Before a year in Dublin was completed an incident happened which proved very fortunate for me. I called one day at the Henry Street Police Office, where the divisional magistrate was a namesake and an acquaintance of mine. A case was being heard of a class which always attracts attention in Ireland; a convert to the religion of the State was threatened with martyrdom, it was said, for his honest change of opinion. James Donnelly, a servant in the employment of a gentleman resident in the suburbs, told the Bench that six months before he had become a Protestant and had lived a life of happiness and serenity in his new faith, interrupted only by the ill-will of his fellow-servants, who were Catholics. About three months ago he had received an anonymous letter threatening his life if he did not return to the "true fold." A little later other letters reached him adorned with coffins, cross-bones, and similar emblems of terror and death.
On the Tuesday preceding his appearance at the Police Court, when he was out exercising his master's horses, he met two men armed with pistols, who inquired if he had received the "warning letters." He admitted that he had, and they threatened immediate vengeance if he did not forthwith abandon the false religion. Donnelly told them that he would rather be torn to pieces by wild horses than give up the blessed light and guidance of the Gospel. One of the men immediately pulled his trigger, but the pistol did not go off, and the horses plunged and kicked so furiously that the men ran away, one of them, however, turning and flinging a heavy stone, which knocked off the martyr's hat. When he got free of these assassins he rode to the police-station and swore information, and in consequence of certain suspicions which he communicated to them the police arrested Michael Collins, then in custody. Donnelly identified Collins as the man who had snapped a pistol at him, and affirmed that the manifest intention of his assailant was to murder him. To the best of his belief it was on account of his change of religion that the prisoner assaulted him, and Collins must have been acquainted with the anonymous letters, for he asked complainant if he had not received them. Here was a dainty dish to set before the Converts' Protection Society.
