The Catalpa Affair by Tarquin O’Flaherty. Part 3
A Plot
‘Come all you screw warders and jailers,
Remember Perth Regatta Day,
Take care of the rest of your Fenians,
Or the Yankees will steal them away…’
By the 1860’s, 22,000 Irish soldiers in the British Army are sworn members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. (IRB) Romantically, they called themselves ‘Fenians’, after the ‘Fianna’, an army of legendary warriors in Irish mythology. Their avowed aim was the overthrow of British Rule in Ireland. Very quickly, on British lips, the term ‘Fenian’ became perjorative, and has remained so.
At the same time, in America, hundreds of thousands, the massed and huddled survivors, not only of the Great Famine, but of a murderous sea crossing, joined the Union Army in droves. The British had always supported the South, the Confederacy, and the Catholic Irish wanted no part of it. Instead, they formed ‘Clann na Gael’ in most major US cities, to raise funds to support the IRB in Ireland.
John Boyle O’Reilly, NCO in the Prince of Wales 10th Dublin Hussars was, in a mass roundup of betrayed IRB members, transported to Australia’s Fremantle Prison, having had his hanging commuted to life in prison. To be a member of Her Majesty’s Forces, and to plot at the same time Her Majesty’s overthrow was treason of the highest order. Many non-military men were also transported at the time for the same crime but were eventually pardoned on condition they did not return to Ireland. The eight who remained ‘at Her Majesty’s Pleasure’ in Fremantle Prison, were all, like O’Reilly, ‘military Fenians’. Chaps who, having betrayed the regiment, hadn’t had the decency to do the decent thing; to retire into the library and follow the only course still open to a disgraced gentleman.
‘I say, old chap, steady on, here’s a frightful howja-do! ‘
‘Indeed it is, but what can you expect? They’re only damned Fenians, after all…’
Oh dear,where’s Rudyard Kipling when we need him?
The Catalpa, a former whaler, now a three-masted cargo vessel,is bought in Boston, moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts and fitted out once more for whaling. This move is precautionary. The refit might attract too much unwelcome attention from prying eyes in a big port like Boston. Her real purpose is to sail to Fremantle and rescue the remaining Fenians. British spies might also be less common in New Bedford. She is to be skippered by retired whale ship’s captain George Smith Anthony, who is a full blown Yankee, a Protestant, some say a Quaker, and has had no previous connection whatever with Irish affairs. He takes on the captaincy because, as he is recorded as saying, he believes it is the proper thing to do. He is also to be paid sufficiently well to tempt him out of his retirement.
Catalpa, now at sea and on legitimate whaling business, goes about its business with sufficient gusto to provide the ship with a respectable cargo to offload at the island of Faial in the Azores. There they deliver 210 barrels of whale oil, and effect repairs to the ship’s navigational equipment. As was common at the time, and perhaps prompted by rumours of the real purpose of the voyage, most of the crew desert the ship. A new crew is hired and Anthony sails for Freemantle.