On Friday I was in Edinburgh intending to return to Glasgow, when Mr. ——­, accompanied by a friend suddenly joined me.  I saw they were a good deal agitated.  They told me a Scotch mechanic who had been formerly in Dublin had seen me in the streets of Glasgow opposite Wellington statue, and that the news was “all round town.”  They added that the magistrates were in secret sitting, and as the writ of Habeas Corpus is unknown to the law of Scotland, I would be certainly arrested and summarily imprisoned if I returned.  They were instructed to advise me to go to Ireland through the north of England, to prepare our friends in and about Sligo, and that they would complete the project which they had begun, and which was now in promising forwardness.  I complied and Mr. ——­ handed me a purse, as a personal gift from the Committee.  This purse contained twelve or thirteen sovereigns, the only public money I received in this enterprise.  After purposely driving to the West of Scotland depot [railway terminus] we returned to the North British, and my friends saw me off a station or two on the way to Newcastle-on-Tyne.  I slept that night in Newcastle.

Between Newcastle and Carlisle the next day (Saturday) I had for a fellow passenger the Rev. Thresham Gregg[17] who was on a lecturing excursion against the Pope in the north of England.  I had been introduced to him a year or two before and supposed he knew me.  He certainly looked very hard at me from under his travelling-cap, with his half-shut cunning eyes.  I had in my hand “Bradshaw’s Railway Guide,” which he asked to see.  At the way stations he kept constantly inquiring the distance to Carlisle, and I sorely suspected he meant to “peach.”  He did not, however, though I still think he must have known me.

In Carlisle I met at dinner two Dublin priests (one from Westland Row chapel).  They were bound on a pleasure-trip for Loch Katrine and the Trossachs.  They informed me that I was “proclaimed,” and seemed surprised at my returning.  We parted very cordially and that night I went to Whitehaven where I had to wait over Sunday for the Belfast steamer.

In Whitehaven (by accident) I met with Mr. James Leach, the well-known Chartist, with whom I had some conversation unnecessary here to be repeated.

On Tuesday morning I arrived in Belfast.  Two policemen entered the cabin as I was leaving it, and having been at the meeting which occasioned the Hercules Street riot,[18] I thought they would recognise me.  They did not, however, and at 8 o’clock (after leaving a note for a dear and trusted friend of Mr. Duffy’s, to mark my whereabouts) I was safely embarked on the Ulster railway for Armagh.  At Aughnacloy a detective gave me a light, and before I went to bed (in Enniskillen) had read the proclamations against the leaders of the Southern movement, on the gates of the Barrack.  The next morning I reached Sligo by the Leitrim road.

This was Wednesday morning, August 2nd.