machine in a private house in
Derry, and, assisted by my son, actually worked off the copies of the
paper next door to the house of the resident magistrate.

Ultimately, there came the period of the "Kilmainham Treaty," and most
of the political prisoners were released. The issue of "United Ireland"
for March 11th did not appear as on previous occasions. I produced an
issue, which I sent in charge of my son to Dublin, putting it at the
disposal of Mr. O'Brien. It was not, however, published, though I
received a long and interesting letter from Mr. William O'Brien--still
in Kilmainham jail--expressing the appreciation of the Irish leaders for
the work I had done in these words:--

~We are all deeply sensible of your extraordinary energy and courage in
this matter.~

I am prevented from giving this letter, which explains the reasons for
the stoppage of the paper, as Mr. O'Brien has endorsed it "Private and
Confidential."

A few weeks later "United Ireland" appeared in its old publishing office
in Abbey Street. Mr. O'Brien was set free on April 15th, Messrs.
Parnell, Dillon and O'Kelly were released on May 2nd, and Michael Davitt
and others soon afterwards.

CHAPTER XVIII.

PATRICK EGAN.

It will be seen that when "United Ireland" was "on the shaughraun"
during the time that William O'Brien was in prison, though he was able
to send communications out regularly, the direction very largely
devolved upon Patrick Egan, who had taken up his quarters in Paris for
that and other purposes of the Land League. I may say that I have been
in frequent communication with Mr. Egan ever since, and it is but
recently that I got a letter from him touching upon this matter. In
making some valuable suggestions as to the contents of this book, he
says, "There just occurs to me as I write, a point that you might
introduce as an added feature, namely--all the leading articles that
appeared in 'U.I.' during those fateful months (or almost all of them)
were written by William O'Brien _in Kilmainham Prison, smuggled out by
the underground railroad, which ran upon regular scheduled time_, and
were despatched by trusty messengers to me in Paris, which messengers
brought back on their return journey the matrices to which you refer for
the next issue of 'United Ireland.'

"There were four messengers, in order to avoid attracting attention--two
of them the Misses Stritch, whose father had been a resident magistrate
in Ireland. They w