THE RESCUE AT MANCHESTER.

307

what was going on or refused to join. Ridiculous attacks were made upon police stations, some failing and others succeeding for the moment. There was little or no organization; very few leaders, and these almost disregarded; no discipline, and the arming was preposterously inadequate. The end was a complete failure, as it deserved to be, resulting in many arrests. There were 169 prisoners

of whom only seven were acquitted. The others got the various terms of penal servitude they justly deserved, not for their patriotism, where they had any, but for their folly, which was worse than their crime.

Kelly, still known as "Colonel" Kelly; and a "Captain" Deasey, were arrested at Manchester in the following September, on a charge of loitering with intent to commit a felony. For a second time they were brought up on the 18th, and, their identity being established, they were again remanded, and placed in an ordinary prison-van, with other prisoners, for conveyance back to jail, Kelly and Deasey being put in irons, and seven police constables accompanied the van on its way. Near the railway arch over the Hyde Road was the Railway Hotel, which the Fenians made their rendezvous for the day. When the van arrived at that point it was attacked by about fifty Fenians with revolvers. One of the horses was shot dead, the other became unmanageable, and all the police dismounted as quickly as possible, except Brett, who was locked inside in charge of the prisoners, and with the keys in his possession. The armed Fenians having shot the second horse, kept the police at bay, inflicting several serious wounds with their revolvers, and so the van was left open to attack. As many as there was room for mounted to the roof, smashed it with great stones that had evidently been collected for the purpose, and made an aperture sufficient to discover Brett, of whom the keys were demanded. He refused to deliver them up. He was wounded by several of the stones that were heaved on to his head. Very soon a panel of the door was smashed in, and the keys demanded again. On refusal, the lock was fired into but without result. On Brett's reiterated refusal to deliver the keys he was aimed at and shot through the head. His bleeding body fell out into the road. The keys were taken from his body; they were successfully used, the prisoners were released, and Kelly and Deasey made off across the fields. They were ironed all the time. They were seen to enter a cottage with their irons on, and to come out of it with them off. Every effort of the authorities failed to secure their recapture, and so

they entirely escaped, their subsequent careers being unknown, though many statements respecting them have been made based upon only slender evidence.

Their chief rescuer, William O'Meara Allen, was captured in his attempt at flight, with some others of the attacking party. Arrests were also made of several persons on suspicion. Twenty-nine prisoners were taken before the magistrates, under a strong guard, the next day. Of these, Allen, Larkin, Gould, Maguire, Shore, Brannon, and Featherstone, were subsequently put upon their trial for the murder of Brett. They all pleaded Not Guilty. The verdict was guilty against the first five, but not guilty as to the other two, who were afterwards convicted and sentenced for riot. The five disavowed any intention to kill Brett, but justified the rescue. Shore, in conclusion, said "God save Ireland," which the other prisoners repeated in chorus, The five were all sentenced to death by Justice Mellor. Maguire's defence of non-participation was subsequently believed, and he was "pardoned." Shore was reprieved. Allen, Gould and Larkin were hanged upon the walls of the New Bailey Gaol, Manchester, on the 23rd of November, when a strong force of military and police, with very great material precautions, were prepared to prevent the rescue that was anticipated, but there was no sign of any attempt. The only demonstration was that, when Allen appeared, every head of the vast multitude was uncovered—a mute but eloquent evidence that his conduct was approved.

་

Early in December, Burke and Casey were under arrest, on a charge of participating in the Fenian conspiracy, and were in the Clerkenwell House of Detention. Between three and four o'clock on the afternoon of the 13th, a tremendous explosion took place. It blew down an immense piece of the prison wall facing Corporation-lane, and made havoc of the whole neighbourhood. The houses in Corporation-lane were blown into ruins; many other buildings suffered in a similar way, and all the windows in hundreds of houses were shattered. The appearance of the neighbourhood was beyond description, giving evidence of the immense force of the explosion. Forty persons were seriously injured, one was killed at the time; three others died of their wounds. All this was done to rescue Burke or Casey, or both. According to the rules, the prisoners should have been exercising in the yard at the time, and the breach in the wall would have probably permitted their escape. But the governor of the prison had somehow received ob

THE CLERKENWELL OUTRAGE.

309

'scure information of what was intended, so he changed the time of exercise, and hence the failure so far as escape was concerned. But no other precaution seems to have been taken. A man was seen to convey a cask to the place of the explosion, to stick a common "squib" into the cask, to light the squib, and to run away. That was seen by several persons, including a policeman, who ran after the man, but as the explosion instantly occurred, the consternation prevented further pursuit.

Timothy Desmond, William Desmond, Jeremiah Allen, Ann Justice, Nicholas English, John Mullany, and John O'Keefe were very soon arrested and charged with treason-felony. Ann Justice,

who had visited Casey in the prison, attempted in vain to strangle herself on the evening of her arrest. The evidence being unsatisfactory and much mystery pervading it, numerous remands took place until the 14th of January 1868, when Michael Barrett and James O'Neil were arrested at Glasgow. Of these, the two Desmonds, English, O'Keefe, Barrett and Justice, were put on their trial at the Old Bailey on the 20th of April. The charge was murder of Sarah Ann Hodkinson, the person who was first killed by the explosion. They all pleaded Not Guilty. Ann Justice was first declared not guilty. She rose, kissed Barrett, and left the dock. O'Keefe was also separately declared Not Guilty. All the rest except Barrett obtained a verdict of Not Guilty. Barrett, alone, was found guilty. He made a speech of considerable ability, and was sentenced to death by Lord Chief Justice Cockburn. The principal witness was Patrick Mullany, an accomplice who turned Queen's evidence. Barrett was hanged on a gallows erected outside the front of Newgate Gaol on the 26th of the following May, and he was the last person publicly executed in the British Isles. He was remarkably firm. The crowd was not very large. Some of the spectators groaned. Some clapped hands. The greater part uncovered.

The conviction and execution of Barrett closed the prominent part of the Fenian period. Burke had been convicted and sentenced a few days previously to penal servitude for treason-felony. Barrett's execution and the events that preceded it thrust Fenianism out of sight. Its open existence being impossible, it became more than ever a secret society, like a smothered volcano, from which furtive eruptions have proceeded and may proceed any time. Amongst the most prominent were the shooting at and severe wounding of the Duke of Edinburgh

at Sydney, March 31, 1868; the shooting dead of Mr. D'Arcy Magee at Ottawa, April 7, 1868; raid on Canada in 1870; the murder of the Dublin policeman, Talbot, and of a guardsman in London. The shot that killed the last named man was supposed to have been aimed at Corydon, who continued for many years in the employment of the government as an informer against the Fenians.

O'Donovan Rossa and other Fenian prisoners were released in March, 1869, on condition of leaving the country. Before they left, they behaved with open defiance, which made the detention of the remainder all the longer; but most, if not all their contemporaries appear to have been released at various times afterwards and some escaped from Australia.

Stephens reappeared on the French side during the Franco-German war. He and others are believed to have operated since, in America. On the death of O'Mahony, at New York, a prodigious demonstration was got up at his funeral, on the 6th of February, 1877, which showed, beyond doubt, a wide-spread Fenian sympathy in the United States.

Where the volcano has been or is nearest the surface at any subsequent time is hard to determine, but that some of the plots discovered, and many of the crimes recorded, have arisen from it, there is abundant justification for concluding, though not always enough certain evidence to prove.

CHAPTER XLIII.

LEGISLATIVE AGONIES-VAIN COERCION ACTS-THE REFORM STRUGGLE-THE DISESTABLISHMENT RESOLUTIONS THE APPEAL TO THE COUNTRY-STATESMEN ON TRIAL.

DU

URING the prominent part of the Fenian period reviewed in the last chapter, the United Parliament passed through prolonged legislative agonies, some of which were very acute.

It fell to the lot of the Russell administration of 1865-6 to bear the first brunt of the Fenian storm. Late in 1865 there is evidence that the government were beginning to appreciate the importance of what was going on, for, in the Queen's speech of February 6, 1866, we read, "A conspiracy, adverse alike to authority, property, and religion, and disapproved and condemned alike by all who are interrested in their maintenance, without distinction of creed or class, has unhappily appeared in Ireland. The constitutional power of the ordinary tribunals has been exerted for its repression, and the authority of the law has been firmly and impartially vindicated."

But it is very remarkable that this speech does not propose any new coercive legislation. The ordinary law was thought sufficient. This complacency was doomed to be suddenly disturbed within ten days afterwards. On the 16th, Sir George Grey gave notice in the House of Commons, saying, "Sir, I rise with deep regret, and only under the strongest sense of what the government believe to be an absolute necessity, to give notice that to-morrow, at twelve o'clock, I shall move for leave to bring in a bill to suspend for a limited time the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland." A sense of consternation immediately manifested itself in both Houses of Parliament, which rapidly extended throughout the country. The day thus named was Saturday, and the unusual spectacle of a full house appeared at twelve