"My sympathy with Ireland and open advocacy of justice for the Irish nearly brought me into serious trouble. Some who were afterwards indicted as the chiefs of the so-called Fenian movement came to me for advice. So much I see others have written, and the rest of this portion of my autobiography I may write some day. At present there are men not out of danger whom careless words might imperil, and as regards myself I shall not be guilty of the folly of printing language which a Government might use against me."[105] [Footnote 105: _Autobiography._] That "some day" of which he wrote never came; and to-day we know little more of what help he gave to the chiefs of the "so-called Fenian movement" than we did in 1873. There is, however, one man still living--perhaps there are two, but of the second I am not quite sure--who could if he chose throw considerable light upon this period; but this person I have been unable to reach. From the time when, by sending the 7th Dragoon Guards to Ireland, the English Government was kind enough to afford the newly enlisted Private Bradlaugh an opportunity of studying that unfortunate country from within, and by sending him on duty at evictions to bring him face to face with the suffering her wretched peasantry had to endure--from that time (in the early fifties) until his death, English misgovernment of Ireland and the condition of the Irish people occupied a very prominent place in his thoughts. Between 1866 and 1868, while Ireland was in a state of agitation and insurrection, he frequently brought the subject of her grievances before his English audiences: articles on the Irish land question and the English in Ireland appeared in the _National Reformer_, and he himself took the Irish question as a frequent theme for his lectures. "Englishmen," he would say, "have long been eloquent on the wrongs of Poland and other downtrodden nations, insisting on their right to govern themselves; but they have been singularly unmindful of their Irish brethren. Advocacy of the claims of Poland showed a love of liberty and freedom. Advocacy for Ireland spelled treason. The three great curses of Ireland were her beggars, her bogs, and her barracks. The reclaiming of the millions of acres of bogland, now waste, with proper security for tenants, would diminish the beggars; and as bogs and beggars decreased, contentment would increase, and Government would be deprived of all excuse for the retention of an armed force." Talking in this strain, he would strive to win English sympathy for Ireland. At meeting after meeting he pointed out the evils of our Irish legislation, and won the thanks of Irishmen for his "outspoken language."