Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1884 — DEFENDING THE IRISH. [ARTICLE]

DEFENDING THE IRISH.

An Incident of the Fenian Raid—Grover Cleveland Appears as Counsel for the Patriotic Prisoners and Defends Them Without Pay. Among the delegates to the National Democratic Convention a few weeks ago, was Capt. O’Donahue, of New York, a member of the Legislature of that State. He was an old acquainttance of Congressman Flnerty, and sought to revive old-time memories by hunting up the Representative of the Second Illinois District. He found him one evening at the rooms of the Irish-American Club In company with William Fogarty, T. P. O’Connor, Michael Keeley, John Devoy, and a Mr. Kennedy, a mutual friend, formerly a resident of New York, hnt now living in Chicago. "Do you recollect the last time we were together?” asked Capt. O’Donahue of Flnerty. The latter gentleman nodded an affirmative. Then Capt. O’Donahue related to the party 4Jie story of the Fenians’ raid of 1866 into Canada by a few zealous young Fenians, whose imaginations had been fired with the belief that they would strike terror to the heart of the mother country by this Invasion of Canada, and how the United States Government had quietly hitched a naval vessel to the transport on which they were crossing the Niagara River into the English dominions and towed them into port as prisoners. “Do you remember the morning,” continued Captain O’Donahue, "when you and I, with the others, stood before the bar of a Criminal Court at Bnffalo, without a friend or counsel to defend us? We were a sorry lot, a rash band of young men resting under a grave charge. While in this friendless and helpless condition, do you remember the young man, an obscure lawyer at the time, who stepped up and volunteered his services in onr defense? He defended us persistently and consistently and successfully. When we afterward raised a purse and presented it to him, he refused to accept it, saying that he was glad to serve us, unfortunately situated as we were, without reward. That man was Grover Cleveland, the man just nominated by the convention for President of the United States.”