"I believe, my lords, I have said enough already. I will only add that I am convicted for doing nothing but my duty. I have endeavoured to serve Ireland, and now I am prepared to suffer for Ireland."
Then the judge, with many expressions of sympathy for the prisoner, and many compliments in reference to his intellectual attainments, sentenced him to kept in penal servitude for fourteen years. His solicitor, Mr. John Lawless, announced the fact to him through his ear trumpet. Charles J. Kickham bowed to the judges, and with an expression of perfect tranquility on his features, went into captivity.
GENERAL THOMAS F. BURKE.
The year of grace, 1867, dawned upon a cloudy and troublous period in Irish politics. There was danger brewing throughout the land; under the crust of society the long confined lava of Fenianism effervesced and glowed. There were strange rumours in the air; strange sounds were heard at the death of night on the hill-sides and in the meadows; and through the dim moonlight masses of men were seen in secluded spots moving in regular bodies and practising military evolutions. From castle and mansion and country seat the spectre of alarm glided to and fro, whispering with bloodless lips of coming convulsions and slaughter, of the opening of the crater of revolution, and of a war against property and class. Symptoms of danger were everywhere seen and felt; the spirit of disaffection had not been crushed; it rode on the night wind and glistened against the rising sun; it filled rath and fort and crumbling ruin with mysterious sounds; it was seen in the brightening eyes and the bold demeanour of the peasantry; in the signals passing amongst the people; in their secret gatherings and closely guarded conclaves. For years and years Fenianism had been threatening, boasting, and promising, and now the fury of the storm, long pent-up, was about to burst forth over the land—the hour for action was at hand.
Between the conviction of Luby, O'Leary, and Kickham, and the period at which we are now arrived, many changes of importance had taken place in the Fenian organization. In America, the society had been revolutionized—it had found new leaders, new principles, new plans of action; it had passed through the ordeal of war, and held its ground amidst flashing swords and the smoke of battle; it had survived the shocks of division, disappointment, and failure; treachery, incapacity and open hostility had failed to shatter it; and it grew apace in strength, influence, and resources. At home Fenianism, while losing little in numerical strength, had declined in effectiveness, in prestige, in discipline, and in organization. Its leaders had been swept into the prisons, and though men perhaps as resolute stepped forward to fill the vacant places, there was a loss in point of capacity and intelligence, and to the keen observer it became apparent that the Fenian Society in Ireland had attained to the zenith of its power on the day that the Irish People office was sacked by the police. Never again did the prospects of Fenianism, whatever they might then have been, look equally bright; and when the brotherhood at length sprang to action, they fought with a sword already broken to the hilt, and under circumstances the most ominous and inauspicious.
The recent history of the Fenian movement is so thoroughly understood that anything like a detailed account of its changes and progress is, in these pages, unnecessary. We shall only say that when James Stephens arrived in America in May, 1866, after escaping from Richmond Prison, he found the society in the States split up into two opposing parties between whom a violent quarrel was raging. John O'Mahony had been deposed from his position of "Head Centre" by an all but unanimous vote of the Senate, or governing body of the association, who charged him and his officials with a reckless and corrupt expenditure of the society's funds, and these in turn charged the Senate party with the crime of breaking up the organization for mere personal and party purposes. A large section of the society still adhered to O'Mahony, in consideration of his past services in their cause; but the greater portion of it, and nearly all its oldest, best-known and most trusted leaders gave their allegiance to the Senate and to its elected President, William R. Roberts, an Irish merchant of large means, of talent and energy, of high character and unquestionable devotion to the cause of his country. Many friends of the brotherhood hoped that James Stephens would seek to heal the breach between these parties, but the course he took was not calculated to effect that purpose. He denounced the "senators" in the most extravagant terms, and invited both branches of the organization to unite under himself as supreme and irresponsible leader and governor of the entire movement. The O'Mahony section did not answer very heartily to this invitation; the Senate party indignantly rejected it, and commenced to occupy themselves with preparations for an immediate grapple with British power in Canada. Those men were thoroughly in earnest, and the fact became plain to every intelligence, when in the latter part of May, 1866, the Fenian contingents from the various States of the Union began to concentrate on the Canadian border. On the morning of the 1st of June some hundreds of them crossed the Niagara river, and took possession of the village of Fort Erie on the Canadian side. They were soon confronted with detachments of the volunteer force which had been collected to resist the invasion, and at Limestone Ridge they were met by the "Queen's Own" regiment of volunteers from Toronto, under the command of Colonel Booker. A smart battle ensued, the result of which was that the "Queen's Own" were utterly routed by the Irish under Colonel John O'Neill, and forced to run in wild confusion for a town some miles distant, Colonel Booker on his charger leading the way and distancing all competitors. Had the Irish been allowed to follow up this victory it is not unlikely that they would have swept Canada clear of the British forces, and then, according to their programme, made that country their base of operations against British power in Ireland. But the American government interfered and put an effectual stopper on their progress; they seized the arms of the Irish soldiers on the frontier, they sent up large parties of the States soldiery to prevent the crossing of hostile parties into British territory, and stationed war-vessels in the river for the same purpose. Reinforcements being thus cut off from them, the victors of Limestone Ridge found themselves under the necessity of re-crossing the river to the American shore, which they did on the night of the 2nd of June, bringing with them the flags and other trophies which they had captured from the royal troops.
The first brush between the Fenian forces and the Queen's troops inspired the former with high hopes, and with great confidence in their capacity to humble "the English red below the Irish green," if only they could start on any thing like fair terms. But now that the American government had forbidden the fight in Canada, what was to be done? James Stephens answered that question. He would have a fight in Ireland—the right place, he contended, in which to fight for Ireland. The home organization was subject to his control and would spring to arms at his bidding. He would not only bid them fight, but would lead them to battle, and that at no distant day. The few remaining months of 1866 would not pass away without witnessing the commencement of the struggle. So he said, and so he swore in the most solemn manner at various public meetings which he had called for the purpose of obtaining funds wherewith to carry on the conflict. The prudence of thus publishing the date which he had fixed for the outbreak of the insurrection was very generally questioned, but however great might be his error in this respect, many believed that he would endeavour to make good his words. The British government believed it, and prepared for the threatened rising by hurrying troops and munitions of war across to Ireland, and putting the various forts and barracks in a state of thorough defence. As the last days and nights of 1866 wore away, both the government and the people expected every moment to hear the first crash of the struggle. But it came not. The year 3867 came in and still all was quiet. What had become of James Stephens? The astonished and irate Fenians of New York investigated the matter, and found that he was peacefully and very privately living at lodgings in some part of that city, afraid to face the wrath of the men whom he had so egregiously deceived. We need not describe the outburst of rage and indignation which followed on the discovery; suffice it to say that the once popular and powerful Fenian leader soon found it prudent to quit the United States and take up his abode in a part of the world where there were no Fenian circles and no settlements of the swarming Irish race.
Amongst the men who had rallied round James Stephens in America there were many whose honesty was untainted, and who had responded to his call with the full intention of committing themselves, without regard to consequences, to the struggle which he promised to initiate. They believed his representations respecting the prospects of an insurrection in Ireland, and they pledged themselves to fight by his side and perish, if necessary, in the good old cause, in defence of which their fathers had bled. They scorned to violate their engagements; they spurned the idea of shrinking from the difficulty they had pledged themselves to face, and resolved that come what may the reproach of cowardice and bad faith should never be uttered against them. Accordingly, in January, '67, they began to fend in scattered parties at Queenstown, and spread themselves through the country, taking every precaution to escape the suspicion of the police. They set to work diligently and energetically to organize an insurrectionary outbreak; they found innumerable difficulties in their path; they found the people almost wholly unarmed; they found the wisest of the Fenian leaders opposed to an immediate outbreak, but still they persevered. How ably they performed their work there is plenty of evidence to show, and if the Irish outbreak of '67 was short-lived and easily suppressed, it was far from contemptible in the pre-concert and organization which it evidenced.