1....
372
any inquiries to make before our joint arrival at Ladhowal he was to come to me at Halwara,
We then considered the orders of Government which laid down that only 20 emigrants should be allowed on one
These orders, obeyed, would be
The must have been some local
angement.
L.L. Tomkins.
boat at the same time.
ruinous to our cause.
We would have no mean of organising
our men when they were thus scattered about the country in detachments of 20 men. Moreover, if small bodies of 20 men
were sent off to jail this would fail to attract the attention of the public. We should, therefore, insist on Journeying together; in fact, to increase our numbers, we should await the arrival of other boats from America, In this way, on our arrival in India, if Government attempted to handle us roughly and send us to jail we should find that public opinion would be ranged on our side. The newspapers also would immediately take up our case, Government would then have to release us; if it persisted in sending us to prison we should make a stand and fight for our lives. Again, we remembered that the 'Emden' was still at large, It would still be to our disadvantage, we thought, if Government chartered a boat for us and, on the journey, had us blown up by one of its own cruisers, and falsely reported in the papers that this was the work of the 'Emden'.
We, therefore, decided that we should charter, on our responsibility, a ship belonging to some Chinese Company or, say, to a Norway Swedish Company, Failing this, we
should ask the Chinese Government for admission into their
country. From China, then, we would Journey by land to
India. In consequence we determined to go to the German
Consul at Canton and tell him of our revolutionary
intentions.
We would ask him to arrange for our conveyance
to
2.