Twenty-five years in the Secret Service: The recollections of a spy

by Henri Le Caron

XVIII.

With the fiasco at Pigeon Hill, and the equally inglorious termination of the musters at other points of the Canadian border, there died out altogether the idea of attacking and seizing any portion of Canada. O’Neill, after some confinement, was brought to trial, and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, and the Fenian organisation literally went to pieces for the time. I had no thought of its ever reviving again, and so turned my attention once more to my medical work, which I had had to completely neglect from the time of my leaving Joliet and attaching myself to O’Neill’s staff.

I had scarcely resumed my studies, however, when a visit from O’Neill on his release showed me that there was still some fight left in himself and his comrades. He came to me as a matter of fact to enlist my co-operation in some work of a distinctly active character. In explanation of the position of affairs, he laid before me the originals of several letters to him from the Rev. W. B. O’Donohoe, a young priest of Manitoba, who was at the time acting as secretary for the notorious Riel. The correspondence gave all the details of a contemplated uprising of the half-breeds in the North-West against the Dominion authorities, and stated, to my amazement and disgust, that he—this young priest—had received permission from his Archbishop—Tasché—to throw off his ecclesiastical garments and take a part therein.

In conclusion, O’Neill’s assistance and co-operation in the attempt was sought, and as he put it, “anything to cripple the enemy” being his motto, he was only too eager for the fray. He had one great difficulty, however, and that was the want of arms. Knowing that a quantity remained in hiding since the second raid, he had sought to obtain possession of them, but had been referred to me as the person who had deposited them with their present custodians, and without whose permission they could not be given up. I cheerfully agreed to let him have 400 breech-loaders and ammunition, and accompanied him to the points where they were, for the purpose of their delivery, but not before I had surreptitiously obtained the use of the documents, and sent copies to both the Home and Canadian Governments with full information as to what was sur le tapis.

O’Neill, in company with a trusted confederate, J. J. Donnelly, fitted out his expedition, and on the 5th day of October 1871, after crossing the line at Fort Pembina, was arrested with his party, and all his war material seized, in consequence of the information supplied by me. Riel, thus deprived of the expected assistance, surrendered at Fort Garry to Lord Wolseley without firing a shot. O’Neill and his party having been turned over to the United States authorities, were, four days afterwards, tried and acquitted. Strange as it appears, these men, captured on Canadian soil, were, by some egregious blunder, handed over to the United States authorities, and by them acquitted on the ludicrous technicality that the offence was not committed on American, but Canadian soil.

Subsequently O’Neill came back to me and made my life a burthen. Discredited and disheartened, he took to drink and went entirely to the dogs, bringing to the verge of starvation an affectionate but heart-broken wife, who, once a sister of mercy, had nursed and grown to love him in a hospital where he was confined, and, disregarding all her vows, had in the end married him. Drifting slowly downward through disgrace and drink, O’Neill, the once brilliant, if egotistical, Irishman met a lone and miserable death.

XIX.

On resuming my studies, I decided to enter the Detroit College of Medicine, and so, taking my family with me, I settled down there. There were many reasons for my change of residence, not the least important of which was that connected with the unpopularity which I found attached to me in my old home after my return from the Canadian affair. O’Neill had many opponents, and by these opponents I was attacked in company with O’Neill, and the others engaged in the affair, for having ruined the organisation by the premature “invasion” which had taken place. Therefore, I thought it better to remove to another quarter where this state of feeling did not exist, and where my Irish record would be of service to me in the future. As far as Detroit was concerned, I fixed upon it because of the desire of Judge M‘Micken that I should become acquainted with, and obtain as much information as I could about, Mackay Lomasney—whose name will be familiar in connection with the London Bridge explosion—and others just settled down there.

Lomasney was, in the eyes of the authorities, an important man; and his subsequent career, terminating with the attempt to blow up London Bridge, in which he lost his own life, fully justified their estimate. He had been engaged in the ’65 and ’67 movements in Ireland, had been charged with the murder of a policeman and acquitted, but sentenced to twelve years’ penal servitude for his work as a rebel, and, with others whose names will appear later, had been amnestied in the year 1870. He had now settled down in Detroit as the proprietor of a book-store; and as he was known to be a most active revolutionist, much curiosity was felt as to what he was actually doing. I formed a very pleasant acquaintance with Mackay Lomasney, and found him a most entertaining man. The future dynamitard was at this time about twenty-eight years of age. Though of youthful appearance, his face was a most determined one, and the way in which it lent itself to disguise truly marvellous. When covered with the dark bushy hair, of which he had a profusion, it was one face; when clean-shaven, quite another, and impossible of recognition. Acting, as he constantly did, as the delegate from the American section to the Fenians at home, this faculty of disguise proved of enormous service, and may very well have had disastrous effects on police vigilance. I have seen Lomasney both shaved, on his return from Ireland, and unshaved, in his American life; and in all the men I have ever met, I never saw such a change produced by so easy a process. I may dismiss Mackay Lomasney from this point of my story by saying that, beyond his activity in connection with the establishment of the Irish Confederation, his movements gave little ground for apprehension, and, as far as the Confederation was concerned, its development proved of very little account.