THE THREATENED "FENIAN RAID" ON WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

Evening Post, Volume XXII, Issue 102, 28 October 1881, Page 2

THE THREATENED "FENIAN RAID" ON WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

? Western Australia is not a place from which one usually expects to receive any very exciting news. To most people, although nominally a portion of these colonies, it is virtually a terra incognita, never heard of except perhaps when a new Governor is sent out to preside over its somnolent career. Latterly, however, it has sprung into unusual importance, for which fact it has to thank either the Fenians, or the imaginative brain of some American journalist — it is hardly clear which, at the present juncture. About a month ago, an alarming rumour waa started by some papers, publiahed at St. Louis, in the United States, to the effeot that an American Fenian organisation had recruited a " filibustering force of 300 men,"' with the avowed object ot making a raid upon Fremantle, the chief port of Western Australia. It was further added that the expedition had actually sailed from San Francieco. Why Fremantle should have been selected, of all places in the world, for thia deed of daring, was not very clear — unless for the purpose of giving a fillip of excitement to the uneventful lives of the inhabitants. Plunder was, however, darkly hinted at, and also the release of prisoners confined in the "Imperial convict establishment." We are very doubtful whether any Imperial convicts are confined in Western Australia now, seeing that transportation to that colony ceased in 1868 ; but probably that is a mere point of detail, about which neither " Fenian filibnsterers " nor American journalists would be likely to trouble themselves very much. We believe Fremantle boasts of a weekly newspaper, and no doubt news finds its way there eventually, as it does now to other " uttermost partß of the earth." If so, we can easily imagine the flutter created in that peaceful dovecot by this ferocious and blood-curdling piece of intelligence. Nor is this tho conclusion of the Btory. All the eyes of the world being thus directed on Fremantle, and the inhabitants, no doubt, having wrought themselves up into the highest pitch of patriotism in their determination to defend their hearths and homes, we learn by telegraph that "armed boats" have actually been espied off the coast, but that on seeing, no doubt, the determined attitude of the heroic Fremantleitea, they made off again. To this is added the unromantic announcement that "the police are searching for the intruders," treating these desperate marauders and freebooters, in fact, as if they were so many vulgar pickpockets and robbers of henroosts. A subsequent despatch informed an agonised public that " only one armed boat, and not several armed boats, as at first reported," had been seen. Ifc may even turn out, on further investigation, that even the one boat was a mere figment of the brain of some Western Australian, excited by the bellicose articles in the local paper, takea in conjunction with several " goes " of whisky at a late hour of the evening 1 . In any case, as Fremantle boasts of some 4000 inhabitants, we may yet tremblingly hope that theae may be equal to coping with the boat-load of "Fenian filibusterors," and that we may be spared those fearful tales of murder and rapine which the American journals would lead us to anticipate. [A telegram received just before we went to press, and after the above was in type, announces that the crew seen off Fremantle has turned out to be a boat-load of inoffensive whalers, and that consequently " the Fenian scare has subsided."]