the United States of America. The members are bound together by the following general pledge:-"I solemnly pledge my sacred word of honour, as a truthful and honest man, that I will labour with earnest zeal for the liberation of Ireland from the yoke of England, and for the establishment of a free and independent Government on the Irish soil; that I will implicitly obey the commands of my superior officers, &c." The public organisation of a Society of which the declared object was warfare against the Government, and the territorial integrity, of a foreign State, was a gross violation of the Law of Nations; but for the reasons stated above, the Fenian Society was approved and supported, and even men holding Federal offices subscribed to the fund. The financial success of the enterprise must have fully answered the most sanguine expectations of the promoters. During the continuance of the American War, the Brotherhood was a flourishing concern, for the managers took care to make it understood that their zeal for the promotion of Irish enlistment in the Northern army required the constant stimulus of generous subscriptions to the Fenian Fund. An excuse for acting as the recruiting sergeants of the North was given in the address opened by the Fenian Convention held at Chicago in 1863: "Here we have soldiers armed and trained (thousands of them trained in the tented field, and amid the smoke and thunders of battle), with able and experienced generals to lead them. Let the cities, and towns, and parishes of Ireland have their brigades, regiments, battalions, and companies of partially disciplined soldiers of liberty, silently enrolled." O'Mahoney was Head Centre of the Fenian

Brotherhood, and James Stephens was Head-Centre in Ireland. He was assisted by O'Donovan Rossa, the ostensible proprietor of the Irish People; by Thomas Charles Luby, the editor of that journal; and by O'Leary and Kickham. It was proposed to get up a rising in England to aid the contemplated rising in Ireland. Not only were the Irish residents in this country to join in the insurrection, but the English working classes were to participate in the treason. Thomas Mooney, in 1865, wrote to the agent in England :-"I venture to suggest to you that every encouragement should be given to revive the Chartists. It can be shown to the working men of England, that if Ireland were independent, the Irish workman could get plenty of work and good wages at home. Freedom, therefore, would benefit the working man. The English farmer should be shown that we want to give the English peasant farmer the farm upon which he toils for an idle lord-we want to give him forty acres at least free for ever. We want a Garibaldi for Eugland, a Sarsfield for Ireland, to move upon their enemies, the landlords of both countries, at the same moment. We have an Irish leader in John O'Mahoney, backed by fifty thousand veteran Irish soldiers in America, ready for the word.”

It is desirable that Englishmen should be mindful that it has been and still is a part of the programme of Irish seditionists to foment sedition in England. It is a curious fact, in connection with the Fenian affair of 1865, that the Government did not know what was going on, though the preparations were extensive, and the leaders took very little pains to conceal their operations. Numerous letters were sent through the post, any

one of which would have revealed the plot. In Frost's Secret Societies we read :-" Depôts of arms were formed in Dublin and Cork, frequent musters of the initiated. were held on fields and wastes, ostensibly for the purpose of playing at football, and drills by Irishmen who had served in the United States, took place in unfrequented places on moonlight nights. Whispers went about from one to another, as these signs of preparation were observed that the long deferred day of vengeance was at hand, when an army of Irishmen would come from America, commanded by Generals who had won fame and distinction in the suppression of the slaveowner's revolt, and sweep the Saxons into the sea." Fortunately for the traitors and their dupes, the Government obtained full information before the preparations were quite complete; for if such an extensively organized revolt had ripened into action, the suppression would have involved the shedding of much rebel blood. Pierce Nagle, a Fenian who had been in America, and who was employed as a folder at the office of the Irish People, revealed the plot and the preparations to the Government. On the night of the 15th September, 1865, the Irish Privy Council issued warrants for the arrest of the ringleaders. The conspirators were surprised, and the warrants were executed promptly and without the aid of the troops, that were in readiness to support the police. O'Donovan Rossa and several other persons, including Nagle, were taken at the Irish People office. In the Secret Societies an amusing incident is recorded. "James Murphy protested against his arrest on the ground of his being a citizen of Massachusetts; but he was marched off with the rest." The

fomenters and leaders of sedition, who come from America, are perhaps not aware that a foreigner who abuses the hospitality of the foreign State, forfeits all claim to protection from his own Government; and is not entitled to the rights and privileges of the municipal law of the foreign State; and he may without any violation of the Law of Nations, or rather in strict accord with the Law of Nations be treated as a pirate, tried by a drum-head court-martial, and shot or hanged. Perhaps one or two applications of the Law of Nations in respect to foreigners who take part in sedition against the Government of the foreign State in which they are residing, would rid Ireland of the nuisance of filibusters from the other side of the Atlantic.

We need not give the names of all the conspirators arrested; but it is sufficient to remark that the prisoners taken at various places included Luby, O'Leary, Kickham, C. N. O'Connell, of the United States army, and Head Centre Stephens. After the arrests two detectives were shot at and severely wounded as they were entering the Metropolitan Police Office, Dublin. On the 26th November, Stephens escaped from prison; but how he effected his escape was not ascertained, though there is very little doubt it was due to a betrayal of trust on the part of one of the prison officials. The other persons were tried and convicted; and O'Donovan Rossa, who had been already twice convicted of political offences, was sentenced to penal servitude for life; Luby, O'Leary, and Kickham were sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude; C. N. O'Connell to ten years' penal servitude; and the other prisoners to terms varying from two to five years.

Stephens went to Paris, where, it is recorded, "he stayed some time, living in good style." He entered into negotiations with General Cluseret, who agreed to take the command of the Fenian army in Ireland when there were 10,000 armed men. After that he proceeded to New York; but instead of being received as a brother Fenian, he was denounced as a traitor. He was accused of betraying the plot to the Government, and it was alleged that both his arrest and his escape were arranged to conceal the fact of his being an informer. As Stephens subsequently became very poor, it is very unlikely indeed that he had been an informer, for the British Government does not allow an informer, who betrays treason to struggle with poverty. That is the reason why the British Government is always at the critical moment so well served by repentant traitors. A Fenian Committee who examined the accounts of the Association, reported that "Your Committee finds in almost every instance the cause of Ireland made subservient to individual gain; men who were lauded as patriots sought every opportunity to plunder the Treasury of the Brotherhood, but legalised their attache by securing the endorsement of John O'Mahoney. ** Never in the history of the Irish people did they repose so much confidence in their leaders; never before were they so basely deceived and so treacherously dealt with. * * These paid patriots and professional martyrs, not satisfied with emptying our Treasury, connived at posting the English authorities in advance of our movements." According to the statement in Frost's Secret Societies:-" Though the expenditure at head-quarters during the three months

Ꭰ