The Catalpa Expedition

by Zeph. W. Pease

Charles F. Donnelly, Esq., presided on the occasion, and among others on the platform were Captain Anthony, City Marshal Hathaway, of New Bedford, Alderman O'Brien, Thomas Riley, Esq., and a large number of prominent and respectable citizens.

Mr. Donnelly, in an eloquent address, reminded his audience that the turmoil of a political campaign did not prevent them from assembling to do honor to brave men. Could they say that the spirit of the knights and saints of old was dead? Did it not survive in the act of the brave men there present? A year ago, and the escape of the political prisoners would have been deemed an impossibility; it had been undertaken and executed by Mr. Breslin, who set out to rescue from bondage, ten thousand miles away, men whom he had never seen, men whose only crime was loving their country, perhaps not wisely, but too well,—if an Irishman could love his country too well. But the age of chivalry had been revived even in this hard, practical age by a generous Yankee captain. (Loud applause.) Many morals might be drawn from this event, but he would select one,—it was this: that when an Irishman and a Yankee combine to carry out an undertaking, they can do it in spite of the whole power of the British Empire.

Mr. Donnelly then stated that he had received a letter from Wendell Phillips regretting his inability to attend, and expressing sympathy with the objects of the meeting. A telegram of similar import was read from General Butler, which concluded thus: "A prominent Massachusetts politician says that Fenianism should be crowded out of politics. Fenianism is the love of one's native land. I hope it may never be crushed out of the heart of any citizen of this country."

Alderman O'Brien, the next speaker, said that when coming there he had no intention of making a speech. He came there in common with his fellow-citizens to extend to these brave men a cordial welcome, and to show them that he felt as he spoke, he would shake hands with them all. He was followed by Thomas Riley, Esq., who began by likening the cause of Ireland to that patriotic society whose birth antedated that of George III., and which still lived on. The spirit of Irish liberty was not dead, as was proved by their presence there that night to do honor to a man and an act. The achievement of Mr. Breslin was worthy of the annals of an earlier era. Ireland's history was one of oppression. An Englishman had once charged that the Irish were "an unpolished nation;" to which a native of Ireland replied, "It ought not to be so, for we have received hard rubs enough to be polished long ago." It was acts like Mr. Breslin's that kept alive the spirit of liberty. Plantagenet and Tudor, and Stuart and Cromwell, all had dealt Ireland crushing blows, all had waded through seas of Irish gore; yet all their dynasties had perished off the face of the earth, and the spirit of Irish liberty still survived. The worst of the Roman Emperors was Julian, yet he sent no Christian to the cross or the wild beasts, he merely banned and barred Christian education, for he well knew that without education a nation relapsed into the depths of barbarism. England had done the same; in her savage, barbarous penal code she had proscribed education and educators, but Ireland still clung to the light of liberty. She listened to the sound of the battle of freedom in the West, and her sons caught the flame, and Flood, and Grattan, and the Volunteers raised her to nationhood, and crowned her with the star of freedom. She had lost that eminence, but the spirit burned again in the immortal O'Connell; it still survived the golden-mouthed Father Burke. The speaker paid a touching tribute to the memory of John Mitchel, and denounced England as championing the iniquity of the age, of upholding dead and rotten Turkey and her butcheries, and that the hour of retribution had arrived, if Russia would only advance. If England lost her temper in the threatened European complication, Ireland would be her "beetle of mortality." During his eloquent address Mr. Riley was frequently applauded.

Captain Hathaway, who succeeded him, said he was not an Irishman, but that was not his fault. He detailed the facts already published as to the inception of the plan of escape, how Mr. Devoy had approached him with a letter from his (Mr. H.'s) friend, Mr. John Boyle O'Reilly, and the consequent chartering of the Catalpa.

Captain Anthony, who divided attention with Mr. Breslin as the lion of the night, succeeded, and was greeted with a storm of applause, to which that man of deeds, not words, responded by two modest bows.

Mr. John J. Breslin, who was enthusiastically received, then addressed the audience. He said that parliamentary action, prayers, and petitions had all failed to move the bowels of compassion of the British government in behalf of the prisoners, for the reason said government had no bowels. Mr. John Devoy, well and honorably known in '65, in 1873 began to actively agitate the plan of escape, and had, in the fall of 1874, raised funds sufficient to warrant him to make the attempt. The funds were raised in various ways; one of John Mitchel's last lectures was given for the purpose. Mr. Devoy placed himself in communication with a gentleman whose high literary abilities and rare poetic talents had raised him to a prominent position among the journalists of the day; by whom he (Mr. Devoy) was introduced to Captain Hathaway, of New Bedford, through whom the Catalpa was obtained. Mr. Breslin gave a clear, concise, and detailed account of his proceeding from first to last in carrying out the details of the escape. Most of this has already appeared in our columns. His description of the face of the country, cities, geology, and flora of Western Australia was particularly good, and show both scholarship and observation on his part. Alluding to the sandy nature of the soil, he related the following anecdote: An inhabitant meeting a "new chum," told him it was a fine country. "It is," said the latter, "so mighty fine that most of it would pass through a sieve."

At the close of Mr. Breslin's address, the chairman announced the meeting adjourned. Before and after the proceedings, Mr. Breslin, who is of commanding presence and courteous demeanor, was surrounded by groups of enthusiastic countrymen, each eager to express admiration and sympathy.—Pilot, September 30, 1876.

WHY DON'T ENGLAND DEMAND THE PRISONERS?

Mr. Gladstone is an able man, watchful and jealous of the honor of England. He has written a pamphlet of great power on the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria, in which he says that Turkey should be excluded from Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bulgaria, as a power unfit to rule civilized and Christian people. He says that the English government should lead in accomplishing this result,—"to redeem by these measures the honor of the British name, which in the deplorable events of the year has been more generally compromised than I have known it in any former period." That is true; the past two or three years have torn away more of England's prestige than all her previous history. She has fallen into decay so fast that she has not made a single effort to reassert herself as a Great Power. When Russia broke the Black Sea Treaty, England growled, but backed down. She sees the Czar laying railways to Northern Asia, and she hears the tramp of his legions already on the border of Hindostan; but she fears to stir a finger. When her Prime Minister, Disraeli, last year made an assertion that irritated Prussia, and that iron empire frowned, the fearful minister hastened to eat his words before the face of Bismarck. When the Fenian prisoners—men whom she persisted in calling "criminals"—were taken from her in defiance of all her laws, she dare not demand them from the United States. Why? Because the root of her greatness is split—the germ of her strength is rotten. Beside her heart she has the disease that will sooner or later strike her down. She has maltreated, misgoverned, scorned, derided the island and the people of Ireland, until oppression has generated in their hearts the terrible political mania of national hatred. God forbid that we should exult in such a feeling; but no one who knows Ireland and Irishmen can deny its existence. England, to save herself, to possess the land, has driven the Irish people over the world; but wherever they went they carried with them the bitter memory of their wrongs and hates. She has strengthened the world against herself. She is powerless and contemptible; if she were to-day to demand the return of the Fenian prisoners, the people of all nations would shout in derision, and the United States would answer with a particular sneer. It is well for Mr. Gladstone to say that her honor is waning. But he has only seen the beginning of the end. The haughty and truculent country must eat the leek till its heart is sick.—Pilot, September 16, 1876.