, C.E.F.B. in the chair, reported in the _Irish
People_, New York, and in other journals, we summarise briefly, as
follows, its chief particulars.
It appears, then, that at the time to which we have referred, when the
necessity of transmitting a quantity of arms, and sending a number of
military leaders to Ireland for the sustainment of the insurrectionary
movement had impressed itself on the minds of the Fenian leaders
in America, they resolved on an attempt to supply, to some extent,
those requirements. Two ways were open to them of setting about this
difficult and hazardous undertaking. One was to avail of the ordinary
mail steamers and trading ships between the two countries, send the
men across as ordinary passengers, and ship the arms as goods of
different kinds. Much had been done in that way during the previous
three or four years, but it was plainly too slow and uncertain a
process to adopt on the present occasion. The other course was to
procure a vessel for this special purpose, freight her with the men
and arms, place her under the command of a skilful and experienced
captain, and trust to his skill and luck for landing the entire in
safety somewhere on the west coast of Ireland.
This was the course adopted. How it was carried out, the
Attorney-General, with whatever degree of authority may attach to his
words in such a case, has thus described:--
On the 12th of April, 1867, a party of forty or fifty men,
almost all of whom had been officers or privates in the
service of the American government, went down from New York to
Sandyhook, in a steamer, a distance of about eighteen miles.
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