In September, 1796, Government, which had already marked with intense displeasure the efforts made by young Protestant patriots like H. J. McCracken, Lowry and Tennant, on the one hand, and Young Catholic patriots like C. H. Teeling and his brother-in-law, John Magennis, on the other, to allay the religious feuds then devastating Ulster, swooped down on the most active agents of this policy of reconciliation. On the same day as C. H. Teeling was arrested in Lisburn, Russell and Neilson were arrested in Belfast. A month later Henry Joy McCracken was taken up; and in the spring of the following year, his brother, William. As soon as the prisoners received (through the efforts of Lord O’Neill) permission to see their relatives, the McCracken girls, accompanied by William’s wife, paid a visit to Dublin, to be near the brothers. We find them again in Dublin the following year, when their influence, combined with that of Mrs. Neilson, brought about a reconciliation between Harry and Samuel Neilson, both whose tempers had suffered considerably from the wear and tear of prison _régime_ and close confinement. In the autumn of 1797 the McCrackens were released from Kilmainham. Harry’s health was so much shaken by what he had undergone during his imprisonment, that for some time his life was despaired of. But early in the fatal year ’98, we find him as active as ever in organising the Union. In February he went to Dublin on business connected with it, and he remained there until the eve of the Rising in May. It is a matter of history now that Henry Joy McCracken became Commander-in-Chief of the Insurgent forces in the north only three or four days before the outbreak, and only in consequence of the arrest of Dickson, the original commander-in-chief, and the cowardice of the gentleman appointed to replace him. All that one man could do to make the most of a situation, even then desperate, was done by McCracken. But it was of no avail. On June the 7th the battle of Antrim was fought and lost; and Harry McCracken, and Jamie Hope and the faithful few who had refused to lower the Banner of Green were on the hills “on their keeping.” And now it will be our privilege to hear Mary McCracken herself, tell the end of Henry’s story in her own most moving words: