EXTRANEOUS ADVENTURES 



A LITTLE before noon one February day in 1869, the New 

 Bedford whaling barque Gazelle, Captain David R. 

 Gifford, sighted a boat on the open sea off the headlands that 

 mark the end of Geographe Bay. This was not, however, the 

 surprise to her captain that one might suppose it would be: 

 indeed, when the Gazelle had run down to the boat in answer 

 to signals, he called one of the three men in her by name and 

 took him aboard his ship for the journey to America — a run- 

 away convict from the English penal colony near by. 



The convict was a young man named John Boyle O'Reilly. 

 Three years before, while serving in the 10th Hussars, then 

 stationed in Dublin, he had joined the Fenian Brotherhood, 

 and had participated in plotting against the British Govern- 

 ment. 



Together with intellectual gifts and a vigorous constitution, 

 young O'Reilly had inherited the instinct of patriotism, and 

 all his early environment had nourished its growth. His 

 maternal grandfather had distinguished himself in the Irish 

 Rebellion of 1798 and, later, in the French Legion— a family 

 tradition of love of country which was daily augmented by 

 Irish music and poetry. Thus he passed from boyhood into 

 youth; quiet, studious, and affectionate, he dreamed always the 

 Irish dream of setting Ireland free. As he grew up he saw his 

 country oppressed politically and depopulated by famine and 

 by the emigration of those who could only have starved at 

 home; small wonder, then, that at eighteen he enlisted in the 

 army for the very purpose of recruiting among its ranks more 

 members to the Fenian Brotherhood. In his own words: 

 ''They said, 'Come on, boys, it is for Ireland' — and we came." 



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