The next morning we were at the wharf, and by an arrangement with the officers of the boat, we were enabled to see every person who went ashore, as they passed through a half-opened door at the after-gangway, in giving up the passage tickets. The net was well spread this time, and though we did not pick Pat up, we secured the whole party of his traveling friends, including his wife and two children. The Marshal took them in charge, and without much ceremony or explanation, conducted them to a hack which had been provided for their special accommodation. They were very soon after escorted to the police station, and a subsequent examination of their persons and effects afforded no additional light, except that among the baggage of Mrs. R. was found a lot of scrap gold, which a dentist of Philadelphia mailed to a New York firm, and which had never reached that firm. On the strength of this discovery, she was afterwards indicted as an accomplice of her husband, and committed to Brooklyn jail, where she remained for several months, her two children staying with her, at her own request.
Although she undoubtedly knew the precise locality of her "liege lord," and probably could have procured her own liberty by making it known, yet she remained firm, and to the last steadily refused to give the least information, insisting, moreover, that she was ignorant of the post office depredations at the time they were going on, and that the stolen property found in her possession was placed in one of the trunks without her knowledge. Possibly it was so, as some of Pat's wearing apparel was found there also.
The remainder of the party, three in number, were detained at Albany. It was deemed necessary that they should remain there a while, but the Chief of Police was instructed not to treat them strictly as prisoners, but to allow them to lodge at the station; and an arrangement was made for them to eat at a neighboring restaurant, at the expense of Government.
The proprietor of the aforesaid restaurant finding, however, that they were disposed to abuse that privilege, by imbibing too freely, and selecting from the bill of fare whatever was choice and expensive—and especially as the contract for this portion of his customers was not very clearly defined—took the precaution to erase from one copy of the bill of fare all articles of a rare and expensive kind, which corrected list, by the third day, embraced but one or two plain dishes. This brief programme was sure to be thrust before them as often as they called for anything to eat, though a verbal announcement of "coffee" was added at the regular morning and evening repast. Having also some faint recollection of the discussions in the public papers about reforms in the Navy, and dispensing with the "grog rations," he compromised the matter on that head, by allowing the men "two drinks" a day, and no more; that being, in his estimation, a proper Government allowance.
As sufficient legal evidence could not be procured, to show that they really aided and abetted in the robberies, they were notified that their bills would no longer be paid by the Post Office Department; and declining to continue their journey to the West, tickets were furnished them to return to New York.
Soon after their arrival in the city, they fell in with a tolerably smart specimen of a lawyer, whose indignation at the unheard-of proceedings against them, of course had nothing to do with so mercenary a motive as that of getting a fee out of them; and by his advice a suit was promptly brought against the Special Agent and the two Deputy Marshals, for false imprisonment!
The cause was "set down" for trial in the Marine Court, and came off in the course of a week or two. A waggish spectator remarked that he could not see why it was brought in the Marine Court, unless it was because the complainants were "half seas over" when stopped at Albany.
A very brief synopsis of this trial will, I think, prove worth a perusal.
On the part of the prosecution, the complainants themselves were the witnesses—all three of them genuine sons of the Emerald Isle.