Page:A Memorial of John Boyle O'Reilly from the City of Boston.djvu/69

Rh McCabe, a Catholic priest stationed in his district, and some other devoted Irish-Australians. He was picked up at sea, after many hardships ashore and afloat, by the American whaling bark "Gazelle," commanded by Captain David R. Gifford, of New Bedford, Mass., who treated him with the greatest kindness for the six months he remained on board, and who lent him twenty guineas, all the money he had with him, when they separated off the Cape of Good Hope. Captain Gifford put O'Reilly on board another American ship, the "Sapphire," of Boston, bound to Liverpool. This vessel carried him safely to England, where, by the aid of her Yankee officers, he was shipped as an American sailor on board the "Bombay," of Bath, Me., Captain Frank Jordan, which landed him in Philadelphia in November, 1869. He was twenty-five years of age, strong and hopeful, but he did not know a soul in America.

On the day that O'Reilly landed in Philadelphia, November 23, he made application for American citizenship, at the United States Court in that city. He made but a brief stay in Philadelphia, and also in New York, to which he next directed his steps. He arrived in Boston, January 2, 1870, accompanied the Fenian raid into Canada the same year, sending descriptive letters thereof to the Boston papers. In the summer of 1870 he secured editorial employment on "The Pilot;" and in his intervals of leisure began to give to the world his poems, the outgrowth