And the two forts—Hamilton and Wadsworth—situate so like to the two forts, Camden and Carlisle, got me to think that if the ocean was baled out and the two countries, Ireland and America, were moved over to each other, Fort Camden touching Fort Hamilton and Fort Carlisle touching Fort Wadsworth, there would be no incongruity or break observable in the grandeur of the scenery, sailing down the River Lee through the Cove of Cork and up the Hudson River through the harbor of New York.
They were war times in America the time I arrived in the country (May 13, 1863). Walking up Broadway, I saw a policeman speaking angrily to another man on the sidewalk near Fulton street; giving him a pretty hard stroke of his stick on the side of the leg, the civilian screeched with pain and limped away crying. An impulse came on me to tell the policeman he had no right to strike the man that way. I did not act on that impulse; I suppose it was well for me I didn’t. It showed me there was more liberty in America than I thought there was.
In a few minutes after, I was in the City Hall Park among the soldiers. The ground on which now stands the post office was a part of the park, and was planted with little trees and soldiers’ tents. Here I met several people who knew me, and I was very soon in the office of John O’Mahony, No. 6 Centre street.
That night I went with O’Mahony to the armory and drill rooms and other rooms of the Fenian Brotherhood societies. All the Fenians seemed to be soldiers or learning to be soldiers; many of them volunteering to go into the battlefields of America that they might be the better able to fight the battles of Ireland against England. I saw this spirit in most of the speeches I heard delivered that night, and there was speech-making, as well as recruiting and drilling everywhere we went.
I made my home, during the few weeks I was looking around, with one of the Rossa family who came to America in the year 1836—Timothy Donovan, No. 276 Schermerhorn street, Brooklyn.
I brought with me from Ireland, some letters of introduction to people in New York. I had a letter from John Edward Pigott to Richard O’Gorman, a letter from John B. Dillon to Mr. Robert E. Kelly, a tobacco and cigar importer in Beaver street, and several letters from Edward O’Sullivan, a Cork butter merchant, to others. The letter from Mr. Dillon to Mr. Kelly is the letter about which there is a story that I must not forget telling. I delivered it. After reading it, he talked with me in his office for a couple of hours. He asked me about Ireland and the Irish cause—would I give up the cause now, turn over a new leaf, have sense, and turn my attention to business and money making? Also asked me what other letters of introduction I had to friends and how the friends received me. Then he told me what those friends were likely to do, and likely not to do. All that he told me turned out true. “And I suppose Mr. Kelly,” said I, “you cannot see the way of doing anything yourself?” “Not much,” said he, “not much that will be any permanent good to you. You told me that if you remained for any time in New York you may go into the cigar business in partnership with a cousin of yours. Now, if you do that, I will give you goods to the amount of $2,000; but you’ll lose the money and I’ll lose the money.”
“Then,” said I, “why would you give me your goods if you’re sure you’ll lose the money?”
“Well,” said he, “from the talk I have had with you, I see you are disposed to follow up your past life, and I like to give you some encouragement. There are so few who stick to the cause, once they get a fall in it, or meet a stumbling-block of any kind.”
“I thought,” said I, “that if I said I would give up the cause, and sensibly turn my attention to commercial business, that then you might offer me the credit of your house.” “No,” said he, “I wouldn’t give you credit to the worth of a dollar in that case.”
I did go into business this time, during the few months I spent in New York with my cousin Denis Donovan, in Madison street, but we did not deal in such high class goods as Mr. Kelly imported, and I did not avail myself of his offer of credit. I went back to Ireland in August ’63. I was put in prison in 1865; came out of prison in 1871, came to New York and was called upon by Mr. Kelly. At his invitation I called a few times to his house and he called to where I lived, and met my family. In 1874 I rented the Northern Hotel. I called to Mr. Kelly’s office, in Beaver street, to talk to him about the offer he made me eleven years ago. He was out of town—down in Cuba; but, said his son, Horace: “There is an order made on the books here, by my father, that you are to get $2,000 worth of goods at any time you desire to have them.”