Donegal carried out by Lord Leitrim. Lord Leitrim had been carrying out a weekly small-scale gun-smuggling operation since February 1913, run by his chauffeur. In early June 1913, around seven thousand rifles being stored by Crawford in a disused inn in Hammersmith were seized by police. The inn was being rented out to Crawford by a brother-in-law of staunch Unionist Sir William Bull, 1st Baronet. One week later, with the intention of forcing the government to accept that there was a real risk of armed resistance to Home Rule in Ulster., Crawford openly transported weapons to Belfast from several locations across England. These were intercepted by customs officials, Major Crawford convinced the Ulster Unionist Council that he could provide the weapons and ammunition needed "to equip the entire UVF". In February 1914, when Crawford spoke with Edward Carson in London, Carson said "I'll see you through this business even if I should go to prison for it. You are the bravest man I have ever met." Preparations and transport Crawford secured the services of the SS Fanny to transport 216 tons of guns and ammunition which he had purchased from Benny Spiro, an arms dealer in Hamburg. Included in this cache was; 11,000 Mannlicher rifles brought from the Steyr works in Austria; 9,000 Gewehr 1888s; 4,600 Italian Vetterli-Vitali rifles; and 5 million rounds of ammunition in clips of five — much of which was transported from Hamburg via the Kiel Canal. On 30 March 1914, these weapons were being loaded onto the SS Fanny on the Baltic island of Langeland when Danish customs officials seized the papers of the ship. The customs officials suspected that the cargo might contain weapons to arm militant Icelandic home rulers who sought independence from Denmark. The SS Fanny managed to escape into a gale and sailed outside Danish territorial waters. In covering the incident on 1 April, The Times newspaper predicted that the guns were destined for Ulster rather than Iceland. In a bid to evade the authorities as the SS Fanny neared Ireland, Major Crawford purchased the SS Clyde Valley in Glasgow. On 19–20 April off Tuskar Rock, County Wexford, the entire cache of weapons was transferred from the SS Fanny onto the SS Clyde Valley. On 24 April, the SS Clyde Valley was renamed the "Mountjoy II", with the use of strips of canvas painted with white letters on a black background.