It appears that Government have been vigilantly watching the leading
Fenians for eight months, and were thoroughly aware during all that time of their aims, objects, and organization. Their letters have been intercepted, and they themselves watched almost from hour to hour by detectives whom they never suspected. That is all fair, and the regular practice in England as well as Ireland, but the employment of Mr. Pierce Nagle will require a little explanation. He said himself that he went over to Ireland and took the Fenian oath " in order to inform," and we have great
difficulty in believing that he had not made his bargain before- hand. His life is not worth a straw in Ireland, and he must have previously contracted to be sent out of the country. Governments must occasionally employ dirty tools, but to pay a man to take an illegal oath and then inform on those who administered it, is a cynical defiance of the ordinary laws of morality. Surely a case like this could be proved without the testimony of a man who by his own confession has destroyed the value of his own testimony. We do not exaggerate the value of such oaths. If Nagle had taken it bond fide, and then repented, there would be nothing to be said, —but he confesses that he swore in order to be forsworn.
