The police must have got one of the copies being sold by the Liverpool agents, and finding it had no imprint (which was illegal) went to the printers referred to, who, on this being pointed out, handed over to them the few remaining copies.

As every printing firm was now afraid to touch “United Ireland,” it only remained for me to endeavour to print it with my own somewhat limited appliances.  It was now, therefore, reduced in size to four pages.  Every week, as before, the matrices were brought to me, and, from the castings taken from these, I printed the papers on my own small machine, and sent them to their various destinations.

And so the fight with the police went on with varying fortune.  It was true, as regards size, half our flag had in a manner been shot away, but we still kept it flying, and the Government, with their standing army of police, were never able to suppress “United Ireland.”

As I expected, I was prosecuted for printing and publishing without an imprint.  Mr. Poland, Q.C., chief prosecuting counsel to the Treasury, was sent down to conduct the case against me for the technical breach of the law involved in the matter of the imprint, and I was fined a sum amounting with costs to L25.  I announced my intention in court of continuing the publication, so the Government got very little satisfaction out of their action.

Of the various editions of the paper produced in Ireland at this time I shall not speak in detail, as in this narrative I only describe what came within my own personal knowledge.  Mr. William O’Brien in a later issue referred to the mysterious and unconquerable fashion in which one town after another saw its edition of “United Ireland” appear, and then, when police and spies were hot upon its track, as mysteriously pass away.  This was, of course, a picturesque exaggeration, but it had a considerable basis of truth.  The paper was actually printed more than once in the old office in Dublin under the noses of the police, and on one occasion Mr. Wolohan set up a printing machine in a private house in Derry, and, assisted by my son, actually worked off the copies of the paper next door to the house of the resident magistrate.

Ultimately, there came the period of the “Kilmainham Treaty,” and most of the political prisoners were released.  The issue of “United Ireland” for March 11th did not appear as on previous occasions.  I produced an issue, which I sent in charge of my son to Dublin, putting it at the disposal of Mr. O’Brien.  It was not, however, published, though I received a long and interesting letter from Mr. William O’Brien—­still in Kilmainham jail—­expressing the appreciation of the Irish leaders for the work I had done in these words:—­

We are all deeply sensible of your extraordinary energy and courage in this matter.

I am prevented from giving this letter, which explains the reasons for the stoppage of the paper, as Mr. O’Brien has endorsed it “Private and Confidential.”