fiance of the law, although the episode was described by Mr. Asquith in the House of Commons as an "unprecedented outrage," and pledges were given that due punishment would be meted out to its perpetrators. Nothing was done. After all, these were the faithful "English garrison in Ireland"; for the moment the politicians must pretend to oppose them, but in reality they were doing England's work and helping to make more difficult, or perhaps impossible, any measure of home rule for Ireland.
Very different was the attitude of the Government and its officials toward Nationalistic gun-running. Here the utmost vigilance was displayed. Gunboats patrol ed the shores of Dublin and Wicklow, as well as the western coast, unceasingly. Even when Mr. Redmond, by order of the English Government (as is generally believed in Ireland) asserted his right to command the Irish Volunteers, which he had not founded; even when the founders of the organization yielded to Mr. Redmond and gave his nominees half the seats on their committee, still, Mr. Redmond could not persuade the Government to relax the ban on the importation of arms. Perhaps he did not try very hard. He was as much afraid of the Volunteers as the Government was; his only wish was to keep them under his control, lest they might become an instrument for those Nationalists who looked beyond Parliament sham battles to the complete liberation of Ireland.
This portion in the Volunteers continued gun-running under the double disadvantage of having to deceive both the Government and their own Redmondite colleagues on the Joint Executive Committee. On July 26, just after the Austrian ultimatum to Servia, the famous gun-running exploit of Howth took place. The Dublin Volunteers made a Sunday route-march to Howth (nine miles), none but a few leaders knowing the object. As they entered the village, a yacht, steered by a woman, came alongside the pier. The English patrolboat was not in the neighborhood, a conveniently disseminated rumor of gun-running in Wexford having sent it off on a false scent. This yacht's arrival had not been boomed in advance, like the Fanny's, otherwise the vigilance of the patrol would not have been so easy to elude as the Ulstermen had found it. The Volunteers, following strictly the Ulster precedent, took possession of the pier, excluded the police and harbor officials,—they did not go so far as to imprison them in their own offices and barracks, as had been done, with only
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