Page:The Catalpa Expedition (1897).djvu/215

Rh "You recall to our minds to-day memories of events in which native Americans and Irishmen were closely associated; in which Irish enthusiasm and Yankee coolness, grit, and skill in seamanship effected a combination that won a decisive victory for humanity over the forces of oppression. The battle of human freedom has not yet been won, and the combination of which you formed such an important part may serve as an example worthy of imitation and enlargement in the future.

"Your part in that work was noble and disinterested throughout. I went to New Bedford twenty years ago, knowing not a soul in the city, bearing a letter of introduction from John Boyle O'Reilly to Henry C. Hathaway, who has done noble work in aiding the poet-patriot to escape from the Western Australian prison to the land of the free. He entered heartily into the project with which the Clan-na-Gael had intrusted me, and introduced me to you and your father-in-law, Mr. Richardson. Without any promise of reward for your services, or compensation for the risks you would run, you undertook to carry out the work of liberation. You sailed away to the southern seas, you carried out the work you pledged yourself to accomplish, you incurred new risks which had not been asked of you, you defied the British commander who threatened to fire on the Stars and Stripes, and brought the six Irishmen rescued from a British prison in safety to America. In all this you bore yourself proudly and gallantly, like a true American sailor, and you