History into Myth: The Catalpa's Long Voyage
Rent from DeepDyve- History into Myth:The Catalpa’s Long Voyage
In 1923, a New York Times obituary carried the eye-catching headline, "Ex-Police Inspector Dead. Had a Stormy Career in His Youth as an Irish Patriot." The article described how in 1869 Inspector John Harley had
joined a rescue expedition sent by the Fenian Brotherhood to rescue Irish prisoners deported by the British Government to Australia. . . . The expedition succeeded in rescuing twelve men from the prison camp. Their boat was overtaken by a British warship, but the captain of the rescuing ship ran up the American flag.1
The expedition described was the Catalpa rescue, which actually occurred in 1876, some years after the inspector had joined the police department. A New Bedford whaler, the Catalpa, purchased by the Irish-American organization Clan na Gael, had in fact sailed for Australia in 1875, succeeded in rescuing six prisoners in 1876, and returned to the United States. None of the original source documents available for the rescue list Inspector Harley as being a crew member or a guest of the ship; nor, for that matter, does his name appear in any accounts of the escape.2
After all these years, one can hardly fault Harley's wish to be associated with such a dramatic and successful event that became the talk of Irish communities throughout the world. The well-publicized rescue offered an enormous boost to Irish nationalist movements, as well as to the spirits of Irish men and women cheered by any victory against the British Empire. Even though the inspector appears to have taken considerable liberty in his association with the Catalpa, his claim worked its way into the historical record. Likewise, the amount of misinformation about the Catalpa rescue over the past century-and-a-quarter is no less fantastic. [End Page 77]
"Australia . . . began as a continent of sin, the dump for English criminals," according to historian Robert Hughes.3 The English explorer Captain James Cook surveyed the coast of Australia around 1770, but his government was uninterested in the new land until new convict accommodations were needed in the next decade, after the former American colonies no longer offered a hospitable reception for convicts or indentured servants. The first fleet of convicts bound for Australia was dispatched from England in 1787 to Botany Bay, on the east coast. Over the next eighty years, 160,000 men, women, and children would be transported on 825 ships to various locations in Australia.4
Australia's reputation as a depository for Irish political prisoners was gained in the early years, even though, according to Patrick O'Farrell, "In the strictly nationalist sense, political rebels among the Irish convicts seem relatively few, about 1.5 percent, that is, less than 600 in the entire history of transportation, of whom nearly 500 arrived in the very early years of the colony, up to 1806."5 The next wave of Irish prisoners came after the unsuccessful 1848 rising in Ireland. While few in number, they were prominent leaders of the Young Ireland movement: Kevin Izod O'Doherty, John Martin, William Smith O'Brien, John Mitchel, Thomas Francis Meagher, Patrick O'Donohoe, and Terence Bellew McManus. The first three were pardoned, while the last four escaped abroad several years after their arrival.6
Responding to pressure from the other colonies, and to domestic concern about cost and brutality, the British government finally discontinued the practices of convict transport in 1867, with the last such ship, the Hougoumont, sailing from Portland in October of that year. The Hougoumont made its 89 -day voyage with 280 prisoners, including sixty-two Fenians, the last wave of political prisoners to be sent "down under." The inclusion of the Fenians disturbed the Australian colonists, who protested vigorously.7 It was one thing to receive "garden variety" prisoners, but Fenians were evidently another matter.
Organized in 1858, the Fenian Brotherhood was the first Irish political movement to operate on both sides of the Atlantic. They were a physical force movement, seeking by any means to remove British authority over Ireland. After planning and organizing for seven years, the Fenians finally possessed the resources—including trained military men...
