John Devoy's Catalpa Expedition by Philip Fennell Marie King

Author:Philip Fennell, Marie King [Philip Fennell, Marie King]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Ireland
ISBN: 9780814727836
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 2006-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

Irish in Australia at Work

And we had a plan of rescue of our own out there. Our plan was to charter a steamer, man her with our own men, go to Fremantle, rescue the prisoners and take them to the French convict settlement at New Caledonia. We thought we would be well treated there, for only a short time previous Rochefort and three other French newspaper men who were serving a sentence for communism had escaped from New Caledonia and came to Sydney going from there to England. We had quite an amount of money at our command and all we were waiting for was the proper time to make the attempt at rescue.

A gentleman who was connected with me in this movement was J. Edward Kelly, who had originally been sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered by an English judge for being concerned in the attempted Fenian uprising, a sentence which was subsequently commuted. He regained his liberty under the amnesty decree, came to Sydney and started a newspaper, with Flood234 as a partner. When the plan of rescue was decided upon some of the released prisoners who had taken up their residence in San Francisco wrote to Breslin and told him that Kelly would be the right man to enlist in the enterprise, as he was on the ground and would be in a good position to give advice as to the proper course to be pursued. It was in this manner that I became identified with the movement, as Kelly seemed to think that my assistance would be necessary and informed Breslin to that effect.

I at once began to devote my energies to a concentration of all the funds which had been contributed by friends of the cause in the different colonies. James McInerney was the treasurer of this fund. He had a brother who was the owner of a stone quarry near Sydney, and so I came back to the city and went to work in this quarry as a laborer. This was merely a blind. I did it to avert any possible suspicion which might attach to my movements, for you didn’t know who was an enemy in those days, and the success of the plan of rescue depended entirely on its being kept absolutely secret.

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