the remaining pair, after offering a determined resistance, were
overpowered and carried off to the police station. The prisoners, who,
on being searched, were found to possess loaded revolvers on their
persons, gave their names as Martin Williams and John Whyte, and were
charged under the Vagrancy Act before one of the city magistrates.
They declared themselves American citizens, and claimed their
discharge. Williams said he was a bookbinder out of work; Whyte
described himself as a hatter, living on the means brought with him
from America. The magistrate was about disposing summarily of the
case, by sentencing the men to a few days' imprisonment, when a
detective officer applied for a remand, on the ground that he had
reason to believe the prisoners were connected with the Fenian
conspiracy. The application was granted, and before many hours
had elapsed it was ascertained that Martin Williams was no other
than Colonel Thomas J. Kelly, one of the most prominent of the
(O'Mahony-Stephens) Fenian leaders, and that John Whyte was a brother
officer and co-conspirator, known to the circles of the Fenian
Brotherhood as Captain Deasey.

Of the men who had thus fallen into the clutches of the British
government the public had already heard much, and one of them
was widely known for the persistency with which he laboured as an
organiser of Fenianism, and the daring and skill which he exhibited
in the pursuit of his dangerous undertaking. Long before the escape
of James Stephens from Richmond Bridewell startled the government from
its visions of security, and swelled the breasts of their disaffected
subjects in Ireland with rekindled hopes, Colonel Kelly was known in
the Fenian ranks as an intimate associate of the revolutionary chief.
When the arrest at Fairfield-house deprived the organization of its
crafty leader, Kelly was elected to the vacant post, and he threw