d, but, on this occasion, owing to the incident just described,
Brett, the officer in charge, went _inside_ the van. The door was then
locked, and the keys handed to him through the ventilator.

It is certain that, up to this point, the Manchester police had no
suspicion of the intended rescue, and it was only the imprudent
behaviour of the man whom the police had arrested that caused additional
precautions to be taken. Certain it is that if the Manchester
authorities had had any information of the probability of an attempted
rescue there would have been a formidable escort of the police and
military.

With so much false swearing at the trials with regard to the facts of
the Manchester Rescue, it is important that the information given in
books for the benefit of the present and future generations of Irishmen
should be correct. It is serious that in some of our best books so
important a matter as the actual scene of the rescue is incorrectly
given. One book says: "The van drove off for the _County jail at
Salford_." In another description it is stated: "Just as the van passed
under the arch that spans Hyde Road at Belle Vue, a _point midway
between the city police office and the Salford Jail,_ etc." Following
this, one of our ablest writers, apparently quoting from the previous
descriptions, falls into the same error. I can readily understand how
these errors have arisen--the writers concerned have confounded the
place of the execution of the Manchester Martyrs, Salford Jail, with the
prison, Belle Vue, to which the prisoners were being taken on being
remanded.

The point chosen by Condon as the most suitable for the attack was
certainly where the railway bridge crosses Hyde Road, but if the van had
been going to Salford Jail it would have been in a totally different
direction.

Since writing the above, I find it still more necessary I should correct
the mis-statement as to the scene of the rescue, for the error seems to
be getting perpetuated. I find in one of the leading Irish-American
newspapers, in a description of the death of Colonel Kelly on February
5, 1909, the scene of the rescue is given as "_midway between the
police office and Salford Jail_." This is evidently taken from the
erroneous statement in the books I have referred to.

After this slight digression, may I resume my narrative.

At the police court a man appointed for the purpose took a cab in
advance of the van. When sufficiently close to them