Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/333

 write in the Felon he proceeded to condemn and reverse Mitchel's incredible policy of inciting a revolution without making any preparation for it. 'I was to blame,' he said, 'for not sending earlier to France and America, though Mitchel was proclaiming that it was a work of supererogation.' He spoke with appreciation of M'Gee, and said whenever the report of a Confederate meeting came down to Tinakill he read my speech first and M'Gee's second. I said I did not wonder at his reading M'Gee's eagerly, for it was generally the best—but why mine? 'Because,' he answered, 'I wanted to know what was going to be done, and I was sure to find it there.' He begged me to come back to him, which I shall certainly do."

After Lalor's release from prison he wrote me this characteristic letter:—

",—I know and feel how heavily your own affairs must be pressing on your mind just now, yet I cannot help asking your advice and opinion as to how I ought to act under present circumstances, so far as you can give them, which I know can be but very imperfectly.

"I am urged by several parties, of different shades of green, to join them in a new movement. I can no longer delay giving an answer, one way or the other, and acting accordingly I must step out or stand by.

"There is a very general fermentation going on below the surface. The movement everywhere is running spontaneously into secret organisation, and I think natural tendency ought to be aided not interfered with.

"A new journal, conducting itself with prudence and