It is not of much use, perhaps, to speculate as
to Sir Roger Casement's plans, but it is at any rate safe to presume that they wore connected with the Dublin revolt, and that he expected to be able to place his twenty thousand rifles and also his machine guns in the hands of the Sinn Feiners. It was not uncharacteristic of an Irish rebellion of this type that the scheme did not properly cohere, or, to change the metaphor, that the blunderbuss went off at half- cock. Undoubtedly the rifles and the ammunition, if they could have been safely landed, would have greatly raised the hopes of the insurgents. Of course, they were not enough to make the insurrection really formidable, but they would undoubtedly have caused a good deal of loss of life—chiefly, no doubt, to their users— and prolonged the revolt.
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