“Last night Thomas Clarke Luby went to Washington, carrying with him $17,500 in American bonds endorsed by me, to have them transferred for safe keeping to the names of Dr. Carroll, Thomas C. Luby, John Devoy, Tom Bourke, John Breslin, and James Reynolds.... John O’Mahony died. It was deemed well to send his remains to Ireland. There was no money to bear the expenses. I thought I might trespass on the skirmishing money. I consulted Mr. Ford and Mr. Clancy about a loan. They said it could be legitimately looked upon as within the pale of our work, and they paid me $2030 to defray the expenses. The Clan-na-Gael and the Fenian Brotherhood have promised to refund the money.”
No secret was made of the connection which now existed between the “trustees” and the “fund,” for a public address was issued “to the Irish people in the United States,” and published in the Irish World of the 21st April, containing the following passages:—
“But since the ‘skirmishing’ project was first announced, circumstances have greatly altered.... Old Europe is threatened with a general convulsion. War on the most tremendous scale cannot much longer be staved off by all the artifices and subtleties of all the diplomatists in the world. Russia and Turkey are equally resolute to fight the inevitable fight.... The rest of the Great Powers of Europe will be drawn by an irresistible force into the arena. England, above all, whether she likes it or not, must draw her sword once more or meanly confess herself a third-class power. She is too proud of the part to yield her high place without a blow. She must first be beaten to her knees.
“England’s difficulty then has all but come; in other words, ‘Ireland’s opportunity.’ Is Ireland prepared to seize that opportunity?...
“In view of the altered circumstances of the time, ‘big with fate to us and ours,’ we propose to enlarge the basis of the ‘Skirmishing Fund,’ established by Rossa, and of the plans it was intended to further. We propose forthwith to create a ‘Special National Fund’ to aid the work of Ireland’s deliverance.
“Action, some may think, has been postponed too long. Be this as it may, we are determined to lose as little further time as possible ere we furnish our countrymen with practical results of our work. But a blow must be followed up by blows. Unhesitatingly then” (they ask for) “the means to do what may give heart and inspiration to our brothers at home, and prepare the way for the last grand struggle.
... “We shall only add that it is plain that ‘the Home Rule Agitation’ has signally failed to satisfy the yearnings of the Irish people. The O’Mahony funeral demonstration, with its deep heroic significance, has exercised the vain misleading phantom. Every true Irishman in Ireland (and shall we not say in America too?) once more believes in the old creed of our gallant fathers—that the sole way to free or regenerate Ireland is by total separation from England; and that total separation can only be achieved by desperate sacrifices, daring enterprises, and the strong hand.
| “John J. Breslin, | } | |
| “Thomas Clarke Luby, | } | |
| “John Devoy, | } | New York. |
| “Thomas Francis Bourke, | } | |
| “Jer. O’Donovan Rossa, | } | |
| “Wm. Carroll, M.D., Philadelphia, Pa. | ||
| “James Reynolds, New Haven, Conn.” | ||