one days landed in Ireland. While there he heard that great man, Daniel O'Connell, speak, and he records the following incident of the occasion, which impressed him deeply as an example of the intense feeling of the Irish people at the time: "An old woman had come many a mile to look at the Liberator. She had forced her way with difficulty through the immense crowd; she had even climbed on the platform from whence O'Connell spoke. I stood near him; she asked me, `Is this the man?' At my answering yes, she pulled his coat exclaiming, `Sir, let me look at you!' He turned with a smile and a bow. A gift of a thousand pounds could not have been more welcome to her. An old man had also reached the carriage. He took the hand of the Liberator and with tears in his eyes exclaimed - `I have come far to see you, Sir, and to touch this hand; now I am happy and return home rejoiced.' As the man retired O'Connell whispered aloud - 'What a nation!' His broad chest heaved. No doubt his benevolent heart answered to his whispering - 'They must be free.' "
After leaving Ireland, Father De Smet traveled through the principal cities of England, France, Italy,(1) Holland and Belgium, and embarked at Antwerp, December 12th, with four fathers, a lay brother and six sisters, together with a large amount of supplies for the missions. They sailed in the Infatigable around Cape Horn for the Columbia. Whether the vessel was chartered for the purpose of the missions does not appear, but in any case she sailed
(1) "In Rome, when presented to His Holiness Gregory XVI by the Father-General of the Society of Jesus, the Pope rose from his throne and embraced him. But the cordial greetings were not long an unmixed pleasure for the soul of the humble missionary, who became much alarmed on the discovery that they had resolved to make him a bishop. With the help of the Father-General, however, he succeeded in throwing the burden on the shoulders of the Very Rev. F. N. Blanchet, who, besides being in every way qualified for the Episcopal dignity, was his senior both in years and as a missionary in the Rocky Mountains." - Palladino.