"The evening came and with it our trip to Williamsburg. On arrival there in the company of O'Neill and some brother officers, I found several thousands of persons assembled. We were greeted with the greatest enthusiasm and given the seats of honour to the right and left of the chairman. My position was a very unhappy one. I was in a state of excessive excitement, for I feared greatly what was coming. Seated as I was next to O'Neill, I could hear him tell the chairman on whom to call and how to describe the speakers; and as each pause took place between the speeches, I hung with nervous dread on O'Neill's words, fearing my name would be next. The meeting proceeded apace, some four or five of my companions had already spoken and I was beginning to think that after all the evil was postponed and that for this night at least I was safe. Not so, however. All but O'Neill and myself had spoken when to my painful surprise I heard the General call upon the chairman to announce Major Le Caron. The moment was fraught with danger; my pulses throbbed with a maddening sensation; my heart seemed to stop its beating; my brain was on fire and failure stared me in the face. With an almost superhuman effort, I collected myself, and as the chairman announced me as Major M'Caron, tickled by the error into which he had fallen and the vast cheat I was playing on the whole of them, I rose equal to the occasion, to be received with the most enthusiastic of plaudits.
"The hour was very late and I took advantage of the circumstance. Proud and happy as I was at being with them that evening, and taking part in such a magnificent demonstration, they could not, I said, expect me to detain them long at so advanced an hour. All had been said upon the subject nearest and dearest to their hearts. (Applause.) If what I had experienced that night was indicative of the spirit of patriotism of the Irish in America (tremendous cheering), then indeed there could be no fears for the result. (Renewed plaudits.) And now I would sit down. They were all impatiently waiting, I knew, to hear the stirring words of the gallant hero of Ridgeway, General O'Neill (thunders of applause), and I would, in conclusion, simply beg of them as lovers of liberty and motherland (excited cheering) to place at the disposal of the General the cash necessary to carry out the great work on which he was engaged. This work, I was confident, would result in the success of our holy cause and the liberation of dear old Ireland from the thraldom of the tyrant's rule which had blighted and ruined her for seven hundred years. These last words worked my hearers up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, and amidst their excited shouts and cheers I resumed my seat, with the comforting reflection that if it took so little as this to arouse the Irish people, I could play my rôle with little difficulty."