested, 
 and ordered to leave the country ; how some of 
 these patriotic men were brought to trial, and how 
 nobly and defiantly they bore themselves ; and how 
 they were sentenced to years of penal servitude, are 
 matters well known to the public. 
 
FENIAN BR THERE OD. (] D 
 
 REWARD OF £2,300 OFFERED FOR STEPHENS. 
 
 On the day following the seizure of The Irish 
 People office — the 16th of September — a reward of 
 £200 was offered for the arrest of Mr. Stephens. 
 As days and weeks rolled on, and he still remained 
 at large, this reward was increased publicly to 
 £2,300 ; while privately it was known that whoever 
 should produce in court the arch-conspirator, would 
 receive from the Government and individuals an 
 incredible amount. Yet while the ingenuity of the 
 British Government was taxed to the uttermost to 
 secure his arrest ; while detectives were following 
 every trail, and spies lurking in every corner — that 
 gentleman remained quietly at his own residence in 
 the suburbs of Dublin, pursuing his usual avocations. 
 
 HIS HIDING-PLACE. 
 
 In the preceding month of July he had rented for 
 £60 a year (this is the mansion he is said to have 
 occupied at Fenian cost !) a small house known as 
 Fairfield, in the south-eastern portion of the city, 
 near Sandy Mount, on the river Doder, and. here 
 he remained from that time until he was arrested. 
 He was known there as Mr. Herbert, and was to be 
 seen at all hours of the day, quietly digging in his 
 little garden, indulging his refined taste in the culti- 
 vation of flowers, or bestowing a gardener's care 
 upon thl? substantial vegetables which were destined 
 to appear upon his dinner-table. The other occupants 
 of this cottage were his wife, his sister-in-law, Charles 
 Kickham, one of the editors of The Irish People, 
 Edward Duffy, and Hugh Brophy. These gentle- 
 men were all subsequently arrested. 
 
70 TAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 It was believed that the excitement through- 
 out the land, in consequence of the arrests, would 
 lead to an outbreak on the part of the revolutionists. 
 Indeed the hour was a propitious one ; but that quiet 
 country gentleman, in his suburban cottage, knew 
 that, however ripe the times and the people might 
 be for a rising against their self-delegated masters, 
 the warlike preparations were not sufficient to en- 
 sure a success. An outbreak might be made in cer- 
 tain localities, and a temporary victory gained, but 
 there was neither a sufficiency of arms nor ammuni- 
 tion in the land to warrant the slightest hope of 
 success. Mr. Stephens knew this only too well, and 
 bitterly did he regret that the promised aid from 
 America had not reached him in time to enable him 
 to take advantage of this popular excitement which 
 seized upon every Irishman in the land, and aroused 
 in him such deep indignation as to render him ripe 
 for any deed that should promise to free his native 
 land from the rule of the hated Saxon. The desire 
 for the work to begin was so great in the ranks of 
 the Brotherhood, that nothing short of the powerful 
 influence which Mr. Stephens wielded over his 
 countrymen and their devotion to him could have 
 prevented an outbreak. That such was prevented 
 when popular indignation was wrought up to its 
 highest pitch, is an evidence of the high state of dis- 
 cipline to which the organization had been brought. 
 The imperative order that no revolutionary move- 
 ment should be made at that time went out from 
 that controlling spirit, and was obeyed. 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 71 
 
 ARREST OF STEPHENS. 
 
 For over two months' following the issuance of the 
 proclamation setting a price upon his head, Mr. 
 Stephens remained at Fairfield. A full description 
 of his person had been published, and the police 
 were in full cry after him. But few persons con- 
 nected with the Fenian movement knew of his re- 
 treat, and the number who were familiar with his 
 person was comparatively small. For seven years 
 he had been a conspirator in Ireland, most of the time 
 living in Dublin, yet his person was unknown to any 
 policeman. His retreat was finally discovered, 
 through the treachery of one who was familiar with 
 the fact that James Stephens and Mr. Herbert were 
 one and the same person. On the night of the 12th 
 of November, Colonel Lake and Inspector Ryan, of 
 "G" Division of the Metropolitan Police, with a 
 large posse of policemen, surrounded the house at 
 Fairfield, bent upon the capture of the great con- 
 spirator. Having placed his men so as to prevent 
 any escape from the house, he at length entered the 
 cottage and instituted a search for Mr. Stephens. 
 Entering the sleeping apartment of that individual, 
 the police found him quietly awaiting their approach, 
 while his wife was still in bed. There he stood be- 
 fore them, yet none dared to arrest him. There is 
 a provision of English law which prohibits an arrest 
 being made unless the person arresting is sure of the 
 identity of the person he desires to capture. Not a 
 man of them was familiar with the personal appear- 
 ance of him for whose arrest there was so much 
 money to be gained. 
 
72 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 This emergency had been provided for, and so 
 complete were his precautions and foresight, that 
 naught but the basest treachery could have given 
 the authorities a clue to his retreat. At last some 
 one cried out, " Where's Dawson ?" and that indi- 
 vidual, a detective, having been summoned, pro- 
 claimed the identity of Mr. Herbert with that of 
 James Stephens. He was at once taken into cus- 
 tody in the name of the Queen. Fifteen minutes 
 elapsed from the time the police entered his bed- 
 chamber before the arrest was made. Mrs. Stephens 
 bore the arrest of her husband bravely, and when 
 they parted, asked his permission to visit him in 
 prison. He replied : " You cannot visit me in prison 
 without asking permission of British officials, and I 
 do not think it becoming in one so near to me as 
 you are to ask favors of British dogs. You must 
 not do it — I forbid it." 
 
 The police, fully armed, soon started on their 
 road to Dublin, having in charge Mr. Stephens and 
 Messrs. Kickham, Duffy, and Brophy, the other 
 occupants of the cottage who had also been made 
 prisoners. 
 
 THE EXAMINATION. 
 
 By the time of their arrival in the city the police 
 courts were open, and Mr. Stephens was imme- 
 diately conveyed before Mr. Stronge to undergo a 
 preliminary examination. The news of his arrest 
 had spread throughout the city, and the excitement 
 was intense. It was feared that an attempt would 
 be made by his devoted admirers to rescue him 
 from the hands of the police. The Prosecuting 
 Attorney, Charles Barry, was present, and a distin- 
 
FENIAN BRO THERE OD. 73 
 
 guished lawyer volunteered his services in behalf of 
 Mr. Stephens. This was most emphatically refused 
 by him in that bold and defiant language which no 
 person ever dared to breathe before in public in 
 Ireland, and which caused the most profound sensa- 
 tion when heard. He said, addressing Mr. Stronge, 
 " I have employed no lawyer, nor have I put in any 
 plea in this case, neither do I intend to do so. By 
 so doing, I should be recognising British law in Ire- 
 land. Now, I conscientiously and deliberately re- 
 pudiate the rightful existence of British law in Ire- 
 land, and I scorn and defy any punishment it can 
 inflict on me." The greatest excitement prevailed 
 in the court-room in consequence of this defiant 
 speech, and every man present felt that, in conse- 
 quence, Mr. Stephens' doom was surely sealed. A 
 few moments sufficed to conclude the examination, 
 and the accused was remanded to prison for a fur- 
 ther hearing. This occurred on Saturday ; on the 
 following Tuesday he was again arraigned, and 
 then formally committed to Richmond Prison to 
 await his trial before a Special Commission which 
 had already been ordered to convene. The other 
 prisoners who were arrested at his house were also 
 committed for trial. 
 
 STEPHENS IN PRISON. 
 
 Mr. Stephens having been fully committed to await 
 his trial upon a charge of high treason, found himself 
 speedily locked within the walls of Richmond Prison. 
 This prison, built of solid stone and surrounded by 
 high walls, "is considered the strongest and most 
 secure place of confinement in Ireland. The four 
 4 
 
74 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 prisoners, Mr. Stephens, Brophy, Kickham, and 
 Duffy, were escorted to the cells allotted to them. 
 These were located on the second floor of the prison, 
 and were at some distance from each other. The 
 cell to the right of Mr. Stephens was untenanted, 
 while the one between him and Kickham on the left 
 was occupied by a convicted thief. This convict was 
 employed by the Superintendent of the prison to 
 assist in watching Mr. Stephens. A cord was 
 fastened in his cell communicating with a bell in the 
 Superintendent's office, and the convict, on hearing 
 any unusual noise in the cell of the conspirator, or 
 any attempt at rescue, was to give the alarm imme- 
 diately. This spy testified, subsequently, that when 
 the escape was finally effected, although he heard 
 the noise, he dared not ring the bell for fear of being 
 killed. Notwithstanding the fancied security of the 
 prison, the utmost vigilance was exercised by all the 
 prison officials to prevent the possibility of the pri- 
 soners holding communication with their friends. 
 None but those enjoying the entire confidence of the 
 prison officials were allowed to converse with them, 
 and, with the exception of two hours per day, which 
 were allowed for solitary promenade in the court-yard, 
 they w T ere securely locked within their cells. Aside 
 from being so closely confined and guarded, they 
 were treated with tolerable courtesy and kindness. 
 During the early part of his imprisonment, Mr. Ste- 
 phens had no hope of effecting his escape before 
 trial, although his friends knew full well that the 
 sentence which might be passed upon him could 
 never be carried into effect. He knew that thou- 
 sands of devoted followers stood ready and eager to 
 
FENIAN BROTHEDHOOD. 75 
 
 do anything, even to sacrificing their lives, if neces- 
 sary, to secure his release ; but he would not add to 
 the complications in which they were involved by per 
 mitting them to make any demonstration in his behalf. 
 The excitement in Fenian circles, in consequence 
 of the arrest and imprisonment, was most intense, 
 and schemes for his rescue, some of which contem- 
 plated the destruction of the prison, were discussed 
 far and wide. These plans were all put aside by the 
 bold and skilful man to whom Mr. Stephens had 
 entrusted the direction of affairs during his incar- 
 ceration. This man was Colonel Thomas J. Kelly, 
 formerly a staff-officer in the army of the Cumber- 
 land, who won his laurels and his promotion upon 
 the battle-fields of West Virginia, Kentucky, and 
 Tennessee. In April, 1865, Colonel Kelly, who, while 
 still in the American army, had tendered his services 
 for active work in Ireland, and who was then a tried 
 and trusted Fenian, joined Mr. Stephens in Dublin, 
 and during the few months succeeding his arrival, 
 had displayed so much skill and ability as to win not 
 only the confidence of his beloved chief, but the 
 respect and good opinion of all the leading revolu- 
 tionary spirits of the time. Colonel Kelly had re- 
 solved, from the moment that Mr. Stephens was 
 seized, that he should never be brought to trial, 
 and he took measures to enforce that resolve, as will 
 be seen. 
 
 THE ESCAPE FROM PRISON. 
 
 The arrrest, as we have stated, occurred on the morn- 
 ing of the 11th of November, and a Special Commission 
 had been ordered to convene on the 28th of the same 
 
76 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 month, before which the chief conspirator was to be 
 tried. The plans of Colonel Kelly, to be of service, 
 must be speedily executed, and that they were com- 
 plete in every detail and successful in their result is 
 already known. 
 
 The details of the escape of Mr. Stephens from 
 Richmond Prison, and the names of the persons who 
 assisted therein, cannot be given to the public in full 
 until the Irish Republic shall be recognised among the 
 nations of the earth, and those prisons, which have 
 proved the tombs of so many noble patriots, have be- 
 come portions of its possessions. It is a fact, how- 
 ever, that those who assisted in the escape were so 
 completely masters of the situation, that for days they 
 laughed to scorn all idea of their beloved chief being 
 brought to trial. Indeed, the fact that he was to es- 
 cape, and that the well-laid plans to secure his release 
 would be put into effect on a certain night, was well 
 known to the organization throughout the whole of 
 Ireland, and had even been communicated to Colonel 
 O'Mahony, in America ; yet so perfect was the 
 organization, and so devoted its members, that not 
 a whisper of such purpose ever reached the ears of 
 British officials. Sufficient details of this escape, 
 however, can be given here without criminating 
 those who assisted therein, and who are yet resi- 
 dents of their native land, to clear up somewhat the 
 mystery which has surrounded this transaction, and 
 which will, at least, have the merit of being truthful. 
 
 There were in Dublin many men, some of whom 
 had previously been employed within the prison, and 
 others who had been confined there, who knew all 
 its ins and outs, all its highways and byways. These 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERHO OB. 77 
 
 men were now Soldiers of the Republic, devoted to 
 their Chief, willing to lay down their lives in his be- 
 half, and sworn to obey the orders of the officers 
 appointed over them. There were employes still 
 in the prison, also, who were members of the organ- 
 ization, who were ready to connive at the escape of 
 the Central Organizer. But he who rendered the 
 most important service was a British official, high 
 in office, who, for a stipulated sum of money, fur- 
 nished to Colonel Kelly wax impressions of the 
 various locks of the prison. These impressions were 
 taken to a skilful workman, still in Dublin, and from 
 them he was enabled to construct skeleton keys, so 
 deftly made that when the occasion came to use 
 them it was found that the prison-bolts yielded as 
 readily to them as they did to those in the hands of 
 the officials. 
 
 All arrangements having been made to the satis- 
 faction of the Colonel, he, on the morning of the 
 24th of November, together with a few other bold 
 spirits, repaired to the prison. It was a cold night ; 
 the rain fell in torrents, and the wind howled dis- 
 mally through the almost deserted streets, as these 
 few men hastened from different directions to the 
 appointed rendezvous. The first thing to be done 
 was to post sentinels at some distance from the 
 prison, to guard all the approaches, to give the alarm 
 if the movement was discovered, and to bring rein- 
 forcements to the scene if necessary. Colonel Kelly, 
 while making the rounds of these sentinels, encoun- 
 tered a policeman in the vicinity of Love Lane, and 
 that individual owes his life at the present moment, 
 to the fact that his curiosity did ncvt lead him to 
 
78 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 follow the person who was so quietly promenading 
 the streets at that early morning hour. While 
 skeleton keys had been prepared to unlock the doors 
 leading from the prisoner's cell to the prison yard, 
 it was well known that the outside gates were too 
 well guarded to permit of their entering that way. 
 But these men were fertile in resources. A rope 
 thrown over the outside wall sufficed to enable two 
 of them to climb to the top and lower themselves to 
 the inside. 
 
 One of those who thus entered the prison had 
 formerly been employed there, and knew all that 
 was necessary to know to effect their purpose. It 
 appears that the Superintendent of the prison had, a 
 short time before, become exceedingly economical 
 in his views, and had consequently reduced the 
 number of watchmen within the walls. Only one at 
 a time was now required to be on duty, and lest he 
 should prove negligent, a tell-tale clock was put up 
 at regular intervals, by means of which the high dig- 
 nitary who introduced the reform could tell whether 
 or not the watchman had made his rounds at the 
 proper time. The tour of duty was performed in 
 this manner : the watchman, on starting upon his 
 rounds, performed upon the first dial the operation 
 known as " pegging the clock," which showed the 
 time he entered upon his duty. Passing along the 
 corridors, he was required to try every lock, ex- 
 amine every door, and satisfy himself that every cell 
 was occupied by the person assigned to it. At an- 
 other point of his rounds, he encountered another 
 tell-tale clock, which he was required to " peg " as he 
 had the first, and so on throughout the entire prison 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 79 
 
 until six clocks had been thus manipulated. The 
 time occupied in making the rounds was one hour 
 and a half. 
 
 The old employe who had, by scaling the walls, 
 stolen into the prison, as we have stated, knew to a 
 minute what time each clock was to be " pegged,'' 
 and the movements of the rescuing party were 
 timed accordingly. Clock No. 1 having been duly 
 "pegged" on this particular morning, and the watch- 
 man started on his tour of inspection, the two men 
 who were so anxiously watching his movements fol- 
 lowed slowly and softly behind him. The cell of 
 Mr. Stephens was examined, the locks and bars 
 found to be all correct, the prisoner apparently sleep- 
 ing, and the watchman passed by, satisfied with his 
 inspection. Scarcely had the sound of his footstep 
 died out from within that cell, when it was ap- 
 proached by the two nameless individuals. Quickly 
 the skeleton-key was applied to the lock, the bolts 
 flew back, the barred door swung open, and " the 
 captain," a moment since seemingly so sound asleep, 
 stepped forth from the dismal cell and silently pressed 
 the hands of his rescuers. But their work was not 
 yet complete — barely commenced, in fact. In half 
 an hour the watchman will return to clock No. 1, 
 and again commence "pegging" his rounds, and 
 "the captain" must be beyond his reach before that 
 time. Hastily the two mysterious persons, accom- 
 panied by their chief, retraced their steps to where 
 they had entered. Between the prison and* the 
 prison-garden there is a stone wall nearly twenty 
 feet high. From the top of this dangled a rope-lad- 
 der ; to mount this, and gain the summit of the wall, 
 
80 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 was but a moment's work. The rope-ladder was 
 drawn up and lowered on the other side, and in 
 another moment the three men had reached the pri- 
 son-garden. Crossing this hastily, they approached 
 another stone wall nearly as high as the one just 
 scaled. The rope-ladder was once more brought 
 into requisition, the top of the wall speedily gained, 
 and at two o'clock and thirty-five minutes by the 
 prison-clock, Mr. Stephens looked out upon the 
 streets of Dublin. His friends outside were watch- 
 ing for him, and as they saw his form on the top of 
 the wall, these devoted individuals closed in toge- 
 ther, bending their backs for him to drop upon. 
 Lightly he sprang down, landing safely and unin- 
 jured upon their shoulders, and he, for whose cap- 
 ture the British Government had made such prodi- 
 gious efforts, stood upon his native soil once more 
 a free man. His friends who had unlocked the door 
 of his cell, having removed all traces of their flight, 
 and having taken slight measures to mislead the 
 authorities as to their mode of exit, hastily followed 
 the example of their leader. No sooner had they 
 landed than they immediately fled in different direc- 
 tions, Colonel Kelly and one other alone remaining 
 with Mr. Stephens. The three walked rapidly for 
 a few squares, when the third person was sent away; 
 a few moments more and Mr. Stephens entered the 
 house of a watching friend, and Colonel Kelly passed 
 on to his lodgings. Both were drenched to the 
 skin, splashed with mud, and their clothes bore evi- 
 dence of the rough work they had encountered in 
 scaling the prison- walls. 
 
 Six persons in different parts of the city and its 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 81 
 
 suburbs had been led to expect Mr. Stephens that 
 night ; all six kept their houses open awaiting his 
 arrival, and had made every preparation to receive 
 him. Colonel Kelly had anticipated every emergency 
 which could arise, and had one mode of escape failed, 
 another was open to him. Even had he been cap- 
 tured in the undertaking, his chief would still have 
 escaped, and would have found his friends awaiting 
 his arrival. The whole affair was most successfully 
 managed, not one person about the prison being aware 
 that the conspirator's cell was empty until four o'clock 
 the following morning, unless, indeed, that official 
 who furnished the impressions from which the skele- 
 ton keys were made, saw, in his dreams, the successful 
 issue of the work to which he had contributed so 
 much. Had any difficulty presented itself in the way 
 of Mr. Stephens' escape that night, blood would 
 doubtless have been shed. His friends did not en- 
 counter the danger of entering Richmond Prison 
 without being prepared to force their way out, and 
 each one, including Mr. Stephens, was well armed. 
 Any person who would have ventured to oppose 
 them would have been speedily put out of the way. 
 If help had been needed, help was at hand. Eight 
 thousand men were that night assembled at different 
 points within the limits of the city of Dublin, ready 
 to answer any call that might be made upon them 
 by those whom they recognised as their leaders. 
 Had there been any disturbance at the prison, that 
 call would have been made, and these eight thousand 
 men, ignorant of the reason why they were waiting, 
 but knowing full well that some movement in the 
 cause of Irish liberty was being made, would have 
 4* 
 
82 JAMES STEPHEN'S. 
 
 made an onslaught upon Richmond Prison which 
 would have reduced it to ruins. But, fortunately, 
 this was not necessary. The daring revolutionary 
 spirit had escaped from its walls, and was then as 
 free as any Irishman in Ireland. 
 
 Mr. Stephens remained quietly at the house of 
 the friend with whom he first lodged after leaving 
 prison for over two weeks, and could, from his 
 chamber-window, look out upon two sides of those 
 stone walls which had, for thirteen days, shut him 
 out from the world. Great was the hue and cry 
 set up when his escape became known ; again were 
 the energies of the government bent upon his 
 capture. The reward of £200 previously offered 
 for his apprehension was increased to nearly £2,000, 
 and numerous small rewards were offered by in- 
 dividuals. Mr. Stephens looked laughingly on 
 while the detectives were stumbling by his hiding- 
 place, and he frequently ventured forth into the 
 streets of an evening and enjoyed his quiet walk 
 and a cigar. He received the leading men of the 
 Fenian organization occasionally at his rooms, and 
 communicated with them all. Colonel Kelly, to 
 whose skill and daring his escape was due, was the 
 trusted Lieutenant of Mr. Stephens, and through 
 him the business connected with the organization 
 was mainly transacted. The Colonel occupied a 
 suite of apartments in the busy part of the city, 
 frequently met the Fenian leaders there, and yet 
 was never even suspected by the vigilant police. 
 With the exception of one night, Mr. Stephens did 
 not sleep outside the limits of the city of Dublin 
 from the time of his escape from prison until the 
 
FENIAN BR OTHEIUIO OD. S3 
 
 13th of March following, at which time he left 
 Ireland for Paris on his way to America. 
 
 It was with feelings of the deepest regret that 
 Mr. Stephens resolved to make the trip to America. 
 The organization at home sadly needed his entire 
 attention. The excitement consequent upon the 
 arrests of Fenians, which were still being made by 
 the government, was intense, and the British offi- 
 cials were congratulating themselves that dismay 
 had seized upon and annihilated the Brotherhood. 
 That a deep gloom had fallen upon the revolutionists 
 was true ; they had seen their companions dragged 
 to prison by hundreds upon a bare suspicion, and 
 the myrmidons of the oppressor were still at work ; 
 but disheartened or dismayed they were not. The 
 spirit was ripe, and the determination for revolution 
 more fixed than ever. Yet it needed the cool head 
 and clear intellect of the Chief Organizer to steer 
 the organization clear of all breakers. But the 
 success of future movements depended upon the 
 union of the opposing factions in America, and he 
 believed that he could accomplish this. 
 
 THE AMERICAN TROUBLES. 
 
 The history of the unfortunate complications in 
 American Fenian affairs, may be thus briefly 
 summed up : 
 
 Colonel O'Mahony, the President of the organiza- 
 tion, by persistently refusing to countenance any 
 attempt at an invasion of Canada, had become quite 
 unpopular. The Central Council had, despite the 
 protest of Colonel O'Mahony, called a convention of 
 State delegates, at which convention a Fenian Con- 
 
81 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 stitution was adopted. This document provided for 
 a Senate, a War Department, a State Department, a 
 Financial Department, and all the machinery of a 
 Republican Government, and virtually robbed the 
 President of a large portion of that power which 
 had heretofore been vested in him. His hold upon 
 the Brotherhood now rested almost solely upon the 
 fact that his course was approved by Mr. Stephens and 
 the Irish organization. The arrest of Mr. Stephens, 
 it was believed, would not only prove his death-blow, 
 but would also destroy Colonel O'Mahony's influence. 
 The bonds of the Irish Republic were in process of 
 printing, and the individual who had been selected 
 as their custodian, had sent his signature to the 
 engraver that a fac-simile of it might be made. The 
 Senate finally objected to the issuing of the bonds, 
 and their custodian refused to attach to them his 
 signature. Knowing how much the cause at home 
 was dependent on prompt action in America, Colonel 
 O'Mahony had decided upon signing the bonds him- 
 self, and putting them in the market. The Senate took 
 offence at this, and a session being called, a stormy 
 debate ensued, at the conclusion of which Colonel 
 O'Mahony was voted out of office, and Colonel Win. 
 R. Roberts chosen as his successor. But Colonel 
 O'Mahony was not to be ousted so easily ; he had 
 many personal friends, and still more believed that 
 his policy of sending assistance to the men at home 
 was preferable to the Canadian scheme. These ad- 
 hered to his fortunes, and he found himself still at 
 the head of a powerful party. Party spirit ran high, 
 and for a long time the press of the country teemed 
 with the sayings and doings of the two factions. 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 85 
 
 This invasion of British dominions in America, 
 and the seizure of certain towns from which large 
 ships could be dispatched to all ports of the world 
 through the rapid waters of the broad St. Lawrence 
 river, had long been a favorite scheme of one party ; 
 and, though bitterly opposed by the other, its advo- 
 cates had never ceased to urge it earnestly at all 
 times and all places, in season and out of season. 
 There were some other minor points discussed be- 
 tween the Fenian leaders, but the original cause of 
 the breach in the ranks does not seem to have 
 been anything more than a mere difference of opi- 
 nion between some of the leaders as to the manner in 
 which the campaign which is to break the British 
 yoke was to be inaugurated. That a blow was to 
 be struck at once was a point already decided on 
 and agreed to by all the prominent men in the in- 
 most or directing Circle of the Brotherhood. The 
 disputed point was, "Where was England's most 
 vulnerable, and at the same time, most accessible 
 point ? Would it be feasible to fight the first battle 
 on Irish soil, thus literally bearding the lion in his 
 den, or would it be advisable to adopt the plan of 
 first securing a foothold somewhere on the American 
 Continent from whence to deliver the first blow in 
 the coming combat ? " In behalf of the latter plan, it 
 was urged that it would be comparatively easy to 
 seize upon some portion of the Canadian shore by a 
 sudden raid, possess themselves of the principal Cana- 
 dian towns, and thus, by a bold stroke, prove to the 
 world that their claims to be considered among the 
 " powers " were not wholly absurd, and their hopes 
 of ultimate success not entirely chimerical. By this 
 
86 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 proceeding, it was argued, they would at once pos- 
 sess themselves of large quantities of much needed 
 war material, and secure sites for military and naval 
 depots, where they could assemble and organize 
 their forces ; through the great St. Lawrence river 
 they could dispatch their ships, laden with troops 
 and munitions of war. This undertaking, if success- 
 ful, would give them a claim upon the nations to be 
 accorded the rights of legitimate belligerents, and not 
 to be regarded as a mere revolutionary horde, and 
 to be treated as pirates if captured while engaged in 
 destroying or damaging English commerce on the 
 high seas. It was urged that it would be useless to 
 attempt to throw a heavy force of soldiers into Ire- 
 land, except by the means of large and thoroughly 
 equipped men-of-war which should be amply able to 
 fight their way in case of being attacked by British 
 cruisers. The possession of the large towns on the 
 St. Lawrence would give them the opportunity to 
 man and load the large ships which they proposed 
 to purchase. 
 
 The opponents of this scheme objected to it, not 
 so much that it seemed unlikely to succeed, as 
 that it would almost of necessity involve a breach of 
 the neutrality laws, and so invite the immediate and 
 peremptory interference of the United States. It 
 was also said, that the money of the organization 
 had been given by the donors to be used on Irish 
 soil, in aid of the struggling patriots on the Green 
 Isle itself, and that to use it in any other way would 
 be a perversion of the fund from its legitimate ob- 
 jects, and an inexcusable breach of good faith with 
 the generous Irish sympathizers in this country, by 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 87 
 
 whom every dollar had been given; and that it 
 would also be a death-blow to the eager hopes of 
 the " Men in the Gap," who have been so often and 
 so positively promised aid from America, without 
 which all their plans must fail, and all their sacrifices 
 count as nothing. 
 
 Many and anxious were the discussions of the 
 two plans by the Fenian leaders ; but argument, 
 instead of convincing, seemed only to aggravate dif- 
 ferences, to engender personal animosities, and to 
 stir up " Envy, hatred, malice, and all un charitable- 
 ness." 
 
 Time brought no healing on his wings, but day 
 by day the strife grew more bitter. The advocates 
 of the Canadian invasion, headed by Mr. Wm. 
 R. Roberts and General Thomas W. Sweeny (who 
 had served with distinction in the Union armies, 
 during the Slaveholders' Rebellion), would not yield 
 their point ; and the other party, under the influence 
 of O'Mahony, as positively refused to adopt the 
 policy of their opponents. 
 
 Despite the discouragement of the O'Mahony 
 wing, the Roberts men proceeded actively in their 
 operations, and bought a large quantity of guns and 
 other war-stores, enlisted their men, and, having 
 decided on their objective point in Canada, all 
 things were soon declared to be nearly in readiness. 
 
 Perceiving that the Roberts men were resolved on 
 their Canadian attempt, Mr. O'Mahony finally yield- 
 ed to a plan of Mr. B. Doran Killian's, which that 
 gentleman had persistently and forcibly urged for 
 some time. This was to organize a movement on 
 Canada in opposition to the Roberts' raid, and by 
 
88 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 hurrying their own men first to that ground, to thus 
 foil Roberts with his own weapons. They would 
 thus earn for themselves all the eclat that was to be 
 gained by being the first to inaugurate Fenian hos- 
 tilities, and also to strike a bold blow at the hated 
 Lion of England in his own dominions. Though 
 his better judgment never approved the plan, at the 
 last moment O'Mahony gave a most reluctant con- 
 sent, and the movement was begun. 
 
 It is not our province, in this little book, to relate 
 in detail the features of that lamentable Campo 
 Bello fiasco. Suffice i.t to say, that it was a most 
 ludicrous failure in every point. The whole plan, 
 from its earliest inception to its ridiculous termina- 
 tion, seemed to be known in advance to the British 
 authorities, who took measures to countercheck any 
 move which could be made. 
 
 Discouraged, disheartened, sick, sore, sad, and 
 sorry, the discomfited Fenians dispersed, and, with 
 millions of hearty curses upon all connected with 
 the management, or mismanagement of the affair, 
 they slowly found their way back to their respective 
 homes. 
 
 Of course the breach was now wider than ever, 
 and the bitter recriminations of one party provoked 
 retorts quite as savage and severe. 
 
 During the early progress of the Campo Bello 
 scheme, while, in fact, it was in its infancy, a grand 
 meeting of delegates convened from the Circles 
 which remained true to the O'Mahony interest, 
 and in a rapid but exceedingly busy session, they, 
 with wonderful unanimity, expelled O'Mahony from 
 his office as Head Centre of the Fenian Organiza- 
 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 89 
 
 tion. Killian was also similarly expelled, and both 
 were notified to turn over their books, documents, 
 and funds, to a committee that had been appointed 
 to take charge of them, and who were to manage 
 the affairs of the Brotherhood until the arrival of 
 Stephens, who was soon expected. 
 
 Meantime, the Roberts party, with their " Sen- 
 ate " and their Secretaries of War and the Navy, 
 etc., still kept on as before, with much talk of 
 mighty warlike preparations being made in secret. 
 
 This was the condition of affairs at the time of 
 the advent of the great Chief Organizer on the 10th 
 of May, 1866. The breach he was expected to heal 
 seemed too wide to be spanned, but the Chief Or- 
 ganizer went manfully about the difficult task. How 
 he succeeded Time alone can show, for as yet the 
 problem is unsolved. 
 
 % * * * * * * 
 
 ADVENTURES OF STEPHENS ON HIS WAT TO THE 
 UNITED STATES. 
 
 To set about this great work, it was necessary for 
 Mr. Stephens to come to America. And accord- 
 ingly, on the 11th of March, he left Dublin in com- 
 pany with Colonel Kelly and proceeded to a small 
 harbor on the coast, where arrangements had been 
 made to have a schooner in waiting to convey him 
 to France. But a storm coming up prevented the 
 schooner entering the harbor, and the two conspira- 
 tors were compelled to remain over night. In the 
 morning, a British revenue cutter came into the 
 port, and all hope of getting aboard the schooner 
 was destroyed. The two then returned to Dublin 
 
00 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 and made other arrangements. On the following 
 day, Mr. Stephens drove through the streets of Dub- 
 lin in an open carriage, alighted at one of the docks, 
 and going on board a small schooner, was soon float- 
 ing with the tide out of the harbor to the English 
 Channel. Colonel Kelly was again his companion. 
 Entering the Channel, they encountered head winds 
 and stormy weather; were driven out of their course 
 many miles, and finally were forced to put into Car- 
 rickfergus Bay. Again, they essayed to cross the 
 Channel, and again encountered head winds and 
 rough weather, but finally succeeded in making the 
 little town of Ardrossan in Scotland. Here a car 
 was procured which conveyed them to a neighbor- 
 ing railway station, where they took the train to 
 London. Neither was disguised in any manner, and 
 the entire journey was made openly without any at- 
 tempt at concealment. That night, on their arrival 
 in London, the Chief of the Irish Conspiracy and 
 his Lieutenant slept at the Palace Hotel, directly 
 opposite Buckingham Palace. The passage through 
 England was made on St. Patrick's Day, the eighth 
 anniversary of the Fenian Conspiracy. The English 
 newspapers at this time were in the midst of a panic 
 created by the rumors which reached them from the 
 manufacturing districts. In these districts Fenian- 
 ism was wide-spread among the workmen, and they 
 had threatened that, in case England pursued, 
 towards the Fenians in Ireland the policy she lrad \ 
 threatened, they would retaliate by burning all the 
 manufacturing towns and destroying English pro- 
 perty wherever found. At this time, Sir Hugh Rose, 
 known as " The Butcher of India," was the com- 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 91 
 
 mandant of Her Majesty's forces in Ireland, and had 
 sought authority to pursue towards the Fenians the 
 same course he had adopted with the rebel Sepoys 
 in India, viz. blow them from the mouths of his 
 cannon, roast them alive, etc., etc. The Irish in 
 England indicated their determination to retaliate 
 on English soil in case any such horrible outrages 
 were perpetrated upon their brother-Irishmen at 
 home. The country press was justly alarmed, and 
 great excitement prevailed in consequence. Having 
 rested themselves sufficiently, Mr. Stephens and 
 Colonel Kelly took the train to Dover, thence to 
 Calais, and, on the night of the 18th of April, re- 
 lieved of all thought of danger, and beyond the 
 reach of their persecutors, they slept peacefully in 
 Paris. 
 
 Mr. Stephens, while in Paris, was cordially re- 
 ceived by many prominent French noblemen and 
 politicians, among whom was the Marquis de Boissy. 
 At his house the Irish revolutionist ate and drank, 
 receiving from his kind host words of sympathy and 
 encouragement. While in Paris, Mr. Stephens was 
 joined by his wife, and having provided for her a 
 proper residence in which to remain during his 
 American visit, he was prepared to leave the land 
 in which he had, for the third time, found so many 
 friends in the hour of his trouble. 
 
 ARRIVAL OF MR. STEPHENS IN NEW YORK. ENTHU- 
 SIASM OF THE FENIANS. 
 
 On the 28th day of March he embarked from 
 Havre in the steamship Napoleon III., and, after a 
 voyage of thirteen days, the " Central Organizer of 
 
92 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 the Irish Republic" arrived in New York on the 
 evening of Thursday, May 10, 1866. His arrival 
 had been expected for several days, and the two or 
 three hours' notice given by the outlying telegraph 
 at Sandy Hook, was amply sufficient for the gather- 
 ing of a large and most enthusiastic crowd which 
 assembled about the dock where the French steamer 
 was to land her passengers. 
 
 Would it be well to attempt to describe the feel- 
 ing among the Fenians ? We think not. A more 
 excited set of men and women was never known. 
 A Committee from the Moffat mansion had been 
 appointed to receive the distinguised Conspirator, 
 and were anxiously awaiting him at the dock. Mr. 
 Stephens was first seen and recognised by the Com- 
 mittee as the ship was swinging her stern into the slip, 
 and when recognised he was cheered vociferously by 
 the Committeemen and others who had been admitted 
 within the gates. These plaudits assured the great 
 multitude outside and on neighboring wharves that 
 the chief of the Fenians was really about to step on 
 American soil, and they took up the cheers and 
 threw their hats high in air in unbounded enthusi- 
 asm. The news of the distinguised arrival had been 
 communicated to the shipping in the harbor, and the 
 passing steamers blew a deafening welcome, while 
 a piece of Fenian artillery on the New Jersey shore 
 thundered forth a national salute. The masses of 
 human beings on West street and on the wharves — 
 and particularly outside the gates of Pier No. 50 — 
 became denser and denser as the minutes flew on, and 
 the number of privileged persons who were per- 
 mitted to pass the gates grew apace, until the ship 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 93 
 
 was ready to take aboard her gang-plank. At this 
 moment the pressure towards the ship's gangway 
 was not only decidedly uncomfortable but really 
 perilous; a platoon of policemen soon cleared the 
 required space, and when the gang-plank had been 
 properly adjusted, the distinguished guest of the 
 Committee appeared, leaning on the arm of Colonel 
 Kelly. A deafening bnzza went up, and in another 
 moment the Fenian Chief was in the midst of his 
 Irish- American friends. A brief consultation ensued, 
 and Mr. Stephens and staff, consisting of Capt. M. E. 
 O'Brien, of Keokuk, Iowa; Lieut. William Smith 
 O'Brien, of Detroit ; Lieut. James M. Gibbons, of 
 New York, and Chief-Engineer Thomas Moore, were 
 conducted to the coaches in waiting. 
 
 The impetuosity of a Celtic-American crowd is 
 proverbial. The one which gathered on the 
 wharves and in the streets that day was particularly 
 so ; and the wild and enthusiastic Fenians, in their 
 unbridled love for their chief, came near killing 
 him with kindness before they had fairly made his 
 acquaintance. 
 
 Outside the gates the crush was fearful. It was 
 with extreme difficulty that the Committee were 
 able to get Mr. Stephens and staff safely into their 
 carriages and off the pier ; and it is indeed matter 
 of wonder that of the multitudes who climbed upon 
 the vehicles, and almost fell under the horses' feet 
 in endeavoring to get their hands through the coach 
 windows and into those of Stephens, not one was the 
 victim of any accident. 
 
 The coaches were driven off at a moderate trot 
 up Barrow-street, with a noisy multitude bringing 
 
94 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 up the rear and on the sides of the street ; and this 
 crowd rapidly augmented until, on the arrival of the 
 party at the Metropolitan Hotel, it filled Broadway 
 from curb to curb. 
 
 In the course of the many interviews which Mr. 
 Stephens held with his friends and admirers that 
 evening, though they were, from the nature of the 
 circumstances, short and hurried, he assured his 
 friends that he had not even dreamed of making the 
 transit of the Atlantic until long after the disastrous 
 division occurred in the Fenian organization here, 
 and he should not even now have come had not 
 many warm friends urged him to visit America with 
 a view to harmonizing the Fenian Order. He had 
 come to conciliate and to win, if possible, every true 
 Irishman over to one common Centre, through whom 
 the great work of liberating Ireland may yet be 
 made an accomplished fact. The people of Ireland 
 were ripe for the shock of war in September last, and 
 he had no doubt that Ireland might have now been 
 one of the sovereign nations of the earth had it not 
 been for the rupture of the organization here. But 
 even if the nation's independence could not have 
 been achieved in so short a time, certainly the power 
 of the British army in Ireland could have been 
 broken, and by this time England would have lost 
 her foothold everywhere except on the coast and in 
 the seaboard cities. But he said the work may yet 
 be wrought out if Irishmen in America will make a 
 united effort. He was willing that bygones should 
 be bygones, and that all past acrimonious speeches 
 might be now forgotten, and all private animosities 
 merged in the one desire to place the cause of Ire- 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHO OB. 95 
 
 land on a sure and hopeful footing. For his own 
 part, he promised to throw himself unreservedly into 
 any measure which should promise to hasten that 
 great and glorious future which he so fondly antici- 
 pates for his native land, no matter by whom such a 
 scheme or plan should be originated. 
 
 PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF MR. STEPHENS. 
 
 The personal appearance of Mr. Stephens made a 
 decidedly favorable impression upon the many 
 friends who called to see him at his hotel. He is a 
 thick-set, wiry-looking man, about five feet three or 
 four inches tall, and dresses in a plain, simple busi- 
 ness suit. His head is quite bald, revealing a bold, 
 prominent forehead. What hair he has is of a light 
 color, wavy in appearance, and very fine. His com- 
 plexion is florid, his eye keen and penetrating. The 
 expression of his face is mild, and, when lighted up 
 with smiles, his eyes beaming with mirth, is very plea- 
 sant to look upon. His manners are exceedingly affa- 
 ble and agreeable, and his language betokens the true 
 Irish gentleman. The words which flow from his 
 mouth are tinged with that " sweet Irish brogue " 
 which is so pleasant to bear when spoken by persons 
 of cultivation. 
 
 The subjoined " Phrenological Description " of 
 Mr. Stephens is so good and true that it is worthy 
 of being copied : 
 
 " His is the face of a man who is confessedly the most accom- 
 plished ' conspirator,' or organizer of conspiracy, Ireland has seen 
 since the days of the gallant and self-devoted Theobald Wolfe 
 Tone. But I see no resemblance between the two men. In the 
 portrait of Tone you have a delicate, slender face, which would 
 be almost womanish but for the firm chin, the nervous-breathing 
 
96 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 nostril, and the quick-glancing, brilliant eye. This is a comely 
 face, too, but of a different order. Tone's was fiery, soldierly ; 
 the prevailing expression here, at first sight, is unqualified bon- 
 homie — the unruffled good-humor of a man who is content with 
 himself and all the world beside. 
 
 " Look a little more closely at this face. Meeting its owner in 
 the street, in this bearded age, you would pass him by as a re- 
 spectable citizen in the prime of life (engaged in commerce, per- 
 haps), the placid serenity of whose mind was not disturbed by 
 even the thought of a bill of exchange to be met on the fourth 
 of the month. There is a quiet smile on the mouth and a cheerful 
 gleam, a very amusing twinkle of dry humor in the eyes — no 
 more. Surely thousands who have seen this portrait must have 
 felt sadly disappointed. The general English mind pictured the 
 original as a modern Guy Fawkes : a dark, frowning villain, who 
 lurked in hidden places, and went abroad at night, with revolv- 
 ers in his bosom and a dagger in his sleeve — a keen-eyed, hook- 
 nosed, thin-lipped, slouching fellow, who would as soon blow the 
 Lord -lieutenant, and the privy council, and the bishops to boot 
 into eternity, as bless himself. What a disappointment to those 
 who conjured up such a picture, this placid, good-humored, self- 
 contented face must be. 
 
 " But look again. The face of a fair-haired man this is, with 
 bald temples and flowing beard. The forehead is unusually 
 massive, but so rounded and dome-like in shape as to have that 
 massiveness much softened down. What the phrenologists would 
 call the organs of benevolence and ideality are very large. The 
 perceptive organs are remarkably well developed, as are those 
 of locality and time ; and I have never seen what is called the 
 organ of individuality more largely developed, except in one or 
 two great actors. If there be the least shadow of truth in the 
 so-called science of phrenology, the owner of this face must be a 
 marvellous reader of character. This is what is called a 'well- 
 bred ' face ; the expression is decidedly gentlemanly, and you 
 could not possibly conceive the original being obtrusive or self- 
 asserting in general company ; on the contrary, I should set him 
 down as a retiring person. But clear through all this outward 
 show, as through a filmy veil, comes another and a deeper ex- 
 pression — the inner man. I read absolute and unbounded self- 
 reliance ; firm, calm, indomitable, iron will ; unqualified belief in 
 a cause, and unshaken confidence in its ultimate success in spite 
 of every disaster. Here is the face of a man whom no defeat 
 conquers ; stopped and baulked on one path without fretting or 
 chating, he calmly turns to another, and marches on. With a 
 massive brain, (and so equally balanced a brain I have, perhaps, 
 never seen, as this portrait seems to indicate), teeming with in- 
 exhaustible resources, he flings away his failing scheme, without 
 a moment's hesitation, to grasp at a new one, and runs the whole 
 scale of plot and contrivance with the ease of an artist at his piano. 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 
 
 97 
 
 " No failure can daunt such a man ; with such a man, to cease 
 vO strive is to cease to live. This all-abounding faith in himself 
 ah^i his cause, and inexhaustible fertility of resources, would buoy 
 h»m up amid the billows of an ocean of disasters. But there is 
 another characteristic of which mention should not be omitted. 
 This portrait indicates a man singularly gifted with the power of 
 winning the affection and confidence of others. It is not that 
 graceful bonhomie, that hearty manner, that genial smile (which, 
 by the way, cannot overmaster the keen, clear, piercing glance of 
 the eye), which helped him alone in this ; it is, that the magnetic 
 power of his own unbounded faith inspires like faith in the breasts 
 of others. In conclusion, this is the face of a man of great vital 
 power and intense nervous energy. The blending of oak -like firm- 
 ness and velvet softness which I read in this fine head and face is 
 very singular ; it recalls the old idea of the iron hand in the velvet 
 glove. This head is a noble specimen of the Southern Irish type, 
 which I have already pointed out. But, talking of hands, have you 
 ever noted how a man's hand serves as an index of character ? In 
 the portrait before me, the arms are folded, and the left hand rests 
 on the right arm. It is soft and white, with long tapering pre- 
 hensile fingers. A very significant hand, that, not so much ex- 
 pressive of power as of undying tenacity of purpose. At the foot 
 of the portrait, I read the name — James Stephens." 
 
 A SERENADE. RESIGNATION OF HEAD CENTRE JOHN 
 
 O'MAHONY. 
 
 On the evening following the arrival of Mr. Ste- 
 phens in New York, he was serenaded at his hotel. 
 A dense crowd collected in the street, completely 
 blocking it up from curb to curb for the distance of 
 an entire square. At eleven o'clock, Mr. Stephens 
 appeared upon the balcony of the hotel, his presence 
 being greeted by the crowd with tremendous cheers, 
 flinging up of hats, etc. He thanked them kind- 
 ly for the honor done him, but declined making a 
 lengthy speech until such time as he should have 
 made himself more familiar with the existing troubles 
 among his countrymen in America. The enthusi- 
 astic multitude would scarcely permit him to retire, 
 insisting gpon being allowed the privilege of looking 
 5 
 
98 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 at him though he said not a word. Upon being 
 assured that he would address them at a future day, 
 he was allowed to return to his rooms. 
 
 The first official act performed by Mr. Stephens 
 after his arrival in New York was the acceptance of 
 the resignation of Colonel John O'Mahony as Head 
 Centre of the Fenian Brotherhood. The following 
 correspondence, in reference to this patriotic move 
 on the part of Colonel O'Mahony, explains the mo- 
 tives which prompted him to such action : 
 
 Headquarters F. B., ) 
 
 New York, May 11, 1866. \ 
 James Stephens, G. E. F. B. : 
 
 Brother: I feel it to be imperatively incumbent upon me, at 
 this momentous crisis in Irish affairs, to tender you my resigna- 
 tion as the Head Centre of the Fenian Brotherhood and Agent of 
 the Irish Republic. 
 
 My reasons for this step are twofold. The first is my con- 
 sciousness of the fact that in consenting to the recent disastrous 
 attempt to capture Campo Bello, I violated my duty, not alone to 
 the Fenian Brotherhood and the Irish Republic, but to the best 
 interests of the Irish race, as also to my previous unvaried policy. 
 It matters little now to recapitulate what were the arguments 
 and what the pressure brought to bear upon me in order to force 
 me to depart from my settled plan of action. Enough that the 
 attempt has ended in disaster — that the energies of the Brother- 
 hood have been paralysed, and that, unless you can restore it to 
 hope and vigor, its object will have been defeated and its long 
 years of hopeful trial will have ended in a fiasco. 
 
 My second reason for resigning arises from a hope that I shall 
 thereby remove an obstacle to union upon a common Irish plat- 
 form, under your guidauce, among all of my countrymen that are 
 true and sincere in the cause of our native land. Mixed up as I 
 have been in the recent quarrels among the American Fenians, 
 many good Irishmen may regard me with feelings of personal 
 hostility with which they cannot now regard you. 
 
 Trusting that your advent to America, at the present juncture, 
 may be productive of all the good to our race that the Fenian 
 Brotherhood and myself expect of it, and that it may promote 
 unity of plan and concert of action, fraternal harmony with sted- 
 fast hope and firm resolve in the Fenian ranks, I have the honor 
 to remain in fraternity, 
 
 Your obedient servant. 
 
 John O'Mahony, H. 0. F. B. 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 99 
 
 Mr. Stephens' acceptance of the resignation is 
 couched in the following language: 
 
 Metropolitan Hotel, New York, May 11, 1866. 
 To John O'Mahony, Esq. : 
 
 Brother : In my opinion you have acted wisely and patriotically 
 in tendering your resignation under actual circumstances. No man 
 worth that name questions your honor and devotion to Ireland. 
 But the united action we desire so much, and to effect which I 
 left Ireland, at your invitation, would be impossible while you di- 
 rected affairs here. It must be needless to tell you why. I feel 
 bound, however, to say that, in sanctioning the late most deplorable 
 divergence from the true path, you not only gave proof of weak- 
 ness, but committed a crime less excusable in you than any other 
 man. For you should have known that your project, however 
 successful, would have resulted in our ruin. And you should have 
 recollected how I supported you in a critical moment, because I 
 believed you were opposed to every project that would lead the 
 true Irishmen of this continent from the original aim and holiest 
 duty of the Fenian Brotherhood — direct assistance to the ' men 
 in the gap.' Everything considered then, I feel imperatively 
 called on to accept your resignation. But while accepting it I 
 still rely upon your hearty cooperation, as I now rely on the co- 
 operation of every true man of our race. 
 
 Convinced that the Irish people are with me everywhere, I 
 have not a doubt of being able to accomplish what I came for ; 
 and so, in good cheer, and unswerving faith, I am yours, fraternally, 
 
 James Stephens, C. 0. 1. R. 
 
 This act of Colonel O'Mahony was considered 
 by the members of the Brotherhood as an unsel- 
 fish and purely patriotic proceeding, and gave 
 universal satisfaction. It was hoped and be- 
 lieved that the example would be followed by the 
 leader of the other Fenian wing, and that Colonel 
 Roberts would at once proffer his resignation. 
 
 But this was not to be. The Senate would not 
 listen to the proposition, that body having become 
 too fully committed to the Canadian invasion policy 
 to permit them to recede. In justice to Mr. Rob- 
 erts, however, it should be stated that he expressed 
 his earnest wish to do whatever should be deemed 
 
1(0 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 best for his native country, and to unite the Brother- 
 hood in America. 
 
 FENIAN MASS MEETING AT JONES' WOOD SPEECH OF 
 
 MR. STEPHENS. 
 
 The Fenian Brotherhood of New York, desiring 
 to give Mr. Stephens a public reception, and also to 
 affording him an opportunity of explaining to his 
 countrymen the condition of affairs in their native 
 land, resolved upon holding an open-air festival. 
 Jones' Wood, a large park in the suburbs of the 
 city, was the place selected for this demonstration, 
 and Tuesday, May 15th, the time appointed. The 
 time for preparation was short ; and the notices of 
 the meeting were not so generally circulated as they 
 should have been. An admission fee of half a dollar 
 was charged, the proceeds to be immediately turned 
 over to Mr. Stephens for the benefit of the cause in 
 Ireland. Despite these drawbacks, and the fact that 
 the meeting was held on a week-day, when few me- 
 chanics could leave their workshops, a great crowd 
 was present. Not less than 15,000 people contri- 
 buted to the enthusiasm of the occasion. 
 
 A large number of Fenian Circles sent duly ap- 
 pointed delegates, most of whom were assigned to 
 duty in the preservation of good order and the sale 
 of tickets. Members of the following, among other 
 circles, were present, bearing flags, banners, and 
 mottoes, and marching to the sound of the ever 
 popular and stirring music of dear old Erin. Ham- 
 ilton Rowan Club, Brian Boru, Malachi, McHale, 
 Renburg, Red Hand, Wolfe Tone Cadets, Davis, 
 Fontenoy Cadets, Corcoran, Brother Sheares, La- 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERHO OD. 101 
 
 ville, Clontarf, O'Mahony, Tara, Faugh-a-ballagh, 
 James Stephens, Garryowen, Leng^Xsland, Con- 
 naught Rangers, Sarsfield, Stephens, Hibernia, Wolf 
 Tone, Rock of Cashel, O'Gorman, Killian, Gei-al- 
 dine, Clark Luby, Richard D. Williams, Hugh 
 O'Neil, Garryowen Cadets, Michael Moore, St. 
 Patrick, Irish People, Volunteers of 1782, Thomas 
 Francis Meagher, O'Regan, General Kearney, 
 McClellan, Gem of the Sea, Robert Emmet, Patrick 
 Henry, Sarsfield Cadets, Owen Roe O'Neill, Napper 
 Tandy, Lord Clare, Harp of Erin, Dungannon, Vol- 
 unteers of 1782, Dalcette, Hope, Montgomery, 
 Vinegar Hill, John O'Leary, O'Donnell-Aboo, St. 
 Lawrence O'Toole, Cahir O'Doughty, Neptune, 
 J. Barry, and United Irishmen. 
 
 Among those persons present in the Committee- 
 room to receive the distinguished leader of the Irish 
 people, were Major-Gen eral Joe Hooker and Briga- 
 dier-General Ruggles, of General Meade's staff; 
 Judge Connolly and Denis J. Gaffney, of Albany, 
 who studied law with Thomas Addis Emmet ; Colo- 
 nel P. J. Downing, John J. Marion, Centre, of Al- 
 bany ; Colonel Thomas Philip O'Reilly, of General 
 Sherman's staff; Michael R. Kenney, State Centre, 
 New Jersey ; John McKenna, Troy, State Centre, 
 New York ; Jeremiah Kavanagh, California. 
 
 At half-past two o'clock an order was issued to 
 those in the reception-room to fall in procession. 
 When the movement commenced, all was smooth 
 sailing till it came in contact with the crowd out- 
 side, when such a rush took place as displaced the 
 guard who were clearing a passage. Mr. Stephens 
 was hurried through a narrow space by a few mem- 
 
102 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 bers of the Committee, and though there was a con- 
 tinual pressure of the crowd in whatever point he 
 advanced, he treated them in the style of his retreat 
 from Richmond Prison. While some of his attend- 
 ants were tugging with the crowd to save their coat- 
 skirts, he was up the ladder and in his position on 
 the platform. An indiscriminate throng, with over- 
 powering force, swept policemen and guards aside 
 and gained the summit. Efforts were made to stem 
 the pressure, in which some luckless individuals 
 were precipitated from their lofty eminence to the 
 nether regions. Everything was now chaos, and the 
 " hero of Richmond," proverbial for ingenuity and 
 stratagem, executed a flank movement on the be- 
 wildered occupants of the platform. He descended, 
 and without much difficulty took his stand on the 
 small stage adjacent. 
 
 After order and silence were to some extent ob- 
 tained, Mr. Stephens proceeded to address the assem- 
 blage as follows : 
 
 Friends of Ireland. — Towards the close of December, 1857, 
 a young Irishman called at my residence in Dublin, bringing me 
 letters from Colonel O'Mahony and from the late Colonel Michael 
 Doheny. He had also an oral communication to make himself; 
 but all was to the effect that an organization had been esta- 
 blished in America, of which Colonel Doheny was appointed the 
 chief, and I was requested to commence an organization and to 
 direct it in Ireland. At that time the cause of Ireland was so 
 low at home as well as abroad — in fact, throughout the world — 
 that few men of any brains or position could be got to take part 
 in it. They did not know the people. The Irish people were 
 then, as ever, sound. Their hearts were in the right place, and 
 they only required to be shown what to do that they might do 
 it. On my return to Ireland after seven years' exile, the first 
 thing I did was to travel through the country in every direction 
 to derive a thorough knowledge of the people, and to see what 
 could be done. I devoted a whole year to that, during which 
 time I travelled three thousand miles on foot. (A Voice — " Were 
 
FENIAN RR OTHERHO OD. 103 
 
 you ever in Tipperary ? " (Cheers.) Yes, often. There is not a 
 spot from Slievenamon to Ballinderry that I don't know. (Great 
 cheering.) You know the words of Thomas Davis, 
 
 From Carrick-on-Suir to G-altamore, 
 From Slievenamon to Ballinderry. (Great cheering.) 
 
 You see I know it. With this knowledge of the people I con- 
 scientiously answered the letters of my frieuds in America, and 
 on certain conditions I undertook to organize a force of ten thou- 
 sand men in three months in Ireland. I undertook to do no 
 more at that time. The conditions I exacted were twofold. 
 First, that I should have absolute direction and control of the 
 organization. I believe that you know this was a conspiracy, 
 and a conspiracy in Ireland against British rule. And I believe it 
 utterly impossible for any oppressed nationality to organize such 
 a power as could effect its independence without a conspiracy, 
 and without one man having the supreme control in that conspi- 
 racy. For that reason, and for that alone, in the interest of the 
 movement I undertook to unite, I deemed it necessary to make 
 that the first condition — that I should have supreme control of the 
 organization. The second condition was that I should be sup- 
 plied with certain sums of money per month. I asked for the 
 small sum of from £80 to £100 a month for the first three 
 months. After this time, having organized ten thousand men, I 
 meant to have made other proposals. I sent a trusted friend, 
 who has since been in an Irish prison, to America, on that occa- 
 sion, with my answer. On the 17th March, 1858, he returned; 
 he had found no organization in America, only a few devoted 
 men, at the head of which was Mr. Doheny — (a voice — " Poor 
 fellow, I knew him well ! ") — who had held together against all 
 circumstances in America, and who were then endeavoring to 
 keep the Irish feeling alive and make it a power there. But he 
 found no organization. There was but this nucleus of twenty or 
 thirty men. They accepted my conditions and sent me a paper 
 endorsing, so far as they could endorse it, my action in Ireland. 
 On the 17th of March, then, 1858, I began the organization in 
 Ireland. As I told you, it was a conspiracy. To become a mem- 
 ber of this conspiracy it was necessary to take an oath. You 
 have heard a good deal on the subject of this oath, but perhaps 
 you have not heard my real reason for making it an essential con- 
 dition of membership. I had been in the movement in 1848 
 with Smith O'Brien, and we found when we had a hundred, or 
 two or three hundred men around us, if we happened to meet 
 in any place where the clergymen happened to be against 
 the movement, they invariably spoke against it, and they 
 were able to scatter our force, such as it was. This was 
 because the people had not been trained ; they had not got the 
 necessary training, and it was necessary to get the people, in 
 
104 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 my mind, to distinguish between the twofold character of the 
 priest — the clergymen of all classes — to distinguish between 
 their temporal and spiritual character. We have invariably 
 inculcated upon our friends the duty of giving obedience and 
 submitting in all devotion to their clergy in their spiritual 
 character, but that in their temporal character they were simply 
 to look upon them as citizens. (Vociferous cheering.) Without 
 this training you never could have a force in Ireland on whom 
 you could reply. We then made the oath a condition of mem- 
 bership, and we have continued to make it so. It shall not be 
 changed. (Cries of "Good.") The first instalment of the 
 money sent to me from America (£90), I received on the 17th of 
 March, 1858. The second instalment was to have reached me a 
 month from that ; but the months of April, May, and June, went 
 by without my receiving anything. Then, the second time, I had 
 to send out my trusted friend to America to state the case. The 
 report he brought to New York was favorably received ; but 
 as there was no organization in America at the time, he found it 
 very difficult to get the necessary funds. These came to me in 
 small instalments. I continued to work, however, drawing on 
 the resources of my friends at home in Ireland ; for I want to 
 make you understand that for every dollar contributed in this 
 country, men at home have contributed ten. (Great cheering.) 
 Finding, about the month of September, that the promise made 
 to me remained unfulfilled, and knowing that I had organized 
 more than ten times the force I had undertaken to organize, I 
 felt the necessity of coming to America to lay the foundation of 
 our work here. In September, 1858, I arrived in New Tork, 
 and had a great many difficulties to contend with here. Bat of 
 these difficulties I do not care to speak at length now, though, 
 if necessary, I shah make them all known to you, but not now. 
 I have too many other points to touch upon. ' At length, how- 
 ever, I was allowed to go to work in America, and the first man 
 I enlisted in the organization, or one of the first, was General 
 Corcoran. (Cheers.) At that time the organization in America 
 was a secret society, as it was in Ireland. It has been found 
 politic to change it in that regard since ; it has been changed ,- 
 but whether for the better or not the future can only tell. I 
 travelled through the States and laid the foundation of this 
 organization. On my return to New York a document was 
 drawn up conferring upon me the supreme control of this organ- 
 ization, at home and abroad (cheers) ; in America as well as iu 
 Ireland and England, and in Australia — everywhere our race 
 can be found — from that day out. It was only after a residence 
 of from two to four months in the States I was allowed to go to 
 work, and, as they were impatient for me to return to Ireland, 
 I had only a month to devote to the work of organization in 
 this city, and I had no time at all to collect any amount of funds 
 or arms, or what we needed in Ireland ; but all these things were 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. 105 
 
 promised to me. However, they did not come. I believe this is 
 one of the points upon which you want information — the amount 
 of support we in Ireland have received from here from the be- 
 ginning of the organization. Well, then, to be brief, during the 
 first six years of the organization in America, we in Ireland re- 
 oeived from you about one thousand five hundred pounds. I have 
 come to America to establish harmony in this organization, and 
 woe to the man who says or does anything to prevent that. 
 (Great cheering.) Let there be no cries against Doran Killian or 
 John O'Mahony, against General Sweeny or Colonel Roberts ; let 
 there be no cries here to-day against any man. If you have come 
 in a spirit of brotherhood, well; if not, woe to you and woe to Ire- 
 land. (Sensation.) Let every man who has come here to-day, 
 if such be here, for the purpose of creating dissension and discord \ 
 in our ranks — to widen the breach unhappily existing — let that 
 man go home from here — let him go home. (Cheering). This is 
 no place for him ; let him go to England, that is the place for 
 him — (cheers) — let him go to the British Ambassador ; there he 
 will be received ; but let him not stand here with Irishmen who 
 have sworn to free their land or die. (Great cheering.) I, for 
 my single self, have had my troubles. I have been infinitely 
 more tried by my friends than by my foes; the men who used to 
 call themselves my friends and the friends of Ireland, have proved 
 deadlier enemies to Ireland and me than British tyranny could 
 ever do. But I must not anticipate. I speak to you in a spirit 
 of brotherhood. I want to have you united, I want to have all 
 our race come into the work, like brother Irishmen and patriots, 
 and any man or body of men who prevents union, I here, to-day, 
 in the face of you all, and in the name of Ireland, brand them as 
 traitors to Ireland and enemies to our race. (Tremendous cheer- 
 ing.) Our motto to-day shall be union. (Continued cheering.) 
 Each man among us must give up selfishness and shortsighted 
 opinions and come into the great brotherhood. You can all do 
 it. (Cheering.) You are the people, you are the power ; you 
 can make the men, you can direct the men, you can force them 
 into the right way and prevent them going astray from it. 
 (Cheers.) The duty is upon you to-day, and you must do it. 
 (Cheers and cries of " We will.") To come back to my narrative 
 — for it is merely a narrative, and I mean it to be so, rather than 
 a speech — for the first six years after this organization, as I said, 
 we in Irelaud received in all about £1,500. We were driven al- 
 most back upon our resources, and I am sorry that we did not 
 trust to our own resources alone — that we ever looked to Ame- 
 rica for anything whatever. For, from the spirit of dissension that 
 sprang up, the amount of calumny, misrepresentation, bad feeling, 
 bad blood and scandal that was indulged in in this organization, 
 shame was brought upon us all over the world, and it can only 
 be blotted out by the redemption of Ireland. (Cheers.) About 
 the year 1863 I found there remained to me three courses to pur- 
 5* 
 
106 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 sue. I had almost despaired of getting anything done from this 
 side, and it seemed to me at home that we were bound to make 
 another effort. We had then one of the best men the people 
 knew in Ireland. I sent him out here with a statement of affairs. 
 That man has since been condemned to twenty years' penal ser- 
 vitude; he is now a 'felon,' with felon's clothes, doing felon's 
 work, obliged to associate with the assassin, the burglar, the 
 scoundrel, with the scum of the earth, and placed by British law 
 on the same level with those criminals. He was my trusted 
 friend, a trusted Irishman in the cause of Ireland — learned, 
 patriotic, and accomplished. He was of a trusting nature, and be- 
 lieved the representations made to him here in America. He 
 wrote home in great heart to his friends, all of whom his letter 
 cheered except myself. His letter brought no cheer to me, 
 for from what I had already heard I knew his mission would be 
 a failure. I knew that from his first letter to me. That was the 
 first course open to me — to send this man to America upon the 
 people's work. His mission was a failure. The next course open 
 to me was to establish a newspaper in Ireland and get for it as 
 wide a circulation as possible, and devote its proceeds to the or- 
 ganization. You must know that greater difficulties arise in rais- 
 ing money in Ireland than in this country. I will not give the 
 poverty of the people as a reason for this. Poor as the people of 
 Ireland are to-day, if I could have one month's tour there, 
 as I could in these States, I would raise as much money as 
 would free Ireland. But I was not free to move about Ireland. 
 It was necessary for me, as head of this organization, to travel 
 with caution, and it was because I did so I was able to escape 
 from arrest so long. But in a short time I received sufficient 
 money to establish the Irish People, of which you have heard a 
 great deal. Towards the establishment of that paper I got no 
 assistance whatever, as every obstacle was put in the way of its 
 circulation, and it became dangerous for a seller to sell it, or a 
 purchaser to buy it; for the government were Watching the sale 
 of the pa t /ur. The landlords and employers, having a large num- 
 ber of people as their dependents, brought their influence to bear, 
 and I am sorry to add that the clergy set their faces against the 
 paper, so that it was difficult to effect a large circulation. The 
 Chicago Fair was announced, and shortly after, an Irishman who 
 did good service in the cause of Ireland, was deputed to go from 
 Chicago to Ireland to represent the state of affairs to us. Ostensi- 
 bly he went to buy goods for the fair, and receive what we contri- 
 buted ; but in reality came and represented that nothing could 
 save the organization from ruin but my presence in America, and 
 the committee in Chicago were anxious that I should come, else 
 the organization would fall to the ground. Iu this narrative I am 
 omitting many details, because I wish to speak in a spirit of con- 
 ciliation, and I do not wish to let one word fall from my lips to 
 hurt any man. If any word of mine should hurt him by chance 
 
FEXIAN BR OTHERHOOD. 107 
 
 I beg his pardon beforehand, and say that I did not mean it. I 
 came to the States. The gentleman alluded to is Mr. Henry 
 Clarence McCarty. I asked him, among other things, if the 
 entire proceeds of the fair would be placed in my hands for ser- 
 vice in the cause of Ireland, and on his representations and pro- 
 mises I came a second time to the States. I promised my friends 
 in Ireland, on my arrival in New York, to send them £100; on 
 my arrival in Chicago, another £ 100, and in a week after my arrival 
 in Chicago, £1,000. The £100 was sent from New York, accord- 
 ing to promise; then another £100, and £1,000 from Chicago. 
 For a considerable time I could receive no more money. There 
 was a State convention held in Chicago at that time, and Mr. 
 O'Mahony attended it as well as the centres of the Western States. 
 Mr. O'Mahony, on being called on to say what was the strength 
 of the Fenian Brotherhood at that time in America, stated that he 
 could not claim more than ten thousand in it. As my object in 
 coming to the States was to collect money and receive arms in 
 order to bring the movement to a close as soon as possible, I felt 
 that with so small a basis I could not effect my purpose. I felt 
 that in Chicago on that night, and I continued to feel it for eight 
 or ten days as I went through the States — through towns of Illi- 
 nois — and it was only when I got to St. Louis that I began 
 to see my way, and felt that if put in proper working order the 
 organization would realize all my expectations in a short time. 
 And here I may say, that we never required much. Those peo- 
 ple who told you that I came over for two hundred thousand, or 
 fifty thousand, or twenty thousand men, or one-half that number, 
 knew very little about me, and still less about Ireland. (Cheers.) 
 At that time we would have been perfectly satisfied with a few 
 men. All we then wanted was war material. On my return to 
 New York, I had certain changes to propose, which were, in my 
 opinion essential to success. First, I deemed it necessary that 
 Mr. O'Mahony should have a deputy Head Centre, an able busi- 
 ness man, who could make good certain defects in Mr. O'Mahony, 
 for Mr. O'Mahony was always opposed to making direct appeals 
 for money, and it was absolutely necessary that these appeals 
 should be made. He was also not disposed to go to strange parts 
 of this continent when invitations were not forthcoming. The in- 
 vitations did not come. Certain other changes I deemed neces- 
 sary, and these changes effected an extraordinary improvement, 
 which very soon became visible in the organization. That which 
 had real effect on the people of this continent was, I believe, the 
 statement I made to them in 1864. That statement was 
 to the effect that the organized force at that time in Ireland 
 was sixty thousand men, just six times the strength of 
 your legal, open organization in America; and I made the 
 engagement that if England went to war that year on the 
 Danish question, we should take the held, but that whether 
 England went to war or not, we should take the field in 1865. 
 
108 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 What the people wanted here as well as in Ireland was a fixed 
 time for action, and not to be dragged on, as they had been for 
 years, without knowing when the time for action would come. 
 To the statement then made, much of the progress made is to 
 be attributed. On my return to Ireland I found that the work 
 was in a very good state, and the report that I brought back 
 from America sot the people at work still harder. But still the 
 war did not take place. England fought shy, as she has often 
 since the establishment of our organization. She did not go to 
 war on the Danish question, and we had then one year more to 
 wait. You held your Cincinnati convention, and about that 
 time I wrote, stating the requirements of Ireland, and asking 
 for the months of January, February, and March, £1,000. I 
 stated I wouM require for the month of April, £1,000 alone, 
 and for the months of May, June, July, and August, about 
 £2,500 per month. The money for January, February, and 
 March was sent to me— about £1,000. Another £1,000 was 
 sent to me in April, but I did not get the second instalment till 
 the middle of May, and of the money for May, June, July, and 
 August, I got none. Instead of getting the money I asked for, 
 and which would have enabled us to take the field last year, 
 two gentlemen were appointed here to go to Ireland to investi- 
 gate our work. They were perfectly satisfied with the state of 
 affairs in Ireland. They sent over a very favorable report, and 
 asked for money to be sent back to us. It was agreed on at 
 that time that the bonds of the Irish republic should bo issued 
 upon their return. It was calculated wo should have all that 
 was requisite by the close of the year. It so happened that one 
 of the delegates, while in Ireland, lost certain documents. This 
 was Mr. Meehan. (There was some hissing when Mr. Meehan's 
 name was mentioned.) Now, I don't wish to say one word 
 disparagingly of him to-day; neither do I wish that any friend 
 of mine should do so ; but while desirous of not saying anything 
 against him, it is necessary that the fact should be known that 
 the loss of these documents was the immediate occasion of the 
 arrests in Ireland. (Groaning.) I have myself written against 
 him, and if I have wronged him I would be very happy to make 
 ample reparation if he will only favor me with a visit. (Cheers.) 
 I have sent invitations to all those gentlemen — General Sweeny, 
 Mr. Roberts and Mr. Meehan — to all of those gentlemen to come 
 and see me ; but very few of them have come, I am sorry to 
 say. The fault, however, has not been mine. I have made all 
 the advances compatible with my sense of duty and of dignity. 
 "Well, the arrests were made, and the government said triumph- 
 antly that all was over in Ireland. But so far from it, never 
 was harder work and more work done in Ireland than immedi- 
 ately after the arrests. I was free myself, and while free I am 
 not used to be idle. (Great cheering.) Immediately afterwards, 
 the government saw the necessity of proclaiming every county 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERHO OD. 109 
 
 in Ireland, one after the other, because they felt that the work 
 was going on stronger than ever, and that the only thing we 
 wanted was arms and munitions of war, and these were coming 
 into the country, and they could not prevent their coming in. 
 They saw that the men who were serving the cause of Ireland 
 were able to baffle them, and that the men got in what they re- 
 quired. "What they were able to do then, they are able to do 
 now. Don't allow yourselves to be blinded upon that subject, 
 nor let yourselves be persuaded by any one that we can't get 
 the means into the country. It has been all a question of 
 money With the requisite funds we can get in whatever^ ma- 
 terials we wish, and men too, if we require them. My opinion 
 on this subject ought to be more than the opinions of the people 
 who have not seen Ireland since the greenness of their youth, 
 and who know next to nothing of Ireland. (Cheers.) My 
 friends were arrested, and you know how they conducted them- 
 selves. The bearing of those prisoners has not been surpassed 
 by the bearing of any men in history, under similar circumstances. 
 And they bore all this because they still had faith — faith in the 
 organization which they knew to be so powerful at home, and 
 atee faith that the promises so often made to them, and so 
 solemnly made upon this side, would be kept. When the coun- 
 ties had been proclaimed, the British press — and how am I to 
 designate that press ?— I believe it to be the vilest in the world, 
 unless it be that foul press of Ireland, which may fairly be de- 
 signated the journalistic excrements of England-^-that vile press 
 then began to boast that the organization was suppressed in Ire- 
 land. But only a few weeks afterwards the Lord Lieutenant 
 wrote the precious letter which you must have all read, calliug 
 on the government to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act. You 
 know the wholesale arrests that were made after the suspension 
 of the Habeas Corpus. They thought to make the world believe 
 that we were suppressed then at least, and that was their third 
 attempt. But I can tell you now that the organization in Ire- 
 land to-day is stronger than it ever had been, in numbers, dis- 
 cipline, and in ah the requirements of an army, save only in 
 war material. The organization in Ireland, towards the close of 
 last year, numbered two hundred thousand men, and of that 
 force, fifty thousand were thoroughly drilled, with a large pro- 
 portion of men who had seen war and smelt powder on the battle- 
 Held — a large proportion of veterans, in short; fifty thousand 
 were partly drilled men, and the other hundred thousand quite 
 undrilled. But if there be a man among you who thinks that fifty 
 thousand Irishmen thoroughly drilled, with fifty thousand others 
 partly drilled, would not make a force sufficient to meet anything 
 that England could bring against us, then indeed he is wofully 
 ignorant of the resources of England. What army could be 
 brought against Ireland by England? What is the military 
 force of England at present? There are some twenty thousand 
 
HO JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 English troops in Ireland at present, and it would take England 
 from thirty to forty days to concentrate a force of thirty to forty 
 thousand men in Ireland. It would take her three months at 
 least to concentrate a force of seventy thousand, and it is not 
 likely she would be ever able to concentrate a larger force. Of 
 our forces we could concentrate in Ireland, at four or five given 
 points, one hundred thousand men in twenty-four hours. 
 (Tremendous cheering.) All we wanted in Ireland from the 
 middle of September to the end of December was arms to put 
 into the hands of our men. The men were there, and only 
 wanted the arms. But, in the very hour of our strength, there 
 came to Ireland the melancholy news of your disruption here. 
 Still we held on. We did not think it possible that any body of 
 men on this continent could be found that would withhold from 
 Ireland in that supreme hour of her need the succor which they 
 had promised to give us ; and it was because I could not bring 
 myself to believe this that I had made up my mind to get myself 
 arrested, even if the English authorities had not succeeded in 
 doing so ; for I felt myself bound to action last year, and I 
 thought you would feel bound to it here, if I devoted myself so 
 far as to accept a prison voluntarily, and that by going inj*> 
 prison you on this side would be driven to give us what we 
 wanted. However, before the time I had decided for putting it 
 into execution I heard nothing favorable from this side, and the 
 government found out my residence and I was arrested. I sup- 
 pose you would all like to know how I got out of prison. 
 (Tremendous enthusiasm.) Well, it did not require any extra- 
 ordinary effort on my part, for with the force of true hearts that 
 were around that prison in Dublin it would not have been possi- 
 ble for the government, though the walls had been of adamant, 
 and though it had regiments stationed within those walls, to 
 keep me there. (Great cheering.) To my friends in Dublin, then, 
 I refer you for the manner in which I effected my escape. That 
 was the time of our greatest power in Ireland, and if, at any 
 time between the 24th of November and the end of December, 
 you had sent to Ireland a small force, or only a few superior offi- 
 cers with the necessary war material, I do believe, as firmly as in 
 my own existence, that Ireland would be an independent country 
 to-day. But you know what took place. However, my mind was 
 made up not to leave Ireland, and so I remained for nearly four 
 months in Dublin city after my escape from prison. At length 
 I had an invitation from Mr. O'Mahony and others to come to 
 this country, for the organization, it was said, required my 
 presence here. 
 
 The evening after the reception of this invitation, I called some 
 of my most trusted friends around me to hold a council, to see, 
 before I determined on starting for America, if something might 
 not be done at home even without your assistance. It was de- 
 dermined on that night, even without asking for my voice, to 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. HI 
 
 defer action yet awhile. It was then and then only that I de- 
 termined on coming to the States. Once determined on T set 
 about its execution, or rather my friends set about its execution, 
 for I was in their hands, and indeed it is to them and not to any 
 effort of my own that everything is due. This departure from 
 Ireland was much more difficult and much more full of incident 
 than the escape from prison. But I do not care to dwell on it 
 now. I want to come to the object of my mission to America. 
 You know by this time that it is to reconcile the parties here 
 and to effect a union — such a complete union as would give us 
 very speedily all that we want for the freedom of our land. I 
 found the organization here torn asunder, and, as already said, 
 all sorts of bad feeling among the members. But I still believe 
 that, from what the people have shown to me since my arrival 
 in the States, I can effect enough for all our purposes. (Cheers.) 
 It will give me the greatest possible pleasure, and it will give 
 Ireland great pleasure, and the men who are now pining in 
 prison, and the men who are standing in the face of all difficul- 
 ties at home ; it will give them infinite pleasure to see the heads 
 of the sections coming into this organization united once more. 
 (Cheers.) As already said, I have made advances for that pur- 
 pose, and so far as I recollect I have not as yet let fall one 
 single word that could fairly hurt any of these gentlemen. I 
 did expect that Mr. Roberts would have acted like Mr. O'Mahony. 
 I believe it was patriotic and wise of Mr. O'Mahony to have given 
 in his resignation, and I believe it would be patriotic and wise 
 of Mr. Roberts to do the same ; and if Mr. Roberts and Mr. 
 O'Mahony passed on this platform to-day, forgiving one another, 
 forgetting the past, stretching forth the hand of brotherhood one 
 to the other, and calling on the men to work together— if they 
 had been here to endorse me, I believe that the organization 
 would have in a single month ten times the power it ever had, 
 and that the liberty of Ireland would be a certain thing. 
 ("Voices. Down with them! pitch them overboard!) 
 
 Mr. Stephens (emphatically) — I have already called on you 
 not to say a word hurtful to anyone. I have a great respect for 
 Mr. Roberts and Mr. O'Mahony, and for every man till he is proved 
 to be dishonest, and, once proved to be dishonest, I am then done 
 with him for ever. But nothing of the kind has been proved 
 against any of these gentlemen, so you have no right to hoot at 
 them, no matter who may have set you on. Here, publicly and 
 before the Irish people, I once more in a friendly and fraternal 
 spirit invite these gentlemen — the heads of all parties — to come 
 to me while I remain in New York, and endeavor to come to 
 an understanding. I call on the Irish people here and through- 
 out the world — for I believe the words I pronounce, however 
 simply spoken, will be read wherever our race can be found — I 
 call, then, on our whole race to rise up against the man or body 
 of men who would stand between Ireland and this essential 
 
112 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 union to-day. I appeal to you by all you hold dear, by the 
 memory of that land so fair, so full of sorrows, and yet so 
 stedfast, so resolute, so pure, and enlightened as it is to- 
 day. For I claim for Ireland at this hour more true repub- 
 lican principles and lights than are to be found in the same 
 number of people in any country on earth. (Cheers.) And if 
 there be more anywhere else, it must be on this repub- 
 lican continent. But certainly, I do say this, and I say it de- 
 liberately — for I know that these words will be read in 
 France and in other lands that are so very dear to me, for 
 France I do love. (Prolonged and enthusiastic cheering.) 
 I say that not even there nor in any other land in Europe is 
 there so much republican intellect as in Ireland. I say that we 
 are well worthy of liberty, and that we are able to win it, if you 
 do not deceive, or rather if you do not disappoint us in any way. 
 In fact I might let the first word stand, for indeed if you disap- 
 point us then you will truly betray us. You must disappoint 
 and betray us if you are not united. This unity of action is the 
 grand essential to-day ; you must labor for that, think of nothing 
 else but that, and don't rest till you have effected it. (Cheers.) 
 Countrymen and friends of Ireland, for very important reasons 
 I shall not extend my address to you to-day, but through the 
 press and elsewhere you will hear of me again. The last words 
 I shall say to you now will be but a repetition of what I have 
 already said. Without unity we cannot have what we require, and 
 you cannot fulfil your promises to Ireland ; the Irish people are 
 sure to be disheartened and dispirited ; the organization is sure 
 to be broken up, and an eternal stain will rest upon our charac- 
 ter ; but, worst of all, the whole Irish race is sure to be exter- 
 minated. (No, no.) It is certain that the Irish people will be 
 driven from the soil of Ireland if you do not free her. If there 
 is not union I believe the whole movement will end in failure, 
 and then the doom of your race will be sealed. Believing, then, 
 that union is the great want of the present time, I have in many 
 ways, cut short this address to avoid any remark that might be 
 considered fairly hurtful to any man. Once more, I repeat, I 
 stretch forth my hand to any man who may come to effect this 
 union ; and I call on you now, in the name of Ireland, to allow 
 no man to stand in the way of this unity, (Cheers.) Effect it, 
 and as sure as I address you here to-day we shall take the field 
 in Ireland this very year, and by effecting it we will have a free 
 land. Brothers, as my object to-day is to endeavor to effect 
 this unity, I deem it wise that no other gentleman should ad- 
 dress you on this occasion." 
 
 Mr. Stephens then retired from the front of the 
 platform amid deafening cheers and waving of flags 
 
FENIAN BROTHERHOOD. H3 
 
 and banners. During the delivery of the above ad- 
 dress, which occupied about an hour and a quarter, 
 the crowd listened with unusual attention and eager- 
 ness. 
 
 The address was not intended as an oratorical 
 display at all, but merely as a plain unostentatious 
 statement of facts, which should disabuse the brother- 
 hood here, and the outside public, of some most erro- 
 neous notions they had imbibed with regard to the 
 condition of affairs in Ireland, and especially con- 
 cerning the amount of pecuniary aid that had been 
 received from America. It answered its purpose 
 admirably, and was received with great satisfaction 
 by all those who had the most right to demand in- 
 formation, and who were the most deeply interested. 
 
 Mr. Stephens then proceeded to carry out his 
 plans for cementing the fractured organization, which 
 he and his advisers had arranged. It was thought 
 best that he should make an extended tour through- 
 out the country, addressing the brotherhod and the 
 citizens everywhere, and making such expositions of 
 Irish policy as it might be prudent to make public. 
 Before proceeding on the trip to the more distant 
 points, it was decided to deliver addresses in the 
 cities nearer the great commercial metropolis. Ac- 
 cordingly, Mr. Stephens visited New Haven, New- 
 ark, Brooklyn, and other near-by places, in each of 
 which towns he made a telling speech, being every- 
 where received with great enthusiasm, and many 
 good wishes and promises of material aid. His ora- 
 tion was generally announced as an exposition of 
 the " State and Necessities of the Cause of Ireland at 
 Home and Abroad." 
 
114 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 MEETINGS IN BROOKLYN AND COOPER INSTITUTE — 
 QUESTIONS BY THE AUDIENCE AND ANSWERS BY 
 MR. STEPHENS. 
 
 In Brooklyn, and also at a second large meeting 
 in New York, Mr. Stephens adopted a novel mode of 
 giving to the public the information so much sought 
 for in regard to the condition of Ireland and the 
 Fenian difficulties. After speaking to his audiences 
 for a time, he requested any individual to ask him 
 questions, promising to answer truthfully and fully 
 any and all except such as would bring to grief the 
 brave men at home. The following questions and 
 answers are the most important ones elicited at 
 these seances : 
 
 Q. — Do you think it possible to secure the liberty of Ireland 
 without a fleet ? 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — I believe it practicable to break the English 
 power in Ireland without one ship. If I did not believe this, I 
 should not be here speaking in behalf of Ireland. We have the 
 power within ourselves to conquer our freedom. 
 
 Q. — Has the American Consul in Ireland done anything to- 
 wards obtaining the release of American citizens arrested there 
 for being connected with the Fenian movement ? 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — The Consul has given the utmost dissatisfac- 
 tion to every Irishman, and has lowered the dignity of the Ame- 
 rican Government in Ireland. He should be brought to a strict 
 account for his conduct. 
 
 Q. — Does John Mitchel agree with your views regarding Ire- 
 land? 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — So far as I know, yes. He thinks we ought 
 to wait till late in the year before fighting ; but he knows nothing 
 of the organization in Ireland, not having been there for eighteen 
 years. 
 
 Q. — Was it through your influence that P. J. Meehan escaped 
 assassination from the Irishmen in Ireland? 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — I have to say, that on three different occa- 
 sions he was saved from a traitor's death by my influence. There 
 is not a man in Ireland who does not believe that Mr. Meehan 
 knew when and where he lost the documents. Those documents, 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERHO OD. 115 
 
 simple in themselves, were the immediate cause of the arrests iu 
 Ireland last year. 
 
 Q. — Please to explain the nature of the documents lost by 
 Meehan, and the people compromised? 
 
 Mr. Stephens.— That is as easy as A, B, C. The nature was 
 that I was addressed as the C. 0. I. R. (Sensation.) The British 
 Government acknowledged that they could not have taken one 
 step but for the discovery of those documents. They were the 
 real cause of the arrests in Ireland. The British could not de- 
 pend on Nagle ; the Attorney-General said they had nothing cer- 
 tain till they received those documents. (A voice — "But only 
 three men were mentioned.") 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — That was enough to cause all the arrests; 
 they found out that they could learn more from the office of the 
 Irish People, and so seized it. 
 
 Q.— Hasn't Napoleon III. the key of England in his pocket 
 to day? 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — Napoleon III. has been likened to the Sphynx, 
 and the secret of his great power lies in the fact that he keeps 
 his mind to himself. 
 
 Q. — Is Mr. Roberts in favor of a union of the Brotherhood? 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — Mr. Roberts is inclined, I am informed and 
 believe, to look at things in a right way; to abandon ruinous 
 projects ; to do all he can to effect a reconciliation. 
 
 Q. — Did you not save the life of Sullivan Goula, whom Gen. 
 Sweeny has lately cited to prove his popularity in Ireland? 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — But for an order issued by me and reiterated, 
 that man would have died had he a hundred lives. Unfortu- 
 nately Mr. Sweeny knows nothing of Ireland, not having been 
 there for many years, or he would not refer to such men to prove 
 his popularity. 
 
 q _ -We here have subscribed one million of dollars ; what has 
 become of it all ? 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — I can only answer for what has been received 
 by me, and the total sum received in eight years is less than 
 £30,000. The Executive Committee will give you their report 
 of what has become of the rest in a few days. 
 
 Q. — Are Schofield and Nagle alive yet? 
 
 Mr. Stephens.— I think it just as well to leave a little mystery 
 about these matters. Scoundrels of this nature will always re- 
 ceive their deserts. There is a determined spirit in Ireland to 
 mete out to traitors a traitor's doom. 
 
 Q.— Have the men of the North (outside of those who are pledged 
 to the Crown) shown any disposition to stand up for liberty ? 
 
 Mr. Stephens.— The men of the North are second to no men 
 in Ireland to-day. 
 
 Q. — Is there a prospect of union ? 
 
 Mr. Stephens.— Some of the leaders are in favor of a reconcilia- 
 tion, and others will not have union at any price. I believe, 
 
116 JAMES STEPHENS. 
 
 however, that ere long we shall have a union of the masses, 
 regardless of the leaders. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that the French people are in favor of the 
 Fenian movement? 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — The French people love liberty wherever 
 found. 
 
 Q. — What amount of army equipments did you get at Union 
 Square, and how much do you want ? 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — A fair and full answer to that question would 
 be tantamount to the loss of my documents. I shall take all I 
 want, and more if I can get them. 
 
 Q. In view of the obligation of our oath of naturalization and 
 the rights and privileges American citizenship confers on us, is it 
 good for our race, or in accordance with the plighted oath we 
 have given to America, to cross the border and make war on the 
 people of Canada ? 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — It would be ruinous to our race. I believe 
 that in acting in such a manner as to compromise this country 
 you will be committing a crime. We have only to unite and 
 have faith in ourselves, and we can do our own work without the 
 help of even so good a friend as America. We must not com- 
 promise any country in our struggle. In regard to the oath, I 
 believe it would be a violation of it for you who have taken it to 
 cross into Canada. 
 
 Q. — Can you get artillery into Ireland ? If not, can you fight 
 without it? 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — I will undertake to get all the munitions of 
 war we want into Ireland, in spite of all the watchfulness of Eng- 
 land, if you will only give them to us. After a few days' fight- 
 ing we should have several parks of artillery in our possession. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that the fact of a man emigrating to Ame- 
 rica absolves him from his oath as an I. R. B. ? 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — I believe the oath to be binding on the soul of 
 the man who takes it — to be binding until he dies or Ireland is 
 free. 
 
 Q. — Can England claim the allegiance of a former subject who 
 has been naturalized here ? 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — England claims the allegiance of every man 
 born on her soil, no matter whether he has become a citizen of 
 any other country or not. The moment any one of you lands on 
 Irish soil, England claims you for her own. 
 
 Q.— Did O'Mahony send all the money to you that was col- 
 lected here by subscriptions and otherwise? 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — I cannot say how much of it I received. If 
 you had several men collecting money at the same time, you 
 would find it difficult to tell how much they got. 
 
 But, said a voice, O'Mahony blames the Senate for holding back 
 the money. How's that ? 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — O'Mahony and the Senate and all held back 
 
FENIAN BR OTHERHO OD. 1 1 7 
 
 the money and spent it for conventions, mansions, and other such 
 foolish matters. 
 
 Q. — A lover of the ladies desires to know if the girls at home 
 are trumps in the cause of Ireland ? 
 
 Mr. Stephens. — The girls at home are not only trumps in the 
 cause, but are the ace of hearts itself. 
 
 This novel method of arriving at the truth gave 
 the utmost satisfaction to all parties, the questions 
 eliciting facts which would not naturally have been 
 touched upon in the course of a speech. 
 
 Mr. Stephens' work in America is not yet com- 
 plete, but at this date bids fair to bring forth good 
 fruit. If integrity of purpose, long suffering in the 
 cause, and many noble sacrifices for the cause, de- 
 serve success, then will he be successful. His coun- 
 trymen at home look to him as their deliverer, en- 
 trusting him with the destinies of their country, 
 their fortune, and their lives. Let no Irish-American 
 withhold from him that support which he solicits in 
 the name of Erin's Green Isle. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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