If, however, no reason was given in public for his exile, Egan was not slow to refer to the matter in private. I had journeyed in his company to Boston, and had had a very exciting chat with him, in which the question of his flight had largely figured. His description of how he was enabled to get away from Dublin was most graphic. He started off by boasting how he had got information from the Castle; and to show how readily it could be obtained he said that, within twenty minutes of the order being issued for the warrant for his arrest, he knew of the fact. He was at his office at the time, and at once proceeded to his house and packed his satchel. He had two children sick then, and Dr. Kenny was attending them. He destroyed a number of documents which he had in the house, some of them pertaining to his connection with the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and also some letters of James Carey. In fact he destroyed all papers tending to incriminate him in case he was arrested. Fortunately for him there happened to be in Dublin at the time a Scotch friend in the Belfast flour trade, who assisted him in getting away. He gave this friend his rug and valise, and instructed him to purchase a ticket for Belfast at the Northern Terminus. He himself arrived at the railway station one moment before the train started, took his valise and rug from his Scotch friend, slipped into the train, and that night was in Belfast. On his arrival at Belfast he found that he could not get out by boat, and he went to an hotel, where he slept. In the morning he purchased a return ticket to Leeds, travelled with that as far as Manchester, and then got off the train. There he purchased another ticket from Manchester to Hull, took the steamer from Hull to Rotterdam, and thus got out of the country.
From the account of his own escape, he passed on to tell me how his fellow-official Brennan, the Secretary of the Irish Land League, had got away. Brennan, it appeared, gained the first hint of his being implicated by reading the announcement of Carey’s evidence on a news sheet displayed on the pavement in the Strand. He was accompanied by Mr. Thomas Sexton, M.P., at the time, and on reading the announcement they at once turned down a side street where arrangements were made for Brennan’s flight. Brennan started off for his lodgings in order to pack a valise, while Mr. Sexton, going to Charing Cross, purchased a ticket for Paris. On this ticket he travelled to London Bridge, and there by arrangement he met Brennan, who immediately proceeded on the train to the French capital. Egan was very generous in his confidences on this occasion, and amongst other things he told me that he was satisfied the new Executive Body would continue the “active work,” and it would be done by men who would not go further than their orders, as Dr. Gallaher had done. This was news to me, and I inquired how. “Why,” replied Egan, “he (Dr. G.) got in with some of Rossa’s men, and MacDermott (a reputed informer) got it from them, and gave him away.” Previously to this I had met Egan in camp gatherings, and knew that he was now an actual member of the American Revolutionary organisation. It was, by-the-bye, at a camp meeting in Philadelphia in this year that Egan, addressing some sixty members, said, “I have been reading up the records of the Italian banditti, and from them I have come to believe in this rule: Let us meet our enemies with smiling faces, and with a warm grasp of the hand, having daggers up our sleeves ready to stab them to the heart.” Strange words these, and yet I thought when I heard of their being uttered of the smiling face and warm hand clasp which had puzzled me not a little on that first night when I met the speaker on the staircase of a Parisian hotel.
The Convention of the secret organisation followed immediately after that of the National League, but as I was not a delegate I had no intimate connection with it. It was at this Convention, as I learnt subsequently from Sullivan, that arrangements were made—few, if any, Anti-Sullivanites were present—for the destruction of the records of which I have already spoken, and which gave rise to so much bitterness on the part of the Cronin faction.
The principal fact worthy of notice in connection with the secret Convention of 1884 was the acknowledgment by the “Triangle” of 118,000 dollars as the sum received and expended for dynamite purposes from the date of the holding of the Convention of 1881. No vouchers or detailed statements were forthcoming, and their absence was sought to be explained on the ground that it was inexpedient to supply information in view of the risk and exposure of brave men engaged in the enterprises. No detailed statement of the expenditure of this vast sum has ever been made to this day.
As one result of this unsatisfactory condition of things, a circular was drawn up by Cronin and his friends, making definite and formal charges against the “Triangle” of stealing the funds of the organisation. Cronin was very aggressive in giving currency to these charges in the most offensive language, and the feeling against him on the part of Sullivan’s adherents became extremely embittered. As it grew in intensity it spread to more than Cronin, and soon the followers of both men were ranged in hostile camps, fighting a wordy war of the deadliest type. All attempts to heal the breach proved fruitless, although much outside influence of an important character was brought to bear upon the different parties concerned.
XLVII.
While the contest raged between the opposing factions, I was up and doing, travelling about, and gaining as much information as I possibly could. I made many trips to various points of the country, and so was enabled to gauge pretty accurately the condition of public feeling and the probabilities of the future. My pretexts for all this travelling were admirably adapted to divert suspicion from my real object. When a journey for my health’s sake was not possible, I got appointed (through Irish political influence) to a seat on the Mississippi Valley Sanitary Commission; and when no more work was to be done under this cover, I connected myself with one of the largest pharmaceutical houses in the States, and travelled as their representative in whatever direction suited me. So successful was I in combining business development with my secret work, that I had great difficulty in resigning this latter connection, the proprietors strongly urging my continuance in it, and only parting with me after many fruitless attempts to change my decision. When at home I was of course an ardent politician, and a volunteer on every committee in the Democratic interest. So prominent was I in local politics, that on one occasion I ran for election for the House of Representatives, only being defeated by a majority of 128 votes on a poll of several thousands. It was the cry of “The Fenian General” that lost me the seat with the English voters.
I was frequently in communication with Egan through all this period, for he made many trips to Chicago, both for business purposes—he had now embarked in the grain trade—and with the object of consulting with Alexander Sullivan, whose worthy fidus Achates he proved. It was as the result of one of my interviews with him that I received the following passport to the faithful, which proved of such service in the way of corroboration when I appeared before the Special Commission:—
Transcriber’s Note: the following is a transcription of the handwritten text of this letter.