privateers against English commerce; and by that means, I think, we can take enough to maintain a government for fifty years very respectably." War meetings were also held at Portland, Lima, (Ohio,) Newport, Milford, Waterford, and other places. Information having reached the Canadian government from many quarters showing that an inroad was imminent, and this information being supported by police reports of suspicious persons having been recognized entering Canada from the United States, as well as by open avowals at the Fenian public meetings, the executive council passed a minute on the 7th of March, calling out for duty 10,000 of the Canadian volunteers. It was not until the end of May that the Fenian preparations were completed. Stores of arms and ammunition had been placed at convenient stations along the frontier, and the word had been given for an attack. On the 31st of May the Fenians began the march; detachments of 200 and 300 men, calling themselves railway laborers on their way to the West, began to arrive at Buffalo and Saint Alban's from the large towns. By the evening of that day a body of Fenians, estimated at upwards of 1,000, had reached Buffalo, and, on the morning of the 1st of June, 750 of them crossed over to Fort Erie, on the opposite bank of the Niagara River. What then followed is succinctly described in a dispatch from Lord Monck of the 4th, published in the "correspondence respecting the recent Fenian aggression upon Canada," presented to Parliament in February, 1867, which contains a full account of all that took place in Canada: GOVERNMENT HOUSE, Ottawa, June 4, 1866. SIR: Referring to my dispatch of the 1st of June, I have the honor to state, for your information, that the body of Fenian conspirators who crossed the frontier from Buffalo to Fort Erie on the morning of Friday, June 1, proved to be between 800 or 900 men, and seem to have been well armed. I had previously had information that some such attempt would shortly be made, and a party of volunteers had been stationed at Port Colborne in anticipation of an attack. I have not yet had time to receive official accounts of the military operations, but from telegraphic reports which have reached me, I am able to give the following statement of what occurred, which I think may be considered authentic. Immediately on the receipt of the intelligence of the invasion, Major General Napier pushed on by rail to Chippewa a force consisting of artillery and regular troops under Colonel Peacock, 16th regiment. Chippewa is about nineteen miles from Fort Erie, and there is no railway communication between the two places. On arriving at Chippewa, Colonel Peacock moved on in the direction of Fort Erie. On the morning of Saturday, June 2, the body of volunteers stationed as already mentioned at Port Colborne left that place by rail, which runs parallel to the shore of Lake Erie, and went in the direction of Fort Erie as far as a place called Ridgway; here they left the railway and proceeded on foot, apparently with the intention of effecting a junction with Colonel Peacock and his force. They came upon the Fenians encamped in the bush and immediately attacked them, but were outnumbered and compelled to retire on Port Colborne. This occurred some time on Saturday, 2d June. Colonel Peacock in the mean time was advancing in the direction of Fort Erie from Chippewa along the banks of the Niagara River, but was not able to reach the former place before nightfall. The Fenians, however, did not await his arrival, but recrossed the river during the night between the 2d and 3d June, to the number of about 750 men, and, as appears from the accompanying telegram from Mr. Consul Hemans, were immediately arrested by the authorities of the United States. I am happy to be able to inform you that the officers of the United States Government appear to have exerted themselves to prevent any assistance being supplied to the invaders. I transmit copies of telegrams received on this subject from Mr. Consul Hemans. We have sixty-five prisoners in our possession, who have been by my direction committed to the common jail at Toronto to await trial. I think it is creditable, both to the military and militia authorities in Canada, that they were in a position within twenty-four hours after the invasion of the province, at a point of the enemy's own selection, to place opposite to him such a force as compelled his precipitate retreat without even risking an engagement. I shall not fail to send you more full particulars when I shall have received the official reports from the officers engaged, but the main facts are as I have stated them above. I have, &c., MONCK. The vigilance of the authorities of the United States was not aroused until after the raid had occurred, when the raiders were stopped in their retreat into United States territory, and the party, now reduced by loss and desertion to 375, made prisoners, with O'Neill, their leader, and their arms taken from them. [43] *The stores of arms at Buffalo, Ogdensburgh, and Saint Alban's, were also seized by the United States district marshals. On the 5th of June the arrest of the other Fenian leaders was ordered; and on the 6th the President issued a proclamation stating that it had become known to him that certain evil-disposed persons had begun to set on foot, and had provided and prepared, and were still engaged in. providing and preparing means for a military expedition and enterprise, which expedition and enterprise was to be carried on from the territory and jurisdiction of the United States against British territory, and authorizing the United States military forces and militia to be employed "to arrest and prevent the setting on foot and carrying on the expedition and enterprise aforesaid." On the same day on which this proclamation was signed, the Fenian' prisoners at Buffalo were released on their own recognizances; and, on the 7th, O'Neill and the two other principal leaders were also released on bail. Another band of Fenians made a demonstration near Saint Alban's, but retreated immediately on the appearance of a Canadian regiment. Several arrests were made at Saint Alban's, and elsewhere; and Roberts, the president of the Fenian senate, and chief instigator of the raid, was taken into custody at New York. His examination commenced on the 11th; on the 12th he was released on parole; and the district attorney eventually abandoned the prosecution, from want of evidence, with the intention of preferring an indictment before the grand jury. On the 23d July, the House of Representatives of the United States passed the following resolutions: Resolved, That the House of Representatives respectfully request the President of the United States to urge upon the Canadian authorities, and also the British government, the release of the Fenian prisoners recently captured in Canada. Resolved, That this House respectfully request the President to cause the prosecutions instituted in the United States courts against the Fenians to be discontinued if compatible with the public interests. In pursuance of the second of these resolutions, the Attorney-General instructed the district attorney at Buffalo to abandon the Fenian prosecutions there, and they were abandoned accordingly. The prosecution was also withdrawn in the cases of Sweeney, Spear, McMahon, and the other leaders of the Vermont frontier demonstration, who had been arrested, but released on bonds of $5,000 after a day's detention; and the intended indictment of Roberts was dropped as a matter of course. In October the Government decided to return the arms which had been taken from the Fenians. The New York Times, of the 16th of October, gives an account of this transaction: BUFFALO, Monday, October 15. In pursuance of orders issued by the Attorney-General of the United States, with the concurrence of the Secretary of War, United States District Attorney Dart gave instructions to General Barry, commanding the military district, to turn over the arms seized from the Fenians in this city, and at other points within the military district, upon the giving of a bond in double the value of the arms, to be approved by Judge N. K. Hall, that the arms shall not be used in violation of the neutrality laws. There were twenty boxes of arms seized here, valued at $2,500. This general order was procured at the intervention of Hon. James M. Humphrey, of this city, the cabinet taking the position that, as the Government had abandoned the prosecution of the Fenian officers and soldiers, it could not consistently hold their private property. Several thousand dollars' worth of arms held at Erie, Oswego, Plattsburghi, Malone, Troy, and other places, will be turned over on the same terms. It is said that the arms will be sold to Santa Anna. P. O. Day and T. B. Gallagher signed the bond. These persons were well known as having taken an active part in promoting the raid, Gallagher being editor of the Buffalo Fenian Volunteer. The bond which they signed was, it is scarcely necessary to point out, a mere form, as it would have been utterly impracticable to identify the arms on another occasion. The alleged intention of selling the arms to Santa Anna, who was then said to be meditating a descent on Mexico, was a mere transparent pretext. The arms do not seem to have been all restored until the following year. This closes the account of the first Fenian raid on Canada, which had cost the Dominion the loss of an officer and six privates of the Queen's Own Volunteer Rifles killed, and four officers and twenty-seven men wounded, many of them maimed for life. Besides this bloodshed there was the heavy cost to the country in pensions, gratuities, and payment of claims arising out of the raid, as well as the serious charge on the treasury for summoning the volunteers, and the hinderance to industry by such a disturbance of the country at a season of the year when agricultural pursuits were in full operation. [44] ada. 1870. SECOND RAID ON CANADA. A renewal of the attack was threatened in the autumn of 1866, and Second raid on Can- the Canadian government was obliged to form a camp of volunteers in the neighborhood of Niagara Falls from August to the second week in October. The expense of this camp, over and above the appropriated drill pay and loss to the industry of the province from the withdrawal of a large number of men from their occupations, amounted, in money, to $80,000.1 During the year 1867 the Fenian Brotherhood were occupied in promoting Fenian disturbances in England and Ireland, in which Halpin, Burke, McCafferty, and others who had come over from the United States for the purpose, were ringleaders. In 1868 the Fenians obtained from the Government the return of the arms seized at Saint Alban's, consisting of about 1,300 muskets, and again proceeded to organize an expedition against Canada. In November, 1868, a Fenian congress was held at Philadelphia, and O'Neill marched through the town at the head of three regiments of the so-styled Irish republican army, in green uniforms, numbering, as was reported, 3,000 men.2 During the year 1869 the Fenians were engaged in making fresh military preparations. On the 7th of February, 1870, O'Neill wrote to the circles that a congress of the Fenian Brotherhood was ordered to meet 1Canadian Parliamentary Papers. in New York on the 8th of March, and desired them to send none but the best and most reliable men, and if it be possible "to let them have a military record." The accounts received from various quarters of O'Neill's avowed intentions, and the probability of some attack being made, rendered it necessary for the Canadian government to be on the alert. On the 9th of April 6,000 militia were called out, and two Canadian gun-boats armed, manned, and fitted out, to cruise along the water boundary. On the 12th of May, the governor-general, at the opening of the Canadian parliament, said that "the information which reached my government from many quarters as to the designs of parties styled Fenians, armed, and openly drilled in various parts of the neighboring States, rendered it incumbent on me to apply to parliament to pass an act to suspend the habeas corpus act, as well as to call out an armed force for the defense of the frontier.” "The vigorous steps resorted to, and the laudable promptitude with which the native militia responded to the call to arms, chilled the hopes of the invaders, and averted the menaced outrage, so that I now entertain a sanguine hope that I shall not be placed under the necessity of exercising the powers so intrusted to me." In the third week in May the Fenian detachments began to collect and move toward the frontier. The first batch arrived at Saint Alban's on the evening of the 23d, and on the same day another party made their appearance at Malone. On the 24th the President issued a proclamation stating that it had come to his knowledge that sundry illegal military enterprises and expeditions were being set on foot within the territory and jurisdiction of the United States against Canada, and enjoining all officers in the service of the United States to prevent those unlawful proceedings, and to arrest and bring to justice those engaged in them. On the 25th O'Neill's party made their attack from Franklin, a village near Saint Alban's, but were at once repulsed and driven back across the frontier. O'Neill was then arrested by the United States marshal. A detachment of forty-five men of the Fifth United States Infantry arrived at Saint Alban's in the evening to preserve order. The end of the raid from Malone, in New York State, was the same. The Fenians took up a position, strengthened by a breastwork of logs and a trench, just beyond the United States frontier, and, on being attacked, broke into a disorderly flight across it. Several of the leaders were arrested and a quantity of arms taken possession of by the United States authorities. Altogether Trial and conviction thirteen tons of arms are said to have been seized at the of the raiders. two raids, and conveyed to United States arsenals; besides these a fieldpiece and numbers of rifles were abandoned on the scenes of action. On the 12th of July the trials of the Malone raiders took place; two were condemned to two years' imprisonment and a fine of $10, and one to one year's imprisonment and a similar fine. On the 29th of July the Saint Alban's raiders were tried; O'Neill was sentenced to two years' imprisonment and a fine of $10; another of the leaders to nine months' imprisonment, and a fine of $5; and another to six months' im[45] prisonment and a fine of $1. The proceedings against two others were postponed. On the 12th of October O'Neill and his companions received an unconditional pardon from the President. On the day on which the pardon was granted the President published a proclamation warning evil-disposed persons that the law forbidding hostile expeditions against friendly states would doned by the Prestfor the future be rigorously enforced. H. Ex. 324- -5 Fenian raiders par dent. mation. Whereas divers evil-disposed persons have, at sundry times, within the territory or jurisdiction of the United States, begun, or set on foot, or provided, or prePresident's procla- pared, the means for military expeditions or enterprises to be carried on thence against the territories or dominions of powers with whom the United States are at peace, by organizing bodies pretending to have powers of government over portions of the territories or dominions of powers with whom the United States are at peace, or by being, or assuming to be, members of such bodies; by levying or collecting money for the purpose, or for the alleged purpose, of using the same in carrying on military enterprises against such territories or dominions; by enlisting or organizing armed forces to be used against such powers, and by fitting out, equipping, and arming vessels to transport such organized armed forces to be employed in hostilities against such powers; And whereas it is alleged, and there is reason to apprehend, that such evil-disposed persons have also, at sundry times, within the territory and jurisdiction of the United States, violated the law thereof by accepting and exercising commissions to serve by land or by sea against powers with whom the United States are at peace, by enlisting themselves or other persons to carry on war against such powers; by fitting out and arming vessels with intent that the same shall be employed to cruise or commit hostilities against such powers, or by delivering commissions within the territory or jurisdiction of the United States for such vessels, to the intent that they might be employed as aforesaid; And whereas such acts are in violation of the laws of the United States in such case made and provided, and are done in disregard of the duties and obligations which all persons residing or being within the territory or jurisdiction of the United States owe thereto, and are condemned by all right-minded and law-abiding citizens: Now, therefore, I, Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States of America, do hereby declare and proclaim that all persons hereafter found within the territory or jurisdiction of the United States committing any of the afore-recited violations of law, or any similar violations of the sovereignty of the United States for which punishment is provided by law, will be rigorously prosecuted therefor, and upon conviction and sentence to punishment, will not be entitled to expect or receive the clemency of the Executive to save them from the consequences of their guilt, and I enjoin upon every officer of this Government, civil, or military, or naval, to use all efforts in his power to arrest, for trial and punishment, every such offender against the laws providing for the performance of our sacred obligations to friendly powers. Raid of 1871. On the 5th of October last, less than a year after his release and after this proclamation, O'Neill led a third raid against Canada, on the Pembina frontier, but was arrested by the United States troops, and this time met with entire immunity, being discharged on the ground that there was no evidence of his having committed any overt act within the United States territory. This closes the history of the Fenian raids. MILITARY EXPEDITIONS IN AID OF THE CUBAN INSURRECTION. The proclamation of October, 1870, which has been cited above, referred not only to the proceedings of the Fenians but to tions in aid of the expeditions in aid of the Cuban insurrection. Military expedi Cuban insurrection. Mr. Roberts, the Spanish minister at Washington, represented to the United States Government that he had 66 seen the departure of various filibustering expeditions, in broad daylight and unmolested, from New York, and other Federal ports, and had finally felt himself obliged, by the incomprehensible apathy of the authorities, to take the initiative in order to prevent these repeated infractions of the neutrality laws."-(Mr. Roberts to Mr. Fish, September 18, 1869.)1 The principal expeditions referred to seem to have been those undertaken in the Grapeshot and Peritt, which landed parties of men and supplies in Cuba in May. The United States Secretary of State, in his reply, said that he “ was forced to admit with regret that an unlawful expedition did succeed in 1 Papers relating to Cuban affairs, presented to the House of Representatives, February 21, 1870, pp. 133-138. |
