He concludes with love to William Hogan's family and "Kind regard to
each and every friend."

McCafferty did, I know, see the "iron-bound" coast of Ireland again, for
a few years after this an extremely mild and inoffensive-looking,
dark-complexioned person, with black side whiskers, came into my
place--I was carrying on a printing and newsagency business--in Byron
Street, Liverpool, and, though I did not recognise him at first, I was
pleased to find that this Mr. Patterson, as he called himself, was no
other than my old friend John McCafferty.

The mission he was engaged on was one that can only be described by the
word amazing. So daring was it, so hedged around with apparent
impossibilities, that to the ordinary man its very conception would be
incredible. But McCafferty was perfectly serious and determined about
it, and to him it seemed practicable enough, provided only he could get
a few more men like himself: and indeed if the collection of just such a
company of conspirators _were_ practicable, no doubt the impossible
might become possible enough. But the hypothesis is fatal, for the
McCafferty strain is a rare one indeed, so that his project never got
further than an idea. I think, however, that I cannot be accused of
exaggeration in saying that if he had been successful in carrying out
his idea, his achievement would have formed the most extraordinary
chapter in English history--for it was no less than the abduction of the
then Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII., and the holding of
him as a hostage for a purpose of the Fenian organisation.

The plan was to take him to sea in a sailing vessel, and to keep him
there, until the Fenian prisoners still at that time unreleased were set
at liberty. He was to be treated with the utmost consideration and--the