THE FENIAN MOVEMENT 



J 95 



to the close of the Civil War for an opportunity of bringing Great Britain 

 to terms, going to war, if need be, to do so. The Fenians themselves 

 might bring on complications which would force war, if other causes 

 did not, their leaders argued. If war did not ensue, American assistance 

 in some form could certainly be relied upon, for if all other means should 

 be of no avail, there was left the Irish vote which never yet had failed 

 to rally succor for the Irish cause. 



At the annual Fenian convention of 1865 * (held in January at Cin- 

 cinnati) definite plans were laid for an Irish rebellion. O'Mahony 

 announced to the convention, indeed, that they were already "virtually 

 at war" with Great Britain. During the next few months, money 2 and 

 men were sent to Ireland. 3 In fact, so great was the influx of strangers 

 into Ireland — strangers with Celtic features and with the bearing of 

 American soldiers — that the Irish authorities took alarm. Their fears 

 were intensified when the news of the great activity of the American 

 Fenians reached them. They decided to take summary measures of 

 suppression. On September 15, 1865, the Dublin police swooped down 

 upon the office of the Irish People,* arrested its leading editors and their 

 accessories, including Stephens himself, and seized many incriminating 

 private documents. With these documents as a clue, other arrests and 

 imprisonments were made in all parts of Ireland. This decisive action 

 put an effective damper upon the revolutionary activities of the Irish 

 wing of the Fenian Brotherhood. The English, however, were now 

 for the first time fully aroused to the portentous dimensions of the 

 movement. 5 



Defeat in Ireland seemed to arouse all the latent energy of the Fenians 

 in the United States. In October 6 a general convention was held in 

 Philadelphia. 7 Reports were given as to the status of affairs in the 



1 Geneva Arbitration, Vol. II, p. 254; Contemporary Review, Vol. XIX, p. 307. 



* Five thousand pounds were intercepted by the Irish authorities in two weeks, Diplomatic Correspondence, 

 1865, Vol. I, p. 574- 



3 McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, Vol. IV, p. 137. 



« Harpers' Weekly, p. 2, October 28, 1865; Contemporary Review, Vol. XLIII, p. 760; Edinburg Review, 

 p. 265, April, 1868; Contemporary Revicw,\o\. XIX, p. 309; Lalor, Vol. II, p. 173; McCarthy, Vol. IV, p. 137 

 s See excerpt from London Times in Diplomatic Correspondence, 1865, Vol. I, p. 574. 



4 1865. 



' Geneva Arbitration, Vol. II, p. 254; Lalor, Vol. II, p. 173; Contemporary Review, Vol. XIX, p. 309; 

 Annual Cyclopedia of 1865, p. 334. 



