Irish question; Ulster (Northern Ireland and Ireland) -- Politics and government
While the _Mountjoy_ was discharging the Larne consignment on to the
quay, she was at the same time transhipping a smaller quantity into a
motor-boat, moored against her side, which when laden hurried off to
Donaghadee; and she left Larne at 5 in the morning to discharge the last
portion of her cargo at Bangor, which was successfully accomplished in
broad daylight after her arrival there about 7.30.
Crawford refused to leave the ship at either Larne or Bangor, feeling
himself bound in honour to remain with the crew until they were safe
from arrest by the naval authorities. It was well known in Belfast that
a look-out was being kept for the _Fanny_, which had figured in the
Press as "the mystery ship" ever since the affair at Langeland, and had
several times been reported to have been viewed at all sorts of odd
places on the map, from the Orkneys to Tory Island. Just as Agnew was
casting off from Bangor, when the last bale of arms had gone ashore, a
message from U.V.F. headquarters informed him that a thirty-knot cruiser
was out looking for the _Fanny_. To mislead the coast-guards on shore a
course was immediately set for the Clyde--the very quarter from which a
cruiser coming from Lamlash was to be expected--and when some way out to
sea Crawford cut the cords holding the canvas sheets that bore the name
of the _Mountjoy_, so that within five minutes the filibustering pirate
had again become the staid old collier _Clydevalley_, which for months
past had carried her regular weekly cargo of coal from Scotland to
Belfast. As before at Langeland, so now at Copeland, fog providentially
covered retreat, and through it the _Clydevalley_ made her way
undetected down the Irish Sea. At daybreak next morning Crawford landed
at Rosslare; and Agnew then proceeded along the French and Danish coasts
to the Baltic to the rendezvous with the _Fanny_, in order to bring back
the Ulstermen members of her crew, after which "the mystery ship" was
finally disposed of at Hamburg.
Sir Edward Carson and Lord Londonderry were both in London on the 24th
of April. At an early hour next morning a telegram was delivered to each
of them, containing the single word "Lion." It was a code message
signifying that the landing of the arms had been carried out without a
hitch. Before long special editions of the newspapers proclaimed the
news to all the world, and as fresh details appeared in every successive
issue during the day the public excitement grew in intensity. Wherever
two or three Unionists were gathered together exultation was the
prevailing mood, and eagerness to send congratulations to friends in
Ulster.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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