Kelly and death of Sergeant Brett were described in thousands of
conflicting narratives, until the facts almost disappeared beneath
the mass of inventions and exaggerations, the creations of excitement
and panic, with which they were overloaded. Meanwhile, the police,
maddened by resentment and agitation, struck out wildly and blindly
at the Irish. They might not be able to recapture the escaped Fenian
leaders, but they could load the gaols with their countrymen and
co-religionists; they might not be able to apprehend the liberators
of Colonel Kelly and Captain Deasey, but they could glut their fury on
members of the same nationality; and this they did most effectually.
The whole night long the raid upon the Irish quarter in Manchester was
continued; houses were broken into, and their occupants dragged off
to prison, and flung into cells, chained as though they were raging
beasts. Mere Irish were set upon in the streets, in the shops, in
their homes, and hurried off to prison as if the very existence of
the empire depended on their being subjected to every kind of brutal
violence and indignity. The yell for vengeance filled the air; the cry
for Irish blood arose upon the night-air like a demoniacal chorus;
and before morning broke their fury was to some extent appeased by
the knowledge that sixty of the proscribed race--sixty of the hated
Irish--were lying chained within the prison cells of Manchester.

Fifteen minutes was the time occupied in setting Kelly free--only
fifteen minutes--but during that short space of time an act was
accomplished which shook the whole British Empire to its foundation.
From the conspiracy to which this daring deed was traceable the
English people had already received many startling surprises. The
liberation of James Stephens and the short-lived insurrection that
filled the snow-capped hills with hardy fugitives, six months before,
had both occasioned deep excitement in England; but nothing that