LIFE IN WOODS OF NORTH MICHIGAN 275 



been any attempt at open resistance to colonial authority 

 in tliat settlement. 



Most of these vagabond Fenians were men who had 

 committed crimes in both Canada and the States, and 

 were therefore obliged to keep on the outskirts of 

 civilisation, living by begging, stealing, intimidation — 

 anything except work. It is also pretty certain that 

 they were being supplied with funds from both the 

 States and England. They committed several murders 

 in this district; and some of them were shot by the 

 farmers in retaliation. I met several of them myself. 

 They were mostly American Irish, blackguards of a 

 revolting type, whose whole conversation was of blood 

 and rapine. According to many of them any violence, 

 even the destruction of women and children, was justi- 

 fiable to obtain their ends — the humiliation of the 

 " damned Saxon " and the independence of Ireland. 

 There were some foreigners, and a few native Irish 

 among them; and many of these had the gaol-taint 

 on them when they arrived in this country. I am 

 writing from memory only, now ; but I believe these 

 men were convicted felons, who had been granted 

 their liberty on condition of " leaving their country for 

 their country's good." 



I am sorry to have sullied my pages with a reference 

 to this subject at all. It is quite foreign to the matter 

 of the book; but I feared that an absolute silence on 

 a matter that was greatly agitating America and Canada, 

 as well as the Old Country, at this time would be 

 misunderstood, and perhaps excite comment. Personally 

 I was more than once put to inconvenience in Canada, 

 as all strangers were more or less objects of suspicion. 

 However, I had friends in the country, and I have 

 not thought fit to more than cursorily mention these 

 incidents. 



Now and then I spent a day or two on the farm 

 before mentioned, where I was always most kindly 



