Provinces was appointed to be held at Charlottetown, P. E. I., September 1864, representatives of Upper and Lower Canada asked to be allowed to be present to bring forward a plan for a Federation of all the British Provinces in North America. The British North America Act was passed, and received the royal assent, the queen appointing July 1, 1867 as the formal beginning of the Dominion of Canada.

Among the men who were most prominent in bringing about federation and who came to be known as the Fathers of Confederation were several distinguished Irishmen. Thomas D'Arcy McGee was the best known and probably did more than any other Canadian to make the idea of confederation popular by his writings and speeches. He had come to Canada as a stranger, edited a newspaper in Montreal, and was elected to the Assembly after a brief residence, in spite of the opposition cries of "Irish adventurer" and "stranger from abroad," was subsequently elected four times by acclamation, and was Minister of Agriculture and Education and Canadian Commissioner to the Paris Exposition of 1867. His letters to the Earl of Mayo, pleading for the betterment of conditions in Ireland, were quoted by Gladstone during the Home Rule movement as "a prophetic voice from the dead coming from beyond the Atlantic."

Another of the Fathers of Confederation was the Honorable Edward Whalen, born in the county Mayo, who as a young man went to Prince Edward Island, where he gained great influence as a popular journalist. He was an orator as well as an editor, and came to have the confidence of the people of the island, and hence was able to do very much for federation. A third of the Fathers of Confederation from the Maritime Provinces was the Honorable, afterwards Sir, Edward Kenny, who, when the first Cabinet of the New Dominion was formed, was offered and accepted one of the portfolios in recognition of the influence which he had wielded for Canadian union.

At all times in the history of Canada the Catholic hierarchy has been looked up to as thoroughly conservative factors for the progress and development of the country. After the Irish immigration most of the higher ecclesiastics were Irish by birth or descent, and they all exerted a deep influence not only on their own people but on their city and province. One of

the Fathers of Confederation was Archbishop Connolly, of Halifax, of whom the most distinguished Presbyterian clergyman of the Lower Provinces said the day after his death: "I feel that I have not only lost a friend, but as if Canada had lost a patriot; in all his big-hearted Irish fashion he was ever at heart, in mind, and deed, a true Canadian." Among his colleagues of the hierarchy were such men as his predecessor Archbishop Walsh, Archbishop Lynch, the first Metropolitan of Upper Canada when Toronto was erected into an archbishopric, Bishop Hogan of Kingston, Archbishop Hannan of Halifax, Archbishop Walsh of Toronto, and Archbishop O'Brien of Halifax, all of whom were esteemed as faithful Canadians working for the benefit of their own people more especially, but always with the larger view of good for the whole commonwealth of Canada.

The Irish continued to furnish great representative men to Canada. The first governor, Guy Carleton, was Irish, and his subsequent governor-generalship as Lord Dorchester did much to make Canada loyal to Great Britain. During the difficult times of the Civil War in the United States, Lord Monck, a Tipperary man, was the tactful governor-general, "like other Irish Governors singularly successful in winning golden opinions" (Davin). Probably the most popular and influential of Canada's governors-general was Lord Dufferin, another Irishman. Some of the most distinguished of Canadian jurists, editors, and politicians have been Irishmen, and Irishmen have been among her great merchants, contractors, and professional men. In our own time Sir William Hingston among the physicians, Sir Charles Fitzpatrick among the jurists, and Sir Thomas George Shaughnessy among the administrative financiers are fine types of Irish character.

REFERENCES:

Davin: The Irishman in Canada (Toronto, 1877); McGee: Works; Tracy: The Tercentenary History of Canada (New York, 1908); Walsh: Sir William Hingston, in the Amer. Catholic Quarterly (January, 1911), Edmund Bailey O'Callaghan, in the Records of the Amer. Catholic Historical Society (1907); McKenna: A Century of Catholicity in Canada, in the Catholic World, vol. 1, p. 229.

THE IRISH IN SOUTH AMERICA

By MARION MULHALL.

1. FROM THE SPANISH CONQUEST TO THE War of
INDEPENDENCE.

OUTH AMERICA, although comparatively little known.

interest the missionary, the scientist, the historian, the traveler, and the financier. The twentieth century will probably see hundreds following in the footsteps of their predecessors. In the meantime, the brilliant achievements of numerous Irish men and women in that part of the world are falling into oblivion, and call for a friendly hand to collect the fragments of historical lore connected with their exploits.

This paper will cover three periods:

(1). From the Spanish Conquest to the War of Independence: here the principal actors were maritime explorers, buccaneers, and mercantile adventurers;

(2). The War of Independence from 1810 to 1826: in this period Irishmen performed feats of valor worthy to rank with those in Greek or Roman history.

(3). Since the Independence; a period of commercial and industrial development, in which Irishmen have played a foremost part.

It has been said that George Barlow, the companion of Sebastian Cabot, was an Irishman. Cabot was the first Britisher to sail up the Rio de la Plata, and gave it its name just thirtyfive years after the discovery of America. Barlow was in the service of the king of Spain, and in that country met Cabot, who had been appointed Pilot Major to his Majesty in the year 1518. In 1577 we read of the famous Admiral Drake's expedition to the River Plate, which he reached on April 14, 1578. Evidently it was a successful one in the opinion of Queen Elizabeth, for on Drake's return to Plymouth, September 26, 1580, she came aboard his ship and knighted him. There seem to have been three Irishmen on this expedition,

Fenton, Merrick, and Ward. Fenton, who was in command of two vessels, was attacked by a Spanish squadron between Brazil and the River Plate, and the battle continued by moonlight until one of the Spaniards was sunk. The Spanish historian adds that Fenton might have sunk another of the enemy's ships, but refrained because there were several women on board.

Lozana in his History mentions a revolution in Paraguay in 1555, which was headed by an Irishman named Nicholas Colman. This revolution was quickly suppressed by the Spanish viceroy, Yrala, but Colman led a second revolution in 1570, when Captain Rigueline was governor of Guayra. The mutineers named Colman for their chief, put their treasures into canoes, and floated down the Parana until their boats were capsized by some rapids, probably the falls of Apipe in Misiones. The viceroy, on hearing of the revolt, sent troops to bring back the fugitives, and the latter were treated with unusual clemency. Lozana describes Colman as a daring, turbulent buccaneer. For fifteen years he seems to have played an important part in Guayra; his subsequent fate is unknown.

In 1626 an expedition commanded by James Purcell, an Irishman, established itself on the island of Tocujos, in the mouth of the Amazon.

Captain Charles O'Hara was sent by Governor Arana from Montevideo in March, 1761, to destroy the old landmarks of Rio Negro and Ching between the dominions of Portugal and Spain. The officer next under him was Lieutenant Charles Murphy, afterwards governor of Paraguay. This expedition suffered great hardships.

Several of the expeditions of the privateers of the eighteenth century sailed from Ireland. Dampier, a skilful navigator, went on a cruise to intercept the Spanish galleons returning from the River Plate with booty supposed to be worth £600,000 sterling. He sailed from Kinsale in September, 1703, with two vessels, and no doubt amongst the crews were many Irishmen. It was on this expedition that Alexander Selkirk, a Scotch sailor, was put on shore at Juan Fernandez in 1704, where he remained until rescued by Captain Rogers, who commanded the Duke, a vessel of 320 tons, which sailed from

Cork on September 1, 1708, touched by chance at Juan Fernandez, and found the original of Defoe's remarkable story, Robinson Crusoe, who presented a wild appearance dressed in his goatskins.

In 1765 Captain Macnamara, with two vessels called the Lord Clive and the Ambuscade, mounting between them 104 guns, attempted to take Colonia, in front of Buenos Ayres, from the Spaniards. Having shelled the place for four hours, Macnamara expected every moment to see a white flag hoisted, when, by some mishap, the Lord Clive took fire, and 262 persons perished. The Spaniards fired upon the poor fellows in the water, only 78 escaping to land. Macnamara was seen to sink. His sword was found a few years ago by a Colonia fisherman, who presented it to the British consul at Montevideo. Most of the Irish names still extant in the Argentine provinces, such as Sarsfield, Carrol, and Butler, are probably derived from these captives. Among the descendants of the survivors of Macnamara's expedition may be mentioned the ablest lawyer ever known in Buenos Ayres and for many years Prime Minister, the late Dr. Velez Sarsfield, and also Governor O'Neill.

The year 1586 saw an expedition of a very different character, consisting of the first Jesuits sent to convert Paraguay, under the direction of Father Thomas Field, an Irishman, and son of a Limerick doctor. Their vessel fell into the hands of English privateers off the Brazilian coast, but the sea rovers respected their captives, and after sundry adventures the latter landed at Buenos Ayres, whence they proceeded over land to Cordoba. The year following they set out for Paraguay, where Father Field and his companions laid the foundation of the Jesuit commonwealth of Misiones, which had such wonderful development in the following two centuries as to cause Voltaire to admit that "the Jesuit establishment in Paraguay seems to be the triumph of humanity.”

Another Irish Jesuit, Father Thaddeus Ennis, appears in authority in Misiones shortly before the downfall. In 1756, when Spain ceded San Miguel and other missions to Portugal, Father Ennis was entrusted with the removal lower down to