tween England and America were so strained during the civil war, and the disputes about Southern ships of war issuing from English dockyards led to hostile words, these IrishAmerican "Fenians" anticipated with unconcealed delight the probability of the Northern States declaring war against this country. The notion was fostered by the importance which was necessarily given to Irish votes during the states elections, for the Irish electors were numerous, and the devices to secure their support were frequent and flattering. From the point of view of violent Irish patriotism in favour of rebellion, the expectation of war between America and England would be welcomed, since it would possibly afford an opportunity for a "Fenian" army to hold Ireland during an insurrection, and to aid in an invasion of Canada. This was in fact the scheme which was formed at the time, and though the attempts afterwards made to carry it into effect were altogether abortive, the plan, as seen from the Fenian stand-point, may have seemed justifiable. But among those who came to direct and to control the conspiracy were several whose plan it had ever been to declare war by secret machinations against law and order. The Fenian association, like other confederacies, showed too plainly that there were in Ireland deep grievances to redress and monstrous abuses to abolish, before the people could be expected to become contented or to refrain from signs of exasperation; but English and Irish statesmen and philanthropists, and Irishmen who were patriots without being conspirators, were already earnestly considering by what measures past injustice and neglect might best be retrieved, when the disorders that arose in the country and the injuries inflicted on private individuals made it necessary once more to take the long backward step of suspending the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland. Many beneficial changes were delayed, though they were not permanently prevented; several irrational and horrible crimes were perpetrated; public indignation was aroused; and then when comparative order was afterwards restored, and the retarded measures of conciliation were effected, they were represented by the so-called "Fen

249

ians" of the dagger and the mask, to be concessions wrung from the British government through terror. This was the kind of declaration which enabled the professional seditionists and the hired ruffians to obtain additional subscriptions from their dupes both in Ireland and America.

"Is it fair to forget that there are nearly two millions of persons who were born in Ireland living in the United States, and perhaps as many more, the offspring of Irish parents, all of whom are animated with the most intense hatred towards England. New York city alone at the last census had 260,000 Irish, actually more than the population of Dublin in 1851, thus making New York the greatest Irish city in the world." These are the words of Cobden in a letter written to Mr. T. B. Potter in February, 1865, on the subject of English protests in relation to America during the war, when in the United States Irish voices were loudest and most threatening against England. The feeling of resentment was not groundless. It cannot be denied that the existence of such a persistent antagonism showed that there must at least be faults on both sides. This was the contention of Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden, and they did not fail to say so with considerable emphasis in the debates for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Acts, a measure which became necessary in 1866. Mr. John Stuart Mill also took part in the discussion, and his argument was that if the captain of a ship or the master of a school had continually to have recourse to violent measures we should assume without asking for further evidence that there was something wrong in his system of management. course there was another word to be said in answer to this. If the captain or the schoolmaster found he had constantly to deal with murderous mutineers and secret violators of all law, who incited others to crime, steps might have to be taken to suppress, or to expel these members of the crew or the school, before conciliatory or gentle measures could be so applied as to work an influence. The worst of it is that the disease and the supposed remedy appear to be reproductive. Suppression in Ireland has always meant fresh attempts to form

Of

and even seditious meetings, treason, and attempted rebellion are all different things from assassination, from the endeavour to institute a reign of terror by the force of mere fiendish destruction, or by murder, and the malignant infliction of injury for the purpose of showing capabilities of violence.

We have already noted that there were always men ready to take advantage of any sincere, though mistaken, or any genuinely patriotic and justifiable agitation. Most secret associations are liable to be made use of by those who have no "cause" that will prevent their being traitors to their companions, or by fanatics who would urge their fellows down the road of insanity. Probably few organizations could be more liable to abuse than that which was adopted by the "Fenians." It was not original, and it was not effectual for the purpose for which it was designed. It was constructed on what has been called a cellular system. No individual member knew what were the limits or the functions of any other member, and the further a member was from the centre of direction, either because of his insignificance or his ineligibility, the less information he was entrusted with. All that the larger number of members had to do was to obey any orders without question. The implied or supposed penalty for disobedience, or for such independent variation of an order as might produce discovery, would be "removal," or, in other words, secret assassination. It will easily be seen that there was no protection against the machinations of mere dealers in sedition, nor was there the encouragement that attends an intelligent exchange of confidence. The larger number of members of such an association may be mere instruments of a few arch-conspirators, who trust them with nothing, and yet expose them to destruction, or they may be the tools of murderers and sedition-mongers who may some day sacrifice them by turning traitors to the

cause.

The "Fenian" organization was apparently formed among the Irish in America. The name Fenian has been variously represented to mean Finn i an, from the descendants or coad

from the name given to the old Irish militia, and to the ancient singers or reciters of the Celtic legends. Whatever may have been the origin of the name, it sounded warlike and implacable.

The association was at first a political, or rather an insurrectionary one, for the purpose of effecting a revolution in Ireland. It was commenced in the year 1858, and during the American civil war increased to very large dimensions. Men who had emigrated from Ireland under conditions of poverty and distress, which they believed had been caused by English misrule, were not likely to correct their impressions about the causes of their expatriation, even though they may have been more prosperous in the new country. On the contrary they had many of them been so accustomed to send home money for the relief of their relations in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, that they were pretty sure to subscribe without reluctance to a society for the deliverance of all Ireland from the evils of an oppressive, or a mistaken government, which they had been taught was the reason for the poverty and the misery that they so well remembered, or the accounts of which had come to them from their parents in New York. The association was formed into a regularly organized institution at a convention or congress held in Philadelphia. Its headquarters were near Union Square, New York, and it assumed the position of a regular administration, supported by funds derived from contributions and subscriptions. Its leading officers, who were supposed to be constantly employed in the work, appear to have taken their pay out of the funds, and there was money forthcoming for the support of those who were deputed to carry out their orders. All authority converged towards one centre, "the head-centre," as he was called, and in Ireland this head-centre was a man named James Stephens, who began with some spirit and boldness, and then most inexplicably and unexpectedly collapsed. Stephens, it was said, had laid down the system, and to him alone all its intricate ramifications were known. He had been a civil

251

engineer, and had belonged to the Young Ireland party of O'Brien and Mitchel. After the arrest of O'Brien, Stephens, who had endeavoured to stir up an insurrection during the famine of 1847-48, sought safety in France, whither another of the young Irishmen named O'Mahoney had preceded him. Stephens spent his time in going backward and forward to Ireland; but Mahoney went to the United States, where, having been instructed by Stephens in the "Fenian" organization, he became the American head-centre. Stephens continued to promote the association in Ireland, and thither a number of strange visitors soon came; they were Irish-Americans, and some of them had old friends still in the old country. They had undertaken the duty of trying to raise rebellion, and they brought news that there were thousands of Irishmen in the United States who were members of the Fenian brotherhood, that the subscriptions from Irish labouring men and women in America were helping to pay for an army to come and help the people of the old country to throw off the rule of England, and to have a government of their own. At the same time American journals contained accounts of the preparations that were being made by the Fenians in the States for sending an army to help the Irish insurrection.

Of course the English government was prepared to take prompt action. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended; a number of persons were arrested, some of them while they were holding seditious meetings. In November, 1865, Stephens, coming to Dublin, was apprehended and lodged in Richmond prison. From this he contrived to escape, as it was believed through the help of a night-warder, in whose room was found a copy of the Fenian oath, and a padlock similar to that which fastened the door of the cell. Whatever may have been the means used, he regained his liberty; but nobody seemed to know what had become of him. Then the usual fate of such associations overtook the Fenian brotherhood. It was divided into two factions, each of which claimed to represent the real constitution; but while one party was for doing something near at hand, and urged an invasion of English

territory in an attack on Canada, the other adhered to the Irish programme, and vehemently proclaimed that Ireland was ripe for successful rebellion. Both were utterly mistaken, though there were those who, professing to know their counsels, afterwards declared that the mistake arose from a conviction that the Northern States of America would join in hostilities towards England. Happily these states did nothing of the kind. On the contrary their government acted with international honesty and loyalty, and when a body of Fenians made an attempt by crossing the Niagara and occupying Fort Erie, after driving back the small party of Canadian volunteers who opposed them, the American authorities insisted on rigidly preserving the frontier, arrested some of the leaders, and prevented any further crossing of the river. This was probably the best thing which could have happened, for by that time reinforcements had arrived on the Canadian side, some of the assailants were taken prisoners, and the rest fell back, recrossed the river, and gave up any further idea of invasion.

Perhaps, if Stephens had not suddenly made his appearance in New York as the chief of the convention and the original head-centre, the Fenian leaders would not have pursued the intention of making an attempt in Ireland; but he announced that he was prepared to strike a blow there, and he once more disappeared. It was supposed that he was in Dublin, or, at all events, making his way through the rebellious districts to rouse the people, and numbers of the Irish-Americans embarked during the winter months to join in the insurrection. When they reached Ireland they discovered that there was no determined disposition among the people to combine in a general rebellion, and all that could be done was to wait till the spring, when, it was surmised, Stephens would reappear with some plan and with an armed force, when they would be able to commence active hostilities.

They could not at first realize that they had been deceived, and that not only were the peasantry mostly unarmed and unprepared, but the majority of the Irish people were opposed to any such attempt as an insurrection

by a confederacy of which, after all, they knew little or nothing.

Several of the Irish-Americans who came, as they supposed, to aid in the achievement of a separate nationality were honest and disinterested. They had either retained the bitter hostility to England caused by former conditions, the effects of which Englishmen as well as Irishmen were anxious to remove, or they had only been able to estimate the real state of affairs by the representations of those who dealt largely in metaphor. The grievances under which the Irish people were suffering were real; the injustice to which they were subjected was obvious enough to find indignant expression from the mouths of many earnest men; but the "wrongs of Ireland" were not exactly of the kind or the degree which they were sometimes represented to be. At anyrate there were few signs that the majority of the people of Ireland were ready to seek redress by violence or insurrection, and it was evident that the government had been made acquainted with all that the Fenian convention had proposed, and had taken measures to prevent it.

Among those who came to act as leaders were some who had acquired distinction in the American civil war, and several had occupied a position of social influence in the States. They arrived in Ireland to find that they had been deceived. There would be no general uprising of the people; no combined attempt of any importance unless they could succeed in provoking it, and unfortunately this was what a number of them endeavoured to do. But first some startling demonstration must be made; a blow must be struck which would show that they were in earnest. It was perhaps a proof of the utter misapprehension which existed among these men, that they formed a wild scheme by which the Fenians in England were secretly to make their way to Chester, where they were to meet at a certain date in February, 1867, and to take forcible possession of the castle for the purpose of obtaining the arms that might be found there. They were then to cut the telegraph wires to prevent any alarm being sent after them, and to proceed to Holy

vessels in which they could reach the Irish coast. There was an audacity about this plan which almost neutralized its absurdity, and, at all events, it was of such a nature that it presented a marked contrast to other attempts which were made for the purpose, or with the result, of inflicting serious injury on individuals by destroying life or property. The government had received timely intimation of the attempt that was to be made, and Chester was so well watched and guarded that the Fenian contingent was obliged to abandon the enterprise. It was then made known to the confederacy that a general rising should be attempted in Ireland in the following month. The failure was conspicuous, and though several attacks were made on the police barracks in various places, where several persons were shot or otherwise killed, there was nothing like an insurrection. More mischief might have ensued if the armed bands of desperados had been able to take to the hills or the lonely passes; but a continuous snowstorm prevented them from seeking these as a refuge. The first attempt was a failure; it had never for a moment looked like success.

Numerous arrests were made, and among the prisoners were men who had believed in the cause which they came to support, and having failed, were ready to die if their lives were to be forfeited for the crime of having sought to promote a revolution which they had heard was already imminent. Among the more prominent leaders who were arrested was Colonel Burke, who had served as an officer in the Southern "Confederate" army during the American war. He, a companion named Doran, and some others were sentenced to death, chiefly on the evidence of informers, who were necessarily the principal witnesses of the government in many such cases.

A very strong feeling was manifested against the execution of this sentence. That men coming from another country had committed treason in consequence of misrepresentations, was of course no legal defence; but the men were brave men, they had been deceived, and their crime was not that of dastardly conspirators or of assassins. The English people