JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 5, 22 May 1885, Page 21

JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY.

(San Francisco Monitor.') Twbkty-two years ago John Boyle O'Reilly enlisted in the Prince of Wales s regiment, the Tenth Hussars. He was then about 19 years old. A well educated boy, of ardent temperament and sincerely devoted to the Irish cause, he did what he could in the regiment to promote the revolutionary movement that began in 1863. His connection with the Fenian movement was discovered. He was arrested, tried and convicted of high treason, and was sentenced in July, 1866, to imprisonment for life. This sentence was afterwards commuted to penal servitude for twenty years. O'Reilly spent about a year in the English prisons, working in the chain gangs. In November, 1867, he was transported to West Australia in the convict ship Hougoumont, crowded with felons. For about thirteen months he worked at road making near Bunbnry in the, penal colony, associating with convicts and ticket-of -leave mea. Various accounts of the manner of his escape in February, 1869, have been printed. The true story was not known until Mr. O'Reilly had been in the country ten years or more, when time had removed all danger of inculpating certain friends who had risked' so much in assisting him to freedom. In the list of absconders printed early in 1869 in the official Police Qaaette of West Australia-, there appeared this paragraph :—: — " 2.— John Boyle O'Beilly, Registered number, 9,843. Imperial convict ; arrived in Colony per convict ship Hougoumont in 1868 ; sentenced to twenty years 9th July, 1866. Description — Healthy appearance ; present age. 25 years ; 5 feet 7£ inches high, black hair, brown eyes, oval visage, dark complexion ; an Irishman. Absconded from Convict Road party, Bunbury, on the 18th of February, 1869." The .man to whom Boyle O'Reilly owed his liberty was a good Catholic priest, the Rev. Patrick McCabe, " whose parish extended over hundreds of miles of bush, and whose only parishioners were convicts and ticket-of-leave men." He was a scholar and gentleman of rare accomplishments, " almo.-t always in the saddle, riding alone from camp to camp, and sleeping in his blanket under the trees at night. 1 ' "He was an ideal disciple of Christ," says Mr. O'Reilly, " who laboured only for his' Master. He was the best influence, indeed in my time be was the only good influence, on the convicts in the whole district of Bunbnry." We continue the quotations from Mr. O'Reilly's own narrative : " One day this remarkable man rode to my hot, and we walked' together into the bush. I hai then made all my plans for escape,' and I freely told him my intention* ' It's aa excellent way to commit suicide,' he said ; and he- would not speak of it any mote. As he was leaving me, however, he leaned from the sa Idle and said ; 1 Don't think of that again. Let me think out a plan for you. You will hear from me before long. " He went away and I waited weeks and months and never heard a word. I was not compelled to work with, the criminal gang on the

roads, but^ad charge of their stores and carried the warder's weekly report to Bunbury depot. Finally, one day on my way with this report, I came to a place known as the Race Course. As I crossed it 1 heard a eoo-ee, or bush cry, and saw a man coming towards me. He was a big, handsome fellow, with an axe on his shoulder. He came to me with a friendly smile. •My name is Maguire,' he said, and I am a fnend of Father Mac's, and he has been speaking about Jo £\ %T g "i? J} 8 ?*^ 0?'0 ?' he drew a card from his wallet, on which Father McCabe had written a few words to me. Then I trueted him. This was December, 1868. S ome American whalers were expected to touch at Bunbury in February for water. After two months of suspense, news came to O'Reilly of the arrival of the barks. Maguire announced that he had arranged with the Captain of one of the whalers, the Vigilant of New Bedford, to cruise for two or three days just outside of l Australian waters, and take the fugitive on t X *^*! Nm t m^J >o^' P a theni gbtof Feb. 18 O'Rielly waited luntU the warder had visited his hut, put on a pair of freeman's shoes, las the trackers conld easily discern the marks of a regular convict's ■boot, and struck into the bush : ■ * "55?*^ U °^ odk * c * me to the old convict station, and lay flown behind an old gum tree at the roadside. In about half an hour or so two men rode up, but they passed on; they were farmers irobably, or may be a patrol of mounted police. Shortly after, I heara horses at a sharp trot. They halted near me and I heard 'Patrick s Day whistled clear and low. In an instant I was with them-Maguire and another friend, M . They led a spare horse. I mounted at once, and without a word we struck into the bush at a ■gallop. For hours we rode on in silence." I , he Z reacbed the Bhore » found a small boat ready for them and Ipnlled about forty miles to a point where they expected to meet the l|fcw Bedford whaler. No one had thought to bring food or water, Knd for twenty-four hours or more the sufferings of the party were Knteuse. At 1 o clock on the third day they made out the Vigilant, lunder full sail, steering north. They pulled towards her with light hearts. 6 "She was steering straight towards us, so we stopped pulling and waited for her. But we were bound to be woefully disappointed When she was within two miles of our boat she fell off several points, as if to avoid us. Every one stared in amazement. Maguire kept saying that Captain Baker bad given his word of honour as a man, and he could not believe that he would break it. One of the men stood up in the boat and gave a loud hail that must have been heard by all on board. No answer. Again he hailed, and we all joined in the shout. No answer. It only seemed that the Vigilant turned a point further from us. At last she came abreast of our boat which was then about three miles distant. Maguire hoisted a white shirt on the end of an oar, and we shouted again. But the Vigilant passed 6^ I , 6^*? lll^^ to ita fate «" The y kaded °n the beach, and 0 Reilly s friends went back to Bunbury, promising to return in a week, and leaving him hiding in a seclnded sand valley close to tbe shore. He climbed a tree and caught an opossum, and also captured a few kangaroo lats. These animals supplied bim with food. After three days O'Reilly, still believing that Captain Baker must be cruising for him somewhere off the coast, resolved to make another attempt to board the whaler. The rowboat was too heavy for him to pull alone. Six or seven miles further up the beach he found an old dory, half-buried in the sand. He dug the dory out, he launched it, made it watertight by plugging the cracks with paper bark, and put to sea alone : « Before night I had passed the headland, and was on the Indian ocean. I knew there was a current going northward. Next morning 1 gave up pulling, and sat down to watch and wait. It was very hot. The sun flamed above, and. the reflection from the water was scorching. That day, towards noon, I saw a sail. It was the Vigilantthere was no other vessel there. She drew near to me, so near that I heard voices on deck. I saw the men aloft on the lookout, but they did not see me— at least Captain Baker says so. She sailed away again, and was out of sight before night. The dew and the cool air refreshed me, and I resolved to pu'i back to shore and wait for Magu re's return. I pulled all ni^nt. off and on, and in the morning saw the sand bills at the headland of Geographe Bay." After that second bitter disappointment O'Reilly left his sand valley no more. He slept most of the time for five days, and then Maguire came back with the good news that Father M'Cabe had arranged for O'R..illy's passage on anoth r New Bedford whaler, the Gazelle, Captain Gifford. But Maguire also b ought an unwelcome travelliug companion in the person of a criminal convict, one Martin Bowman, a ticket-of-leave man, and one of the worst characters in the Colony Bowman had discovered the means of O'Reilly's escape, and had thieatened to put the police on the track unleos he was taken off too • " That night we slept little, some one always keeping an eye on Bowman. We were up at daybreak, and soon after we were afloat. yh pulled straight out toward the headland, as Captain Gifford had instructed. By noon we saw the two whaleships coming along with a fine breeze. Toward evening we heard a hail, and somebody shouted my name, and cried out, ' Come on board 1 ' We were all overjoyed. We pulled alongside, and I was helped out of the boat by the strong arms of Henry Hathaway, the third male Captain Gifford made me welcome, and gave me a place in the cabin. Martin Bowman, the escaped criminal, was sent forward among the crew " Six months afterward, when the Gazelle touched at Roderique an English island in the Indian ocean, the Governor came aboard searching for 'an escaped convict from Australia, a black-ha : red' man.' I was stading with Mr. Hussey, the mate, when the Governor made the demand. Mr. Hussey said that no such person ! was on board. The Governor answered that he had information that a man had escaped on the Gazelle. Mr. Hussey feared that they might seize the ship, so he said that a man of that description, who had come on board off the coast of Australia, might be the person He called Bowman, whom everyone on board detested, and he was put in irons and taken ashore. « We knew that he would tell the whole story (the wonder is that he did not do it then ; but he wished to make terms for his own release). That night the officers of the Gaselle threw overboard the

grindstone, with my hat, while I lay hid in the Captain's cabin. A cry of ' Man overboard !' was raised, a boat was lowered, and the hat picked up. There were on board some English ex-convicts who had shipped in Australia, and these only waited for a ohance to get me retaken. But one of them, utterly deceived by the officers' strategy, declared that he saw me sink where mv hat was picked up. When the Governor came on boird next day to demand his prisoner the flag was half mast, and the officers sorrowfully told him that the man he probably wanted had jumped overboard in the night and was drowned. His policemen went among the crew and learned the same news. Two days later the Gaselle sailed from Roderique, and I came on deck, much to the amazement of the crew." That ended Mr. O'Reilly's adventures. Off the Cape of Good Hope Captain Gilford handed him thirteen sovereigns, all the money he bad, and transferred him to the American ship Sapphire. This ship took him to Liverpool, where he was provided with a secure hiding place until a passage was secured for him on the Bath ship Bombay, which landed in Philadelphia on Nov. 23, 1869, nine months atter he made his first break for the Australian bush.