The Catalpa Expedition

In February, 1877, Mr. Devoy, with James Reynolds, went to New Bedford and made a liberal settlement with the crew. An average was taken of the catch of oil by the vessels which...

Meanwhile the story of the rescue had been telegraphed to New York, and reporters swarmed aboard at quarantine, which was reached at midnight. Captain Anthony did not know what...

At one meeting an American guerrilla officer, who had served under Confederate General Morgan, discussed plans with them for mounting the men on colts, arming them with rifles,...

The court-martials of the men with whom this story deals are of interest in so far as they exhibit the extraordinary efforts which were made to convict the conspirators. This is...

But the heart-heaviness did not last long. If Captain Anthony had not been a man of exceptional pluck, he would not have been bound to Australia in the Catalpa. The first days o...

The rescue of the young Irish revolutionist, John Mitchell, was the first of the series of escapes participated in by Irish patriots. Mitchell was a talented and brave young man...

It was an ideal conspiracy, you see, the plans being made under the cover of darkness. Mr. Devoy was a brilliant talker, and he knew his subject well. He hurried over the story...

Some time before there had come to him a voice, crying from the prisons of Western Australia, the land of slaves and bondmen, the penal colony of Great Britain. In the penal gan...

The peak of Teneriffe, 12,182 feet high, can be seen ninety miles on a clear day. Captain Anthony had seen it as far by accurate observation. Trusting in the correctness of his...

Meanwhile, how had it fared with Breslin, whom we have seen must have been forced to change his plans several times at brief notice? Mr. Breslin had arranged a signal with Wilso...

The morning after the arrival of the Catalpa at Bunbury was bright and beautiful. Captain Anthony ordered a crew of picked men into one of the boats, for he dared not trust some...

Captain Anthony walked up and down the beach throughout the long night, while his crew slept in the warm sand. He knew that the fate of the expedition, disastrous or successful,...

For many weary months the reader has followed the fortunes of the expedition by sea. It was at this point that Captain Anthony's solicitude concerning the success of the conspir...

Duggan, it will be remembered, was the only Irishman on the Catalpa, since the leaders had agreed that the presence of a number might arouse the suspicion of the British authori...

That night the Catalpa took a squall from the eastward which developed into a gale, and the bark ran before it under two lower topsails and a foresail. In forty-eight hours the...

"This is serious business now," said a clever English literary man when he heard of the Fenian organization. "The Irish have got hold of a good name this time; the Fenians will...

Did you go afterwards by yourself to the clergyman or the monk?--I went afterwards by myself to receive some instructions from the monk according to the order I received from him.

While the fact that O'Reilly was rescued by a whaleship was the direct cause of the determination to send a vessel representative of New Bedford's victorious industry, there wer...

About an hour after sunrise the Georgette was seen coming out of Freemantle. The men knew she was searching for them, and she seemed to be heading directly for the little boat....

In the afternoon Mr. Breslin brought around a trap to drive over the road to Rockingham, where the men were to embark in the whaleboat for the ship, if the escape was successful...

As the steamer came nearer, it was seen that she had a regiment of soldiers aboard. The Georgette was a four hundred ton vessel, twice as big as the Catalpa. On her upper deck a...

And now followed a period of waiting, and the captain was worn with anxiety. The possible suspicion of the people ashore at the delay in departure must be anticipated, and the c...

The men to whom reference has been made in the preceding chapter were not the only Irish political prisoners. In 1876 there were seventeen still in prison for the attempted revo...

It was five o'clock in the afternoon when the rowboat went through the passage, and as Captain Anthony saw the menacing reef upon which the water was foaming and breaking, it se...

In 1870 the British government had granted conditional pardon to such political convicts in Australia as had been civilians at the time of their offense, but the military prison...

Nothing stranger ever happened on land or sea than the circumstance whereby Captain Anthony came into possession of the charts used on the convict ship Hougoumont, which were su...

At sundown the vessel was well outside the harbor and sail was shortened. In the evening the captain went below for a nap, telling the officers in charge of the deck not to go o...

For eleven days, from February 29 to March 10, the vessel lay to most of the time under lower topsails and staysails, in a heavy and prolonged gale from the S.S.E., dead ahead....

After being convicted of mutiny in her Majesty's forces in Ireland, the men spent weary months in hideous English prisons. One day the keys rattled in the dungeon doors; they we...

On an April morning in 1875, the whaleship Catalpa lay at anchor in the harbor at New Bedford, ready for sea. Although the whaling industry was waning on the ebb tide, there wer...