It is interesting to know that while one of the bails was William Russell, a patriotic Irishman, having an extensive business, the other was Arthur Doran, a wholesale newsagent. He was a decent Irishman, of Liverpool birth, who took no part in politics. He had been induced to go bail by one of the greatest scoundrels Ireland ever produced—Richard Pigott, Doran being an agent for Pigott's papers, the "Irishman" and "Flag of Ireland." Let this one good act, at all events, be put down to Pigott's credit.
To return to Forrester. After such a close shave as he had in Liverpool, with the eyes of the police now upon him, his occupation was gone, and Michael Davitt took up the work. I am afraid that Davitt's visit to Liverpool on this occasion brought him under the notice of the police, and may probably have led to his arrest a few months afterwards.
This took place on May 14th, 1870, at Paddington Station, London, with him being arrested also John Wilson, a Birmingham gunsmith. Davitt had £150 in his possession, and Wilson had fifty revolvers, it being suggested that the gunsmith was about to deliver the weapons in exchange for the money. So far—Davitt having a hawker's licence, as in the case of Forrester—this would have been perfectly legitimate. What was wanted by the authorities was evidence to show a connection with the Fenian conspiracy. They really had no such evidence, but as Davitt was a marked man, and as it was necessary to have him removed, Corydon was brought to identify him, and, of course, had no difficulty, when a number of men were brought into the corridor, in picking out the one-armed man from among them.
At the trial Corydon swore, among other things, that Davitt took part in the Chester raid. Now, Michael himself told me afterwards that Corydon had never seen him before he "identified" him in prison; and that though he really was at Chester, Corydon could not have known this. Michael Davitt and John Wilson were convicted of treason-felony. As showing the man's noble character, it should not be forgotten that the Irishman made an earnest appeal for the Englishman, declaring that Wilson knew nothing of the object for which the weapons were wanted, and asking that whatever sentence was to be passed on the gunsmith might be added to his own. This was quite worthy of Davitt's chivalrous and unselfish nature, and I can well imagine his tall and commanding figure in the dock, with his strongly marked features and dark, bright eyes—while utterly defiant of what the law might do to himself—making this appeal for the man who stood beside him. Davitt was, on July 11th, 1870, sentenced to fifteen years, and Wilson to seven years penal servitude.
Michael Davitt will appear in these pages as the founder of another organisation, the results of which seem likely to make the Irish people more the real possessors of their own soil than they have ever been since the Norman invasion.
About this time I had started a printing and publishing business in Liverpool, and commenced to realise what I had long projected as a useful work for Ireland. This was the issue of my "Irish Library," consisting chiefly of penny books of biographies, stories, songs, and stirring episodes of Irish history.
In their production and afterwards, when I continued the issue of these booklets in London, I had valuable assistance from various friends, including Rev. Father Ambrose, Rev. Father O'Laverty, Michael Davitt, Daniel Crilly, T.D. Sullivan, Timothy McSweeney, Hugh Heinrick, William J. Ryan, Francis Fahy, William P. Ryan, Alfred Perceval Graves, Michael O'Mahony, John J. Sheehan, Thomas Boyd, Thomas Flannery, John Hand, James Lysaght Finigan, and other well-known writers on Irish subjects. Some of the penny books were from my own pen, in addition to which I wrote "The Brandons," a story of Irish life in England, and other books, of which my most ambitious work was "The Irish in Britain."