The Voyage of the Catalpa

Peter F. Stevens

"Setting out from New Bedford, Massachusetts, on April 29, 1875, the American whaling barque, Catalpa, undertook a secret year-long mission of international rescue. American sea captain George Anthony risked his career - and his own freedom - to liberate a group of Irishmen known as "The Fremantle Six" from an Australian prison. Martin Hogan, James Wilson, Thomas H. Hassett, Michael Harrington, Thomas Darragh, and Robert Cranston were soldiers in the British army when they took the secret Fenian oath and pledged their well-honed martial skills to the cause of Irish independence, including armed insurrection against the British military. The six were arrested in 1866, tried for treason against the Crown, and sentenced to imprisonment and slow death in a hellish foreign land. After eight years languishing in Fremantle Gaol, through a worldwide network of Irish nationalists, undercover...

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