to her at the commencement of my trial, and told her how I thought it would terminate, and spoke a long and last farewell.  I have not written since; it would break my heart to attempt it; but I would ask you as an especial favour that you would write to her and tell her I am happy and reconciled to the will of God who has given me this opportunity of saving my immortal soul.  I hope to hear from you before I leave this world.”

   “Good-bye, father, and that God may bless you in your ministry is the
   prayer of an obedient child of the church.”

   “THOMAS F. BURKE.”

* * * * *

CAPTAIN JOHN M’AFFERTY.

It is not Irish-born men alone whose souls are filled with a chivalrous love for Ireland, and a stern hatred of her oppressor.  There are amongst the ranks of her patriots none more generous, more resolute, or more active in her cause than the children born of Irish parents in various parts of the world.  In London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, and all the large towns of Great Britain, throughout the United States, and in the British colonies, many of the best known and most thorough-going “Irishmen” are men whose place of birth was not beneath the Irish skies, and amongst them are some who never saw the shores of the Green Isle.  One of these men was Captain John M’Afferty.  He was born of Irish parents in the State of Ohio, in the year 1838, and at their knees he heard of the rights and wrongs of Ireland, learned to sympathise with the sufferings of that country, and to regard the achievement of its freedom as a task in which he was bound to bear a part.  He grew up to be a man of adventurous and daring habits, better fitted for the camp than for the ordinary ways of peaceful life; and when the civil war broke out he soon found his place in one of those regiments of the Confederacy whose special duty lay in the accomplishment of the most hazardous enterprises.  He belonged to the celebrated troop of Morgan’s guerillas, whose dashing feats of valour so often filled the Federal forces with astonishment and alarm.  In the latter part of 1865 he crossed over to this country to assist in leading the insurrection which was then being prepared by the Fenian organization.  He was arrested, as already stated in these pages, on board the steamer at Queenstown before he had set foot on Irish soil; when brought to trial at Cork, in the month of December, the lawyers discovered that being an alien, and having committed no overt act of treason within the Queen’s dominions, there was no case against him, and he was consequently discharged.  He then went back to America, took an active part in some Fenian meetings, made a speech at one of them which was held at Jones’s Wood, and when the report of the proceedings appeared in print, he, with a sense of grim humour, posted a copy containing his oration to the governor of Mountjoy Prison, Dublin.