struck out wildly and blindly
at the Irish. They might not be able to recapture the escaped Fenian
leaders, but they could load the gaols with their countrymen and
co-religionists; they might not be able to apprehend the liberators
of Colonel Kelly and Captain Deasey, but they could glut their fury on
members of the same nationality; and this they did most effectually.
The whole night long the raid upon the Irish quarter in Manchester was
continued; houses were broken into, and their occupants dragged off
to prison, and flung into cells, chained as though they were raging
beasts. Mere Irish were set upon in the streets, in the shops, in
their homes, and hurried off to prison as if the very existence of
the empire depended on their being subjected to every kind of brutal
violence and indignity. The yell for vengeance filled the air; the cry
for Irish blood arose upon the night-air like a demoniacal chorus;
and before morning broke their fury was to some extent appeased by
the knowledge that sixty of the proscribed race--sixty of the hated
Irish--were lying chained within the prison cells of Manchester.

Fifteen minutes was the time occupied in setting Kelly free--only
fifteen minutes--but during that short space of time an act was
accomplished which shook the whole British Empire to its foundation.
From the conspiracy to which this daring deed was traceable the
English people had already received many startling surprises. The
liberation of James Stephens and the short-lived insurrection that
filled the snow-capped hills with hardy fugitives, six months before,
had both occasioned deep excitement in England; but nothing that
Fenianism had yet accomplished acted in the same bewildering manner
on the English mind. In the heart of one of their largest cities, in
the broad daylight, openly and undisguisedly, a band of Irishmen had
appeared in arms against the Queen's authority, and set the power and
resources of the law at defiance. They had rescued a co-conspirator
from the grasp of the government, and slain an officer of the law in
the pursuit of their object. Within a few minutes' walk of barracks
and military depots,--in sight of the royal ensign that waved over
hundreds of her Majesty's defenders, a prison van had been stopped and
broken open, and its defenders shot at and put to flight. Never had
the English people heard of so audacious a proceeding--never did they
feel more insulted. From every corner of the land the c