But it was promptly discovered that information had been given to the police authorities almost at the last moment.  Those, therefore, who had already reached Chester were sent back, and men were placed at the railway stations and on the roads leading to Chester to stop those who were coming.  In this way the whole of the men forming the expedition dispersed as silently as they had come.

Corydon had given the information to Major Greig, the Liverpool Head Constable, who at once communicated with Chester, where prompt measures were taken to meet the threatened invasion.

According to his own evidence in the subsequent trial, Corydon had been giving information to the police since the previous September.  There had been some suspicious circumstances in connection with him.  A man resembling him in appearance, and evidently disguised, had been seen in company with individuals supposed to be police agents.  But as there was a man belonging to the organisation named Arthur Anderson, who strongly resembled Corydon, the real informer, suspicion fell upon Anderson.

After Corydon had thrown off the mask and openly appeared as an informer, I had an opportunity of seeing him, and, so far as my memory serves me, this is what he was like:  At first sight you might set him down as a third-rate actor or circus performer.  He wore a frock coat, buttoned tightly, to set off a by no means contemptible figure, and carried himself with a jaunty, swaggering air, after the conventional style of a theatrical “professional.”  He was about the middle height, of wiry, active build, with features clearly cut, thin face, large round forehead, a high aquiline nose, thick and curly hair, decidedly “sandy” in colour, and heavy moustache of the same tinge.  His cheeks and chin were denuded of beard.

It was in the Liverpool Police Court I saw John Joseph Corydon, as the newspapers spelled his name—­if it were his name, which is very doubtful, for it was said in Liverpool that he was the son of an abandoned woman of that town.

There was at that time a reporter named Sylvester Redmond, whom I knew very well, a very decent Irishman, who made a special feature of giving humorous descriptions of the cases in the police court.  I was told by someone in Court that the man whose hand Sylvester was so cordially shaking was the noted informer, Corydon.  I was very much disgusted with the old gentleman, until I heard afterwards that some wag among the police had introduced the informer to him as a distinguished fellow-countryman.

After the collapse of the Chester scheme, McCafferty and Flood made their way to Ireland to be ready for the Rising, but were arrested in Dublin, charged with being concerned in the raid on Chester.  They were both in due course put upon their trials, and sent into penal servitude.

I find, from a graphic sketch written for my “Irish Library” by William James Ryan, that in the convict ship that took John Flood into penal servitude was another distinguished Irishman, John Boyle O’Reilly, whose offence against British rule was his successful recruiting for the I.R.B. among the soldiery.  Another lieutenant of John Devoy, who had charge of the organisation of the British army, was an old schoolfellow of mine with the Liverpool Christian Brothers, Peter Maughan, of whom I have already spoken as a fellow-workman at the Curragh.