The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-05-30 00:00:00

FENIANISM AND THE REBELLION.

The Press Association has received from a reliable
correspondent the following narrative in connection
with the recent rising of half-breeds in Canada:
_

Now that the Canadian rebellion is practically at
an end, I feel myself at liberty to say something as
to an unpublished page of its history. In the early
part of last January it became known to certain mem-
b.ers of the Irish Republican Brotherhood that Alfred
Aylward had arrived in London, having come from
Now York, vifL Liverpool.
Aylward, who became notorious during the late
Boer war, was extremely reticent as to the object of
his presence in England. By some it was supposed
that be intended proceeding to South Africa, where
he would seek to render himself as troublesome to Sir
Charles Warren as he proved to be to Sir Owen
Lanyou and to General Colley. By others it was
asserted that he intended making an effort to reach
the Mandi. En passant I may remark that during
the last eighteen months_ two members of the Fenian
organisation, botli high iconfidence of the Supreme
Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, have
attempted unsuccessfully to join the False Prophet.
The bones of one of them are whitening in the
Soudan; the other individual has returned to London.
There were, however, those of Aylward's confreres
who knew in what direction his words were pointing
when, at the conclusion of a speech deliv3red by him
on the 26th of February at a social gathering of his
friends at his lodgings in Albemarle-street, Piccadilly,
he remarked that before long he would again prove a
sharp thorn in the side of the British Government.
On the following morning he went over to Paris,
where he remained for more than a fortnight, staying
at an American hotel in the Rue Danou, where he
passed as a surgeon-dentist. A. few days after his
arrival in Paris, while in an oyster saloon in the Place
de la Madeline, he was recognised by an individual
who had known him 3ears before at the Cape.
Aylward immediately hurried from the saloon, and
during the remainder of his stay in Paris carefully
avoided those places which are the resort of English
and American visitors. During the whole of his
stay in the French capital he abstained from en-
tering into any sort of communication with the
members of the Fenian organisation in Paris,
who are known as the "Men of Action." As
behoved one who was engaged upon an independent
mission, Aylward held himself aloof from those
who, by their injudicious utterances, brought thems
selves into such public notice that a little later
on a few of the best known, and, I may add, with
one selitary exception, the least important—though
the most blatant—of their number, found them-
selves in the enforced possession of free tickets to the
Belgian or Swiss frontiers. Now, what was Aylward
doing in Paris? Well, this is treading on excessively
delicate ground, and I would prefer letting subse-
quent events speak for themselves. Suffice it to say
that among the French population of Canada there
is a large and of late years rapidly increasing party,
the raison dein ci whose existence is the nourishing
and expansion of one idea, namely, separation. from
England and the Republic of which M. Grevy is
president is encouraging this idea far more directly,
both by organised emigration and intrigue, than
English people either in this country or in Canada at
all realise. In this connection, lam free to remark
—the rebellion being now a thing of the past—that
the so-called "Riel affair" was simply an experiment
—a demonstration, as it were—designed to accustom
the French in the Dominion of Canada to feel and to
think as a race. At the end of the second week of
March Aylward left Franco via Havre, for New
York, giving to a friend in London his address as
Jackson-street, St. Paul's, Minuesota. For several
weeks after Aylward's arrival at St. Paul's many
officer's of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, some of
whom were years ago eagerly sought for by the G
Division in Dublin, found their way westward.
On the 29th April Captain Thomas S. Mullen, who
is known In New York as one who in the troublous
times of 1865-06 was regarded as Captain McCafertv's
right-hand man, and ex-Sergeant E. D. Crosby, who
served at Fort Pembina, Dakota, in the 17th United
States Infantry in 1872, passed in the most open
manner through Dunseith, Dakota, in charge of
thirty-six men, all armed with the new pattern Win-
chester rifle. They were accompanied by three mule
teams, conveying the men's baggage and thirty days'
rations, Captain Mullen made no secret of his des-
tination, or of the origin of his orders. Aylward's
directing hand was plainly seen in the fighting that
occurred at Batoehe, and now that the rising has been
suppressed not a few strangers have recently been
finding their way back across the United States fron-
tier, only a few of them having ever reached the
scene of hostilities.

Aylward is known throughout South Africa either
as captain or doctor, and during the Boer war he
enjoyed the distinction of General. In 1868, being
in danger of his life from the "Assassination Com-
mittee" of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in
Dublin, who unjustly suspected his fidelty, he betock
himself to South Africa, and engaged in trading and
hunting in the Matebele country.
He next appeared on the newly-opened diamond
fields as, the editor of the newspaper started there,
and later on he distinguished himself in the expulsion
of the British Commissioner from Kimberley, sub-
stituting for the Union Jack, which he himself hauled
down, the Green Flag of the New Republic, of which
he proclaimed himself the President, and from which
position he retired only on the approach of a British
force under Sir Arthur Cunninghame, then Com-
mander-in-Chief at the Cape. In 1876 he became
Commandant-General of the irregular force raised at
the Diamond Fields by the Boer Government. On
the annexation of the Transvaal by the British he re-
turned to Great Britain, and while in Edinburgh in
1878 he wrote, "The Transvaal of To-day," in advo-
cacy of the Boer cause, and in which he foretold with
prophetic accuracy the events of the disastrous cam-
paign that followed, and in which he played so con-
spicuous a part. In June, 1883, he wrote as
"General" Aylward to O'Donovan Rossa, and later
on—about October of the same year—voluntarily pre-
sented himself before a committee of Rossa's im-
mediate supporters, and replied to certain charges of
unfaithfulness that had been preferred against him.
Having re-established himself with the " Clan-na-
Gael "(the section of the organisation of which Rossa;
is one of the principals), he proceeded from New
York to Illinois,where he remained up to the end of
last year.