Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/37

 a few men with special capacity for such an enterprise, a few others necessary to secure the confidence of the people, and two or three of social or official position whom Mr. Sadleir considered indispensable. Here are the names: Alderman Moylan, governor of the Hibernian Bank; the Right. Hon. More O'Ferrall, M.P.;" William Shee, Sergeant-at-Law; Thomas O'Hagan, Q.C.; John Sadleir, M.P., chairman of the London and County Bank; Very Rev. David Moriarty, president of the College of All Hallows; William Monsell, M.P.; W. K. Sullivan, director of the Museum of Irish Industry; Patrick Lalor, Tinakill; Alderman Farrell, deputy governor of the Hibernian Bank; Tristram Kennedy, land agent; Captain Donolan; John Thomas Devereux, M.P., and Charles Gavan Duffy. The recruits obtained by Mr. Sadleir were Mr. More O'Ferrall and Mr. Monsell.

When our plan was ready to launch Mr. Sadleir intimated to me two or three methods of aiding it which he had in view. He had bought several properties in the Encumbered Estates Court which he would at once hand over to the society; the Bank of Ireland was announced in our prospectus as the custodian of our funds, but their methods were cumbrous and tardy, and it would be better to place our money in the London and County Bank in England and the Tipperary Bank in Ireland, whom he could induce to help us with funds whenever it was necessary. I had not the slightest idea that Mr. Sadleir was a swindler, but these proposals alarmed me. I said we were bound at any inconvenience to use the bank announced in our prospectus; the other method had been nearly ruinous to O'Connell in his conflict with Peter Purcell. There was a still graver objection, I thought, in accepting the estates Mr. Sadleir had on hands, for enemies would infallibly say our society was created to relieve him from unsaleable property. Other controversies arose, and Mr. Sadleir intimated that his friends, More O'Ferrall and William Monsell, were of opinion that the appearance of my name on the directory would alarm prudent persons. In later years, when I became intimate with Mr. Monsell, he assured me that there was not the slightest truth in this statement, but at the time I did not at all doubt it. Finally, he caused the society to be registered at the office of his firm in Dublin without consult-