izens, and claimed their
discharge. Williams said he was a bookbinder out of work; Whyte
described himself as a hatter, living on the means brought with him
from America. The magistrate was about disposing summarily of the
case, by sentencing the men to a few days' imprisonment, when a
detective officer applied for a remand, on the ground that he had
reason to believe the prisoners were connected with the Fenian
conspiracy. The application was granted, and before many hours
had elapsed it was ascertained that Martin Williams was no other
than Colonel Thomas J. Kelly, one of the most prominent of the
(O'Mahony-Stephens) Fenian leaders, and that John Whyte was a brother
officer and co-conspirator, known to the circles of the Fenian
Brotherhood as Captain Deasey.

Of the men who had thus fallen into the clutches of the British
government the public had already heard much, and one of them
was widely known for the persistency with which he laboured as an
organiser of Fenianism, and the daring and skill which he exhibited
in the pursuit of his dangerous undertaking. Long before the escape
of James Stephens from Richmond Bridewell startled the government from
its visions of security, and swelled the breasts of their disaffected
subjects in Ireland with rekindled hopes, Colonel Kelly was known in
the Fenian ranks as an intimate associate of the revolutionary chief.
When the arrest at Fairfield-house deprived the organization of its
crafty leader, Kelly was elected to the vacant post, and he threw
himself into the work with all the reckless energy of his nature. If
he could not be said to possess the mental ability or administrative
capacity essential to the office, he was at least gifted with a
variety of other qualifications well calculated to recommend him to
popularity amongst the desperate men with whom he was associated. Nor
did he prove altogether unworthy of the confidence reposed in him. It
is now pretty well known that the successful plot for the liberation
of James Stephens was executed under the personal supervision of
Colonel Kelly, and that he was one of the group of friends who grasped
the hand of the Head Centre within the gates of Eichmond Prison on
that night in November, '65, when the doors of his dungeon were thrown
open. Kelly fled with Stephens to Paris, and thence to America,
where he remained attached to the section of the Brotherhood which
recognised the authority and obeyed the mandates of the "C.O.I.R