ABSTRACT
A retrospect here becomes necessary. The Irish Nationalists – that is, the vast majority of the inhabitants of the island – having abandoned all hope of getting their aspirations realised or even listened to while England was governed by the Bungling Coalition, had decided to take advantage of the quarrel to cast in their lot with the United States. Before this war, any one who might have suggested such a thing as the annexation to America of a small corner of Europe, would have been set down as a madman; but now that war had actually begun, the contingency came within the range of practical politics. If it could be achieved, it would repay the cost and risk of an expedition; and with the aid of France, its achievement seemed not impossible. Russia, too, would help the enterprise indirectly, by giving employment to all British forces which might otherwise have been drawn from the East. Lastly, the new dynamite rams, of which the American navy had as yet almost a monopoly, would render it practicable to transport a small army across the ocean to act as auxiliaries to a great French force held in readiness for a descent upon Ireland. Thus it came about that the first week in October an American expedition, with a great deal of manœuvring and but very little fighting on the high seas, accomplished the passage from New York to Brest, where the main French fleet from Cherbourg was awaited. Some little delay was experienced before the English Channel Fleet could be decoyed away so as to allow the junction of the Allies at Brest; but by dint of skilful feints appearing to threaten various towns on the English coast, the object was eventually attained. Immediately afterwards news was brought by a small steam yacht which had managed to slip out of Cork Harbour, that circumstances were favourable for a landing at that point.
