CRUISE OF THE GALATEA.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 456, 23 January 1869, Page 3

CRUISE OF THE GALATEA.

O'FARRELL'S CRIME. "We have already made a quotation from " The Cruise of the Galatea," a book avowedly written by the Rev. Mr Milncr, chaplain of the vessel, and MiMr O. W. Brierly. With regard to the event which led to Prince Alfred's departure from the colonies, we find that the authors of the book decidedly lean to the idea that O'Farrell was one of a band of conspirators, and that they place no reliance on the last confessiou of the prisoner, in which he disavowed the truth of Ins previous statements. After quoting that confession, which, it will be remembered, was first road in the Legislative Assembly by a private member, it is disposed ofinthe following way.- —- " The Government came to the conelusion, 'thatthe statement written by O'Farrell and sent to the Governmentwas a copy of some other document, clandestinely furnished to him for tbe purpose, through the instrumencality of some officers of the gaol, or one of the few visitors;' and ordered an immediate inquiry to bo held,' in order to ascertain the authorship of tbe paper copied by O'Farrell in his condemned cell, and also the means by which the original of this statement was communicated to persons outside the prison.' The information gathered on the inquiry led to the conclusion, 'that the paper in question was written, if not through tbe instrumentality, certainly within the cognisauce of the Chaplain, who must be regarded as being officially responsible for its existence: and it is further manifest that the Chaplain, an officer of the prison, withholds from the Government information upon the subject avowedly in his possession.' But the means by which the original statement or duplicate ' was communicated to persons outside the prison' (not authorised to possess the same according to gaol regulations), so far as can be made out by recent papers, was not elicited; nor can one conjecture how the member of the Legislative Assembly who read it in the House became possessed of his copy. The last mail from Sydney brings the intelligence that Father Dwycr has been dismissed from his office as Roman Catholic Chaplain of the gaol." In order to remove tbe impression that this disposition to believe O'Farrell's first statement and to reject his last confession, arises from religious animosity, we must do the Rev. Mr Milner the justice of quoting what he says about that other lamentable outrage, the Protestant Hall riot in Melbourne : " Nothing can excuse the Orangemen for having in the first instance exhibited a party device, which they kuew would provoke a retaliation, and lead to a breach of the peace. Amongst the numerous causes which may have combined to produce Fenianism, it becomes a question whether the constant irritation and annoyance inflicted on their enemies by Orangemen in their noisy celebrations of The 'Battle of the Boyne' for the last 200 years, have not had a much greater effect than all grievances—fancy or real—put together. It is scarcely possible to conceive that even less excitable people than the Reman Catholic population of Ireland would tamely submit to incessant taunts and most

provokingly contrived devices and emblems to remind them of defeat and subjection." The reasons for the departure of the Galatea are thus detailed : " For some time alter the affair at Clontarf. the Duke still persisted in his iu'ention to complete his cruise, in cotnp.iauee with the latest orders of the Admiralty, which had reached I j him at Sydney. This would have in-1 volved a visit to the different provinces of New Zealand, Tahiti, Honolulu, Callao, Valparaiso, the Falkland Islands Monte Video, Eio, and some of the West Indian islands—all of which, with the exception of New Zealand, had been added to the cruise originally contemplated when we left England. Commodore Lambert, however, thinking that it would be highly imprudent for the Duke to visit New Zealand—where there had been a great Fenian demonstration, and a mock funeral, in honor of the murders executed at Manchester—and also imagining that he would not be strong enough to undergo the fatigue consequent upon the official receptions in other colonies, even if there were no dangers attached to them, addressed a memorandum to the medical officers of the fleet, a few days after the accident, requesting them to report whether, in their j opinion, he would be in a fit state of j health to contiuue the cruise. Their reply being decidedly in the negative, I the Commodore took upon himself the | responsibility of oi'dering the Galatea to proceed directly to England."