spurned, and their plans defeated at every turn; they knew, too, that Kelly's success in escaping capture was filling his associates with pride and exultation; and now at last they found the man whose apprehension they so anxiously desired a captive in their grasp. On the other hand, the arrests in Oak-street were felt to be a crushing blow to a failing cause by the Fenian circles in Manchester. They saw that Kelly's capture would dishearten every section of the organization; they knew that the broad meaning of the occurrence was, that another Irish rebel had fallen into the clutches of the British government, and was about to be added to the long list of their political victims. It was felt by the Irish in Manchester, that to abandon the prisoners helplessly to their fate would be regarded as an act of submission to the laws which rendered patriotism a crime, and as an acceptance of the policy which left Ireland trampled, bleeding, and impoverished. There were hot spirits amongst the Irish colony that dwelt in the great industrial capital, which revolted from such a conclusion, and there were warm, impulsive hearts which swelled with a firm resolution to change the triumph of their British adversaries into disappointment and consternation. The time has not yet come when anything like a description of the midnight meetings and secret councils which followed the arrest of Colonel Kelly in Manchester can be written; enough may be gathered, however, from the result, to show that the plans of the conspirators were cleverly conceived and ably digested.

On Wednesday, September 18th, Colonel Kelly and his companion were a second time placed in the dock of the Manchester Police Office. There is reason to believe that means had previously been found of acquainting them with the plans of their friends outside, but this hypothesis is not necessary to explain the coolness and sang froid with which they listened to the proceedings before the magistrate. Hardly had the prisoners been put forward, when the Chief Inspector of the Manchester Detective Force interposed. They were both, he said, connected with the Fenian rising, and warrants were out against them for treason-felony. "Williams," he added, with a triumphant air, "is Colonel Kelly, and Whyte, his confederate, is Captain Deasey." He asked that they might again be remanded, an application which was immediately granted. The prisoners, who imperturbably bowed to the detective, as he identified them, smilingly quitted the dock, and were given in charge to Police Sergeant Charles Brett, whose duty it was to convey them to the borough gaol.

The van used for the conveyance of prisoners between the police office and the gaol was one of the ordinary long black boxes on wheels, dimly lit by a grating in the door and a couple of ventilators in the roof. It was divided interiorly into a row of small cells at either side, and a passage running the length of the van between; and the practice was, to lock each prisoner into a separate cell, Brett sitting in charge on a seat in the passage, near the door. The van was driven by a policeman; another usually sat beside the driver on the box; the whole escort thus consisting of three men, carrying no other arms than their staves; but it was felt that on the present occasion a stronger escort might be necessary. The magistrates well knew that Kelly and Deasey had numerous sympathisers amongst the Irish residents in Manchester, and their apprehensions were quickened by the receipt of a telegram from Dublin Castle, and another from the Home Office in London, warning them that a plot was on foot for the liberation of the prisoners. The magistrates doubted the truth of the information, but they took precautions, nevertheless, for the frustration of any such enterprise. Kelly and Deasey were both handcuffed, and locked in separate compartments of the van; and, instead of three policemen, not less than twelve were entrusted with its defence. Of this body, five sat on the box-seat, two were stationed on the step behind, four followed the van in a cab, and one (Sergeant Brett) sat within the van, the keys of which were handed in to him through the grating, after the door had been locked by one of the policemen outside. There were, in all, six persons in the van: one of these was a boy, aged twelve, who was being conveyed to a reformatory; three were women convicted of misdemeanours; and the two Irish-Americans completed the number. Only the last-mentioned pair were handcuffed, and they were the only persons whom the constables thought necessary to lock up, the compartments in which the other persons sat being left open.

At half-past three o'clock the van drove off, closely followed by the cab containing the balance of the escort. Its route lay through some of the principal streets, then through the suburbs on the south side, into the borough of Salford, where the county gaol is situated. In all about two miles had to be traversed, and of this distance the first half was accomplished without anything calculated to excite suspicion being observed; but there was mischief brewing, for all that, and the crisis was close at hand. Just as the van passed under the railway arch that spans the Hyde-road at Bellevue, a point midway between the city police office and the Salford gaol, the driver was suddenly startled by the apparition of a man standing in the middle of the road with a pistol aimed at his head, and immediately the astonished policeman heard himself called upon, in a loud, sharp voice, to "pull up." At the spot where this unwelcome interruption occurred there are but few houses; brick-fields and clay-pits stretch away at either side, and the neighbourhood is thinly inhabited. But its comparative quiet now gave way to a scene of bustle and excitement so strange that it seems to have almost paralysed the spectators with amazement. The peremptory command levelled at the driver of the van was hardly uttered, when a body of men, numbering about thirty, swarmed over the wall which lined the road, and, surrounding the van, began to take effectual measures for stopping it. The majority of them were well-dressed men, of powerful appearance; a few carried pistols or revolvers in their hands, and all seemed to act in accordance with a preconcerted plan. The first impulse of the policemen in front appears to have been to drive through the crowd, but a shot, aimed in the direction of his head brought the driver tumbling from his seat, terror-stricken but unhurt; and almost at the same time, the further progress of the van was effectually prevented by shooting one of the horses through the neck. A scene of indescribable panic and confusion ensued; the policemen scrambled hastily to the ground, and betook themselves to flight almost without a thought of resistance. Those in the cab behind got out, not to resist the attack, but to help in running away; and in a few minutes the strangers, whose object had by this time become perfectly apparent, were undisputed masters of the situation. Pickaxes, hatchets, hammers, and crow-bars were instantly produced, and the van was besieged by a score stout pairs of arms, under the blows from which its sides groaned, and the door cracked and splintered. Some clambered upon the roof, and attempted to smash it in with heavy stones; others tried to force an opening through the side; while the door was sturdily belaboured by another division of the band. Seeing the Fenians, as they at once considered them, thus busily engaged, the policemen, who had in the first instance retreated to a safe distance, and who were now reinforced by a large mob attracted to the spot by the report of firearms, advanced towards the van, with the intention of offering some resistance; but the storming party immediately met them with a counter-movement. Whilst the attempt to smash through the van was