The Dock and the Scaffold by Unknown
page 8 of 121 (06%)
page 8 of 121 (06%)
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from Ireland there came evidences of a different state of feeling.
Breathless envoys arrived almost weekly in New York, declaring that the Fenian Brotherhood in Ireland were burning for the fray--that they awaited the landing of Colonel Kelly with feverish impatience--that it would be impossible to restrain them much longer from fighting--and that the arrival of the military leaders, whom America was expected to supply, would be the signal for a general uprising. Encouraged by representations like these, Colonel Kelly and a chosen body of Irish-American officers departed for Ireland in January, and set themselves, on their arrival in the old country, to arrange the plans of the impending outbreak. How their labours eventuated, and how the Fenian insurrection of March, '67, resulted, it is unnecessary to explain; it is enough for our purpose to state that for several months after that ill-starred movement was crushed, Colonel Kelly continued to reside in Dublin, moving about with an absence of disguise and a disregard for concealment which astonished his confederates, but which, perhaps, contributed in no slight degree to the success with which he eluded the efforts directed towards his capture. At length the Fenian organization in Ireland began to pass through the same changes that had given it new leaders and fresh vitality in America. The members of the organization at home began to long for union with the Irish Nationalists who formed the branch of the confederacy regenerated under Colonel Roberts; and Kelly, who, for various reasons, was unwilling to accept the new _regime_, saw his adherents dwindle away, until at length he found himself all but discarded by the Fenian circles in Dublin. Then he crossed over to Manchester, where he arrived but a few weeks previous to the date of his accidental arrest in Oak-street. The arrest of Colonel Kelly and his aide-de-camp, as the English |
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