Between the conviction of Luby, O'Leary, and Kickham, and the period at which we are now arrived, many changes of importance had taken place in the Fenian organization. In America, the society had been revolutionized--it had found new leaders, new principles, new plans of action; it had passed through the ordeal of war, and held its ground amidst flashing swords and the smoke of battle; it had survived the shocks of division, disappointment, and failure; treachery, incapacity and open hostility had failed to shatter it; and it grew apace in strength, influence, and resources. At home Fenianism, while losing little in numerical strength, had declined in effectiveness, in prestige, in discipline, and in organization. Its leaders had been swept into the prisons, and though men perhaps as resolute stepped forward to fill the vacant places, there was a loss in point of capacity and intelligence, and to the keen observer it became apparent that the Fenian Society in Ireland had attained to the zenith of its power on the day that the _Irish People_ office was sacked by the police. Never again did the prospects of Fenianism, whatever they might then have been, look equally bright; and when the brotherhood at length sprang to action, they fought with a sword already broken to the hilt, and under circumstances the most ominous and inauspicious. The recent history of the Fenian movement is so thoroughly understood that anything like a detailed account of its changes and progress is, in these pages, unnecessary. We shall only say that when James Stephens arrived in America in May, 1866, after escaping from Richmond Prison, he found the society in the States split up into two opposing parties between whom a violent quarrel was raging. John O'Mahony had been deposed from his position of "Head Centre" by an all but unanimous vote of the Senate, or governing body of the association, who charged him and his officials with a reckless and corrupt expenditure of the society's funds, and these in turn charged the Senate party with the crime of breaking up the organization for mere personal and party purposes. A large section of the society still adhered to O'Mahony, in consideration of his past services in their cause; but the greater portion of it, and nearly all its oldest, best-known and most trusted leaders gave their allegiance to the Senate and to its elected President, William R. Roberts, an Irish merchant of large means, of talent and energy, of high character and unquestionable devotion to the cause of his country. Many friends of the brotherhood hoped that James Stephens would seek to heal the breach between these parties, but the course he took was not calculated to effect that purpose. He denounced the "senators" in the most extravagant terms, and invited both branches of the organization to unite under himself as supreme and irresponsible leader and governor of the entire movement. The O'Mahony section did not answer very heartily