Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/137

 TENIANS 129 York. The return of the Erin's Hope pre- vented the sailing of a second vessel already half fitted up. Meanwhile a " provisional gov- ernment " had been directing the movements of the home organization. In June, 1867, three of the directors brought against the fourth charges which compelled the dissolution of that body in July. Toward the end of that month a convention of delegates in Manchester elected Thomas J. Kelly central executive of the Irish republic. This did not meet the ap- proval of the revolutionists, and another con- vention in the following winter appointed a supreme council of the I. R. B., consisting of seven members. Thus arose in the home or- ganization a division similar to that which paralyzed the Fenian brotherhood in America. The sixth national congress of the Fenian bro- therhood, embracing delegates from 18 states and the British provinces, assembled in New York Aug. 21. The object of this convoca- tion was to reconstruct the brotherhood to meet the altered aspect of affairs in Ireland. The constitution was slightly amended, and John Savage was made chief executive. He found the treasury not only empty but sev- eral thousand dollars in debt, and saw that neither the time nor the means warranted armed collision. He therefore proclaimed a new era, to be based on discipline, obedience, and intelligence. The directory in England now. set about " organizing militarily " the Irish population throughout Great Britain, in order to keep the government in constant alarm. During the night of Sept. 13-14 the police of Manchester attempted to arrest four men of suspicious appearance; two of them escaped, and the others proved to be Col. T. J. Kelly and his aid, Oapt. Deasy. On the 18th the van in which they were con- ducted to prison was attacked, the prisoners were rescued, and Sergeant Brett, in charge of the van, was killed. Subsequently five persons, Allen, O'Brien, Larkin, Maguire, and Condon, were arrested, tried in Manchester, and condemned to death (Nov. 13),- though protesting their innocence. From the moment of Brett's assassination every city in Great Britain was kept in a state of excitement and alarm, and several depots of arms and ammu- nition belonging to volunteer regiments were seized by the Fenians. This excitement cul- minated with the condemnation of the Man- chester prisoners. Efforts were made to ob- tain a commutation of the sentence of the chief offenders ; but neither the home secretary nor the queen would receive the deputations sent to them, nor were the attempts made to carry an appeal to a higher court more successful. Allen, O'Brien, and Larkin were executed Nov. 23, Maguire and Condon having been reprieved. On Nov. 24 the Irish population of Manchester and London turned out en masse to march in funeral procession in honor of the dead. A week later Dublin witnessed a similar and more imposing pageant. The 3d of December had been appointed for like demonstrations in Liverpool, Leeds, Glasgow, Cork, and Wa- terford; but -the authorities forbade them. On Nov. 23 Col. Burke, a well known Fenian leader, was arrested by the London police, and with, him one Casey, who had made a most determined effort to rescue him. They were both lodged in Clerkenwell bridewell. On Dec. 13, between 2 and 3 o'clock P. M., a barrel of powder which had been brought through the narrow and populous Corporation lane to the foot of the high wall enclosing the prison exploded, blowing down the wall, shat- tering all the neighboring houses, killing 6 persons on the spot, and wounding 120 others, 11 of whom subsequently died; but the es- cape of Burke, the supposed object of the ex- plosion, was not effected. Amid the universal alarm and indignation, incendiary fires broke out in various parts of London. Thousands of special constables were sworn in daily in London for several weeks, until the number amounted to 50,000. The other cities contain- ing any considerable Irish population followed this example. Five men and one woman were subsequently arrested for complicity in this outrage, one of whom, Michael Barrett, was found guilty of murder. The Fenians did not abate their activity in Ireland after the execu- tions in Manchester and the Clerkenwell ex- plosion. A large number of revolvers had found their way into the hands of the initiated. On Feb. 7, 1868, Capt. Mackay (Lomasney), who had been the foremost leader in the March in- surrection of the last year, was arrested in Cork with several others. The arrest led to riotous assemblages, in which firearms were used, and which were speedily suppressed. The Irish residents of London on Feb. 11 presented an address to the queen expressive of their loyalty, and repudiating the acts of the Fe- nians; it was signed by nearly 23,000 persons. Two events also occurred in the following months which alienated much sympathy from the Fenian cause. On March 11 the duke of Edinburgh was dangerously wounded by a man named O'Farrel in Port Jackson, Australia. The assassin, though accused of being a Fenian, protested with his dying breath that he was not. On April 7 Thomas Darcy McGee, a member of the Canadian ministry, was killed on the steps of his own door; his opposition to Fenianism was alleged as the motive for the deed. These events so wrought on the public mind in England, that every effort made to obtain a commutation of the death penalty in the case of Michael Barrett utterly failed, and he was executed, May 26. They had also an effect on the trials of Burke and Mackay, who were sentenced to 15 and 12 years' penal servi- tude. The conviction had now become general that Fenianism was crushed. On July 31 the queen in closing the session of parliament de- clared that "the cessation of the long con- tinued efforts to promote rebellion in Ireland has for some time rendered unnecessary the