is this, to Spencer about P. J. Sheridan: âas Y.E. [Your Excellency] knows I have a little game going on with him in America and any false step here might spoil the gameâ¦â 13 In Glasgow, where six months before, bombs had been left at a station and an aqueduct and a large gas-holder dynamited, Jenkinson urged Harcourt (in July 1883) that Gosselin be dissuaded from making a move until Jenkinsonâs own scheme for trapping the culprits had come to fruition. Everything depended on his personal retention of âthe threadsâ, as he called them, of Fenian plotting.
In London, Superintendent Williamson was supposed â in Jenkinsonâs view â to report to Major Gosselin. He seems to have kept on talking to Vincent, though. Jenkinson despaired of this unwillingness to sideline Scotland Yard, although thanks to Jenkinsonâs sniping and manoeuvring Anderson, at least, was fast fading out of the picture. The former spymaster was still working at the Home Office, but with less and less to do. His only advantage was Le Caron in America. Just as Jenkinson refused to reveal who his sources were, so did Anderson.
Jenkinson returned to Ireland late in the year. He had given Harcourt to understand that while Anderson had one source in America who might occasionally come up with the goods, he had few agents of value in England. Harcourt grew impatient and Anderson often had to submit to his âdynamite moodsâ. He would be summoned to visit the Home Secretary at 7 Grafton Street only to be confronted with an outburst of frustration. 14
Intelligence was still unreliable. At the end of October 1883 a bomb on a London Underground train at Paddington injured seventy-two people. This was followed by an explosion in a tunnel on the District Line at Westminster. Jenkinson was convinced that he had uncovered a plot to attack the Houses of Parliament. Nobody knew who or what to believe. Typical of this time is a note from Harcourt to Sir Henry Ponsonby, the Queenâs Private Secretary, who had just accompanied Her Majesty safely to Windsor by royal train:
I had one of the usual scares last night about your journey. Williamson at 12.30 a.m. came in with a letter fresh from the US describing the machine with which and the manner in which you were to be blown up on your way from Balmoral. As Hartington and the Attorney General were sitting with me we consulted what to do on this agreeable intelligence but as you were already supposed to be half way through your journey it was not easy to know what course to take⦠15
In February of 1884 a series of railway-station bombs in London proved only too real. Out of office hours, telegrams like this one from Colonel Pearson came straight to Harcourtâs home:
A serious explosion took place at nine this morning at the parcels office Victoria Station [â] porters injured. Cause at present unknown. [I cannot] say, but from what I can see I do not think gas is the cause. I have posted police all round until the arrival of Colonel Majendie to whom I have telegraphed. Nothing will be touched. Ticket office, parcels office and waiting room of the Brighton Line completely destroyed. 16
In March the British Consul in Philadelphia wrote to the Foreign Office that his agent had it on excellent authority that this summer, unprecedented violence would be visited upon the English. OâDonovan Rossa himself, the voice of United Irishman, had read from a letter stamped and sent to New York by Royal Mail. He managed later to copy some choice extracts:
Can not give you the whole of it but if we had not been disturbed Birdcage Walk would have echoed and more than one stone would have tumbled... Pall Mall would have been shaken up more than Charles Street was. The fuse got detached from the cap and before we could make connection again we were spotted. You can look for something soon in either of these places⦠17
Sure enough, it would not be long before a
In London, Superintendent Williamson was supposed â in Jenkinsonâs view â to report to Major Gosselin. He seems to have kept on talking to Vincent, though. Jenkinson despaired of this unwillingness to sideline Scotland Yard, although thanks to Jenkinsonâs sniping and manoeuvring Anderson, at least, was fast fading out of the picture. The former spymaster was still working at the Home Office, but with less and less to do. His only advantage was Le Caron in America. Just as Jenkinson refused to reveal who his sources were, so did Anderson.
Jenkinson returned to Ireland late in the year. He had given Harcourt to understand that while Anderson had one source in America who might occasionally come up with the goods, he had few agents of value in England. Harcourt grew impatient and Anderson often had to submit to his âdynamite moodsâ. He would be summoned to visit the Home Secretary at 7 Grafton Street only to be confronted with an outburst of frustration. 14
Intelligence was still unreliable. At the end of October 1883 a bomb on a London Underground train at Paddington injured seventy-two people. This was followed by an explosion in a tunnel on the District Line at Westminster. Jenkinson was convinced that he had uncovered a plot to attack the Houses of Parliament. Nobody knew who or what to believe. Typical of this time is a note from Harcourt to Sir Henry Ponsonby, the Queenâs Private Secretary, who had just accompanied Her Majesty safely to Windsor by royal train:
I had one of the usual scares last night about your journey. Williamson at 12.30 a.m. came in with a letter fresh from the US describing the machine with which and the manner in which you were to be blown up on your way from Balmoral. As Hartington and the Attorney General were sitting with me we consulted what to do on this agreeable intelligence but as you were already supposed to be half way through your journey it was not easy to know what course to take⦠15
In February of 1884 a series of railway-station bombs in London proved only too real. Out of office hours, telegrams like this one from Colonel Pearson came straight to Harcourtâs home:
A serious explosion took place at nine this morning at the parcels office Victoria Station [â] porters injured. Cause at present unknown. [I cannot] say, but from what I can see I do not think gas is the cause. I have posted police all round until the arrival of Colonel Majendie to whom I have telegraphed. Nothing will be touched. Ticket office, parcels office and waiting room of the Brighton Line completely destroyed. 16
In March the British Consul in Philadelphia wrote to the Foreign Office that his agent had it on excellent authority that this summer, unprecedented violence would be visited upon the English. OâDonovan Rossa himself, the voice of United Irishman, had read from a letter stamped and sent to New York by Royal Mail. He managed later to copy some choice extracts:
Can not give you the whole of it but if we had not been disturbed Birdcage Walk would have echoed and more than one stone would have tumbled... Pall Mall would have been shaken up more than Charles Street was. The fuse got detached from the cap and before we could make connection again we were spotted. You can look for something soon in either of these places⦠17
Sure enough, it would not be long before a
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