Combining Yankee grit and Irish pluck, the Fenians sent a whaling bark to rescue political prisoners from Australia. By George Skoch B y all appearances, there was nothing unusual about the departure of the 200-ton whaleship Catalpa from the harbor at New Bedford, Massachusetts, on the morning of April 29, 1875.
Appearances can be deceptive, however.
Under orders given to him two months earlier by three strangers in the darkened back room of an outfitter's shop in New Bedford, Anthony, with his lone, unarmed bark and a handful of sailors, was about to defy the mightiest naval power on Earth. At the first signs of Fenian agitation, British authorities, aided by a network of spies and informers, clamped down hard. As early as 1865, they had suppressed the Fenian newspaper, Irish People, and had arrested its editor, James Stephens. A year later, the writ of habeas corpus was suspended in Ireland, and many Fenians, including scores of Irish soldiers serving in the British army, were incarcerated throughout the British Empire. One stockade was at Fremantle in Western Australia.