In their production and afterwards, when I continued the issue of these booklets in London, I had valuable assistance from various friends, including Rev. Father Ambrose, Rev. Father O’Laverty, Michael Davitt, Daniel Crilly, T.D.  Sullivan, Timothy McSweeney, Hugh Heinrick, William J. Ryan, Francis Fahy, William P. Ryan, Alfred Perceval Graves, Michael O’Mahony, John J. Sheehan, Thomas Boyd, Thomas Flannery, John Hand, James Lysaght Finigan, and other well-known writers on Irish subjects.  Some of the penny books were from my own pen, in addition to which I wrote “The Brandons,” a story of Irish life in England, and other books, of which my most ambitious work was “The Irish in Britain.”

CHAPTER X.

RESCUE OF THE MILITARY FENIANS.

Before concluding the section of my Recollections connected with Fenianism, I must re-introduce John Breslin, the rescuer of James Stephens.

Though the episode I am about to describe took place some six years after the commencement of the constitutional Home Rule agitation, I think it well, as it was connected with Fenianism, for the sake of compactness, to introduce it here.

My excuse for introducing it as part of my recollections will be seen further on.

It will be remembered that John Breslin, when a warder in Richmond Prison, was the man who actually opened the door of James Stephens’s cell, and, with the aid of Byrne, another warder, helped the Head Centre over the prison wall, and left him in charge of John Ryan and other friends outside.

It was no wonder, then, that, when a similar perilous and even more arduous undertaking was projected, John Breslin should be the man chosen as the chief instrument to carry it out.

This was the rescue of six military Fenians from Freemantle, in Western Australia, which was ultimately effected on Easter Monday, 17th April, 1876.

The enterprise was projected in America, among its most active promoters being John Devoy.  Associated with him were John Boyle O’Reilly (himself an escaped Fenian convict) and Captain Hathaway, City Marshal of New Bedford.  An American barque, of 202 tons, the Catalpa, was bought, and converted into a whaler, but was intended to be used in carrying off the convicts.  She was ready for sea in March, 1875.  It was more than a year before she took the prisoners away from Australia, and a further four months before she reached New York with the rescued men.  The ship was taken out by Captain S. Anthony, an American, to whom was confided the object of the mission.  The only Irishman on board among the crew was Denis Duggan, the carpenter, a sterling Nationalist, to whom also was made known the mission on which they were bound.

As John Breslin was now in America, obviously he was the man of all others to entrust with the command of the daring project of carrying off the prisoners.  Happily he was available for the work, and entered into it heartily.  He sent me the narrative of the rescue himself—­through his brother Michael—­on his return to America, after having successfully accomplished his mission.