Fenian Conventions came and passed; the organisation had grown to extraordinary proportions, as is shown by the fact that in 1868, when the Brotherhood made a demonstration at Philadelphia, not fewer than 6000 armed and uniformed Fenian soldiers paraded the city, with General O'Neill at their head and Le Caron among the staff. In the course of his work in the Eastern States, the Major had already distributed, he tells, 15,000 stands of arms and 3,000,000 rounds of ammunition for the prospective raid which promised shortly to be undertaken, on the prime condition, however, that the funds should be forthcoming to finance the adventure. In the spring of 1870 it was decided to make the projected move upon Canada, O'Neill declaring with a Kelt's enthusiasm that "no power on earth could stop it." Le Caron, who was, of course, already in active touch with the Ottawa authorities, met the British agents at Buffalo, giving them full particulars and details as to the Raid which was about to take place. On their departure to make complete preparations for all eventualities, O'Neill arrived at Buffalo, whence, and accompanied by Le Caron, he left for the Front. "O'Neill," writes the Major, "was full of enthusiasm and firmly believed that the Canadians would be taken entirely by surprise, while I myself was laughing at his coming discomfiture." Arrived at the frontier, O'Neill, who expected to find at least 1000 Fenians under arms—the nucleus of an army which was to attract another 500,000 Irishmen from all parts of America—discovered to his dismay that only 250 men had assembled; this number was swelled by the arrival of 250 more on the morrow, when the General, fearful of the effects of hesitation and delay, ordered his force to cross the border from Vermont into Canadian territory. The simple Irishman addressed his troops in early-Bonapartian fashion as follows:— "Soldiers! This is the advance guard of the Irish-American army for the liberation of Ireland from the yoke of the oppressor. For your own country's sake you enter that of the enemy. The eyes of your countrymen are upon you. Forward—March!"
The spy himself, from the crest of a slope, watched the advance of the little band of invaders as it crossed the border-line into British territory, some in Fenian uniform of green and gold, others in ordinary "Sunday" garb. Not a soul was in sight, nor anything like a force to oppose their progress. Le Caron well knew, however, that behind the ridge towards which the Fenian army advanced deployed, cheering wildly and with bayonets fixed, at least 1000 Canadian volunteers were lying in wait. As the invaders touched the slope, the Canadian rifles opened fire, the Army of Liberation ceased forthwith to exist, and the last the Major saw of General O'Neill was that officer's passing in a hackney-coach seated between the two policemen who had arrested him. Le Caron of course fled with the rest of the invaders, and immediately made his way to Ottawa for the purpose, he says somewhat unconvincingly, of personally "reporting" to the authorities as to the raid, the result of which had in all probability been telegraphed to Government House ten minutes after the fiasco. Duly he arrived at the political capital, where he was, he says, received with the honours that usually fall to the carriers of military dispatches. Here a significant enough incident occurred. Wishing to return home at once, Le Caron prepared for the journey only to find at the last moment that he was without funds for the ticket; he thereupon applied to a certain Judge, who wrote him a cheque for the unusually generous sum of £70—generous seeing that the sum was at least ten times the amount of his fare supposing him still to have lived in the West, while the fare from Ottawa to New York State does not exceed fifteen dollars at the farthest. With his usual dispatch in regard to matters in which one's curiosity not unnaturally looks for relief, Le Caron passes from the episode without volunteering any explanation of a satisfactory kind.