For a time, these designs were carefully concealed, and even when a certain pub licity was given to them, the scheme appeared so wild and impracticable that it was regarded as an attempt, on the part of a body of unprincipled adventurers, to practice upon the patriotic susceptibilities of the ignorant and excitable Irish, especially in America. By degrees, however, the movement acquired more solidity, and the govern ment ascertained by reliable information that Fenianism, however corrupt in some of its sources, and however wild and extravagant in its aims, was nevertheless a reality with which it had become necessary to grapple. Measures were taken with great promptness and determination. The habeas corpus act having been summarily sus pended, all the known leaders in Dublin and in the provincial districts of Ireland (most of them Irish-Americans) were at once placed under arrest. The chief journal of the conspiracy was suppressed and seized; additional troops were moved into Ireland, and other measures of repression were vigorously carried out. By these energetic measures, public tranquillity was maintained in Ireland ; and although prosecutions were instituted, and a few individual conspirators convicted, so universally was the movement con demned by the public opinion of the- country, that most of the prisoners were dis charged, on condition of their leaving Ireland. But although thus in appearance extin guished, the embers of discontent continued to smolder among the poorer peasantry and the working population of the towns; and a certain prestige was given to the fallen cause by the escape from prison, under circumstances of much mystery and a high degree of romance, of the most active and crafty of the leaders of the conspiracy. His return and that of other exiles to America renewed the agitation in that country. In the early summer of 1866, a raid was attempted into Canada, and although it proved so utter a failure as to cover its projectors with ridicule, an organization was secretly pursued, both in America and in Ireland, which resulted, in the spring of 1867, in an insane and utterly abortive attempt at insurrection at home. The plan of the conspirators was to seize the castle and military stores at Chester, and, having cut off telegraphic communica tion, to convey these arms to Dublin, and effect, throughout the country, a simultaneous rising in concert with the enterprise at Chester. The attempt was defeated through the treachery of one of the conspirators, by whom the plot was revealed. A partial insurrection, however, took place concurrently with the attack on Chester, in the county of Kerry; and a few weeks later, a more extensive movement was attempted in the counties of Dublin, Louth, Tipperary, Limerick, and Cork. But the persons engaged
in it were for the most part either American and Irish-American adventurers, or artisans, day-laborers, and mechanics, generally unprovided with arms, and in many cases scarcely beyond the years of boyhood. The only military enterprises undertaken by them eon sisted in a series of attacks on the barracks of the rural constabulary, in almost every instance unsuccessful; most of the parties dispersed or were made prisoners after a single night's campaign. The rest betook themselves to the mountains, and after a few days of exposure and hardship, in which they managed to evade pursuit, and carefully avoided all encounter with tho military, they, were either captured orAispersed. The leaders were tried at a special CoMmission held the spring- of tlt year 1867, nr.;1 tranquillity for a time seemed to be restored in Ireland. Much discontent, however, still continued to exist; and as the foreign organization was uncontrolled, and was still maintained, it remained as a standing element of danger, and a persisting incentive to domestic disaffection. Considerable alarm was created in England and Scotland by the extent and daring of the organization among the Irish population of the large manufac turing towns. In Sept., 1867, an attack was made, in open day, on a police-van in Manchester; the officer in charge was killed, and the prisoners, who were suspected Fenians, were released. A few weeks later, a still more daring attempt was made to blow down Clerkenwell prison wall, with the same Object. Alarms were circulated of intended burnings in the cities and towns; gunsmiths' shops and even government stores of fire-arms were broken open and pillaged; and a vague but wide-spread feeling of apprehension was for a time created. _Much of this, however, has been removed by the better spirit produced by recent legislation in Ireland, as well as by the marked improve ment in the condition of the smaller tenant-farmers, and the scale of wages of agricul tural and other laborers. Agrarian outrages have notably decreased in number. The prisoners confined for political offenses have all been released, with the exception of those who had been soldiers, whose detention is a standing grievance. The settlement of the Alabama claim is supposed to have taken out of the hands of the American Fenians one of the most powerful instruments of agitation among the Irish population in America. Since the collapse of Fenianism, Irish grievances have been represented in a corporate form by the home government association, a more peaceable body than the Fenians. See HOME RULE.