224 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 



end should be an invasion of Canada by an 

 Irish army. Yet such was in fact what occurred. 

 Considerable bodies of Fenians, with some ru 

 dimentary organization and equipment as a mil 

 itary force, assembled along the northern fron 

 tier of the United States, and in the summer 

 of 1866 crossed into Canada at various points. 

 They were promptly chased back across the bor 

 der by the Canadians, and were then gathered 

 up and sent to their homes by the authorities 

 of the United States. It was not creditable to 

 the government at Washington that such an 

 attack on a neighbor from its territory was not 

 prevented. In explanation it could only be 

 said that the proceeding was so inherently 

 fatuous as never to have warranted an expec 

 tation that it would be actually undertaken. 

 Beyond this, however, was the undoubted fact 

 that the minor officials from whom the earliest 

 reports of impending trouble should have come 

 had very little disposition to be vigilant in 

 warding off trouble from Great Britain. The 

 conviction that the British Government had 

 not overstrained its vigilance in connection 

 with the Alabama was thus producing results. 



Evidence that the grievance against Great 

 Britain was actively operating on the American 



