the Fenian circles, from Louth
to Kerry, had turned out in arms, and commenced the long promised
rebellion. It was news to send a thrill of excitement through every
Irish heart--to fire the blood of the zealous men, who for years had
been working to bring the Irish question to this issue; and news to
cause profound and anxious thought to that large class of Irishmen
who, deeply occupied with commercial and professional pursuits, are
less energetic than the members of the Fenian Brotherhood in their
political action, but who scarcely differ from them in principle. It
was, for all who had Irish blood in their veins and Irish sympathies
in their hearts, a serious consideration that once again the banner
of insurrection against English rule had been unfurled in Ireland,
and that on many a spot of Irish earth the organized forces of England
were in conflict with the hastily collected, ill-supplied, and almost
unarmed levies of Irish patriotism.

The question whether the cause of Ireland would be advantaged or
injured by the struggle and its inevitable results, was differently
answered by different minds. Some saw in the conflict nothing but
defeat and suffering for the country--more, gyves and chains--more,
sorrow and humiliation for her sons, and a fresh triumph for the proud
and boastful power of England. Others, while only too well convinced
that the suppression of the insurrectionary movement was sure to be
speedily accomplished, viewed the position with a certain fierce and
stern satisfaction, and discerned therein the germ of high hopes for
the future.

But to certain of the Fenian leaders and Fenian circles in America,
the news came with a pressing and a peculiar interest. They were
largely responsible for the outbreak; the war was, in a manner, their
war. Their late head-centre, James Stephens, was chargeable with it
only in a certain degree. He had promised to initiate the struggle
before the 1st of January of that year. Conscious that his veracity
was regarded in somewhat of a dubious light by many of his followers,
he reiterated the declaration with all possible passion and vehemence,
and even went the length of swearing to it by invocations of the Most
High, before public assemblies of his countrymen. When the time came
for the fulfilment of his pledges he failed to keep them, and was
immediately deposed from his position by the disappointed and enraged
circles which had hitherto trusted him. But in the meantim